why so many bad reviews of the Mardi Gras?

[WhaleTailFlCruiser]

Who is giving bad reviews of MG? I have been on her three times and she is fantastic. The crew are amazing, food options are amazing. 

 

Excel ships in general are just really amazing. People will nitpick anything these days. 

[sgttami]

Over the years, in regards to cruising and many other things, I prefer to see it for myself before I decide if it's good or bad.

 

Prior to my first cruise on Carnival I had doubts from so many negative comments on boards of the "other" lines.

 

I figured if it was that horrible, I wouldn't go on another.  I've been on 16 Carnival cruises since then.  Glad I didn't listen to the negative!.

 

 

[sprint180]

I enjoyed my trip on the Mardi Gras.  To be fair it was much better then I expected.  I didn't really like the layout of the ship as I like older ships but it was beautifully decorated.  My issue with the Mardi Gras is the entertainment was terrible.  We saw several people walk out of the shows.  and the food was just ok.  All subjective just as pretty much everything in life.  I loved the entertainment on NCL ships, Choir of Man, Kinky Boots, and Jersey Boys among my favorites and Carnval doesn't even compare.  Go on the cruise.  I'm sure you will enjoy yourself.

[kdr69]

On 3/15/2024 at 6:13 AM, sparks1093 said:

They are talking about the review portion of Cruise Critic, not the forums. One can up or down vote a review I think but you can't comment. For grins I looked at the Mardi Gras review page (Here's a link if anyone wants it Carnival Mardi Gras Cruise Reviews (2024 UPDATED): Ratings of Carnival Mardi Gras (cruisecritic.com) ) and the first 10 reviews had 4 1 star ratings, 1 2 star, 3 3 star, 0 4 star, and 2 5 star. I think I would classify 5 negative reviews out of 10 reviews to be "many".

 

Thanks for pointing that out.  My opinion is 5 may be many when reading only 10 reviews but given there are hundreds of responses on many threads here on cruise critic related to the Mardi Gras saying the exact opposite i would say 10 reviews is a pretty tiny data set to base any comments on. 

[tree.critter]

I cruised on the new Mardi Gras 5 times (once on the original) Inaugural BTB, Sailabration BTB and once 12/2021 for anniversary. I really wanted to love this ship and all that she offered. The inaugural was great because capacity was way reduced, we wore masks but was so happy to just be back to cruising. We loved the food options, the shows were real good, the ship itself is beautiful. 
The first disappointment was that the 3 deck windows were covered more than they weren’t, this applied to all the cruises it seems too. The seating for shows there was awful, if you didn’t get a seat half hour early forget a good view. So much more waiting for pretty much everything. The crew, one of my biggest favorite things about Carnival, never seemed like they had a chance to breathe and on every single one of these cruises they just did not seem relaxed and were under constant heavy pressure to me. 
We had spa balcony cabin on all Mardi Gras cruises and wow, the biggest disappointment ever. Smallest spa amenities down in the depths of the ship in a very dungeon like atmosphere with no windows to outside. Then the physical size of the room was downsized from every standard cabin I’ve been in. The path to walk between foot of bed and wall was very narrow, stroke survivor not great at balance any more, fell onto bed a couple times as I tried to get used to the downsized path. 
I loved the roller coaster even though we only got a single trip around for $15 on the first cruise, didn’t do it any more but still cool (don’t book a room underneath it though, noise is unavoidable when it’s running) Looks like Lido and all the activities is good for the youngsters but this is also where I saw the least supervision of kids. 
So, we have decided that the Excel class is just not for us. Current bookings are now Miracle Hawaii, Spirit Alaska, Glory Caribbean BTBTB and giving the Firenze a try. Love the Dream class because I do appreciate the nice Cloud 9 spa, Vista class is OK spa.

I would recommend giving the ship a try at least once though if it can work out. It is innovative, fairly new, has coaster and so many fun food options to explore. 

These weren’t bad cruises for us by any means, just not as enjoyable and definitely not as relaxing as we are accustomed to. 

[sparks1093]

1 hour ago, kdr69 said:

Thanks for pointing that out.  My opinion is 5 may be many when reading only 10 reviews but given there are hundreds of responses on many threads here on cruise critic related to the Mardi Gras saying the exact opposite i would say 10 reviews is a pretty tiny data set to base any comments on. 

Yes it is but the threads are interspersed with reviews of other ships and arguments about cruising so they aren't as obvious. I suspect that the overall trend of the reviews would be about the same from page to page (as pointed out most people only worry about posting any type of review if they had a negative experience). (And I forgot to say that at least 2 of the 3 3 star reviews had a negative title, so that increases the number of negative reviews.) If you are reading reviews and you see that many negative reviews on one page would you be inclined to keep reading? Most wouldn't. 

[dsfitz]

The only negative for us was the main dining room   service very slow and food cold by the time we got it    so we ate in the other restaurants

[Knights on the Beach]

We love Mardi Gras - we've been on it 4 times and September will be our 5th. Most of the things I see people complaining about don't bother us. We weren't crazy about the food in the MDR but there are so many other good options. Other than the first day, we've never found Mardi Gras to be overly crowded. We don't usually need to stand in long lines because we quickly learned what times are best to avoid them.

[sunkey1]

Just came back from our third trip on the Mardi Gras - we still LOVE this class of ship. That said, although the ship, food, drinks and service were ALL wonderful, our biggest issue was with the guests. We knew to expect kids given the timing of the cruise, but we've never experienced so many young kids running around unsupervised. Parents were just partying, drinking and letting the kids do their thing. Some of the parents were worse than the kids. SO different from our first two MG cruises (both in October). Didn't spoil our cruise but definitely will not cruise Carnival again over spring break, just not our thing.

[ChinaShrek]

On 3/15/2024 at 9:37 AM, Elaine5715 said:

There are no reservations except for specialty dining on any Carnival ship.  No need to get in a line to go to a venue that hasn't opened to see a show.  

Yes, but if you check-in for dinner there could be a 60-90 minutes wait (depending on the venue). No line, perhaps, but still a wait.

[DonnyZee1]

Can't say much on this Ship but I can say alot on the Cruise Line itself. If I were you I would take any other Cruise Line in a heartbeat than this one. Their passenger courtesy sucks "Big Time"!

Never will I or anyone that asks me about them go on this Cruise Line, Again!

[Houst]

The Bad thing for Us was our cabin above one of the restaurants with outdoor seating. The lights were always on and their music was always playing 24/7

[Elaine5715]

5 hours ago, ChinaShrek said:

Yes, but if you check-in for dinner there could be a 60-90 minutes wait (depending on the venue). No line, perhaps, but still a wait.

Yes, but what?  

[sparks1093]

9 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

Yes, but what?  

A wait is a wait, whether one is standing in line or not. Even if you reserve through the app you can't let yourself get tied up with doing something else because you don't know exactly when you will be called.

[sparks1093]

14 hours ago, DonnyZee1 said:

Can't say much on this Ship but I can say alot on the Cruise Line itself. If I were you I would take any other Cruise Line in a heartbeat than this one. Their passenger courtesy sucks "Big Time"!

Never will I or anyone that asks me about them go on this Cruise Line, Again!

Thanks for your input. Fortunately we've never experienced any problems with "passenger courtesy". In fact whenever there has been any type of issue they have always exceeded our expectations. Of course, we kept our expectations reasonable.

[jimbo5544]

14 hours ago, DonnyZee1 said:

Can't say much on this Ship but I can say alot on the Cruise Line itself. If I were you I would take any other Cruise Line in a heartbeat than this one. Their passenger courtesy sucks "Big Time"!

Never will I or anyone that asks me about them go on this Cruise Line, Again!

And yet you post here…. And you block access to your post history….hmmm

Edited March 26 by jimbo5544

[allie3490]

Well cruise critic is a toxic dumpster fire and I would def not send anyone to this site for reviews. It’s basically full of boomers complaining about chair hogs and loud kids. Nothing you read here should be taken as fact. Same goes for Facebook. I recommend YouTube. JMO of course 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Joebucks]

For all of its faults, I find it harder to select non-Excel classes in the future. There is so much more to do, see, and eat. It doesn't get boring. We spend a lot of time in Serenity, and absolutely loved Excel's Serenity. 

[kelkel2]

I honestly don’t know why. I’ve been on her and we genuinely loved it. Yes the ship is huge. But, with all the neighborhoods spread out, I felt like the crowds and lines were really manageable. There was always something to do, and we had a blast! 

[aborgman]

On 3/15/2024 at 9:37 AM, Elaine5715 said:

 No need to get in a line to go to a venue that hasn't opened to see a show.  

 

That definitely wasn't true on our sailing.

If you weren't in line by ~30 minutes before the comedy club doors opened - you were not getting in. By that point the line stretched past the Piano Bar almost to JavaBlue.

[Elaine5715]

On 3/15/2024 at 9:37 AM, Elaine5715 said:

There are no reservations except for specialty dining on any Carnival ship.  No need to get in a line to go to a venue that hasn't opened to see a show.  

 

18 hours ago, ChinaShrek said:

Yes, but if you check-in for dinner there could be a 60-90 minutes wait (depending on the venue). No line, perhaps, but still a wait.

 

12 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

Yes, but what?  

 

3 hours ago, sparks1093 said:

A wait is a wait, whether one is standing in line or not. Even if you reserve through the app you can't let yourself get tied up with doing something else because you don't know exactly when you will be called.

Did my first comment mention waiting? It was addressing the OP comment about lining up to get into a venue to see a show.  

[Elaine5715]

2 minutes ago, aborgman said:

 

That definitely wasn't true on our sailing.

If you weren't in line by ~30 minutes before the comedy club doors opened - you were not getting in. By that point the line stretched past the Piano Bar almost to JavaBlue.

I have walked into the comedy club every time after that line entered.  

[sparks1093]

1 minute ago, Elaine5715 said:

 

 

 

Did my first comment mention waiting? It was addressing the OP comment about lining up to get into a venue to see a show.  

You are in line virtually and the effect is the same. You mentioned shows and the previous poster mentioned dinner. I didn't back up far enough in the convo, I guess.

[ChinaShrek]

12 hours ago, Elaine5715 said:

Yes, but what?  

If I have MyTime Dining, I expect to be able to check-in and eat a few minutes later. Okay I'll give them 10 minutes. When I check-in, I'm hungry and want to eat now! Any wait is a discomfort.

[aborgman]

23 minutes ago, Elaine5715 said:

I have walked into the comedy club every time after that line entered.  

 

On our sailing - there was no way you were walking into the club and getting a seat after that line entered.

 

There were times we were IN that line - and there were no seats when we got inside the doors.