I cannot say one good thing about this "excursion" - more like excruciating. My idea of a fun family day is NOT having both my kids get sick, all of the family members get injured on a dangerous boat that smells like vomit, spending 6 HOURS of our day in travel time on said boat, not getting any of the food we were promised, and having less than 1.5 hours on a packed "private" beach. Not one thing about this trip was as described, and when we complained we were told nothing could be done.
To start, we were stuck in the very back of the boat despite showing up early, on hard wooden seats, and could not see or hear any of the pirate show. The boat was completely packed and we were told it was overbooked, with 257 people on board when the maximum capacity should have been 200. The trip to the "private" beach, which was packed, took THREE HOURS each way, and every single kid and probably half of the adults were sick. Spending 6 total hours on a ship that smelled entirely of vomit is not my idea of a vacation. My 8-year-old and 17-year-old were sick both directions, and all of us fell or injured ourselves on the boat during the rough seas. The 2 hours we were promised on the beach was actually less than 90 minutes when you take into account that it took 45 minutes to unload and half an hour to load back up. When I said "load", I mean they basically throw you from the ship onto rocking little speedboats to get to the beach, where you jump off into the water and storm the already-packed beach. We couldn't even enjoy the beach as we were given hard plastic chairs and only a few umbrellas for over 200 people. The "all you can eat" buffet and "open bar" turned into us picking 1 meal and sitting in the dark, stinky bowels of the ship, and the bar smelled of vomit. We had our own "personal pirate" who did his best but was just too busy with other jobs.
The whole trip was excruciating, and every single person we talked to agreed. When we got off the boat we all went immediately to Carnival's Guest Services, who said they would open a case. A lot of good that did, as all we were offered was 20% off, and when it posted to our account, it was only 15% for2 out of 4 people! Absolutely unacceptable all around, and we have disputed the charges and are leaving this review everywhere we can. No one should have a whole day of their vacation stolen and absolutely nothing done about it. Please, please, avoid this excursion and be very careful of booking through Carnival as they seen to wipe their hands of you as soon as they have your money. read more