Michael
As a seasoned Carnival cruiser
As a seasoned Carnival cruiser, we've been at this for over 20 years. It seems Carnival is heading south again. It seems to come in waves. Buckle up for the ride... Upon arrival to LongBeach parking terminal, there was a line to get into the parking structure. The parking ticket machine had run out of tickets. Asking the attendant monitoring ingress to the structure, he stopped me ; "Wait! where you goin?" I advised the cruise. Looks like they are hiring the thugs that had been rejected from San Pedro ports of call. Parked the vehicle and off to luggage check in. Another thug advises "over here guy" as he was too lazy to get the bags. He also advised "tips were welcome." Not trying to ruin my first impression and to not have him rob me, I gave him a couple bucks. We were early for checkin; about 1 hour, so we waited by the outer court area. Other groups would be whisked in by us that did not seem handicapped. Dont know what that was about. Finally our turn to embark. It went reasonably smoothly.... On the ship; Carnival Panorama, has updated elevators that seem a bit confusing. You waken up a tower and pick the floor you want. The tower then speaks and shows you a letter designating a certain elevator headed to your location. Unsure how efficient this is but I'm sure someone did the numbers. Checking into the room, the room attendant NEVER bothered to introduce himself to us. According to his business card, his name is I Made. Yes you heard me right, as in I am a Maid. My wife asked for a "Do not Disturb" sign and the attendant barked "Hold on ill get it!" Later when we never received a sign, she asked again. He barked off "Wait a second, ill get it!". Well my wife filed a complaint at the front Customer Service Desk. This is when the retaliation began. Room was always not 100%. He would give us the "evil eye" unless people or his bosses were around. It made for a miserable 8 day trip. I attempted to get another room but CS advised there were no other rooms. I did however get another person to clean our room. We decided to have minimal cleaning as we did not trust this guy I Made to spit in our water. Enough of "I Made", the food on the boat seemed on par as usual. The "help" were extra rude this time. I love to tip but it was a struggle to tip even a couple of Waiters. They were either lazy/ stupid or ignorant. Our table told the waiter we were just having water to drink. He never came back thinking we only wanted water. Good grief. Barking to another waiter asking for direction, he just walked away. I'm thinking they are short staffed because this was rediculous. The shows; Comedy was failing and we didn't bother with the "vaudville" shows as they are mostly pathetic. We came with family as a couple in our group had never been on a cruise. Disembarkation; Was a cluster. Up for a sit down breakfast. I found one waitress that smiled and gave her 20 bucks. That's it; they all seemed to not want to be there. Everyone around us eating seemed to have a cold as they were coughing and miserable. Heard about all the EMF on the boats tend to make people sick. It was quite sad. Well after breakfast it was into a line to disembark. Getting our luggage and getting back into line to exit was a cluster as well. Out to the parking lot and security, who barley speaks english tries to direct us to the staging area to load up our luggage. In short ... Never again... In long...NEEVVVERRR AGGAIINNNNNN...



