Review of the Carnival Freedom

Not so fun line cruise

written by alesail posted on 16/09/12

Sail Date: 08/25/12

My husband and I took the August 25th, 2012 cruise on the Carnival Freedom and I am sorry to say that this was by far the worst cruise that my family and I have ever been on! From the rudeness of the pursers desk personal, to unorganized structure of the excursion desk when it came to problems, the cold powered eggs served at the buffet, and the lack of welcome by the general staff on board. It seemed almost like we intruding on the staff of the Freedom by just being there and cruising with them? This may have been the Carnival staff's 23rd or so cruise for the year, but to many people, this representatives their once in a year vacation. This is the first cruise of the year for the majority of the people on board, and the staff treated some people like they numbers-NOT as the Customers that they were!!!Remember, without customers-Carnival Cruise Lines would be just rusting hulls of steel on the water they sail on not to say the jobs lost by the crew and staff of the ship. Fortunately there is choice out there for the customer- and many people are fighting for our our travel dollar! Unless the customer stands up to be treated as the customer that he/she is, Mega Cruise lines like Carnival will treat their travelers as just numbers with open pocket books of money! Problems Observed: Rudeness of the pursers desk- Several times when it came to money issues, from cashing travelers checks (and your cruise ID card not being accepted as ID- even-though your C Card is tied to your ID at check in to enter the ship) I watched an individual have to go back to his cabin to get his wallet from his safe and stand in line another 20 Min. again. The Pursers desk is the only direct representative of the cruise line, and you would think that common courtesy would be basic(despite cultural differences from the staff from other countries) I also observed customers being treated like cattle through the lines, and not being treated as the paying customers they are when dealing in the Business transactions that they may have been preforming.

We had a problem with one excursion in Curacao and had to see the excursion desk later after our experience regarding the mishandling of my 87 year old mother-in-law. When my husband and I later talked to the Carnival excursion director about the incident regarding a contract tour group for the aquarium and country tour, we received a "What do you want me to do about it" response. I feel that It is not my job as a customer to decide what to do , its Carnival's job to help out if they could, and make the right decision on their own(not leaving it in the lap of the customer)! We explained to the excursion director that we were not trying to get anything free or get any type of perks in response to what happened, but we just wanted them to keep those who are elderly in mind for the future, so that this type of incident didn't happen again. There are a lot of retired customers who sail and that are elderly.(I feel as a professional cruise company, that they can always learn for past mistakes and always try to do better for the customer in the future).

Buffet: Same basic menu for breakfast every day. The powered eggs were not even luke-warm, and the bacon was a mass of greasy meat. This was indeed a "lets feed the masses, not let?s try to please those who paid for "as in the picture" type of meal. This was definitely a quantity made for the masses, not quality as paid for by the customer.

My husband called Carnival afterwards, and stated our concerns with the company. He received an apology letter for all the bad service we received. The only problem with an apology letter is that an apology does not cover the bad week on the ship itself, or the satisfaction guarantee given by the cruiseline (so much for that). When my husband tried to submit a review on their website, for some reason he was not able to submit the review. When I used a new ID, I was able to submit this review????