Don’t Miss These 5 Events on Your Next Carnival Cruise!
If you’re planning to take a Carnival cruise, there are some things that are worth keeping in mind. I’ve travelled on multiple Carnival cruise ships, and my overall view is that the onboard experience doesn’t change too much across the fleet, so it’s easy to set a clear expectation of what you can expect from the onboard experience.
In this post, I’m going to share 5 ‘events’ with you that you should really plan to experience during your cruise. Failing to do so might just result in you feeling like you’ve missed out…
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Let’s get started…
1. Don’t miss the Ice Carving event!
You’ll find that this one will take place on one of your days ‘at sea’, and it’ll be clearly advertised in your daily schedule once you’re onboard the ship. If you’ve never cruised before, the ‘daily schedule’ is the list of onboard events and activities - this will be delivered to your room each evening (if you ask for it to be), or you can view it online once onboard.
The ice carving demonstration will only last about 30 minutes, but I always find it such an interesting way to spend some time. I rarely manage to successfully guess what’s being carved, and the result is always pretty awesome to see!
The Ice Carving demonstration will take place on the main pool deck during a day ‘at sea’.
One of the crew will carve a sculpture out of a large block of ice - can you guess what this is going to become?
It’s a fish!
2. The Deck Parties!
Before my first Carnival cruise, I’d heard a lot of positive reviews about the deck parties. I’d heard that they were the highlight of any Carnival cruise, and that this was one of the elements that really set Carnival Cruise Line apart from their competition.
Multiple cruises in, I’d have to say that I agree. The deck parties on all of my cruises have been such great fun. They’re a brilliant way to relax, meet your fellow cruisers, and just let your hair down and have a good time.
You’ll find a huge deck party during the first ‘sail away’ of your cruise (when the ship sails out of port), and then you’ll find them also on multiple nights of the cruise. To find out when they’ll be on your specific cruise, just check out your daily schedule - they’ll all be listed in there!
The Deck Parties on Carnival are very popular, and they’ll often come with synchronised dancing playing a key role…!
I thought these were such a fun way to spend an evening onboard!
Warning: the pool deck will be BUSY during a deck party. Get there early if you’d like to find a good seat with a view!
3. Don’t miss sailing IN to port on your next Carnival cruise!
You’ve heard that ‘sail away’ (when the ship leaves the port) is usually a great party, but have you ever thought about enjoying the ‘sail IN’? To state the obvious, ‘sail in’ refers to the period where the ship arrives into a port of call, and this is often my favourite time of day to get outside and absorb the views all around the ship.
You’ll sometimes need to wake up early to get out on deck in time for the ship arriving in port, but you’ll often be rewarded with stunning views. Most of your fellow passengers will probably be enjoying their breakfast during this time, which means that the outside decks will usually be nice and quiet - they’ll almost certainly be quieter than when you’re sailing out of port later that day, as everyone fights to get a good view looking out!
I used to avoid watching the ship sailing into port, as I naively assumed this happened really early in the morning, and often in the hours of darkness. The more I’ve cruised, the more I’ve realised this isn’t the case - you’ll usually find your ship will dock around 8am, meaning that there will be plenty of daylight to light up your surroundings.
Here are a few shots from when I’ve previously watched the ship sailing into port. Stunning, isn’t it?!
The views while sailing in to Mazatlan, Mexico are absolutely stunning!
Watching ‘sail in’ will often offer a much cooler temperature to enjoy the views than watching the ship sailing out. Also, with the sun lower in the sky in the morning, there’s more shaded areas!
You’ll get the same scenery as sailing out, but without the crowds!
Don’t want to get ready to head out around the ship? Why not watch sail in from your balcony cabin or stateroom (if you’ve splurged out on booking one!)?
4. Don’t miss the Towel Animal Invasion!
This one’s a famous Carnival Cruise Line event, and you’ll find it’ll happen only once during your cruise. I couldn’t believe this one - almost every lounger and surface on the main pool deck had become occupied overnight by a towel animal creation!
I loved walking around the decks looking at all of the different animals, and wondering how on earth they’d been created. To find out more about this event, and when you can expect it to appear during your cruise, click here!
As you can see, no lounger remained untouched!
Wait, an alligator was on our cruise ship…?!
The towel animals were everywhere - how cool is this?!
5. Don’t miss White Night on your next Carnival cruise!
Throughout your Carnival cruise, there will be a number of theme nights. For example, there will probably be things like an 80s night, a smart/formal evening (don’t worry, it’s not as ‘formal’ as some other cruise lines!), among others.
One such theme night is the White night, and I found this to be one of the better themed nights onboard.
As part of this event, you can expect a white-influenced theatre show, a party in the atrium, a string ensemble, and various other surprises. The best part is that this really doesn’t take too much planning from your side. All you need to do is pack something WHITE to wear.
This could be a white dress, a white t-shirt or maybe just a white bracelet - essentially, whatever you’d feel comfortable wearing to get involved. You’ll find the full events line up in your daily schedule.
Even the theatre show on white night was white-themed!
Here’s the main atrium during one of the events on white night…
The Cruise Director even got up on the bar (yes, in a fully white outfit!).
To make sure you get the most out of your next Carnival cruise, come and check out more of my posts on the topic of Carnival Cruise Line. Click here to go there now!