Elation 9/21/19 - 9/26/19 Review Part 1

[Haveuseen1]

Details:

5 Day Cruise on the Carnival Elation from Port Canaveral

Visiting Amber Cove & Grand Turk.  Departing Saturday 9/21/19.

Faster to the Fun 

No Cheers Package

Flew to Orlando from Nashville on Friday 9/20 on Delta.  (187.00 Round trip.)

Rented car from National for one way rental, dropping off at the location right at the port. ( Free Rental due to the loyalty program )

Stayed the Night at Hampton Inn Cocoa Beach.  ( 240.00 )

 

Here we go:

We checked 2 bags in Nashville, and the flights were short and uneventful.  Got caught up on Season 6 of Blacklist on the flights.  

Landed at MCO around 330pm, picked up rental ( 2019 Malibu with 286 miles ).

Met up with another couple and headed to the Hampton Inn Cocoa Beach.

Smooth ride with two toll booths.  I think the tolls combined were under 3.00.

Checked in and met up with the 3rd couple.  Hotel was nice and clean, and has exterior doors for those of you who care about that sort of thing.  I thought the price was a little high, but it is, what it is, and it worked out just fine.  They do offer a park and cruise package, which we did not participate in.  There was quite the crowd in the lobby on Saturday morning and Cocoa Beach Express is who they use for the shuttle.

 

It was time to eat dinner so we headed to 4th Street Filling Station ( which is a neat place ) for cold beers and good food.  They have an awesome charcuterie board (24.00 ) which is enough for 6 adults.  Food is good, service is good, and beer is cold. I found a wallet from a previous customer on the ground, and turned it in to the hostess.  I sure hope they got it back to them.

 

The rest of the evening was a trip to the liquor store and Publix for some forgotten items, and then a good nights sleep.

 

 

 

 

[Haveuseen1]

Saturday 9/21 ( Part 2 )

 

We dropped the car at National at 1100am, and took the free National Shuttle to the port.  Very efficient and worked very well.

We all had Faster to the Fun so we could board at 1130am.

The Embarkation was smooth and very efficient, the whole process  from start to finish took maybe 15 minutes, and that included stopping for a group photo before boarding.

 

Boarded on Deck 7 (Empress ) which was the deck where our rooms where.  Our room E144 was more in the middle of the ship, and the others were all in the front.  Our room was ready, so we dropped our backpacks and headed to Guest Services.  I had 400.00 in AARP Gift Cards to put on our account. The whole process including the line was maybe 10 minutes.

 

We all agreed to meet on the Lido deck for lunch so off we went, Guys Burgers here we come.

As Expected the burgers were great, short fast line and life is good.  We kicked around getting familiar with the ship and the layout. We had a couples massage at 5 so we needed to kill some time.  

 

My wife is Gluten Free and we had given Carnival the heads up before and thought we might need to check in at our dining room to make sure they were aware.  We had 815pm dining so off to the Imagination Dining Room which was at the AFT of the ship.  Got there and there was nobody present.  Not a big deal, and we were confident all would be well.  And it was.

 

Around 330pm it was time for the Muster. We had Muster F which is on the Lido Deck near the Stage.  It was short maybe 15 minutes.  When you arrived to the muster station they scanned your card and you just stayed to the side, until they showed how to put on a life jacket, and how to put a life jacket on a stuffed shark ( which represented and infant under 35 pounds ).  

 

After muster we checked to see if our luggage had arrived and it had. Our two bags were patiently sitting outside E144 waiting to be unpacked.  E144 is an oceanview room which is nice, and we had it set up with a king bed.  We unpacked slid the suitcases under the bed, checked out the TV and relaxed.

 

We purchased a 12pk of water it was already in the room, and I brought a six pack of soda.  I put the 6 pack in the fridge, although that thing was pitiful.  Those drinks never got any cooler.  It was not an issue for us, but it might bother someone.

 

Be back with more shortly.

 

 

 

 

 

[Haveuseen1]

Saturday Cont....

 

Headed to the Rum bar on the Lido Deck and got my first Parched Pig IPA, and a Margarita.  Both were just what we needed and we grabbed a couple of loungers for a little people watching.

 

515pm  it is Couples Massage Time.  Headed to the spa. The seas were kind of rough and the boat had a lot of movement.  Very tough to walk a straight line.  This turns out to be a problem for a lot of people over the next 48 hours, no issue for us, minus the crooked walking.

 

Massages were nice and I think i dozed off once or twice.  Before they started they tried to upsell to a Hot Stone massage, which we passed on. We had prepurchased the massages with a discount from one of the Carnival email offers.  I believe the price was 165.00 for the couples massage.  At the end we got the sell on the products that we needed to better our lives which we passed on. The products totaled about 200.00 in all, and we still had to rub them on ourselves.  We passed and they were fine with it.  No more pressure.

 

Headed back to the room to get showers and dressed for dinner.  In case it matters, I wore khakis and a button down shirt every night, except formal night ( I added a tie for formal ) and my wife wore dresses every night.  Well the last night we cheated a little.  We will get to that.  Shower was nice, with good pressure and plenty of hot water. Forgot about the short shower curtains, good thing they have a drain in and out of the shower. We used them both.  Ample room in the bathroom for our stuff.  No complaints about the bathroom. They did have shower gel, and shampoo dispensers in the shower, and plenty of towels.

 

We met up with our peeps at 745pm at the Atrium bar for pre dinner drinks.  Another Parched Pig and some frozen banana drink.

 

Dining room was nice and organized. Joselito was our waiter and he was perpared for my Gluten Free wife.  She had GF bread, Shrimp cocktail, Salmon, and GF melting cake with butter pecan Ice cream. I had shrimp cocktail, a salad, I cant remember my main ( but will ) and melting cake.  One of our group had the wine package which was a nice touch every night.  Even though I dont drink wine, it was a nice add on.  The food was very good no complaints.

 

Back to the rocking boat, one of our group had to bailout during dinner to the motion of the ocean. Which left me with having to power through his melting chocolate cake.  2 in one night, I had to do it.

 

Headed to Dukes Piano Bar where Martin was playing.  He was very entertaining and a light crowd tonight.  A few more beers and frozen drinks and it is time to get some sleep.  We slept great, the rocking boat reminded us of laying in a hammock, or on a swing. Turns out not everyone on the boat feels the same way.

 

Before going to sleep filled out the room service card for coffee, fruits, bread ( including GF bread ) and some jelly for a 7am snack.  Our first " Fun Day at SEA" will be tomorrow and I dont want to miss anything.  It also ends up turning the mood for a number of folks, which is unfortunate.  We will get to that.

 

Be Back ASAP!

 

 

[trvlgirlmq]

Nice start! Can you tell me if they have all the cakes on the buffet during lunch? My friend is doing this itinerary in a couple of weeks and wants to splurge! 

 

TIA

[Haveuseen1]

Good question.  I don’t eat cake but I do think they had them at lunch.  I know they did at dinner and on the chocolate extravaganza day.  They also had a number of sugar free options that one in our group said were excellent.

[Haveuseen1]

It was the pork chop.  I knew I would remember what I had for dinner, I love pork chops.

 

Sunday 9/22

705am a quiet knock on the door lets me know room service has arrived.  Tipped 5 dollars and life is all good.  I cracked the curtain to the dismay of my wife to let in some sun and it was a beautiful day.  Seas were still big and the boat was still quite wobbly.  I then turned on the TV and went to channel 32 ( my favorite channel ) to see where we were.  This was the first I thought we may have an issue.

 

For some reason we were going North East, which is the opposite direction of the islands.  We had been taking a South to South East course all night, and then at some point took a turn.  I figured our lucky window of no storms must have gone away and we were avoiding a storm that had popped up, or taken a turn.  When we left port there were 3 storms and it looked like we would be fine, or at least very close on one, and fine for the other two.

 

Showered, got dressed and headed to Seaday brunch, in the Inspiration dining room. What a treat, and to my surprise they have a double thick pork chop on the brunch menu.  Can life get any better?  Two pork chops in less than 12 hours.  Got here around 1030, not line to get in, service was spectacular and food was very good.  

 

Headed to Serenity deck after brunch.  Snagged 6 chairs just under the overhang, which was great. Actually we ended up getting these same chairs just about every day without any trouble.  We were all relaxing watching the blue water and then "Heri" one of the serenity waiters stopped in to introduce himself.  Heri was an unexpected bonus.  He was attentive, but not annoying, just timely and what a positive attitude.  

 

Shortly after we arrived to the Serenity deck there was a ship wide announcement that we were not going to Amber Cove or Grand Turk.  We were headed to Nassau for an overnight.  It seems there was an issue keeping the Elation from reaching higher speeds.  I had noticed that we were only going 9-10 knots and that must have been about the best we could do.  Our group is more of a "make the most of a situation" group, but lots of people were unhappy about this.  This did create a little issue for me, I had one excursion in Amber Cove through Carnival, and one in GT with Exclusive Escapes.  This forced me to get the internet package for a day to reach out to Exclusive Escapes.

 

..................

[Haveuseen1]

Sunday 9/22 ......

 

Carnival went ahead and canceled/credited all the Amber Cove excursions.  No need to visit Guest Services.  They also added 100.00 on board credit per person, and they offered 50% credit for the price you paid for this cruise to be used toward booking another cruise before March 2021.  The cruise credit seemed to confuse a lot of people.  Lots of people thought they were getting 50% off any cruise they picked, which would be great, but that is not how it works.  To keep it simple, if you paid 1000.00 for this cruise that would get you a 500.00 credit for the next, and honestly to me that makes sense and is still generous.  Fine with me.

 

Got the internet package and then emailed Exclusive Escapes to see if I could cancel my snorkel excursion with them.  Big thanks to them, they were prompt in response and about 2 hours later I had an email from paypal where they had already credited me back.  I cant wait to visit GT so I can book with them again.  This by the way is an additional risk of not booking through Carnival. They could have just said no. It was not a weather issue, it was just a Carnival couldnt get me there issue.  Thanks again to them.

 

Well a few Parched Pigs and Frozen drinks later we hit the buffet for lunch. Plenty of good options, food was all good, lines were not bad.

 

I do think the rough conditions and the redirect to Nassau had a lot of people out of sorts.  That is a shame.  None of us are big Nassau fans, but it is what it is. We came up with a plan on what to do tomorrow and then went about our day on the Elation.  Heri was keeping us in business with drinks and the weather was spectacular.

 

Today we hit the pool, sushi, a nap, and tonight is formal night.  Met at the Atrium bar at 745pm and they had two ladies playing electric violins.  We loved it and we ended up watching them several times throughout the cruise.  Kashmir is what they were called I believe.

 

Headed to dinner, tonight is prime rib.  It was nice, came with a potato and they had sour cream, cheese, and bacon bits for the potato.  Got a salad and that melting cake again.  Two of our 6 did not make dinner, it seems the rough water had taken two of our 6 out of commission.  

 

The 4 of us headed to Jekyl and Hyde for some dancing after dinner.  My dance skills are on par with Napolean Dynamite, and my friends was not much better.  Our wives loved it.  After dancing we headed to the Piano bar for another dose of Martin.  Good crowd tonight.

 

Around midnight we headed back to the cabins to get some sleep. We arrive to Nassau at 7am, and leave the next day at 7am.  Put out the room service card and made plans to meet for breakfast at 845.  Our two that were down due to seasickness are ready to be on solid ground.

 

......TBD.....

[wesorbeth]

I am enjoying your review and I appreciate your positive vibe.  

[Haveuseen1]

Monday 9/23 ......Nassau

 

700am room service was wonderful again.  What a great way to start the day.

 

Quick Showers ( since we are docked, we did much better at keeping the water in the shower ).  Actually yesterday you had to kind of wedge yourself in the corner to stay put in the shower.  I thought it just added to the adventure and was quite funny.

 

845 headed to the buffet for breakfast.  Again, plenty of options, all the bacon you could eat, sausage, pancakes, eggs, potatoes, quiche, grits ( i love grits ), french toast, baked tomatoes ( odd but they were good ) and a variety of fruits etc...  Oh yeah they also have ice cream at breakfast, and my wife was pumped about that.

 

All six of us are back together.  I think the sight of solid ground has created a rally with the two that were not doing so well.  We go over the plan for the day.

Rent scooters, ride them on the wrong side of the road in crazy traffic without having any idea where we are going in an attempt to get to the Queens staircase. Then vist Fort Fincastle, and then drive them over to Cabbage beach for some beach time. After that head back to the port area for dinner and return to the ship.  This sounds like a solid plan for the day.

 

After breakfast we head to deck 3 to head out to Nassau.  We take a few pictures on the walk to exit the port and then the scooter guys go on attack. They were all excited that we wanted to rent scooters.  They were so excited that you couldnt even keep up with the price offers and the return time for the scooters.  They did show us the keys that had a smart chip in them so nobody could steal the scooter when we parked them randomly about Nassau.  At some point my beautiful wife noticed the traffic and mentioned that she was not comfortable driving the scooter.  That seemed to spread like an STD on a college campus amongst the other wives.  So we went from 8 scooters to 4 with the wives riding on the back.  That was good for about 10 seconds until they decided that maybe they didnt feel safe at all on the scooters.  At that point for the 4 husbands it was like discovering the truth about Santa.  The husbands were destroyed.  Later in the day, we discover the wives were much smarter than the 4 husbands.  

 

So off on foot we head out to Queens Staircase.  It was a nice walk, and along the way we found a nice sporting goods store so that the two coulples that did not have backpacks bought them to keep all of their stuff in for the day. No idea what their original plan was on how to keep up with their stuff, but it just improved.  Queens staircase is a neat and worth the visit. We went up the 65 stairs and then just over to Fort Fincastle.  To visit the fort it cost about 2.75 per person and really isnt worth it, but you should pay it and go in for a quick look around.

 

Headed back to the port area, and ate lunch at a greek restaurant ( Athena, I think ).  Food was great.  I had grouper fingers and fries ( because somehow that is greek ) and my wife had chicken souvlaki.  Both were outstanding and we had some fruity drink and a few kaliks.

 

Beach Time;  Caught a cab to Cabbage Beach that was 24.00 total for the 6 of us.  We had our beach gear in our backacks and at this time a few of the husbands started to think that maybe navigating a scooter through the traffic might be a challenge, and that driving on the wrong side of the road might be tricky.  Oh yeah, for some reason the traffic lights in Nassau are not even on. They dont light up at all. I asked the driver why they didnt work, his reply was simply " I dont know".  They also dont use the if the light is not working treat the intersection as a 4 way stop rule that we do in the states.  It is really more of a whoever is the bravest goes method they have developed.

 

Be back shortly to fill you in on the beach time.  It was a good time.

 

 

[Haveuseen1]

Cabbage Beach!

 

Our cab driver took us to Cabbage beach after we asked him if he knew of a good beach to visit. He advised that we could rent chairs, umbrellas, and there was a little bar etc....  What else could you possibly want? He pulled up to the beach access we bailed out and he left.  Well there were no chair rentals, no umbrellas, and the little bar was part of a resort that we were not staying at.  So what do you do?  You make the best of it. We walked down to the beach and had beach time. The waves were big, the water was clean and the sand was soft. It was not crowded at all so it was quite nice.

 

After about an hour we decided we needed to check out that little beach bar. We did a little recon and the three husbands walked in the Paradise Island beach club and ordered drinks. That was successful so we pulled in the wives.  After a few beers and frozen drinks we were in the pool and using the restrooms.  Living large!  After a few hours we decided we needed to start back towards the port. One of our crew had noticed that the restrooms had showers so before we took off a nice shower was in order and felt good.  The real challenge was getting out of the resort.  Nobody wanted to leave via the beach since we had all the sand off of us.  So we wandered around the resort, but all the gates required a key card. Eventually we found a delivery driveway, and followed it out to the street.

 

Since Nassau didnt seem to have Uber or Lyft we needed a cab, and guess what, there was one parked in front of the resort. We woke up the driver and she was thrilled to take us back to the port.  Return trip was 29.00.  We want to extend a big thanks to the Paradise Island Beach Club. Even though we were not guests we really enjoyed our time there.

 

Next we had a quick snack at Breezys ( Conch Salad, Conch Fritters, and a few kaliks ) and headed back to the Elation.

 

Lets circle back to some unknown info on Nassau before we got off the ship:

Per the Nassau Safety Message that was well hidden in the Carnival App under Good to Know.  Let me quote: " The US Embassy has issued a safety advisory urging visitors to avoid over the hill ( south of shirley street ) and Fish Fry at Arawak cay at night. Remain in tourist areas, return before sunset, and refrain from wearing jewelry or carrying large sums of cash. For safety reasons we discourage rentals of SCOOTERS OR JETSKIS."

 

Now to be fair, we never felt unsafe or worried. We were south of Shirley street and we were about to head to fish fry, but the option of the food on the ship won out.  So we feel that the warning about the scooter rental was just confirming that maybe our wives were correct.  Just dont tell them.

 

Once back on the ship, we all go ready to meet at the Atrium bar at 745, then dinner at 815, then I think we hit up Karaoke this night. I love karaoke, but I love it for all the wrong reasons.  I love to watch people that just cant sing think they can. The ship was full of folks who could sing pretty well, so off to the piano bar which was packed tonight.  Headed to bed around 11, it was another great day, and I was ready.

 

Hung up the room service menu for another 700am coffee, melon, bread, and orange juice.  Life is great.

 

Tomorrow we leave in the morning for two days at sea heading back to Port Canaveral. This means quality time on the serenity deck with Heri.

 

See you tomorrow.

 

[JandPB]

Love this so far. Glad that up to this point you've been flexible and had a good time. That's what vacations are about.

[Haveuseen1]

9/24-9/25  SEA DAYS

 

Since the next two days are sea days, they are quite similar so I will just do them together.  

We did Brunch again, and I had the Avocado Toast and Yogurt parfait.  We sat next to 4 wonderful ladies from Birmingham Alabama and they were a hoot.  Really enjoyed visiting with them.  They were upbeat and having a wonderful time.

 

Second breakfast was at the Buffet and again it was very good, again a great variety of foods all prepared well and in qtys that could satisfy the calorie demand of Mike Phelps.

 

One day my wife got a facial at the Spa and just loved it.  The husbands did Game of Thrones trivia, One hit wonder trivia, and a few other odds & ends.  My wife and I went to the Hairy Chest contest which was funny to watch. Just a heads up that trivia is tough.

 

One day we tried the water slide. Turned out to be one of the funniest things, and I dont know why we found it so funny.  We are both average build, not larger build at all.  I dont know if the slide needed more water flowing down it or what, but we both got stuck in the tube part of the slide.  She had to "scoot" along to get going, and I used my hands on the top of the tube to push along.  At the time it was hilarious.  Those little kids were coming out like rockets.  So we only went down once each, and kept laughing about it.  Maybe it was a situational thing, but it still makes me smile while I type this.

 

We checked out the putt putt course which looked good, but we did not play, nor did we play ping pong, there was always a game going and that would have been extra fun in the rough seas.

 

One day during an extended Serenity deck time, I went up the the buffet and built a Charcuterie plate.  loaded it up with Veggies, fruits, breads, cheeses, ranch dressing ( in a little silver cup ) and brought it back to the serenity for some snacking.  Worked out great.  I also moved from the Parched Pig IPA to the Rebel IPA just to shake it up a little.  My wife also changed to some drink that was two different colors.  Looked pretty good.  

 

Dinner was in the dining room again, and the food was just as good as always.  Two of our crew ate in the buffet once due to fried shrimp. I think they were going on a fried shrimp binge and they loved it.  

 

We listened to a band that was on a little stage near jekyl and hyde they were pretty good, and moved back to the Piano bar.  

 

On the last night we met in the Atrium Bar for a guy playing the guitar, he was good.  Then we went to the 7pm comedy show.  I felt so bad for that guy ( Chas was his name ).  He just couldnt get the crowd into it, and he knew it.  It was painful for everyone in the room, and he ended early to everyones delight, including himself.  

Then we did dinner, and went to EPIC ROCK.  Oh boy that was a good show.  I am a big fan of 70's and 80's rock and they delivered.  

 

After Epic Rock, it was one more dose of the two violins in the Atrium and off to bed. 

 

We actually pulled into Port Canaveral at 340am, got off the boat around 930am, was on my Cortans shuttle by 950am, and headed back to MCO for a flight home at 125pm.

 

We had a great time, and if the exact same thing happened again, well we would just roll with it and have fun.  

 

Next I will move to Part 2 which will break down some specifics.

 

 

[bmar808]

Loving your review. I'm not even going on the Elation, nor doing any of your itinerary, but am compelled to read it because of the way you write! Waiting (im)patiently! 😁

[mek]

5 family members ( 4 generations), will be  taking a 5 year old on his first cruise in February on Elation.  We thought a shorter cruise would be a good idea and we are spending time post cruise in Orlando.

Sorry you were diverted, but it sounds like you had a great time.

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

Edited October 1, 2019 by mek

[trisha1165]

On 9/27/2019 at 5:35 PM, Haveuseen1 said:

Saturday 9/21 ( Part 2 )

 

We dropped the car at National at 1100am, and took the free National Shuttle to the port.  Very efficient and worked very well.

We all had Faster to the Fun so we could board at 1130am.

The Embarkation was smooth and very efficient, the whole process  from start to finish took maybe 15 minutes, and that included stopping for a group photo before boarding.

 

Boarded on Deck 7 (Empress ) which was the deck where our rooms where.  Our room E144 was more in the middle of the ship, and the others were all in the front.  Our room was ready, so we dropped our backpacks and headed to Guest Services.  I had 400.00 in AARP Gift Cards to put on our account. The whole process including the line was maybe 10 minutes.

 

We all agreed to meet on the Lido deck for lunch so off we went, Guys Burgers here we come.

As Expected the burgers were great, short fast line and life is good.  We kicked around getting familiar with the ship and the layout. We had a couples massage at 5 so we needed to kill some time.  

 

My wife is Gluten Free and we had given Carnival the heads up before and thought we might need to check in at our dining room to make sure they were aware.  We had 815pm dining so off to the Imagination Dining Room which was at the AFT of the ship.  Got there and there was nobody present.  Not a big deal, and we were confident all would be well.  And it was.

 

Around 330pm it was time for the Muster. We had Muster F which is on the Lido Deck near the Stage.  It was short maybe 15 minutes.  When you arrived to the muster station they scanned your card and you just stayed to the side, until they showed how to put on a life jacket, and how to put a life jacket on a stuffed shark ( which represented and infant under 35 pounds ).  

 

After muster we checked to see if our luggage had arrived and it had. Our two bags were patiently sitting outside E144 waiting to be unpacked.  E144 is an oceanview room which is nice, and we had it set up with a king bed.  We unpacked slid the suitcases under the bed, checked out the TV and relaxed.

 

We purchased a 12pk of water it was already in the room, and I brought a six pack of soda.  I put the 6 pack in the fridge, although that thing was pitiful.  Those drinks never got any cooler.  It was not an issue for us, but it might bother someone.

 

Be back with more shortly.

 

 

QUESTION:  I'm booked in Cabin E144 as well for my 1/11/2020 Girls Cruise for a friends 60th Bday. Do you have an pictures of the cabin? Whats your opinion of the cabin??

 

 

 

[Haveuseen1]

I dont really have a pic of the room, but the location was excellent.  If it helps the layout is where the bathroom will be on your left when you enter, with the closet, and desk on your right. The head of the bed was on the right wall.  We felt the location of the room was great and easily could get anywhere in a very short time.  We did hear something rolling around one morning ( the galley is above you ) but we were up and it lasted for about 20 seconds, so no big deal.  I also felt like the room was quite roomy, and the window was great.

 

I should note we had the room set up as one bed.  If you have it set up as two, I am not sure how they would do the layout.

 

Hope you have a great trip.

Edited November 6, 2019 by Haveuseen1

[trisha1165]

Thanks, your info helps. 😊

[GreakLakes]

Excellent review. Thank you for sharing.