Jelly_Toast

This is a situation I'm potentially going to be dealing with next month. I have no issue just saying my son is a no-show but I'm wondering about his Cheers package. Will that be auto-refunded?

I was on Vista in November. My least favorite ship so far. It's been a few months now so take these comments with that in mind, any of this may have changed. The main dining room service was so slow. Extremely slow. The food was also...okay. There was no showtime during dinner. Not sure if it was this cruise or the ship but I missed it. We skipped the MDR a couple of times in favor of lido and much of it was closed for dinner making the lines so long it was unreal. The absolute worst part for me though was how hot it was everywhere. We had dinner at JiJi's, typically my family's favorite meal of the cruise and we were dripping with sweat. The food there was still amazing (and the highlight of the week) but it was such an uncomfortable evening. I also hated how the Liquid Lounge was set up, I just avoided the shows for much of the cruise because of it. Never again.

I run hotter than my husband. We typically keep the house around 76ish in the summer. I would be more comfortable around 74. I probably am not the best judge of temperature so I will defer to his opinions which were that some spaces were comfortable enough for him, but he also found some areas to be much too warm. Based on your lizard-people status you're likely not going to find yourselves uncomfortable everywhere but I found the entire experience to be vastly different than always bringing along a jacket to most areas on the ship, which is what I typically had to do on previous cruises.

I was on Vista last week. In general, I would have to say I was disappointed in the MDR but to be honest we only went the first two nights. I'm sorry I don't have images of the menus to share. Overall, I found the choices to be lacking, the service to be extremely slow and the temperature in the MDR (and all the public spaces) to be overwhelmingly hot. We never miss sea day brunch but did not go our second sea day because the food was so disappointing. My youngest, whose highlight of the cruise is typically the sea day brunch chocolate cake, said it was stale and tasteless. We ordered the beignets and they were so cold and stale they were left setting at the table when we left. We went to JiJi's on day three (I highly recommend the food, but we were literally dripping in sweat it was so hot in there) and hit the lido for the rest of the cruise. Overall: bleh. Would not cruise Vista again.

Did not work on Vista last week.

I totally agree. Huge waste of paper.

I sailed Mardi Gras in Nov 2022 in a suite and got the same email but our rooms were not ready when we embarked. We were able to leave our bags but the doors were propped open. We alerted our steward that we were leaving items, then went to muster and lunch. When we came back after that they were done.

We discovered this mid-cruise earlier this month on Horizon. We all had the chat plan, but none of us had purchased wifi. I was getting notifications on my iphone from things like my robovac and doorbell cam, which seemed weird but I didn't really think about it much. Then my daughter received a text message from someone back home and that's when we realized we could text each other on imessage as well as anyone back home as well. I can't imagine that Carnival techs aren't working on this as they stand to lose money on the chat app (which does not work near as well as imessage, and I think goes without saying to anyone who has used the chat app).

I have meant to post this for so long but keep forgetting. We cruised Mardi Gras the week after you and I asked for the creamy coconut martini on the very first day. It became our favorite drink of the cruise and every time we were at Alchemy someone asked us what it was. Each day that went by we saw other people with this coconut drink. My son enjoyed the mixology class so much that he turned it into a hobby that he really enjoys. We took a cruise on Horizon earlier this month and it just wasn't the same. I'm looking to book another cruise on Mardi Gras as soon as I can. Thanks again for your great trip report!

Sailed out of Miami last weekend and it was a nightmare. This isn't the first time we have sailed from there, but definitely the worst. Traffic was horrible, at a standstill in many places. The parking garage across from the terminal was full, but there was absolutely no signage alerting people to this. We circled multiple times before we were directed by a man standing in the street to "lot 2" which also had no signage. This was a surface lot that was already jam packed and people were just making up spaces wherever they could fit. There was nothing to indicate that in the last row there was a barrier and the only way to get out was to back up but there was a huge line of cars making this nearly impossible. The lot was filled with very angry people. I feel lucky we were able to find a spot, not sure where we would have gone once that lot was full. The only positive is that this lot was closer to where we disembarked, which was not the same terminal where we left from so we did not have to try to haul our bags into a shuttle and just walked back to the car. I feel incredibly lucky to live close enough to drive to port, but I'm staying away from Miami for a long time.

We had two suites on Mardi Gras in November last year. We were told they would be ready when we embarked but they were not. We were allowed to leave our luggage but that’s all. This was around 10:30 am if I remember correctly.

My family and I were on this cruise. I enjoyed reliving the magic today while pretending to work (first day back is so hard). I saw my son in one of your photos, that was hilarious. Thanks for your great trip report!

Thanks for your review so far. I'm taking notes on all your cocktails, so many are new to me I feel like I will be indulging a bit extra this cruise.

This is extra exciting for me as I’m on Mardi Gras later this month. Now that the hurricane has passed I can finally get excited about cruising again!

The chocolate cake during sea day brunch is one of the best desserts on the cruise.

I see you're getting a few recommendations for ruins, so I'll just add to it and say that the Lamanai ruins was one of the best excursions we have ever done on any cruise. It's been a few years so I don't know if they allow people to climb up anymore but it was an amazing experience. Pricey, but worth it.

I have about six weeks to my next cruise. I’m really looking forward to this to help tide me over until then.

I've got a cruise booked next month on the Mardi Gras and I have to be honest, I'm nervous that we aren't going to enjoy it as much as cruises on smaller ships. We've been on two since restart, Freedom and Liberty and both were filled less than capacity and the size of the ship and the crowds is starting to make me wonder if I've made a mistake picking a ship this large.

I've had problems with AARP too. It has been at least a month now but no matter what form of payment I tried to use it wouldn't go through. Calls to customer service were useless as I was told my issue would have to be escalated. I had waited until the last minute to decide to use gift cards and didn't have time so I purchased as many as I could from Allstate but wasn't able to cover the entire trip because they do have a limit on the number you can get at once. Lesson learned, don't wait until the last minute to buy gift cards and don't count on AARP. When trying to find an answer to my issue I found more than one forum where people were complaining of the exact same problem I had that had gone back for quite a while and there was nobody who had resolved the issue for them.

While it's difficult to really know what will happen this far out, both the GFS and EURO models have this storm (which is just currently invest 98L) making landfall in Florida late next week. Hopefully this is not the case but I suspect the state is going to have some impacts. It will be difficult to start to narrow it down for another five days or so.

I'd return to all of my favorite places, Maya Chan in Costa Maya, some s**tty nachos at Jacks Shack in Grand Turk, St. Kitts, Aruba and Maho Beach in St. Maarten because our last time there a mechanical issue with the boat caused us to miss this excursion.

We have been on multiple Thanksgiving cruises and I definitely agree, the MDR food is disappointing. Last year there was an apple pie which was so much crust it almost looked like cake and my roll call group couldn't badmouth it enough. We like the idea of dressing up a bit and having a sit down dinner for the holiday but I'm seriously considering trying to talk my family into lido the next time.

Not on the Horizon, but I went to a few films on the Breeze. There is nothing spicy about the Thrill Theater (unless it's undergone a major change). It's short films with moving seats and other effects like water and wind. My youngest was under 17 at the time so only my son and husband went to the 17+ movies and they are scarier than the regular films.

Yes, you can taste the cucumber but it's mild and what makes the drink so amazing in my opinion. It's even typically garnished with a swirl of cucumber.

The cucumber sunrise is my absolute favorite. When I want something super sugary I like the Miami Vice. The hurricane daiquiris are so good as well as pomtinis at the atrium bar. first drink of the cruise is always a fun ship though and it’s so much better with a squeeze of lime.