The 30-second answer
Mardi Gras is one of three Excel Class ships — alongside her sisters Carnival Celebration and Carnival Jubilee — that run the exact same dining program: the identical 23-venue roster, the identical fees, and the identical Seabound Dining Score. This isn't a coincidence of rounding; it's a genuine, structural tie, the same treatment this project has given Royal and Regal Princess, Crown and Ruby Princess, and Coral and Island Princess before it. Nothing below should be read as Mardi Gras outscoring or trailing either sister — there is no ranking to make here.
The dining story here is breadth, not luxury. Palm and Flamingo anchor two complimentary Main Dining Rooms, alongside Lido Marketplace and eight free quick-service stops — Guy's Burger Joint, BlueIguana Cantina, Big Chicken, Fresh Creations, Street Eats, Swirls, Pizzeria del Capitano, and Piazza Panini. Six specialty restaurants add real range: Rudi's Sea Grill, Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse, Bonsai Sushi, Bonsai Teppanyaki, Emeril's Bistro 1396, and The Chef's Table.
All of that lands Mardi Gras at 8.0 (weighted 7.985) on the Seabound Dining Score. The one real, visible weakness behind that number: no dedicated suite or access-restricted restaurant currently sails on any Excel Class ship. Suite & Restricted Dining locks at a flat 1.0 floor score, because no such restaurant exists to evaluate — costing roughly 0.35–0.40 points off the total — a genuine gap this guide states plainly rather than smoothing over.
Mardi Gras's story is a wide free-casual bench, deep cuisine variety, and a specialty roster with real range, next to a genuine structural gap in suite dining. Guy's Pig & Anchor's BBQ lunch is complimentary — use it — and book The Chef's Table or Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse early if a specific night matters to you.
Interactive · Start here
What are you actually hungry for?
Not a filter over the full list — an answer. Pick a mood and this hands you the three rooms that fit it, ranked by their Seabound score.
The Seabound Dining Scorecard
Eight categories, each judged on its own merits and weighted to a single score — never averaged up from the 23 venue scores below, because a ship with a wide casual bench shouldn't out-score a ship with a handful of genuinely excellent restaurants, or vice versa.
Casual & Quick Dining is one of Mardi Gras's strongest categories at 8.7 — six free quick-service counters plus Pizzeria del Capitano and Piazza Panini give the included-casual tier real depth without a single cover charge among them. Variety follows at 8.5, reflecting genuine cuisine range across two Main Dining Rooms, a build-your-own Mexican cantina, Southern barbecue, Asian formats, Italian, and a steakhouse.
Specialty Dining reads 8.4, driven by six restaurants that span format as much as cuisine: a seafood grill, a steakhouse, a sushi bar, an interactive teppanyaki room, an à la carte bistro, and a hosted tasting experience. Value reads 8.1, helped by Guy's Pig & Anchor's complimentary BBQ lunch and the low-cost, first-visit-free structure at Chibang! by Fuego and Cucina del Capitano. Included Dining reads 8.0 and Quality Ceiling reads 8.5 — a consistently strong middle-to-upper tier across the categories that judge everyday execution and the top of the bench.
Special Experiences reads 9.0, carried almost entirely by The Chef's Table — a single-driver category, the same convention this project applies wherever one venue's own score effectively sets the category, reinforced here by Bonsai Teppanyaki's interactive tableside format. Suite & Restricted Dining is the one category that pulls the total down: it locks at a flat 1.0, because no Excel Class ship currently operates a dedicated suite or access-restricted restaurant. That's a real, visible weakness — not a rounding footnote — and it costs Mardi Gras roughly 0.35–0.40 points off her total.
What's already included
Twelve of Mardi Gras's 23 venues carry no per-visit charge for the core menu — two Main Dining Rooms, a buffet, eight quick-service stops, and Room Service, complimentary item-by-item with a few real exceptions.
Palm and Flamingo anchor the included tier as Mardi Gras's two Main Dining Rooms. Palm runs assigned seating, and Flamingo runs Your Time Dining, Carnival's open-seating format — a mapping independently confirmed for this ship. Neither carries a cover charge, and both are full-service, multi-course restaurants open to every guest; the assigned/Your Time split changes when and how you're seated, not what either restaurant is. Both score 7.5, Included — Full Service.
Lido Marketplace (7.6) is the ship's buffet, open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with no cover charge. Past the buffet, eight free quick-service stops give the included tier real depth: Guy's Burger Joint (7.8), Guy Fieri's fleet-wide burger stand; BlueIguana Cantina (7.6), build-your-own Mexican; Big Chicken (7.4), Shaquille O'Neal's fried-chicken counter; Fresh Creations (7.2), made-to-order salads and wraps; Street Eats (7.3), global street-food-style bites; Swirls (7.3), soft-serve; Pizzeria del Capitano (7.5), the ship's pizza counter; and Piazza Panini (7.3), the deli counter.
Room Service (7.1) rounds out the included tier, running around the clock to every cabin. Continental breakfast remains complimentary; other room-service food selections are priced individually. Carnival currently specifies a 20% service charge on bar beverages ordered through room service, and allows guests to tip room-service staff separately — there is no blanket 20% charge on room-service food.
All 23 venues, explored
Every scored venue aboard Mardi Gras, filterable — the identical 23-venue roster carried by every Excel Class ship.
What are you in the mood to pay?
Every dining venue onboard, tagged, scored and sortable.
Twenty-three venues, twenty-three scores. See the “What's not aboard” section below for what's deliberately left off this list, and why.
Nothing matches that combination — try a different filter.
The same roster, plotted: what’s included, what costs extra, and how each venue actually scores.
Casual & extra cost
Five venues sit between the included tier and full specialty dining — extra-cost casual venues, one of them genuinely mixed pricing.
Guy's Pig & Anchor Bar-B-Que Smokehouse | Brewhouse (7.7) is the one venue in this tier with real mixed pricing. Complimentary BBQ lunch; dinner service carries an additional charge. Because of that split, this guide tags it Extra Cost — Casual and does not count it in any included-venue total, even though the free lunch genuinely helps Included Dining and Value read as well as they do.
Chibang! by Fuego (7.9) and Cucina del Capitano (7.8) share the same pricing structure: the first visit is free, and each visit after that runs $8. Seafood Shack (7.7) runs $3-$16 à la carte + 20% service charge. JavaBlue Cafe (7.4) is the ship's specialty coffee counter, running roughly $2-$6.50 per item.
Specialty dining
Six specialty restaurants drive Mardi Gras's 8.4 Specialty Dining score — the identical bench carried by every Excel Class ship.
Rudi's Sea Grill (8.8) and Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse (8.8) sit at the top of the bench, both running $52 per adult ($15 per child) plus a 20% service charge. Bonsai Sushi (8.4) is an à la carte sushi bar, and Bonsai Teppanyaki (8.7) is its interactive, tableside-cooked companion, priced at $39 for lunch and $49 for dinner.
Emeril's Bistro 1396 (8.5) is Emeril Lagasse's à la carte bistro — roughly $4-$10 per item, no cover charge. It's confirmed present on all three Excel Class ships, the same as Rudi's Sea Grill; only the venue's hull-number suffix changes ship to ship (1396 on Mardi Gras, 1397 on Carnival Celebration, 717 on Carnival Jubilee), with no change to the menu, format, or score. The Chef's Table (9.0) tops the roster — a hosted, multi-course tasting experience priced at $95 and up, with dynamic pricing that varies by sailing.
Specialty cover charges and à la carte pricing can change between sailings. Verify current specialty-dining pricing in the Carnival HUB app or onboard before you book.
Special experiences
Special Experiences is Mardi Gras's single strongest category at 9.0 — carried almost entirely by one venue.
The Chef's Table
A single-driver category, reinforced by an interactive second format
The Chef's Table single-handedly sets this category's 9.0 score — the same convention this project applies wherever one hosted experience effectively is the category. It's a multi-course tasting menu hosted in the galley, priced from $95 and up with dynamic pricing that varies by sailing. Bonsai Teppanyaki reinforces the category as a secondary interactive format — tableside cooking, knife work, and presentation for every guest, not a hosted-only experience limited to a handful of seats per sailing.
Special Experiences reads 9.0 because The Chef's Table genuinely earns that score on its own merits, and Bonsai Teppanyaki adds real depth behind it. This category, like every other, reads identically across all three Excel Class ships.
Suite & restricted dining
Zero, currently. No Excel Class ship operates a dedicated suite or access-restricted restaurant, and this is a real, visible weakness — not a rounding footnote.
No current suite or access-restricted restaurant
No suite restaurant exists to score
There is no dedicated suite or access-restricted restaurant currently operating on Mardi Gras, or on either of her two Excel Class sisters. Loft 19 is a suite sun-deck and cabana retreat with lunch delivered to the cabanas — a real guest benefit, but a delivery service to a sun deck, not a restaurant, and this guide does not count it as Suite & Restricted Dining under any wording.
This isn't a graded-down score on a mediocre suite venue — it's this project's floor value applied because there's no suite-restricted venue to evaluate at all. That absence costs Mardi Gras roughly 0.35–0.40 points off her total weighted score, a real, stated cost this guide doesn't minimize just because the headline still lands at 8.0.
All three Excel Class ships carry this exact 1.0 Suite & Restricted Dining score — a class-wide, confirmed gap, not a ship-specific shortfall.
What's not aboard — or not scored
A few things this guide deliberately leaves off Mardi Gras's scored roster, and why.
Find your fit
Two questions, and a plan built for your sailing rather than everyone's.
What should you actually book?
Your dining personality changes what you should reserve first. Your sailing length changes how much of the roster you can realistically work through.
What's your dining personality?
How many nights are you sailing?
Interactive · Build your week
Plan seven nights and watch the number move
Tap a night, pick where you’re eating. The total is per person, using this page’s own published prices — so you can see what a week actually costs before you book a single thing.
Night 1
Prices are the per-person figures published on this page and change by sailing — treat the total as a planning number, not a quote.
Smart moves before you sail
Palm and Flamingo are both yours, every night
Palm runs assigned seating and Flamingo runs Your Time Dining, Carnival's open-seating format — a confirmed, ship-specific split for Mardi Gras. Either way, both are full-service and complimentary.
Guy's Pig & Anchor's lunch is free — use it
Complimentary BBQ lunch, with dinner service carrying an added charge — a real value stop most guests miss.
The Chef's Table and Fahrenheit 555 book up first
The ship's hosted tasting experience and its steakhouse are the two most reservation-sensitive venues on the roster — reserve them as soon as your booking window opens.
There's no suite restaurant on this ship, or either of her sisters
Loft 19 is a cabana lunch-delivery perk, not a dedicated restaurant — a real, stated gap in this class.
Emeril's Bistro and Rudi's Sea Grill are on all three Excel Class ships
Never exclusive to one hull — only Emeril's hull-number suffix changes ship to ship.
Pizzeria del Capitano and Piazza Panini cost nothing extra
Two more free stops in an already-wide included-casual bench.
Mardi Gras in her class
The first Carnival entry in this project — a genuine three-way tie, not a ranked comparison
Mardi Gras (2021), Carnival Celebration (2022), and Carnival Jubilee (2023) are Carnival's Excel Class — the line's newest and largest, at roughly 180,000–183,000 gross tons apiece. All three carry the exact same 23-venue dining program: the same two Main Dining Rooms (cosmetically renamed ship to ship), the same casual bench, the same specialty restaurants, and the same Chef's Table. All three score 8.0 (weighted 7.985), and every one of the eight scored categories reads identically across the class. The only things that change ship to ship are cosmetic: the two Main Dining Room names, the pizza-counter name, the deli-counter name, and Emeril's Bistro's hull-number suffix. If dining is a genuine tie, itinerary and homeport — not the menu — are the real reasons to choose one Excel Class ship over another.
2021 · the class-naming ship and Excel Class’s debut hull.
Sister shipCarnival Celebration · 8.02022 · delivered to mark Carnival’s 50th-anniversary year.
Sister shipCarnival Jubilee · 8.02023 · the newest and largest of the three, initially homeported in Galveston, Texas.
Excel Class is the first Carnival Cruise Line class covered in this project — it joins the site's Princess, Celebrity, MSC, Norwegian, Disney, Royal Caribbean, and Virgin Voyages guides as its own ecosystem, not a ranked comparison against them.
Quick answers
Why do all three Excel Class ships score exactly 8.0?
Because Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration, and Carnival Jubilee run the identical 23-venue dining program — the same two Main Dining Rooms, the same casual bench, the same specialty restaurants, and the same Chef's Table. It's a genuine tie at every level: all three ships' weighted totals are 7.985, and every one of the eight scored categories reads identically across the class. The only differences are cosmetic — the two Main Dining Room names, a pizza-counter name, a deli-counter name, and Emeril's Bistro's hull-number suffix.
Does Mardi Gras have one main dining room or two?
She has two, and both are complimentary. Palm runs assigned seating (Early or Late) and Flamingo runs Your Time Dining, Carnival's open-seating format — a confirmed, ship-specific mapping for Mardi Gras. Both are full-service, multi-course, no-cover-charge restaurants, and both score identically as Included — Full Service at 7.5.
Does Mardi Gras have a suite or restricted dining restaurant?
No. There is no dedicated suite or access-restricted restaurant currently operating on Mardi Gras or on either of her two Excel Class sisters. Loft 19 is a suite sun-deck and cabana retreat with lunch delivered to cabanas — a real guest benefit, but not a restaurant, and this guide does not count it as Suite & Restricted Dining under any wording. That absence is a genuine, current gap: Suite & Restricted Dining locks at a flat 1.0 floor score, because no such restaurant exists to evaluate — costing roughly 0.35–0.40 points off the total.
Is Guy's Pig & Anchor Bar-B-Que included in my fare?
Only partly. Complimentary BBQ lunch; dinner service carries an additional charge. Because of that mixed pricing, this guide tags the venue Extra Cost — Casual and does not count it in any included-venue total, even though the complimentary lunch is real and does contribute to how well Included Dining and Value score.
What does Room Service actually cost on Mardi Gras?
Continental breakfast remains complimentary; other room-service food selections are priced individually. Carnival currently specifies a 20% service charge on bar beverages ordered through room service, and allows guests to tip room-service staff separately. There is no blanket 20% service charge on room-service food.
Is Rudi's Sea Grill or Emeril's Bistro exclusive to one ship in this class?
No. Rudi's Sea Grill and Emeril's Bistro are both confirmed present on all three Excel Class ships — Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration, and Carnival Jubilee. The only thing that changes ship to ship is cosmetic: Emeril's Bistro carries a different hull-number suffix on each ship (1396, 1397, and 717), with no change to the menu, format, or score.
Is JiJi Asian Kitchen aboard Mardi Gras?
No. JiJi Asian Kitchen is confirmed absent from all three Excel Class ships — it currently operates on Carnival Horizon, Carnival Panorama, Carnival Sunshine, and Carnival Vista instead. It is not part of Mardi Gras's scored roster.
Planning your Mardi Gras dining?
Tell us your sailing, your crew and what matters most — Guy's Pig & Anchor's BBQ lunch, The Chef's Table, or how the two Main Dining Rooms work — and we’ll tell you what to book the moment your reservation window opens.
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