I cruised out of New Orleans with three friends. We booked two ocean view rooms on the Riveria deck midship. This was my 17th cruise (9 of them on Carnival). One of my friends was on her second cruise and the other two were on their first cruise. We all had a great time! We went to two ports - Cozumel and Progreso. I had been to Cozumel at least 5 times before. I decided to try something different so we went to Paradise Beach. It was very beautiful here. It is a $15 cab fare (for 4 people) each way. We stayed here about two hours and had lunch. I would definitely return. Our next port was Progreso. I had never been here before so we decided to take the public bus to Merida. It costs $5 each way and was about an hour drive each way. Merida was nice. We had lunch right across from the park in the middle of town. We got back to Progreso with about an hour and half to spare so we did a little shopping by the port. Prices were a little cheaper than Cozumel. The food on board Elation was very good. The lines were long at several places like the Mongolian Grill. I did have lunch here one day. There was only 5 people in front of me but it still took about 15 minutes to get my food. We ate in the MDR every night with anytime timing. We were quite happy with the quality of the food as well as the service. We saw several of the shows and went to the piano bar 3 different nights. The only shows I did not care for was the comedians. These are usually my favorite shows. We saw all of two family friendly shows and about 5 minutes of an adult show. I just didn't think any of the 3 shows were that funny. Embarkation and disembarkation were both painless. We parked our car in the parking garage at 11:30 and was eating lunch on the Lido deck before 12:30. They called our number at 9:30 to disembark and we were loaded up with our luggage on the road by 10:20. This was a very relaxing cruise!