MARDI GRAS Review 8/21-8/28

[chriscec2012]

Just home today from Mardi Gras from Port Canaveral. If I miss any area of what you would like to know just post here and I will reply. I will say that we love to cruise and have been on Carnival, Royal, & NCL, all multiple times but Carnival leads the way as far as number of trips at 14 sailings so far. This will be very unbiased and from my perspective, some may agree or disagree but again my honest opinion. 
 

Started our trip at the New Home2Suites just outside of Port Canaveral, very nice hotel with great pool and bar area including fire pit. No issues with hotel for us but I did hear folks complaining about paying to park $6 per night with such a large open parking lot. Drinks were reasonably priced poolside.

 

Embarkation- was ok for my group of 4, we had a 11:00-11:30 check in time and arrived via Uber at 10:45, we walked in quickly and found a long ish checkin. We caught it right and by the time we got to the check in tables our boarding group was being called. No more getting a number, your boarding group coincides with your check in time. I did not see anyone being turned away regardless of check in time and after we made it thru, the line was wrapped outside and down the ramps, I heard people complaining of 2+ hours in line but ours was very reasonable at 30mins out the door of Uber until we stepped on the ship. I did not see a priority checkin diamond, platinum, suites or casino guests but I did not look hard. 
 

Ports - Cozumel is still the same and we went to Mr Sanchos and had a great rime as usual, costa Maya is a head scratcher because there isn’t really much to do, port area is nice with a pool and bars/shops, dolphins etc but if you go outside the guarded gate, let me warn you, don’t do it. It’s just not a nice area and the guys in the orange shirts will almost attack you to get you to stop and visit them, we really felt unsafe and went back to the ship. (We rented a golf cart).

Roatan is the hidden gem, make a visit to Little French Key, very safe and secure. Book it on your own on their website and thank me later. One of the best ever excursions. Many different packages to pick from but allow yourself 1++ hours to get back to ship. 

Balcony Cabin (12th Floor) - pretty much what we expected, colors are different and the lighting is better but pretty much standard Carnival Balcony cabin. Positives was the closets had some nice racks and adjustable shelves and the glass door fridge. Negative was the felt the layout was a little tighter, person sleeping on balcony side of the bed almost felt like you needed to crawl over to get to the bathroom and for my the new glass forts on the shower are great for showering but take away some of the room in the bathroom, if you’re on the toilet you are extremely cramped for space and you have to reach back to grab the “hockey tickets” 😉. Air conditioner works GREAT! 

Food/Restaurants - most of the food we ate was good to great with the occasional “what were they thinking serving this” but to each their own on tastes. Flamingo Dining was good and 95% of what we ate was outstanding. Service was slower the 1st night but the 2nd rime we visited it was much better. Baked Alaska for dessert, crab cakes and fried shrimp for apps and of all things, mashed potatoes were our favorites. We didn’t have anything main course that was outstanding but nothing terrible either, well except ziti WITH PEAS AND HAM?! 😳 that one was a mystery but we just ordered another main and left full. Ironically I never had a good melting cake all week, a couple were under baked and a few over but whatever you do make sure you order 2-3 ice creams with it as the vanilla Ice cream is not very very small. 
 

Specialty Restaurants - we ate at Italian (2 times), Chi-Bang (2 times), steakhouse, and pig and anchor for dinner. chi-Bang was best out of all with lettuce wraps, potstickers and King Pao but very small entree portions, food was always outstanding. Italian was good as well, we visited for dinner one night and the arancini was great for apps, I don’t remember anything else about it but nothing was bad. We visited again for sea day lunch and loved the order your own pasta bowls, just order extra Alfredo and request it hot. Limoncello was excellent as well as a chocolate chip gelato. Now I might lose you here but the steakhouse was a disappointment for my group. We paid the $38 per person fee ahead of sailing, the steaks were terrific but apps, sides and desserts were regular dining room quality. Baked potatoes were VERY small,  very small portions on sides. My entire group agreed the steak size could go down and raise quality of everything else. If you like lemon cheesecake you will disagree with me about desserts, it’s a huge piece but nothing I would pay extra for (and I don’t like lemon flavoring cakes, pies etc and it wasn’t noted on my menu. Also note you will not get into steakhouse with shorts no matter how nice they are, it wasn’t us but a few tried and all failed. I’m sure someone will have a story of “I got in with my shorts” but if you did you should have went to the casino to gamble because you were lucky. I’m not against pants only in a nice steakhouse so I see that as a positive. 
 

Technology- carnival has stepped their game up with the hub and reservations but it is very similar now to NCL with dining reservations. I understand the need and like the QR code’s for menus but a lot of people don’t take phones to dinner or were too technologically disadvantaged to know how to use. Waiters should have copies of paper menus with them on initial visit, numerous times one of the members in my group would ask for a paper menu, the waiter would have to stop and go get one and add time to the process and really seemed to throw most off their routines. 
you can view statements and all photos on the hub. 
 

Casino - casino is great, smoking and non smoking and broke up where nothing seemed to be jammed up. Many tables and slots all around. Drink servers in casino were A+ all week, if you can’t get a drink on Mardi Gras then you must be hiding under the table or don’t tip. Great group of guys I dealt with especially Glenn, very funny and energetic. A lot of the dealers and supervisors are becoming very worried about things being shut down again and them having to go thru the nightmare of getting home again. It was repeated many times each night about wearing masks and everyone was reminded by dealers, pit and supervisors to wear them correctly. One dealer told me “I don’t want to wear one and no one else does either but if we’re going to be able to keep sailing then they are a must for now”. Not to get anyone off on that subject but that is the expectation.

 

Remainder of Mardi Gras Ship- she is a beautiful ship, many dining and entertainment venues, things are soaced nicely not to crown each area, flow is nice. If you can’t find entertainment in the evenings or a choice for dinner then you’ve failed as a cruiser. Lido deck is nicely spaced but be warned the breakfast on lido is the same every day which is very similar to Royal. Breakfast in Palm dining room was nice the 3 times we went, decent food and multiple options. 
Other than Casino and entrances to dining rooms there really is very little Covid protections such as masks being enforced, no separation in casino (6-7 to a table) absolutely no separation in dining rooms or specialty as we were seated numerous times 6” away from another table and bars packed with people a few inches away, entertainment venues filled 100% capacity. They do have many hand sanitizing stations and wipes around the ship though but just being analytical about things it will not take much at current policies for potential disaster, just an observation on my part and believe me I hate the things too but I feel like more can be done in this aspect if it means cruises can continue and those hardworking employees can still get paid and take care of their families. 
 

Debarkation - very easy, off the ship and in line for shuttle start to finish in 20 mins. 
 

cruise Staff and cruise director- Chris the Scotsman wasn’t my favorite, I saw him around the ship a few times during the week but personally I have no memorable experience about him except he did a good job keeping everyone up to date when we had to stop and help look for a potential boat in distress. His shows were a bit tame but the one rime I saw him singing in a bar for a short time he seemed to have a decent crowd listening. The remainder of the staff were great and all were happy to be back and earning a living providing service to us. I’m sure they are overworked but all are doing it with grace and no complaining. 

I’m sure I will think of something else to add tomorrow but this was my take away on a great ship and great week on vacation.  Any specific area you want me to speak about just let me know. 

I give the Mardi Gras a 9 out of 10, and in my opinion the best carnival ship so far. 

 

All the best and safe travels. 

Edited August 29, 2021 by chriscec2012

[balcony bound]

Thanks for sharing your experience.  Any entertainment that you would label do not miss?

[Gregoryfo]

Thanks for the write up.  We were also on your sailing and you covered it well.  I agree they could have been more strict with social distancing and enforcing the masks, especially among the few children on board since they were too young to have been vaccinated.  It had/has to be difficult for the staff.  They want cruising to continue, but I am sure are also tip starved and do not want to take a chance to make someone mad by telling them to mask up. 

 

We had different experiences on some of the stops.  We went on a non-Carnival ruins tour in Costa Maya and had to walk a few blocks outside the port to get to the tour.  Everyone outside the port was very friendly and even gave us directions to the tour stop.  Getting out of the port area was a bit for a maze, but no problems with feeling unsafe or harassed.  Once outside the port people asked if we needed a ride or a tour but we just said he had already booked one and again were helpful in pointing us in the right directions.  There was a military presence at the port and at the security checkpoint as you left, not sure what that was about.  The tour guide said it was to discourage drug smuggling.         

 

Roatan was great, it was our first time there.  We can't wait to go back.  We did sloths and a beach club on the west end.  The beach vendors were around and needed a few no thanks to go away but were not overly aggressive.  The gas stations were well protected, my son noticed that all the gas stations had guards with military type weapons.  I think it has been a very tough year for some of these islands/stops.   

 

Balcony bound; we really enjoyed the comedians, they had four different ones and also enjoyed the piano bar guy.  It is a sing along type thing, semi family friendly from 9-10 and then adults oriented from 10 on wards.             

[princess76021]

whoopie!!!  another review!!!

 

thank you for taking the time!!

 

hugs!

[JaniceB]

Thanks for sharing your cruise with us.

[chriscec2012]

6 hours ago, balcony bound said:

Thanks for sharing your experience.  Any entertainment that you would label do not miss?

The center stage band was great, many variations of music all week from country to Motown. We did not make any of the shows so can’t comment on them but they did have some violinist that was pretty cool around the ship that played some cool music. This cruise director doesn’t do QUEST the game show, which while a disappointment, it’s completely understandable with Covid. No complaints but that show really adds a lot of fun. Overall I think the entertainment was good like all carnival ships but Mardi Gras has multiple options going on all the time. 

[SNJCruisers]

With regards to masks in the main showroom, punchliner and piano bar, were they being enforced?  If you were drinking in these three areas, was it mask, sip, mask or no mask at all if you had a drink in your hand?

[mrpayroll]

Thanks for posting this. Will be going on September  18th.

[chriscec2012]

50 minutes ago, SNJCruisers said:

With regards to masks in the main showroom, punchliner and piano bar, were they being enforced?  If you were drinking in these three areas, was it mask, sip, mask or no mask at all if you had a drink in your hand?

Honestly the only place that I saw them being enforced was the casino and entering the dining rooms, from about Wednesday on they were making the announcement every hour or two in the casino. The places you mentioned was not enforced but for the most part people did a good job of wearing them. I think as someone mentioned, the employees did not want to make the guests unhappy so no one really said anything. 

[chriscec2012]

I forgot to mention that the magic shows are very good, I’m still not sure how he does it but it’s worth an hour of your time to watch him. He is usually between sets of the center stage band. If you like to participate then sit down front on left hand side of the stage, this is where he generally picks his victims, I mean participants 😀. He does a really cool tribute to his late father at the end of his show that you don’t want to miss. 

[jumbojimbo]

I was going to create my own thread but I'll just drop my thoughts here from 8/12-8/28 MG.  Sorry, a lot of these will sound like complaints, but they are just the memorable things that stand out in memory and may work as lessons learned for you.

 

- As has been mentioned before, if you want to own a bar choose Brass Magnolia not Fortune Teller or Alchemy.  Alchemy and Fortune Teller both get clogged up with barflies who squat in the seats for literally hours at a time.  Go see Alexadriia and Atilla  in Brass Magnolia if you want attentive bartenders who will know you by the 2nd day.

- I don't understand the point of Alchemy anymore.  The concept used to be a custom experience where the mixologist would listen to what you like and whip up something special just for you.  Now it's just a short list of complicated drinks that take forever to make.  The bar only has about 12-14 seats that turnover only once every 3 hours.  We watched one evening and with 20 customers it takes 4-5 bartenders because the drinks take so looong to make.  You can't stop by and grab a drink on the way to dinner, between the wait to be served and pour time it takes 15 minutes to get 2 drinks.  It makes no sense, you're paying 5 bartenders to cater to 20 people who all have the drink package and aren't adding a dime of revenue.  Meanwhile you have 2 bartenders at Redfrog serving 200 customers.

- Fortune Teller is almost as bad. Again, a short menu of very complex gimmick drinks.  The chairs do turn over more often so you often can get seats here, but like Alchemy it's generally dominated by "regulars" and getting a drink can take forever.  I can't remember if FT carries beer.  I know Alchemy does not, they'll sneer and tell you to go to "over there" (Brass Magnolia).  Again, it makes no sense, wouldn't you rather give 15 $7 beers to drink package people instead of 15 $12 drinks that take 7 minutes each to make?

- Self Serve soda is available in Pig and Anchor, Guys Burgers and in the Lido Buffet.  So nice to get cold fountain soda at will.  The instructions are a bit confusing, it says to "scan" your card. And it looks like there is maybe a scanner below that.  But what the mean is to tap the "Scan" words with your card just like getting in the room.   It will say "Authorizing" in hard to see words and then Bubbles or Cheers and you have about 12 seconds to pour 16 ounces.  So be ready with your ice filled cup.

- The new showers are almost a success.  Definitely more room with the glass door.  I wish the door were frosted to give a little privacy when washing certain bits, but you can't have everything.  But the big failure is the water pressure, way too low.  Which means you have to practically hug the showerhead pole or use it hand held.  In practice it's a big shower now but you can only use 1/3 of it no matter how you try to angle the shower head.

- They really need to do something about the safe.  It's too low even for my 5'2" wife, let alone a normal sized person like me.  And mounted in a place were no light gets to it.  Next time I'm going to bring a small motion light to put in the safe so I can see inside the safe.

- Guys burgers and even Super Chicken were never crowded.  Even blue iguana had only 2 people in line at 12:15 on a sea day. 

- Deck 8 aft pool is no longer a secret.  You can still pretty much get seats any time but in the afternoon the pool is literally wall to wall people.  And unfortunately it seems everyone has spent 2 years saving up a lot of words and they are desperate to get those words out of their head and into your ear at a very high volume.  The same with the aft pool by the chicken.  The "serenity" pool was even worse.  With the enclosed walls the noise in the pool is deafening.

- Disappointment by Carnival's lip service to Covid safety.  We saw young children running around indoors with no masks continuously. As the only non-vaccinated people on board the boat it should be every crew member's primary responsibility to put masks on children.  If Carnival truly cared about Covid safety.

- The door open buttons are a little funky. The small round ones you have to clearly tap with a fingerprint.  Not a knuckle, not a fingernail.  The larger ones with a hand you can wave your hand in front of.

- The unisex single bathrooms are a mystery.  They have a mechanical lock but it doesn't do anything, it doesn't actually lock the door.  It's possible that the way you truly LOCK the door from the inside is to wave your hand over the "open/close" button.  But there are no instructions and it's not clear since half the time when you do this it simply opens the door.  If you have a need to use one of these i suggest using a spotter to protect the door for you from the outside.

- Another weird bathroom, the mens room by Pig and Anchor.  The only way in is a hand wave which slowly opens the door and super slowly closes it.  But the urinals are completely exposed during this time to any women walking into the ladies.  It's a real challenge if you have shy kidneys.

- In the room there are three 110 outlets and 4 USB outlets.  Very nice.

- We were happy with morning service only for the room.  Ours was done up by 10:30.  But my BIL said that their "morning" cleaning was often not done until mid afternoon.  If that's going to be an issue I'd mention it to the steward so they can act accordingly.

- We never had a wait for Flamingo or Cucina.  Always less than 10 minutes, usually 3 minutes.

- Bacon is always available in the dining rooms even on no bacon days on the buffet.  Our lesson learned was to always do dining room if we can, the cold breakfast at the buffet is ok, but not the hot food.  For example, the pancakes were literally hockey pucks.  I cannot overstate how hard and dry they were.  Dining room is always the answer if it's an option. edit: The only sausage available in the buffet is sliced up bratwurst with onions.  With onions.  For breakfast.  On no bacon day your only other option is ham soaking in hot water. 

- I can understand the complaints about the decor of the dining rooms.  Yup, it's a cafeteria.  It doesn't bother us as long as the food is good but I can see how it would rub some people the wrong way.

 - The Hub app is pretty good.  We never had issues with it not working.  I wish you could get to drink menu's easier instead of having to scan a QR code.  For me the best part was being able to mark items in the What's Happening for all week ahead of time and easily swap between my schedule and the full schedule in one click.  That was nice.  Restaurant reservations and map locations works very nicely too.

- Overall a nice boat, great crew.  Don't take my observations here as major complaints, just minor things for the most part.

Edited August 29, 2021 by jumbojimbo

[SNJCruisers]

3 hours ago, chriscec2012 said:

Honestly the only place that I saw them being enforced was the casino and entering the dining rooms, from about Wednesday on they were making the announcement every hour or two in the casino. The places you mentioned was not enforced but for the most part people did a good job of wearing them. I think as someone mentioned, the employees did not want to make the guests unhappy so no one really said anything. 

Par for the course with Carnival.   They set a policy and then have haphazard enforcement. 

[SNJCruisers]

1 hour ago, jumbojimbo said:

I was going to create my own thread but I'll just drop my thoughts here from 8/12-8/28 MG.  Sorry, a lot of these will sound like complaints, but they are just the memorable things that stand out in memory and may work as lessons learned for you.

 

- As has been mentioned before, if you want to own a bar choose Brass Magnolia not Fortune Teller or Alchemy.  Alchemy and Fortune Teller both get clogged up with barflies who squat in the seats for literally hours at a time.  Go see Alexadriia and Atilla  in Brass Magnolia if you want attentive bartenders who will know you by the 2nd day.

- I don't understand the point of Alchemy anymore.  The concept used to be a custom experience where the mixologist would listen to what you like and whip up something special just for you.  Now it's just a short list of complicated drinks that take forever to make.  The bar only has about 12-14 seats that turnover only once every 3 hours.  We watched one evening and with 20 customers it takes 4-5 bartenders because the drinks take so looong to make.  You can't stop by and grab a drink on the way to dinner, between the wait to be served and pour time it takes 15 minutes to get 2 drinks.  It makes no sense, you're paying 5 bartenders to cater to 20 people who all have the drink package and aren't adding a dime of revenue.  Meanwhile you have 2 bartenders at Redfrog serving 200 customers.

- Fortune Teller is almost as bad. Again, a short menu of very complex gimmick drinks.  The chairs do turn over more often so you often can get seats here, but like Alchemy it's generally dominated by "regulars" and getting a drink can take forever.  I can't remember if FT carries beer.  I know Alchemy does not, they'll sneer and tell you to go to "over there" (Brass Magnolia).  Again, it makes no sense, wouldn't you rather give 15 $7 beers to drink package people instead of 15 $12 drinks that take 7 minutes each to make?

- Self Serve soda is available in Pig and Anchor, Guys Burgers and in the Lido Buffet.  So nice to get cold fountain soda at will.  The instructions are a bit confusing, it says to "scan" your card. And it looks like there is maybe a scanner below that.  But what the mean is to tap the "Scan" words with your card just like getting in the room.   It will say "Authorizing" in hard to see words and then Bubbles or Cheers and you have about 12 seconds to pour 16 ounces.  So be ready with your ice filled cup.

- The new showers are almost a success.  Definitely more room with the glass door.  I wish the door were frosted to give a little privacy when washing certain bits, but you can't have everything.  But the big failure is the water pressure, way too low.  Which means you have to practically hug the showerhead pole or use it hand held.  In practice it's a big shower now but you can only use 1/3 of it no matter how you try to angle the shower head.

- They really need to do something about the safe.  It's too low even for my 5'2" wife, let alone a normal sized person like me.  And mounted in a place were no light gets to it.  Next time I'm going to bring a small motion light to put in the safe so I can see inside the safe.

- Guys burgers and even Super Chicken were never crowded.  Even blue iguana had only 2 people in line at 12:15 on a sea day. 

- Deck 8 aft pool is no longer a secret.  You can still pretty much get seats any time but in the afternoon the pool is literally wall to wall people.  And unfortunately it seems everyone has spent 2 years saving up a lot of words and they are desperate to get those words out of their head and into your ear at a very high volume.  The same with the aft pool by the chicken.  The "serenity" pool was even worse.  With the enclosed walls the noise in the pool is deafening.

- Disappointment by Carnival's lip service to Covid safety.  We saw young children running around indoors with no masks continuously. As the only non-vaccinated people on board the boat it should be every crew member's primary responsibility to put masks on children.  If Carnival truly cared about Covid safety.

- The door open buttons are a little funky. The small round ones you have to clearly tap with a fingerprint.  Not a knuckle, not a fingernail.  The larger ones with a hand you can wave your hand in front of.

- The unisex single bathrooms are a mystery.  They have a mechanical lock but it doesn't do anything, it doesn't actually lock the door.  It's possible that the way you truly LOCK the door from the inside is to wave your hand over the "open/close" button.  But there are no instructions and it's not clear since half the time when you do this it simply opens the door.  If you have a need to use one of these i suggest using a spotter to protect the door for you from the outside.

- Another weird bathroom, the mens room by Pig and Anchor.  The only way in is a hand wave which slowly opens the door and super slowly closes it.  But the urinals are completely exposed during this time to any women walking into the ladies.  It's a real challenge if you have shy kidneys.

- In the room there are three 110 outlets and 4 USB outlets.  Very nice.

- We were happy with morning service only for the room.  Ours was done up by 10:30.  But my BIL said that their "morning" cleaning was often not done until mid afternoon.  If that's going to be an issue I'd mention it to the steward so they can act accordingly.

- We never had a wait for Flamingo or Cucina.  Always less than 10 minutes, usually 3 minutes.

- Bacon is always available in the dining rooms even on no bacon days on the buffet.  Our lesson learned was to always do dining room if we can, the cold breakfast at the buffet is ok, but not the hot food.  For example, the pancakes were literally hockey pucks.  I cannot overstate how hard and dry they were.  Dining room is always the answer if it's an option. edit: The only sausage available in the buffet is sliced up bratwurst with onions.  With onions.  For breakfast.  On no bacon day your only other option is ham soaking in hot water. 

- I can understand the complaints about the decor of the dining rooms.  Yup, it's a cafeteria.  It doesn't bother us as long as the food is good but I can see how it would rub some people the wrong way.

 - The Hub app is pretty good.  We never had issues with it not working.  I wish you could get to drink menu's easier instead of having to scan a QR code.  For me the best part was being able to mark items in the What's Happening for all week ahead of time and easily swap between my schedule and the full schedule in one click.  That was nice.  Restaurant reservations and map locations works very nicely too.

- Overall a nice boat, great crew.  Don't take my observations here as major complaints, just minor things for the most part.

The Alchemy Bar has always been a place where you can go off menu and have the mixologist concoct something to your specifications regarding the main alcohol used and whether you liked spicy, sweet, fruity or whatever.  It's my go to bar and if busy the Fortune Teller will suffice very nicely from the menu and YouTube footage I saw.  I do the bulk of my alcohol consumption between 500 and midnight each day I cruise and I am glad that Carnival has expanded to 3 places on board that serve craft cocktails.  Cold beers during the day are for the college crowd.  Craft cocktails during happy hour and the evening are for mature adults imbibing on vacation.