On this episode of Luxury Cruising, Dr. Krystal Sodaitis welcomes Rebekah and Ben Guillow, anesthesiologist, travel agents, and parents who cruise luxuriously with their kids. They share their honest experience in a Forward Excel Corner Suite, including the private Loft 19 sun deck, cabana service, spacious family-friendly layout, and whether Carnival can deliver a true upscale vibe without a traditional ship-within-a-ship.
What happens when Haven-loving luxury travelers take a chance on Carnival’s Excel Suite on the Mardi Gras with two babies in tow?
Dr. Krystal Sodaitis sits down with Rebekah and Ben Guillow of Lux Travel for Families to discuss their bold decision to try Carnival’s brand-new Mardi Gras in an Excel Suite shortly after cruising resumed post-COVID. As longtime Norwegian Haven fans, they share why they chose this massive ship for their young children (then 9 months and 4 years old), what the Forward Excel Corner Suite actually delivered, and how Loft 19 compared to The Haven.
The conversation covers the ship’s neighborhood design, the surprisingly elegant and muted-tone suite with a separate bedroom and living room, massive wrap balcony, “car wash” shower, and excellent room steward service. Rebekah and Ben highlight standout perks like priority dining reservations, food delivery to Loft 19, the exclusive family pool, and the outstanding cabana service that included daily sparkling wine, snacks, and personalized touches for their daughter.
Listeners get a grounded, family-focused perspective on whether Carnival’s Excel Suites offer real luxury value, especially for parents who want both excitement and relaxation.
Episode Highlights:
About the Guest:
Benjamin and Rebekah Guillow met on vacation in Mexico, so travel has been part of their story from the very beginning. Before having kids, they explored the world extensively, and when they became parents, they were told that kind of travel would have to slow down. Instead, they chose to bring their kids along for the journey. Along the way, they discovered that families are not only welcomed but truly embraced, even in the most luxurious destinations.
That passion led us to become travel agents with a Forbes-rated agency in 2023, where they now help others create unforgettable experiences. they book everything from weekend getaways to bucket-list adventures, specializing in luxury travel for families, couples, and individuals. For them, travel isn’t just what they do, it’s who they are, and they’re always excited to see where it takes them next.
Connect with Benjamin and Rebekah:
Email: Rebekah.BenGuillow@LuxRallyTravel.com
Website: Ben & Rebekah Guillow | Travel Advisor
Youtube: @luxtravelforfamilies
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luxtravelforfamilies
About the Host:
Dr. Krystal Sodaitis is a pediatrician, executive, and life coach for neurodiverse physicians—and the passionate host behind Luxury Cruising. She brings expert insight and honest excitement to every interview, helping curious travelers elevate their adventures at sea.
📍 Website: luxurycruising.net
📧 Email: luxurycruisingpodcast@gmail.com
🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/krystalsodaitis
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to Luxury Cruising. I'm your host, Krystal Sodaitis, and today it's an exciting day on the podcast for me because we have Rebecca and Ben who are our first guests that are gonna tell us about a suite on the carnival. Mardi Gras, usual Haven Travelers, but they.
Took the deep dive, took the risk, went for Carnival, and I can't wait to hear all about it. So, Rebecca Ben, Please tell the audience anything you want them to know about you. Hi, we're Rebecca and Ben Willow. I actually met Crystal through a Mama Docs travel group. I'm an anesthesiologist as my side gig, but dreaming of being a professional traveler and my husband Ben and I have a travel agency that we do together, and we've been traveling actually since we met.
We met on vacation in Cancun in 2008, right after I finished medical school and we've been traveling ever since. And we became travel agents in 2023. and we work through a [00:01:00] Forbes rated host agency called Lux Rally Travel, and our company is called Lux Travel for Families. and we love to share with everyone how we travel with our children.
And we find often that our clients, including my partners that work and other people we meet, are afraid to travel with their children luxuriously. And we are here to tell you that's what it's all about. We take our kids with us everywhere we go, and we have a great time. So we can't wait to tell you all about this group .
Oh, amazing. I love that too because I don't get a lot of people who do luxury travel with kids. Tell us quickly, how old are your kids? Um, so at this time our kids are about to turn nine and about to turn five. When we took this cruise it was several years ago and they were nine months. Um, four.
our daughter's first Cruise, she was 10 months, this was our son's first cruise. He was nine months. So they've both been cruising luxuriously for their whole lives, I absolutely love it. Okay. Well,
tell us the ship. I kind of said Carnival Mardi [00:02:00] Gras, but tell us the suite you were in and what made you decide on this ship itinerary, all the things. So when we booked this trip , It was coming towards the end of COVID . So you know, cruising was paused for a while. Mm-hmm. We actually had several cruises that were.
Book during COVID That we were supposed to go on, we were supposed to go to Greece. We were supposed to go to Hawaii. We had to cancel those for, a variety of reasons and we were just looking to get back into cruising. At that time, the Carnival, Mardi Gras was a brand new ship. We thought it looked interesting , especially with our kids.
Lots of kid activities. Like Bank said, we typically cruise NCL and the Haven. We love the Haven. But, we saw this had an Excel suite. A Ford Excel suite is what we ended up staying in. And we had a great time. We really enjoyed it. Yeah. And we decided to pick this ship because when we love YouTube and actually, I've been making YouTube since like 2014 and took a [00:03:00] brief pause and we started having kids and then make 'em all the time now, but we were watching YouTube for our research for what are we gonna do next ?
Because, you know, once you've been paused on cruising for so long, we're like, oh, we don't wanna dive into the wrong one. We wanna get on a good one. So we heard about the Mardi Gras. We started watching videos and we saw that they had not a haven, but like a Haven esque Sun deck area. And we're like, why not give it a try?
And we looked up the pricing on it and we were like, wow, let's do it. Awesome. Now understanding that. Per COVID cruise prices are very different than today's cruise prices. Hundred percent. Yeah. But just give us a ballpark in terms of percentage, was it like 75% of the price, 50% of the price? I think it was about 60% of the price of what our last Haven cruise had been.
And that included that this technically had an additional person. 'cause our previous Haven Cruise had just had our daughter and then our son was about nine months [00:04:00] old on this cruise. So even though kids are a little less so it was probably about 60% of what our haven cruise had been on the last cruise we'd done per COVID.
Yeah. Good to know. So tell us in general about the Carnival Mardi Gras. What the ship is like. And then take us to your suite and what that was like. Um, so this ship is actually huge. I think it holds like 6,000 passengers and it was carnival's first foray into this like kind of neighborhood style ship.
like Royal Caribbean does a lot of neighborhood style ships where there's like Central Park and all the different areas. So Carnival made this ship. And it harken back to their original ship, which apparently was called Mardi Gras, but this one had several different neighborhoods, like an Italian neighborhood and a New Orleans and all different kind of things like that.
And, um, it is actually really beautiful. we originally went on a carnival cruise in 2010 when we got married. That was my first cruise ever. Not Ben's first cruise, but it was our honeymoon. [00:05:00] We went on an old ship called the Carnival Victory. And then the only other carnival ship we had done before this was the breeze, and that was maybe not the breeze's inaugural season, but close to it in 2014.
So we got back into this. We saw this ship, it looked awesome, and in real life it actually was like, it was beautiful. It was very large. It was crowded on the first day, but other than that, didn't feel that way. And then they have several different suite categories called the Excel suite. The AFT ones are the best.
We actually booked this cruise a little bit late and um. Because at the time, I'm sure everyone remembers the vaccine thing was happening. And so as adults, of course we had vaccines, but our children were not eligible for vaccines at the time. So lots of cruises weren't letting people come or countries weren't letting kids come.
And so it was testy. And then this cruise ended up working out because, um, the kids were able to go to Mexico even though they weren't able to go to the other ports that we visited. So we decided on this, [00:06:00] our suite had a bedroom, a bathroom with two entry doors, and then a living room so the kids slept separate, which is like one of our favorite things that we do .
So the kids sleep In a separate room because then everybody can sleep and it's amazing . And anyways, hopefully that answered what you were going for there and the decor. 'cause a lot of people think of carnival ships, like super bright colors. Yes . And does the suite match that or is it more muted tones?
It's much more muted tones . We actually went back and we were looking at pictures just prep for this. We were like, oh man , this is a lot nicer than, yeah. What I remembered it being and there Were a lot of fancy, luxurious things in the room. I mean, the shower there mm-hmm. Was awesome. And my kids call it the car wash shower .
One of those showers with all the different, like all the jets. Yeah. Coming out from everywhere. It was very it was much more nice than what you think . Typical Carnival Park . Absolutely. Yeah. Especially because our previous carnival ship was the breeze and [00:07:00] we had done a junior suite on that and it was like a big room, but that was it.
It was just a big room. Still had like the blue sink and all that I think. But this room was the muted colors kind of a lot like the more Norwegian feel. Yes. Had a tiny bit of blue and a little bit of the decor, but the living room had like a counter and it had a wet bar and it had a fridge. And then the couch was actually quite large.
It was like the kind of couch that had the couch and then the chase next to it. So then when they folded the bed out for our daughter, it was actually kind of like a huge area for her to sleep. And then there was still plenty of room. For the pack and play that our son was in at the time. And then the balcony it's on the corner so there's only four and half Excel suites and they have like a wrap balcony.
So it was thin, but it was around the whole front, so it was a very large balcony. We had a couple loungers and then a couple regular seats. Yeah, only complaint about the room. there's not much room it's long, but it's not wide , so it's hard to sit out there. And then [00:08:00] two, when the ship is going, it's very windy
you know, if you're in port , you can sit out there and it's great
Just wondering, because some suites have this, was there a separate entrance or exit to the balcony from the bedroom? Yeah. I absolutely love that. So like the living room and the bedroom had an entrance to the bathroom, and then both rooms also had an exit to the balcony.
So it was. Feasible that you could put another couple in there. We would never do that. But it was feasible that you could put four adults in there theoretically, if you're willing to share a bathroom. Yeah. Um, I barely like sharing a bathroom. Like little kids are fine, but I don't like sharing a bathroom with like my older kids.
Yeah. So did any other amenities come with the room or perks around the ship? Yes. So there's not a dedicated. Restaurant, which you expect in most ship within a ship concept. So this is technically not a ship within a ship concept. There's not [00:09:00] a restaurant. There is not a butler. I mean, we had a normal room steward who was wonderful.
we had great service. Fantastic. It was wonderful. There is a sun deck. They call it Loft 19. That is included for everyone in an Excel class suite. It has wonderful loungers and things like that. It does also have cabanas for pay, and I'm not gonna lie to you.
We had a cabana for pay. It was totally worth it. The service was amazing. Every day there was a bottle of sparkling wine and they brought so many snacks. And actually I remember the service being amazing, especially because it was a stressful cruise with two small children and we were masking and all that kind of thing.
They brought so many snacks. They brought letters or notes from my daughter every day. Built her a different towel animal every morning before we even got there, and they remembered what she loved. It was wonderful. It was some of the best service we've had even though we didn't have a butler or a restaurant or
any of. That LOF 19 and Cabana service was [00:10:00] fantastic and my favorite part, probably our daughter's favorite part was just there's a nice pool area up there. Forgot it's only exclusive to those LOF 19. And she and I were literally the only ones. I don't know if that's just that saline or if it's like that, but I mean, it was our own private and it's like we're by ourselves.
That sounds great. And you know, I do love that idea because I'm sure. You've also gotten the feedback. It's like, why are you spending all that money to go on a luxury cruise with like your kids? Oh, she's so little. They're not even gonna remember, but you remember I do. Absolutely.
Yeah. And that you'll always remember basically having a pool to yourself on a cruise ship when you are on the main pool deck, that never happens. You're elbowing people for space in the pool. Especially if they're like learning to swim, that kind of thing. You know, it's kind of hectic with little kids and a lot of pool or cruise pools are super deep.
And this was, [00:11:00] I think more like a hot tub, but it wasn't hot. It was just warm and it was like she could stand. It was wonderful. Like we had an amazing time. That's awesome. This pool actually looked over the main pool .
But not really. Yeah. You could see everyone though, you could get a feel for what was happening. You could still feel the vibe because that is something that a lot of people really love about Carnival, is that party atmosphere and that vibe and just contemporary lines overall, which I think is the draw of having a suite on the carnival.
Norwegian MSC is you're still able to participate in that large ship atmosphere and environment. Yeah. And you get that, like you said, that cruise vibe. Like we've talked a lot about going on, Ritz and still taking the kids of course .
So sorry everyone out there . But, um, you don't have that vibe, right? You don't have that kind of lido deck thing, and that's fun. Like, we love the people [00:12:00] watching of it. and it's a good time. And then when you don't wanna be there anymore, you don't have to be , you're in your quiet space.
for your giant room where you can spread out. And your kids can play on the floor if they want to without worrying about them banging their head on, the dresser or whatever. Exactly. What about throughout the ship, like for shows was there any seating or like priority like reservations, anything like that?
So as far as we can remember, there was not, we did have concierge access for like dining and that helped us because we don't always, but we often cruise with one of our sets of parents. So my parents were on this cruise. They also had their own forward Excel suite. And so it was nice to be able to get the seating for the six of us.
Which is harder than say just getting a table for four. So you do have priority access for dining reservations, but there's not any sitting areas that we recall, but we didn't have any trouble. But, you know, we went to a comedy [00:13:00] show and we went to, um, the Mardi Gras class of ships have an additional theater thing out in the atrium, which like.
In the daytime looks out at the ocean and um, at night they have big screens that come down over these huge window areas. And we went to several shows in there and they were also fantastic. And there were plenty of places to sit because everything felt to us very spread out on that cruise. That sounds amazing.
Yeah. Anything else that you can think of with regards to. Experience the ship that you feel was upleveled because you were in the forward facing Excel suite?
I don't think there was anything else particular about the suite. They have a restaurant called the Seafood Shack And it was fun. I mean, I did that
several times. It was great. we were just trying to see how many crab legs we could eat It's a lot. They do deliver food to not loft. 19 . That was true from a lot of different restaurants. from everywhere. Yeah.
On the ship. [00:14:00] That's fantastic. But do they only deliver it to Loft 19, or will they deliver it to you? I'm not sure. I think only lost 19, but I wouldn't guarantee that because they don't have anything, you know, like Princess has that like medallion that they can find you anywhere. I don't think they have anything like that, but don't quote me if I'm wrong, because if someone else has been on the Mardi Gras and had crab legs delivered to em elsewhere, then I'm sorry, but at the time we thought it was just up there.
Yeah, that sounds awesome. That's always great because then you don't have to leave your little cocoon. In order to get some, because I know that is one thing I really know about Carnival is they have some really good grab and go foods. They've got the crab shack, they've got, guy burgers, blue iguana.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. And not also, if they deliver to you means you don't have to stand in the line. Yeah. And at that time especially the COVID thing was the problem because everybody vaccinated didn't have to be tested again. But my daughter had to be tested again on the second to last day of the cruise.
Yeah, [00:15:00] that was fun. But she had to be tested again on the second to last day of the cruise. And if she was positive, they were gonna like quarantine us. And we were like, oh, can we quarantine in our suite? And they were like, no, no, you'll have to go to the quarantine area. Oh no. So we were like trying not to be near anyone because we did not wanna be quarantined to not our suite.
Yeah. Yeah. We weren't, it was fine .
Oh my gosh. Well, let's take a step back from this cruise. And I'm gonna ask you some questions I ask everybody. And the first is, how do you define luxury? Oh, man. I think. To us luxury is feeling like there's not a lot of friction that like, whatever we're doing, it feels easy and it feels seamless. I'm not gonna lie to you.
We also like to feel special or exclusive , especially if we're paying a lot. We do like that feeling of being in a special area or an exclusive area or that people. Are caring that we're [00:16:00] there. And then additionally, because people worry a lot about taking kids into things that are luxurious, we find that the more luxurious the location, the more they like our kids.
Absolutely. And the more they treat them special, because, you know, we're fine, but we're not that recognizable. But you know, children aren't that common. And so then people are like, oh, here's that little kid again, and they know their name. And they know their snack, and they know their drink. And then when my kids feel very special and welcome, then we also do.
So we think that just that feeling of being welcomed no matter what's going on, no matter what we're wearing. I think that is the definition to us. I would say that. And then also just anticipating your needs. I mean, going back to that ship, but I mean, being that crew did a great job of, they've learned our kids needs, as good as anywhere we've had on Yeah. Any of our cruises. I think so. I mean, I said on top of what you said, I would just say anticipation of needs. Yeah. So it sounds like this experience on Carnival Mardi [00:17:00] Gras met that expectation of luxury for you? For sure. Yes. Yeah. Even though, you know, carnival has like a,Reputation People who do a lot of luxury things And we were moderately hesitant to try it out from a luxury standpoint too, but we had a fantastic time and yes, it met our definition of luxury for sure. For that. you had mentioned like if it's a big ship, you've done The Haven, obviously, aside from the obvious, the Haven is separate from this loft, 19.
That is an exclusive area though, similar to The Haven? Yes. You could not go up there, like there was someone at the gate or the door who was stopping people there . Mm-hmm. How did that area compare to The Haven? Um, so it was smaller because there's definitely fewer suites, especially relative to like the newer ships, like the Aqua and the pre-med.
They have very large havens. Was smaller, so it felt much more intimate. But I [00:18:00] feel like in The Haven, people know us too. So It was just a much smaller area, but it had nice seating, it had good service. They brought drinks, they brought snacks. It was very similar. Yeah.
It was nice . Good. That's good to know. Especially if people do want more of like a carnival. Experience. I'm dying to get on a carnival just to try Guy Burgers. It's good. They're delicious. It won't disappoint Yeah. do either one of you have a dream cruise?
Yes. we ended up pivoting for this summer for lots of reasons, but ended up worldwide turning out good. We would love to go on a Nile River cruise. Our daughter loves Egypt . She claims she's gonna be an Egyptologist. She's nine, so I'm not gonna hold her to it. But, um, we had been planning a now river cruise for this summer, but we are not gonna be able to do that .
So we are hoping to do that. That's one of our dream cruises . That would be mine. And then I think the only other [00:19:00] one would be to try one of the new, like either Ritz or Four Seasons or Aman Yacht. All look amazing. It's obviously a totally different thing that's technically yachting, not cruising .
We'll be on the ship, on the ocean, living our dream cruise Fun . Yeah. I think of Ritz Carlton and four Seasons. and I just had somebody on the podcast talking about Ritz Carlton, and they felt like, yeah it's getting in that direction to yachting, but it's still big enough.
I mean, with over a hundred people, there are cruise ships with less than a hundred people on it. Mm-hmm. So really,it's still a cruise . They may wanna call themselves a yacht, but we know, we all know it's a cruise. Well, what is your next luxury cruise or otherwise trip planned on Saturday?
We're going on the Norwegian Luna. Ooh, wow. In the Haven Yes this is our kids spring break, so they get outta school. Well, [00:20:00] I thought it was a half day on Thursday, so We're skipping on Thursday, and um, it leaves on Saturday from Miami. It's its first seven night cruise and we are going in the Haven two bedroom.
So I think the word bedroom for the second bedroom is a little generous because it's the same as the aqua, which we did last year on spring break , but it's a separate room and it has two bathrooms , so we're very excited about that . Oh yeah, the two bathrooms is key, but sometimes that second room is like a really small interior.
Yes, it's very small and hopefully this one , they might put a plug in it because on the aqua there wasn't, I forgot about that so we don't really need to plug in the iPad. It's fine . But yeah. But it's definitely just more of a closed out area than a room, but it does have a bathroom and there's still living room.
So we're great. We're very excited about it . I hope that you'll come back. and tell us all about Norwegian Luna. I love a new ship that new ship excitement is so fun. Yes. [00:21:00] If people. Want to either book a luxury cruise with you or follow your YouTube channel, how can they possibly do that?
So both our YouTube and our Instagram are called L Travel for Families. And so find us on there, easy piece. And then we, on all of our YouTubes have a link for A, our emails in there and then b, we have a link to click. So you can just click on the link and fill out the form, and then we get notified immediately that we have a new lead.
And we'll first send those to you. If anyone was interested in booking with us, we'd love to have you. Amazing. And we'll definitely put it in the show notes, but just so people know that Lux is LUX, it's just LUX travel for FOR family. Yeah. Thank you again so much for being here.
This was so fun. I really, really appreciate hearing about Carnival Mardi Gras. Hope to hear about Carnival Luna soon. Yeah, and for all the listeners, thank you also for being here, and until next time, I wish you safe and luxurious [00:22:00] cruising.