Fantasy class

Carnival · 2 ships · all charted

9 rules hold across all 2 hulls, and 2 things do not. The exceptions are the reason not to quote a sister ship from memory.

None of this is written down anywhere. It is computed by comparing the 2 ship records field by field, so a class rule cannot drift from the hulls that carry it — add an exception to a ship and it appears here on the next build.

What every hull in the class shares

Byte-identical across every ship in the class. Learn it once.

Where to book: Midship on deck 5 or 6. A deck is only a safe default if it has cabins above it AND cabins below it — plenty of cabins on the deck itself proves nothing. Deck 7 doesn't quite make it — deck 8 above is heavily public, so 7 needs the overhead check rather than a blanket yes. Here's what's different about these two, and it catches people who know Carnival: some cabins sit ABOVE the Lido rather than below it. Deck 10 is the Lido, and deck 11 — Verandah — carries cabins over portions of that public complex. Deck 14, Grand, carries cabins too but sits clear of the Lido because deck 12 is in between. So the usual habit of checking what's above a cabin isn't enough on this class; check what's underneath it as well.
Motion: Push hard for midship. Extreme forward is the one to rule out; extreme aft is a negative when there's comparable midship inventory, and more so if vibration also matters to them. This is a small, old hull — the midship rule matters more here, not less.
Vibration: Lower decks are generally better for motion, not worse — closer to the waterline. The catch is vibration: a low cabin at the back can still pick up the propulsion, so "go low" isn't automatically the right call for a sensitive traveller.
Obstructed views: Category OB, and it's a discrete set rather than a range: junior suites V21, V23, V25, V27, V30, V34, V38 and V42. The obstruction is rescue-boat structures and davits. Note those are specific cabins with gaps between them — don't sweep in everything from V21 to V42, because most of that run is unaffected. I'm not going to claim the visual effect matches the lifeboat obstructions on the Spirit class, because nobody has established that it does; what's documented is that boats and davits are in the way.
Minors: For bookings made from 1 February 2025, anyone 14 or under has to be in the same cabin as their qualifying guardian or in one that genuinely connects — adjacent doesn't satisfy it. Guests 15 to 17 can be up to three cabins away. One exception worth knowing: a parent aged 21 to 24 can sail with their own children, so don't insist on a 25-plus guardian in that case.
Accessibility: A small hull, so distances are short — that part helps. What doesn't is the age: this class predates most of the accessible-design conventions the newer ships were built to, and I found nothing reliable on the elevator layout. Treat a mobility booking here as needing the accessible deck plan checked cabin by cabin rather than reasoned from a rule.
Height and age rules: The WaterWorks slides run a 42-inch minimum on most of the fleet, and up to 48 inches depending on the slide. The Twister slide runs a 42-inch minimum. Camp Ocean splits 2–11 into age bands (Penguins 2–5, Sting Rays 6–8, Sharks 9–11), then Circle C at 12–14 and Club O2 at 15–17. Turtles covers 6 months to under 2 at certain times.
Obstructed balconies: the category OB junior suites V21, V23, V25, V27, V30, V34, V38 and V42, blocked by rescue boats and davits
Embarkation: Guests pick an Arrival Appointment during online check-in and need to turn up inside that window — anyone arriving early may be held until their assigned time.

Category notes — on all 2

Balcony inventory is much more limited than on the newer Carnival classes. If a balcony is part of the client's picture of a cruise, price it early, because there isn't a fallback deck full of them the way there is on a Vista or an Excel ship.
Cabin numbers here are letter-prefixed by deck rather than the four-digit scheme the rest of the fleet uses. Don't try to derive the deck from the prefix though — refurbishment added inventory that complicates the neat pattern. Work from the actual cabin identifier on the plan.
This is a 1998 ship at around 70,000 tons, less than half the size of the newest hulls. It's a perfectly good ship — it just isn't the one in the Mardi Gras advert, and closing that gap before deposit is the whole job here.

Ship-specific traps — on all 2

Mini-golf is on both these ships — Carnival's current availability list names them, so that one you can promise.
Neither BOLT nor SkyRide is on this class, and there's no SportSquare. What's here is the traditional water-play offering, which is a different pitch from the newer ships.

Where the hulls differ

The part that does not transfer. Everything here is one ship's, not the class's.

One hull only

Carnival Elation1 of its own

Ship-specific trapsElation's mini-golf was relocated in refit and gained a bocce court, so older deck plans put it in the wrong place.

Carnival Paradise1 of its own

Ship-specific trapsMini-golf is aboard. I couldn't confirm whether this ship's was relocated the way Elation's was, so check the current plan rather than assuming they match.

Class geometry

A deck stack counts as the class's only when every hull carries the same one. A single ship differing makes it that ship's data, not the class's.

No deck stack has been transcribed for this class. The placement rule above is the operator's own and stands on its own; there is no table here to check it against.

That is a gap in what we have looked at, not a clean bill of health. Check this part of the booking the way you would without CruiseRead.

The ships

Every hull in the class, with what has been signed off on each.

Each ship page carries its own exceptions in context, alongside the shared rules they sit inside.

Sources are recorded per ship, not per class. Each hull's page carries what its calls were checked against and when.