Carnival Celebration

[beshears]

The 8 of us are planning on cruising next year, and we have never done the Carnival Celebration. If you have been on this ship within the past year, would you give me your pros/cons of this ship.

[May1cruiser]

So many great reviews out there. 

Cons- rooms are bathrooms are smaller than other class of ships.

- too many food choices to try everything in 7 days. 

- not a big fan of port of miami. 

- old school, but love having a dedicated atrium bar and big lobby. 

Pros

- has almost all amenities

- does not seem as crowded as the numbers suggest

- new ship 

- its a cruise, crew make the difference. and they were good this January. 

[EngIceDave]

 

[Illbcruzn4life]

3 hours ago, beshears said:

The 8 of us are planning on cruising next year, and we have never done the Carnival Celebration. If you have been on this ship within the past year, would you give me your pros/cons of this ship.

On Celebration right now. What’s not to like. May1cruiser pretty much nailed it. Have to squeeze in Emerils for lunch today and Chibang for dinner tonight before we get off in the morning.

 

Doesn’t seem crowded, shows are good. Well the circus one was boring.

Centerstage (grand central) is a good idea but the sight lines are not good. Not many good seats unless you get there 45-60 minutes ahead of time.

 

Lots and lots of comedy.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Illbcruzn4life

[Saint Greg]

Pro

food options 

modern rooms

 

con 

Not enough seats in central lounge or comedy clubs

repeat shows to compensate for lack of seating

limited itinerary options

[4hunters]

 

[1025cruise]

Have you cruised Mardi Gras? For the most part, the experience should be similar.

[maintain242001]

I think center stage was our only mini gripe, as other have said the boat is full but I never felt crowded honestly.

 

Chi bang seemed to be universally disliked by many but there are plenty of food options so it's not an issue.

 

Serenity deck was nice, wish we would have popped up there more than we did.

 

I guess I could add we were in the Havana Cabana rooms and while it was nice to have the patio and relative quiet the Havana area is a monster downgrade overall from the Vista class

Edited May 6, 2023 by maintain242001

[Illbcruzn4life]

27 minutes ago, maintain242001 said:

I think center stage was our only mini gripe, as other have said the boat is full but I never felt crowded honestly.

 

Chi bang seemed to be universally disliked by many but there are plenty of food options so it's not an issue.

 

Serenity deck was nice, wish we would have popped up there more than we did.

 

I guess I could add we were in the Havana Cabana rooms and while it was nice to have the patio and relative quiet the Havana area is a monster downgrade overall from the Vista class

After all the negative stuff about Chibang, especially the Mexican menu we are going to venture in there tonight.

 

we only went to the MDR the 2 elegant nights and the service was not that good. Our waiter was killing it but seemed like he had no help and too many tables. 
 

I agree 100% about the major downgrade in the Havana area. Way too small. The last 2 days you couldn't get a lounger in the Havana area where the pool and bar is.

 

Glad we didn’t book one on the Jubilee. We got a balcony on the hump.

 

still loved the cruise. Nothing is perfect. Heading home in the morning. 🙁

[beshears]

Thank you ALL for your response to my posting. Someone ask if we had done the Mardi Gras, and the answer is no. I will take all of your comments into consideration in deciding what ship we will be doing next year.

[Illbcruzn4life]

Just a followup about Chibang. Dinner was well worth it. Thought the food was very good. Had the potstickers, lettuce wraps, spicy shrimp entree,(didnt care for the tail shells on) an order of the noodles.

 

one good thing about the specialty restaurants is you can order desserts from the MDR. Wife liked that. She ordered the warm chocolate melting cake.

 

Wife had the chicken spring rolls and the sweet and sour shrimp.

 

No complaints at all. 👍🏻😊

[modernscarlett]

We sailed Celebration in April and overall loved her!

 

Cons 

• elevators - we learned to just go down the room corridors to forward or aft elevators
• central show area - almost impossible to get a seat or standing place with a view
• pools were crazy cold

 

Pros

• So many dining options it's hard to fit them in
• so many different seating areas, pool areas, multiple points of access to lido dining - deals with crowds well
• two comedy venues
• best pizza I've had at sea
• She's beautiful
• embarkation and debarkation were great
• Bolt is so fun
• shower pressure was perfect

 

[csm5986142]

We were on Celebration in January and really liked it.  As someone mentioned, it's very much like Mardi Gras. I agree with everything mentioned above except I didn't realize ChiBang had a lot of negative reviews - we loved it on both Mardi Gras and Celebration (we ended up choosing it over Cucina most of the time).

One thing I did notice with the cabins being more narrow, I saw way more scooters parked in the hallways, so I'm guessing they don't fit in the rooms very well.

[vadersprincess12]

 

 

Not sure how to link a thread so I copied the review I recently did on the Celebration for for you.

 

DH and I just got off the Carnival Celebration's April 23 sailing.

 

There were pluses and minuses about this cruise.

 

EMBARKATION

Embarkation was very smooth. Everything seemed to be very organized. They did have a drug dog inspecting all the bags.

The ship itself is beautiful and the layout isn’t too difficult to navigate. The hallways in the cabin areas are wider than most ships which was nice.

 

CABIN

We booked an oceanview cabin on deck 4. It was very spacious with the exception of the bathroom. I think this was one of the smallest cruise ship bathrooms ever! DH would say “I turn around and run into myself”. Our cabin steward Kariyasa was very friendly and kept our cabin very clean and stocked. There was a small built-in bench in front of the window which was great ~ I could sit and read and look at the ocean. Our safe didn’t work when we first boarded and it was a simple and quick fix by maintenance replacing the battery.

 

DINING

We don’t usually book specialty dining and didn’t on this cruise as well. What was a nice surprise is that Chibang (Asian and Mexican), Cucina del Capitano, and the Pig and Anchor (at lunch) were included options, as was Big Chicken.

 

I’m not a huge fan of Asian food but we tried Chibang and I loved it so much we went back again. I had the Mandarin Honey Crunch Salad and the Sweet and Sour Shrimp both times! DH had the Kung Pao Chicken and Hakka Noodles and really enjoyed those.

 

The food at Pig and Anchor during lunch was fantastic. We enjoyed the brisket and the pulled pork. Their mac and cheese was just like Mom’s.

 

Cucina del Capitano was okay. DH is Italian so we are used to real Italian cooking. He ordered Nonna’s meatballs as his appetizer ~ he got one, count ‘em ONE, golf ball sized meatball!!!!! He ordered penne with sauce and his serving looked like a child’s size serving, while I ordered the Chicken Parm and it was huge.

 

Big Chicken was really delicious; the fries are thin and crispy and the chicken strips were very crunchy, flavorful, and tender.

Guy’s Burgers is fantastic as usual.

 

Main dining varied depending on the night. We had “Your Time” dining and if we went right when they opened the service was quick and efficient, but if we went even 20 minutes later the service seemed to drag. It took forever just to get drinks served. For the most part we enjoyed our choices.

 

The choices on the Lido buffet seemed more limited than usual. The stations were small and spaced out. They did offer two flavors of gelato each day which were included so that was a nice touch. We had trouble in the morning with the coffee machines constantly being out of coffee which was a bummer. And they are still serving bacon only every other day. On the plus side, the ambience of the seating area was very nice.

 

ENTERTAINMENT

The casino is nicely laid out and the non-smoking area is actually larger than the smoking area. While there is nothing specific separating them, we didn’t get the smoky smell we usually get on the smaller ships coming over into the non-smoking area. They had a nice variety of machines, but they were very tight. Seemed like there were lots of “jackpot” winners on the first night but after that it was very limited. It was always crowded.

 

I’m not sure what to think of their “Center Stage” area. It’s open to everything around it and as some others have said the viewing areas are limited. Not sure why they chose to have Playlist Productions shows in this area. The noise from the surrounding areas especially when they have photographers set up nearby can be annoying.

 

We saw the show Celestial Strings. The violin players were fabulous. Once the Playlist Productions cast joined the show, while their voices were great and it seemed like a step up from the talent on other Carnival ships, the actual “show” part of it lacked something. I think it’s because of the very limited area in which they have to work. Very little of the show takes place on the actual (small) stage area ~ most of it was on the level below the stage where people actually sat.

 

We went to the Most Magnificent Circus show there but left after 30 minutes. During that time there was plenty of “circus” music but the cast pretty much just pranced around and posed in different areas. They rolled one member of the cast in a large banner and rolled out another (like magic) and they put a cast member in a basket and put swords through it, but it was so slow and just dragged so we decided to leave.

Both shows seemed to lack creativity; personally I feel it was because of the limited area in which to perform.

 

There was one Playlist Production show in the theater ~ Amor Cubano. It was a show of Latin song and dance and was a very nice production.

 

The only other shows we saw in the theater were two comedians.

 

Speaking of comedians ~ most of them were really funny. We saw numerous shows between the theater, the Punchliner, and the Limelight lounge. There were 5 different comedians during the course of the cruise.

 

There were other musicians throughout the ship during the cruise but we didn’t see them.

 

PORTS OF CALL

This was our first visit to Amber Cove. While it was a very nice area, most of the seating was in the sun with no umbrellas. If you wanted to sit in an area with umbrellas they wanted to charge you $70 or $80 for two chairs with the umbrella. So sick of the nickel and dime-ing all the time. There was a “swim-up” bar even though the pool was not “swimmable”. It was not very deep but it was refreshing. The “lazy river” was actually just an area where people would walk around in the circular area ~ no tubes to relax in.

 

I did try the zip line ~ it was $28 for as many rides as you want, but being in my 60’s I only rode once for the experience. It was fun, but I don’t think I could take the harness for more than that one ride.

 

We have been to Puerto Rico before and enjoyed just walking around on our own. We visited Castillo San Cristobal on our first visit so we walked to Castillo San Felipe del Morro on this trip. We stopped for drinks in a local bar and enjoyed the sights along the cobblestone streets.

 

In St. Thomas, we took an island tour. What an adventure! The roads are very curvy and steep. We got to visit numerous sites along the way with a narrated history by our driver. We stopped at the “Mountain Top”, where they serve their World Famous Banana Daiquiris. The view from the top is spectacular.

 

OTHER

We found the photographers to be annoying. Personally we don’t like having photos taken while we are eating dinner. Also, there were so many areas on the ship where they were set up that sometimes it was hard to navigate your way around.

 

Public bathrooms were few and far between, and they were difficult to find, especially when the photographers were set up in front of them.

The Serenity adult area was very large and you could always find a chair, but for some reason the pool was no bigger than the pool on the small ships; it was always too crowded. I also found the pools (the tiny amount of time I spent there) to be too cold. On other cruises it would be a chill getting into the pool, but you would adjust to the temperature. Not so much on this ship.

 

Never got to ride the Bolt because we couldn’t get a reservation.

 

The most annoying part of the entire trip ~ the elevators!!!!!! There was a bank of 6 aft, 8 mid-ship, and 8 forward. No matter the time of day there was always an unusually long wait. People would get in an “up” elevator just be on it so they could then go down, and vice versa. We have never waited so long for an elevator as we did on this ship.

 

We have upcoming trips on the NCL Prima and the Carnival Horizon. We will see how they go ~ at this point in time, we seem to like the smaller and mid-size ships better.

[kwokpot]

On 5/6/2023 at 8:12 AM, May1cruiser said:

So many great reviews out there. 

Cons- rooms are bathrooms are smaller than other class of ships.

- too many food choices to try everything in 7 days. 

Strange that you would put many food choices as a con. So if there were only the MDR, buffet and steakhouse then that's a pro? 

[May1cruiser]

1 hour ago, kwokpot said:

Strange that you would put many food choices as a con. So if there were only the MDR, buffet and steakhouse then that's a pro? 

It is only a con if you attempt to eat in all of them and fit in the clothes you boarded with. 

I guess variety is not a con, rather a "challenge" to decide. 

[AllgoodOnTheRoad]

Check out my video series on the Celebration from our April 16th Cruise. This was one of our best cruises. Carnival has raised their bar with Celebration. I hope it stays that way.

 

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by AllgoodOnTheRoad