19th Jan 2025 | 7 nights | Carnival Cruise Line | Carnival Celebration
Carnival Celebration features six themed zones, each with its unique atmosphere and attractions. Notably, it boasts the first roller coaster at sea, a suites-only enclave in the Carnival fleet, and the first Emeril Lagasse restaurant at sea.
French Quarter: Styled after New Orleans' French Quarter, this zone is lined with new-to-Carnival bars, restaurants, and music venues, including a jazz club offering live entertainment and handcrafted cocktails.
Summer Landing: This backyard barbecue-style space highlights an expanded Guy's Pig & Anchor Smokehouse Brewhouse, featuring a pool, hot tubs, a new bar, a Smokehouse Brewhouse lunch counter, and plenty of lounging space.
Grand Central: Instead of Carnival's traditional atrium, Mardi Gras features a new Grand Central Atrium concept, an entertainment complex with three-deck-high floor-to-ceiling windows and a bar with sweeping ocean views. Here, passengers find expanded versions of Bonsai Sushi and Bonsai Teppanyaki, the Punchliner Comedy Club, and a revamped Piano Bar 88.
La Piazza: Inspired by Italy, this zone offers bites at Cucina del Capitano and a new Mediterranean seafood restaurant. A bar sells speciality coffee by day and cocktails by night, with roaming musicians providing entertainment.
Lido: Familiar to Carnival cruisers, the Lido zone features venues like Guy's Burger Joint, BlueIguana Cantina, and the Seafood Shack, along with several new dining and bar concepts.
Ultimate Playground: Encompassing the ship's top three decks, this zone includes the largest water park in the fleet and an expanded SportSquare. It also features the first-ever roller coaster at sea: BOLT: Ultimate Sea Coaster.
Free
Extra Fee
Bars
Over 70 percent of the rooms onboard Mardi Gras offer an ocean view or a balcony. Features include floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors, sofas that convert to twin-sized beds, an abundance of outlets and USB ports, more storage space, clear glass doors on mini-fridges, larger wardrobes with pull-out bins and folding shelves, and bathrooms with glass shower doors.
Suite Living Mardi Gras introduces a new suite category—Excel—providing access to an exclusive enclave called Loft 19. This area includes a full-service bar, a private pool, and rentable cabanas. Other suite categories include Ocean Suites, Havana Suites, Family Harbor Suites, and Cloud 9 Spa Suites, although these do not include access to Loft 19.
Budget-conscious, gregarious families, couples and solos looking for an unpretentious vibe that's all about having fun
Anyone who doesn't appreciate off-color humor, lively hairy chest contests, burgers and BBQ, and thumping music
Carnival Cruise Line sells itself as the "fun" cruise line, and it attracts cruisers who are looking to have a good time with little to no pretensions. Carnival cruisers, who range from young to old, tend to be quite friendly, looking to strike up conversations with other people in the buffet, by the pool and, really, anywhere. Carnival is also one of the most family-oriented lines in the industry, and you're bound to see lots of kids onboard, even during the school year. When school is out, you can expect the number of kids to be well into the hundreds. The line is also popular for family reunions, and bachelor and bachelorette parties. People on Carnival cruise ships hail primarily from the United States, mainly the south and Midwest, but you'll also meet folks from Canada, England and usually a handful of other European countries.
Carnival cruises are casual, with shorts, tee shirts, capris, swimsuits or swim cover-ups de rigueur during the day (no bathing suites in the dining venues, however). Most nights the dress code remains much the same, minus the swimwear, though technically the cruise line asks that people not wear shorts into the main dining room. The policy is inconsistently upheld. On "elegant" nights, you'll see a range of clothing from ball gowns, dresses that leave little to the imagination, tuxes and suits to the same shorts and tees people sport all day long. Most men, however, opt for long trousers and collared shirts, while women don sundresses, or a skirt or trousers with a blouse. Men are not required to wear a suit jacket or tie in any venue.
No. While Carnival is one of the more inclusive cruise lines when it comes to dining, you will still have to pay extra for some specialty dining, all drinks (alcoholic and non, except water, select juice at breakfast, and coffee and tea), shore excursions, visits to the spa and any retail purchases, including photos.
Aside from the main pool, which is the hub of much of the line's fun activities, almost every Carnival cruise ship also has at least one waterslide, with several having multi-slide water parks. Additionally, several have a top-deck SportSquare that features a colourful collection of outdoor amusements, including Ping-Pong, billiards, foosball, mini-golf, Twister and a SkyCourse ropes course. On the line's newest ships (Vista and Horizon), there's also the SkyRide, a recumbent bike attraction suspended 150 feet up in the air, requiring riders to pedal their way around an 800-foot track that wraps around the outer decks. Inside, you'll find activities that range from trivia and Bingo during the day to comedy shows and high-tech song-and-dance revues at night. Carnival ships also have lively bar nightlife, especially on ships with a RedFrog Pub; there's also an always-busy casino.