Carnival Cruise Lines
Elation Cruise Review
Eastern Caribbean

Paul Vivian
Age: 48
Occupation: Accountant
Number of Cruises: 9
Date of Cruise: August 27th, 2006

This was our family of four’s second time cruising on Carnival and although we had a good time (it being difficult to “not” enjoy a cruise), this cruise did not come close to exceeding our expectations, which is Carnival’s stated goal. Having said that, and to be fair, it should be kept in mind that from the time we booked this cruise some eight months before  we sailed, this was one of the lowest priced Caribbean cruises available during the time period that we were interested in. So, the fact that not every aspect of the cruise was “up to par” was not a crushing disappointment.

The ship itself was quite satisfactory considering the age of the ship. The reasonably sized cabins (and cabin bathrooms) were clean and well maintained. Public areas as well were generally fine, although there was a rather musty smell on the spa interior deck which blemished the impression somewhat. I had thought that perhaps the gym was undersized the first morning when I arrived to find lineups for the exercise machines, but apparently everyone had good intentions of staying in shape that first day that didn’t continue, as after that first day I never had to wait.

We were generally impressed with the level of staff service. Our cabin steward was excellent, and our waiter and his assistant were both quite professional. Bar staff were available but not obtrusive in their quest to sell you more alcohol. A better than average grade goes to the Elation in this regard.

On the subject of alcohol, most cruise lines prohibit bringing alcohol on board. Carnival has a similar policy but they do allow you to bring a reasonable quantity of wine on board at the beginning of the cruise for consumption other than in the dining room (where a corkage charge applies). My wife and I took advantage to bring 3 bottles of wine each. Kudos to Carnival for this policy, which we had not seen on our 8 previous cruises.

The quality and variety of food on the ship was definitely below average. The food wasn’t dreadful by any means and some things (particularly the beef selections) were generally quite good. However, I know that most cruisers are not exactly health conscious but really, shouldn’t you be able to get some whole grain breads on a cruise? And advertising “hearts of iceberg lettuce”-the cheapest and least nutritious type of lettuce available- as being some sort of a specialty salad offering was pretty laughable. Our initial thought was that the overall food quality was lower perhaps because this was one of Carnival’s lower end cruises, but we were told that Carnival’s menu is standard throughout their ships, so apparently that is not the reason. Another thing that we missed on the Elation that is available on some of the larger ships are the specialty restaurants (featuring better quality and more unique foods) that are available for a small additional fee. On the positive side, our teenage kids liked the availability of pizza 24 hours a day that is a feature on Carnival ships. Don’t expect gourmet pizza though.

The on-board entertainment was hit and miss-unfortunately though it was mainly miss. I went to most of the headline performances in the show lounge and of those there was exactly one-a comedy juggler-that was worth seeing. They had 3 or 4 standup comedians whose performances ranged from mediocre to dreadful. Lest you think I am overly harsh, I can assure you that the size of the crowds and the general audience reaction to the shows supported my critique. The smaller lounge entertainment likewise was inconsistent although there was a band from the Philippines who were great. They went from doing the Temptations to the Bee Gees to Pink Floyd and did a credible job of each. The only bad thing was that they played in a smoking lounge for the entire length of the cruise, and so several times where we might have enjoyed listening to them the prospect of doing so in a smoke filled room put us off.

One of the things that attracted us to this cruise was the port itinerary, two of which (Grand Turk and Half Moon Cay) we hadn’t visited before. Due to Hurricane Ernesto Carnival changed our itinerary, dropping Half Moon Cay in favor of Nassau, and rearranging the schedule. Our first port of call was therefore Grand Turk. Having significant cruise experience and a desire not to pay the inflated cost of the cruise lines excursions, our preference is to pre-arrange our port activities prior to our cruise and in the case of Grand Turk we had booked a scuba diving trip with a local dive operator Blue Water Divers. We were not disappointed as we had two great wall dives in the pristine waters a short drive from the ship’s dock. Afterward, we walked around the main town of the island before returning to the ship. A word of caution to other “independent” cruisers- apart from some scuba dive operators Grand Turk appears to have little developed tourist infrastructure. You get off the boat and if you don’t have a ship’s tour booked you can hang around in Carnival’s “created” shopping/beach area (which in fact looked fairly nice) or you can hire a cab, although its not too clear where the cabs will take you other than to another beach. The cabs themselves are all fixed price per person, and seemed a bit pricy to me.

Our next port was San Juan, which we had visited before. Because the scuba options within the proximity of San Juan are limited we decided to rent a car and drive to El Yunque, the rainforest national park. This was a great choice, as we are avid hikers and the park itself is beautiful. However we made a couple of mistakes-the ship arrived at 11 am and because we were scheduled to be in port until 11 pm we assumed we had loads of time. Wrong! It took us 2 hours to clear US customs so we couldn’t get off the ship until 1 pm. Then we found that the car rental place which we had booked on the internet wasn’t nearly as close to the cruise docks as we thought and by the time we had gotten the courtesy car to pick us up and our car rented it was 3 pm. Another hour through traffic to get to the park left us only two hours to explore the park before its 6 pm closing-not nearly enough time. There did appear to be car rental opportunities at the dock which might have been the better option in retrospect.

St Thomas was next and that was another dive for us with Blue Island Divers. I recommend them for any dive enthusiast taking this cruise-included in the trip cost is a courtesy pickup a 5 minute walk from the ship.

Nassau was the final port and we didn’t do much here-a bit of a look around and some shopping. From reading other reviews Half Moon Cay seems a much better choice for a Bahamas port.

In summary, for the budget conscious cruiser this cruise provides an interesting itinerary at a bargain basement price. Cruising on Royal Caribbean or Norwegian however might be a better choice if you are willing to invest a little more.

 

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