A Snooze-Fest of a review of the Carnival Celebration (with some pics) 11/5-11/12

[HolySpearit]

13 minutes ago, TravelBluebird said:

I’m LOVING your review!

 

I head out on the Celebration this SUNDAY and I’m so excited!  Fellow degenerate (and wordy!) gambler here—heading out on an Ultra!  Will do a LIVE thread which I’m going to start sometime today if you want to re-live your vacation again!  

Yay can’t wait to read it! We were getting those Ultra offers pre-cruise but now they’ve disappeared. Guess my losing offended them lol. Curious if they’ll come back, I’ve always wanted to try being a cruise-ino VIP lolll. Can’t wait for the live! 

[HolySpearit]

We’re back and thanks to all of you reading along. I APPRECAITE YOU.

 

St. Thomas continued:

 

Get back on the ship, shower off all the sweat from walking around and take the always excellent post cruise excursion nap.

 

We have reservations at the Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse tonight at 6 so once we’re showered, napped, and looking somewhat presentable we head down that way. Not super busy tonight. Waiter is Mikhail who is very nice and mentions he is heading home after this cruise is over. Hope you had a good trip home buddy! We order some drinks (good), and out comes the “compliments of the chef” amuse bouche. I am utterly shocked when it is NOT THE TINY CHEESEBURGER!!!!! We come here every cruise and I have been seeing that tiny cheeseburger for like the past 5 years. This time it’s a piece of fried cheese. I am ok with this given I do not eat beef (so why am I at the steakhouse? I refer you back to my “pick your battles” marriage advice) and it’s pretty tasty for the .75 seconds it takes me to eat it. Hard to mess up fried cheese. We both get the stuffed mushrooms (good!) I get the chicken (good, but they give you too much I can not eat a half a chicken). D eats half of what they give me and concurs it’s good. D gets the cowboy steak (good), we both get cheesecake (also good!). Overall this was a really nice steakhouse experience. Historically this is sloowww for us (seriously took over 2 hours on our Mardi Gras cruise, Vista wasn’t much better) but we were in and out in just over an hour. Staff was polite, only small sanfu was when I asked for a coffee with Bailey’s with my cheesecake. About to go home Mikhail asks if I mean an espresso martini. No sir I want coffee with Bailey’s. He says he cannot put the Bailey’s in it but can bring me a cup of coffee with a shot of Bailey’s on the side and I can play mixologist. I don’t get it but ok that works! Overall 9/10 steakhouse experience.

 

Hit the cruisino for a while and continue to lose, while my liver is still winning, D’s luck has turned too. Maybe these slots are not for me, but these drinks surely are. We then head to the theater for the showing of Amor Cubano. This show is WILD. Admittedly I’m a few drinks in but it appears to be a vaguely West Side Story inspired storyline while they sing Latin themed music including the Latin Classic “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” by U2. Apparently, I missed the memo that Bono is now a Latino man. They also have the drummer backwards for the first 1/3 of the show? Is he in timeout? They did spin him around at some point, but I could not stop laughing at this man drumming at a wall. Theater is still about the emptiest I’ve seen it at a show. Then these giant heads come out and I am just confused. They shoot streamers at you at the end which scares the crap out of me but the kid next to me was very excited about it. Good times, man.

 

We hit up Miami Slice for some pizza, this time the plates are “roped off” and there is a worker handing you pre-plated cheese and/or pepperoni and taking orders for the other ones. I don’t know why that switch was made but ok! Hit they hay after that, overall, probably my favorite day on the cruise, it was a good time!

 

Tiny burger's replacement. UPGRADE! 

 

Drummer in timeout

 

I

I don't know what is going on here. 

Edited November 22, 2023 by HolySpearit

[HolySpearit]

SEA DAY #2

 

Sea Day so we sleep in a bit and head down to Sea Day Brunch around 11. Not too terrible of wait, I think it’s about 20 minutes. Order some spicy bloodys (good), an omelet each (mushroom and cheese for me, bacon/spinach/mushroom/cheese for D) and a skillet cake for us to share. Also get some coffee and it taste better than I remember it (typically I hate the free coffee on Carnival) but that might just be the bloody and/or my overly salted on the week tastebuds talking. I forget now that there’s no wandering breadbasket man and you have to ask for a muffin or any other bread you specifically want. I did not want to go back and ask for a muffin after we just ordered 3 entrees, I do have some couth. So I remain mufinless. Brunch was good, same situation with just sitting waiting for something to sign, 10-minute deadline passes so adios. I didn’t get arrested last time I didn’t sign so I'm willing to risk it again. 

 

I need some better coffee so we stop by Java Blue for a latte. Line is long but moves relatively quick. There is a Karen full on standing BEHIND the counter telling the worker to “add more cream, no more coffee, ok now more cream” to her drink until she deems it acceptable. The worker looks like she’s about to cry and/or throttle her. Legit felt bad for the workers on this cruise, people are terrible. Karen works hard but the Java Blue girlies work harder, and I tip them accordingly. 

 

Play some cards in the Grand Central area near Golden Jubilee, go pick up some Shaq's Big Chicken midafternoon (tenders for me, sandwich for D, both tasty!!). Not tasty is a woman with a toddler who she keeps yelling at to come get his chicken. The toddler decides that he’d rather walk around the line spitting out his lemonade all over the floor instead. Continue to douse myself in sanitizer and remember why pools and Lido are largely added to the "none of my business" list. 

 

Back to the room and chill until it’s time to head down to the center stage for “The World Works Here” and “We are One” show. Grab a better seat than last time, I am handed a random flag. I don’t know what to do with it. I also do not know what country it is, but Prof. Google later tells me it’s St. Vincent/Grenadines. Sweet. Anyways Lee comes out and talks about all the workers and they come up one by one waving their flags and then some people sing Imagine and then there’s random children (I think it must be like this week's valedictorians from the kids club or something) and do it in sign language which is nice. I wave my flag and give myself a 10/10 for rep’ing St. Vincent. Then the show starts and I think the premise is this aerialist goes on a journey around the world. The performers dress up in Saari’s and sing Jai Ho. They put on flamenco dresses and sing Bailamos. A man from England (I know this as he was in the elevator with me one day) does what I think is supposed to be an African Tribal Dance. It’s……really something. Bar waiter is walking around which helps.

 

Here's our balcony if you're curious. "Wall" is solid vs glass so not much of a view while sitting. There's a windjammer glass thing between your door and the seating area so you don't get blown away. Lounger was nice, and nice views! 

 

Ready to rep....someone. My apologies to the Grenadines for being unknowledgeable. 

 

Rise up spinny woman! 

 

This reminds me  of 1988's premier television event "Big Bird in Japan". CLASSIC. 

[TravelBluebird]

1 hour ago, HolySpearit said:

Yay can’t wait to read it! We were getting those Ultra offers pre-cruise but now they’ve disappeared. Guess my losing offended them lol. Curious if they’ll come back, I’ve always wanted to try being a cruise-ino VIP lolll. Can’t wait for the live! 

 

If it makes you feel any better, all my Ultra offers ALSO disappeared lately—so if I like this one, hoping that they’ll just come out with some new Ultra offers for next year!!

[HolySpearit]

SEA DAY #2 CONTINUED

 

Hungry by now so we go to the Pig and Anchor Smokehouse. The Backyard Band is playing and it’s Classic Rock hits per the Hub App. Ya’ll it is LOUD in here. Like louuuuuuuud. I can’t hear the waiter and neither can D. He says something to D during ordering, we make 3 attempts to hear him and D finally just goes with “that’s cool man no worries at all”. Still zero idea what he said. I get pulled pork (good), mac and cheese (same as the outside), fries (It’s a fry, it’s fine), and the banana cream pie (meh, it’s ok). D orders chicken (ok), brisket (ok), fries (see above), mac and cheese which he never gets (maybe that’s what the waiter was saying? I got it and he didn’t though so unless I got the bottom of the barrel mac they weren’t out), and the Mississippi Mud Pie (I liked it, he didn’t, we ended up swapping desserts). Notably, the BBQ sauce here was WATERY. Every single one was the consistency of a Carolina Vinegar sauce. It was not like that when we went previously to the outside one. Bad table? Running low and they watered it down? Not sure, but unpleasant. 

 

We eat and then I die inside when I realize “classic rock” apparently now means Metallica and Bon Jovi, not the Eagles and Skynard. Send in the clowns from the circus show, I am officially old. Given I am elderly, we head up to the room and somehow get sucked into watching an Alan Arkin marathon on TMC. They’re showing “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and wow that’s an interesting movie. I would put spoiler alert but seeing it came out in 1968 if you don’t know by now….I’ll leave it as Alan plays a mute man, there is an odd subplot about a man who gets his leg amputated and then enlists Alan to go find it for him (???) then it abruptly ends with people dying. DOWNERRR. I’m weirdly woozy/nauseous after that, not sure if it’s watery BBQ sauce, this downer of a movie, or sea sick (I am not normally prone to it, and it doesn’t seem like it’s that wavy so not sure what is going on there) but a couple Dramamine’s cure me in about 30 minutes, but also put me right to sleep.

 

[HolySpearit]

LAST SEA DAY:

 

It’s our last sea day and the last day of the cruise  😭 We pick up luggage tags at Pixels (group 10), Go to the cruisino one last time to lose what we had left which was pretty quick. This was by far the worst luck I’ve had on any cruise. I blame it being an elite cruise. Thems the breaks though, house always wins and this time they definitely did.

 

It’s lunch time and we skipped breakfast so I hit the deli for a ham and cheese sandwich (pretty good!), D heads up to Lido and gets some wings from Street Eats ($5 I think….maybe $6. #KillingIt). I meet him up there with my jamon and we eat in the buffet but in a back corner away from spitting toddlers. I go in search of some dessert. I find some cookies (I love these little things) and some donuts, which were absolutely HORRIFIC. Whoever decided that was the appropriate moisture level for a donut needs to be taken into the Davie Dunkin conference room and unceremoniously fired. GROSS. We go play a round of mini golf on deck 18, which D wins but I call shenanigans and think he somehow cheated. 

 

Realize we haven’t been to Alchemy at all so we stop by there late afternoon. Have a couple pain reliefs, and then I ask for “something lemon” which is made and also tasty. No clue what it was, might have just been a lemon drop but whatever, it was good. Back to the room to pack up our stuff (Boo!) put on slightly more appropriate attire. Take in sunset from the balcony and man am I gonna miss this. Head down to the main dining room for one last round.

 

I get a Caesar salad (standard, fine), the enchiladas (fine, and I am vindicated because last time I ordered this one the Mardi Gras there was zero sauce and it was HELLA dry… I did not think that was right but they insisted it was. SAUCE PRESENT THIS TIME SO TAKE THAT MARDI GRAS!), and one last melting cake. D gets the fried tomatoes (good), brisket (fine), and also melting cake. Service is again pretty quick and everything is hot. They sing the leaving on a fun ship song and everyone is sad and waiving their phones. Overall pretty solid MDR experience on the Celebration I’d give it an 8/10 which is better than my past 2 cruises. Never took too long and everything was hot and at least edible.

 

We head back to the room to put our suitcases out then just wander around the ship for about an hour taking in our last night. Head to bed around 11 for the final sleep of the cruise.

 

Skip those "donuts", trust me on this.

 

Bayou leaves us a heart but clearly don't love me as he's kicking us out in under 24 hours. 

 

Cruise sunsets will never get old. That's the Magic floating out there in the distance.

 

Saucy enchiladas I TRIED TO TELL YOU MARDI GRAS WAITRESS! 

 

One last chocolate martini 😞 

[HolySpearit]

DISEMBARKATION/POST CRUISE/TIME TO GO HOME 😩

 

Up around 7 and we are already in Miami and the fuel ship is coming in to get my girl ready for her next round of passengers. Gather up the last of our stuff, head out of the room around 8:15 (eviction time is 8:30) say goodbye via cash money to Bayou (he deserved it, 10/10 room dude and called me Madam the whole time which made me feel very fancy. Also possibly, old....we’ve apparently graduated from Miss or Mrs….).

 

Intention was to go to Blue Iguana but elevators are a cluster and I am not in the mood to walk up 5 flights of stairs so we just go chill in the central atrium area. There is a small sanfu and Lee announces disembarkation was temporarily halted. Not sure what happened, I “heard” (you know what I mean) potentially someone fell and was injured? Hope they’re ok if that really was the case. “Halt” only lasted about 30 minutes and we’re dinged off the ship at approximately 9:15.

 

Easy process, longest we stood in line was about 5 minutes to get down the escalator in the terminal. Facial recognition went off easily, never even had to pull out a passport. Grab a cab to MIA ($54 this time with tip, idk why it was $10 more than it was to get there, maybe because it was busy or maybe dude bamboozled me).

 

Pick up a rental quickly and easily, stop at McDonald’s for some food. THEY HAVE BACON EGG AND CHEESE BAGELS DOWN HERE STILL!!! WHAT KIND OF MAGICAL WONDERLAND IS HIALEAH FLORIDA?!?!  They also have to try and track down someone that speaks English for us to order, after a wait and some confusion we end up ordering in very broken high school level Espanol and hope for the best. Acceptable tradeoff for the bagel sandwich and it ended up working out fine.

 

Hotel room isn’t ready so back to the Hard Rock because apparently, we haven’t gambled enough this week. We do not win big, but enough to keep us going for about 4 hours which is a win to me. We stay at the Residence Inn Mirimar, get a text that the room is ready around 2. Nice hotel, website says $5/night for parking but I was never charged. Would stay here again for sure. Hit up Talkin Tacos for dinner (good, they have horchata, and they leave food out for the feral cats outside which is ADORABLE). Next morning, we just go to Chik Fil A and head to FLL and fly home, flight is on time and uneventful. Back in MN and somehow, it’s 50 degrees which I am happy about, but our vacation is officially over.

 

I think that's the fuel ship. If not, pretend it is. 

 

Tacos, tasted better than they look but I wish I had some hot sauce. Taki Queso was BANGIN. 

[HolySpearit]

FINAL THOUGHTS/RAMBLINGS:

 

Overall, Celebration was fine. It was not my favorite cruise but certainly not bad. After cruising her and the Mardi Gras, I think I can officially say I prefer the smaller ships. Some final thoughts/opinions that nobody asked for, presented in no particular order:

 

-        The ship is beautiful, and I love the variety of dining options. Not everything was great, but I would be hard pressed to believe someone couldn’t find SOMETHING at least decent to eat on the ship. Avoid that buffet though, I have no idea what was going on there but WAY too small and AWFUL.

-        Never felt overly crowded despite us allegedly sailing full. Pool got busy but even on sea days I saw open chairs on Lido. Crowded at time yes but never out of control to me. 

-        Not a ton of shenanigans on this cruise- zero fights or overly rowdy people I saw. Not sure if this was due to time of year (like I mentioned, not a ton of kids on this sailing), the fact we were rarely out and about past midnight, or the fact that there was a large group of travel agents on this sailing leaving less room for people more inclined to shenanigans. Overall though I did not see or hear of any Worldstar level fights and didn’t come across anyone overtly rude to me directly. 

-        That said…..People. Are. So. Rude. Seriously, I work with the general public, and I knew everyone has lost their collective minds in the past few years... but some of the treatment of the staff I saw was borderline abhorrent. Some people are just so entitled, ridiculous, and downright nasty these days it’s insane. I don’t know when people decided this was the Four Seasons and not a Carnival Cruise and raised their expectations accordingly, then decided screaming was the way to deal with these unrealistic expectations not being met. Staff was nice, but notably less upbeat than prior cruises in my opinion. I don’t blame them. Seriously please be nice to these people.

-        Forward balcony was interesting. Not my first choice of a room but I’d do it again should the peddler call and offer it.

-        Shows were lacking. There was only 3 shows in the main theater all week, they repeated a few times (Celestial Strings was the other one, we skipped it as we saw it on MG). Weird to me that they were so empty too. Comedy lineup was great if that is your thing-tons of shows.

-        Lots of reports of sickness (rona, flu, RSV, strep) on the “other” site post cruise. We were entirely fine. We got rona after our last cruise on the Vista. We largely avoided the buffet this time and I was a psychopath about sanitizer and hand washing. Apparently, it worked.

 

Overall I’d give this cruise a 7.5/10. Not the best cruise but we still had a good time. I strongly believe cruises are what you make of them and we did our best to make it what we wanted, I would encourage you to do the same. We have a couple land trips early next year and are booked for Halloweenie on the Vista 2024. THIS close to pulling the trigger on a Royal cruise early 2025, or Alaska on Princess summer 2025 (or both if I can convince D and he can get the time off). Curious to see how it compares. We'll be back to Carnival for sure though. I just like to keep our options open. 

 

THANK YOU to everyone who followed this rambling and often boring review 😊 Happy to answer any questions anyone has and if you’re cruising in the near future, have a great time!!!!

[princess76021]

This was great! 

Again thanks for taking us along!!

Hugs from Texas

[HolySpearit]

32 minutes ago, princess76021 said:

This was great! 

Again thanks for taking us along!!

Hugs from Texas

Thanks for being here and Happy Thanksgiving!!!! 

[alex_gregor]

On 11/21/2023 at 9:59 AM, HolySpearit said:

Picking your battles is the secret to marriage

 

Agreed. Unfortunately, my wife picks all of them.

[TiredTrucker]

On 11/21/2023 at 1:26 PM, HolySpearit said:

the other site that shall not be named

 

I keep seeing this...is there really a site we aren't allowed to name or is this some kind of inside joke here?

[tradewinds traveler]

Thank you! Your review was real. We sailed on the Celebration in May, you are correct the Celebration is beautiful, however we enjoy the Horizon more.

[ninjacat123]

40 minutes ago, TiredTrucker said:

 

I keep seeing this...is there really a site we aren't allowed to name or is this some kind of inside joke here?

Starts with an « F » ends with an « ook « 😁

[ninjacat123]

So.much.fun. Great review and you have set my bar high😁see you in Freeport and Nassau on Elation 🦃

[mlshum]

Loved the review!  We’re headed out on Celebration on Sunday.  Thanks so much!

[SenatorsFan]

Thanks for the very entertaining and amusing review! I head out on Celebration for a B2B in January and can’t wait. 😁

Edited November 24, 2023 by SenatorsFan

[BermudaBound2014]

@HolySpearit great read, thanks! I noticed you went to Pig & Anchor immediately at boarding. Were they showing football? If not, did you happen to see anywhere football was showing. It's a big deal in this house. 

[HolySpearit]

4 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

@HolySpearit great read, thanks! I noticed you went to Pig & Anchor immediately at boarding. Were they showing football? If not, did you happen to see anywhere football was showing. It's a big deal in this house. 

Team football! There was football playing in the Heroes lounge when we got on. The inside smokehouse was not open to eat; just the outside bbq. I’m not 100% sure if the tvs in the smokehouse bar were showing football on day 1 or not, sorry about that! Def on in the lounge across the hall though! 

[mla1962]

Thank you so much for your review. We will be doing the same cruise end of January. First time on this ship so thanks so much for all the useful information. Informative and entertaining!  👍👍👍

[DramaQueen22]

We cruised on the Celebration in January, and I have to say your review is spot on.  ChiBang was a disaster, and the food wasn't very good.  We enjoyed Cucina.  I was not impressed by the shows and normally I love them.  The whole layout of that CenterStage area is just not conducive to a full show.  

[ARcruisin2]

I enjoyed your review!

thanks for taking the time to write an UN boring review.... and making me smile

[maxandmolly]

Thanks for an entertaining review!  We just got off Mardi Gras and had the opposite dining experience-ChiBang was great but Cucina was dead slow and not that good. Gotta love the (lack of) consistency!

[HolySpearit]

28 minutes ago, maxandmolly said:

Thanks for an entertaining review!  We just got off Mardi Gras and had the opposite dining experience-ChiBang was great but Cucina was dead slow and not that good. Gotta love the (lack of) consistency!

We were really looking forward to Chibang too, we really liked it when we were on the Mardi Gras back in 2021. My disappointment was immeasurable on the Celebration. 

[ninjacat123]

@TravelBluebird I concur about the rude passengers and I thought it was only on our measly 4 day cruise.  There should be a "Passenger Etiquette 101" class given, maybe after mustard.  Tell them they can't drink anymore till they score a 90. 

Thanks again for a fun and informative review!!