mlshum

After dinner we decided to wander around a little bit while the food settled before we headed to the comedy club for the first evening performance. We stopped in the Fun Shop for a few minutes. I think I remember someone on Cruise Critic who was looking for the ship ornaments and couldn’t find them on their last sailing. They DID have ship specific ornaments but did NOT have the ship specific magnets other than bottle openers. It’s been a couple of sailings since I’ve found any ship magnets. I wonder what’s up with that? We didn’t buy anything and decided to head on over to get in line. The comedy clubs can get pretty crowded. The Duo Bros were playing in the Atrium Lobby One aside, it always surprises me when I am on a cruise and meet people that I know, or we have some mutual friend or other connection. While we were browsing around in the Fun Shop Ron noticed two young ladies who were wearing a West Virginia University logo shirt. He struck up a conversation with them. It turns out that they lived about 30 minutes from my mom, and both worked with another lady who had graduated high school with Ron. Small world! The show was scheduled to begin at 9:15. It was around 8:45 when we got in line and there was already a huge line stretching from the door of Limelight back into the Alchemy Bar area, looping around and going down the Promenade (Deck 9). We were near the point where the line curved back down Promenade in the Alchemy area and we would stay there until after 9pm. When the doors finally opened, it turned out that there was plenty of room for everyone. That surprised me. The line had looked way longer than that! The door to the comedy club is on the right in this picture. The line started at the door, went all the way down to that back wall in the Alchemy Bar area, wrapped around and back down the Promenade. It seemed really long to me! The comedian’s name was Mark Hawkins. He was very “meh”. It was OK but nothing special or memorable. I planned to check out the other comedian sometime during the cruise, but I wasn’t going to bother going to see this one again. He moved just as I snapped the picture. There was plenty of room inside. About midway through the show a number of people left. After the show we went back up on deck for a Diet Pepsi. We definitely get the use out of our soda packages! To be honest, I didn’t really care about the Diet Pepsi itself at that point. I simply wanted the plastic cup it came in. Why, you may ask? Here’s what happened from earlier! When Gede introduced himself and we asked him for the small glasses that are normally in the bathroom for brushing teeth, he had absolutely no idea what we meant. We tried to explain it, but we just weren’t connecting somehow. He promised to try to find “something like that” but he didn’t seem to be very confident that it would happen. We decided to just get some on our own. When we saw him later that night on the way back to our room, he seemed relieved that we’d found what we needed. By that time, it was around 11pm. We were tired. Time to turn in for the evening.

It’s great that you live close enough to the port to go often. We live about 6 hours from Norfolk but we’ve only sailed from there once, strangely enough. I’ve done a couple of the speciality restaurants but haven’t yet been to the steakhouse. Next year is our 40th anniversary Alaska cruise and we’re definitely going to the steakhouse on that one. Thanks so much for reading along!

Thank you! I’m trying to get the hang of this to the level that you have perfected it! Enjoying your review and prayers for a success surgery for Patti.

We sailed under that bridge last week! Thanks so much for the pic of the “top” side!

Thank you! I figured that was the case but didn’t know for sure. I appreciate you!

Looking forward to reading along! I definitely want to do the ABC islands!

Aww…thank you so much for reading along. What an awesome story! This was my first trip on Elation. Were the peacocks always there on Lido or were those added at a later date? For some reason, I like those!

Thanks so much for coming back and for reading along again! Yes, the Celebration cruise was a bit of an "experience" for sure! LOL I still enjoyed it but I, too, was glad to have a chance to sail and NOT be sick at the same time!

Sail away was scheduled for 3:30. As of 3:00, they were still making announcements for people to come and do their muster drill. At 3:15..still calling for people. 3:30.....STILL calling for people! The bars and everything shut down at that point in an effort to get those stragglers to go do their muster drill! Come on, already! Is this so difficult?!?! Now this is something I simply cannot understand and my own personal pet peeve. We all KNOW that EVERYONE is required to do the muster drill before we can sail. It takes like 5 minutes, for crying out loud! I much prefer the new muster process to the old way when we all had to go stand in a crush of people on a hot deck. Please, please just go do your muster drill! Why is this so hard!?!?! They kept calling for people to come to do the drill and finally, a little before 4:00pm, we were ready to sail. The harbor pilot was circling beside us. He was growing tired of waiting, too. Finally, the lines were cast off and we were ready to go! I didn’t realize that we were standing right in front of the ships’ horn until they sounded the alarm signal. LOL It was deafening! I knew better than that!! I will not forget that again! We edged away from the dock and headed toward the bridge. Sailing under a bridge is always interesting. It always looks like something is going to stick up too far and not make it under. We, of course, sailed under without incident and were on our way. I think Carnival will always have to have a few smaller ships simply so they can fit under the bridges. No way Excel or Vista class is fitting in that space! Here's the bridge in the distance Almost there.... here's our "proof of life" picture in case we don't make it. And just like that, the bridge was behind us. We were underway! After being out on deck for a while, we went back down to our room to rest a bit. Our luggage had been delivered by that time, so we unpacked and changed for dinner. On a couple of sailings prior to ours Elation was suffering with propulsion issues. I checked the TV and we were sailing along at 12.7 knots, so I guess the issues were fixed. According to our Facebook group, the prior two sailings never broke 10 knots. The sea depth was only 33 ft at that point. Seems very shallow! Right before dinner it would be 79 ft and I saw 85 ft after dinner. Getting better! Over the week I would glance at the sea depth multiple times. The deepest I saw was 12,240 ft and the shallowest was the 33 ft. We headed to the Inspiration dining room. We had stopped by earlier in the day and asked for a table for two. Ann took our request and was happy to help us. We didn’t really expect the change would happen on this first day but within a couple of hours the app reflected our new table number and we sat there for the entire week. Our servers for the week would be Gusti and Sadia. I can’t say enough about how awesome they were! Ann came to check on us to see if we were happy with our table. We were tucked away in a little corner. It was perfect! I don't ever remember someone coming to check to see if we liked our table assignment and we have asked for a two-person table on every sailing except those with our friends. One thing we quickly learned about Elation was that they certainly had their act together! We both ordered the paradelle for an appetizer. I had the Cornish game hen as an entrée and the melting cake for dessert. Ron had steak and cheesecake. The service was super-fast, probably the best we’ve ever had. The food on Elation is the best we’ve had in multiple cruises including our Thanksgiving sailing on Celebration. They may be small and old but they’re doing a great job! The menu was the same, but the quality was way better. Way to go, Elation! During dinner Ramesh, the maître d, came by and asked about dinner. He would continue to do this every night. He took time to speak to basically everyone in the dining room over the next couple of nights. We told him how impressed we were with the food and service and that it was much better than on Celebration a few months ago. He grinned and said, “Maybe older is better”! I'll be back later!

(I hope to get the rest of Embarkation up throughout the day today.) After we finished eating, we took a stroll around decks 9, 8 and 7 which compromised the rest of the “commercial” areas. Ron and I are real estate appraisers. I do strictly residential appraisals and he does both residential and commercial. We have always separated decks into “residential” and “commercial” without really meaning to do so. Job hazard, I guess! LOL Library....we meant to come in here and play cards later in the cruise, but it was quite often in use for private functions. We walked by one day while a wedding was being performed. Promenade Java Blue Java Blue Java Blue menu - I recommend the lemon meringue cupcake! Entrance to Alchemy Bar aft. This space wasn't used much. There were more chairs at night but that's about it...at least that I observed. It often turned into a waiting area for Limelight Lounge. Spacious Alchemy Bar Inspiration Dining Room - aft Stage on Promenade near Drama Bar - this place was hopping at night! Drama Bar - beside casino Casino Casino Looking down into atrium This is the closest I got to the spa! LOL Atrium - Lido Deck Serenity - I'll show you more of this area later! Mikado Lounge/Theatre - I didn't get this picture on embarkation day because it was in use as a muster station. This was taken the next day. Romeo and Juliet Bar Elation does not have a movie screen on the Lido deck like most of the other ships. They DO show movies daily in the Limelight Lounge. I had seen the list of movies for May that was released by John Heald and there were several that looked promising however, I would learn that Elation only had two movies during the entire cruise, Wonka and Aquaman, and they replayed those same two over and over all week. Go figure. I wasn’t interested in either of those, so I didn’t attend any movies during this cruise. (I'll show you some pictures of Limelight Lounge a little later.) By this time, our room was ready. We always choose a room on a deck sandwiched between two “residential” decks. For the first time, I decided I wanted to try a porthole room. We were all the way forward on Deck 6 in room U7. This would prove to be an interesting choice later in the cruise. At first glance, I really like the little windows and the big shelf. On our way to our room. We lived so far forward the hallways were pretty empty in our area. Home sweet home If you have a big shelf in your room, you have to try it out! Our room steward, Gede, stopped by and introduced himself. He was very nice, a little on the quite side, but did a great job for the entire cruise. There were no small cups for brushing teeth in the bathroom. When he asked if we needed anything we asked him for those small cups. He looked totally confused by that request. More about that later! Our luggage hadn’t arrived yet so after relaxing for a bit and dropping off my backpack, we opted to head up to the Sun Deck and wait for Sail Away. Sail Away was at 3:30, which is a little earlier than most sail aways. I enjoy the sail away party, but I also like being near the front of the ship as we sail out of port. I sometimes have trouble deciding which one I want to do. I opted for the front this time, after all, there is a bridge involved in this sail away. Waiting for Sail Away Waiting to cast our lines Harbor pilot is in place and waiting, too. That's it for the moment as I have to do some laundry, but I will be back later today!

Drama over, we showed our passports and immediately boarded the ship. A long and winding gangway... ......that reaches really high for a Deck 7 entrance point. Almost on board First step on Elation As I mentioned, Elation is the smallest, oldest ship in the Carnival fleet. She was built in 1996 and is one of only two Fantasy class ships still in operation. I had previously sailed on Sensation, Ecstasy and Fascination but this was our first time sailing a Fantasy class since 2019. Elation was in dry dock in 2023 and she is in absolutely pristine condition. You can tell she has been very well maintained. Her paint is still crisp and new looking. She may be old but she’s still beautiful. After completing our muster drill, which we always do immediately upon boarding, we started our “tour”. We started at the top and worked our way down. The very top deck was the Sun Deck. While there was a stack of loungers tied together, there were only a few actually out on the deck. As far as I can tell it is basically a large, windy, unused space. During the entirety of the cruise, we would never see many people in that area. The next deck down had the mini-golf course. Below that were several loungers, ping pong tables and other seating areas. That deck surrounded Lido. On this ship, Lido is deck 10. Mini golf is right beside shuffleboard Does anyone actually play shuffleboard? I don't think I've ever seen it used. I certainly don't know how to play! Covered areas on either side of the deck surrounding Lido (Verenda Deck). The covered area opposite this one was a smoking area. Water Works Love that Whale Tail Funnel! Entrance to the slides Since it was about 12:30 by this time, we decided to go ahead and eat lunch while we were there. It was still a little cool outside I like the peacocks! Buffet Dining area Sneaky little aft deck on each side of Lido I liked the peacocks all lit up at night Elation doesn’t have as many dining options as the larger ships. There is a Guy’s Burger, Blue Iguana, deli and Pizza Pirate. I usually like a Guy’s burger on embarkation day but since I’d had a burger the day before I decided I wanted pizza. I went back to Pizza Pirate, which is at the rear of the Lido deck and it was closed. Wait…what??? How can the pizza place be closed on embarkation day at 12:30? The sign said it was open at 11 but that was definitely not the case. Huh?!? Very strange. There was a huge line at the deli, so I got a salad and a few items off the buffet instead. They DID have the Funfetti cheesecake. Sign me up! I think I'm going to stop here for the evening. I'll be back tomorrow to add some more!

Me, too!

Embarkation Day – April 29th Here are the FunTimes for Embarkation Day You know how it was always hard to go to sleep but not hard to wake up for the first day of school? The night before a cruise is typically like that for me. I have the worst time going to sleep. I usually go to sleep but wake up multiple times through the night and check the time. Is it time yet?? Finally, morning dawned, and it was time to get up and get started. We got ready and headed down to the hotel breakfast room. They had a hot breakfast, and it was quite nice. We’re usually not big breakfast eaters so this worked perfectly for us. After breakfast we ticked off those last-minute items, gathered our suitcases and headed on to the final leg of our journey. We were about an hour north of JAXPORT and the end of the journey was in sight. We found a radio station playing 70’s and 80’s music. It was called “Classic Radio SSI” (Social Security Insurance is for retirees…of which we aspire to be some day) which we thought was really funny. It was going to be a good day! My final road sign! The port is somewhat on the north side of Jacksonville. We didn’t actually go into Jacksonville proper. The turns to the port were well marked and we had no trouble finding the way to the parking area. We crossed a bridge, and I got my first glimpse of Carnival Elation. I’m sure I was bouncing in my seat like a little girl. She may be small, but she looks massive and beautiful to me! The drive was well marked. Jaxport makes it pretty easy to find them! Almost there! Look! I see a whale tail in the distance! There she is! Ron got in line, and we were directed into the parking lot pretty quickly. I had already reserved our parking so basically, we pulled up, showed our paperwork, and were immediately waved through. There were no specific parking places. The parking lot was immediately beside the ship, and you just parked wherever you wanted. We parked, grabbed our luggage and headed to the terminal building. We were right on time for our 11am boarding slot. The porters met us at the beginning of the line and we each checked one suitcase. The line moved quickly and before long we were inside the terminal. I still had my backpack. As we snaked through the line there was one section where the dog was sniffing everyone’s bags. There was a yellow line painted on the floor. You stepped up, placed any belongings on the yellow line and stepped back. The dog then made a pass down the line and back up the same line. I never saw him alert at any point. My backpack sailed through this canine scrutiny with no problem. That group of people would then move on to the metal detector and a new group would step into place at the yellow line. It seemed very efficient and didn’t take long at all. We joined the line The line inside the terminal building We were successfully sniffed by the dog. He was working and we couldn't pet him. 😞 After getting the “all clear” from the dog we got in line for the scanning and walked through the metal detector. This is where it “got interesting” for me. I have no idea why but for some reason, I always seem to be the one who gets caught in all the random searches and stopped for weird reasons. I have been in several random searches and once at the airport in Concord, NC, they even patted me down, wiped my hands, went through my bags, even went through all of my prescriptions in the bag because they detected traces of fertilizer. To this day I have no idea why and I don’t know where I got into anything like fertilizer, but the moral of the story is if it is going to happen to anyone, it will happen to me. I had been through a few screenings since that airport debacle (it’s in my “Sunrise Story” if you’re interested) with no problems and I had decided I had put those things behind me. I always try to dress carefully when I know I have to go through a screening. I thought I was beyond all of this but noooo……as I stepped through the metal detector, bells started ringing. I went through a second time. Same result. I took off my shoes and showed the gate attendant the buttons on my shorts. None of these things caused the problem. He asked me about my clothes. Nothing, I mean NOTHING, should have triggered that alarm! I was holding up the line, so he finally sent me to the side to be patted down. At this point, I don’t care and it’s kind of funny. Ron was cracking up and took a picture to send to our cruise friends and, of course, everyone thought it was pretty hysterical. Lots of comments, especially from Liz, were flying around on our Messenger group chat. The port officials couldn’t find any problems during the pat down and couldn’t discover what was setting off the alarm. They finally decided to let me board anyway. Later that night, after I changed, I had Ron go through the clothes I had been wearing to see if he could figure out what had triggered the alarm. We were both completely flummoxed. We can’t find any reason for that alarm to sound. The only thing I could come up with was that I have a dental implant which had a good size screw that went into the bone. I have had that for years and, to my knowledge, it has never set off anything before. It certainly isn’t as large as a belt buckle and doesn’t SEEM like it should be a problem. I honestly don’t know what caused it! So I'm going to have to leave you right here for a little while but I'll be back later to put up the next segment. Thanks for reading along!

Thanks so much for joining me for the story and congrats on the retirement! I aspire to be able to retire at some point. I hope I can do some extra cruising during my retirement for sure!

I’m curious now…. What is Karl’s real first name? Did I miss that somewhere!

Thank you so much for reading along! One nice thing about the smaller ships is how easy it is to get from point A to point B. You're never too far from where you need to go. I confess, I'm a fan of the large ships. I loved Mardi Gras and Celebration. Horizon was probably my favorite so far, but Elation was such a sweet surprise. I've never had a bad cruise. I think many of us took our very first cruises on the Fantasy class ships and they will forever have a special place in our hearts. I also wonder about the bridges that you have to pass under in some places, Jacksonville being one of them. I don't believe it would be possible to fit one of the larger ships under that bridge. I guess they'll always need at least a few smaller ships for that very reason. Or.....people smarter than me will figure something out! LOL

Thank you so much and thanks for coming back to read this one! I appreciate you! Thanks so much for reading along and you're very welcome! I hope it works as well for you as it did for me. I can't take much credit. My son suggested it. I really liked being able to see all the availability, with prices, in the various towns. It made the whole process so much easier. Thank you so much and thanks for reading along! Elation was such a pleasant surprise. I had sailed Fantasy class before, and it was fine, but this one was certainly the best of the small ships. Thank you so much and thanks for reading along! That sounds so much like Paul Harvey "The Rest of the Story"! LOL

Thanks so much for coming along! I truly hope you enjoy the trip! I think I can remember reading about the training camps! Golf seems to be their favorite sport. The resort is owned by our governor and it’s a gorgeous facility. I would love to be able to stay a couple of days and try out some of the activities. Maybe someday…. Thanks for reading along!

I’m late but I’m here!!

I think I remember passing a sign for Yulee. Is Kings Bay Naval Base in Kingsland? Please tell your son I said, “Thank you!” for his service. My dad was in Vietnam and I’m an “Air Force Brat” myself. LOL How awesome! We were the same way… we hadn’t done a Fantasy class for several years. I’d say Elation is the “pick of the litter”! Enjoy your cruise!

Travel Day – April 28th As I said earlier, we had opted to leave right after church on Sunday morning and drive most of the way to Jacksonville. I am the pianist for our church and Ron plays bass guitar. While everyone on our worship team would understand if we decided to skip that day and leave earlier, we felt like we’d have plenty of time and didn’t want to make it difficult for anyone else. We loaded our luggage and headed to church. There are six musicians and two regular singers in our group. We meet every Sunday at 8:45 to get in a quick practice before the service starts at 10:30. Right after service we jumped in the car and headed south. Vacation mode at last! We made a quick stop for gas and lunch but mainly drove through the day. We were excited and ready to get this show on the road. We work really hard to be able to afford these vacations, so we were determined to enjoy every minute. Hitting the road! As we passed through states, I took pictures of road signs...just for fun. Just a couple of miles to reach Virginia... Then into North Carolina.... Next up was South Carolina. I thought I had taken a picture but apparently I missed it. Oops! Here's a stock photo from Google Images..... ....and finally into Georgia! By around 6pm, we had made it to Pooler, GA. We decided to stop for a bit of dinner. A road sign advertised a Chipotle, and we thought that sounded good, so we headed that direction. When we pulled into the parking lot, we realized that it was REALLY crowded… I mean “line all the way out of the front door” crowded. We quickly decided that we weren’t about to wait that long and opted to go next door to Five Guy’s Burgers and Fries. It wasn’t crowded at all. That works. I downloaded a new (to me) app called Hotel Tonight. It’s unusual for me to not make a reservation ahead of time but since I didn’t know how far we’d be traveling I thought this might be a better solution. While we were eating, I opened that app to see what was available. We also looked at a map to figure out what towns were approximately an hour north of Jacksonville. We settled on Brunswick, GA. We found a Holiday Inn Express right off I-95 in Brunswick. It was only $103 on the app. The app was super easy to use and in just a few minutes, I had booked the room, and we had a plan in place. We traveled about another hour before arriving in Brunswick. We simply followed the maps GPS directions and drove straight to the hotel. It was very nice, and the price was right. No complaints at all! We checked in. We were ready to NOT be driving for a while. I promise to start getting ACTUAL CRUISE pictures up tomorrow as soon as possible! Thanks! I'll be back!

Thank so much for reading! I always love your reviews. I thought she was in amazing condition considering her age. I wouldn't hesitate to sail on her again. Thank you so much and thank you for reading along! I was so pleasantly surprised by Elation. I've sailed on three other Fantasy class ships....all retired now.....and Elation was, by far, my favorite. How wonderful! She is such a great ship! I was so impressed with her condition, the service, the FOOD....I won't spoil it for you because I have a lot of that coming up over the next few days but let me say, she is, by far, the best Fantasy class ship I've sailed. I hope you have an amazing trip!

Thank you so much! I’m really glad you’re able to join me! Thanks so much! I will be sailing on the Spirit next year and I’m very excited about that! So glad you’re reading along! Thank you so much and I’m so glad you’ll be reading along with me! Hopefully I’ll be able to get a little more posted tonight.

Yay! So glad you joined me! I wish I could post more but my lunch hour is over. Hopefully I'lll be back with a little more later tonight. Thanks again for reading along!

Check-In Two weeks before the cruise and time to check-in. It just so happened that the check-in date corresponded with a trip I made to my parents. I live about 2.5 hours south of them. My mom wanted to take a day trip on Amtrak to the beautiful Greenbrier Resort and tour the bunker. Sounds like a plan! I’m in! My niece and great-niece joined us for the trip. We left Mom’s just a little before 7am on April 14th. She’s about an hour south of Charleston, our capital city. We caught the train at 8:30 and traveled to White Sulphur Springs, arriving around noon. None of us had ever visited the Greenbrier so it was really interesting to visit the grounds and wander around the inside. I’d seen lots of photos over the years and I was finally seeing it in person for the first time. Four generations...my mom, Donna; my niece, Sarah; and my great-niece, Gracelynn. What a treasure to be able to spend time with them! Traveling on Amtrak The beautiful Greenbrier Resort - we weren't allowed to take pictures in the Bunker. That's my sweet mom, Donna. I want to be just like her when I grow up! Isn't she beautiful?!? She'll be 80 next month. Waiting on the train One of the most interesting things about the Greenbrier is that there was a Cold War bunker constructed on the West Virginia Wing for the purpose of housing congress in the event of an attack on Washington. The Greenbrier is about 5 hours away from Washington, D.C by train. The bunker was a huge secret for 30+ years and was finally decommissioned in 1992 when the story broke in the Washington Post. Since it was after the Cold War and the secret was out, the government didn’t need it any longer. (If you’re interested in the bunker, there’s a lot of info online and a Dateline televised tour that aired in the 90’s.) We caught the train back to Charleston at 5pm and finally arrived back at Mom’s around 9:30. Now…I’ve told you all of that to say this……by this time, I was tired. Really tired. More tired than I expected to be. Why is this important, you may ask? Because I always stay up until midnight to check in and get the earliest possible boarding time. Some folks prefer a later time for a more relaxed boarding and the option of going straight to their cabin. I want to get on as early as possible to start exploring and get into full vacation mode. Either way is fine….there’s not really a “right” or “wrong”…..early is just our preference. Since we’re gold level (this will be our last cruise as gold!) all of the Platinum and Diamond guests who wanted to check in early had already done so. I stay up until the clock ticks over to the “next day” and get the earliest time still available to me. So….back from the Greenbrier at 9:30. I still had a little while to wait. Like I said, I was tired. I was having more trouble than usual staying up that late. (I’m usually in bed around 10:30 to 11ish.) I had this internal dialogue going: Me: I am so sleepy! Myself: Listen, you’ve got to push through. It’s time to check in! Me: Maybe it won’t matter this time? Myself: Of course it will matter! Don’t be lazy! You can do this! Finally, I won the battle (or lost, as the case may be) and at 12:01 I checked in. The earliest available time was 11am. I snagged it, closed my tablet and immediately fell asleep. I had done the best I could. Mission Accomplished!