My mother chose this cruise for mine and my sons first cruise for our Mother/Daughter trip. We were disappointed from the time we stepped in our cabin Suite U75. First, we had faster to the fun which meant our room should have been ready when we boarded ship at our appointed time of 10:30am. It wasn't ready until 1:30 pm. With a 4 year old and carry on bags made it difficult. Once we got to the suite it appeared clean but was anything but clean. There was dust everywhere which is not what I expected paying thousands for a memorable vacation. Dust, rust and mold everywhere. My son has bad allergies and they were flared up the entire trip on board. They would get better off ship. We had yellow water in our room and sand in the shower when we didn't touch sand. The room smelled of gasoline the 4th night. We complained about the dirtiness of the room to guest services and they had the Housekeeping manager and our Room Steward and one other come clean the room. Even though they come to clean it it was still unacceptable. Guest services wanted to offer strawberries for the inconvenience. Why would we want those when my mother just told them the food is not edible? I'll get to the food in a minute. The room is a complete rust bucket. Guest services also asked if they could clean the rust. You can't clean rust its eating away at the ship. They eventually offered 6 drink vouchers which isn't even close to compensation for how much we paid. Which they only left 4 at the door. We are not drinkers but we used them. The food was deplorable. Had no flavor to anything and food was never hot. It was always lukewarm. The first night we went to the dining room Imagination to eat which smelled of gasoline/diesel and I ordered a steak medium rare and it came out gray and purple on the inside. The sides were the size of a tablespoon. Didn't know you get one bite of side with a steak. My mothers salmon was dried out and had no flavor. We didn't eat there again until the last night. Thought maybe it would be better. Was I wrong? Yes! I ordered Country Fried Chicken. That consisted of a non battered deep fried breast and wing and one tablespoon of mashed potatoes. One Tablespoon, really? I get they are cutting down on waste but that's ridiculous. The chicken was so dry with no flavor that I couldn't stomach it. Tiffany's which is the buffet had 2 sides to it and served the same thing the restaurant did, so I didn't eat there often unless its breakfast. The breakfast was questionable. Scrambled eggs were in a pan with an inch of water in it. The bacon was never cooked to crispy and the pancakes were like rubber. The only thing I recommend is the cereal because you can't mess that up. The ice cream was awesome and that's the only thing I can say was delicious. I did eat a Ruben from the deli and it was ok but nothing to rave about. The pizza pirate pizza was plain and tasted like canned sauce and the crust was burnt most of the time but was better than the other food they were serving on the ship. Our stomachs were upset after everything we ate.

On our last day I looked at our account to make sure we didn't owe anything or needed to do anything else to get off the ship I noticed they had 6 drink vouchers on our account which we only got 4. We had bought 2 drinks when we went to dinner our first night so I asked if those 2 drink vouchers we didn't get could be used for those drinks and I was told no and given 2 more drink vouchers. No explanation as to why they couldn't adjust it as so. We didn't want anymore drinks because by this time we just wanted to be off the ship. I don't remember the name of the woman at guest services but she had no customer service skills at all. Nobody at Guest Services had any customer service skills. They couldn't understand anything you were saying, they would just keep looking at notes that the previous person left and would walk away behind the curtain and come back and repeat whatever notes that were there. I get that there are different nationalities but you need someone that can speak and understand the English language when in customer service. Nothing gets handled and the paying customer doesn't feel elated. This ship should not be called Elation because they do nothing to elate you. They are getting more money at every corner with service fees on everything. We paid ahead for gratuities and they still expected more. Now for the dress code they have in place for dining areas is not enforced. I have my 4 year old eating while ladies in thongs are walking in to eat with no cover up. They are soaking wet and leaning all over the food. This ship is classless and not meant for family. Parents allow their children to run wild in hallways and leaving their canned sodas anywhere they wanted. Heard one say I will come back and get this because he saw me looking at him in disgust with his lack to find a trash can. I came back around about an hour later and the cans were still there. It rained very hard on our last night and we rocked back and forth all night long. The winds were so bad it sounded like the ship was falling apart. Felt kind of scared this ship might not make it back to Jacksonville. This won't be my last cruise but it will be the one and only cruise I take with Carnival. Spend the extra for a better cruise line and better perks. Carnival Elation should be retired for good and completely redone. We were also told this was the last cruise this ship was taking for refurbishment and that was a lie. They were loading up for another that is 7 days. I can't stress this enough but find a better cruise line that cares about the people on the ship.