Elation sailing 10/09 Our trip....

[tnsail]

Wrote a long review.... Not the fastest typist in the world and I got kicked off before it would send....:mad:

 

This might show up in sections so bear with me.... Drove down from West TN 10/08 and stayed at the Admiral Semmes... Used their Stay And Cruise promotion... The Semmes is no longer a Raddison property but it is still a nice hotel with clean rooms and most of all, a shuttle between it and the ship....

 

Meet up with some of our roll call at Ed's Crab House on the night of the 8th... A great way to start the cruise.... Good food and met great new friends...:)

 

The morning of the 9th we shuttled over to the ship (first load out from the Semmes is 11:00)... Arrived and handed off the checked luggage to the porters and off to the check-in line we went.... Check-in line moved along nicely (about average to the other ports we have used)... By 11:50 we were moving up the gang way to board the ship

 

This was our first cruise on a Fantasy class ship so were we impressed somewhat with the lay out and disappointed in some ways too.... First the Elation is a well maintained ship... No mold noticed, carpets were clean and tear free, paint was nice and Carnival white on the outside and subdued on the inside.... We were allowed to go to our cabins at 1:30 (no announcement just noticed that the crowd had thinned out on the Lido)... Our cabin, U176 was clean and ready for us to occupy it for the 5 day trip... Had the room steward to separate the beds from the queen to 2 singles... (After 23 years of marriage, the floor space outweighed us snoring in each others ear every night)....:eek:...:)

 

Joey & Pat

[tnsail]

This was our 6th cruise with Carnival so we knew most of the drill... Our lifeboat drill was accomplished with little effort as we were already exploring the ship and pretty close to the Cole Porter Lounge which was our muster station....

 

We had another meet with our CC roll call after sail away at the Serenity Area at 5:30 after sail away and it was great to meet those who were unable to arrive Thursday night.... After the meet we sorta strolled around the ship learning the layout... Since we had "YourTime" dining we decided we would dine about 7:45 as we are not early eaters unless there are plans for later on.... This is were we ran into the first problem with the Fantasy class ship.... Your Time dining is located in the Imagination dining room... U176 is aft and the Imagination is mid-ship 8th level... One must do the up and over then down thingy to enjoy the MDR... It was no big deal and it sure didn't ruin our cruise but it took a trip or 2 to realize that we had to ride up to the 9th level than pass thru the casino area, then thru the remuda area, down a flight of stairs then stroll back to the entrance of the MDR... Whew, I hope I got that right....

 

The service and the food in the MDR was as we expected... Good to excellent... We only had to wait if we wanted the same wait staff as the night before and then it was only a couple of minutes... Our home town doesn't have upscale dining to experience throughout the year so Carnival's dining is a treat for us... We aren't much of the food critic but all the dishes were presented in a timely fashion and they were GOOD...

 

We usually dined around the 7:30 to 8:15 time period and we did notice that those who chose the traditional dining seemed to have hit and miss nights.... Some nights their area seemed to be crowded some nights not... Some may have already dined on the Lido as it always looked like it had a booming business.... We did the short order hamburger and fries or chicken strips for lunchtime but as I said the Lido inside was a hit with many of the cruisers as it looked like several of them were there everytime we passed thru...

 

Pat's birthday was while we were at sea so I had the Bon Voyage Dept. to place some Happy Birthday streamers and other things in ours cabin which was accomplished and had a cake delivered to our table that night with the waitstaff singing Hoppy Birfday Day to her... She was quite surprised (Gold star for me...;))

 

Joey & Pat

[tnsail]

This had to be the smoothest water that we have ever cruised on... There were hardly and waves all the way to Progreso... As I said earlier, our CC group meet on the Serenity deck the first night and it became our sorta meeting place by proxy thru out the cruise.... It is a nice area set aside for Adults aft on the 8th level... The age limit was strictly enforced so the kids that entered into the area were quickly sent on their way...

 

The Elation does not have the new waterworks installed as of yet and I didn't hear anyone mention when it would be installed but the water slide stayed plenty busy... There was a 2 man band that played on the Lido daily except port days... So there was some action be it ever so small for the sunbathers in that area...

 

Night life was a different story... The Cole Porter served as the Karakoe place while the Piano Bar and the other club venues were hit and miss also... There was a decent Rock band in one of the venues that played till 1 in the A.M.... The Casino seemed to be a hit and miss also... It seemed that the slots were kept spinning but the craps and other table games just had their moments... Were not much on games of chance but we did hear of some winners and I'm sure that there were plenty of losers too...

 

At Progreso we did the Reef Club thru Autoprogreso... Hooked up with them at the dock area... It was one of those been there and done that things for us... Now that we have been there we'll do something eles next time... Many of those who choose this had a great time... The beach area was clean and the facilities were nice...

 

Upon everyone boarding back on the ship the Captain came over the PA and announced that we would be at Cozumel an hour early and leave an hour early because of an oncoming Hurricane...:eek:... OK... Turned out to be a decent day in Coz... Since we had been there several time we just hitch a cab and went downtown to shop for a bit.... BAD IDEA... With the oncoming bad weather the vendors were as aggressive as we had ever seen them... Got to the point that they were almost dragging you into their shops... We finally had enuff of this and we grabbed a bite of lunch at Cafe Denis and caught the next cab outta there...

 

The sail away from Cozumel was uneventful though the seas had now gotten to the 8 to 12 foot range it was nothing that the Elation didn't handle with ease...

 

Joey & Pat

[tnsail]

We had already decided that we would do the traditional debarkation at Mobile and we were zone 14...

 

Before I go any further I need to mention that we had also had a bottle of liquor sent to our cabin by the way of the Bon Voyage Dept.... Though they mentioned it I must say that it was rather surprising to see that the bottle was not delivered till 3:00 P.M. the day after sail away.... Something to do with Alabama law, so they said... Hummmmm, didn't stop them from opening the Casino the very second they entered international waters... Oh well, lesson learned...

 

Back to debarkation... We tied up at the Alabama Cruise Terminal at 6:30 Thrusday morning and those that chose the self assist were on the way off the ship at 7:00... They started calling zones at 8:15... We were called at 9:15 and thru customs by 10:00... Carnival has still got some work to do on debarkation there... Although it was announced many times to wait on the 9th or 10th level until your zone was called we had to wade through many folks still standing in the halls going to the debarkation point...

 

Our last surprise was when we exited the terminal... We used the porter's to move our luggage and upon exiting the terminal we found out thru him that the shuttle vans from the various hotels weren't allowed to enter the terminal.... We had to meet our shuttle across the railroad tracks on the sidewalk... Also the porters weren't allowed to cross the tracks either so we had to move our luggage from point a to point b to catch the shuttle... This was something that they had just started on our cruise.., I don't know if its because of the construction going on to the terminal or it a new guy trying to show his authority... Either way its uncalled for and will hurt the local hotels because now it becomes easier to park in the cruise terminal... Another lesson learned....

 

All in all I would give this cruise a 7.5 out of 10... I didn't mention Steve the CD because there isn't much to mention other than he didn't bore you with a bunch of unnessiary announcements... He is missing something but I can't put my finger on it... But the CD is not why we sail so he sure didn't detract from it...

 

Well that's it.... Anything that we can help you with please feel free to post up....

 

Joey & Pat

[mystone99]

At Progreso we did the Reef Club thru Autoprogreso... Hooked up with them at the dock area... It was one of those been there and done that things for us... Now that we have been there we'll do something eles next time... Many of those who choose this had a great time... The beach area was clean and the facilities were nice...

 

Thanks for the review.

 

DW and I are sailing on the Elation in December and were thinking of doing the Reef Club. Was it a relaxing time? Lot of kids? How was the food and drinks?

[tnsail]

Thanks for the review.

 

DW and I are sailing on the Elation in December and were thinking of doing the Reef Club. Was it a relaxing time? Lot of kids? How was the food and drinks?

 

Hey mystone,

 

Actually there weren't that many kids there.... The food was buffet style and it was standard fare.... Nacho's, frilos, fajitos, ect.... They started the tour at 10:00 and it took about 20 min. to get there... They people started packing up the buffet about 1:00 but the grill stayed open till we boarded the bus back to the ship.....

 

It was a nice relaxing time... Had some hammocks strung up that you could use and massages were available for $20 for 15 min. or it might have been $15 for 20 min., Pat and I can't remember which it was...:o

 

The drinks were a bit on the weak side but we expected that the beer was of the draft type.... There was a wait staff that delivered quite often if you tipped them early... The drinks showed up in a 8 oz plastic glass... All in all we had a good day there....

 

Joey & Pat