Carnival Elation Review
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I got married the night before we left on our cruise and me and my lovely bride flew out of Minneapolis on an American Airlines flight that went perfectly well. We were both quite tired from several sleepness nights prior to the wedding, so we slept on the plane into Miami.
Having never seen the ocean before I was incredibly excited just to see Miami not to mention the cruise itself! This cruise was a first for both of us, so we were pretty excited, especially after hearing many people rave about their cruises. Miami was cool, although I didn't get to see any beaches or the ocean itself. However, when we got to the airport, we were met by Carnival representatives who were initially very nice, and showed us where to go to meet up with our prepaid shuttle to the port from the airport. The people who were taking care of everyone where quite rude and impersonal, which is kind of understood considering the number of people waiting to get on the buses, there were 3 Carnival ships leaving that day. My suggestion is to just take a taxi from the airport and not bother using Carnival, as they were quite spendy, roughly $50, when taxis were there for $9 a person! yeah, what a rip huh? and we had to wait for approximately 45 minutes or so before we got onto our bus, which then quickly brought us to the port, where we got off and gave our luggage to the porters, who were efficient and courteous, as long as you gave them a tip!
We were VIPs, with the biggest room on the ship, so checking in was quick and easy, with a VIP room to fill out all the forms, and we didn't have to wait in line more than 10 minutes, as opposed to the loooong line of people waiting to check in that must have lasted about 2 hours or so. After that, we went on the boat and were immediately awed by the scale and beauty of the ship. The elation is an older ship, however when they overhauled it in early 2000 they did a great job! The ship is exciting and big! We proceeded to our room to drop off our carry ons, and got lost several times, luckily carnival had crew members stationed at nearly every turn to help you get to where you are going, which was very helpful, and they were quite courteous.