Elation - Review - 3/8-3/12/07 - Cat 11 V22

[mikebarnett]

US:

 

My wife and I, are in our early 40s.

EMBARKATION:

 

We returned our rental car in the morning and Budget shuttled us to the ship, where we arrived at 11:00 a.m. Embarkation was a snap since we had VIP check-in. The shuttle dropped us off at the luggage drop-off, we walked into the terminal and went through security. From there, it's up the escalator to the main floor and then veer right to VIP Check-in. There’s an office that you need to go in to fill out your papers, give them your credit card and your travel docs. They still hadn’t started boarding yet, so we sat outside in the waiting area for about ten minutes. At about 11:20 a.m. we were escorted through the ropes, past the people already waiting in line, to the picture people and then onto the ship. We were escorted as far as the atrium and was told to enjoy. We were sort of lost, not having a map or anything to know where we were or where to go, but we quickly caught on. We were literally the first ones on the ship and were able to do some walking around to get familiar with the decks. We were told the rooms weren’t going to be ready until 1:30 p.m., but we snuck back anyway to drop off our carry-on luggage and we saw that the room was ready. Our Luggage arrived about 2 pm. First Stop was the Lido deck for some liquid refreshments. Buckets of Michelob Ultra’s (4 to a bucket) were $21.18 including tax and tip. One side of the pool chairs is smoking and the other side is not. We eventually headed for Tiffany’s for some lunch and we were able to eat it outside. It was sunny and warm that day, so we went back to room to change into swim suits and we laid out by the back pool on the Verandah deck, since smoking was allowed back there. With the noise from the engines coming from the funnel back there, I would recommend an Ipod or some other form of music, if you want to lay down and relax. You can’t hear the band of the Lido deck back there. The muster drill was around 4:00 p.m. and lasted for 15 minutes. The station for room V22 was ‘F’ and was outside by the stage on the Lido deck. It was kind of warm sitting out in the sun with a floatation device around your neck. The crew insisted on us not drinking our beer during this time. It was kind of a buzz kill to say the least.

CABIN:

 

We had room V22, which is a Cat 11, mini-suite on the Verandah Deck. It also had a balcony. The room was a nice size. Even with a suite, we had a few instances where we had to shuffle by each other, especially around the bathroom/ closet area. The shower was a standup shower with shower curtain. There was no place to hang a suction hook due to the small design of the tile in the bathroom. There were a couple of hooks in the bathroom to hang wet clothes, plus on the balcony. The bathroom has Dove Shampoo and Lever Soap dispensers. There were 8 little packs of different kinds of Crest toothpastes, plus a sample of some kind of shampoo. There was a mirrored medicine chest above the sink for storing your toiletries. The room had a VCR to go with it’s TV. The TV had Denver TV channels for ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX. They also had CNN and 4 – 5 Carnival channels showing shopping, excursion and ship board activities. There was a movie channel that would play a movie every so often during the day, to include ‘Dream Girls’ and ‘Casino Royale’. The room also had a love seat and small coffee table. Even though we had a refrigerator, it never seemed to keep our canned beer and soda cold enough. Our room stewardess, Inna, was very nice and kept our personal cooler always filled with ice. Inna would come to fold down the bed while we were out for dinner, and we always had clean towels available. We had two robes in the room that we never used, plus there were probably 10 – 15 hangers available in the closet. We brought a bungee cord for the balcony door, but never wound up using that either. There were two outlets on the vanity desk, and was sufficient for the hair dryer and curling iron, and we never needed the extension cord we brought. The air conditioning unit is on the ceiling, directly above the bed, and I caught a cold, I think from the air conditioning blowing directly on me. In hind sight we probably should of turned the air conditioning off, and kept the balcony door open for fresh air.

The balcony had two chairs and a table. The balcony dividers were bolted down Plexiglas. The bolts were painted over, so there was no chance of making one big balcony if you had rooms next door to friends. The common area deck below could somewhat look up into your balcony, so it wasn’t completely private.

There was plenty of room under the bed to store some of the suitcases.

THE SHIP:

 

Overall, the ship looked to be in good shape to me. This was my first cruise, so I don’t have anything to compare it against. The layout is nice. We had dinner in the Imagination Dining room, and it was right off of the atrium. Our cabin was on the Verandah deck and we usually laid out on the back part of the Verandah during the day, so it was a straight walk out. Even though the weather wasn’t bad, the ship really only rocked the last night. I had taken ginger pills a few days before we set sail and during the cruise and didn’t have a problem. My wife was prescribed only one motion patch from her doctor and it had worn off by the last day and she resorted to the wrist bands for help, to no avail. She wasn’t real sick or anything, but just felt a little queasy.

We went to two of the midnight adult comedy shows. Steve Miller was OK, but Mike Macy was better. I wasn’t too impressed with the Vegas style of show in the Mikado.

The casino was open at night. They had anything from Nickel slots, to $3 blackjack the first night ($5 the other evenings), to roulette. There was a Texas Hold’m Poker game outside of the Cole Porter Lounge. The Duke’s piano bar was subdued but nice, but Heather was kind of limited on the songs she would play. We would hit Duke’s because smoking was allowed in there. The best place to be was the Cole Porter Lounge for Karaoke. Karaoke was a blast and rocked until midnight. They don’t allow smoking in the Cole Porter Lounge, and you’re suppose to be 18 or older to attend Karaoke. Karaoke started around 9:30 and went till midnight. The band in Romeo and Juliet played a lot of Santana. The Jekyll and Hyde Disco seemed pretty dead most of the time.

 

The slide at the pool was very slow in places, to the point where you almost stop.

There were some Spring Breaker’s on board, but they added to the entertainment than becoming any kind of nuisance. They were all very well behaved.

THE FOOD:

Food in the Dining Room was pretty good for the most part. We ate in the Imagination dining room every evening at 6:15 p.m. The best meal was the filet mignon. The Beef Wellington was not incredibly tender, I found the duck greasy and the lobster overcooked and dry. I ordered two appetizers and two entrees every evening. The portions were not large, so getting two meals was not too bad. You kind of feel bad that some of the servers come from countries that have very little to eat, and here you are eating two entrée’s. The second night the waiters sang ‘O Solo Mio’ , did a dance as a group the second night, and asked the guests to get up and dance the ‘Cha-Cha’ song the third night. Our servers Yanto and Saifon were very nice and tried to engage us in conversation each night, asking us how we spent our day. We never met the Matrie ‘d. I found the desserts at the buffet better than the ones in the dining room. The formal dinner was the second night, along with the midnight Gala Buffet and a Mexican buffet on the Lido deck was the third night at 11 p.m. It was neat to try the different kind of foods you normally wouldn’t eat.

We had room service for breakfast, bagels and coffee, and would place our order the night before and ask for it to be delivered by a certain time. In the morning, room service was always 15 – 30 minutes earlier than what we had requested, which wasn’t too bad. I ordered two BLT’s every night from room service, and would eat one and wrap the other one in a plastic bag that I had brought, then would eat it out on the balcony for breakfast. The room service food usually took 5 – 10 minutes to get there once you ordered. I also had the roast beef and brie from room survive, which was OK. The buffet, pizza and deli sandwiches was mostly so-so. I had the Reuben and turkey sandwich from the deli.

 

We had taken a case of beer, 12 pack of soda, and a 24 pack of bottles waters in a spare suitcase, and this really helped in the cost area. Nobody gave us any trouble taking a small cooler with can beer out on the deck. We also kept them in ‘Cozies’, while we drank from them. There were recycling bins out on the deck for cans and plastic.

We had gotten the sail away gift that consisted on four bottled Coronas, a glass carnival mug, small cooler and a floppy hat.

THE PORTS:

Freeport: Looked very industrial. Had to take a 20 minute ride to get into town, over by the Straw market and Sheraton Hotel. We did the Sail and Snorkel excursion from Carnival aboard a 48 foot catamaran sail boat. The weather was great, around 80 degrees and no rain. The water a little cool around 75. Other than having a Sail and Sign card, that’s all you needed to get on and off the ship. There was a small straw market right next to the ship.

Day at Sea – Sunny and Hot. A great day just to layout and drink beer. They had the hairy chest contest and belly flop contest this day.

Nassau: Due to an illness on board, around 1 p.m., we had to make an emergency stop in Nassau on the Sea Day, long enough for an ambulance to pick up a passenger and then it was back out to sea. Great photo opportunity of Nassau. We came back into Nassau around 7 p.m. that night and spent the rest of the evening in port. Everyone had a chance to get off and see Nassau. The markets and stores were closed, so most people went to Senor’ Frogs. We didn’t want to venture out much further than that since it was dark and didn’t seem safe on some of the other streets. Senor’ Frogs was crowded and played thumping music. I know, I must be getting old. We got there before they started charging a $7 cover charge. Beers cost $6.50 and weren’t very cold. Waitresses were very pushy trying to make their way through the crowd. We probably should have gone to Atlantis for the evening instead. By 10 p.m. we were back on the boat drinking cold $5 beers and enjoying Karaoke.

The next morning we had to get up early to go to the Dolphin Swim on Blue Lagoon Island. We caught a taxi at 7:30 a.m. from the cruise terminal to get to the Paradise Island Ferry Terminal at 8:00 a.m. It cost $5 each for the taxi ride. We caught the Dolphin Encounter Boat at 8:30 a.m. to get to Blue Lagoon at 9:00 a.m. We sat through a 20 minute educational presentation on dolphins and then prepared to do the swim. There are 10 people per group and you get to kiss, hug, dance, feed and then do a foot push with the dolphins. This was so great and was well worth it. We had to book this separately since Carnival didn’t offer the swim in Nassau. The facility has lockers, showers and a changing room. After changing out of wet clothes and doing the gift shop thing, the ferry left to go back to Paradise Island at 11:15 a.m. Back on Paradise Island we ate lunch at Anthony’s Grill and had a great grilled Grouper Sandwich. We took a Taxi back to the cruise terminal and wandered through the straw market and various shops along Bay Street. The straw market was neat, but seemed too crowded. A shop called Piranhas Joes wasn’t as crowded and had a good selection of t-shirts at a pretty good price. Getting back on the ship, Bahamian authorities asked for your Sail and Sign card, plus a photo ID, not necessarily a passport. Carnival has you scan your Sail and Sign card, then x-ray your carry-on’s and have you walk through a metal detector. The ship left Nassau at 3 p.m.

DEBARKATION:

 

We slept till 7:30 a.m. They called for non-U.S. citizens around 7:50 a.m. I heard the first colors being called around 8:10 a.m. I never heard anything about self-assist. We had breakfast on the Lido around 8:45 a.m. and heard a last call to get off the ship around 9:30 a.m. We were one of the last one’s leaving the ship, and by the time we got to the luggage area, our luggage was the last of it’s the kind in our color group, so it was easy to find. Porters were asking if anyone needed help, so we asked a porter to help us out. He loaded all of our luggage on a cart, and whisked us pass the line of 50 people at customs. I guess the porters have a separate line, and we walked straight to a customs agent, handed him our paper work and he waved us on. The porter wheeled our luggage out to the rental car pick-up area about a hundred yards out in the parking lot. Getting a porter was $20 well spent.

After getting off the ship we took a rental car to Orlando. While walking through the shops at Downtown Disney, I felt moments of dizziness and swaying, and this was the only side effects I felt after the cruise. (That and other than the kids not turning down my bed at night, leaving me chocolates on my pillow, no towel animals, and no BLT for me to eat before going to bed.).

I’ll post pictures when I get a chance.

In the mean time - Here's a link to some pictures of our room that I previously posted.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=518138&highlight=elation

[marty30907]

Great review. We are in V26 sailing on 3/31/07.

[Curt Jerome Wild]

Thanks for the great review Mike!

Very well done.

Would you be so kind though (please) to post a review of the cabin only (V22) and post your pictures of it and the balcony there over in this thread...

Link, click here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=298868

It's all about these specific cabins.

It would be most helpful for future cruisers.

Thanks in advance.:D

CJW

Great to hear that Karaoke was so jumping!