Review of Carnival Elation - Nassau and HMC 9/19/16 – 9/24/16

[Kevin]

Carnival Cruise background:

My family and I are just back from another great vacation. This time we sailed on the Carnival Elation out of Jacksonville Florida. We have sailed on Carnival as a family twice before, on the Carnival Glory and Carnival Freedom. My wife previously sailed on a girl’s trip on the Carnival Inspiration and my wife and I sailed on the Carnival Destiny before we had kids.

 

Other Cruise background:

We have been on NCL, Disney, Princess, Royal Caribbean, and Carnival.

 

Just after embarkation:

 

 

This trip worked out perfect for being able to still meet extended family obligations for Thanksgiving. We live in the Metro Atlanta area but Thanksgiving outside Claxton, Georgia. It was a quick trip from Jacksonville to Claxton.

 

Cons:

Tiffany Lido buffet variety

Hard bed

Internet sucked!

 

Pros:

Dining room food

Half Moon Cay!

Balmoral Island!

 

We drove down the night before and stayed at a SpringHill Suites near the airport. I had purchased FTTF for both cabins but we were lazy getting up on Saturday and didn’t arrive at the port until 11:45. Check in went real quick and we were on board by noon. The cabins were not ready yet but since we had FTTF we headed straight to our cabins to leave our carry-on luggage.

 

We were on R104 and R108. Several cruises ago we learned that the kids were too big for all of us to comfortable fit into a cruise ship sized room with a single bathroom. For those that care both cabins no longer had the box in the corner and R108 had a flat panel TV while R104 still had a tube TV. The kids said that the tube TV hurt their eyes and they were glad to be in R108. The AC did not work at first in R108 and a quick stop by the front desk got that addressed. The only reason it was a quick stop was due to FTTF. Otherwise it was about a 30-45 minute line. Not sure why so many needed help just a few minutes after boarding.

 

The ship seemed to be in good shape but definitely dated. Our last few cruises were on the Disney Dream and Allure of the Seas so the Elation was a step back in time. The kids really missed all the extra activities that RCCL and Disney offered. We haven’t sailed on the newer Carnival ships but it looks like they are very comparable.

 

The Tiffany restaurant was a disappointment. There was very little variety at the small buffet station. Maybe because the buffet was so unappealing the line for the Mongolian Wok, Burgers and Hotdogs, and Deli was always 30-45 minutes.

 

The dining room was great though. We ate a sea day brunch the first full day and were surprised it was menu based. We had seen the buffet setup in the dining room the night before and assumed that much like Disney the breakfast and lunches served in the dining room would be buffet but not involve a long search for a table. Instead there was a very eclectic menu. It ranged from traditional breakfast foods to pastas and salads. We never saw the buffets in the center of the dining room used. We really enjoyed every meal in the dining room. We were seated at a table for 12. It was nice to be with other families for a change as our last few cruises were tables just for our family. The Maître D’ had us seated with two other family’s with kids very close in age to our own who were a great fit. We were also lucky to be seated just one table away from Brad. Brad would announce his arrival and departure to every room on the ship and I enjoyed clapping and screaming out in excitement as I got to experience his presence. On the last night I made sure to pick up the carafe of water and bang my knife against it and holler in appreciation. According to my wife our waiter had to walk away because he was laughing so hard he needed to catch his breath. I miss Brad :(

 

We bought the premium internet package; it was $85 for the length of the cruise. In a few words, it sucked! It was insanely slow, rarely worked even slowly, and often times logged you out and refused to let you log back in.

 

In Nassau we did the Balmoral Island Dolphin Encounter through Carnival. We had a great time and got to “pet” two different dolphins, Margarita and Fiona. We arrived at the island at 9:45am. As you exited the tender you were told where and when to be, in our case we needed to be back at the tender area at 10am for our dolphin encounter. We grabbed some chairs and took a look around.

 

The water on the 35 minutes trip over was just amazingly blue.

 

The beach at Balmoral was nice. There were plenty of chairs and plenty of umbrellas. The water was a little cool but easy to get used to after a few minutes. Sandals uses part of this island as their private island and run a shuttle to a different dock across to their resort.

 

 

The dolphin encounter lasted about 30-45 minutes. You waded into water about waist deep in groups of 7-8. They had us all get into a line and the dolphin would swim by and you could “pet” the dolphin. The would also have the dolphin do some tricks and let you feed the dolphin a fish. Finally they took your picture with the dolphin. They took pictures as a family and also individually. Later in the day you can buy a CD of all the pictures they took of your group for $75.

 

 

We were give a 1:15-1:30 estimated departure when first arriving on the island. I would have liked to stay a little longer but I do have to admit not being totally tired at the end of an excursion. Not sure if it was the length or the fact that this was our first visit to Nassau where the temperature was below 90 degrees. It was a very pleasant 77.

 

Leaving Nassau that night the sunset was amazing.

[Kevin]

The HMC day was amazing. We reserved cabana #12 and were on the first tender over to HMC at about 8am. The only negative of the beach were the tiny pine balls that were painful to step on barefoot. The cabana was in a great location. It was only a 1 minute walk to the bathrooms and 2-3 minute walk to the lunch buffet. Not many people walked past the water sports area of the beach so the beach and water was quiet and not crowded at all in front of the cabana.

 

The beach between the ship and the water sports area was jammed with people. I’m really not sure why they didn’t walk about 500 feet down the beach to get away from the crowd. I really liked the fact that much of the beach was undeveloped and that it was one long continuous beach. Castaway Cay, our previous favorite private island, is nice but it is broken up into several smaller beaches and I never would have thought I would say not as pretty as HMC.

 

The view from cabana 12

 

 

 

 

Carnival should have 4 day cruises that visit HMC twice like Disney has double dip cruises that visit Castaway Cay twice.

 

This was our first trip since switching to T-Mobile. Cell service on Nassau was great, including Balmoral Island. The kids and I had no trouble catching up on the internet world with no additional fee. Before the trip I had looked to see if HMC had cell coverage and the maps on T-Mobiles web site indicated there would be no coverage. Imagine our surprise when we looked outside to see:

 

 

We had decided to just leave our phones in the cabin but all had to run back to get them.

 

What review is not complete without a picture of Melting Chocolate Cake?

 

Overall we had a great time but did miss some of the features of the newer and larger ships. I would still much rather cruise on the Elation than not cruise at all.

[easyboy]

Thanks for the great review. Nice photos as well.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review and it's time for a newer ship.