Cruise Reviews
Cruise Line: Carnival
Ship: Celebration
Date of Cruise: November 2-6, 2000
From Texas to Mexico on the Carnival Celebration
By: Frank Heinisch
I went on this cruise with very low expectations....and Carnival met every one of them. I would never have chosen a Carnival cruise except that my wife's niece was being married on this one. First, the good items. A short duration cruise like this is relatively inexpensive, but you get what you pay for. The only positive item I can say is that they brewed their coffee instead of using a syrup like many lines do. Even though they claimed this, I took the galley tour to verify it.
Now for the bad and the ugly. This is an older ship. It's a 486 in a Pentium III world. It is gaudy in design looking like it is decorated in early bordello. And if the decorations weren't cold enough, they kept the ship too cold, as if we were in a meat locker.
Our cabin was a good size and they provided a basket of amenities which included shampoo and conditioner in little plastic bottles and some disposable razors. There are no refrigerators in the rooms. The TV received very few channels. (We were told that we should be thankful we had even that because TVs were only added recently in response to customer requests.) Our room steward did a good job and entertained everyone with different animals made out of towels each night.
The food on the Lido deck reminded me of a Circus Circus casino buffet. The dining room was a glorified Denny's with table cloths. Most ships now only keep restricted dining assignments for dinner but the Celebration had it for all meals. I preferred the open seating for breakfast and lunch that other lines provide. There was no reason not to do this on the Celebration because the dining rooms were fairly empty for breakfast and lunch.
Carnival tries to act like a real cruise line with the names it uses to describe its entrees, but most items were not tender. The lobster was rubbery, rack of lamb consisted of 3 tough chops and things like that. Desserts were funny too. They made a big deal out of having cherries jubilee one night, prepared by the head waiter. There was no preparation. There was no flaming dessert. Everyone was given a scoop of vanilla ice cream and the waiter came around and ladled out a couple of cherries and some sauce. The menu touted a baked Alaska parade which also didn't happen. Instead, people were given slices of the product whether they wanted it or not. There was no parade. At breakfast, hash browns were actually tatter tots.
When they did have something that sounded good, like chateaubriand, they were very stingy with the bernaise sauce, putting only a little dab on the plate. When one asked for more, it would take a long time for the waiter to get it. Similarly, the hollandaise sauce for their eggs benedict. By the way, I was surprised to see this on the menu. It's not on Princess, and Princess made it seem like they were doing one a big favor to make it. However, even though the word eggs is plural, they brought only one on Carnival. And it was overcooked even though the waiter was told that we wanted the yokes to be soft. Instead of a parade, at the end of the dinner, the waiters started a congo line. On every ship we had been on, the Maitre'd was very dignified. On Carnival, our Irish born Maitre'd danced in the congo line wearing a wig with many long braids dangling down.
One thing Carnival did do nice were the presentations of the food. If only they tasted as good as they looked. Waiter and busboy were mediocre at best. And we seemed to have different ones for each meal, making it hard to figure out who to tip. The head waiter just walked around making some singsong sounds and never did anything to earn a tip. On another night it was touted that we'd have singing waiters. They sang one song to loud piped in music that masked whatever they were singing. There was nothing much to do on board this ship except to gamble. Since this was a short, inexpensive tour out of Galveston, 99% of the passengers seemed to be young, recently college graduated and blue collar types from Texas. And many of them seemed to feel that their idea of having fun was to have a drink in one hand, a cigarette in the other, while being loud and obnoxious. We went for the one and only shore talk, since we only stopped at Cozumel on this short trip. After 15 minutes of promoting everything from bingo, their onboard shops, spa and the casino, we left. I don't know when they planned to mention anything about the shore excursions, but we gave up waiting. We did take the one to Cancun. The ship transferred us to a boat that took us to shore at Carmen Del Playa (or was it Playa Del Carmen?). From there we went in a van to Cancun where, after a tour, we had about 3 hours to shop. Cancun looked like one of the nicest towns we'd ever seen in Mexico. I'd be tempted to go back if it wasn't always so hot and muggy there. The van took us back to the ferry that goes to Cozumel but the guide didn't know how we'd be taken on the ferry. Fortunately another guide showed up as the ferry was docking, to get our tickets and accompany us to Cozumel. Once in Cozumel, he put us in a taxi back to the ship. We arrived at the ship at 4:25 PM, just 5 minutes before all were requested to be back on board.
Normally, I wouldn't have worried about being back on time since the cruise lines usually wait for passengers who book their shore excursions with them. But it seemed that Carnival went out of its way making sure people knew that the tour operators were "independent contractors" which didn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling. We didn't take in any of the shows, but those who did said they were OK or good. This ship has two tier seating in the showroom that could allow good viewing by many. They also had a restricted area at the front, top side of the ship that was reserved for topless sun bathing. Their bingo game was strange too. On the first day, they charged $10 to play just one game. On the last day, they charged $10 for 10 games. Their bingo equipment was not working correctly and the electricity kept going out for the blower, board and microphone. Also, at least 3 of the lights were malfunctioning on their display board which caused confusion for the players. On most cruise ships we've been on, they were kept very clean. Lido tables being quickly bussed. Not on Carnival. Tables were not cleaned quickly and items that fell on the floor were just left there. I've been on other ships that handled a large amount of people and rarely felt crowded. On the Celebration, I felt crowded most of the time. Carnival proved to be not the kind of line I care to cruise with. We are not party types and prefer a more sedate atmosphere with good food and service. I can't imagine ever using this line, or its affiliates, again.
Frank Heinisch
San Ramon, CA
