Sunday, August 31, 2008

Carnival Fantasy: A Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On

With Hurricane Gustav taking aim at the Gulf states, Carnival Cruise Lines has announced that Carnival Fantasy will not be returning to Mobile on Monday, Sept 1 as planned. Instead, the ship will remain at sea until Wednesday, Sept 3.

Are they rockin' and rollin' out there? Most definitely! The current cruise is a full-ship charter--The Elvis Cruise, which departed Aug 28th. Will we hear a lot of complaints about even MORE Elvis at sea than they bargained for? Based on my experience last year on The Elvis Cruise, I doubt it.

As a result of the storm-related delay, the 5-day Carnival Fantasy cruise scheduled to depart on Monday, Sept 1, 2008 will be a 4-day cruise departing on Wednesday, Sept 3, 2008 and returning Sunday, Sept 7, 2008. The 4-day cruise will depart from Mobile at 4:00 PM on Wednesday and visit Cozumel on Friday.

Passengers booked to sail on the new 4-day cruise will receive a 25% refund of the cruise fare paid. In addition, they will receive a 25% discount for a future 3- to 5-day Carnival cruise departing prior to Dec 15, 2009. This discount applies to the cruise fare only. Please understand this offer is non-transferable. If passengers elect not to sail on the 4-day cruise, Carnival asks that they contact the cruise line right away to cancel the booking. Passengers who cancel will receive a full refund and refunds will be processed in less than two weeks.

For all the cruise ship itinerary updates, Cruiseblogger has the latest reports for sailings affected by Hurricane Gustav, as well as Tropical Storm Hanna.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, we did not get to leave at 4PM on Wedmesday. We boarded the ship at 10PM Wednesday night and left at midnight. They still called this a 4 day cruise and only gave us an extra $40 credit to spend on the ship. Because of this delay Cozumel was cancelled and we had to go to Progreso instead. Needless to say, everyone was furious. CARNIVAL SUCKS!

Anonymous said...

Oh..and by the way. The REAL truth that was never told to us about the extra delay was that a woman DIED on that cruise stuck out at sea. She was in her 40's and had a heart attack on the deck of the ship. There was a local news reporter reporting live from outside the terminal on Wednesday afternoon.

Anonymous said...

The remarks by Kenneth Mercer are completely accurate. We paid for a 5 day cruise and only got a three day cruise. I would also like to add the fact that we were never notified by mail or e-mail that the ship had changed ports from New Orleans to Mobile. This forced us to scramble for a hotel just before hurricane Gustav was to make landfall. I was repeatedly told by Carnival if we cancelled we would lose the money we paid for the cruise. I later found out that this was not true and they did refund guests their money at the very last minute. In addition,I was told by a Carnival representative that they would reimburse us for our delay. I filed a claim including all receipts to Carnival for all of additional travel expenses due to the weather delay. Nearly one month later Carnival has not responded.