The one common theme that everyone should always expect is a CLEAN room with furnishings that work as they should. In used and older accomodations it would be normal for wear to be present and for things to be scratched up. What would not be normal is for the things to be present that were. -It’s as someone posted above in that it’s not acceptable for you to get food poisoning just because it wasn’t a $60 steak.

The OP does deserve a FULL refund and more. She was in no way given the accomodations contracted for, nor was the staff helpful at all. if anything, they should have moved her group, all expenses paid to a different ship in a much better cabin. Just because something is cheap doesn’t make it normal or OK for people to be treated like garbage or be made to endure the nonsense that the OP had to.

There were BUGS. Um, hello? The LEAST you should expect from a hotel/room on a ship, even if it’s NOT top of the line, is that it’s clean. The LEAST. It can be small, it can be barely furnished, totally plain and dirt cheap, but it at LEAST needs to be clean. That is not even remotely asking for much. At the end of the day, people are paying a lot of money to go on these cruises. I’m sure for a lot of them, it isn’t just a trip they take every year because they have money lying around. It’s important to understand that for most people, they’ve saved for a long time, and this trip is a huge investment. Again, some things might be lower than your expectations of course – nothing always goes perfectly. But when plunking down that much cash – which is still a lot for most people, even if it’s a “cheap” cruise line – the very least to expect is that there are no bugs.

As for the suggestion that she may have had attitude: Let me tell you something. I find a bunch of bugs all over my room, and you can bet there will be attitude. You can count on a whole lot of it. Anybody with any sense of decency receiving this complaint would be properly horrified, especially when finding out that it’s true.

I once went on a group trip to London the summer before my senior year of high school. We were given a basement room with bunk beds, no comforters, a moldy fridge, a bathroom with a shower head that didn’t attach, carpet that didn’t cover half the floor, and a lovely view of the laundry room. Imagine my roommate’s surprise when she opened the curtain to see the maids staring at her! It’s hilarious now, but what was disappointing was that it was the only room that hadn’t yet been refurnished. The rest of the rooms, as we saw when visiting friends, were just fine. Not fancy, but not the pit that we were in.

I think that’s sort of the main issue – when you know there are others on the cruise, who paid just as much money as you or even LESS, and are living in much better conditions, that’s what makes it all the more outrageous. People keep bringing up the idea of cost – well, you’re paying to live on a cruise ship for a week. The room wasn’t livable. So why should you pay anything?

I completely agree with Lianne’s comments and Joe Farrell’s. This ship is not extremely old and as long as a ship is in service, it should be maintained to a level fit for human occupancy. It sounds like Destiny needs to go to dry dock for a while. The fact remains that even the cruiseline accepted that there was an infestation. The fact remains that Carnival did not tell her they would fly the family home, it told the family that they would need to fly themselves home. Who cares if there’s a written guarantee if the company will not honor it? Do people really expect that a large corporation does the right thing every time? Then you’re the people I call naive.

The “compensation” given to the family is nil. As Iesha explained, Carnival downgraded her to an inside cabin. The money provided would barely make the difference between the fare classes.

It doesn’t matter what cruise line or motel or whatever, there are still requirements for human occupancy. Some of you sound like there should be class warfare going on between the haves and have-nots. “You, yeah, you the one who can’t afford Regent or Crystal, you get to stay home or accept garbage.” Really revolting.

It sounds like Carnival failed both in providing a cabin fit for human occupancy and customer service. I would recommend Iesha contact the CDC and report this. According to the CDC’s website, Destiny is in fine shape receiving a 94 in the last inspection on 5/8/08 but I’m not sure that includes cabins or just public areas.

Carnival just screwed up here. Again, they are not known for their customer service on land or at sea.

Don’t tell me, with the international and highly Asian biased crews these days that such a ‘cloud’ not have influenced the attitude, demeanor and actions of the Purser.

The bottom line is:

1) the Purser did not believe the passenger;
2) the Purser made zero effort at first to ascertain the level of cleanliness and infestation of the cabin;
3) the Purser could have easily made a 2 minute to the room to verify the claims of the passenger – but did not;
4) the Purser foisted the passengers concerns off on ‘maintenance,’ who took their usual time to respond to cabin concerns, which is 12 hours;
5) No one made an effort to ascertain of Lesha was a loyal guest with several cruise under her belt – if they had, and if she was- well, they needed to move a little faster
6) Lesha’s reaction was a natural one – ewwww, disgusting. To be ignored in that was terrible.

Yes, by all means, remove the comforters, check the sheets and bed corners. It is more likely than not these days you wil find critters.

Ms Walker paid for a nice, reasonably priced getaway with her family. She decidedly did NOT get what she paid for.

If I go out to Applebee’s and order a steak, its going to be a very different experience from going to Ruth Chris and ordering a steak. I know from the get that I’m getting a lower quality of beef, going to have to put up with noise from the bar and maybe some rowdy families or college kids. I accept that and pay for that as part of going to family chain eatery. I have no right to complain that its not the same experience as Ruth Chris.

However if I go to Applebee’s and get salmonella, that is completely unacceptable. I went out to a reputable chain that promises a certain level of product. Just because I spent $15 on a steak instead of $60 doesn’t mean the restaurant has some sort bizarre *right* to poison me.

Ms. Walker is not complaining because she bought Carnival and expected Seabourn service, she is complaining because she got the cruise line equivalent of a steak with salmonella.

Ms Walker, I sympathize with you. I hope Carnival investigates your case further and comes up with more appropriate compensation. It is a travesty that the staff onboard the Destiny were unable to stand behind Carnival published guarantee.

I have worked on board Carnival and have cruised with them. While I personally have not experienced the problems Iesha did, I do know that the pursers are dealing with chronic complainers on a daily basis. These are the folks who complain that the ice in their drink is too cold, or that somehow it’s Carnival’s fault that the ship had to be re-routed due to hurricanes. So when a legitimate complaint arises, as it did with Iesha, often the pursers cannot tell the difference. Even so, pursers are duty-bound to treat everyone with dignity, courtesy, and respect regardless of the passenger’s mood–which in this case, her bad mood was entirely justified. We plan these vacations and fork over our hard-earned money for them, we shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells to report a serious issue as well. She had a right to be angry and I didn’t hear anyone get personally abusive.

I do agree that Carnival appears to have subscribed to the capitalist notion that apologies lead to liability and therefore stalling is better than good customer response. Carnival had an excellent opportunity to gain themselves not only a lifelong loyalty in Iesha (not to mention the can’t-be-bought word of mouth advertising she’d have spread), and they blew it.

How can you tell if an exposed wire protruding from the wall (which would violate just about any building code for a commercial property I ever heard of) is live or not without touching it–or perhaps you expect passengers to equip themselves with a portable electronic test kit?

Dripping water, whether from condensation or a leak, is still moisture that leads to mold that leads to serious respiratory problems. The liability for that will be a lot higher than the cost of a cruise.

Do you think Iesha shot video of blank walls just to claim that there were bugs everywhere and get a free cruise out of it?

Finally, people: if you disagree, why be nasty about it? She had legitimate beefs and you treat her like this? She didn’t take anything from you–why be so cruel to her?

Also, a lot of people are citing the “you get what you pay for”. I’ve never been on a cruise, but I expected there to be a much higher standard than some local motel. If I rented a room at some crappy motel over the Marriot, I wouldn’t complain since I got what I paid for. But I just can’t imagine paying for a room on a luxery cruise line, and accepting anything so bad.

Just my $.02