Carnival Elation, 4 night, San Diego - Cabo San Lucas

This was our first Carnival cruise. We selected this cruise for a quick getaway and on the departure port. We live in Tucson, and it is a quick 5 hour drive to San Diego. We drove in the day before to avoid rushing around like idiots the day of departure. We stayed in the Comfort Inn at Mission Bay, which was fine. We drove to the parking lot around 10:30 a.m. and parked at Park & Save Lot 7. They had a free shuttle to the pier. We dropped off our luggage with the porter and checked in, which was super quick. We left the pier to meet a friend and returned around 1:30 p.m. There was quite a long line at that time, but it was no problem boarding.

CABIN We went directly to our cabin to settle in. We were in cabin U61, which is on deck 6 and a little forward. We had a lovely window and the bed was really comfortable. Frankly, the cabin was ugly. Ugly colors (red, gray, and peach), and the dEcor was pretty dated. What was weird though, was the lifejacket box was situated in such a way that the person sleeping closest to the window would have to crawl over the other person sleeping, because that stupid box was blocking the way. My husband stepped on me a few times in the middle of the night. The cabin was clean and had plenty of storage. The shower had body gel and shampoo. There was also a dish with random stuff in it...disposable razors, soap, Pepcid, and Metamucil chews. Bring your own hairdryer. We had towel animals and turndown service every night, with the exception of the last night. We did receive our luggage tags, but no other information was provided regarding debarkation. We figured it out though. There was some hallway noise, but nothing too bad. We were near the elevators, which was nice, but probably added to the hallway noise. Read more