With more than 150 sailings under her belt, veteran travel advisor Terry Declare thought she knew exactly what to expect from Carnival — until the Carnival Celebration changed her mind.
At a Glance
Carnival's Excel-class ships, including the Celebration, represent a significant reinvention of the cruise line, featuring expanded entertainment venues like Center Stage and the Punch Liners Comedy Club, upgraded stateroom categories including Family Harbor and Havana suites, and numerous complimentary dining options from Guy's Burger Joint to Italian restaurants, making the experience more sophisticated than Carnival's traditional fun-ship brand.
There are travel advisors who recommend cruises, and then there are advisors who live them. Terry Declare falls unmistakably into the second camp. With over 150 sailings logged across the Caribbean, Alaska, Europe, and South America, Declare has built a career not on brochures but on firsthand experience. So when she stepped aboard the Carnival Celebration as part of a seminar-at-sea program, her expectations were already formed by decades of time on the water. What she found, however, was something she had not anticipated: a Carnival that had quietly, confidently reinvented itself.
The Excel Class: A New Era for Carnival
The Carnival Celebration belongs to Carnival's Excel class, a category that also includes the Mardi Gras and the Jubilee. These are larger, more ambitious ships than anything Carnival has previously put to sea, and Declare was quick to note the difference. She describes the Excel class as "really a game changer for Carnival," pointing to the expanded entertainment infrastructure as the most immediate sign that something had shifted. Alongside the main theater found on every Carnival vessel, the Celebration features a dedicated central performance space called Center Stage, which hosts near-nightly productions. Add to that the Punch Liners Comedy Club, a piano bar, and the new Havana Bar, and the result is a ship that offers genuine variety after the sun goes down, from Broadway-style spectacle to intimate live music spanning country, 50s and 60s classics, and contemporary hits.
For Declare, who has watched cruise entertainment evolve over 150 sailings, the breadth of programming aboard the Celebration signals something more than an upgrade. In her view, the Excel class brings "a whole new level of sophistication, a lot more entertainment, and an elevated experience" to what was once primarily known as the fun-ship brand. It is a distinction she now carries into every conversation with clients considering a Carnival sailing.
Staterooms That Match the Promise
The evolution does not stop at the theater doors. Declare singles out the Celebration's stateroom categories as one of the most compelling arguments for the Excel class, noting that Carnival has "upped their game in the stateroom category." Three offerings stand out in her assessment. The Family Harbor staterooms are clustered in a dedicated family zone and come with access to the Family Harbor Lounge, sleeping up to five guests and providing a sense of community that traditional cabin arrangements rarely achieve. The Havana staterooms carry a Cuban-themed aesthetic with resort-style interiors, but their defining feature is physical: guests can step directly from their private balcony onto a sun-drenched patio that wraps around a dedicated pool at the ship's stern. Then there are the Cloud Nine spa staterooms, expanded in number on the larger Excel-class hull, which grant guests unlimited access to the thermal suite and priority reservation privileges at the spa.
For an advisor trained to match clients to products rather than simply sell cabins, these distinctions matter enormously. Declare evaluated each category through the lens of the travelers she serves, noting which would suit families, which would appeal to couples seeking privacy and atmosphere, and which would resonate with wellness-focused guests who want the spa to feel like an extension of their room rather than a separate ticket item.
A Dining Experience That Defies Expectation
If the staterooms surprised Declare, the dining landscape astonished her. The Celebration's roster of complimentary venues reads less like a cruise ship menu and more like a curated food hall. Guy Fieri's Guy's Burger Joint serves what Declare calls "arguably the best burgers at sea." Big Chicken, the fast-casual concept born from Shaquille O'Neal's partnership with Carnival, sits nearby. Blue Iguana Cantina covers tacos and burritos, while Shebang offers a sit-down experience with the first dinner included. Ciao Del Capitano, the Italian restaurant, also includes the first meal for Excel-class guests. Beyond those anchors, guests can find Guy's Pig & Anchor Smokehouse, Miami Slice for pizza, street food-style trucks loaded with skewers and fries, and the Deco Deli for sandwiches and paninis. The Lido Marketplace buffet provides round-the-clock variety from salads to carving stations to desserts, and, in the most beloved Carnival tradition, soft-serve ice cream remains free of charge at all hours.
For those who want to venture into specialty dining, options include Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse, Emeril's Bistro 1397, Bonsai Sushi, Teppanyaki, and the Seafood Shack, each carrying a cover charge that Declare is careful to communicate to clients upfront. The distinction between what is included and what costs extra is, she notes, part of what makes the Celebration's value proposition so strong. "Food — there are so many options available and they're complimentary," she says, with the kind of emphasis that only comes from someone who has eaten her way across 150 voyages and knows what generosity at sea actually looks like.
Ports of Call: From Private Islands to Grand Turk
The Celebration's itinerary during Declare's sailing took guests to Celebration Key, Carnival's own private island destination in the Bahamas, as well as Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic and Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos. It is Grand Turk that lingers most vividly in her telling. "Grand Turk is an awesome spot," she says. "You dock right at the beach and you're swimming. The ship is right there." The image is as simple as it is striking: a massive vessel moored close enough to the shoreline that guests wade into clear water with the Celebration visible on the horizon, an effortless transition from ship to sea that requires no tender, no long transfer, and no planning.
That ease of arrival connects to one of Declare's most practical pieces of advice for anyone sailing into a busy port. Unless a booked excursion demands an early departure, she recommends waiting 30 minutes to an hour after docking before disembarking. "Then it's just that much easier," she explains. "You basically just walk off." It is the kind of tip that separates a well-traveled advisor from a search engine, earned not from research but from the lived experience of watching crowds thin while others rush the gangway.
Who It Is For, and Who It Is Not
Declare is candid about fit. The Celebration is ideally suited to travelers who want to visit multiple destinations without the fatigue of repacking suitcases, catching connecting flights, or navigating foreign transit systems. The ship functions, as she puts it, as a floating hotel, waking guests up in a new port while their belongings stay exactly where they left them. Families, couples, and entertainment-seekers will find the scale works in their favor. But she is equally direct about the ship's limitations for certain clients. Its size means a significant number of fellow passengers, and while the design distributes crowds effectively, guests who prefer the intimacy of a smaller vessel may find the Celebration's footprint more than they bargained for.
A Philosophy Earned Over 150 Sailings
At its heart, Declare's experience aboard the Celebration is not simply a product review. It is an expression of a philosophy she has been refining across a lifetime of voyages. "Cruising is really effortless travel," she reflects. "You unpack just once. You wake up in new destinations almost every day. You don't have to worry about catching planes or trains to your next destination." The floating hotel analogy, she argues, undersells the experience. What cruising truly offers is the rare combination of movement and stillness, of exploration without logistics.
And then there are the moments that no itinerary can fully prepare a traveler for. Standing on an open deck at night, far from any shoreline, the sky above unburdened by light pollution and filled edge to edge with stars. Watching the color drain from the horizon as the sun sets over open ocean. These are the experiences Declare returns to again and again when she talks about why she keeps sailing. "I love cruising," she says, with a warmth that 150 sailings have only deepened. "I love the ease and stress-free mode of transportation. I find the food on cruises exceptional, world-class entertainment, and just the peace and serenity of being at sea." Whether the next adventure takes her back to the Caribbean, north to Alaska, or across the Atlantic to Europe, Declare's answer is always the same: she is ready.
