Yea this sums up Carnival for all its PLUSES.
My last 4 out of 5 cruises have been CCL. I'm a gold member now or something.
Can't beat their price (especially now with so much bad press) and they offer nice ports. I hope you are going to Roatan!!!
My last cruise was a DCL and I'm completely hooked with its magic. I can still be objective about comparing the two lines. Can't speak specifically to the Elation but my last was Dream this yr (literally week before it stranded for a few weeks in St Maar), Conquest last year, Triumph yr before, Holiday prior.
The above are definitely the pluses. The food is also very hearty like lasagna type food.
Here are also things to expect:
You can bring one or two bottles of wine aboard but after that, your bags will be scanned and your liquor purchases on the ports will be held until the night prior to debarkation.
When you set foot on the ship, there will be a bar tender there to literally hand you a beautiful looking fruity drink right there in the bar lobby to celebrate your embarkation. Dont except it because they will scan your card and charge you $9.75 or something plus gratuity. If you want to order a drink, of course that is up to you. Just be aware of this tactic. This is the start of the constant drink sales that start early and go non stop. Anytime you lounge on deck, go to a show or karaoke or practically sit anywhere, someone will repeatedly ask what they can get you. He will come to your MDR table with his pad out and ready to take your drink order. If you order a glass of water to get you ready for SuperStar Karaoke ,they will likely never come back. They do not like to bring free water. Not being overly negative, this is just part of their profit margin since they have low rates and want to make it up on drink sales. I always thought this was part and parcel of cruising until I walked on to the Disney dream and realized there was no lobby bar...
The elevators are famous for taking a really long time so be sure and be prepared for lots of stairs. This isn't a bad thing all the time. But it can be a pain if you want to bring breakfast down from the buffet and need an elevator. I noticed less of a prob getting elevators on Disney dream. Maybe because we late late dining? Not sure.
If you book any excursions thru CCl, you will be charged in full for it on the spot with a credit card, not room credit. (Even months in advance) DCL is the only line I have seen that didn't charge you in full until close to or your excursion.
Your dinner will be at the same table every night. Expect some waiter singing or a dance just about every night. This hails fr the days of the waiters dancing "hot hot hot" back in the 90s with the flaming deserts on their heads but isn't anything that good any more. The waiters don't want to do the samba ruffle sleeves any more and it honestly halts the entire dinner service. (Disney was smart about this. Crush entertains us and dinner service continues.)
The appetizers are very small so prepare for that..literally 4 Lil bitty shrimp make the shrimp cocktail so you should order a couple things. The soups are all good and they have some Indian dishes and vegetarian options. Speaking of vegetarian, I was over the moon with a mid east slash Indian lunch buffet and hit it every day for three days... Until that night and I felt very very close to food poisoning that night. The next day, I only ate fish and fruit. Never ate the Tandor buffet again after that and prob never will again.
I sure do love feta too! But I question that they reused the buffet items? I can still feel the stomach pain...this isn't 100% for sure. Sure does make for uncomfortable night life and 80s dancing...
The hotdog grill closes and doesn't open til like midnight or something which seemed odd to me. Pizza bar I think stays open. Last yrs conquest had the most incredible pizza. Goat cheese all the works. This last one was sauceless thin crust dry and greasy....only had it once cuz it was a let down. Not sure why it varied so much ship to ship. Sign of decline from the good points of my previous trips.
As for embarkation, getting on and off for the islands, expect lots of lines. I actually felt like I was in line half of my trip. Lines for hotdogs, lines for checking out the gift shop items, lines for getting into the MDR, lines at the stair way to get off the ship, long lines to get back on and check in. New Orleans is not as easy as PC to embark. Even with my ccl out of PC did in find this to be the case. But i do like NOLa as its very convenient.
I've had great service and aboniminal service on my ccls. Sounds like that is the case for any line nowadays. Hope yours is like our Triumph service. Not Conquest or Dream.... Both of which were terrible. We would be missing the comedy shows because dinner service wasn't done or have to take desert to go with us so we could catch them.
Be prepared for big screen bingo in the main theater while you wait. Of course they tell everyone to get there 30 min beforehand to get seats so everyone gets there early. So then they conveniently have a game of bingo while you wait as they try to sell as many $20 cards as they can. I don't play bingo or raffles or lottery or anything that involves taking from others who put money in and hoping to be the lucky one that gets it. This got really old. As did going through the smokey casino on promenade deck. Not sure when they started making promenades where you take all the portraits and get from dinner to show or lounge the casino deck but they do. I would start going through the other decks with rooms so I could get there directly to avoid it...and the congestion was terrible. A hallway thoroughfare is a bad place to put trivia games and photo portraits. These guys also heckle you as you walk by every day "come get your photo!"
We did get to dress up and take old time wild west photos this time which was super fun. Costumes a bit worse for wear but it was one of the more fun things we did at night. I bought a group one.
Some of the cruise ships have a sushi bar. Woo woo! Conquest last yr did, dream didn't. Cut backs again?
Our itinerary was crappy in that we had to all aboard about 1:45 to leave at 2pm from Nassau meaning our tour options were less since it was short. You might say "you knew the itinerary when you booked it". True but our friends chose that cruise 5 months before we booked it. This last time we got to do the Sea lions and BL with Disney because we were there long enough which is what cruising ports is all about...
Go to the Carnival Legends try outs. This last one was literally one of the funniest nights of my life. This 90 yr old grandma got up and was dancing to all the songs as the people tried out. I guess you'd have to have been there. I have been Britney twice. I hope they get a new show throw cuz its been the same one for yrs and yrs.
Other wise, expect a country western or 70s line dance class on the stage on usually the first night. They will encourage you to sign up for free raffles like shopping or spa packages and announce them all over the ship all the time. Yes the prizes are great but you must sit thru 45 min of sales presentations and be present to the end of it to win. I wasted several sea days with this and will not be suckered into it again. Again, until DCL, I didn't know that this wasn't how all cruise lines were. Also be prepared for canned games like newly wed games where you know they have been coached to say dirty stuff just to make the audience chuckle. We have gone to several of these and the answers are always the same.
The cabins are not like DCL although I never had an interior with Disney and did with CCL. Mom n dad upgraded to a pretty swanky suite. But the shower is the bathroom with a shower curtain divider and only a metal bar to "keep" the water inside the shower. Its really a joke because its slides down your curtain and still gets all over the floor. Our towels were always soaked. There is no where to put your shampoo bottles because with no tubs there are no ledges. They have a dispenser but that didn't help me with Rapunzel hair to my butt, I needed lots of conditioner and dropped it and my razors non stop because there is literally no where to put anything while you are showering. My friend slipped in her bathroom and hit her big toe on the bar and said blood was everywhere.
Its not Disney so no movies on demand. We went thru the same cable channels over and over, same movies were playing all week. No Disney pics or music throughout as everything is very generic like a hotel. You will more than likely see some seriously drunk people, we always do.
Expect poppers and lockers and shows with neon black lights. Its like they copied Americas Got Talent. Same generic singing and dancing and usually some country western show that is quite cliche. My hun never stayed long but he loved the DCL shows.
There won't be any princesses that is for sure! But it is room and board and food and amazing destinations. If that's what you want, you should be happy.
If all this is a spoiler alert well you did ask. Let us know what you think when you get back!
Bon voyage!
Lots of trivia contests through the day (with the prize being a genuine gold-plastic ship on a stick!)
