Cruise Line: Carnival Cruises
Cruise Ship: Carnival Destiny
Cruise Destination: Southern Caribbean
Cruise Date: December 26, 2004 - January 2, 2005
Cruise Review Submitted by: Lynn Holliday
The purpose of this review is both to provide details with respect to our very long and stressful trip from Toronto on Sunday December 26 to embark the Carnival Destiny at San Juan for a 10 p.m. departure and then to provide our feedback regarding the ship and the cruise experience itself.
Before I get into that rather long and unwieldy story, I would like to say that the Cruise itself was very enjoyable and relaxing. Our cabin (an aft corner with L shaped balcony) was exactly what we hoped it would be.
Overall, everything went well for us once onboard the ship.
Getting onboard the ship, however, was quite the test of endurance and perseverance for all of us.....
In advance, I apologize for the length of this review.. But, frankly, it was LONG day and we were in transit from 6:30 a.m. until 9:55 p.m. in our endeavour to board our ship for what was intended to be a relaxing family vacation.
We arrived at the American Airlines check-in around 7 a.m. Check-in and security went smoothly and we made our way directly to the gate to wait for our flight. We were scheduled to depart at 9:36 a.m. on AA #1561 to arrive Miami at 12:57 p.m.
All of our air arrangements for the cruise were made directly with Air Transat Cruise Vacations. Although I am aware that I could have found less expensive tickets from Toronto to San Juan, we felt it best to let Air Transit and Carnival make the arrangements since they would then bear full responsibility for getting us onboard the ship.
I'm sure that passengers who make their own travel arrangements are "on their own" and not Carnival's responsibility if something goes awry with the arrangements along the way.
Sadly, things went very awry with OUR arrangements on departure day and Carnival provided us with no assistance whatsoever.
As we waited for our first flight of the day, we heard the gate agents many times call for volunteers to give up seats because the flight (on American Airlines) was oversold. Specifically they were looking for 8 seats and initially offered a US $250 travel voucher, meal voucher, and seats on the next available flight. Eventually they got the 8 seats they needed and began to board the aircraft. At this point I would guess we were 45 minutes late with boarding. I was somewhat concerned about our connection in Miami but not overly so since our connection was not too tight.
When the plane was pushed back from the gate, the cockpit announced that we would be going for de-icing (unsurprising since it was snowing lightly) before take-off. We proceeded to de-icing and probably spent about 20 minutes in total for this process.
The first really unusual event of the day occurred immediately following de-icing. For context, I will tell you that I am not truly a frequent flyer but I do generally fly 4-10 times a year with my children. In every one of those flights, I can remember the plane coming to a complete stop before going into the take-off roll. I am not certain what goes on up in the cockpit during this stop, but I've always assumed there are a few final pre-flight checks that happen at this point and usually I?m aware of increased sound from the engines as presumably the throttles are opened while brakes hold the plane stationary. In this particular flight, we literally came from de-icing onto the runway and accelerated into the take-off. In other words, we hit the runway running and then accelerated from there with no pause whatsoever. .
Now, I will fill in a bit of context here. My son Ryan is a certified computer technician and is experienced in building computers, networks, and websites. One of his major hobbies is to use flying simulation software and he has made some investments in this in terms of software and hardware. Of course this doesn't qualify him to fly anything "real", but it does mean that he has more than a rudimentary understanding of the process since to take-off, fly, and land even a virtual aircraft does require some skill and knowledge of the procedure.
In any event, at about the point in time where I would guess we were about a second from lift-off, there was a distinct change in the sound from the engines, the flaps came up, brakes came on, and it was instantly clear that the pilot(s) were now engaged in STOPPING the aircraft. When the aircraft (an MD-80 that Ryan commented "would be better employed with cargo" as he was rather surprised to find this aging aircraft servicing a busy route like Toronto - Miami) came to a stop at the end of the runway, the cockpit announcement indicated that only one of the two generators was functioning and that we could not leave the ground without 2 sources of electrical power. Therefore, it was back to the terminal for us.
Page 2 > > Carnival Destiny Cruise Review > >
Cruise Ship: Carnival Destiny
Cruise Destination: Southern Caribbean
Cruise Date: December 26, 2004 - January 2, 2005
Cruise Review Submitted by: Lynn Holliday
The purpose of this review is both to provide details with respect to our very long and stressful trip from Toronto on Sunday December 26 to embark the Carnival Destiny at San Juan for a 10 p.m. departure and then to provide our feedback regarding the ship and the cruise experience itself.
Before I get into that rather long and unwieldy story, I would like to say that the Cruise itself was very enjoyable and relaxing. Our cabin (an aft corner with L shaped balcony) was exactly what we hoped it would be.
Overall, everything went well for us once onboard the ship.
Getting onboard the ship, however, was quite the test of endurance and perseverance for all of us.....
In advance, I apologize for the length of this review.. But, frankly, it was LONG day and we were in transit from 6:30 a.m. until 9:55 p.m. in our endeavour to board our ship for what was intended to be a relaxing family vacation.
We arrived at the American Airlines check-in around 7 a.m. Check-in and security went smoothly and we made our way directly to the gate to wait for our flight. We were scheduled to depart at 9:36 a.m. on AA #1561 to arrive Miami at 12:57 p.m.
All of our air arrangements for the cruise were made directly with Air Transat Cruise Vacations. Although I am aware that I could have found less expensive tickets from Toronto to San Juan, we felt it best to let Air Transit and Carnival make the arrangements since they would then bear full responsibility for getting us onboard the ship.
I'm sure that passengers who make their own travel arrangements are "on their own" and not Carnival's responsibility if something goes awry with the arrangements along the way.
Sadly, things went very awry with OUR arrangements on departure day and Carnival provided us with no assistance whatsoever.
As we waited for our first flight of the day, we heard the gate agents many times call for volunteers to give up seats because the flight (on American Airlines) was oversold. Specifically they were looking for 8 seats and initially offered a US $250 travel voucher, meal voucher, and seats on the next available flight. Eventually they got the 8 seats they needed and began to board the aircraft. At this point I would guess we were 45 minutes late with boarding. I was somewhat concerned about our connection in Miami but not overly so since our connection was not too tight.
When the plane was pushed back from the gate, the cockpit announced that we would be going for de-icing (unsurprising since it was snowing lightly) before take-off. We proceeded to de-icing and probably spent about 20 minutes in total for this process.
The first really unusual event of the day occurred immediately following de-icing. For context, I will tell you that I am not truly a frequent flyer but I do generally fly 4-10 times a year with my children. In every one of those flights, I can remember the plane coming to a complete stop before going into the take-off roll. I am not certain what goes on up in the cockpit during this stop, but I've always assumed there are a few final pre-flight checks that happen at this point and usually I?m aware of increased sound from the engines as presumably the throttles are opened while brakes hold the plane stationary. In this particular flight, we literally came from de-icing onto the runway and accelerated into the take-off. In other words, we hit the runway running and then accelerated from there with no pause whatsoever. .
Now, I will fill in a bit of context here. My son Ryan is a certified computer technician and is experienced in building computers, networks, and websites. One of his major hobbies is to use flying simulation software and he has made some investments in this in terms of software and hardware. Of course this doesn't qualify him to fly anything "real", but it does mean that he has more than a rudimentary understanding of the process since to take-off, fly, and land even a virtual aircraft does require some skill and knowledge of the procedure.
In any event, at about the point in time where I would guess we were about a second from lift-off, there was a distinct change in the sound from the engines, the flaps came up, brakes came on, and it was instantly clear that the pilot(s) were now engaged in STOPPING the aircraft. When the aircraft (an MD-80 that Ryan commented "would be better employed with cargo" as he was rather surprised to find this aging aircraft servicing a busy route like Toronto - Miami) came to a stop at the end of the runway, the cockpit announcement indicated that only one of the two generators was functioning and that we could not leave the ground without 2 sources of electrical power. Therefore, it was back to the terminal for us.
Page 2 > > Carnival Destiny Cruise Review > >
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