matymil

We had a ton of OBC since they was cancelled a bunch so we booked through carnival. Neither our Grand Turk or Nassau excursion was private BUT it was considerably less crowded that the beaches by the cruise ports. Nassau was Blue Lagoon and i think the grand turk one was called "Beach Day w/ toys"

He was done his contract, not sure if hes coming back or not. Donkey came on. Ive never had him but ive heard nothing but good things

Also two spots that are free but dont get talked about much. Fresh Creations on the serenity deck is like a salad works place. They are open for lunch. Also the Java Blue cafe has free sandwiches, wraps and salads. I had no idea about that one until the 2nd to last day

I barely remember what i had for breakfast i wouldnt remember them if i saw them again. I am a big dude; 6ft5 300lbs and i have bodied people out before. Thats normally my go to move if someone is being rude. Just adjust my body, act like i dont see or hear them and keep moving

At least you didnt do what i did....i went on Etsy and ordered 5 wallet size deck cards that had the location of everything on board....except for when they came the cards were for the Conquest 🤦‍♂️ I even posted in my FB group (i have 3 extra Mardi Gras cards who wants them) and someone pointed out on the picture that it was the wrong ship lol

Thats pretty much my exact take on it as well. I wouldn't avoid going on it again but i wouldnt go on it again just because its a new ship. It would have to be a steal of a deal. We didnt go into the piano bar. Is Eden a performer?

I did end up going back to the gym in the middle of the day and it wasn't to bad. My favorite gym is definitely on the Pride, they have a multilevel set up. I've been on the Magic twice in the last year and I thought that was a small gym and I think MGs is about the same size. You're right about it having more cardio equipment though. They probably don't worry about making it bigger cause maybe they figure not alot of ppl will use it 🤷‍♂️

Have fun. I see we've been on some of the same ships. You may be taken back for a bit because of how different it is but honestly imo it does not take like to get the lay of the land. Every elevator bay has very large floor plans with descriptions of where everything is. Plus the Hub App helped alot

I get that. We also had a lot of people who didnt use etiquette and would try and get on before we got off which takes some extra time with the stroller. If it where any other ship im sure we would have used the stairs more but walking with a 3 year old up stairs from deck 4 up to deck 17 so he play games was not in the cards lol

Also depends what ship you are on. Different pools have different times on different ships. But yes every ship ive ever been on at least keeps one pool open until like 10 or 11.

The panini one we tried and that was closed.

I said juice but meant lemonade and tea. Yeah they were down all over the place. It was next to impossible to find one after 9pm ish. I went on the Magic and would go down to the deli at 11pm and you had no problems finding lemonade and ice cream machines on.

One other thing that was very different that someone in this thread may have insight to but i cant figure out at all. They seemed to shut all but one of the juice stations down across the ship really early. Like as soon as dinner time hours ended. Same with the ice cream to. I know ice cream would shut down on the other ships but i never remember them begin so restrictive with juice. Not a huge deal but it makes it tough with a toddler who wants juice and every machine you go up to is off.

We just booked this cruise for Sept 16 2023. We've been to Aruba and Curacao before and we could not be excited to go back. Curacao is our favorite island. It has a real European feel mixed with a lay back island vibe. Theres lots to see right by the port, just across the moving bridge. We did like Aruba to but we didnt spend too much time outside of our snorkeling excursion. Looking forward to seeing more of the island

Yeah were hoping it would be back in time but it should be back for our next cruise on the Horizon next year. We did try Big Chicken. It was good, the line went fast. Our son loved the tenders. I liked that you can get any sandwich with grilled chicken as well as fried.

I get that but personally id rather wait in line for afew mins over having to deal with people cutting or reaching around me. I dunno it just seemed like a free for all and i went when it there was barely anyone there. My wife went at peak lunch time..saw what was going on and went somewhere else to eat.

Yeah i had no idea about that. Oh well...live and learn. Next time we will def do anytime....however....i will say since we had early dining, we had the same staff for the MDR and it was by far the best staff weve ever had.

I mean im not against taking stairs but with being on deck 4, its a long haul up to the lido especially with a toddler that keeps telling us "walking is hard". This is kind of why i felt almost trapped at some points. We'd maybe go up past deck 15 once or twice a day just because it was normally such a pain to take the elevators plus we only had the two elevator sections on deck 4 instead of three on the other decks.

We had the beignets and they were amazing. For half the cruise i thought Emerils was a sit down restaurant, it wasnt until i walked by it and really paid attention that i realized it was more of a grab and go, quick bite place. You order at the counter and then take a number to a table.

We've had these. You can get alittle mist but its not bad at all. I liked the fact it was shaded. Just make sure you check to see what is above you. We were under the galley and had terrible noise almost all night. We said something to guest services and the guy told us "im not going to lie to you...you have one of the worst rooms on the ship for noise"

The food was amazing but one thing i did forget to add. Cucina and ChiBang were still free for dinner which was nice but if you had early dining you werent allowed to check in until 745pm which i thought was strange. We really wanted to do ChiBang for dinner but 745 is late for us with the toddler and all. We went down at 530 and they would not budge on the 745 rule. But i do agree the options are vast, we didnt even have guys burgers or blue iguana which is crazy.

Just got back a couple of days ago from my first sailing on the Mardi Gras. I wanted to give my thoughts because i feel like people either love or hate this ship, i definitely fall in the middle. This sailing was originally supposed to happen in 2018 but had to be moved because of the birth of our child and since then was moved 4 more times because of covid. We had a sailing booked on the Mardi Gras original first sailing out of the US but that got canceled because the ship wasn't going to be finished on time, so this was a long time in the making. Our child who wasn't born when we were first supposed to go on the Dream in 2018 is now almost 4 years old lol! So first off, obviously the ship is gorgeous. When you first walk in for the first time, it takes a minute to get your bearings if you are used to all the other Carnival ships. It feels like you're gonna get swallowed whole in the ship but honestly it did not take that long to figure it out. I found out quickly that its almost split into two different ships. Two decks of staterooms, three decks of restaurants, shopping, entertainment (including what i consider to be the new lido area; summer landing) then 5 decks of just staterooms, then the lido decks, splash park, sports, bolt, etc. Positives - First for me is definitely the updated staterooms. I saw somewhere that they were a little smaller, i didn't get that feeling at all. We had an oceanview on deck 4 and loved it. Lots more storage, some of the drawers pulled out, lots more usb ports plus we loved the decor. Also got pretty cold which personally i love and can sometimes be a problem for me on other ships. Oh yeah and DOORS on the shower! -The dining (minus the lido); not only are all the new options amazing but we literally had the best staff in the MDR we've ever had, not just on a cruise ship but in any restaurant. They took extra time with our toddler, they had him dancing afew nights and really made him feel special. The food quality was always great wherever we ate on the ship (minus lido). I saw some complaints about food quality but we loved all of it. -The Flying Scotsman; we had Chris as our cruise director. We didnt do too much with him but i still think other than Cookie that hes my favorite CD. From what we saw, he genuinely looked like he was having a blast. Plus since it was his last sailing, im pretty sure he had his family with him (we saw him in camp ocean with his daughter ?i think?) that was refreshing to see. -Embark and debark; both and off the ship and for our ports was much more easier than i expected. Aside from having to wait in our stateroom for a half hour when the Freedom pulled up; longest it took for us to get off in a port was maybe 5 mins. Compared to the Magic this past July which took well over an hour. -Excursions; we did Blue Lagoon at Nassau, Ocean World w/ Dolphin Encounter at Amber Cove & Private Beach w/ toys in Grand Turk. All were amazing! -Serenity deck; my old favorite was the Sunshine but this one is in a class all its own. Its huge and even though it gets loud around the main pool, there is plenty of seating and its so big that you dont hear the pool noise. Also they have a fresh creations up there which is awesome. Negatives - ELEVATORS! Believe what you heard. I went into the sailing hearing all the horror stories about the elevators and those stories were true; at least for us. They dont seem like they have that many more elevators compared to the rest of the ships and when you add another 2k guests it makes for long waits and chaos. Also everyone seemed to be complaining about how hot they were and that the buttons were on the side instead of the front like almost all other elevators. Instead of hitting the button as you walked in, you either had to reach across people or have someone else hit the button. We heard about this on almost every elevator trip. Also fun fact! Only two of the three bays reach the 4th deck so if your on that floor you cant use the aft elevators. The sizes of the main lido deck, warehouse arcade, splash pad and gym - It seemed like some of the common areas where smaller than on other ships half the size. I dunno if they did a study and found places that they could cut for size because they werent popular but a couple of places on the ship seemed way to small. I can understand not making the arcade and gym bigger but it really stood out how small the main lido deck and splash area are because they were always crowded. I went to the gym once in the morning and could barely even walk it was so crowded. The rest of the time i went in the middle of the day and it wasnt to bad. I just don't understand why ships like the Pride, Splendor and Conquest have gyms and arcades that are the same size (if not alittle bigger) and hold thousands of less guests. The "it was what it was" - The casino; its bigger than other ships for sure however its very narrow and if you like table games you may be in trouble. We found a couple of extra tables hidden in a corner of the smoking side on our last night but id still say that have less tables than a ship like the Magic. They were always packed. However! If you like slots then you are in luck cause they probably have 3x the amount of slots that ive seen on any other ship. Lido buffet - It looks nice, i like that sections the eating areas off, it doesnt look like a cafeteria anymore. They also have really cool decor now. We didnt spend much time up there because there didnt seem to be much organization. It looks like they tried to eliminate the long lines by making more, smaller stations to grab your food. However by eliminating the lines, now what we saw alot of people do is just come up, grab what they wont and cut right in front of you. Like i only went up there for a late salad 3 times around closing time and i was cut every time i went up there. Guest services location- its on deck 8 in a pretty busy corridor, right in front of summer landing. Got congested at times. I think they wanted to make it in a higher volume area but it just seemed very out of place. Overall - we had an absolute blast. Didn't dislike the ship but didn't love it either. We came to the conclusion that we'd go on the Mardi Gras again if the price and itinerary were hard to pass up but we wouldn't go back on it just because its the Mardi Gras. I think we prefer the midsize ships because that seems to be Carnivals sweet spot, at least in my opinion.

I always preferred going out of FLL over Miami. Did they ever state why they stopped leaving from there? Was it just a logistics issue with them only being 45 mins apart?

Thanks. Much appreciated

Yeah thank you i saw the other comment that said it never stopped. Im saying as a first time platinum cruiser i did not previously know this. My question has been answered