What to expect on Carnival Elation
Our first-ever Carnival cruise happened to be from a port in our hometown of Jacksonville, FL. Whenever I get bored, I tend to look for travel deals – be it flights, hotels, cruises, you name it. We happened to stumble upon a 5-night cruise from Jacksonville heading to the Bahamas. This cruise has ports of call in Nassau and Princess Cays. Here’s our Carnival Elation Cruise Review.
This post is a part of our cruising series. Here are other cruise-related posts that you may be interested in, covering Royal Caribbean, Virgin Voyages, Carnival & Margaritaville at Sea:
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Carnival Elation is one of the oldest ships that Carnival has in its fleet. There is a reason why they regularly put sales for Jacksonville’s port. The Elation is an older ship and not many options on ports of call. Where else can you find a deal where you pay $800 for a 5-night cruise on a balcony room?
Yes, it’s worth it sailing on the Carnival Elation. Carnival Elation is older and smaller compared to the other offerings of Carnival Cruise Line. However, the port is easy for us to access and the price is great. The Elation’s home port is in Jacksonville, FL, which is our hometown. For those who are looking for a budget cruise and are open to going on a quick getaway, then sailing on an older ship is worth it.
There are not a lot of itinerary variations available on the Elation. The ship mostly cruises to the Bahamas. If you’re keen to try the ship or a new port out, then why not? Our balcony room was $800 for two adults and a toddler for 5 nights. This nets around $53 per day per cruiser. Add in the gratuities, and it’s less than $75 a night per person.
The Carnival Elation’s layout is really confusing. There are a lot of dead ends that will require you to go up one floor and then down another.
If you have cruised before, the layout of some ships can be familiar to you. However, the Carnival Elation completely upended us. We have cruised with the following ships below (click for reviews).
Some elevators on the Elation just drop you on random floors. You’ll have to quickly move to another elevator to get to the sports and the sun deck. These are decks 12 and 14, respectively. There is no deck 13 on the Carnival Elation). If you’re traveling with a baby, a toddler, or with someone with mobility issues, it’s a challenge to change elevators
There are places that just end up being dead ends. If you want to go to the Inspiration Dining Room on the aft side, you’ll need to go through Deck 9 and then go down 1 level of stairs (or elevator). Unless of course, you took the aft elevators, then it will lead you straight to the dining room.
Instead of having most rooms on the top floors, rooms are concentrated on decks 4 to 7. These decks are the located on lower parts of the ship. The restaurants, shops, and lounges are from decks 8 to 10. There are some rooms scattered here and there on the top floors too, but no balconies. Decks 11 and 12 have the water park and the mini golf and bocce ball court. Not many elevators go up to the topmost level. Only 2 elevators from the midship go up to the topmost level. The atrium’s elevators only go down to the 7th floor. It’s like playing tag with elevators.
After a big show finishes in the Mikado Lounge, there is a mad rush through the stairs or elevators. People go back to their respective rooms or to their next venue for the evening after one big show, causing bottlenecks all over the place.
Yes, it spans a few floors. However, when compared to newer, bigger ships, then it is not that big. Compared to the atrium or Grand Central or the Boardwalk on the Oasis Class ships for Royal Caribbean, the Elation’s atrium isn’t that grand.
For bigger parties and events, you can expect them to happen at the atrium. If you’re on the top floors looking down, it is one of the best views you can get of the ship. If you want to talk to the service desk or the shore excursions desk, it can get really loud. The lines of people that wrap around the atrium can get a bit crazy long too.
There is one bar in the atrium and that is where the bigger trivia happens. You can win a plastic ship trophy if you end up the winner. These are usually the name that tune games and may require you to have a dance-off if the game ends with a tie. Not the best trivia for introverts!
Yes, there are balcony rooms on the Elation but there are very few available on the ship in total. If you want a balcony cabin, you have to be lucky when you booked or be one of the first to book. There are only 3 decks with less than 10 cabins on either side (port or starboard side) that have balconies. Our room was on Deck 5 port side, so you do get quite a nice view of the water and the port. The balconies come with a table and two chairs, so you are free to move around everywhere on the balcony.
The problem with your room being on Deck 5? You pretty much need an elevator to go anywhere. Traveling with a toddler in a stroller means you can’t exactly take the stairs. There is a lot of waiting for the next elevator that can accommodate the stroller and us.
If you are used to having more space in balcony rooms as compared to interiors and ocean views, then let me set your expectations straight. The room is tiny with no couch or sofa to chill out in. There is only a small vanity with a chair, as well as a chair on the corner.
There are no refrigerators on the Carnival Elation. What you’ll have in the room is a cooler, which doesn’t really cool as much.
For those traveling with little ones who still drink milk, you won’t have the option to get milk at lunch or at dinner. You can d get a few cartons during breakfast, where you have an option of whole milk, 2%, and even chocolate milk.
However, unlike Royal, where you can request a milk carton from the Windjammer’s drink station, you can’t get milk on demand from Carnival. Bring your own boxed milk so your child can have milk on embarkation day. Try to get milk that will last you the entire day on the next few days of your cruise.
The cooler does not really cool as much as a refrigerator so you may not be able to keep the milk long. Get as much as your child is able to consume until the next morning for breakfast, when you can get more milk cartons.
Yes for seltzer water and soda. You are allowed to bring a 12-pack per cabin. Plastic water bottles are not allowed onboard. Stupid rule, it kind of forces you to buy your water in advance. You can also bring reusable water bottles and fill them up with water from the Lido deck.
We bought a 12-pack of 500ml water before the cruise started and they delivered them straight to the room. Since we travel with a toddler, it’s always good to have a little extra water in the room, just in case we run out. Even with two water bottles being refilled constantly, with 3 people, it is tougher to estimate how much water we are going to consume.
The lido is not always open all the time. We did not see any other place where we can refill our water but that deck. There are machines outside Tiffany’s that dispense water. You’re out of luck if the water on the machine is out and the attendants may not have refilled it.
Buying water as a backup before the cruise is definitely a great option and we would recommend doing so. The price is not that crazy expensive as compared to buying when the cruise has actually started.
If you are not a drinker and just went on the cruise to experience a smaller ship and the ports, you may get bored. Bring a book and a computer that can handle offline work or videos. Download podcasts and electronic or audiobooks in advance. Find something to entertain you if the event lineup is not to your liking.
There are tons of trivia on the ship, where you can win a Carnival medal. There is a ton of live music too. Plenty of live seminars you can attend, but know that these are usually upselling goods and services so you can go to the store or try the spa offerings. After all, if you are on a floating ship, you are their captive audience.
Since we travel with a toddler, we take turns looking after our kid whenever he is sleeping so we have free time. This is the time when we can explore or participate in the ship’s activities. One can be looking after the kid in the room and working, while the other parent attends a trivia. Then one parent can watch a show while the other will stay and read or play a video game.
We don’t want to be bored on a vacation so we’re making the most of it in the little ways that we can.
If one of your port of calls involves a tender, be prepared to have a change of port call or cancellation altogether. One of our stops on our Carnival cruise was the private island of Princess Cays. That is one of the main reasons why we booked Carnival: to visit the private island and compare it to the other private island cruise ports we have been to.
If you booked a cruise with Carnival because you want to go to their private island, you should note that Princess Cays does not have an actual dock. Tenderboats shuttle passengers from the cruise ship to shore. This port has a downside – in case it is too windy, the tenders may not be able to shuttle people to the private island, so the port of call might be canceled altogether.
Such is our experience during our sailing to Princess Cays. It was extremely windy when we arrived but the weather was not particularly that bad, it was just overcast. 30 minutes before the ship was supposed to be docked, we got the announcement from the Captain that the port call has been canceled, which was disappointing.
While we ended up going to another port the next day, Freeport, Princess Cays was one of the reasons why we booked a Carnival Cruise in the first place. We did not end up visiting the private island, but we did manage to compare our Carnival docking in Freeport vs the one we did in Margaritaville at Sea. Spoiler alert: Carnival’s Freeport offerings are much better.
Carnival Elation is a value cruise as compared to other ones in the Carnival Fleet. Its home port is our hometown of Jacksonville, FL, making it convenient for us to book last-minute cruises. The ship is older and has its quirks, but for quick weekend cruises to the Bahamas, it’s not so bad. If you prepared everything you may need and come in with not a lot of expectations, then this cruise will be worth it.
Have you sailed on the Carnival Elation before? How was your experience with it? Feel free to let us know in the comments below!
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