Cause for Celebration!!

Carnival Celebration Cruise Review

Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Reviews: 4
Helpful Votes: 49

Overall rating:

4.3 out of 5
Carnival Celebration

7 Night Eastern Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)

Sail date: September 17, 2023

Ship: Carnival Celebration

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 9510

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 8 months ago

Review summary

This was a great cruise! The ship is beautiful and we will sail on her again because we missed some things.

Embarkation

5 out of 5
Embarkation was a breeze. We used the facial recognition technology(passport holders) and we were onboard in no time.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5
Only rating this three stars because of the buffet. The buffet was pretty bad. Not much to choose from and not much flavor. But, in my opinion, I think this is being done by design. The new class of ships now offers so many more dining options and some of them are paid. Carnival wants you to branch out and get away from the buffet and that’s what we ended up doing.

Seafood Shack

3 out of 5

We ordered the fried shrimp and crab legs. We had this on the Carnival Sunrise and it was amazing. Seasoned perfectly. What we had on this ship left a lot to be desired. Barely any old bay at all and the shrimp was fried too hard. A bit pricey but we had a taste for seafood and this hit the spot.

Cucina del Capitano

5 out of 5

We had dinner here once and I really enjoyed it. The chocolate martini was made perfectly. I had the minestrone soup and the spaghetti carbonara. No complaints. Taste great! The tiramisu was a little too sweet for me so a few bites is all I had of that.

Guy's Burger Joint

3 out of 5

I usually love Guys burgers but this time around I wasn’t impressed. We usually have one every day for lunch but this time we only went twice. The taste just wasn’t the same and the fries even seemed to be different.

Carnivale and Festivale Restaurants (Main Dining Rooms)

5 out of 5

We only ate here 3 nights but the food was well prepared and flavorful. We always choose my time dining and the wait on the app would day 40-50 min but we were always seated within half hour. The crème brûlée, baked Alaska, short ribs and barramundi fish were delicious.

Miami Slice

3 out of 5

For a late night snack, this was okay.

Lido Marketplace

2 out of 5

If you are desperate for something quick to eat, stop here and grab a salad. My husband placed this buffet on the level of a school cafeteria.

JavaBlue Café

5 out of 5

We went daily for our morning coffee and latte, also for a Spirit of Kentucky bourbon whiskey milkshake and a strawberry milkshake with vodka. We didn’t try any of the pastries or sandwiches.

Emeril’s Bistro 1397

5 out of 5

This restaurant deserves a 10!! We ate here on our first night and we really should have went again but we wanted to try other venues. The fried oysters were just delicious. I had two orders of them. The beignets were almost as good as what I get in New Orleans. My husband had the jambalaya and his only complaint was that it wasn’t a big enough serving.

Chibang!

5 out of 5

Excellent! We ordered the Hakka noodles, spicy shrimp and beef and broccoli. Just delicious. The serving size was just right. Nothing wasted and we were satisfied.

BlueIguana Cantina

4 out of 5

We had breakfast here on one of our port days and the burrito was good. A quick bite before getting off the ship.

Big Chicken

4 out of 5

The chicken strips were really good but the fries were wafer thin, hard and dry.

Onboard Activities

5 out of 5

Casino

5 out of 5

The smoke free casino is great! The ventilation system is awesome because I never smelled any smoke from the smoking casino and I was in the casino, nightly.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5
We were on deck 9 in a aft balcony stateroom. Our attendant was Christine and she was just great. Our room was the perfect size for us and the balcony was directly above the Havana pool area.

Ship Quality

5 out of 5
We really loved the layout and design of this ship. It’s so different from the other Carnival ships we’ve sailed on. It’s a huge ship that holds lots of people but we never seemed crowded or had to search for a seat to sit and eat. The elevators are very small so that could have been designed better. Everything was clean and sanitized.

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5
The size of the room was perfect! We had enough room for what we needed. Lots of storage under the bed and the closet was spacious.

Ship tip

If you’re planning to sail the Celebration, invest in good walking shoes. As I said before, the elevators are small so we just took the stairs many times so walking shoes were definitely handy.

Ports of call

Philipsburg, St. Maarten

5 out of 5
St. Marteen is my favorite island!! We’ve been here many times by air and sea. We didn’t do any excursions this time around. We just took the water taxi over to Great Bay and did some shopping and went to the beach.

Amber Cove (Puerto Plata), Dominican Republic

4 out of 5
Beautiful port. We just walked over to the free beach area for the day and had a relaxing beach day.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

3 out of 5
We took a tour of Old San Juan. $20pp with a local tour guide. It lasted 90 minutes with stops for drinks, photos and restroom. Definitely worth the money.

Miami, Florida

3 out of 5

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
We were off the ship before 10am. A little slower than what we have done before but not bad. We will definitely sail on the celebration again.

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