My husband and I took a cruise on the Elation in January 2010. We are both in our early 50's and traveled without children. This was my ninth cruise with Carnival, fourth ship.

Embarkation was so much easier with this cruise. We stayed at the Admiral Semmes in Mobile, using the park and cruise package, so we were dropped off at the entrance by the hotel shuttle. We progressed through security, check in and then sat and waited on our section number to be called. This took about fifteen minutes and we were onboard by noon and having lunch on the Lido deck. We learned not to carry a lot of baggage with us through the embarkation process. We each checked one bag, and my husband carried on one backpack with our meds, my Kindle, sunglasses, and our paperwork, passports, etc. We saw so many people carrying around loads of stuff who wished they had less. We each wore a lanyard/badge holder, and quickly slipped our sail and sign cards in them, so they were always within easy reach anytime we left the stateroom or needed them onboard. To check in you will need your passport, boarding pass, and the credit card you set up your fun pass with online. You also will fill out a health form for each person while you are in line.

Ok, so once on the ship, I was looking forward to the mongolian grill. The first day it was excellent. I like beef or chicken with black bean sauce and a touch of barbeque sauce. For some reason, after the first day, they stopped carrying the noodles to go in it, and they got very skimpy on meat, but the first day it was great. Note: If this had been our first experience onboard with staff, we would have been very disappointed, as these guys who cook mongolian never smile and seem very annoyed all the time. Everyone else onboard is really nice. Read more