Complaint Review: Carnival Cruise Lines

Carnival offers Broken promises and Nothing in return!On 1/16/09 we boarded our ship at noon. here is a description of what happend

We were on the famous Destiny cruise to NOWHERE!!!! DAY 1 : Scheduled departure time 4pm...ACTUAL departure time 8 pm. Day 2.: After eating at the Captain's dinner, (that the captain himself decided to forgo) we were informed we would not be making either our Ocho Rios or Grand Cayman ports. Apparently we were having the same propulsion problems that this ship has been having since September of last year. Instead, we were re-routed to Nassau, Bahamas....craptastic! After "generously" being refunded our 75 dollar port fees for the ports we never saw, we were informed that the 75 dollars was the extent of the compensation we would be receiving. The boat was noticeably shaking the whole time. A seasoned navy veteran on the boat informed us that this wasnt normal, and that it was most likely due to the ONE prop we were running on. After about day 2 everything started smelling like sewage, peoples sinks and toilets were backing up, and the line at the information desk was longer than distance we made it from Florida. Our new friends had this pouring down thier walls at 3am Day 3: Still no land, people are debating mutiny, and spending ridiculous amounts of money at the bar and casino(not at discounted prices either) while being held hostage on a floating sewage tank to nowhere. Finally someone with a portable GPS figured out that we had been doing circles off the coast of Florida for 3 days, all while being lied to about our location by the boats televised tracking channel. Day 4: we finally see land....(not the land we paid for, but filthy overpriced land nonetheless.) After spending the day being harassed for tips, we returned to the boat for dinner, where the wait staff put on a heck of a show. Day 4 was another "Fun Day at Sea".......yea well...we had all had our fill of those on this cruise. Day 5 Free at last Free at last.....except, we would have to go to the airport and travel all day without a shower because the water in half the boat was not working, but we were all happy to be off this boat. While waiting for our flight, we decided to call Carnival Corporate and voice our concerns ( which turned out to be exactly that: OUR concerns, not theirs according to them.) We actually were laughed at and told "sorry about your luck" by Mr. Adam Martinez, receptionist who informed us he has no supervisor. Although we had the vacation protection plan, apparently we are SOL.  Oh, and I'm sure the Better Business Bureau is tired of hearing about the Carnival Destiny by now...but our investigation is in process.... Also some passengers (who are lawyers) have started a Class Action Suit. If you are planning a cruise on this ship, I highly discourage you from finalizing your plans. If you were on this cruise, I encourage you to file a claim, stop your payment, and contact the BBB or your attorney. I will never recommend Carnival to anyone, in fact, I will discourage anyone who even says the word Carnival from here on out. The only exceptional part of this cruise was the seriously underpaid wait staff and housekeeping. These people went out of their way to make you feel welcome and happy. These should be the people getting paid ridiculous amounts of money to run this multi billion dollar corporation, instead of the lazy people sitting at desks counting their dollars, sleeping well at night knowing they've screwed people out of their money..... I understand that our contract states that ports of call may be changed en route, and I understand if it were a weather related or medical concern. But this boat is obviously a piece of floating crap that has been having this same issue for almost a year and I feel deceived and cheated by not being informed of this problem before we embarked and by not being at least partially compensated for our inconvenience. If I wanted to go to Nassau, I would have taken the 20 dollar ferry from Ft. Lauderdale. Carnival could care less!