Carnival Tampa Bay Port — Attraction in Tampa

The ship itself (Carnival Vista) requires maintenance due to severe health violations, such as visible mold on the ceilings of multiple decks (I have pictures of the mold). The mold was so severe that I was sick for 3 days in my room from a severe allergic reaction to the mold. I advised a supervisor in guest services on the ship of the mold and instead of saying “I am so sorry” or “what can I do to make this right?” was told by the supervisor "what do you expect me to do about it?" Clearly the management on the ship knows there is a mold issue because I saw with my own eyes commercial blowers in Havana trying to dry the carpets. I was not about to go see a doctor on the ship, fearing the price, after paying $28 for decongestant and cough medicine at the shops. I told the supervisor that I would see a doctor if the fee could be waived as these symptoms were ship related, and the supervisor told me that I would be charged (this occurred during the last 3 days of the cruise). As soon as we got off the ship, I drove back to Tampa to see my PCP. My symptoms were a direct result of mold exposure. The physician's diagnosis further proves that our trip was disrupted due to Carnival's lack of concern for the health, safety, and well-being of their customers. I was prescribed antibiotics because it had turned into a sinus infection, steroids, and an albuterol inhaler.

During the first night of dining, our waiter argued with my friend about her gluten allergy, stating that she did not have an allergy after she tried to order something off the gluten-free menu. She booked Carnival after being told multiple times there would be plenty of gluten-free options and "menu mates" throughout the ship. We both did not see one menu mate platform on the ship (as I have a sesame allergy myself.)

I was appalled at the “buffet.” When you think of a cruise, you think of all the delicious food. The three times we tried the buffet option, it was bare… and also provided minimal gluten-free options for my friend. There was one night I had cold potatoes, some weird spaghetti dish, and a hard roll for dinner. One morning she had cold beans for breakfast. And one morning I had what was supposed to be eggs benedict… but was a hard boiled egg on a mushy english muffin. The only real nice meal we had was the steakhouse we paid $50 each for.

My friend was screamed at from a bartender one morning due to a miscommunication with the receipts to be signed. She had ordered a drink and a bottle of water (we had the Cheers package). When she got the receipt she received multiple slips to be signed, and because both said zero, she had assumed that one was her copy, and the other was the ship's copy. She wrote "VOID" on one of the checks, as she thought it was her copy and wanted it to be thrown away. Instead of the bartender explaining to her that this copy also needed to be signed, he screamed at her and threatened that the next time she came to him for a drink, he would make her wait. She ended up speaking with the bar manager about this miscommunication, and the bar manager was appalled. Additionally, the bar manager knew exactly who she was talking about (which proves that this was not the first time this had happened.)

The lifeguards at the pool need to be trained, and much more attentive. There need to be more rules enforced at the pool. Not only were children unattended, but they were also disruptive. There were people literally pouring beer in the pool, squeezing limes into the pool water and nothing was done. At one point, my friend was kicked in the face in the jacuzzi! Children should not allowed to be in the jacuzzi, nor should they be unattended. There was one point where the kids were holding each other under water in the jacuzzi… we were going to let them drown each other because it is not our job to babysit other people's children while on vacation.

Overall, I was super happy to see my friends, who flew down, for a graduation celebration… we had a blast on the islands, but the cruise itself was the worst cruise...

I am currently on the Carnival Paradise, I got on the boat a little after 12pm, but couldn’t get into my room until 130pm and we didn’t leave the Tampa Bay port until 1230am because of “scheduled maintenance” like what in the world. So because of this no fun shops were open, the casino wasn’t open, had to pay taxes on drinks the entire first day even after spending over $600 on the cheers package and the premium WiFi I paid in advance for was not working so I took my phone off of airplane mode and really hope I find get charged roaming because the boat wasn’t moving but that’s a scary feeling as well as my carnival hub app wasn’t working, to where I finally just screenshotted it at 1121pm, didn’t show on my App Store where it needed an update but it was uninstalled and reinstalled the second day and came back up. I also had to unplug the carnival cash machine on the 8th floor because it froze on the lady in front of me and when she brought it to the attention of 3 staff members they said they couldn’t do anything about it. This is my 6th or 7th time on a carnival cruise and the worse one by far. Im celebrating my 2 year wedding anniversary and it doesn’t even feel like it with all the turmoil that took place on the first day. The only good experience was Drew Fraser was a really fun comedian and the music in the night club was really good for the 90s 2000s night. The line was so long at the front desk the first day that I brought all my concerns to Freda Hlawbchhing the guest services supervisor and she just didn’t care. She said oh well my WiFi was working, but what does her WiFi working have to do with my experience. Like I’m so happy for you that your WiFi worked but mine didn’t. And then she said oh everybody had a bad experience the first day and completely shrugged off my feelings. She did offer me a bottle of champagne for my anniversary but I told her the champagne that carnival has is nasty so she said oh well I was just doing that for your anniversary so if you don’t want it I just won’t send it like yall really need to pick better staff because this lady is not it. This is definitely my last carnival cruise, my husband said we need to look into royal...

My daughter suffers from celiac disease and when I made the reservation, I mentioned this to Carnival. When we checked-in, I went to guest services and mentioned my daughter’s condition and I was told it will be added to their system. For every meal she had a hard time finding gluten free options, and when she would place an order, the food took forever. She would get her order when everyone else had almost finished eating. During dinner the restaurant would give my daughter the menu for the following night to choose something for dinner. One night we came to dinner and we were told the menu she was given the night before was for a different cruise and they had nothing ready for her. Another day my daughter went a dessert station and they had a gluten-free cake and my daughter asked if they could use a different knife to cut a piece of the gluten-free cake and she was told they didn’t have an extra knife. This meant cross-contamination. Another night, my daughter was told she’ll have the “chef’s recommendation” because they didn’t take her order the night before. She wasn’t given an option and the chef’s recommendation was salmon which my daughter doesn’t eat. Two days into out four day cruise, my daughter started having gastrointestinal symptoms, which lasted days after we finished the cruise. This meant that at some point she had eaten something that had gluten. One night after dinner, I talked to the restaurant manager and he said that “he will look into the situation”. I don’t believe Carnival understand the seriousness of consuming gluten when you’re not supposed to. It is a serious heath risk! And I’m very disappointed about this. After the cruise, my daughter wasn’t able to go to school for three days because of her symptoms. My family and I thought we would enjoy this cruise, but instead we spent time talking to several people about my daughter’s allergy and worrying about how she was feeling. Because of the way she was feeling, she barely ate the last haft of the cruise. Carnival needs to do a better job training the staff about health issues like this and following a...