We just got home from a 5 night cruise on the Celebrity Elation. There were 6 in our party - all adults and we were there to celebrate mother's 90th birthday. We have not cruised on Carnival before nor will we ever cruise on them again. We have been on Celebrity and Azamara and while we would rush back to those ships, we didn't even want to enter contests on board where we might win a free cruise. First off, we cruised during what for many young people was spring break. While well behaved kids are great, clearly there were parents on the cruise who felt that being on a ship removed any responsibility for parenting and allowed there kids to run down the hallways at all hours of the night. Even worse than the kids was the number of areas on the ship where smoking was permitted. Even in the casino while there were a number of non-smoking slot machines, they were situated right next to machines where smoking was allowed. Unlike Vegas which has great filtration systems, there was nothing to remove the smoke from the casino. While the area directly around the piano bar piano was non-smoking, all the tables 3' away were smoking. I guess if you smoke, this is a great ship, if you would prefer your clothes not smell like smoke, this may not be the cruise for you.

On the plus side, the staff on the boat was great.

We had heard that the food was good on board and we found it okay. The buffet offered a pretty good selection, but it would have been so much better if everything was served hot.