I'm not quite sure exactly what your analogies mean, but we did our first cruise on Princess, to Alaska, last fall, and in terms of quality, I'd rate it far above what I think of the Target chain.

Schedule: exactly as promised
Service: dining room not perfect, but other than that, excellent. Room steward was exceedingly helpful
Food: good to almost very good, portions large, lots of choices
Shore excursions: again, exactly as promised, and really pretty good
Cabin: no complaints, and the one problem we had with the sink was fixed in 45 minutes
Kid's room: my son gave that ***** in his rating.

I think that, as an "armchair" cruiser only, you don't know nearly as much as you think you do about cruising. Come back after you've actually cruised two or three times....

I am not so gullible as to believe everything posted in the whiny rant by mharris. While I certainly don't condone cruise lines intentionally running ships with malfunctioning engines (and I believe that, unfortunately, Carnival is not the only cruise line ever to have done this ), the post by mharris is that of someone who is determined to have a miserable time rather than try to make the best of the situation. (And of course the miserable time is always entirely blamed on the travel provider, with an underlying expectation of mega-compensation, etc., etc., etc. ) Unfortunately, FlyerTalk, CruiseCritic, TripAdvisor, and other boards are full of people of the "trash and bash" mentality -- if one thing is wrong with something, then the whole experience is deemed an irredeemable disaster, and by extension, the entire company is as well.

Welcome to FT mharris. It's unfortunate the port was missed and that the ship arrived several hours late at its destination. From the cruise as you describe it though, cruising may not be for you. Carnival's food is not generally of Michelin-Star quality, despite the celebrity chef endorsement, the entertainment isn't up to Las Vegas or Broadway standards, and casinos and bars are a money-making fact of life on all of the large-ship lines we've sailed, Princess, HAL, Celebrity, Carnival, QM II.

Sometimes when people are upset about one aspect of, say, a cruise or a flight or a hotel or a tour, they tend to find fault with absolutely every aspect of the experience. While all of this may be true, it actually tends to weaken one's argument, as the previous experienced poster indicates.

For example, in this Cruise Critic thread, a poster writes:

engines are fine. the problem lies within the starboard side drive that runs the prop. Some parts were put in in Cozumel, but it did not fix the problem. We were on the January 31 cruise and the ship could only run at 1/2 speed. The starboard drive was run very briefly when we left Coz, but then shut down again.

We had fun anyway.......................... [my bold]

Skimming through the Cruise Critic review, as well as member reviews, reveals that Holiday is one of Carnival's oldest ships, and...

Many of these flaws and deficiencies are forgivable, however, taken in the context of Holiday's position in Carnival's marketing plan. Over recent years Carnival has aggressively developed the Gulf Coast by moving a Holiday-class ship to a city that had not previously homeported a major cruise line, offering short cruises to the Western Caribbean. This strategy yields a triple enticement to first-timers: short duration, affordable fares and a pier that can be reached by automobile. First-time cruisers, ipso facto, have no other ships to compare with Holiday, so it does not suffer so badly by comparison.

We've experienced late arrivals, missed ports, and mechanical problems on HAL, Oceania, and QM II but we're heading off on our third Transatlantic on Oceania's Regatta in March nonetheless. Again, do your own due diligence on FT, Cruise Critic, Trip Advisor, et al, to have a better chance of finding the holiday experience, cruise or otherwise, that will live up to your expectations.

Hope your next vacation is a better one for you!

Cheers,
Fredd

Yes, Carnival is awful. Please stay away so my fares drop.

I find it suspicious that Celebrity fares are similar to Carnival fares. That may be true on a few select sailings, but I doubt it is true on a fleet-wide basis. Further, a careful reading of Cruisecritic will show that the complaints on all of the big cruise lines are nearly identical.

Our experiences in 5 cruises on Carnival, at least one in each class of ship now, have been great fun, good food, excellent service, and clean ships. It's true that Carnival ships don't have as many onboard gimmicks amenities as some of the other lines, but for me I'm there to relax so I don't really care if there is a rock-climbing wall or an ice-skating rink. Carnival also has the consistently best-rated children's program at sea next to Disney (but there's no casino on DCL, so no thanks!), so that's another big stroke in their favor for us.

Kathy,

Judging by your sharp criticism of my post, I can assume you were on the same cruise as well and had the time of your life?

I’m not that big of a fan of showering in brown water and brushing my teeth with it too. It’s not that appealing to me. I’m ok with mechanical problems happening and an itinerary change needing to be made. Not all that for holding the information from a paying customer so they don’t decide to reschedule though. If it had happened during the previous cruise, no big deal. Things like that happen. Having known about it for a few weeks and not contacting me prior to me trekking to Mobile is something I have an issue about. I wouldn’t have wanted my money back. I would’ve rescheduled for a later cruise once the issues were fixed. I guess that’s going a little too far though.

You really can spot a bad apple when you see one. You’re good!!! You see, that’s what I had in mind the whole time. I’ll fork out a lot of money, get a week behind at work, take a cruise, purposely look for anything I can twist into being something wrong, and then come home and complain about it. That’s what I live for…disappointment. Do you really think people would take a cruise and not want to have a good time? I’m not the one that built up Carnival in their advertisements. Silly me for thinking they’d deliver. Every passenger I came into contact with made sure to tell me not to let this event deter me from cruising. They all were consistent in that this was like we were being videoed on Candid Camera. Everyone I spoke with said that they had never been on a cruise that was this bad. I refuse to let this one incident keep me from taking cruises in the future. I've heard way too many people talk about how great they are. How Carnival responds to me about this incident will determine if any of those future cruises are on any of their ships or not.

Having sailed on Carnival a few times now, I'll have to disagree with the Walmart statement. Ive been on two different extreams of the fleet, from a fantasy class (albeit one that has had her evolution of fun) to a Conquest class ship. So far to this point I have no complaints about Carnival, granted nothing is perfect, I have seen unfreindly crew and some meals that were not perfect, but all in all great vacations.

I will however say that I have never been on a holiday class ship and nor do I plan on going on one. The holiday is an old ship anyway you look at it and if I am not mistaken her retirement is not too far around the corner.

Allready well into planing my next cruse, with carnival again. In the future I can see switching to Princess, Holland Amercia, Cunard or who knows maybe even Seaborn. However for us at the moment, Carnival fits very well into our lifestile, a great ballence between price and quality. I forsee having a Platinum Sail and Sign card in the resaonable future.

I would like to try RC and or Celebrity, espcially the chance to experence the Oasis of the Seas. NCL would be an option aswell espcially once the F3 class gets going.

I think the addition of Mobile as a port several years ago was a good move to attract a relatively untapped and less sophisticated market. Like dominos, I think this permitted upgraded ships for New Orleans and Houston as newer fleet additions went to the bigger markets.

Sadly, some unsophisticated cruisers have turned out to have higher expectations that anticipated and not all pax have been stunned by the sheer luxury and decadence of a rather mundane ship and itinerary. I have heard a bit of griping locally as well as what I have read on cruisecritic.com.

That said, enjoying a cruise or any travel is all about setting appropriate expectations and attitudes.

On the bright side for everyone, the aging Holiday will be leaving the Carnival fleet in the fall, and all 8 of the Fantasy-class ships are undergoing major refurbs as they cycle into drydock.

Carnival needs to step up and be honest about this ship.We were on the 1/31 ship of doom cruise. It was not fun. We didn't have dark water, we had no water the first day and a mere trickle afterwards. My problem with Carnival is not that the ship was torn up, but that they had known it for a month. Three days before our cruise, they called to offer an upgrade. At that time, they knew the ship was broken but instead of telling me that, they took another 400.00 from me. My husband got food poisoning but we were not told that so did 144 others. Everything is secret. When we returned, I looked at the reviews of the ship on their website. The next day, they blocked the reviews only of the Holiday. They have now taken the word review off so you don't even know they used to be there. Check the site and see you can read reviews of every other ship.



Like I said, my problem is not the broken ship. It is blatant deceit.

The point is "cruises from Mobile because they're so cheap". Like anything, you get what you pay for. My wife and I have been on several Carnival Cruises and have always had an enjoyable time. The ships out of the minor ports are usually ships that have been around a while. If you pay for a Motel 6, don't expect a Hyatt.

Canceled port due to an engine/drive malfunction, rusty water, substandard food, no accountability from the company. All the customer's fault, right?

First time cruisers are not aware of "ships that have been around awhile". With the economy the way it is, and has been, it has been publicized how the travel industry is hurting and prices are lower than ever. Why would anyone expect a suboptimal cruise because of a low price. These cruises and ships are marketed the same as brand new ships. If the company marketed them as old, crappy ships with limited capabilities, few would book them no matter how cheap.

Considering this is Flyertalk where people routinely look for cheap flights, deeply discounted hotel rooms, etc, spread the news around of good deals, and EXPECT the same product as if they paid rack rate, your Motel 6comment is really out of place. I booked a Hilton in Dublin at a half-off rate with breakfast thrown in for free, should I expect poor service, no water, no electricity just because it was cheap? No, I expect the same standard as when I stayed there at non-discounted prices. I bought an AA ticket 8 months ago, the price dropped enough to get a price refund. I expect the same service as when I paid the additional $400.

There obviously has been some real issues with this Carnival ship documented over several sailings. It isn't fair to those that had to suffer through to simply say, "You should have had a good time anyway. I ALWAYS have a good time on cruises." It looks like Carnival has dropped the ball and left many people unhappy. I hope that Carnival is somehow made to be accountable for the disastrous situation.

We've done a few cruises. Celebrity Millennium is a great ship, great food and service and atmosphere.

Also previously did 2x NCL cruises around Hawaii where the ship both times had an engine fail so limped around slowly misses ports and no compo or apology from NCL, but there are a lot of cruise lines out there and plenty of choices!

One of the engines blew up in port. We were by the pool when a small mushroom cloud shot up the funnel and the ship lost electrical power, think elevators! Stay calm said the PA, then the fire engines arrived. Very interesting to watch.

Also watched the crew do a man overboard practice! very scary, Think Fawlty Towers!

We've found checking cruise review forums like cruise critic to be very very worthwhile before deciding on a cruise or even a particular ship. So caveat emptor!

I stand by my comment, Motel 6 = Holiday. You have to lower your expectation or pay a little more. I was on the Holiday 13 years ago and it was old then. We were on the Miricale on the same day as the Holiday was in Cozumel and could not believe the ship was still sailing.