Links
- Elation Excursions order form scan (600kb pdf file)
- Elation Excursions description booklet and Capers scans.
(The above link should take you to a briefcase folder on Yahoo. For the excursions, you'll find 6 JPGs of 2 pages each, and once large (4mb) PDF file with the entire booklet. I recommend the PDF file since it prints much more cleanly. However, the JPGs will do in a pinch and are just over 2.2Mb total. The Capers are about 15Mb total. Each day is ~1.5 for the 4 page Caper and 700kb for the 2-sided insert. There is one additional insert from SPA.)
Review
The Ship
Elation nows sits bow to stern with Rhapsody while in port at Galveston.
With all that glass, Rhapsody is definitely prettier from the outside.
However, Elation is nicer/prettier on the inside and seems to be better maintained.
(I was on Rhapsody in April 2003). Elation does have nice muted tones,
which is reportedly not the case with her sister ships. The overall effect is very nice: lots to look at but not too bright or too busy.
The atrium area is very nice and feels bigger than Rhapsody due to the
lack of a huge hanging sculpture (but it may actually be larger... tough to tell). My
personal opinion is that I'd rather sacrifice these grand atriums for more
deck space and public areas, but thatdoesn't seem to be the public consensus and it was still nice. There was a distinct
lack of seating for listening to the piano or strings trio. The strings trio seemed quite good to my untrained ear, but did tend to repeat the same pieces. I'd recommend going to see them when they play in Duke's during tea time (Thursday?)
The pools are tiny and few as usual. The water slide was good, but had a
serious bump in the seam at the end of the long straightaway. Very hard on
the shoulders after 20 or 30 passes. ;-)
No problems with chair hoggers... or perhaps there were actually enough
deck chairs. To be fair, there were two large groups on the ship which
seemed to skew the average age much higher than normal. There is a sun area in the bow at about deck 5, but (serious bummer!) this is apparently restricted to the crew. You can check this out from the front observation area on Verandah.
Food
Food was generally unimpressive. I don't expect great food when
cooking for 2000 people, but past experience is that one of two items a day
will be either notable or outstanding. The soups were good, and the teriyake
Salmon (Lido deck later in the week) was excellent. The burgers were very good
as well, but I'm not big on red meat. The veggie burgers were typical.
Entertainment
The shows were good, but didn't really suit my tastes. The troop is
talented, but cold use some work on the synchronous movements since they
look really bad when a couple of people are behind the rest. Still, this
was probably the best dance team I've seen on a ship (not that I'm an expert on Vegas style dance routines!). The singers are very
talented but the songs didn't do mush for me. Most seemed to be original compositions, which tends to annoy me. They did get in "When the Saints come Marching In" which I am starting to believe is a legally required on all cruises! ;-)
The comedians where OK, but in this age of 24x7 comedy central they were
nothing special. The balancing act was decent... does every ship have a
balancing act???
The move selection was decent, but began repeating itself. There
were a couple of movies I've never heard of but also DareDevil, How to Lose
a Guy in 10 Days, Chicago, and LOTR2. I understand they started
showing Bruce Almighty the following week, which is a great movie.
Activities
Activities seemed pretty minimal. Trivia maybe 10 times during the week, a
putting contest and maybe a few others. They showed Chicago in the Mikado
during the week but wound up starting it 40 minutes late (after someone went
to the Purser's desk to remind them). Same thing with one of the triva
contests, which started 30 minutes late. The social host did make the
first question "who showed up late for trivia?"... the next day the first
question was "who showed up on time for trivia?" ;-)
Still there were enough activities to make due. The one thing that was
annoying is that several interesting "one time only" activities ran during
the later dinner so we had to choose between dinner and the activity.
Ports
Galveston seems to be getting it's act together, though I may just
have been lucky. Still, this was only the second week of Rhapsody and
Elation going at the same time and they seemed to handle it well. I still
recommend Dolphin parking, if only to take money away from those people at
Port of Galveston Official Parking who still haven't figured it out...
I skipped all the ports. I heard nothing wonderful about Progresso, and
Cozumel is Cozumel. I wanted to do the cave tubing in Belize, but wasn't willing to
commit to a 7:45AM meeting time while on vacation...
Cabins
Inside cabins were typical. I heard bad things about the balcony suites
from a couple of sources, primarily that they were very small. Check the
descriptions on Yahoo Travel or otherwise and make your own call. One
thing I can say is that the balconies were not at all private. The
barriers were not good coverage and were partially transparent (basically blue colored plexiglass). Also, most
or all can be easily/incidentally viewed from public areas. You'd have to
be quite an exhibitionist to get naughty out there.
Cruise Director
Simon Prendergrast: another Australian CD, and a pretty good guy. Like all
cruise directors, he's got about 3 gimmicks and they get pretty old by the
end of the cruise. Still, he wasn't constantly pushing products and was
pretty low key in general. Very funny too... probably a better improv
comic than the main acts!
Embarkation/Disembarkation
Port of Galveston hasn't quite got it right yet. You drop you luggage at
one end of the building, and walk to the other to check in, etc. After
going though all the lines, you wind back through and pass the spot where
the luggage was dropped! It isn't a problem for someone healthy, but could be an issue for older folks. They are installing a 'jet bridge' which
should eliminate much of the extra walking. The odd thing is that they
had a working jet bridge 6 months ago at the same spot...
They also hosed up something with my credit card which wasn't attached to
my cabin. I would up putting down cash because Discover wouldn't accept
the charge while on the ship. The (very nice) help desk girl suggested
that I call Discover and have them release the hold... not at $7 a minute!
Disembarkation was actually well run. Apart from the nightmare of waiting
for 2000 people to clear customs, Carnival actually played it pretty smart
and did a good job of restricting each color tag leaving the ship. At
least, I was in the first regular color called and only noticed ~25% if
people from the wrong groups. This is as opposed to the normal process
where 1/2 the ship tries to go when the first tags are called. Kudos
Carnival!
Misc
- Beer: a better selection that any other ship I've been on. Shiner
Bock after only 1 week in Texas! Also Guiness, Boddington's, Fosters (but
not the bitter), Red Stripe, Amber Bock, and others (in addition to the
standard Budweiser, etc.). Unfortunately, they had only Bud and Heinny on
tap. Prices are high but not horrific: Foster's 23oz can was ~$6.30 with
tip.
- Ship time: 11:25. A little joke there... all the clocks were stuck
at 11:25. Very annoying to have to carry a pager around to know what time
it is.
- Exercise area: Very nice. A large area with a good selection of
equipment. The machines were all based on air compression, so no changing
of pins or weight plates. A number of treadmills, a couple of elliptical
trainers, and even a rowing machine. A (small) collection of free weights was available
as well. Also a nice aerobics areas, a collection of exercise balls and a
whole set of what I think were "spinning" machines. The gym was never crowded, but again this may be due to an older than average group of passengers.
The track was only 1/11th of a mile but it was a nice cushy track.
Well, that is it. A good cruise, and I won't hesitate to jump on Elation
again if I run out of ships in Galveston or if a good deal pops up. A lot of
little negatives, but mostly inconsequential. Still a good deal and
positive vacation experience. Elation will be strong competition for
Rhapsody. ;-)
Email: My CC username at Yahoo.com