Justcrusin

I have to agree with what was said about the two show lounges...too small, poor lines of sight, bad seat designs in the comedy club. I did see them constantly skimming the pool scum...thought it was vomit at first. I’m hesitant to do Vista again, mainly since I don’t need the bells and whistles

 

 

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Agreed, the scum was nasty. I also thought it was vomit. Didn't seem to keep people away from the pool, though.

Loving your review! We sail Vista on Saturday so you’re helping me get more and more excited [emoji12]

 

 

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Awesome! You will have a great time. Matt is an awesome cruise director.

We were on this cruise too. Also deck 8 forward in a balcony!

 

Now we are continuing our vacation with a mouse ;)

 

 

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Awesome! Enjoy your time at Disney, and thank you for contributing to the local economy. :)

We are on 7-22! Have any time dining too never had it either! Were you able to request the same area each night? Is there a good/bad time to go? Thanks we are on the 6 day

 

 

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It's really hard to tell time wise. It seemed to be busy at different times each night. We were able to request a waiter we liked, but 2 nights we asked their section was full. I-Made on the second floor of the Horizons dining room was a great server. Not sure if they switch dining rooms on the cruises.

After pictures we headed to check in for our anytime dining. The line was long, and again the area on deck 5 is crowded and hot. After a 10 minute wait to check in we were told there was a 20 - 30 minute wait for a table, we were given a pager. The pager we are told only works within a 200 feet radius of the check in desk. Carnival, my friends, why doesn't this work across the deck? No one wants to be tethered to a pager, we want to explore the ship while waiting. We headed to the Ocean Plaza to wait for the table. We waited...and we waited...and we waited. 1 hour to be exact. We had sent the girls several times to check on the table, but the line was too long. Finally someone came into our lounge with a tablet to "help" us check on our table. She told us our table had been ready for some time. We headed down the the deck to be seated to find another line.

After we were seated I asked to speak to the Maitre'd. I don't want to have stress on vacation, but I felt it was worth mentioning. Apparently the pager system "malfunctioned" and they have never had the problem before (realistically they have probably had this problem before). He said the maximum wait for an anytime dining table should be 30 minutes. He told us to skip the check in desk for the rest of the cruise and come down to the dining room to be seated. I felt this was a fair resolution.

Dinner tonight featured the "large shrimp size lobster tails" as referred to be our waiter, Service was marginally better tonight but still inconsistent. We would find that 5 out of the 7 nights we ate in the dining room the appetizer was served at the same time as the salad. Not sure if this is a new policy, but we did't like it.

Our waiter brought 2 extra servings of lobster without us asking. The lobster was delicious and I think it was butter poached, which made it extra tender.

Dinner menu below:

We had planned to go the the "R" comedy, but this plan was squashed due do the 1 hour wait for the table. After dinner it was off to bed. Sea as smooth as glass again tonight.

Let's talk "dress code" for a minute. Formal night was very loosely translated for many of the people on board. It was translated into hats and basketball shorts. It was translated into t-shirts. It was translated into "my belt can't hold up these pants but I really don't care". Anyhoo, this could be a whole other post.

We decided to take some pictures. It seemed to me that there were many fewer spots to take pictures. The spots to take pictures were crowded and usually in high traffic areas. Let's talk pictures for a minute. The pictures are no longer physically printed but can be viewed in the app. The great this is that you not only get your pictures in the app but 20 or 25 other people who you don't know. The use some sort of AI to make a match to people they think look like you. We were told by the Pixels staff that the technology "isn't Facebook". I can attest that the technology is far from Facebook. The app was glitchy even when trying to remove the peoples pictures who "look like you". The only picture we purchased for the week is featured below, It was a digital download for $14.99. I think I miss the physical pictures.

After we had enough sun we headed down to change and went to the PG comedy in the Limelight lounge. Carnival, my dear friends...what in the world were you thinking when you designed these lounges? Seriously, I mean really. The comedy lounge is small and often had standing room only. The seats were weird and uncomfortable. The seats on the sides of the theater are actually turned away from the stage because you can't see well. Again the site lines are bad, not as bad as Liquid Lounge but still bad. They have screens on both sides of the stage so you can see the action on stage.

This comedian was forgettable, but it was something to do for an hour. Time to get ready for formal night.

After the welcome aboard show we headed to bed. Sorry, but I am past the age where I hit the clubs. If your looking for info about what happens after the shows you won't find it here. The sea is smooth as glass tonight so no chance the ship is going to rock me to sleep, but my book does a good enough job.

Sea Day 1

I am an earlier riser. I love to head up on deck before the sun rises do my walk / run around the deck and have a cup of coffee. Ohh, coffee. Here is a tip we bring our Tervis travel mugs with us to fill with coffee. It's nice to have a bigger mug and a lid for walking around the ship. My wife got up with me this morning (this will be the only morning this happens). We spent this time exploring the ship and finally woke the kids up for breakfast at 9:00.

Headed to sea day brunch. I feel like they have an excellent menu for sea day brunch. The food was excellent, we all had something different and it was equally good. The salmon Benedict is very good. Also, the round hash browns are very good. I understand they are fried round disks but they are really well seasoned and tasty.

After brunch we headed up on deck and scouted out some seats on deck 11, the same ones we had yesterday. This is where we would plant ourselves for the rest of the day. We enjoyed watching the lip sync battle selections and other deck games throughout the day. The girls had a blast on the water slides and in the pools. Note about the pool, there is some sort of scum that forms on the pool. I'm assuming it is some sort of mixture of sunscreen and body oil that needs to be skimmed off every half hour or so. It's pretty disgusting, but didn't bother the kids.

Lunch was a combination of Blue Iguana tacos, Guy's burgers and the buffet depending on the family member. Homemade ice cream today was coconut, which my wife loved.

A few notes on Guy's burgers..they are delicious. Fully cooked (if only they made they medium) but still juicy. Grilled bun. A full toppings bar with grilled mushrooms, onions, bacon, raw LTO. There is also a tap which serves up ranch, cajun mayo, mayo and ketchup. The fries are double fried, hand cut and delicious. They said on the last night of the cruise that they serve 3,000 of these a day, I can understand why.

We were on the same cruise. No WOW factor whatsoever. Bring a hacksaw to cut any meat in the MDR. Sent back a steak 3 times and finally gave up and just ate cold mashed potatoes. Atrium is terrible. Missed the glass elevators.Liquid Lounge should be bulldozed and rebuilt. No viewable areas. Worst of all my Carnival Cruises and ships. Was very disappointed [emoji22]

 

 

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Bummer. We had great food in the dining room. My filet on the second formal night wasn't tender, but I'll go in with you if you want to bulldoze the lounge. Atrium is crowded and I am with you on the glass elevators.

we were on this one! LOVE MATT! also miss the glass elevators and the soaring atriums, this was our second Vista cruise because we loved the itinerary and Matt SO MUCH. I was a little disappointed with some of the service, but I can't wait to read your review!

You are on point. We still had an excellent cruise!.

Work hit like a ton of bricks today. Sadly there were no Guy's Burgers at work and the gas station wouldn't take the sail and sign card.

After dinner we headed up to the welcome aboard show. We set out to find a good seat so that we could see the show on the balcony. Hmmm, nothing good here..let's head downstairs to find a seat. Nothing here either, so we settled for a back of the theater with a pole view.

This is the most atrocious design flaw of this ship. There are few, like 80 good seats in the Liquid Lounge. We have never, ever had difficulty finding good seats on any ship in the showroom. I can't understand what the designers were thinking. It's so bad it had me wondering if they had intentionally designed it this way. Did they test the site lines? Even looking through the glass that was placed in the first row of the balcony is difficult. Shows can be heard, but not seen in this lounge. I am not exaggerating. Really..it is bad. It is such a shame because the shows are fantastic. The only way to overcome this flaw is to arrive early for the shows and sit in the floor seats (just chairs) setup in front of the stage. We arrived 15-20 minutes before the doors opened in order to get a good seat. Most ships the main lounge goes for 3 decks the 2 deck main lounge just doesn't cut it. The shows were also very crowded. I know they removed the 3rd deck in order to have the Imax theater. In some ways the compensate by having pre-show entertainment.

We enjoy going to all of the shows and would be very hesitant to select a Vista class ship again because of this (and another design flaw coming soon).

The welcome aboard show was excellent. Once again Matt's timing and comedy is on point.

After unpacking an showering for dinner (I was able to shower without hitting the wall or shower curtain once... Victory! it's almost like a game of Operation) we headed to deck 5 to check in for our anytime dining. This is the first time we have done anytime dining, not by choice it was all that was available. I like having the same server every night. You have to wait in line to check in, we got there at about 8PM and the line spanned about 1/4 of the way down deck 5. Deck 5 by Pixels and Java Blue was one of those hot areas of the ship, it never seemed like it was cool. This area of the ship is also very crowded especially during meal checkin. We waited about 10 minutes to checkin. Once checked in we were sent to deck 4 and were seated right away. I noticed larger parties waited longer to be seated, this seemed to happen most nights of the cruise.

We were seated and greeted by our servers. Service was very disjointed and not great. I asked for an ice tea twice and never received it. I thought maybe this was just first night jitters (more on this later). Service aside, the food was fantastic. Hot food was hot (not warm). Everything we had was on point and perfectly seasoned. All of the sauces served with menu items were particularly good all week. My wife was a little disappoint with the brisket, which was more like a pot roast. She said it was very good but needed additional gravy.

First night menu is below.

4:50 AM will come early tomorrow. I'll be back tomorrow night for more. I guess I have to go to my "job" tomorrow, seems like they only want to give you a paycheck when you show up.

We were also on this cruise. I'm sad that you were underwhelmed by the atrium. I am a huge fan of the 10 deck high atriums on the Fantasy and Conquest class ships and while the Vista doesn't have this, I liked the Dreamscape. My daughter loved it, especially on the days that there were images of fish swimming around.

 

Looking forward to reading your perspective on our trip! We had a blast.

We had a blast too. Realistically, did the atrium take away from the trip at all, no. Fantasy and Destiny were our first ships so the grand atrium holds a special place in my heart. I did think that the atrium areas got more crowded on the Vista then the other ships with the larger atriums. I did also miss the glass elevators.

After lunch we headed up to Lido to scout on some spots for the sail away. We decided on some nice seats on deck 11 that face the action. There are comfy seats on both sides of deck 11 that face the lido deck action. One thing to note here is that one side of deck 11 where these comfy chairs are is considered a smoking section. We are non-smokers and were disappointed that one entire side of the desk was dedicated to smokers (don't hate me smokers), but it is what it is.

Shortly after scouting our locations it was time for the muster drill. It should be noted that all muster stations are now inside and you are not required to bring your lifejackets. We were in the Liquid Lounge deck 5 (much, much more on Liquid Lounge later). It was impossible to hear the announcements during the drill. This would become a theme during the cruise. Public announcements were very muffled. Not sure if this is a speaker or microphone problem but it seemed to be the worst out on deck.

We did a quick stop in our cabin after muster and discovered we had received all of our luggage. We decided to wait until after sail away to unpack.

Up to Lido for sail away and we have our first introduction to Matt, the cruise director. I know this has been said before but by leaps and bounds Matt is the best cruise director we have had on any cruise..ever. He is charismatic, funny, quick witted, great with adults, great with kids. It seems he has also rubbed off on several of the other entertainment staff. My girls adored Cheeky Charlie, who runs the comedy.

Sail away was the usual party fun time, but amped up because of Matt's interaction. Very well done.

After sail away, we headed up to unpack and get ready for dinner.

I am hooked - I also work for a hotel chain (on-boarding new hotels), as does my best friend & cruise companion (she's with rentals for a timeshare group), and we're also in our 40s, theme park addicts, and based in Orlando. :) Looking forward to your review!

Awesome, love hanging out with other hotel people.. It's always hard coming home from vacation, but not so bad when you come home to Orlando :-)

You have my commiserations (hotels.) ;)

 

You're off to a good start and count me in as one looking forward to the good, the bad and the ugly.

Thanks. Haha. It's a tough 24 hour a day business, but I love hotels..it's in my blood.

Since we arrived on board just after 1:30 we decided to drop our stuff off at the room. We had 2 options based on our budget. Do a single room with a balcony, or choose 2 connecting interior cabins. We chose the connecting interior cabins. We would realize more and more as the week went on that this was a very good choice. We were on deck 8 forward.

The interior cabins are standard fare. This is our first time staying in an interior since our very first cruise. I hadn't noticed how much smaller the closet space is for an interior. We were able to make it work, but it would have been difficult to handle the closet space if there were 4 of us in a single cabin.

I noticed all LED lighting in the cabin (this stops the clicking sound you normally hear when turning on the cabin or bathroom lights). The AC also actually worked very well in the cabin. This is the first time in several cruises that I was able to say this. Some public areas have a different story, more on this later.

Went upstairs to the Lido for lunch. I feel like Carnival always had a very good selection of food on the buffet and today was no different. However, one of my favorite foods on Carnival is their Caesar salad. This was always offered on the lunch buffet, but sadly no more. There is also no option for Caesar dressing. :-( The food was generally fresh throughout the week. I found there was often a challenge with the fried food. It wasn't always crispy.

The wife and kids decided to try the Blue Iguana tacos, which were very good with a nice selection of toppings. We would eat Tacos and Burritos here several times during the week and all was very good. If you order tacos the tortilla is freshly made via a tortilla maker, and they are delicious.

New on the Vista (I think) is the "sweet spot". Everyday they feature 2 flavors of a homemade hard ice cream. These are delicious. Our favorites were the coffee and the coconut but all were very good.

What was different for us this cruise (not sure if it is fleet wide) is the other dessert selections on Lido are cut from a whole cake by staff members. They no longer offer plates of small desserts. You can ask for as many pieces of cake or dessert as you want. They also always have chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies. There is also always the standby 24 hour soft serve machines. I may have had ice cream after breakfast a few mornings. Don't judge I'm on vacation!

We were on the same cruise

 

 

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Nice! Hoping you had as good of a cruise as we did.

The players. A selfie as taken by my daughter, just off the ship in Curacao.

I have a policy to never drive or fly into a cruise the day of, or at least try to be very close to the port the night before. We drove half way to Miami from Orlando and stayed over night in Port St. Lucie. We made a quick stop for dinner at a Cracker Barrel. One of the benefits of working for a major hotel chain is employee rate. We were able to score a $39 rate at a nice all suite hotel.

We enjoyed the free breakfast the next morning and headed for the port. Once arriving near the port area, the traffic was backed up well into the tunnel. We waited and waited without making much progress through the tunnel at all. It took us an hour and a half to get from the tunnel to the luggage drop off area of the ship (about a mile).

It turns out (as we were told the story later) that a little boy left a backpack unattended in the Vista luggage drop off area. This caused most of the area in front of the ship to be completely blocked off. Bomb squad and other officials were called in. There was no access to the parking garage for the Vista at berth "d". We finally ended up looping around and parking in berth "c" garage. This meant we had to haul our luggage from garage "c" to the Vista berth. It wasn't Carnival's fault but it wasn't a great way to start the vacation.

From the time we arrived at the porter station to the time we were on the ship was about 10 minutes. I'm not a fan of the new staggered arrival time (we always like to arrive early) but it does make for a smooth embarkation.

I usually get chills when I step on the ship for the first time. Months of anticipation, research and build up to that first moment on the ship. This time, there were no chills. My first impression was that the atrium area is underwhelming. The digital funnel is neat to look at but it doesn't blow you away. Wife and kids also seemed underwhelmed. The kids were excited about them announcing our family name until I reminded them that they only do that on the Disney ships.

Sadly no one came to pick up our plates after dinner tonight and we werenot offered a dessert menu. Our house does seem a whole lot bigger and our toilets also seem quieter.

I guess it would be a good idea to introduce ourselves soyou know what perspective we are coming from. My name is Justin, I am in my early 40’s and I work in corporate IT fora hotel chain. My wife Jessica (age undisclosed)also works for a hotel chain in guest relations. We live in Orlando, FL. We both have degrees in hospitality management. We consider ourselves foodies, and we are passionate about customer service. We love vacationing and spending time in the theme parks. This was our 10th Carnival cruise and have also been on Princess, RC andDisney.

We have two daughters ages 11 and 13 (send help). They have developed our love of food and eat or will try almost anything. They travel very well and this is their 4th cruise.

We just returned from the Carnival Vista 8 day southern Caribbean. Over the next several days I hope to put our thoughts, opinions and suggestions together for you.

As a teaser I will tell you overall we had an excellent cruise.

As another teaser I will tell you that this review will contain the good, the bad and the ugly about the Vista.

I did save all of the menus off the Carnival App and I will be sharing these as part of the review.

For now, it’s unpacking, laundry and since they didn’t allow me to take the chef through customs..cooking dinner.

Thanks for the replies all. We are on the Vista next week. I never found the rush to be bad, but we always arrived early.

Thanks for posting, enjoying your review. We will be sailing the Vista next week. We have anytime dining too, should we ask for Orlin?

We are staying overnight close to the port. What will happen if we show up early for our check-in “appointment”.

This is the first time we are sailing with the staggered arrival times.

Thanks.