Just to give you a little background before I start my review of our 5 day Elation cruise November 25-30. DH and I have been on 13 cruises, 6 of them have been on Carnival. This was our 2nd time on the Elation, the 1st ship we have been on twice ( 1st time was in 2001 for a Mexican Riviera cruise). All of our other Carnival cruises have been 7 or 8 days. This was a great cruise. We really enjoyed it!

We flew in to Orlando the day before the cruise as the flights from Toronto do not get in until 12:45pm and we felt that would be cutting it a little too close to getting to Port Canaveral by 3pm ( departure time is 4pm but they want everyone on board by 3pm.) We had pre-booked a car from Budget for approx. $40 for the day and returned it in Cape Canaveral the next morning. They provide a free shuttle to the port. That gave me a good part of a day to shop on Black Friday which was an added bonus. Now it may not sound like a big deal to those of you from the US but for those of us from Canada, shopping in the US is a treat, especially on Black Friday. We stopped at Florida Mall first and ended up shopping there the whole afternoon and evening. We stayed at the Florida Hotel which is part of the Florida Mall so I did literally "shop til I dropped" that day and then just went upstairs to our hotel room. The cost for a 1 night stay is $119.

Embarkation was a breeze and very painless. After dropping the car off at Budget, they shuttled us to the pier where the Elation was docked. There were 3 other ships in port that day but each ship has its own terminal. The shuttle dropped us off in an area where you leave your bags with the porters. The line going into the terminal looked quite long but moved quickly. We had arrived at the port about 11:45am and went through security, checked in and on the ship by 12:30pm. Port Canaveral is a great port to sail out of....not crowded at all and very organized and efficient. Everyone was told to go to the Lido Deck where a buffet lunch was being served in Tiffany's. Rooms would not be available until 1:30pm. Took a look at my sign and sail card and saw that we had been assigned late seating in the Inspiration Room. Here we go again! We had asked for early seating, preferably 6:15pm. Only 1 time have we cruised on Carnival that I did not have to go see the maitre d' to get our seating changed. It is never a problem to get it changed but still a hassle each time to have to do it. We were seated at a table with 4 other couples who also had changed from late to early. Why couldn't they have done that in the first place? Read more