Carnival Addresses Complaint
Carnival ambassador, John Heald, fielded a complaint this week on his Facebook page about Carnival not providing a dedicated space for roll-call meet-ups as well as not providing snacks and prizes. The complainant went on to say that Royal Caribbean does it, so Carnival should as well. John Heald replied with what was, in my opinion, a very polite response to what came across as a rather rude accusation.
Once again, John Heald took the high road while fielding a complaint from an unhappy cruiser. He said that while he loves to see that cruisers are getting together and meeting new people, he can no longer arrange indoor rooms for these events and instead suggested that guests use a location like the pool bars or the pubs and breweries to meet. The complaint also said that wristbands had been requested from Carnival in order to recognize other members of their group, to which John Heald suggested members could choose to wear the same color shirt or something similar in order to recognize one another. He did say that if an organizer of one of these meetups would like to write to him on his Facebook page the day before their cruise, he could have a couple things sent to their cabin to use as prizes.
Personally, I don’t think it is the responsibility of a cruise line to provide anything for a group that isn’t sponsored by the line itself unless the group pays for those perks. While a line providing champagne and prizes for one group of 20-40 people per cruise doesn’t seem that costly, there is no reason to believe that the requests would actually stop there. Often there are multiple groups that you can join whether on Facebook or another site for each cruise. And each group will have hundreds of members and multiple events planned. I’ve been in groups that have had all sorts of events planned from slot pulls to cabin crawls.
I always join the Facebook group for upcoming cruises, but I rarely interact in the group. Honestly, I am rarely on Facebook at all anyway, but I do check out the groups every once in awhile to see if there is information about the cruise that might be beneficial, especially if it is a line or ship new to me. Twice mom and I have gone to meet ups. Once it was a shot glass exchange and once we met up at a pool bar just like John Heald suggested. When we met at the pool bar, the Red Frog Rum Bar, everyone was supposed to wear Mardi Gras beads to recognize others in the group. Since then, I’ve never participated in a meet up because I’ve never actually talked to anyone from those meetups afterwards. Maybe I am too introverted to meet people when in large group settings because I have found it so much easier to meet people organically while hanging out during a trivia game or maybe waiting for a drink at one of the ship’s bars.
I’d love to know if you join the Facebook groups, and if so, do you participate in meet ups or just lurk in the group like me. Drop your answer in the comments.
Cruising From The Ozarks 