Carnival Cruise strategy - move the labor pain to its clients

We discussed last night with my wife about the last day's experiences at the Carnival ship. The management of the crew made us all aware how hard the crew works 24x7, how unappreciative some of that work was and how much they were missing their family...

The next we knew, they were spreading letters to the clients... by saying that it is to the discretion of each one of us to put money in the letter... The cruise line had advertised that each client has to pay each day a specific amount as tip that would be spread around the employees. That's it... No worries about how much to pay..

So, please Carnival cruise.... Stop spreading your own disgust that you have on your labor conditions to you clients. If you feel so bad, pay these hardworking guys more....

Plaza Las Americas - Huge mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico

The experience of Plaza Las Americas is a plesant one and according to my wife (she knows better), it is better to many other malls in Texas.

We decided to check out the new movie "Miami Vice" with my son in the Caribbean Cinemas at Plaza las Americas. We had to check first that it is not dubbed to spanish as we would not be abnle to understand anything.

Borders was a big one and had a good selection of both business and IT books as these are something that I love to explore.

We are back in San Juan - rating of the trip

The ship arrived to San Juan early in the morning on Sunday. The weather in San Juan is rainy, but as it is warm, it really does not matter.

Today, we will head towards the "Mall of Americas", which supposingly has Borders bookstore and that is what I need now. Also, we need to continue exploring the old San Juan town as we did not have a chance to do that as well we wanted before the cruise.

How do we rate this trip.... I would say average from Carnival Cruise perspective, and perfect from family perspective. We have decided to explore other cruise lines as well to see what alternatives one has on these trips.

Carnival Cruise and labor conditions

I am not sure how to feel about all of the hard working guys on these cruise ships.... they are working their tail off.... I have now seen first hand how a company can use its employees when a labor union is not involved. As an example.... the waiters in this ship are working 7 days a week with a lunch break... They are doing it for 6 to 7 months in a row... and what is interesting is that they have to renew their contract after this.... How convinient to Carnival Cruise.... These guys start fresh each time and they can get rid of the guys that they do not want... I think that people in the western world has to realize how well they are taken care of....

Do Carnival pay for the trips back home....? Of course not.... Each employee has to doi it themselves.... So that will eat up a big chunck of the income that these guys have earned...

I kind of feel bad to see this exploatation....

Last day on sea - is it for me?

As an active business person, I am not sure whether I am the right person to just sit and take sun while the ship sails. I used to have a nice boat while we lived in Finland, so I was the one navigating and making decisions on the route. I do know that I like the "one-day-in-each-island" concept, so I am sure to return to some of these cruises.

I also used the gym today, it was very nice and I recommend this type of activity to anyone that participates on these cruises.

Tomorrow morning we will return to San Juan and the Sheraton we stayed in the beginning of our trip.

Some advice to Carnival Cruise

Our stop in the beautiful Caribbean island St Lucia ended up us having to stay in the ship and closeby duty free shops. All of the Carnival Cruise arranged tours were cancelled due to heavy rain. However, Carnival Cruise did nothing to promote all of the outside entreprenours that would have been more than happy to arrange things for clients.

This is in fact my first Caribbean trip and I now know what the deal is. The money that these cruise lines are making is not coming from the cruise fee itself, but the drinking (not included in the cruise fee), all of the arranged tours etc.. So be prepared to double your trip budget so you can enjoy your journey.

St Lucia needs to be explored again

The St Lucia port looked very nice and we need to come back to St Lucia at a later date.

There are two airports in St Lucia, the one in south is a larger international airport and a smaller airport in the city where Carnival Cruise stayed for the day.

The last day is spent on a ship with the theme "Fun at Sea Day". This morning we were seated with four other nice people from Dallas, Texas and we exchanged contact information so we can be in touch later on.

Our kids have spent lot's of time in the kids club and they seemed to have enjoyed it very much. My son got to spend one night to 3.30 AM with other kids.... Overall, Carnival Cruise has arranged this side very well....

Stay tuned....

St Lucia - a memory of the past

St Lucia brings lots of memories to me. When I was around 12 years old, a girl in my class with relatives from the famous Eriksson family (Mariehamn, Aland) was supposed to move to St Lucia of some reason, but it never happened.... I am not sure why....

We arrived to St Lucia early in the morning (07.00 AM EST) and the weather was cloudy and rainy. We are about to leave for our last arranged tour, this time a 4X4 Adventure that let's us explore the nature from some kind of 4X4 vehicle. Let's see how the trip turns out.

Most beautiful gym in the world?

I decided to do som workout yesterday in probably one of the most beautiful gyms from a scenery perspective. The Carnival Destiny cruise liner has its gym in the 10th floor with windows as walls so you can enjoy the scenery while you work out. My scenery was the beautiful Barbados....

The gym even has a Scandinavian style sauna... I was first sceptical anbout it, but it really is a true sauna...

One needs to test out both...

Sea Turtles and old shipwreck in Barbados were unreal

We spent almost 4 hours on a guided trip where we had a chance to swim with sea turtles in natural environment. I have to say that we enjoyed the day very much.

It looks like Barbados is a place we are going to come again as we did not have time to visit the downtown area at all. Next time we will do it.

Now we are on our way to St Lucia, which is on the west side of Barbados... so we are on our way back to San Juan direction.

This has been very enjoyable trip and I have specifically enjoyed the fact that I have been together with my dear family.

Some glitches in the service when posting to blogger using the cell phone - posts in incorrect order

It looks like blogger.com did not get my posts as expected... so the readers of the blog might be wondering the order of the posts...

The trip destinations are as follows:

Flight Dallas, Texas - San Juan Puerto Rico

Carnival Cruise trips as follows:

San Juan- St Thomas
St Thomas - Dominica
Dominica - Barbados
Barbados - St Lucia
St Lucia - San Juan

The trip was cut short with one day due to problems with this Italian-made ship.... so instead of 7 days, it will sail for 6 days.

Cingular works well in Southern Caribbean - full GRPS access

I was surprised how well my GSM phone works in the Carribbean islands. Puerto Rico, St Thomas and today Dominic has full singular access so I have been able to access my email each day, which to me is unreal!

Now we are sitting in a tour bus on hour way to rainforest.... This island is volcanic.

Stay tuned....

Puerto Rico, San Juan as hub of South Caribbean

Our trip to South Caribbean started from San Juan. American Airlines has a direct flight from Dallas, Texas to San Juan and as always, the travel with AA was a pleasure (as Executive Platinum they treat you well).

We stayed the first night at the Sheraton by the Carnival Cruise terminals, the distance from the hotel to the dock was a short walking distance.

The second night we spent at a golf resort in Embassy Suites, Dorado del Mar. Very nice location, but far too many people for me to enjoy the pool... One could hardly see the water in the pool... not something I care about. It did not disturb my kids... they enjoyed it for a full day!

The cab drive to and from Embassy Suites was 70 US both ways so that is something one has to consider when selecting the hotel.

We spent a nice evening in the old downtown of San Juan, we even found a Starbucks that had been recently opened. Sorry.... Prisoner of habits... My venti soy latte is important....

The ship took off to St Thomas very late in the evening.... 10.00 PM local time. In the morning, 07.00 AM the ship arrived... If you can, I suggest you check out the rising sun each morning and enjoy the arrival to each new port that the cruise line takes you.

Stay tuned...

First evening on the boat

Our not so good experience with Carnival Cruise continued in the evening by not making to the main evening dinner. We were instructed to go to the buffet with million other guests and this was a real mess.

We survived the evening and will enjoy the beauty of St Thomas today. When we woke up in the morning, we could see this unbelievable view over St Thomas. Time to go ashore.

Barbados - here we come

The ship departerted Dominica at 06.00 PM EST and sailed the whole night to Barbados and arrived to Barbados 08.00 AM.

The dock is far too far from the downtown area, so one has to take a cab or arranged trip to see the town.

Today, we will be participating in an excursion that that takes us to see sea turtles and do some snorkling. That is going to be cool....

I just went to see the gym on the ship today.... Unreal... thet have a real Scandinavian sauna with full-fleged sauna. That is way too cool... maybe I get to test it at least once during the trip...

Cruise is getting better every day

Yesterday night (Thursday) was a formal night with lots of very nicer looking people with evening dresses on. Fortunately I had my blue Turo dress pants with me, but no tie.... Next time, I need to fix that...

A piece of advice, the first night would have been completely different, if we had made it to the main dinner. It kind of spoiled the night as we had to stand in a 100 mile line to get "not so special food". Since the first night, things have been very good and I have no complaints.

It is very obvious what the cruise line is doing in respect to its employees.... Almost all of them are from South-east Asia so no need to pay anything.... Sad but reality..

Dominica - a proud nation with lot's of infrastructure building to do

I had the pleasure to participate in a arranged excursion to the rain forest that is one of the protected sites of UNESCO. My kids had the chance to swim in a pond that was directly connected to a waterfall.

We also had a chance to experience a song and dance performance by native young adults in the middle of the rain forest.

So the question that comes to my mind after this visit.... The people is very proud of its inheritance, which is obviously a foundation for larger success. Do I believe this old commonwealth country is there yet...? No, with a big no... After the tour, we were thinking of walking around the town of Rose, but this was dissrupted very quickly as we were approached by so many beggars and other people that were in the need of money... The cruise ship arrives here once a week on low season (which we are in now) and four times during the high season.

Did we experience the rain.... yes... It was raining on and off.... and mist everywhere...

All of the houses are built of concrete, not wood, and the explanation of this is the hurricanes that visits the area every now and then...

Would I stay here for a vacation for several days... no... But I loved to visit and see the friendliness of people... It is all about our framework. of consiouness... What we do not know about.... we can not dream or worry of....

Overall, good experience...

St Thomas was unreal

Our excursion in St Thomas was very nicely arranged and we saw the beauty of the island from a pre-arranged excursion. I have seen lots of beautiful places, but this ranks to the top by any measurement. We took lots of pictures of which I shall post a few when I get the chance.

From St Thomas, the trip continued to a volcanic island Dominic, which is told to have rain 365 days a year. When we arrived to the island early in the morning, it looked exactly the same as in the latest King Kong film. This island had also the pleasure to host the latest film "Pirates of the Caribbean - 2 with Johnny Depp. This island is very, very far in the west.

Stay tuned of comments from this island.

First evening on the boat

Our not so good experience with Carnival Cruise continued in the evening by not making to the main evening dinner. We were instructed to go to the buffet with million other guests and this was a real mess.

We survived the evening and will enjoy the beauty of St Thomas today. When we woke up in the morning, we could see this unbelievable view over St Thomas. Time to go ashore.

Carnival Cruise - is this their first time doing boarding

The departure of the ship was delayed for one day and when we called Carnival Cruise, they calmly told us to arrange a hotel room by ourselves... no help was provided. We did find a hotel 45 minutes away from the harbor and that cost us 400 dollars plus the cab... Sweet...

With high hopes, we got to the dock at 02.00 PM and there was this uncredible amount of people standing in a line... Old, young, large, small people and it took us 3 hours 30 minutes to get to the ship. I am not sure where these people get their organizing skills, but they should really get their act together.

We also heard that they will cancel the trip to Aruba and instead do St Lucia.... which is also kind of dissapointment to say at least. The ship will have its first stop at St Thomas for a day. I hope the rest of the trip goes as planned...

Stay tuned...

Welcome to my WorldTravel pages

I decided to open this blog to keep a record of my travel arounf the world. I am in the fortunate position to do what I love best, which is to be an entreprenur and this takes me to all over the world.

I will include photos and other exciting stuff on this blog so I hope you will enjoy the ride!

Stay tuned....