DO NOT GO ON A CARNIVAL CRUISE

My wife wanted to celebrate our 10th Wedding anniversary so she booked us on the 4 day Encenada, Mexico. This was just to see if we wanted to do a 7 day cruise next year.

We arrived at the Carnival Cruise parking lot in Long Beach, CA. There was two really big lines and we weren't sure which one to go in. There was not one person to direct the hundreds of people arriving.

We stood in one line for 30 minutes to find out we could either check our luggage in with the lady and we would have to wait about 2 hours for it to arrive in our rooms or we could just roll the luggage onto the ship. 30 minutes wasted in that line. We rolled our luggage.

Then we get in a line to board the ship. We have to pass through security. We have to put our keys, cell phones, and pocket knives into a basket, then remove our laptops from their carrying case, and making sure we still have our photo id and birth certificate in our hands. No electronics may be used in this line. So I followed directions. I just got my iphone so I watched that baby carefully get passed in a basket with my keys, pocket knife, etc. I almost dropped the laptop because I only had two arms to juggle all this security crap.

I am sure terrorists have their own entrance on the back side of the boat that doesn't require anything but a handshake and a promise to be good on the boat.

I finally get through security and the file us like cattle into another room where we have yet another line.Oh goody! look at this mess:



30 minutes again to get through this. Luckily we had two screaming kids in this line or I would have had nothing to complain about. Pure entertainment!

Now we are getting to our rooms and we see that they are dumping peoples luggage in the hallways by their doors even before the people were in their rooms. I saw a few Tumi bags I was tempted to borrow until death, but my Christian side told me to keep walking.

My wife, Tammy, puts our clothes away, while I check out this closet that they are asking us to live in for 4 days. Everything is small like you would see on an RV. We had 10 channels on the TV. 5 channels advertised nothing but Carnival Cruise Crap (CCC) and the other 5 were showing nothing but the Democratic National Convention round the clock......Did I happen to mention I am Christian?

The best part of the whole cruise is about to begin. The part where I get to eat. If you have seen me, you will know that is my favorite thing to do. Not as much now that I am diabetic, but still a lot of fun after an hour and a half in lines.

I find out they only have hamburgers and hot dogs available.



No salad bar. No vegetables. No fruit. Just hamburgers and hot dogs. Hmmmmm. I can't eat that. Oh well, I will cheat today and tomorrow I will eat healthy.

We get back to our room exhausted and full. I am just starting to relax my head and drift off to sleep when the captain now asks us to get out of our rooms, report to the night club with our life vests so that we can do the lifeboat drill. How exciting is this. My first minute of rest and I am running to a club with a flashing orange life jacket acting like the ship is sinking. We haven't even left the dock yet.

(scene change) I am now crunched in with about 100 people on deck in front of a lifeboat waiting for the rest of the boat to follow directions so we can go back to our cracker box rooms.

90 minutes later I am back in my room trying to finish the dream I had started. ( I was dreaming I was home pulling weeds)

I had no luck getting back to sleep. So we decide to sign up for some events. We go to the information desk and there are 30 people in line. Not cool. We decided to come back that night when it was a little calmer. So we came back that night and there were only 30 people in line. Much better.

Here is where the fun begins. We go to play bingo.



It takes them 20 minutes to hand out bingo cards and they still haven't reached my wife and me. So we decide to just do scratchers and get the heck out of there. We can submit losing scratchers for a drawing and win a bottle of champagne. So we buy 30 scratchers. We go to the back of the room and scratch while they play one game of bingo. The game only lasted 5 minutes. Now I am running our losing tickets to the front of the room so I can get them into the bucket for the drawing. As I am dropping my tickets into the bucket, the MC reaches in and pulls a ticket. He pulled the ticket before my tickets had even entered to bucket. I was standing right in front of him. No last call tickets. No waiting for the fat Italian guy running to the bucket or the 5 people he knocked over getting to the bucket. Guess what. You guessed it. I didn't win champagne.

So I ask the MC about cashing in my winning tickets. He said to wait until the next round of bingo. I go back to Tammy and tell her that they will pay us on the next round of bingo. Tammy points to the MC leaving the room and now bingo is over. What!!!!!

Let's review. it took twenty minutes to hand out cards, one game of bingo that lasted 5 minutes, no last call for losing scratchers, no payout for winning tickets until the next round and I find out the next round is TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!

So let's jump to Tuesday night at 4:30pm.

I am ready for an early dinner. I go up to Lido deck to get food. OMG, you would not believe the spread they had that night. It was hamburgers and hot dogs AGAIN!!!
I now proceed to yell at the head guy on Lido deck at the top of my voice, "I can not believe I am being fed this crap. I could eat better at McDonald's across the street from my house. I DID NOT PAY $1000 FOR THIS PIECE OF CRAP SHIP RIDE. You guys are the worst cruise line ever. (not that I had been on another one, but who cares. I was mad)

At this point I am praying for the ship to sink.


The next night I waited in line for 25 minutes for food. My hands are shaking due to my sugar dropping like my stock in Sirius Satellite Radio. I finally get up to where the food is and they tell me they ran out of food. The said they were sorry, but this is now only the soup line. They said I would have to go to the other side Lido deck and wait in that line for food. YOU CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE HOW LOUD I YELLED THAT NIGHT. I YELLED AT ANYONE WEARING A CARNIVAL CRUISE NAME BADGE EVEN THOUGH MOST OF THEM DIDN'T SPEAK ENGLISH!!!

I had to go up to my room and order room service just to get a salad. I was chowing on the chocolates on my pillow just to keep myself from cardiac arrest. Room service took 45 minutes to get me a salad and a pastrami sandwich. Here is what they brought me:



My wife order the chicken wrap. it was so small you couldn't even call it finger food. it was smaller than a finger. Look at this garbage:



This was just the first two days of the worst cruise anyone has ever taken.

I filed 3 complaints on the boat and 2 after I got off and no one has called me back. I told them I want my money back. We are still fighting for this. It ought to be a good one.

To be continued......

UPDATE 9/8/08

I called guest relations about my 3 filed complaints on the boat and my 1 filed complaint off the boat. The lady told me a supervisor would call me today. Well, they have not called.

Update 9/9/08

I called guest relations again. 4:30pm Pacific Time. They are closed. How convenient. This is going to be a long fight. I hope they come to their senses and just refund my money. I am guessing they will offer me a free trip. That's not happening!

Update 9/10/08

I get a wonderful letter from Carnival Cruise Lines. Wait until you read this. People said they would offer me a free trip (over my dead body). Some said to fight all the way to a full refund (over their dead body).

Here is the letter that they sent me. WHAT AN INSULT OF A LETTER.

Update 9/11/08

Not the best date to be doing anything, but I need to get a full refund. I just spoke to Guest Relations again and they apologize that $50 on my next cruise is the only thing they can offer me. I told them that they couldn't pay me enough money to step foot on your boat.

Now I am holding for a supervisor, again. I guarantee she will return stating that their busy and the supervisor will call me back. The same story they gave me last time I called...........waiting............waiting....... this call has been 8 minutes long already..........waiting.......waiting......still on hold.....this call is now 10 minutes long.....waiting.....she came back to tell me she is talking to her supervisor and she will transfer me in a moment.... They obviously are preparing their arguments ..... waiting...... now 14 minutes long and still on hold........17 minutes supervisor Shelly comes on the phone to tell me that they can't give me a refund but they can offer me 15% off my next cruise which I have no plans on taking.

So I get off the phone after speaking with Shelly for about 45 minutes and she truly was nice and understanding. I was quite surprised. She is going to speak with her supervisor, Carlos and then she will call me back Monday or Tuesday.

to be continued.....

UPDATE 9/17/08

Well, I know your laughing by now. I just recieived a phone call from a Carnival Cruise Line sales person trying to sell me another trip. It's Wednesday and no one has called me back from ALL my complaints and now this guy is trying to sell me another trip.

So I get on the phone and call Shelly. She says that Carnival understands my situation and is going to refund me a portion of my cruise. I am not going to post the amount, but I will say that it's enough for me to feel better about this trip. They did right by showing that they cared. They are sending me a refund check and I want to thank Shelly and Carlos for their hard work.

This will not be continued. This matter is closed.

NEVER USE TIME WARNER DIGITAL PHONE SERVICE

I have had Time Warner phone service for over a year. It is the worst company to be with. For the past three weeks it has not worked correctly. I am in touch with a person that is pretty high up in the company and have been complaining to her for quite some time and she can't even get the phones to work properly.

Here is the problem:

When people call me or I call them (either way) they can't hear me speak, but I can hear them speak. That's it. It's very annoying since I also work out of my home office.

So for the past three weeks Time Warner has destroyed my work life. All my clients can't get a hold of me. I am losing business because of this and Time Warner doesn't care. They keep telling me that it will be fixed and it never is.

Time Warner can not handle the load of information going back and forth for all it's customers so it causes my packets of info leaving my home back to the server to stop working. It's all insane. It's because they don't want to spend the money to upgrade servers and software.

So I am refusing to pay my cable, internet, and phone bill until they can provide me with the service I am supposed to be receiving.

Last night my son went into the ER. Then they admitted him to Critical Care Unit and the doctors are trying to call me so they can tell me what's going on. Guess what? That's right, I can't speak to the doctors because Time Warner service is so bad.

I told Timer Warner that if my phone isn't working by tomorrow, I will be calling the corporate office and bugging them every 5 minutes with me complaining about their service and demanding they fix it. I will call the office of the president and continue to bug Time Warner all day long every day.

IF I DON'T GET TO WORK THEN WHY SHOULD THEY!!!!

I will keep you updated.

UPDATE 9/8/08

After complaining, Time Warner has credited me for one month of internet and credited me one month of phone service. They also gave me full details on what was wrong and how it has been resolved. They have taken responsibility and have made me very happy with their kindness.

CHEESE PLEASE!

I went to Pizza Hut for some fine Italian food. I orderd a larger stuff crust cheese pizza. I had a coupon for a free extra topping., so I told the girl at the counter that I wanted extra cheese as my one topping.

She tells me that I have to pay for extra cheese. I said no I don't. I have a coupon. She said extra cheese is not considered a topping at Pizza Hut.

I said, "WHAT?" What do you mean it's not considered a topping. It goes on top, right. Then it's a topping. Every other pizza place in the world considers extra cheese a topping. We argued for about 20 minutes.

It all came down to this. The corporation for Pizza Hut does not want to give you extra cheese as a topping so they now don't consider cheese an extra topping and you must pay for it.

I didn't even begin complaining about there being no sauce on my pizza. Is that the new thing? Putting no sauce on a pizza. It is almost embarrassing being 100% Italian and eating a pizza with no sauce. Not that I ordered it that way, but that's how it comes. Lift the cheese next time. There is one drop of sauce.

I stopped going to Papa John's pizza because I had plain bare spots on my pizza. This isn't pizza. It's just dough.

Pizza places suck out here in California. The only way to get a good pizza is to go to a nice Italian restaurant and pay $30 for a simple pizza with cheese and sauce.

As you can guess, I am now not going to Pizza Hut anymore.

BOYCOTT TARGET!!!!

My friend Adam told me that he bought his son a three-in-one table top game (pool, hockey, ping pong).

Now I think those three-in-ones are eye sores, but he wanted his son to have one and that's his prerogative.

So Adam told me a week later that he realized it was too big and he really had no place to set it up in his house. It's brand new and still in the box. The only problem was that Adam couldn't find the receipt. He took it to Target to see if he could return it for a store credit.

Target said that any item over $20 must have a receipt even for store credit.

Now I remember last year Target gave me store credit for something over $20 and let me pick something else out. Target says that this return policy has been like this for 10 years. Now I know they are lying.

I called the corporate office and complained. They gave me the same story. I told them that Walmart takes back products with no complaints and so does Bed, Bath, and Beyond.

I told the lady that I was going to blog about this unfair return policy and ask everyone to boycott Target. She got really frustrated and dismissed herself from the phone conversation. Her name was Amber and she was no help at all.

There are rare occasions when you don't have a receipt. When the product has a target price tag on it and Target currently sells the item and it's sealed in the box, well then the product should be able to be returned for store credit.

As of today, I will no longer be buying from Target. I just pulled my prescriptions from target. Thank God, too. They begged me for my prescription business and then always took 30 minutes to fill the prescriptions.

I also buy all my DVDs, video games, and music from Target. Not any more.