Big ships are not all they are cracked up to be

Mardi Gras Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 26

Overall rating:

3.2 out of 5
Mardi Gras

7 Night Eastern Caribbean (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)

Sail date: August 13, 2022

Ship: Mardi Gras

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 15452

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 2 years ago

Review summary

We prefer the smaller ships as this ship you feel like a just a number. Didn’t get to experience as much and did not feel as catered too as you do on the smaller ships

Embarkation

1 out of 5
Stood outside in extreme heat for 4 plus hours with hundreds of people. Several people passed out around me. People are welling and arguing. Terribly organized and terrible communication and crowd control

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5
Food was ok. I have had better choices/ options in Dinning room on other ships. The small restaurants always had big lines

Onboard Activities

2 out of 5
Shows and activities were offered several times but the way the timing worked out you typically couldn’t do more than one thing in a might as by the time you left one thing and made it another other the place was packed with no more seats left

Entertainment

3 out of 5
The shows that I did get to see were good but couldn’t see many due to timing or lack of seating. Many things were advertised but then when you got to the areas people had no idea how to join in or get to get in on the fun

Children's Programs

My kids stayed with me the entire time

Service and Staff

1 out of 5
Dinner service no matter which restaurant we are in had very slow service making dinner almost 2 hours every night and often forgot part of orders didn’t fill drinks etc. room stewards were ok came once a day to make the beds but that was it. Nothing like Royal Caribbeans stewards so are VERY attentive .

Ship Quality

4 out of 5
Clean easy to nevigate

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5
When beds were down it made for a tight squeeze but that is expected.beds were very comfortable

Ship tip

Expect to wait in long lines for just about anything, elevators, shows, long time for dinner and service at bars

Ports of call

Port Canaveral, Florida

2 out of 5
Took carnival transpiration back to the air port and our bus broke down leaving us on a hot bus for over 40 minutes

San Juan, Puerto Rico

4 out of 5
City tour nice place very close to many accommodations

Amber Cove (Puerto Plata), Dominican Republic

5 out of 5
Waterfalls. This is by far one of our favorite places to visit

Grand Turk Island

5 out of 5
No need to leave the port so much to do right there love it

Disembarkation

3 out of 5
Slow unorganized process that created large crowds trying to leave the ship
Was this review helpful? 26

7 Comments

javawoody    2 years ago

Appreciate your comments

AuntPinkie    2 years ago

Bigger isn’t always better. Appreciate your feedback. Sorry this cruise didn’t meet your expectations.

ronajona    2 years ago

We enjoyed our Mardi Gras cruise as much as we could considering the crowds. I agree that venues and amenities were way too small considering the passenger count.

MargieRita    2 years ago

Seems like you enjoyed your ports of call so all was not bad! Thanks for sharing your review.

Gwbigdog    2 years ago

Thanks for sharing your cruise

PaulzyJC    2 years ago

Isn't Carnival packing their ships over 105% to make up for lost revenue?

CruzeFan    2 years ago

Thanks for the review. I’ve seen several comments about Mardi Gras feeling crowded and the public areas feeling too small. Hopefully they will resolve that on future builds.

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