It’s the 7th and final day of this Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival’s Mardi Gras and once again, Mother Nature is not cooperating. As I mentioned in yesterday’s report, we encountered a storm that has been following us for four days now and it’s only gotten worse. The ship continues to rock, roll, and bang around as large swells and strong winds make walking in a straight line a challenge. This is supposed to continue until we return to Port Canaveral early Saturday morning. To make things worse, rain, sometimes heavy, continues to fall making for yet another washout.
Those who wanted to spend time working on their tan this cruise, are going home as pale as they arrived, as there was only one full day of sunshine and that was on the second day. I’m sure there are many in the ranks of the disappointed due to the weather and our missed call in Costa Maya earlier in the week, but it’s all part of cruising. Weather is a crap shoot and you just have to make the most of it.
Since this is the last day of the cruise, one of the presentations today was about Carnival’s new digital debarkation process which is being tested on a handful of ships, including Mardi Gras. It’s pretty simple. All you need to do is go into the Carnival HUB app, navigate to your daily planner, and select the last day of your cruise. You’ll be met with instructions to begin the process which starts by selecting the number of people in your party and whether you want to self disembark, or not. Choosing self-debarkation means you will be required to carry off all your luggage rather than leaving it out to be collected and then pick it up in the terminal after disembarking.
If you choose to self-disembark, you’ll be assigned a group and a time as to when you can expect to get off the ship. Those opting for this are among the first off the ship. If you’re not opting to self-disembark, you’ll be asked to choose one of the available time slots for debarkation. These groups are called after priority and all self-disembarking guests are off the ship.
Once all your selections are made, you’re all set! If you’re not carrying your luggage off, you’ll be delivered luggage tags to your stateroom that correspond with the group you selected. Those tags get placed on your bags when you leave them out in the evening to be collected.
This process doesn’t differ much from the old way of doing things, except you don’t have to pick up luggage tags. The overall intention is to keep people from congregating in stairwells waiting to get off the ship.
How did this work out?
Keep reading.
Around the ship, most everyone was stuck indoors except those who wanted to brave the elements and hang out in one of the pools which have been wave pools for the past few days. Today’s temperatures were noticeably cooler, which made an already miserable day worse.
Before jumping into my overall review of this cruise, a few notes on the evening entertainment and dinner. Shows tonight fell under the umbrella of the Festival of Nations and celebrated the crew and the places they call home. The first show, The World Works Here, brings out a crew member to represent every nationality that works on the ship and allows the passengers to express their gratitude for their hard work every day.
The next three short shows, We Are One, All You Need is Love, and United in Song featured the ship’s musicians and performers in various song and dance numbers. None of these were large-scale production numbers and audience attendance was sparser than other shows during the week. These shows started and ended earlier in the evening as well because most will be calling it an early night for disembarkation in the morning.
After the show, my traveling companions and I decided to visit the Italian restaurant once again for our final dinner onboard.
Cucina del Capitano is free for your first visit on Carnival Celebration, Mardi Gras, and the soon-to-be-launched Carnival Jubilee. Subsequent visits will set you back $8 per person. It’s important to note that while all ships in Carnival’s fleet have a Cucina del Capitano, the menu is vastly different and is not free on the other ships.
I started with the Caprese salad, which is a very basic version with store-bought mozzarella and sliced tomatoes.
Others in my group had the Mussels and Clams and the single meatball billed as Nonna’s Meatballs.
When it came to our main courses, I decided to go with the Veal Osso Buco which comes with a $25 upcharge. I had this dish before and it was surprisingly good coming from a restaurant that is pretty much the equivalent of your neighborhood Olive Garden.
The two large veal shanks in a pinto grigio sauce were fork-tender and had a tremendous amount of flavor. The portion was huge and worth the upcharge and may be one of the best items on the menu. It was served, however, with a very bland and average side of parmesan polenta.
Others in the group had what I would consider another of the best menu items, the Beef Short Ribs. I’ve had these previously and they were very good, so I recommended them to my friends and they were equally impressed with their flavor and tenderness.
Another dish we tried was the Grilled Shrimp, which turned out to be a huge disappointment. Both due to it being extremely bland, but the four shrimp were about the size of a quarter and if you had this as your only entree, you’d be looking to order something else as you’d still be hungry after. Points are also deducted for serving them with the tails on.
Overall, the service was good. Our server and her assistants were always coming around refilling water glasses, giving us additional bread, and checking in on us to make sure everything was ok. Is it the best Italian restaurant? No, but it fills the need for one onboard. The versions of this restaurant on other ships is a notch above, but they also come with a higher price tag.
Now onto the recap!
The Stateroom: I spend the week in an inside cabin as part of a casino-free room offer. Cabin 10214 was located on Deck 10 forward and accommodates four people – how? Well, two lower twin beds combine to make a king and then there are also two upper berths. As I mentioned in the Day 1 report, I don’t think any four people would book this room willingly and expect four people to live in it for a week comfortably.
With the upper berths sticking out from the wall, unlike others that pull down from the ceiling and take up no space in the room when stowed, the room is configured with a king bed, good luck. You have about 12″ of space on either side of the bed to wiggle your way into the bed and you have to duck down and contort your body to avoid whacking yourself off the pull-down.
There were several instances of me cursing these things trying to get in and out of the bed.
When it comes to the bathroom, the Excel-class ships have raised the bar in the Carnival fleet. Larger showers with glass doors replaced shower curtains and a more modern decor with plenty of storage makes the bathroom brighter and more functional. However, those of size may find the toilet difficult to squeeze into.
The Food: Each daily review touches on the food I had that night. I typically avoid the main dining room and dine at specialty restaurants, but gave it a shot one night and was extremely disappointed. The food and selection on the buffet seem to have gotten even worse, if that’s possible since I was on Mardi Gras earlier this year.
The buffet selections for lunch and dinner were very limited with an average of only 12 choices, including sides, and most of the offerings looked downright unappealing. With Guy’s Burger Joint and his BBQ restaurant, along with Seafood Shack, Blue Iguana for tacos and burritos, Big Chicken, and the Street Eats food outlets, you’re best eating in those spots rather than the buffet.
For this trip, the specialty restaurants I dined at included Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse, Cucina del Capitano, and Chibang!. I didn’t get the opportunity to dine at Rudi’s Seagrill this time around but have previously and the food and service were spectacular.
If I had to put stars on the various restaurants, they would be:
- Main Dining Room (Free) – *
- Cucina del Capitano (First visit free / $8 subsequent visits) – ***
- Rudi’s Seagrill ($49 pp) – did not experience
- Fahrenheit 555 ($49 pp) – *****
- Bonsai Teppanyaki ($42 pp) – *****
- Emeril’s Bistro 1396 (ala carte) – did not experience
- Guy’s Burger Joint (Free) – ***
- Big Chicken (Free) – **
- Guys Pig & Anchor Smokehouse | Brewhouse (Free and ala carte) – did not experience
Fellow Passengers: This happened to be an Elite casino cruise for those who attained that level, so there were a lot of casino players onboard. When it came to kids, there was not the usual crazy amount, probably due to the Christmas holiday just a few days away. The age of the passengers ranged from 20 – 80+ with a bigger number in the 50s range.
Since this was a Carnival cruise, I do have to mention that there were no fights or unruly passengers. There were weed smokers onboard and despite Carnival’s appearance of being hard-nosed on that front, nothing was done about them even when crew and security walked right by them.
Entertainment: Carnival does put a lot of effort into packing the day with entertainment. There isn’t an hour that goes by where there isn’t something to keep you busy. Even on our missed port day, they scrambled to quickly put together a day packed with activities with very little notice. The production shows, for the most part, are very good, and the various musicians around different venues always are fantastic.
Embarkation: It could have been done better this time around. You can read about it in the Day 1 report, but there were long lines that caused for a longer than usual embarkation process in the terminal. However, that was all pre-security. Once past security, the rest of the process was quick and painless.
Disembarkation: The previously mentioned new digital debarkation process proved to not solve any problem Carnival attempted to solve. It simply got rid of the step where guests had to go pick up their own luggage tags. Despite being told over and over again not to come to the gangway until your group is called or you receive your notification in the Carnival HUB app, people don’t listen.
I was part of the priority disembarkation group and was assigned a 7:45 am time. Stairwells and hallways were already packed with people who were not part of the group were already there. No crew members were checking anyone’s app to see what group they were part of and it was a free-for-all like every single debarkation is.
Good attempt at trying to solve a major issue, but people just don’t listen and no matter what is done to make this process smooth, it never will be.
Once off the ship, a quick facial recognition scan at Customs and I was on my way.
For those using the parking garage at Terminal 3 at Port Canaveral, pack your patience on debarkation day. There are only a few elevators in the parking garage and they’re small. The lines to use them are ridiculously long! There was no way I was going to wait for an elevator, so I lugged my bags up to the 5th level via the stairs. A serious oversight at this parking garage was putting in elevators that were too small along with a woefully inadequate amount of them.
Value: As I mentioned several times, I was given a free interior stateroom as part of a last-minute casino offer, I paid the solo rate of $100 per person, which was given back in the form of $100 in onboard credit. I only had to pay the $129 in port fees and taxes.
Here’s what this cruise cost me at the end of the day:
- Cruise Rate – $0 ($100 charge was refunded as onboard credit)
- Port Fees & Taxes – $129
- Premium WiFi – $130
- CHEERS! Beverage Package – $625
- Gratuities, Special Dining Charges – $381
- Port Parking – $145
The total for this cruise came to $1410.
Thanks for following along!
Fun Times for Day 7:
The Fun Times for December 15, 2023, can also be downloaded as a PDF by clicking here.