Have You Ever Experienced a "Bad" Cruise? Really?

[jlemieu1]

My only bad cruise was on RCI about 16 years ago. It was a 4 day shorty out of PC. It was our first cruise. It was on a older ship for the shorty out of PC. First night we had 20-25 ft seas which got me dog sick. Those older ships didn't have the newer stabilizers. I took free sea sick meds which made me want to sleep the first 3 days. Table mates were not very pleasant at dinner. No verandas on ship. Smoke smell was so bad. Most shows and activities were cancelled because rough seas.
Only good part was there island Coco Cay on last day. This caused us to take a 10 year break from cruising.
Fast forward 10 years and tried Disney on whim. Was scared of a moving kid zoo. Boy was I wrong!!! We have done DCL ever year since with mistake on doing concierge on the first.

 

[MunFam]

We've been on two cruises. The first one was on the HAL Westerdam. We hit horrible weather, never ported and arrived a day late. The service was "meh" as was the food...but the way they handled the weather and delay was phenominal. My opinion about any "bad" experience is to ask "Could this have been fixed/made right" and if it was something fixable and an effort was made to right the wrong, I feel that it is good enough. If it is out of anyone's control, it is what it is.

Our second cruise, 14 nights on the Wonder had a lot of snafus. But at the end of the day, we left satisfied-ish customers. Disney wanted things to be right and they did their best. There were a lot of frustrating things for us...like DD's food allergies not being taken care of. She was served food with her allergen (egg) in it more than one time. Thankfully, I questioned it each time and it was returned to the kitchen before she ate it. The only real bummer on our cruise was our head waiter guy...the one that does not serve food...that one. I feel like he could have been a better advocate for our DD and her allergies in the kitchen and I brought it up to him more than once...but he just did not want to make an effort. We had stateroom maintenance issues and serious issues with our housekeeper. It did not ruin our cruise. We have lovely memories, but I do not think we will spend the money on DCl again.

 

[cmwade77]

Yep, I've had a bad cruise.

As others have mentioned it wasn't one or two things but just a general bad experience. Stateroom had maintenance issues (including my shower suddenly losing all COLD water and I scalded myself/had to have my husband dump cups of water on me in the shower from the slighly less hot sink to try and get the conditioner out), bad service (being scolded for showing up at the time we reserved for dinner and made to come at a different time every night despite the misnomer "my time"), bad drinks (watched the bartender look up how to make a drink on the menu - a maitai and it came out awfully), had to wait in long lines at the bar to get bottles of water when we were thirsty (from the tap it was yellow), had racist and/or misogynistic "comedians" as our entertainment on several evenings in the main theatre and just a myriad of other things also that to be honest I wouldn't complain about normally but it does add up.

I'm not picky, I don't send my steak back if it's a little over or under, I never tell people to hush or get into confrontations. A room has to have more than a couple things wrong with it before I'd ask sheepishly if I may have another and I am so so sorry to be a bother but I'm sorry that WAS a bad cruise... ^^;

I think we all would like to know what cruise line this was so we can avoid that.

 

[cmwade77]

We have done 13 Disney cruises since November 2013 (14th is coming soon) And 1 Carnival cruise (that was in 2011, I think)

The Carnival cruise was not a fantastic experience, but at the same time, it was not horrible. It just was. The food was fine...my son loved their fried chicken and my daughter loved the fries. I found the MDR food okay and the servers we crossed paths with were nice enough. Our cabin host was not really around too much but the cabins were clean, the beds were made and I didn't have to do it, so I was good with it.
The shows on Carnival were a bit risque for my kids...they don't really mean family friendly, but we still laugh about the one with the Vegas style dancers in their costumes and feathers. The comedians were fine too...but again, family friendly does not really mean that.

On all our Disney cruises, we have had just one blip and it was with a serving team (Head server, Server and asst server) were all out of sync and the guests paid for it nightly. The server berated the assistant about everything in front of the guests and the assistant server got flustered and made errors because he was being berated. The Head server was totally out of touch with the guests, but always seemed to be on his phone talking to someone. On our last morning while we were at breakfast, we were saying goodbye to them and the head server came up to shake hands and then his phone rang. You know that phrase...don't leave me hanging? Well, he did.

I was actually very upset that I had rated them as "Good" on that comment card and not gone further down the rating. I was really upset that I had already dropped the comment card in the box before breakfast.
On the plus side, even with that "good" rating, we were contacted by DCL to get more detail on why it was good and not higher. So we told them in great detail and with far more emphasis than what I had already written.
Anyway, that was still a great cruise, but for the blip.

Wow the allergy thing is not like Disney, the first night that happened is the night I ask for a new server. On our last cruise we got a server that has her own dietary issues, which made her hyper aware of issues and even told us about hidden beef gelatin in desserts since two of our party can't eat pork or beef. As for the Wonder we had Jose from the Philippines do a great job with it and we o ly had him twice.

In the interest of adding a little positivity to this thread that is by it's nature a little negative, here is the story:
Our first cruise was a cruise to nowhere on the Wonder after it repositioned to Los Angeles. We listed walnuts as an allergy for my wife even though it is a minor allergy. Ultimately we figured out that we shouldn't list that one and self monitor as cross contamination and it being hidden isn't an issue, it is only an issue for her is larger chunks as it tears up the roof of her mouth.

Well Jose was our server at Parrot Cay when we boarded, he was great and we tipped him a couple of extra dollars, partially because we didn't know if we should or not and partially because he was that helpful.

So our second cruise was a 7 night to the Mexican Riviera and he wasn't our server, but we did get him one morning for breakfast. Now keep in mind we didn't list the Walnut allergy. He not only remembered is, but my wife wanted the cereal that morning (I forget what it is called) and he remembered that she was allergic to walnuts and thought it may contain walnuts, so he went and checked and came back and let her know he couldn't serve it to her because it contains walnuts and they were good sized chunks apparently, so it really would have been an issue, but the point is he remembered that after one time of having him on a previous very short cruise, we we're shocked to say the least.

As for the topic, we have had some cruises that are better than others, for example the only one we have been on that was supposed to stop at CC had to slip it due to the weather, but no we haven't had a bad cruise.

 

[Chipmunkmaniac]

My 11th and 12th Disney cruise were unfortunattely not even close to 1-10 and number 13 and the reason I haven't cruised in the past 5y (Now I'm booked to cruise again in 2018)
May 2012 my friend and I did back to back cruises on the Wonder: Pacific (from LA to Vancouver) and the first Alaska (from Vancouver to Seattle). Of course we also had good memories about this cruise but the overall feeling was not there...
We had booked the same stateroom for both cruises but the behaviour of our stateroom host came to the point we went to guest services to ask for a different stateroom for the second cruise. They wondered why so we explained the issues we had had with our stateroomhost, they sent over the hotel officer and the stateroomhost was changed coridors and they brought us a gift.
Without going through all the details: we started off on bad terms. My friend and I were in our late twenties and early 30s and this girl was about our age. When we met her she gave us evil looks to start with and the vibes we got were all of jealousy... She refused to seperate our beds (even though we had asked through reservations and repeated our request FOUR times in the course of the afternoon and early night, ending up us going to guest services at 10.30pm and them sending someone else up), our dirty towels were taken away but we had to ask for clean ones, the bathroom was not cleaned once in the first 5 days (that's when we went to guest services), my friends sunglasses and watch disappeared from our cabin and a few more smaller things.

Then the character cast... for my friend and me characters are a BIG thing... this particular cast was just...mweh except for 3 of the performers.
They had only been on the ship for about a month but still... Belle was the worst...when she was strolling on the ship and people were coming her way, she would turn around to go the other way... the first cruise the schedule was also ridiculous... I fell like we were on a princess cruise...every day each princess but the whole week NO Daisy and Pluto just ONCE... I heard during my second week that there had been a lot of complaints about the characterofferings that week and the Alaska week was slightly better schedulewise.
But as for the characters in general there was like little to no interaction (even though the lines were not long at all), and one of Mickeys friends who was hanging out most with him only knew two posses. he would hardly greet the guests (let alone hug them) and was just alternating between 2 poses. Normally we like to watch down from deck 4 to 3 after we have met the characters but that trip a lot of the characters were that boring to watch we even didnt bother.... also when they were greeting a couple of the performers didn't bother to talk to the people in line, hardly said anything back if you said goodmorning or whatever. just totally not the standard I was used to from DCL.

CruiseTrip 13 was the same year Galveston on the Magic and was great (we had already booked this before 11+12) but for the past years every time I was about to book a new cruise the memories of 11+12 came back and I was just like no, with the budget for a week cruise I can go 2 weeks to any of the parks, so let's do that.

For next year I have both PCs booked and the first very merry christmas attached to the October PC so let's see what happens during those... I feel I'm finally ready to move on and forget about what happened 5y ago....

 

[sweetpee_1993]

My 11th and 12th Disney cruise were unfortunattely not even close to 1-10 and number 13 and the reason I haven't cruised in the past 5y (Now I'm booked to cruise again in 2018)
May 2012 my friend and I did back to back cruises on the Wonder: Pacific (from LA to Vancouver) and the first Alaska (from Vancouver to Seattle). Of course we also had good memories about this cruise but the overall feeling was not there...
We had booked the same stateroom for both cruises but the behaviour of our stateroom host came to the point we went to guest services to ask for a different stateroom for the second cruise. They wondered why so we explained the issues we had had with our stateroomhost, they sent over the hotel officer and the stateroomhost was changed coridors and they brought us a gift.
Without going through all the details: we started off on bad terms. My friend and I were in our late twenties and early 30s and this girl was about our age. When we met her she gave us evil looks to start with and the vibes we got were all of jealousy... She refused to seperate our beds (even though we had asked through reservations and repeated our request FOUR times in the course of the afternoon and early night, ending up us going to guest services at 10.30pm and them sending someone else up), our dirty towels were taken away but we had to ask for clean ones, the bathroom was not cleaned once in the first 5 days (that's when we went to guest services), my friends sunglasses and watch disappeared from our cabin and a few more smaller things.

Then the character cast... for my friend and me characters are a BIG thing... this particular cast was just...mweh except for 3 of the performers.
They had only been on the ship for about a month but still... Belle was the worst...when she was strolling on the ship and people were coming her way, she would turn around to go the other way... the first cruise the schedule was also ridiculous... I fell like we were on a princess cruise...every day each princess but the whole week NO Daisy and Pluto just ONCE... I heard during my second week that there had been a lot of complaints about the characterofferings that week and the Alaska week was slightly better schedulewise.
But as for the characters in general there was like little to no interaction (even though the lines were not long at all), and one of Mickeys friends who was hanging out most with him only knew two posses. he would hardly greet the guests (let alone hug them) and was just alternating between 2 poses. Normally we like to watch down from deck 4 to 3 after we have met the characters but that trip a lot of the characters were that boring to watch we even didnt bother.... also when they were greeting a couple of the performers didn't bother to talk to the people in line, hardly said anything back if you said goodmorning or whatever. just totally not the standard I was used to from DCL.

CruiseTrip 13 was the same year Galveston on the Magic and was great (we had already booked this before 11+12) but for the past years every time I was about to book a new cruise the memories of 11+12 came back and I was just like no, with the budget for a week cruise I can go 2 weeks to any of the parks, so let's do that.

For next year I have both PCs booked and the first very merry christmas attached to the October PC so let's see what happens during those... I feel I'm finally ready to move on and forget about what happened 5y ago....

I really hope the 5 yrs is enough distance from the bad experience to not worry too much. I'll cross my fingers for you to have a stellar comeback!

 

[Chipmunkmaniac]

thanks!

 

[bobbiwoz]

I'd love to know how you found the Greek cruise line. I've been looking for a Greek or other European line that also does stops in Turkey. So far I come up empty. I love being in the Mediterranean and want to take my girls there.

We were on a Collette tour of Greece. The cruise was booked through Collette. There was a stop for Ephesus in Turkey. It was a port intensive cruise, actually had 2 ports in one day, Mykonos and one other.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

We did a 4/3 B2B on the Dream and the 3 day was a bad cruise for us.

Turnaround day (day 1) felt like a write off - the letter said to be off the ship 9-9:30 and we didn't board until 11-11:30 (with concierge guests). Our stateroom host wasn't good (picked the used/empty shampoo and conditioner bottles out of the garbage can and put them back into the shower, picked up the dirty bath mat with the wheelchair tire track on it and folded it so it didn't show and put it back instead of replacing it with a clean one); we went to the dining room only 1 night out of the 3 only to find out that they had given away our table to another group and then made a huge hubbub about my mother's wheelchair being in the way (and she sits in it so it made her feel terrible to the point she started crying and we left); we missed castaway cay (which didn't both us but it seemed like everyone else on the ship was ready to revolt and complaining was running rampant everywhere you went); on our missed cc day, they didn't get new navigators out until almost noon and then they'd only added a couple of things - which made those couple of things packed!

It wasn't a great cruise and made us swear off short cruises (now the shortest we do is 5 days and that's only when I'm running low on vacation time).

 

[RebelHawk]

My wife and I have been on a total of 7 cruises across two different cruise lines and certainly haven't had a "bad" cruise. We have had some rough weather days, on one during dinner we had to keep one hand on our plate and the other on our wine glass which made it hard to eat. Then that night we were leaving the floor as the ship plowed through waves and sleep that night was impossible. But even that was an experience that we look back on and laugh about the adventure.

We've never had a nasty cast member, crew member or fellow guest that ruined our cruise. Even the people a few balconies up from us on one cruise that either kept spilling their drinks or throwing them overboard and they splashed on our verandah. That was just a quick ask from our room attendant and it was cleaned up.

Some people just aren't happy people.

 

[kaseyC]

I've been on 31 cruises. Cruised most of the mainstream cruise lines plus one Lux line. Never had a bad cruise, different but not bad. Of course, there are things I liked or disliked but nothing to ruin my cruising experience. Most of our cruises have been in concierge suites so that may have added to our enjoyment but I haven't disliked any of my non-concierge cruises. I've also have realized that I love to cruise, period and as our girls have grown up, itinerary has become more important than cruise line.

 

[mevelandry]

I'd love to know how you found the Greek cruise line. I've been looking for a Greek or other European line that also does stops in Turkey. So far I come up empty. I love being in the Mediterranean and want to take my girls there.

I'm not surprised Turkey stops are hard to find considering the political context and terror threats.

 

[cruisehopeful]

ust got off the CruiseCritic boards and to hear it from many, many seasoned cruisers over there they have had just absolutely miserable experiences on some of their cruises over the years and are constantly complaining about specific ships, cruise lines in general, etc.

When I first went to Cruise Critic, it was to learn about other cruise lines so I could try to save money vs. cruising DCL all the time. I was so turned off by the posts in just about every forum. The only forum that didn't make it sound like every cruise was horrible was Princess. I did sail Princess and I do like it. I also still sail and enjoy Disney.

It seemed like a lot of the complainers have been on many cruises. As all companies seem to downsize different things or make cut backs, it would be more noticeable if you've been on a lot of cruises. I am still new enough to not know the difference. However, there are always big uproars here, too, when DCL cuts something out such as the cheese plate (which the promptly brought back) and the gold/platinum reception on cruises less than 8 days long. New cruisers won't know they are missing anything.

I've had some bad experiences on board, but lucky for me, the good stuff always outweighs the bad. I go on vacation to have fun and I manage to do that no matter how many bad things happen. Knock on wood, we haven't had anything so bad on board that we've had to switch rooms or servers.

 

[kaseyC]

I'm not surprised Turkey stops are hard to find considering the political context and terror threats.

Yes. Our Vista cruise last summer included Izmir, Turkey. They cancelled it a few months before our cruise then a few weeks later they added Turkey back but Kusadasi instead of Izmir. So our cruise went to Turkey. We toured Ephesus with a private guide, it was fantastic. The bombing at Istanbul airport was soon after our cruise ended and Turkey was pulled from the remaining cruises. We were very lucky to have had the opportunity to visit,

 

[EllieBride]

- Fourth, some people may think this is a silly thing but hear me out. No, this wasn't just a Wonder issue on that sailing although it's something I discovered during that cruise and left a lasting impression. I'm a big Lilly Pulitzer fan. BIG. I have quite an extensive collection of Lilly clothing, accessories, etc. that I've invested in. For those that don't know, Lilly can be pretty pricy stuff. Dresses typically run around $200 each +/-. Shorts are in the $60+ range. Silks, linens, etc. With the investment in the pieces from the collections and recommended care, most of the time I have my Lilly clothes dry cleaned. Expensive? It can be. But I've found if I am careful in how I care for the pieces I can enjoy them then resell when new collections release. I'm always rotating my Lilly pieces this way. Buy. Sell. That's how I afford to indulge. Soooooo, I sail with Disney a lot. I send my clothes in for dry cleaning on the ships a lot because they can't be laundered. Well, I was packing up the last night of the craptastic Wonder cruise (we were moving staterooms the next day) when I noticed writing in permanent ink on the back of a tag on one of the dresses. In fact, it was stateroom numbers from my last 3 cruises written directly on the tag in permanent ink then crossed out. I was livid. Did it affect the article of clothing's wear? No. You couldn't see it when wearing the clothing. However, I buy/sell/trade this stuff. It's how I afford to rotate my wardrobe. Passionate collectors see writing on a tag in permanent ink and it devalues the piece. It's less-desirable compared to an identical piece that does not have the writing. I frantically inspected all the Lilly clothes I'd brought with me and sure enough. EVERY piece that had been sent for cleaning on any Disney ship had been written on. We stood in line at Guest Services that last night for a LONG time twice to address this. It was crazy. Not a fun way to end a cruise. The ship could not resolve the issue because the claim was beyond what they are authorized to handle. I had to deal with shoreside (more hassle) after I got home. Yes, eventually I was compensated a fair/reasonable amount for the damages to north of $800 in pieces of clothing. I have NEVER seen this method for identifying articles by dry cleaning service before or since. Other large resorts & cruise lines either use paper tags looped through the clothing tag or the stick-on labels on an inside seam. This is NOT a regular practice. So NOW, even though I've been assured numerous times that the procedure has been changed, whenever I fill out a dry cleaning slip on a Disney ship I write in really large, bold letters with underlines & asterisks "DO NOT WRITE ON ANY PART OF ANY PIECE OF MY CLOTHING" I dunno, it was just kinda the straw that broke the camel's back on that cruise. I was so over it all. I just wanted to take my ball, go home, and forget any of it ever happened.
There were several other things that cruise that were just off. Sirly bartenders. An overall feeling that the crew was totally over being on that ship, too. I think maybe they were coming off a rough time at the end of the previous PC cruise or something. Maybe? I don't know. It was just an overall negative vibe I'd never experienced before or since.

This is unimaginable! I think I would have gone ballistic if someone used permanent marker on my designer clothing, or ANY of my personal belongings for that matter. Who just goes around marking up other people's stuff? I can't even imagine what on Earth they were thinking. I haven't tried sending anything out for dry cleaning before, but now I'm going to be paranoid if I ever need to use this service.

 

[cruiser21]

No, not that I recall.

 

[SteveMP]

This is unimaginable! I think I would have gone ballistic if someone used permanent marker on my designer clothing, or ANY of my personal belongings for that matter. Who just goes around marking up other people's stuff? I can't even imagine what on Earth they were thinking. I haven't tried sending anything out for dry cleaning before, but now I'm going to be paranoid if I ever need to use this service.

Never had a problem on any of our cruises and have sent many articles in for dry cleaning on each cruise. (Always had the little paper tags attached) Odd this one person had it happen on 3 seperate cruises, must have been an anomoly

 

[elvispursley]

I think it only happened on one cruise. Rereading her report, they wrote stateroom number from previous 3 cruises and then had crossed them out. It definitely WOULD be an anomaly if it happened on 3 separate cruises and I would stop using dry cleaning services!

 

[suedon70]

When I first went to Cruise Critic, it was to learn about other cruise lines so I could try to save money vs. cruising DCL all the time. I was so turned off by the posts in just about every forum. The only forum that didn't make it sound like every cruise was horrible was Princess. I did sail Princess and I do like it. I also still sail and enjoy Disney.

I used to go on Cruise Critic all the time and there definitely are lots of helpful tips and advice to be gleaned from the site but there are definitely many posters over there that are so negative! And lately there's been a lot of negative threads and posts re: the Crown Princess, which is what we will be sailing next summer (Italy & Greek Isles), so needless to say I have been anxious about doing that cruise. Thankfully there have been several on there that have had positive experiences on the ship recently, so that's kinda put my mind at ease.

 

[SteveMP]

I think it only happened on one cruise. Rereading her report, they wrote stateroom number from previous 3 cruises and then had crossed them out. It definitely WOULD be an anomaly if it happened on 3 separate cruises and I would stop using dry cleaning services!

Thats almost stranger. I would be worried I had a stalker if they knew each room i was on on different cruises/ships.