jonesbf:
I'm taking my full rig on our cruise and was wondering if you guys would check the bag or carry everything on yourself? Either way my reg & computer are being carried on.
I would definitely carry it on. Get yourself a bag on wheels or a backpack style bag that's easy to carry. Without weights and tank, it won't be that heavy.
I'm speaking from experience here. The first cruise my wife and I ever took...on Carnival...should be named Circus, we checked two bags. One was our dive gear and the other was all of our freshly purchased cruise attire. The bag with all of our clothes ended up on the Carnival ship going in the opposite direction. By the time the mistake was realized, the ships were hundreds of miles apart. They refused to send us the bag, opting instead to reimburse us $350 ships credit apiece(which we had to fight for). They said we had to wait to get back to Miami to get the bag. My wife was heart broken...if you've ever seen the picked over selection and outrageous prices the ships stores have, you'll understand why...The 350 ships credit doesn't go far. And I emphasize ships credit, not cash that you could go spend in a port to purchase clothes at a decent price. She was pissed off for the entire seven day cruise. I figure after markup, the cruise line was out maybe $200 or so. When we got back to port, it took a couple of hours to find the bag thrown in a corner of the warehouse they herd you through at the end of the cruise. It looked like it had been run over by the forklift they loaded it on the wrong ship with. They refused to compensate us for the destroyed bag and the oilstained clothes inside, saying they felt the shipboard credit was compensation enough. All in all, we were out $150 for a top of the line American Tourister suitcase and at least $400 worth of destroyed brand new clothing, not to mention having to endure the cruise in Carnival shorts, Carnival t-shirts and flip flops.
Sorry about the rant...the point I am making is it could just have easily been our very expensive dive gear instead of some pricey cabana clothes. After that, we vowed never to cruise on Carnival, never trust our bags to anyone and to purchase cruise insurance. The funny thing is, during the cruise, when they would distribute the daily ships newspaper, there were a couple of flyers everyday with a "have you seen me?" caption and a representative picture of someones lost bag. So there were some bags that just evaporated and were never found. If those people didn't have cruise insurance, the cruise line is only responsible for $350 per bag.
We have our revenge, though. Since then, my wife and I have become travel agents and have steered literally several thousands of dollars away from Carnival after relating that story to clients and we will continue to do so.