This is the unsanitized version of the embarkation process on getting onto Carnival Splendor in October of 2022. I have done a sanitised version of this um & if that is what you want to hear the nice sweet information go for that one if you want to hear the brutal honest truth this is the video for you.
On a rainy day at Circular Quay, it was the 2nd cruise for Carnival Splendor since the repositioning & arriving here in Australia. It was diabolically horrendous. There is no cover for people in inclement weather. It was just crowded. We discovered that people with a 2.30pm embarkation had arrived to drop off their bags at 10:30am, and were ushered onto the boat. We arrived just after 12 for our 12:30 check-in & we had to go away. Then by the time that we were allowed to get into the space, it was standing room only. 2 hours of our life that we're never going to get back. It was so poorly managed. I've been given a couple of reasons why the embarkation process was so disastrous. 1 was that the camera & photo part of the whole electronic process went down for a large period of time. That delayed a lot of the time but that to me is hogwash, we have already uploaded several different photos on all of the electronic information related to Carnival. On Princess you've uploaded already, that's the one that they use. I don't know what Carnaval has been doing over the last 2 years if they haven't improved their processes of touchless embarkation. It was a nightmare. The other issue was that there were a lot of people with mobility problems, standing for hours waiting to have photos taken & then they went through everything. They also wanted hard copies of everything. Nowhere in any of the information did we register that we needed to have a hard copy of our boarding pass. It just added an additional stress knowing that we had to go over & find some little man who typed our information & gave us a little piece of paper which then acted as our boarding pass. It was, for 2022, for cruising that has been going now elsewhere in the world, why is this process so difficult for Carnival. The few times that I've been on Princess post-pandemic it has been really silk smooth.
DON’T take any bottles of wine. I wasn’t the only person that had this issue. You are given a confiscation letter, at the end of the cruise, you go & provide the evidence that this is who you are & you get your product back. There was a floor full within the Red Carpet Lounge of two bottles of wine. There were other things like the power boards that we know you that you can't take & a whole raft of other confiscated items. There had to have been at least 50 to 60 pairs of bottles of wine sitting there waiting for their owners to come & collect them. I know that I was not the only person that must have missed this within the Australian Carnival Cruise agreement, you DO NOT take two bottles of wine that you could drink in your own cabin or have a pay corkage if you take it to a public space.
When we arrived we didn't actually get our Sail & Sign cards at the check-in process. They were sitting on the door as we arrived to our cabin. This doesn’t seem to be the most reasonable safest way to receive what is going to be your Sail & Sign, your ticket to the world for the next four days. To have a little envelope with your Sail & Sign cards just sitting there. I am flummoxed at so much of the experience on Carnival Splendor that I'm just gonna have to check myself.
I'm not booked on any more Carnival Splendor cruises, I am booked on a Carnival Luminosa Cruise in December so I will out of Brisbane. I'll be able to compare both the Brisbane check-in process & the Sydney check-in process. Also any other changes Carnival may have made in relation to boarding when it comes to the Luminosa in Brisbane. With the horrendous bag drop & waiting to get in line standing in line for close to two hours, there was no seating, people were tired & exhausted children were ratty as hell & the cruise hadn't even started. You're walking along all the stanchions, getting stepped up for the day, before you even get onto the boat. This whole time, bunched together with the two attendants at each of the little booths, with parties of two or more people making it a really crowded space. We really were set on the wrong foot even before we embarked onto the boat or before we stepped foot on the boat. We were pretty tense & this was reflected with everybody that we had spoken to.
I will do a separate video on the disembarkation & it will be a sanitised version & a non-sanitized version. It's just something that Carnival does not seem to have got itself together in relation to whether it’s staffing or cost cutting, I have no idea. I have no Insider information, I just know that the embarkation process & the disembarkation process were not fun at all.
Stay safe everybody & Happy Travels
Edited by VideoGuru:[ Ссылка ]
