I was so excited to go on this Cruise, being that it was our honeymoon and all, we thought it would be the most fun vacation we would have ever had together. Before the first day was over I knew I was not going to be having a good time. Being first time cruisers we didn’t really know the procedures for boarding the boat and there were no signs or instructions or documentation on what we were supposed to do. So we showed up at the dock and started to go through the check in process.

First thing we did was get waved through a long line up of people that were checking there baggage. I thought this was pretty weird for a couple hours, until I realized that these were all locals that were able to buy tickets for next to nothing because the boat wasn’t fully booked. And I guess we didn’t look Porto Rican so we were waved passed them. So, before we check in or anything, were asked to give our bags to these very shady looking individuals, I also thought this was kinda weird because we didn’t really have any tags or anything on the bags to identify them to us. So I made a guy slow down and explain it to me, only one guy out of the throwers was willing to explain it to me. So after leaving our baggage wondering if we would see it again. We proceeded to check in, here we find out that you have to leave a credit card with them because no money transactions can take place on the ship… And why would we need money? Other than drinks and tips, what do we need money for? Well lots it turns out. After turning over our passports which also made me nervous, and I couldn’t understand the reason that she gave us for taking them. Meaning that I couldn’t understand what she said when I asked why they took them. Having received our on board credit cards we then went to get on the boat. There was a long line with only one guy servicing the line putting the credit cards in a box and it would go ding and the guy would walk on by.. Then at an empty line next to our line people were just walking by and putting there cards in on their own and walking through, so I thought that this guys was handing out cards. Again there was no signage or instruction given to us as to what to do for anything. So we figured that we would walk on through the short line and our cards dinged and we walked through, at that moment the very rude man that was running the line up through yelled at us and asked us if we’d had our pictures taken, and of course the lady had taken our picture with a camera right after we dropped our bags off. So we responded very unsure of ourselves, yes, and he yelled at us again and asked if we had our picture taken in the line up.. And we said no… So he yanked our cards out of our hands and yelled at us to get in the back of the line… So shaking our heads we went to the back of the line and were and little freaked out and pissed off and finally another lady came over to help with the picture taking process and explained to us what this was for, and we went right through, although we had to get our cards back from the rude guy that took them from us…

So finally we were on board and relieved we got to our room and were happy with the size and the balcony. So while we had to wait for our bags we thought we should go tour the ship. So up to the top deck for drinks it was. Now I had been told that you had to pay for drinks by people that had recommended cruising to me and that they are not the expensive because it’s duty free liquor so I thought that it would be just fine, but after my first $6.50 US drink I almost soiled myself. Being Canadian that’s a $10.00 drink for us. So I asked if this was a special drink or if I was going to get screwed this bad for the whole trip. Needless to say I had 4 drinks the entire cruise, so that took a lot of fun out of it for me, mostly because there wasn’t anything else to do on the boat except listen to the cruise director and his assistant try and sell you crap of every moment of every waking day.

After 6 hours we realized that Carnival Cruise Lines was not interested in repeat customers. They treated me and my wife like wallets that they had to empty… Every day around dinner time or when the casino opened (which I’m sure was rigged) the TV stations would shut off. I’m sure they did this so that you had to leave your room and spend more money… All told I didn’t think I would have to spend much on the boat but we ended up having a $600 US bill after the week was over, this was from a couple bottles of wine 1 tour ashore the gratuity that they make you pay and a few trips to a coffee shop which you had to pay to get coffee at? That baffled me, they give away fillet minion and cheese cake in the dining room, and make you pay for coffee and cake from one store on the ship???

Anyway, I’ve been totally turned off cruising by this experience, I thought I had done my research and read a lot of reviews here about this cruise. I can’t believe that nobody mentioned the expensive drinks in a review… I would not have picked this line if I had read that one sentence…