Elation Cruise Review, August 11-16

Pre-trip: We drove from the Los Angeles area to San Diego, leaving Saturday morning about 10 am. Warning to people doing the same—it was a miserable trip. The traffic was backed up from San Juan Capistrano all the way to San Diego. We arrived in plenty of time (about 1:30 PM), but were seriously wiped out! We were traveling with our two sons, ages 13 and 24, and our daughter, 22. This was our third cruise with Carnival, and our second trip on the Elation—our first cruise ever, April 2001, was on the Elation.

We parked at Laurel Travel Center, which was a great location and has a coupon on-line that makes it a real bargain. A shuttle brought us to the cruise terminal right away, and once we were there we were on the ship within about 20 minutes. We went straight to our rooms, E108 and E116, dumped our stuff, and headed to Tiffany's on the Lido deck for much-needed lunch and Funship Specials! We met our room steward Jorge when we got back from lunch, and were happy to see some of our luggage already there. Muster drill followed, and the rest of our luggage was waiting for us by the time we got back. Read more