Regarding our vacation on Carnival Magic 6/16, my family of six will not set sail again with Carnival after our experience this week. There were numerous disappointments all week long, starting with the delayed departure and loss of a port.

Since we are from NC, we had planned to drive through the night and arrive just before boarding. After we have packed up and ready to hit the roads, we see an email saying there was an emergency and the ship would be delayed Saturday. We take off anyway because the email said there would be an update although the time given was not exact and we were already on the road to hear that the next update would by 9:30 in the morning. Since that’s all we knew, we continued to Florida anyway. It took us doing some extra research online to find out more details later in the evening and discovered the embarkation would be much later, so we were forced to get a hotel room for the night.

Saturday morning, we find out the most disappointing news yet. Carnival had removed our favorite Port, St. Thomas, from our itinerary. St. Thomas was my reason behind booking this cruise. We had been once before on Carnival Sunshine four years ago and absolutely loved it. We had dreamed of seeing this island again and had planned this cruise on Magic for over a year and a half knowing we were going to St. Thomas again. My family of six was very disappointed. By this time, we are already in Florida, time taken off work and money spent on this cruise and Carnival is already disappointing us. And you thought it would make it better refunding $50 credit plus $15 on food? That miniscule amount of money in no way compensates for what we lost from our vacation. Yes, part of the delay was because of a medical emergency, but a significant part of it was also because of maintenance issues meaning the ship could not go full speed. That’s not an unexpected surprise that is not your fault, that’s something you should be fully accountable for. Simply saying “Sorry” and throwing $65 at the problem doesn’t cut it because your ships are not running correctly causing us to lose an island from our trip. Read more