I loved the Mardi Gras! My biggest complaint is the lack of soft-serve ice cream 24-7!!!! We looked forward to satisfying 2am ice cream cravings, and were very disappointed. No reason ice cream should be shut down while alcohol is almost always available, not to mention most cruises have an abundance of children whose parents are not necessarily enforcing a curfew on a cruise ship.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
The Lido Deck only had bacon during breakfast sometimes (less than half the time). This is not the only time we noticed there seemed to be a shortage of bacon. The omelette chef almost ALWAYS cooks it too long, resulting in it being too brown. ICE CREAM: Alcohol flows nearly 24-7. Yet, the soft serve ice cream and yogurt machines are shut down at 10pm. Ice cream used to be available 24-7. Alcohol is not the only "crowd favorite." So is ice cream. We are SO disappointed that ice cream is not available at any time. Soft-serve isn't easy to find on land. My family members are very disappointed about the ice cream machines being cut off at 10pm.
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
The pool was great, as well as the hot tubs on Deck 8 and the outside area. Very relaxing.
Entertainment
4 out of 5
I have cruised on the Fascination, Elation, Magic, Dream and Mardi Gras. On every ship, late comedy shows are held in small venues. Sometimes, they are standing room only. Carnival should know that the late comedy shows are immensely popular. On each cruise, we had to try to arrive for the shows up to half an hour early just to get a seat. Carnival should use its theatres for comedy shows, so nobody who paid for a cruise has to stand up after a long day and looking forward to a good laugh before bedtime. None of us can understand why Carnival consistently holds popular shows in places that are too small to hold the crowd. It makes no sense at all.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
My room steward was not the most congenial. I did not receive my gold pin as usual. We rarely saw our steward. When we asked for more toilet paper, he seemed to have an attitude. He never asked if we needed anything or in passing in the hallway, even asked if we were enjoying our cruise. Every steward on every cruise was very nice..... but this one was standoff-ish and seemed too stressed to engage us in the usual pleasantries. We reasoned he was just tired and gave him a tip at the end of the cruise, but we didn't really think he deserved it.
Ship Quality
5 out of 5
The bomb! Clean..... just immaculate!
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
I had an oceanview. The best part of any cabin on a Carnival cruise has always been how comfortable the bed and pillows are.
Ship tip
Take time to explore the ship. It has so much to offer, and you will always stumble onto a place you didn't realize was there and really enjoy the experience.
It was chaotic, and with thousands getting off the ship, that is understandable. Even with that, the lines never really stopped moving and we got off the ship in pretty good time.
Thanks for sharing. We loved the Idea of the Mardi Gras, but there also were way too many unruly kids on our cruise. Hopefully carnival enforces this issue.
Appreciate your details. Sadly, as others have mentioned, the 24 hours of ice cream has been gone for quite a while now. I too wish it was open longer, but before 11:00AM, so I could make a mocha (but it’s not ALL about me). Even before the shutdown, Carnival started serving bacon every other day, sorry about that.🤔. Pins (gold, platinum and diamond) must be picked up at pixels (also the “gift” for Platinum and Diamond). Sorry you missed this information. Glad you enjoyed your cruise in spite of all of this.
they eliminated 24/7 ice cream sure to the waste they were seeing on every ship. I've seen it. I would see kids and adults make a cone as high as they can, it falls... waste... and of course that's money down the drain. you're lucky carnival still allows you to make your own cone. royal and ncl have never had 24/7 ice cream and they do the cones for you
It IS an interesting point that alcohol is available almost 24/7 but you can’t get ice cream 🍨 the same. I’ve been on 24 cruises and 28/7 ice cream has never been a problem. Why now?
They shut it down because of waste. Throughout the day, you have kids and grown up trying to put as much on cone as possible, and they end up putting too much. Just imagine if they make it available 24/7, the waste would be costly.
I'm editing my post the ice cream machine is shut down because of the cost cut and also who's going to go for ice cream basically at 2:00 in the morning and it has to be cleaned. Also the room Steward does not give you the PIN as you have to go to the latitude person. The cabin stewards just do the room I'm sorry that you didn't get what you wanted and a lot of them are just so busy they don't say hello it's has nothing to do with you just say hello to them to say hello back
The nice cream is shot down probably to keep costs down. It also gets messy. People do not Cruise or at least I don't think they Cruise just because of the ice cream I know I don't and maybe there was some kind of snack in between that but I don't know things have been a little different since covid and a lot of people just don't understand that
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