I Survived Damn Near Everything

If you are going on a Carnival Cruise or thinking about going on one here is my survival list for you  and a list of suggestions for Carnival too.

Français : Le navire carnival elation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

1.  The Food – as far as having an enjoyable meal on your ship, forget about it.  The food was mediocre to what you would expect at a cheap restaurant buffet at best.  Every chicken dish was tough, I am beginning to wonder if that was chicken at all or some other tough bird.  Maybe it was old tough chicken.  Whatever it was terrible.  The beef was also tough and grainy.  The potatoes in the ramekins were not cooked through.   I do think your Pizza and your Panini’s were passable so my advice is eat Pizza and Panini’s while on board 3 times a day.  Sorry but the pasta wasn’t tender either.

2.  The Smell – the ship reeked of cigarettes every where.  I expect that in designated smoking areas, but this was everywhere and I think a lot of that is due to the fact that this is one old ship that needs renovating and possibly a complete cleaning but wait that would take it out of service for a week and ka-ching there goes some profit. (We sailed on the Elation).

3.  The Security – was missing.  Children were running amok everywhere.  They were holding races up and down the stairs against their counterparts who were in the Atrium elevators.  Also there was one 6 year old completely lost on the M deck, and no one was able to locate anyone to help him, where are the phones to call for help?  Parents this could have been your child.

4.  The Staterooms – are in fact dirty.  Smudged glassware, dirty desk drawers, dirty shelving in the closet.  No excuse for this at all other than your staff is not being supervised to do the job they are supposed to do.   I don’t need towel creatures, I need a clean stateroom.  I do not want to see cockroaches either.

5.   The Pool – has a sign no diving yet in fact people were diving.  There is a lawsuit just waiting to happen, as a cruise line are you afraid to speak up to those who break the rules?  And where was the lifeguard/supervision at the pools?

6.  The Shows – could use some updating this is 2012 not 1990.

7.  Double booking – of specific rooms for groups should never happen.  Yet it did, and that is just one hand not knowing what the other is doing.  Computer schedules are made for a reason, someone fell asleep at the wheel (thankfully not the Captain) and several of our meeting rooms had other groups assigned to them at the same time.

8.  The Drinks – since when does anyone order a soft drink and get handed an unopened can of soda and a glass of ice.  Whatever happened to opening the can and pouring the soda?

9.  The Sushi Bar – last year we sailed on The Liberty and we got real tuna, this year we got something called tuna paste.  It looked like it came out of a baby food jar – maybe you should cut corners elsewhere but not on the Sushi Bar.

10. The Ship – a vacation is something people save their money to go on and expect to be treated like guests in your house.  This is not so with your cruise line.  No guests of my house would ever go through what we went through on your ship, the worst being the bad food.  The Fun Ship is anything but and I will not recommend Carnival Cruise Lines to any of my friends or family and I won’t ever sail with you again.  I do realize you own quite of few other lines and that sailing on your upscale ships is a pleasure.  I will give that fact the benefit of the doubt with next year’s cruise on Princess but if it isn’t up to my standards I will be blogging, Tweeting, Facebooking, and more about how your WalMart style of cruising.  I would expect what I saw if WalMart owned and ran Carnival.  Shame on you – now go  find some more great hairy chests to film while the rest of us sail in sophistication.

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Dear Samsung USA,

You suck.  Sorry I cannot think of any other way to say it.  You flipping suck.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I get different call center people on the phone with every call.  They all do a terrific job of reading from your book of what they are allowed to say very well.  Their constant apologies are nauseating because they are not real.  Their “concern” or lack thereof is enough to really make me toss my cookies and they lie.

In fact your entire company lies.

Want to know who told me that?  The technician who came to fix my stove.  In fact he likes your company, it keeps him in business. But he warned me, your company lies.

Let’s get back to telling lies.

Last Wednesday your customer service rep, C——, told me my stove would be replaced based upon the fact that as a brand new appliance the repair service deemed it was the entire mother board that failed.  What C—— failed to tell me was that if the stove was repaired, it would not be replaced.

In the meantime the repair service ordered the part, called to install it and I said “NO, Samsung is replacing my stove.”  The repair service then pushed me to do the repair stating at least that way I would have a stove that did not fail with every use.” I did not know any better, it sounded good to me.  They repaired my stove today and that voided my chances of having it replaced.  Someone screwed up here and it wasn’t me. I bought new, I have a repaired brand new stove that’s bullshit.

My dishwasher, which I wrote about last time, needs a new touch pad.  This is your top of the line dishwasher WTF?  All four BRAND NEW APPLIANCES are down for the count and you think sending me a $50 gift card suffices?  That’s bullshit.

Let’s talk about that gift card.  Your customer service rep, C—–, asked me “Lowe’s or Best Buy?” I asked for Lowe’s – what do you think came in the mail today?  Best Flipping Buy.  Your company could not even get that right.  That’s bullshit.

So we went to hhgregg – they did the right thing.  From this point on they will handle any service calls I need because if I ever had to dial you repair line number again I would probably try to reach through the phone and rip someone’s lungs out.

But wait, if anything happens to my refrigerator, that was purchased from Famous Tate – so all bets are off, and my husband -did I mention he was one of the project managers on the Sear’s Tower, is loaded for bear.  It saddens me to think of all the people who don’t know how to take you on suffer in silence for your ineptitude in dealing with the public.  They get buffaloed into believing a call center rep who says “Call us if this happens again.”  That’s bullshit too.

I will be following this up the chain of command.  Somewhere I hope is someone who really cares.  In the meantime you failed miserably here.  Shame on your company.

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Englund as Freddy Krueger (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This survival story begins with the purchase of a stainless steel French door refrigerator.   We only had it a short while when we noticed it was not holding a cold temperature.  We called the Samsung customer service department, they ordered a repair service to come in to check it out.

Guess what he found?  A temperature sensor had been insulated over when it should not have been and that had to be replaced.  We were lucky our food did not spoil.

I was “in love” with my refrigerator and I posted pictures, I smiled every time I walked into the kitchen, it was my dream to own it. I could live with this small error on someone’s part.

We made the decision to sell the remaining appliances we had and replace them ALL with matching Samsung stainless steel.  Off we went to our local appliance store and when we left we had purchased Samsung’s newest duo-compartment double oven, the matching microwave and the most expensive dishwasher I have ever owned priced over $900 in the store.  By now we were close to having spent almost $5000 with extended warranties, delivery and installation charges and more.

Now I really loved my kitchen.  I posted more and more pictures all over the Internet and Facebook telling everyone I knew how much I loved my new appliances. I posted pictures of dinners, I posted recipes of the dinners.

22 days to the date of installing the microwave something inside caused it to arc and melt part of the plastic door.  I called SamsungUSA.  I also emailed them and complained on their Facebook page because I was getting no satisfaction.  They argued with me.  I am serious – they argued with me.  I wanted it exchanged out, they told me no.  The appliance store had to step in and fix this issue and they should not have had to do that.

That took about a week to resolve, nice job with customer service Samsung USA.

That’s 2 appliances now – brand new appliances with problems.

Last week I preheated the top section of my beautiful convection oven to slow bake some spareribs.  I had removed the top rack so my husband put it back into place when the oven signaled it was pre-heated.  We went out side to work on the yard for about 2 hours.  When I came in I went to peek at the ribs and they were raw.  The oven had kicked off.  I was just plain pissed.  Not only did I lose a great dinner, now I had SamsungUSA appliance #3 on the fritz.  I tried resetting the temperatures and kept getting error messages.

We called SamsungUSA and got one of their most highly untrained customer service reps on the phone.  First she tried to tell us she needed the model and serial number off the back of the stove.  We were dumfounded.  Do you know how hard it is to pull a stove away from the wall?  She kept insisting it was on the back.  I asked if maybe it was on the receipt.  Her answer was no.  Guess what.  She was wrong.  It gets better.  She then puts me on hold, comes back on the line and says “Oh I am so sorry the serial and model number are inside the warming drawer.”  DUH!!!!!

She proceeds to fill out whatever on her computer and tells me that she has notated everything and if it happens again we should call back.  Happens again?????!!!!!?????  Call back?????!!!!!????? She says there is nothing in her information that says there is something wrong.  There is something wrong if it happens one time is our way of thinking.  I demand a supervisor.  Amazing things happened, suddenly the rep schedules a service call.  Is this Samsung’s way of saving money?  Call back if it happens again????

Service tech comes out today – guess what?  The main board is fried on a brand new oven 7 weeks old which doesn’t get used that much, you see we grill out a lot.  We live in Florida.

I actually don’t trust my appliances now.  I do not trust SamsungUSA.  Over 823 of my best friends on Facebook are going to read this blog – the word will spread to think twice about what brand name you purchase in appliances.

It gets better – #4, the dishwasher, has already had some glitches.  I started it one day, came home to unload it, soap had dispensed, dishes were all dirty AND this top of the line dishwasher has a very touchy touch to start bar too.  I expect it to be the next call we make.

SamsungUSA dealing with you as been a nightmare.  I cannot recommend your appliances.  Your customer service is anything but that, and your quality control obviously is missing.  I am so sorry we spent $5000 for all this aggravation.  I am 100% totally disgusted with your appliances, your company, and the name Samsung will never be in my house again.

Did I mention we are successful real estate agents in Florida?  Did I mention many homes we sell need new appliances?  Shame on you, your company is the Freddy Krueger of major appliances – welcome to “Nightmare on Burbank Drive”.

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