FIRST IMPRESSIONS

From the Emeril’s Bistro 1396 eatery to Big Easy bars like The Brass Magnolia and Fortune Teller, Mardi Gras is the closest you can get to NOLA on aqua.

Before it became a Fun Ship, Mardi Gras was known as Empress of Canada, a 27,000-ton transatlantic liner for Canadian Pacific Line. In early 1972, Ted Arison, founder of the fledgling Carnival Cruise Lines, purchased the ship fully aware of the substandard tourist-class accommodations and various infestations within, but he was determined to make wake as soon as possible and deal with those inadequacies along the way. Larger than any other ship sailing out of Miami and with cabins priced much cheaper than the competition, Mardi Gras was drawing plenty of attention before it literally hit the ground running that fateful March day.

Headlines — and drink menus — would proclaim “Mardi Gras On The Rocks,” but its false start feels almost apt alongside the other stories that abound from Mardi Gras’ earliest days. On that inaugural cruise/grounding, there was the immediate declaration of an open-bar … then, once the ship was free and deemed safe to continue on to San Juan, there was the execs having to pull coins out of slot machines to cover the fuel costs home. On ensuing cruises, it was the construction and maintenance miracles happening amidst a nonstop party atmosphere, a spirit that no doubt infiltrated the structure and altered the very DNA of a ship already proving that cruising needn’t be forever formal or strictly stuffy. Ultimately, it may be the combination of oft-repeated anecdotes and untold if-these-bulkheads-couldtalk legends that make Mardi Gras the storied ship it is in Carnival and cruise industry lore.

Mardi Gras left Carnival’s fleet in 1993, cruising for other lines and charters before eventually being sold for scrap in 2003. There won’t be a ceremonial “Meeting of the Mardis” when the newer namesake eventually debuts, but perhaps that’s for the best. On paper or in port, the original just can’t hold a candle.