bluejay555

Here's a better pic of the cabin. Our room steward would fold up the bunk beds every morning, and that helped with space, but we were barely in our cabin anyway, so no biggie. On our first morning, he did fold up my 6 yr old's stuffed animal inside the bunk bed, and there was a sign saying only authorized personnel was allowed to pull down the beds. She was very upset, wanting her stuffed animal, and there was a phone number for the room steward, so we called him. When he came down to our room, he gave us a bunch of crap about the fact that what we leave in the bunk beds would get folded up for the day and we should know that, blah blah. I was about to go off! (and I had given him $20 the night before, since I knew we'd potentially be high-maintenance, having 2 kids and all) I think he must have felt guilty later, because he was overly nice and accommodating the rest of the time.

First towel animal!

They changed the chocolate wrappers since last summer!

This cruise was a very last minute idea, and we booked it like 3 weeks before the sail date. Therefore we didn't get the room we would have liked (Riviera Deck, very back of the ship, inside cabin) but it turned out to be just fine for us (I will show some cabin pics later). We also didn't get our requested dinner time of 6 pm, but instead were assigned the 8:15 seating. I tried to change this, and was told I couldn't even switch to anytime dining! Oh well, we made the best of it, and loved our wait staff, so it was cool.

I took LOTS of food pics!

My 8 yr old ate shrimp cocktail every night.

chicken breast....very dry and blah

The pork steak was awesome!!

chocolate melting cake, of course! It didn't disappoint!

One of the bunk beds. It was close quarters in there...they had us packed in like sardines... but it worked!

Subscribing! We will be on the Elation November 2nd, so I am super excited to read all of your review.

AWESOME!!! You will love the Elation! It was one of my favorite cruises yet:D

It wasn't crowded at all, and things were moving really fast. We did have to let security check our bottled water....they looked it over, shook it, and let us go through. We were on the ship within 30 min, and were told our room was ready. This was like 12:30pm! It was pretty incredible!

Of course we had to go straight to the Lido deck for some lunch!

It was sprinkling on and off, but cleared up just in time for sail away! Yay!

Serenity deck. It looked so nice down there! Too bad we had the rugrats with us :p

This was a girls cruise! It was my mom, my two girls, ages 6 and 8, and me. My husband stayed home with the dogs, poor guy! This was my 5th Carnival cruise, my mom's first (although she's been on several different other lines), and my kids first cruise EVER. Exciting!!!

We drove 10 hours the day before, to Hammond Louisiana, and stayed at the Hampton Inn. The girls were a tad hyped up after spending all day in the car.

Hampton Inn was very clean and comfortable, and even had "make your own waffles" at breakfast. Too fun!

My mom had never been to Bourbon Street, so we decided to drive down there. I had no trouble finding a metered parking spot on a side street , which was surprising! My 6 year old immediately found a necklace with big boobs all over it and was begging to buy it lol so we didn't stay too long. Bourbon St. is definitely not kid friendly, even during the morning hours!

FINALLY!!! We made it to the terminal at noon. I parked at Erato Street Parking Garage, and it was $80 for the 5 day cruise.

French Market is great and is just down from Café du Monde. I recommend taking a haunted tour in the French Quarter. Of course a walk down Bourbon St is a must....it's fun to pop in the different shops, like Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo, and grab a "Huge Ass Beer" (that place makes me laugh) New Orleans is so much fun! :)

I am loving your review so far! Keep it coming :D

Great review so far, I love your writing style!

I just booked Nachi Cocom for July 30! I was super excited until I read Mitsugirly's review (LOVE LOVE LOVE your reviews, girl!) and now I'm worried about the sinking sand. Is that how it always is there? We're going because we want to have a beach experience. Anyone else have issues with the sand being difficult to walk in, or sinking while trying to wade? Ugh. It does look beautiful there, though :)

Enjoying your review so far!!! :)

How long was the ride to Playa Palancar beach? Looks like a nice spot! I'm trying to decide which beach to hit in Cozumel, with a 6 an 8 yr old.

What do you teach? I'm an elem. art teacher :)

Awesome review so far!!!

Loved your review! You look like fun people:D I'll be on a different ship, but booked a quad room for the first time ever, so that was interesting to see what it will look like. Congrats for winning the mixology contest! I've always wanted to enter that, but I know my drink would suck lol

Great review, thanks for posting! I'm trying to talk my husband into doing this cruise at the end of July :)

Great review! I enjoyed all your pics. And you have inspired me to go get my toes done like that before our cruise next week :)