Thanksgiving on Celebration
Written: Dec 06 '01 (Updated Dec 06 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Inexpensive, great stops, leaves from Texas, fun
Cons: ship is shopworn
The Bottom Line: It's a good, but not great cruise. Figure the cost per day and you will not find a better deal.
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| jimNtexas's Full Review: Carnival Celebration |
My family and I cruised on a the Celebration from November 19 to November 24, 2001, from Galveston to Cozumel and Calica (near Cancun). Our party consisted of my
wife, our 13 year old son, and our 21 year old nephew. We were assigned cabins U160, an outside cabin near the middle of the ship; and R6, an inner bunk bed cabin located on the bottom deck near the bow of the ship.
This was my second cruise, my first having been on the now defunct Premier "Big Red Boat", the Oceania about ten years ago.
Booking the Cruise:
We decided to book this cruise on the spur-of-the-moment about a month before the departure date. We stumbled on the web site for Tramex Travel, a well known agency here in Austin. I filled out a form asking for a quote, and got back a prompt quote that seemed like a bargain. I sent an email asking to book the cruise. I heard nothing for three days, and then called and got a run-around. I'll spare you the blow-by-blow, but let's just say Tramex did finally book the cruise for only a little more than their initial
quote. Their "internet agent" does not return email nor does she answer her phone, everything had to be done through one of their "real" agents, but these agents were reluctant to help since they were not the ones getting the
commission, nor were they sure what the internet agent had done. We therefore got confusing and contradictory answers to our questions when we called the physical office. We were not certain that they had properly done the work until we were actually on the ship. It was very stressful dealing
with Tramex via the internet and I would not recommend them to anyone else.
Embarkation:
Carnival states that embarkation begins at 1pm for the 4pm sailing, but in fact they start around noon. When we arrived at 12:30pm things were in full swing. I followed the recommended procedure for parking: drop off your
baggage and people at the cruise terminal, and then drive to the long term parking lot alone. It costs $45 (cash only) to park in the fenced lot for a five day
cruise, which includes shuttle buses to and from the terminal.
There seemed to be a lot of people milling about, but the line went pretty quickly. They gave our documents very close scrutiny, particularly our son who was born in Germany. In the end our papers were in order. We were
given our "sail and sign" cards, our room keys, and the customary group picture. We then passed through a final security check where a digital identification photo was taken of each passenger.
On Carnival you are pretty much on your own the first few hours. A greeter gives you directions to your cabin, but the cabin stewards don't appear until 6pm. Most people go to the buffet on the Lido deck and join the long, long lines for the buffet lunch.
The Ship:
The Celebration is impressive as you approach it for the first time, very large and very white, with the distinctive Carnival stack. Inside was a little disappointing. The carpets are all worn and many were stained and dirty. The decor was "70s bordello", as if Austin Powers were the designer.
Our outside cabin had a large picture window, set in a deep window sill. My wife was able to sit comfortably in the window and read, a sort of redneck balcony. We pushed the two single beds together. There was plenty of storage space for two people. We were glad we followed the advice of other reviewers and took extra wire hangers. Note: There are a handful of balcony suites, but be careful booking these. Most have a view of the side of a lifeboat.
The inside cabin was smaller with its two bunk beds. It had a literal picture window, i.e. a picture of a window. Both cabins had small but adequate bathroom/shower units, with very loud air operated toilets. Both had TV's which carried one movie channel, one ship information channel, and
one or two cable and/or broadcast TV channels (usually MSNBC and NBC).
Special mention goes to the shower heads, which are good old fashioned high flow, high pressure devices. Nothing like the miserly low pressure squirt gun shower heads you find in even the most expensive hotels these days.
The Celebration has free food 24 hours a day. You can get room service or free pizza anytime. For main meals one can choose to eat in the dinning room with great table service, or one can endure the chaos of the "Wheelhouse buffet". The buffet food isn't bad at all. The problem I had
with the buffet is that it is located on a main pathway through the ship, so people are constantly walking all around the seating area. The buffet itself could be better organized.
The line moves slowly because so many people order hamburgers, which are made when ordered. This is fine, but if you don't want a burger you have to wait for all the burger people ahead of you just to serve yourself from the
buffet. People smoke in this area.
You get free tea, juice, and "autodog" ice cream in the Wheelhouse. If you want soft drinks, you can prepay $25 for adults or $17 for kids and get a card that gives you unlimited soft drinks from the many bars. Alcoholic
drinks are on you.
There is also a free sushi bar that operates in the evenings.
We tried to take as many meals as possible in the main dining rooms. All the food I had was good, the only mild disappointment was the lobster tail, which seemed kind of dry to me. The waiters will keep bringing you food
until you pass out, if that is what you want. The deserts were great, we particularly enjoyed the petite fores.
This cruise seemed about 80% people from Texas and the neighboring states. With so many Texans, you'd think they'd figure out that ice tea should be delivered with a lot of ice. I had to spend a couple of days tutoring my waiter (from Indonesia) and assistant waiter (from Zimbabwe) on this point, but they got it right in the end. Our waiter ("K2" is what he told us to call him) was polite and very efficient, and had a touch of British style reserve. Our assistant waiter was an absolute delight. Ichwai was a tall
gangly fellow with an exotic accent who possessed limitless energy and enthusiasm, and a constant broad smile. He seemed continually about to burst out into deep happy laughter, as if he were enjoying an excellent joke.
We asked for a large table, and got a table for ten. Three people never showed, and the other 3 came only a few times, so we often had this great table and two superior waiters to ourselves.
The Kid Stuff:
Our son is a little on the shy side, and he was apprehensive about being bored on the cruise. Perish the thought. The cruise staff kept him busy almost 24 hours a day. We saw him from time to time playing volleyball or
swimming, always in the company of a large pack of teens. We insisted he come to dinner, which he did. He would sit down, and look at his watch every 20 seconds or so until he had stayed with us for a decent interval. Then he'd say that something or other was starting and could he please leave and rejoin the group. He had a great time on the cruise.
Carnival has a reputation as a young person's party barge, but we didn't perceive that at all. The teenagers are drawn to the teen activities which are kept out of the way of the adult activities.
On Board Activities:
My wife and I are bookworms and enjoyed a lot of reading time on this trip, both in our room and on the deck. Our favorite place was the deck just forward of the forward pool and aft of the bridge. We carried lounge chairs
from the crowded pool area into this quiet space.
We bought some art at the art auction. The auctioneer was clearly disappointed that the more expensive pieces (Dali and Max) didn't sell. The auction format was a bit unusual, in that you could bargain with him to a
certain extent. I have confirmed that we got a good price on the Igor Medeved serigraph we purchased.
We enjoyed the Broadway review because we got good seats in the Astoria lounge about an hour ahead of time. Many, perhaps most, of the seats in this lounge are view restricted, so if you really want to see one of the shows,
get there early. There are several other shows but we didn't see any of the others.
Shore days:
We had a long day on the island of Cozumel that was fun. We went scuba diving in the morning and rode a submarine in the afternoon. There are many ground activities to choose from.
There is nice shopping area at the end of the pier we used which has a "communications office" that rents internet connected PC's for $5/hour (as opposed to 75 cents/minute on the ship). There is also a drug store that sells many name-brand drugs really cheap, and without prescription. For example, viagra was (I'm told) $21 for 100 pills. There is also a small but nice beach were you can snorkel or sun yourself in lounge chairs. There were three Carnival ships docked at this pier, and 2 others parked at another one on the other side of town. It was fun to watch all the small boats scurrying around the three large Cruise ships.
We ate lunch at Carlos and Charlies, which was fun if pretty noisy. We didn't do a whole lot of shopping, but there are many stores in the area. Our nephew returned to Carlos and Charlie in the evening and reported that
the place was one giant raucous party.
In Calcia the stop is shorter, 7am to 3pm. There are continuous shuttles from the pier (which appears to be used primarily for loading sand and gravel) to the Xcaret eco-park. The park is a really wonderful place, with
many exotic animals and plants, plus wonder full beaches and swimming areas.
It is as clean as whistle, and it's a photographer's paradise. Highly recommended.
There are a number of other shore excursions available, including some that take you the 30 miles to Cancun.
In retrospect my main complaint with this ship was the dirty carpets and bizarre decor. It gave the environment an unnecessary cheap feeling. The ship's general layout could have been better.
The high points were the fun shore stops, the peaceful and relaxing "at sea"days, the great wait staff. It was great having a wonderful thanksgiving meal prepared and served for us by cheerful waiters. If you compute the per-person/perday cost of this vacation, it was down right
cheap.
We thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and would recommend this cruise to others.
PS: I will be posting pictures from this cruise on the web. Come back soon for the url.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
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Epinions.com ID:
jimNtexas
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Member: Jim Howard
Location: Austin, Tx
Reviews written: 51
Trusted by: 26 members
About Me:
I've been a geek longer than word "geek" has been around.
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