My CARNIVAL ELATION 2015 Cruise Review With Pictures!

[funcruiser1234]

Thank you for the response to my previous questions.

 

I have two more:

- What show will take the place of the old welcome aboard show?

- How long did your cell phone reception last?

[Purvis1231]

Enjoyed this and your site.

[bargainsniper]

thank you so much for all of your work, we want to take this cruise next year! I love that you have the fun times :)

[thecruiserofships]

Enjoyed this and your site.

 

Thank you so much!

 

thank you so much for all of your work, we want to take this cruise next year! I love that you have the fun times :)

 

Glad you enjoyed it! I am happy to hear you liked the Fun-Times because they take forever to get scanned in! Hope you get to take a cruise!!

[thecruiserofships]

Day 2 - A Fun Day Sea

 

First Morning and Breakfast of The Cruise:

My morning started out awful after a night of little sleep and I woke up with a headache. I planned on getting up in time to eat breakfast at 7:30am, but I ended up eating closer to 10:00am because I laid around in bed until I felt better.

Once I finally was able to get up and moving, I went to Tiffany's for breakfast. The breakfast buffet lines were very crowded at this time. I was not very hungry and since it was close to lunch I only ate an omelet. Although the line for an omelet was long, the wait was worth it because the omelet was delicious! The general breakfast buffet line (which I did not visit) had a variety of breakfast foods such as french toast, bacon, ham, hash browns, sausages, and more. The buffet also has an area with a variety of different fruits and pastries during the breakfast hours.

 

I walked around a little bit between breakfast and lunch because there was not much time. The deck was crowded with people enjoying the nice weather! The chair hogging policy appeared to be enforced well!

[thecruiserofships]

Second Lunch At Tiffany's

After my small late breakfast I was still ready to eat lunch at noon. My first stop for today's lunch was the deli for a pastrami on rye sandwich. The deli crew members remembered my sandwich preference from the day before. I was impressed at the deli's high level of service!

Today the buffet's Chef Choice line served American food. In addition, Tiffany's offered the Deli, Pizzeria, desert station, grill, Mongolian Wok, and Rotisserie. Cruisers that preferred not to eat at Tiffany's could visit the Imagination Dining Room between 8:30am - 1pm for Open Seating Sea-Day Brunch.

 

After eating meals, I always try to walk around to burn off the newly acquired calories. My after lunch walk started on the Elation's Way Promenade. In the early afternoon, the only crowded area of the Promenade was the Drama Bar. This was because many of the daily activities take place at the Drama Bar.

[thecruiserofships]

Musical Cafe - Specialty Coffees and Treats:

Although many things are included in the price of a cruise vacation, not everything is included. On the Carnival Elation's Promenade Deck there is a place called the Musical Cafe that serves specialty coffees, milkshakes, cakes, and other treats. These items are not included in the price of a cruise vacation. I did not purchase anything from the Musical Cafe, but I observed that many of the other cruise passengers did. I managed to take a few pictures of the treats served at the Musical Cafe.

Logo Gift Shop On The Carnival Elation:

One of the shops onboard the Carnival Elation is full of items that are branded with the Carnival logo. This shop sells a variety of shirts, stuffed animals, lanyards, model ships, refillable water bottles, mugs, and more! I encourage all cruisers to look for sales in the gift shop. On almost all Carnival cruises I have been on the gift shop runs t-shirt sails on the last or second to last day of the cruise. There are also many raffles and drawings that occur at the gift shops.

[thecruiserofships]

Formal Night:

Formal Night is a night when each cruiser is supposed to wear his or her best clothes to dinner. I got ready about an hour before dinner in order to be able to go to the Promenade Deck for the Taste Bar and to try to meet the Elation's captain. While I did not get to meet the captain, the Promenade had live music and was buzzing with people. Carnival also offers a few bar specials at certain times on formal night to cruisers that are interested.

 

The Taste Bar:

The Taste Bar is a place onboard where cruisers can get samples of things offered on some of Carnival's newer or upgraded ships. Tonight the Taste Bar was open from 5:30pm - 8:30pm and was serving samples of food from Cucina Del Capitano. Cucina Del Capitano is an Italian restaurant that can be found on some of Carnival's newer ships.

The sample platter consisted of a meatball and bruschetta. The meatball was very tasty, but the bruschetta was not something I was used to eating. Cruisers are able to go back to the Taste Bar for more. This was the only night of the cruise I managed to visit the Taste Bar while it was open.

[thecruiserofships]

Formal Night Dinner In the Dining Room:

Tonight's dinner was very tasty and I had a different waitstaff team that offered superior service. Since I had Your-Time Dining I was able to eat starting at 5:45pm in the Imagination Dining Room. More people came to the dining room for dinner on this night of the cruise compared to the first night. One of my favorite things to eat on a cruise for formal night is lobster. I never eat lobster at home and a cruise is the only place I get to taste this delicious meal!

 

TIP: You can order a banana split any night of the cruise because it is on the kid's menu. You do not have to be a kid to order from the kid's menu. The banana split I ordered from the kid's menu was tasty and a good size.

 

Production Show - "Win":

Tonight was the last showing of the Carnival Elation's show named "Win". This show had a gameshow theme and was a very good show. Each showing of "Win" a cruiser is usually selected to be a special guest on stage, but this cruise the cruise director chose the assistant cruise director to be his special guest. Throughout the show, they made jabs about this being the last showing.

The showband did not get to play in this show because their pit was already removed due to the Playlist Productions implementation. Instead, the showband got to enjoy the show as audience members. The dancers performed to music that was prerecorded.

Overall, this show was a lot of fun and well performed by all. I will miss this show, but I hope the new shows are just as good.

[MG75]

Thanks for your review. It has been very helpful. We are going on the Elation Aug 22nd. Your review has answer a lot of questions!! Thanks for taking the time to scan the fun times!! Great information. I look forward to the rest of your review.

[thecruiserofships]

Each night of the cruise in the later evening, Tiffany's serves a buffet line called "Good Eats". Each night "Good Eats" serves a variety of different foods and desserts. While I did not eat any of the food available on this night of the cruise, I tried some Key Lime Cake. The cake was delicious!

 

Stateroom Nightly Turndown

When we arrived back in our stateroom, our steward had already come by to turndown the room. The beds were neatly made up, a new towel animal was left, and some various flyers were left on the bed next to the towel animal.

I eventually got used to stateroom's weird odor and it no longer bothered me by this point in the cruise. I slept great on this night of the cruise and a few minutes after laying down I fell asleep. If I could take any items off the cruise ship with me it would be the stateroom's bed.

 

That's It For Day 2! Up Next Is Day 3 - Cozumel, Mexico!!!

[gangstarollerbunny]

Thanks for doing this review! My family and I will be driving down from NYC to New Orleans for Carnival Elation on Aug 17! Super excited...

[thecruiserofships]

Thanks for doing this review! My family and I will be driving down from NYC to New Orleans for Carnival Elation on Aug 17! Super excited...

 

You're welcome! I hope you have a great cruise. Please feel free to ask any questions if you have any!

[thecruiserofships]

Day 3's review is about ready and will be posted here as soon as possible.

[thecruiserofships]

Day 3

Cozumel, Mexico

Arrival: 7am

Departure: 7pm

June 10, 2015

 

Early Morning Wake Up to Watch Cozumel Arrival:

I woke up early in the morning (about 5:50am) to get dressed in order to try to catch a glimpse of the ship's arrival at Cozumel. The Carnival Elation was scheduled to dock at Puerta Maya Pier. This pier is affiliated with Carnival Corporation and typically Carnival ships will dock here. The Carnival Elation was scheduled to arrive at 7:00am, but we were docked well before the scheduled time. The Carnival Ecstasy was scheduled to dock alongside with us in the early afternoon.

The sun was rising as I watched us dock in Cozumel. I went to the Verandah Observation Deck area and there were very few other people watching too.

 

Breakfast At Tiffany's (Lido Buffet):

Breakfast was served earlier today because of the ship's early arrival in Cozumel. The scheduled breakfast time for Tiffany's was 6:30 - 10:30am. For cruisers that did not want to eat in the buffet the Imagination Dining Room had an open breakfast seating time from 7:00am - 9:00am. The buffet served a similar selection to the first day with a few exceptions.

I got in the general buffet line first to get some food. The first plate in the row of pictures below was mine. Some of the bacon was crispy, but other pieces were very greasy. All of the meats available in the breakfast buffet are served behind the counter by crew members. However, you may ask for as much as you wish. The goal of this is to decrease food waste.

Edited June 17, 2015 by thecruiserofships

[thecruiserofships]

Getting Off The Ship To Tour Cozumel:

In the early morning, we got off the ship. There was no line at the gangway because many of the cruisers planning to go on shore excursions had already gotten off to go ashore. Once our Sail & Sign cards were scanned, we were able to proceed down the gangway. The ship's photographers were waiting at the bottom of the gangway to take pictures of each cruiser. While you can decline getting your photo taken, you are under no obligation to buy the photo. After taking your photo or bypassing the photographers, you are free to proceed down the pier.

 

Before being allowed to exit the pier, all cruisers must walk through a building filled with shops. This building can become very crowded as cruisers are trying to shop and others are walking through the building in order to exit the pier.

 

Once exiting the pier, there are a variety of bars, restaurants, and shops for cruisers at Puerta Maya. We did not visit any shops here at Puerta Maya because we wanted to take a taxi ride to Punta Langosta. Punta Langosta is where we docked during our first cruise before Puerta Maya was reopened following hurricane damage.

[thecruiserofships]

Taxi Ride To Punta Langosta: At the back area of Puerta Maya, you will find a taxi station. There are a variety of places you can pay to ride a taxi. A ride to Punta Langosta cost $16.00 for a van. The ride was about 4 km (I would put this number in miles, but in Mexico they use kilometers).

 

Arriving At the Area Surrounding Punta Langosta:

Once our taxi van dropped us off, we walked around and stopped in a few shops. Punta Langosta has its own pier for cruise ships to dock, but today no ships were scheduled to use this dock. Some shops were closed because of no cruise ship being docked at Punta Langosta, but most were open.

 

For those willing to travel away from Puerta Maya, Punta Langosta is a great place to shop. There are many restaurants and places for cruisers & tourists to check out! I can give more information about Punta Langosta if anyone is interested.

[thecruiserofships]

Bamboozled In Cozumel At A Shop:

In one shop we stopped to take a look because we saw a blanket that was nice. The lady working the shop seized the opportunity to hound us into buying the item. Her original price was $60.00 for this blanket (that was definitely not worth this price). When we told her no she dropped the price to $50.00 and told us that was as low as her boss would allow her to go. Once again, we told her we did not want the item for that price. She asked what we were willing to pay and we told her $20.00. She laughed at us and told us her sister made the item. We offered her $30.00, she then turned her head in all directions, and then put her finger to her lips as if to silence us. This was to make us think her boss would be mad. She sold the item for $30.00. She was her own boss.

After walking away from this store, we saw an identical blanket for $10.00. We saw many more of the same blankets throughout the day. How could this lady's sister make hundreds of blankets for these shops? The lady was probably telling us this to try to get us to pay more.

LESSON: Always shop around before buying something. Many ports of call have shops that sell similar (if not identical) items at different prices.

 

After falling for this lady's sales tactics we pretty much made no eye contact with any shop owner's and did little browsing. This was the first time we were screwed in any port of call. We fell right into her trap.

[thecruiserofships]

Taxi Ride Back to Puerta Maya: It was $16.00 to ride back to Puerta Maya. This driver drove quicker than the other one and we were back at Puerta Maya within a few minutes. I had a chance to get some better pictures on the ride back to Puerta Maya.

 

Lunch Onboard At Tiffany's (Lido Deck Buffet):

Today's lunch at Tiffany's was very relaxed because most of the other cruisers were still ashore in Cozumel. There were many of the upper level crew members getting some food at the buffet. A few buffet lines were closed due to a lack of passengers onboard, but there was virtually no wait at any of the open buffet lines. The Chef's Choice buffet line was serving French food today.

My first stop on the buffet today was the grill. I wanted a hamburger, fries, and some chicken tenders. The chips & pico de gallo that the grill serves are also good.

[thecruiserofships]

Thank you for the response to my previous questions.

 

I have two more:

- What show will take the place of the old welcome aboard show?

- How long did your cell phone reception last?

 

I'm sorry I missed your questions earlier.

 

- I do not know what show will take place of the welcome aboard show.

- I know I could get cell reception until at least 9pm, but it may have actually ended later.

[thecruiserofships]

That is all for today! Day 3 Part 2 will be ready tomorrow early!

 

I am tired and need a little break from writing the review, but I will still be checking here for questions. Ask away!

[funcruiser1234]

Did the captain or any crew member provide any specific reason as to why the port of call times were extended?

 

Also what is daily tipping rate?

[thecruiserofships]

funcruiser1234 -

 

there was no specific reason as to why the port of call times were extended. My guess is this was to give extra time for shore excursions in order to allow Carnival to make more.

 

I think the daily tipping rate is $12.00 per person per day.

[NavarreCruiser]

I'm sorry I missed your questions earlier.

 

- I do not know what show will take place of the welcome aboard show.

- I know I could get cell reception until at least 9pm, but it may have actually ended later.

 

All the Carnival ships have a welcome aboard show the first night, the Elation will continue to have this show with a new set. The show is controlled and presented by each cruise director and can vary ship to ship. They almost always have some musical numbers and a comedian if they are on board. Some CDs bring up passengers for fun and games, some do not, also some introduce their entertainment staff and again, some do not.

[molme]

How long does it take to get to open water after leaving port? Do they charge state tax on purchases during this time? When do they open the casino? Will be sailing next Mar and have some unanswered questions about cruise.

Thanks in advance and enjoying your review.