Good Family Trip Outside USA

Item: Carnival Elation
Rating: 4.3
Author: teesibristol

Carnival Elation Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

teesibristol

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 35

Overall rating:

4.3 out of 5

5 Night Eastern Caribbean (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)

Sail date: June 01, 2019

Ship: Carnival Elation

Cabin type: Inside

Cabin number: M84

Traveled as: Large Group

Reviewed: 5 years ago

Review summary

Good trip for our group of 12 (7 boys ages 8-15) and 5 adults. Our bill at checkout was higher than we expected. There are additional taxes and gratuities placed on everything (no tax at sea however). Elation could use a few more dining options and I was unable to find a general merchandise shop on board . All in all, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for our family to spend time together with a first cruise experience for our kids and grandsons.

Embarkation

5 out of 5

Very Good - Easy getting onto the ship. Rooms not ready - so had to carry some bags around for awhile.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5

Very disappointed in the buffet. The main dining room dinner meals were excellent (Imagination - anytime dining), Guy Fieri's Burgers were excellent & the Taco Bar was excellent. Drinks were pretty good but liquor drinks pretty expensive & beers 8+.

Onboard Activities

3 out of 5

only 1 pool onboard (salt water). Slides were good but needed some foam guards around edges - MANY kids fell around small slide end.

Entertainment

5 out of 5

The Wild Cards in Drama Lounge were Excellent. They have a wide range of music they covered that EVERYONE enjoyed. We enjoyed Jack Barnes Guitar Soloist, Epic Rock was a Fantastic show. The performers did a GREAT job!. The Electric violins with Cats in the Atrium Lobby were very good! We also enjoyed Mike at the Sing Along Piano Bar (wish he would have done a few early shows too).

Children's Programs

4 out of 5

The older boys 15-17 Loved their club and really enjoyed talking with their club leader. They went every night. The middle boys (12-14) did not go much and the younger boys (8-11) did not go much.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Our room steward Felix (Main Deck 5) was Fantastic. We had 3 rooms with our group and he provided excellent service and care for our entire group of 12 (Kids & adults). He called us by name every day, and greeted us and asked if we needed anything and if everything was ok for us. Our Servers at Imagination Dining room (Brian) the first night was excellent. He anticipated our needs before we even knew what we wanted. Our server most of the other dining nights in the Imagination (Jose) was the BEST. He was the perfect server (10+) in all areas and when it was time for the dance/singing numbers - he was our star of the show!. He was the most pleasurable & accommodating server we had ever had. He knew all of our names and basically knew what we all wanted to eat and drink from night to night. Our kids and grandkids made many specific requests and he handled them all with a smile and always made us feel like we were his only table. Our bartender in the Drama Lounge (Lennie) was great. She made great drinks, always had a smile for us-even when the bar was packed, and never made us for our drinks. She made our drinks just as we asked, even when our requests were a bit complicated. She always gave us service with a smile.

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Surprised there were not more hand sanitizing stations and requests that they be used before entering restaurants etc.

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

We had our 2 teenage grandsons in ours. We had 3 rooms total with our group of 12. (7 children under 16 and 5 adults. Our rooms were very spacious to be an inside cabin. The beds were very comfortable for all of us. The bathroom shower was big!. What a pleasant surprise on that. The only issue was we had a water emergency onboard when leaving Grand Turk and had no water for showers/sinks for 30 min. The water in the sinks and shower were VERY warm Also. Overall, good accommodations. Our room steward Felix Always made sure we had enough towels for our group without us having to ask. Very Excellent Room Steward!