Carnival Mardi Gras Review
Beautiful ship and awesome crew, but....
Rating by category
Additional details
We chose this cruise last minute when we decided that we would be okay since we were fully vaccinated, and the ship still had good cabins available (plenty of good cabins as it turned out!).
Virus - Almost all passengers and always all crew wore masks when they were supposed to. Sometimes crew members were nicely asking some people to put their mask on. Really the entire cruise we did not feel very much inconvenienced...if you are fully vaccinated my advice would be to go and have a great time and not let the very unlikely chance of getting the virus keep you from going!
After talking with many other experienced cruisers, the consensus was that the ship was about 60-70% full with cruisers, but had a full crew.
Cabin Review
We chose a balcony room on Deck 10 midship. As a result, we did not feel like it was too long of a hike to anywhere on board we wanted to go.
The cabin was very clean since it was new. The overall room seemed a little narrower than other Carnival ships. It still had the sofa (if that's what you want to call it. It was more like a flat firm piece of foam). And no more oval shaped coffee table - no room for it really.
But for once there was plenty of USB and electrical outlets. And plenty of clothes closets, and even slide out shoe shelves.
The balcony seemed about the same size as before, and the new way of opening the door to the balcony seemed quite sturdy but easy to slide open.
But the bathroom.....oh boy. First the good. The shower is bigger with a unique opening glass door, a very nice upgrade. And a good amount of wall shelves too in the bathroom.
But the rest of the bathroom, excluding the shower stall is much smaller. I am not that big of a person but it was almost was hard to turn around without bumping into something. 40 inches by 44 inches, including the toilet. I measured it.
Port Reviews
Amber Cove (Puerto Plata)
We got off and hung out at the fancy pool very near the ship for a few hours and had some drinks, but really we could have stayed on the ship at a pool, with free drinks since we had the drinks package.
San Juan
We heard plenty of cruisers talking that once they got off of the dock onto San Juan, they just turned around and came back on the ship to avoid the hustlers.
Nassau
If you have cruised and had a port of call in Nassau, then you will understand why I say that most people never get off of the ship when docked there.
Now there is a new Cruise Ship Entertainment area being built right now that looks like it might make Nassau a place worth checking out when it opens.