Just back from Elation June 12-19th

[pakulakm]

Our Family just returned from the June 12th sailing of Elation and had a great time! This was my wife and I's 5th cruise and the kids 3rd including a previous sailing on this same cruise 18 months ago. Just a few notes instead of a long review but will be happy to answer any questions. We arrived at the terminal at 11:30am and had the fastest, easiest embarkation we have ever had. We were on board and eating lunch at 12pm after encountering no lines whatsoever in the check-in process. We had an outside cabin on the Upper deck along with an inside across the hall for our two oldest kids. Both rooms had new down comforters, pillows, and matresses since our last cruise on Elation. This made the room much more comfortable. The buffet has added a "deli" since our last trip which was very nice. It is right behind the salad bar/Desserts toward the back of the room. They will make any sandwich to order that you would like and were open from 11am-11pm every day. Seldom had any lines because most people did not know it was back there. In Progreso, we did our own trip to the beach in town. We took the free shuttle from the pier which drops you off 3 blocks from the beach. The public beach starts right at the pier. The beach was pretty crowded for the couple blocks closest to the pier so we walked about 4 blocks down the boardwalk and ended up on a perfectly fine stretch of beach with no other people within 100 yards in each direction. The water was fine, a lot better than Galveston, but not near Cozumel quality. There are vendors that approach you on the beach but they were not pushy or rude in any way. Like our previous cruise, Progreso had by far the best prices on shirts and souvenirs on the cruise. We got 4 shirts for 10 dollars and my wife bartered a guy down to $5 for a hammock. In Cozumel, we tend to stay on the ship till after lunch. This allows the kids time to use the pool, slide, and hot tubs virtually by themselves. After a leisurely lunch we get off the ship and do some shopping and sightseeing. In Belize we shopped and did a city tour on our own. On the pier area you will encounter a number of people offering city tours. You will also see a lot of people outside the wall/fence trying to entice you into tours. We felt pretty confident that the people "inside" the wall tended to be pretty reputable and safe. We hired a driver named Francis for $15 pp and had a wonderful 1 1/2hr tour through Belize City. He was very informative and polite and stopped whenever we wished to take pictures. He did a very good job of showing both the good and the bad sides of the city. We had an a/c van which was comfortable and enjoyed seeing what was outside the "wall" at the dock. The food onboard ship was still very good though we noticed that the dining room menu seems to exactly the same from 18 months ago. We also found that the productions shows are still the same and wondered why they couldn't incorporate some new shows in a year and a half. One negative we noticed was that this cruise seemed to be crawling with gangs of "wanna-teens" in the 10-14yr age range. This kids seemed to be everywhere running up and own the stairs, hallways, and through the buffet. We found all the young kids to be very well behaved and supervised but these "older" kids were pretty bad. This is not the Elations fault but rather the parents who let there kids run wild without setting down ground rules for proper behavior on the ship. All in all we had a great time and would highly reccomend this cruise. The ship is still in very good condition and the current cruise director Jorge is a riot! To my fellow CC posters, sorry we missed the get-together on the ship. Had our youngest in the pool and totally lost track of the time until we had missed the rendevouz time. Hope you all had a great time!

[debzkidz]

Our family is sailing on the Elation on 7/10. I do have one question. :confused: Are there any covered areas near the pools where you can sit? I am hoping to enjoy a little sun, but DH has had several bouts with some rather nasty skin cancer, and will not sit out in the sun, even though he dearly loves to be outside. I was hoping there would be an area where he could still enjoy being outside without having to sit in the direct sun.

[gypsymom3]

Thanks for the info; especially the sandwich info! My hubby will be in that line for sure (sandwich lover!). Glad you all had a great time, we'll be on the Elation in 11 days and counting! Can't wait!!!!!

[ElatedToCruise]

I have a lot of questions and I am getting very excited about our cruise on July 17th on the Elation.

 

What is the best way to handle money? Do they have atm's? Do I take a lot of cash or credit cards. Do you have any suggestions re: this? thank you...

[excitedcruiser]

Did you receive a gold sail and sign card since your were a previous carnival passenger? Where there any perks to having one?

[TX Dawg]

I would like to respond to "Just back from Elation June 12 - 19th". The reason that the age group you mentioned is running wild is not because of parents! Camp Carnival allows these kids to "check themselves out" whenever they want to! I know because our group had 2 boys in this group and we would drop them off in the morning and low and behold they would find us wherever we seemed to be. It was very irritating in that we felt our 9 year olds were not "ready" to do this. We were told by the staff that if they were not going to participate in an activity that they had to leave (hence, sign themselves out). They just couldn't sit and watch. We even told ours that they couldn't leave and they were allowed to leave anyway. It was very frustrating. Half the time they were out and we didn't even know it! I resent the implication that I am not a good parent!

[pakulakm]

Debz, there are plenty of outside areas on the ship that will be shaded, both near the pool, along the sides of the ships beneath the lifeboats, and in the rear of the ship. Finding shade will not be a problem.

Elated... There is an ATM on board. Everyone in the ports deals in US dollars so cash is no problem and you can always cash travellers checks at the pursers desk onboard.

I did not mean to imply ALL parents are bad parents...merely the parents of the kids running wild. There must have been 1000 kids onboard and the vast majority were fine.

[pakulakm]

excited...we did recieve the gold cards. Did not notice any difference in anything though. A lot of the crewmembers would adress you by name when you used the card but that might have been a shipboard policy towards all passengers.

[ronrythm]

Our family is sailing on the Elation on 7/10. I do have one question. :confused: Are there any covered areas near the pools where you can sit? I am hoping to enjoy a little sun, but DH has had several bouts with some rather nasty skin cancer, and will not sit out in the sun, even though he dearly loves to be outside. I was hoping there would be an area where he could still enjoy being outside without having to sit in the direct sun.

Hi I'll be on the sailing with you and I can answer this one. There are a lot of chairs and tables in the shade around the pool. The deck above it provides the shade. I, too have an "allergy" to sunshine but like to be outside.

 

see you on board in a couple of weeks

Ron

[momof4boys]

Hi Elated! Join our roll call for the Elation sailing 7-17 on the Carnival Cruise Roll Call board. We are planning a couple of CC meetings!:)

 

 

Pakulakam---Great info! Glad you had fun! We are counting down the days

26 more to go! :D

[Live_2_cruise05]

Glad you had a great time!! I cant wait until we cruise on the Elation again in 11 DAYS!!!!!!!!!

[LisaT12]

Thanks for the info....we are a family of 4 - cruising the Elation in Aug. We also seem to plan the same way you explained. I was happy to hear about the Belize tour you took at the port - we have done that at other ports and it has worked for us too. Thanks again.

[Top-Cat]

Thanks for your review. The Elation is ship that I am considering for Sring next year. I have a bathroom question. On the newer ships, the bathrooms have nice vanities. The older ones have pedestal type sinks and not a lot of room for stuff. What type do they have on the Elation?

 

 

Glad you had a good cruise.

 

Thanks

[TX Dawg]

A pedestal sink. There is a nice medicine cabinet but we used the over the door shoe hanger to store things. It worked our great and the kids could put things away as all they had to do was find an empty pocket! Wal-mart.. $4.88

[charyoung]

I read somewhere that the Tiffany buffet becomes a bistro type restaurant in the evening with a limited menu, and more casual than the dining rooms. Did ya'll ever eat in there in the evenings? Was it an extra charge? Sometimes, we can't get ready (or don't want to) for the scheduled dinner times. This sound great and more private. Can't wait!!!!!

[ktduffy]

I too and travelling in 11 days with my 20 year old daughter and I can't wait.

[pakulakm]

charyoung....seems they did away with the Bistro experiment in the buffet during the evenings. The buffet did usually offer one or two items from the dining room menu but it was still just buffet style like the other meals in Tiffanys. I know on the Paradise in 2001, they sectioned off half the room, covered the tables with tablecloths, and brought in waiters for the "bistro" service. Guess they have done away with that, at least on the Elation. One thing we did really like about the buffet was that each day during the week features food from a different part of the world. This was just done on one of the serving lines while the other served more traditional "american" fare.