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Just off the Celebration

smcgoldr

By smcgoldr,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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smcgoldr

smcgoldr

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I was on the inaugural sailing of the Celebration out of Miami. Since it is such a new ship, I wanted to give my views on the good and bad. Overall it was a great cruise, some of the offerings on the big ship are great, but at other times, I missed the smaller ships.

 

My overall impression of the ship were positive. Lots to do, didn't really feel like I was sailing with 6000 of my closest friends except when it was time to get off and all 6000 wanted to be at the same place at the same time. The roller coaster was fun, not sure I would do it again. $15 for 2 laps isn't bad, but when you pay for 6 people, it adds up. Definitely a must do once if you like rides. Ropes course was good. I was on another ship and you picked inside or outside lane and had to stay there. This one has tracks to swap side to side before every obstacle. My daughter was excited that one of the water slides was where the floor drops out. Mini golf was sheltered from the wind, no chasing the blowing golf ball around like when I was on the victory. Lots of live music every day. The one area that I didn't like was all the upper balconies looked down on public decks. I felt more separated from the water. You didn't hear water sounds, but people sounds. Also the middle decks extend out so far that in port from a balcony on deck 8, you couldn't see the pier in grand turk even though it was right below you. The other big thing I noticed was all the railings and walls were much higher. Probably 5' were the shorter areas, but most were 7 or 8' high. Much safer for preventing overboard, but you were looking through glass in most public area and very few spots could you look over the top.

 

For some more details, lets start with where they knocked it out of the park.

 

Food offerings - They have spread this out across the ship, so that no one area ever seemed to have long lines, even at busy times. There were still lines for the popular items, but nothing like I was expecting. On sea days you had free offerings at brunch in the main dinning room, Deck 8 - Pig and Anchor on aft, Pizza and sandwiches mid, Cuccina del Capitano fwd, Deck 16 - Big Chicken aft, Lido Mid, Street eats starboard front of pool, Blue iguana port front of pool, deck 17 guys burgers mid and serenity salad bar.

 

Entertainment - There were so many parallel options, that at times you had to really pick and choose. They had 4 main venues for shows. The theater, center stage, punch liner and limelight. 1st night early comedy was pretty full, but then shows were not full often. They used 3 venues for comedy and at times had overlapping shows in 2 of them. Late night they had comedians in the main theater a few times. Other than the piano bar and center stage for the circus, most places had seats 5-10 minutes before the show. The piano bar was always filled. They also had random areas with live music near the bars and at pig an anchor.

 

Area that could use improvement

 

Breakfast and brunch in the main dinning room was lacking in service. Our first sea day was a long wait for food, missed parts of what was ordered, mixed up ingredients in omelets every time we were there. After food was delivered we never saw the waiter again and finally gave up on seeing dessert and just left. The second day at brunch seemed to be better, still had omelet issues, but received all our items. Final breakfast was very slow to serve. The other issue we encountered was getting ketchup or jelly once the food arrived. It took close to 10 minutes one day. Definitely need to work on this area. We also found the dinning room staff at the hostess area to be less than friendly on numerous occasions.

 

Disembarkation was a mess. They had lines coming from different directions, making a u turn and then going back, but with limited staff and no ropes, people were making their own lines down the center, cutting past tables to make shortcuts, etc. It was obvious it was a new ship with new staff and their second debarkation.

 

Alchemy Bar - the staff was great, but the bar location was the issue. It is literally lining a hallway on one side with a railing looking down to deck 6 on the other. There were so many people always trying to get past the bar, while others were lined up 2 deep waiting on drinks. The constant flow of traffic during busy times took away from the bar experience. It really needs to be off the main travel path so that people passing by are not bumping into the bar guests. This layout felt like you were in a hallway, not a bar.

 

Late night food - after 10pm, all you have left is the pizza place. Good pizza, but lots of demand for it as the only place opened. Also one night at 11pm we went looking for ice cream and there are only 2 locations on this ship. One was closed and the other was out of ice cream. They are supposed to be opened until midnight, but not on the night we went looking. I asked a staff member and he told me the closed area, I told him it had a sign closed, he then told me the other location and I told him it was out of ice cream. He threw his hands up and want back to collecting condiments from lido deck tables.

 

Would I sail on it again, yes, but would look at other ships as options too. I did book Mardi Gras last night, so the Excel class are still high on my list, but I did miss aspects of the small ships and will be back to conquest or dream class again. Dates, Embarkation port and ports of call are my main deciding factors. (living 40 miles for Port Canaveral makes that my 1st choice) Excel class didn't wow me enough to be a deciding factor, but it was a nice ship.

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Ilovesailaway

Ilovesailaway

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Op thanks for the review. I have an upcoming Celebration cruise and this is very helpful. Sorry to see Carnival is still having issues with basic service in the MDR. You would think they have heard all the complaints but I guess they don't care enough to fix the problem. Not even on their newest ship.

Also your review reminds me to have a plan for late night food options and to debark the ship late, after the chaos.

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pe4all

pe4all

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Very nice, well-rounded review.  While I would really like to try some of the food options that the 
"smaller" ships don't have (Street eats, Big Chicken) I think I will stick to ships with less than 6,000 passengers!

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jimbob22

jimbob22

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We just got off MG and I'd agree that it's a bit of a 'food desert' from around 9:30pm to 11:30pm, which is annoying when you get out of a late seated dinner that was only like 500 calories and you want to supplement it. Lido closes at 9:30.  They do put out 'late snacks' at P&A at 11:30.  We wandered over to examine (but were already full that night), but it did have some yummy looking beef and cheese sandwiches, grilled cheese, a few more savory things, only cookies and some bowl of mystery 'creme' for sweets. 

 

I think they've cut back staffing just a bit.  Even the quick-serve places we went to would all have benefitted from one more person behind the counter.  But 'it is what it is' and this is probably how things will be staffed going forward...

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EngIceDave "Live from...." Rare

EngIceDave

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2 minutes ago, May1cruiser said:

It has been suggested to grab some cheese and sliced cold cuts from the salad bar and place in your fridge for late night snacks. we are thinking of bringing some crackers to partner with the cheese and meats. 

 

What I was thinking for our upcoming Celebration cruise, but I will hoard real goodies like pastries and desserts

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jimbob22

jimbob22

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2 minutes ago, EngIceDave said:

What I was thinking for our upcoming Celebration cruise, but I will hoard real goodies like pastries and desserts

This is a good plan b/c there are basically no sweets available after 9:30--other than swirls ice cream.  On the last full night, we actually got paninis, put them in ziplocs, then in fridge, made for good lunch on the road the next day.

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Joebucks

Joebucks

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5 hours ago, May1cruiser said:

It has been suggested to grab some cheese and sliced cold cuts from the salad bar and place in your fridge for late night snacks. we are thinking of bringing some crackers to partner with the cheese and meats. 

 

 

There are so many things at the deli that I want that I will probably stow away a sandwich or two. It's a shame, I would have paid like $6 here and there to get a sandwich later.

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mondello

mondello

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@smcgoldr Thank you for the review. We’ll be on Celebration 12/19 for Christmas. Makes me feel a little better for booking Spirit for Spring Break, where you said you won’t have a problem going back to smaller ships. Shame you noticed any bad crew at the hostess stand. One thing I like about Carnival is they always have great crew.

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ProgRockCruiser

ProgRockCruiser

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On 11/29/2022 at 8:39 AM, smcgoldr said:

Alchemy Bar - the staff was great, but the bar location was the issue. It is literally lining a hallway on one side with a railing looking down to deck 6 on the other. There were so many people always trying to get past the bar, while others were lined up 2 deep waiting on drinks. The constant flow of traffic during busy times took away from the bar experience. It really needs to be off the main travel path so that people passing by are not bumping into the bar guests. This layout felt like you were in a hallway, not a bar.

Mardi Gras, obviously, has the same problem.  I noticed that the layout looked like it was asking for congestion when they released the deck plans.  And yep, the Alchemy Bar was a pain if you weren't at one of the at-the-bar seats.

 

The Alchemy Bar is always our favorite bar on board other ships.  So we expected that to be our "hang-out" spot most evenings.

 

As it turned out, The Brass Magnolia Bar on MG became our favorite spot - I guess the Golden Jubilee Bar is the equivalent on Celebration.  After we experienced the Alchemy Bar awkwardness, we thought it was going to be the Fortune Teller Bar (Latitudes Bar is in that location on Celebration), because of all the weird and wonderful drinks, but that often became over-crowded with everyone else trying out the new weird drinks.  Plus the Brass Magnolia had a (really good, IMHO) band playing right beside most nights, and an excellent selection of drinks, very much to our tastes.

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Pellaz

Pellaz

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On 11/29/2022 at 11:08 AM, jimbob22 said:

 They do put out 'late snacks' at P&A at 11:30.  We wandered over to examine (but were already full that night), but it did have some yummy looking beef and cheese sandwiches, grilled cheese, a few more savory things, only cookies and some bowl of mystery 'creme' for sweets. 

Aha, this must be new.  When I was on the Mardi Gras there was NOTHING available after 10 pm -- the onset of what I nicknamed "the Dark Times" -- except pizza and Swirls.  

 

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jimbob22

jimbob22

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7 hours ago, Pellaz said:

Aha, this must be new.  When I was on the Mardi Gras there was NOTHING available after 10 pm -- the onset of what I nicknamed "the Dark Times" -- except pizza and Swirls.  

 

still not a lot of sweets to be had after 9:30.  What are they doing with all of those cakes from lunch? They can't plate individual slices and put them out later at night?   I determined that no cruise has induced the sort of cognitive dissonance in me that MG just did--many aspects of the ship, entertainment, food were awesome--but then they'll slip you a dinner that's like 300 calories, it's 9:20 at night, and your only option at that point is pizza or panini.  So that was just really annoying. 

 

I'd definitely do an excel class again--but I think I can be fine with medium-sized ships too, particularly if the cruise line conforms to the old standard where one or two apps+one entree+one dessert will satisfy a normal adult male appetite.  And call me old school, but I do not recognize those metal ketchup holders as a legitimate vessel for providing a dinner portion of food.

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smcgoldr

smcgoldr

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On 12/2/2022 at 12:20 PM, jimbob22 said:

And call me old school, but I do not recognize those metal ketchup holders as a legitimate vessel for providing a dinner portion of food.

 You must have ordered the ribs in the MDR. The beans and creamed corn came in the same little metal cup that they bring out ketchup in. I don't think it even equated to two forks worth. At first I was trying to figure out what the yellow white condiment was until I realized it was creamed corn.

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jimbob22

jimbob22

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20 minutes ago, smcgoldr said:

 You must have ordered the ribs in the MDR. The beans and creamed corn came in the same little metal cup that they bring out ketchup in. I don't think it even equated to two forks worth. At first I was trying to figure out what the yellow white condiment was until I realized it was creamed corn.

I wanted to get the salmon and the brisket so I filled the bubble for both. Then the worker came back to our table and told me that was an illegal move and to choose one. I chose the salmon (not very big), and the collards and beans were in the ketchup things.  My slaw (same as shaq slaw) was on the tray.  It was a 300 calorie dinner. I did scavenge some brisket from others in my family.  It was generally a very disappointing experience.  The equivalent of ordering multiple entrees at P&A is to make sure to get more than one menu, fill them in and demand that they fill the orders I guess.

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NutsAboutGolf Holiday Sharing Rare

NutsAboutGolf

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On 11/29/2022 at 6:16 AM, smcgoldr said:

Deli closed at 10pm. It was 9:55 one night and they were closed and packing it up, while I was in the pizza line. 

 

As for TN, guess I never updated that after my move. I just fixed it.

 

Quick question, if you have iPhone and paid for the ship internet, can you send or receive SMS texts?

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