Was a great relaxing week, starting off with arriving in New Orleans the day before the cruise. We stayed at the Omni just one block from Bourbon Street. The hotel and staff really made the beginning of our trip great. The morning of the cruise we went to the New Orleans School of Cooking, which was just a half block from our hotel. We had breakfast at Johnnys Po-Boys that was just across the street from the cooking school. Breakfast was delicious. We had the ham and cheese omelet, which was great, the pancakes also looked delicious. We went to the cooking school and it was very entertaining. Our chef Kevin was very witty and made several delicious Cajun dishes for us to enjoy. We left the cooking school about 12:30, picked up our car at the hotel and headed to the Fulton Garage Roof Top. Great place to park. We parked on the roof top for $8.00 per day. They had people to unload our bags from the car, took us down and we got on a shuttle to the port. When we returned they picked us up at the port, unloaded our bags at the garage while one of us took the elevator and came back down with the car. They then loaded our bags into the car for us. After leaving the cooking school at 12:30 we were on the ship by 1:30. On our return we were off the ship and in our car leaving the garage by 9:30.

The Elation is an older ship, but still nice. Our cabin was E135, which is a central location and was very convenient to everything on the ship. The beds were comfortable, the bathroom was large enough with a nice size shower with great water pressure and instant hot water. Cabin crew did a great job keeping us with fresh towels and of course the towel figures at night.

We had early dining in the Imagination Dining Room. Our wait staff was great. The food was very good, but not excellent. One of our favorites is the Chocolate Molten Cake. The Sea Day Brunch had some good options and having table service was nice. The buffet was better than I expected it to be and there were several different stations with everything from hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, to a Mongolian Wok Station. There is an additional charge for soft drinks and liquor. Carnival offers a special pricing for unlimited soft drinks and a $50.00 price per day for 15 drinks per day for liquor, but you must buy it for each day of the whole cruise and your cabin mate must purchase it also. For our cruise that would have been $250 each. Read more