“After your Carnival cruise, you’ll return home with oversized memories of amazing experiences in hugely fun destinations, one of which is the ship itself. Memories this big are made to be shared.”^[1]

This colorful marketing ploy plastered on Carnival Corporation’s website is what the world’s most popular cruise ship company is using to attract customers. While it’s true that your Carnival cruise will probably be memorable, too often the memories are filled with horror.

Take the company’s occasional mass food poisonings, for example. That has caused many a bad memory for sickened passengers, especially after having been enticed by Carnival advertising such as this: “If taste buds can make memories, yours will savor your Carnival cruise for years. Step aboard and enjoy everything from eat-it-anytime casual fare to dress-up-to-chow-down multi-course steakhouse meals. Anywhere you look you’ll find a great variety of food, made from fresh ingredients by chefs who specialize in delighting your palate.”^[1]

But trapping customers on an infected ship is by no means the only public relations disaster that Carnival has endured in recent years. The company’s ship Costa Concordia almost sunk in 2012, and its Carnival Triumph caught fire in 2013. And now, one of its employees was just crushed to death by an elevator on the Carnival Ecstasy cruise ship, terrifying onlooking passengers who witnessed the waterfall of blood flowing out of the elevator doors. One of the witnesses even compared it to a scene in the movie “The Shining.” Indeed, ecstasy it was not.^[2]

Despite all the bad publicity, however, Carnival Corporation still stands by its promise: “It doesn’t matter where you cruise to — there’s Carnival-style fun waiting at every port.”^[1]

Are you willing to bet on it?

Sources used:

[1] Carnival.com

[2] DailyMail.co.uk