We booked this 5-day cruise as a last minute getaway. We are Diamond on RCI, but decided to give Carnival a try since Mobile is close enough to drive to and this itinerary included Calica, which would give us a chance to visit Xcaret. We were curious to see what differences there might be between Carnival and RCI.

Embarcation was pretty standard, with the glaring exception that both my husband and I left our passports at home! I can't believe we managed to do that, but Carnival was very helpful and we were able to have my bc faxed. Husband is a naturalized citizen, so he had to have his passport overnighted and we picked it up on the way back in.

The Elation is one of Carnival's older ships, and is showing her age. Overall maintenance and cleanliness was good, but we found the decor to be dark and the design of the ship felt closed-in. The traffic flow was awkward in several places, resulting in lots of bottlenecks at peak periods. Our cabin was forward, fairly near a bank of 4 of the slowest elevators ever manufactured, only 3 of which were ever in service at one time. Read more