Monday, December 10 New Orleans

When we first got on board, we were greeted by the staff of the Elation. Mom and I met a dancer named Alicia from Canada and she answered all of our questions like a pro. We headed up to the spa for tours and mom got a relaxing warm water back massage. We stayed in there for a while and then went down to the "Get to know your ship" tour with Ross, an entertainment team staff member from England. He was a tall, lanky guy with red hair and he was very funny. The song "Gangnam Style" came on the radio, and he was dancing along with the music. We headed to the "Fun Ashore and Fun Aboard" show with Willie Lee, the Cruise Director, also from England. He's a bald, short, stocky guy who reminds me of Curly from the 3 stooges. He was hilarious and made jokes about members of the audience. I could tell this was going to be a great cruise. We had to go to our safety briefing at our Muster Station, the Cole Porter Lounge. We saw Alicia again, demonstrating how to put on our life jackets (but I already knew) and then we did a drill where we headed out to the lifeboats and just stood in line for a while. It was really cold outside and we were so happy to get back inside after staying in the cold for 10 minutes without jackets. After the drills, we went up to Tiffany's Bar and Grill to watch the ship sail away from New Orleans. We were happy to leave the cruddy weather behind and just go cruising! We headed back to the Spa to take part in the Raffle, but we didn't win anything. We did "Not So Easy Trivia" with Mathias, the karaoke host (Yeaaaaah.) and then stayed in the Romeo and Juliet lounge for Mind Game Mania. We went to dinner in the Imagination Dining Room for a great meal with Freddie, our awesome waiter. We travelled to the Mikado Lounge for "Dancing with the Cast Dance Class" just to watch. I even picked up a few new dance steps. Dad headed down to Karaoke and mom and I went to see the Welcome aboard Show, which was AWESOME. That was an end to our 1st day aboard the Carnival Elation.

Tuesday, December 11 Read more