My Carnival Celebration Vacation 2023

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. Last week I wrote about the busiest cruise ship port in the world – #PortMiami. This week I begin a multi-part series on my most recent Caribbean cruise from there.

I was on the 7-day sailing of the brand-new Carnival Celebration from Sunday January 08TH 2023 to Sunday January 15TH 2023. It sailed across the Atlantic from Southampton England to Miami Florida from Sunday November 06TH 2022 to Sunday November 20TH 2022. This was its 9TH cruise (with passengers) ever !

The Carnival Celebration is the newest cruise ship that I’ve ever sailed on, and YES – it’s got a subtle “new cruise” smell to it. The previous newest cruise ship I’d ever sailed on was in late-October / early-November 2007 when I sailed on the maiden TransAtlantic voyage of the Carnival Freedom from Rome Italy to Miami Florida. But that cruise ship had already sailed a full inaugural spring and summer season of Mediterranean cruises. I like to say that I helped “deliver” the Carnival Freedom to the U.S.A.

The almost $1 billion Carnival Celebration is Carnival’s biggest ship ever at 183,521 gross tons. There were about 6,000 passengers onboard with a crew of over 1,700 (from some 70 nations). I believe that my cruise was close to capacity (over 90%). It’s the biggest cruise ship that I’ve ever been on, and it’s the most people that I’ve ever been on a cruise with. It was the complete opposite of my Carnival cruise from exactly one year (to the date) earlier when I sailed on the Carnival Liberty – which was less than half-full. That was right after the cruising industry “restart” post-pandemic. You can read all about it here.

This was my 24TH cruise in a little over 31 years – and 16TH on Carnival in a little over 23 years. My 2ND night on this cruise was my 100TH night with Carnival. It’s my favorite cruise line – mostly due to activities onboard. Every cruise line specializes in something, and they do it better than most other cruise lines. For Carnival it’s the sheer number of things that you can do and activities that you can participate in from early in the morning until early the next morning.

My last 3 Carnival cruises have been great. I did not have such a good time on my 13TH in May 2014. After that one I decided to no longer go on cruises and retire from the sea. That “drought” ended almost exactly 4 years later when I went on a short 4-day Disney cruise to Key West and The Bahamas with my brother, sister-in-law, her parents, and my nieces. That turned out to be a surprisingly fun cruise, and it reinvigorated my passion for cruising. After that cruise I went back to Carnival and gave them another chance. I booked my next cruise for 9 months later, and that was the 1ST of 3 great Carnival cruises in a row – all in January – in 2019, 2022, and now 2023.

January is my preferred month for cruising. May is another good option for me, as is September and October. I try to avoid Spring Break (February, March, and April), Summer (June, July, and August), and the holidays of November and December.

Next #TravelThursday I’ll write more about the Carnival Celebration, and in the weeks to follow I’ll write about the 3 ports-of-call on the 7-day cruise – Amber Cove Dominican Republic, San Juan Puerto Rico, and Charlotte Amalie St. Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands. You may be surprised as to which of those 3 ports was – by far – my favorite of them all – at least on this cruise. This will likely be a 6-part series through the end of February, so let’s embark for fun at sea and abroad. Let’s keep traveling together.