Peter Katzur

Age: 52
Occupation: Mechanical Designer
Number of Cruises: 2
Cruise Line: Carnival
Ship: Elation
Sailing Date: March 27th, 2005
Itinerary: Western Caribbean

OVERALL
I have read many reviews of this cruise and while most are favorable I am afraid I will have to agree with the minority that were disappointed overall. The main impression I had was that everything had become so streamlined or so mainstreamed that this has become what I call a Generic Cruise. So if you like Kraft Dinner you won't like this cruise, but if your OK with generic mac and cheese you might like the cruise.

BOOKING RESERVATION
You think when you book 6 months (October 5) in advance you would get the room and dining times you requested ? NOT SO. We were shocked really to find out that not only did we not get the room we requested were were bumped to the other dinner seating times. So if this is important to you forget about it because they don't even tell you till it's too late.

LINE UPS
Of the seven days of the cruise I think 2 full days were spent in line-ups. You are lined up to get on the ship, lined up to get off the ship, line up at the buffet, the burger stand, the information desk, line ups for water, beer, towels, excursions and pictures. I could just scream sometimes.

SHIP CONDITION
Although this ship is only 8 years old it is showing more like 20 years old. Just about every washroom had hand dryiers that were out of order, elevators were out of order, and areas were fenced off for maintenance and repairs. In the stateroom, closet doors were hanging off their hinges, the television and remote didn't work properly and the mirror doors on the medicine cabinet were so rusted we didn't even know that they were supposed to open.

SECURITY ON BOARD
I don't know if there was any sort of security on board. I saw kids dropping stuff in the stairwells to see how many deck they could get it down. I saw kids climbing the front of the ship like it was a rock climbing wall and I saw teenagers lying/blocking in the corridors like it was a college floor party.

ENTERTAINMENT
The entertainment is so "canned" that you often wonder if those are real people lip synching or just a hologram. The only thing that was enjoyable was the "R" rated comedian at midnight.

INTERNET CAFE
Although I was assured by customer service that they had memory card readers to upload your camera pictures there were none. The Internet manager said they don't want to run the risk of viruses ??? In addition the service isn't all that fast so you eat up the minutes pretty quick.

SCHEDULE
Everything ran late. They were like an hour late getting people off in Cozumel which meant we missed out Atlantis Sub tour and that screwed up our plans for the entire day. So don't book any tours without a big time cushion.

Please email me if you have any questions, I will be happy to help.

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