Carnival Mardi Gras — Attraction in Cape Canaveral

First time on the Mardi Gras. Carnival is a ghetto cruiseline. The FOOD WAS AWFUL everywhere we dined, even at the places we had to pay extra money out of pocket. The food was cold, mushy, and undercooked. Food choices are basic. The only restaurant that was decent and delicious was ChiBang. Your first dinner dining at ChiBang is free, but anytime thereafter, you have to pay $8 per person. Javablue Cafe is another place we liked to visit for coffee and shakes. Overall, the Free drinks onboard are watered down (lemonade, etc). The Free drinking water tastes like chemicals. The Carnival Hub app you use on the boat is inaccurate, especially when it comes to wait times for your dining reservations. Workers are overworked and absolutely show and say how much they despise their jobs. Managers act entitled and are rude. Their elevators are grossly tiny. They smell bad, and there's no air blowing in them. You are bound to get sick riding on these elevators since they are always packed like sardines with people. This is most likely how my husband and I got deathly ill during the cruise. We got sick while on the boat with the rhonavirus, upper respiratory infections, and sinusitis. Spent so much money going back and forth to doctor office visits after we arrived back home, IV sessions, Salt Room visits, many meds to help with symptoms, and lost wages to having to miss going to work. We are STILL sick, by the way. It's now 15 days of being sick at the time I'm writing this Review. Their entertainment is mediocre compared to other cruiselines. Cleanliness is not important or enforced. Always dirty tables everywhere that need to be cleaned. The dining tables stay dirty for up to 30 mins making it difficult for people to find a place to sit and eat. They also don't enforce having clean hands at the Buffet like other cruiselines do to stop the spread of germs. Their Spa and expensive/exclusive Thermal Suite are small. Thermal Suite doesn't even offer any drinking water. This is dangerous, for if anyone gets dehydrated, they may pass out in the Thermal Therapy Pool or Steam Room. You never see any Spa attendants coming in to make sure everyone is doing okay, nor clean up all the dirty towels lying around and/or overflowing the baskets. The Thermal Suite always smelled like mold and mildew. Cigarette smokers have a lot of free reign on smoking wherever they want, especially on their Cabin balconies. You weren't supposed to do that, but they never get in trouble, so they continue to smoke, making it impossible to enjoy your own expensive balcony. All the Public restrooms we used were filthy and disgusting. You have to pay $15 per person to ride the 2-seater roller coaster. Not sure about the other outdoor entertainment they offered on the ship, and if you had to pay extra to use them.

There's so much more that I can complain about, but I know people will always go on Carnival due to their low prices compared to other cruiselines. Just beware, there are reasons why they are a budget cruiseline. The only reason we chose the Mardi Gras was because of the Ports they were visiting at the time we sailed.

I highly recommend cruising on the Norwegian, Disney, and Royal Caribbean. You get what you pay for on any cruiseline. For a low-budget Carnival ship, especially the Mardi Gras, we were highly upset and disappointed overall. Carnival nickle and dime you for EVERYTHING, and you may leave their ship with a debilitating, lingering, agonizing illness(es) like what we...

The good and the bad from a first-time cruiser. We bought our cruise for my family of 5 and stayed in an Excel Suite. We also bought another room for my mom and Dad. Pros: Getting on the boat was fine. Getting in the room was fine. When we got the "faster to the fun" when we booked the cruise. Our concierge was AMAZING!!! More on that later. Some of the food was nice. The taco/burrito place on Lido deck was our go-to. It was fast, easy, and generally great. Shack's chicken was meh. Pig and Anchor was meh. Emeril's was the best meal we had. The steakhouse was ok. Guys, Burgers was AMAZING!!! The pizza place and soft serve stations were also great. Now the cons: For the cost of the suite, while roomy, it was DIRTY!!! First, the shower had black mold in it. A LOT of black mold. We asked to change rooms, and we're denied. Instead, they sent a couple of people to scrape it and reseal the shower. The deck had someone's nasty hair just sprayed into the corners and left there. The cushions on the chaise were ripped, and the Styrofoam exposed, and dirty. The carpeting by the sliding door had a mysterious red substance EVERYWHERE!!!! Now, Carnival did give us a $500 gift card to Emerils for the trouble. That was great. Also, the concierge embroidered pillowcases with "goodnight" and my kids' names on them. His name was Rommel. He was really the best part of our cruise. MAJOR CONS: The excursions and shore visits. Excursions #1- Antique Cars and Forts. The antique car was fine. Bought the excursions for the fort, queen staircase, and museum. But.... we never made it there. Our tour guide literally drove around town for two hrs and showed us the slums, churches, car dealerships where he went to college, and that was it. Nice man, but we spent $1,200 to literally do none of what we paid for. Excursion #2. Dominican Casa, Coffee and Culture. It was AMAZING!!! Nothing bad. Great experience from beginning to end. Port day Grand Turk. The WORST!!! Got ripped off for $40 for two chairs and an umbrella. We were stopped on the way down the stairs by guys wearing blue shirts who took our money, walked us a mile down the beach to chairs that were spray painted "Beach Boys" We stayed for five minutes and left IMMEDIATELY. Why, well, let me tell you. Weed, and lots of it. My kids are 6,9, and 16. They aren't aware of what that smell is, but as an adult, not something you want to explain if you don't have to. Also, the beach was covered in broken bottles, garbage, food, drug paraphernalia, and more. That was day 5. The entertainment. More weed smell on karaoke night. We left. My kids went to the water area once, and that was it. The area was teaming with kids that were stealing my kids' slide mats, knocking them down, spraying them in the face with the powerful water guns and more. And to top it off, we were awoken two nights in a row by a man beating his wife/girlfriend/kid. We called security and made a complaint to help the woman. We didn't hear anything on night #3, so I hope she was ok. And finally, can I say that I've never had to shield my kids' eyes sooooo many times from lewdness, nudity, drunkeness, and just overall TERRIBLE human behavior. Literally... I chose Carnival for the family instead of other cruise lines because of the roller coaster and other family-friendly options. I can say now, that our experience was that Carnival was the complete opposite of that. We spent $11,000 on a trip to literally have the worst EXPERIENCE of our lives. NEVER,...

I attended the 2024-2025 New Years cruise on the Mardi Gras from 28Dec2024 to 4Jan2025. We made stops in Nassau, Amber Cove and Grand Turk. Before I get to the reason for my poor review I will mention a few exceptional crew members who did make the trip have some good moments. Steph, the Carnival Kitchen host was amazing! My wife and I loved her cooking class (Mission Masala Tiger). And her assistant Marinel. Both were so excellent, we appreciated the fun we had with them. Also our housekeeper, Ivy. She was so kind and always did an excellent job for us.

The reason I give a poor review is that the mobility accommodations on the ship are subpar at best. We were traveling with 2 ppl who require mobility aids and the difficulty we experienced for them just to maneuver around the ship made the trip so much more difficult and no fun at all. The standard stateroom is supposed to accommodate a 22" scooter and no guest may bring on board anything larger than that if they have booked a standard room b/c they must store or park their scooter inside the room (according to guidelines). However, the doors to the rooms will not stay open and do not have a prop function so anyone using a correctly sized scooter still cannot get into their room without assistance. I had to stand outside my Gramma's door and push it open from the top to hold it open for her while she maneuvered her scooter under my torso and arms every time she needed to get in or out of her room. I had to do the same thing for my mother who uses a walker. There was another guest who was somehow allowed to bring a scooter that was way bigger than the required size and to leave his scooter in the hallway outside his room despite repeated complaints from me b/c this blocked my mother and Gramma from being able to get down the hall. (a MAJOR safety hazard for them and every other guest). We also struggled every single time we needed an elevator which was five plus times a day. We often opted not to attend events or entertainment because using the elevators took so long and was so difficult. Other guests would rush around mobility aid using ppl even if they were standing directly in front of the elevator doors, we often waited 10+ minutes for an elevator to arrive that we could manage to get on. I also often had to literally block the doors from other guests rushing in to allow my mother and Gramma to get on. Others would routinely cut in front of and run into both of them going down halls or across decks (including carnival staff members). It was a literal nightmare and severely reduced the entire group's ability to have a good time. Overall the difficulty we experienced just moving around major thoroughfares, let alone trying to navigate the dining rooms or other areas crowded with tables and chairs was so frustrating and extremely upsetting especially to my mother and Gramma who were assured by our travel agent and carnival staff ahead of the trip that they should have no trouble getting around. I would not recommend trying this type of adventure if you're traveling with any person who is in a mobility aid unless you're able to book a true accessible room which are reserved for...