ZoeyVictoria

Be very careful when trying to quickly catch up with a thread by not also reading the posts that were quoted 😂😂😂. A double take happened, followed by a giggle!

You never told us how you designed it. Did you cushion it with those nasty scrambled eggs from the buffet?

Yes, we were on MSC in May and July and found the food to be better than on Royal. I had sailed on the Divina twice in 2014 and still remembered some of the special touches in the buffet, as well as the fantastic shows. Sadly, the things I looked forward to the most were eliminated by the same cutbacks that have affected most of the industry. We still love cruising, but so many things are just not the same as they were even a few years ago.

And it is not just Royal Caribbean.

I don’t understand what difference it would make if they aren’t actively cruising anyway?

We took the inside, then successfully Royal Up’d to a center hump balcony for $20 pp. Total was $425. We were very lucky with this one.

Ouch! Makes me wonder how they calculate the “special price” and why we received a good one.

We booked two of those offers because they aren’t as bad as they initially look. The missing info that would be extremely helpful is that it is a BOGO based on a “special price”. The special price is available only when you call. One of ours, a four-night on the Serenade worked out to $89 pp plus port fees/taxes. I don’t remember what the fare was online, but it was well over that $178. It was definitely worth the phone call.

We boarded the Vista on the day you debarked. We also experienced random drips from the ceiling, especially in the casino. The food was a huge disappointment; random items in the menu descriptions did not appear, as in a salad described as having peppercorn dressing being served completely dry, and when I insisted on dressing, I was given a container of garlic-flavored mayonnaise. I gave up on the tall cakes at lunch after two tries, then tried the key lime pie on the last day. Not a drop of key lime juice, just a mouthful of nasty sweetened condensed milk. We were issued one knife and one fork each in the MDR, and that was it. The server moved my dirty fork from my uneaten appetizers and placed it on the bare table so I could use it again for my entrees. I could go on and on, but this thread is a review of the previous sailing. We heard and partially saw two playlist productions, Flix and America Rocks. The seating in the Liquid Lounge is just horrible, almost impossible to find a seat without a huge post in front of it, so we never saw all of the shows. With the possible exception of one female, the singers were just plain not good. Lines and people everywhere, difficult to even move around the ship. And for the first time ever, we both came home with Covid. We have cruised 32 times since the restart on five different cruiselines, and never had Covid until this crowded ship. Never again on the Vista, and we are cancelling the Venezia. Something needs to change before we will try Carnival again.

Remember the sticky buns they used to serve at breakfast?

I am so sorry this happened. We all know that these things are possible, but it doesn’t ease the disappointment. I sailed on the Oasis way back in 2010 and had called Royal within thirty days of sailing to find out who the headliner would be. I was told Il Divo was scheduled, only to find out on the ship that those plans had changed. I still remember that and feel a little pang of disappointment when I hear their music.

I cannot answer your question about the process, but I did hear the captain’s announcements on the Vista. We slept through the rescue of six people and found out about it when the captain made an announcement the next morning. We noticed a security guard sitting outside the cabin two doors down from us, and found out from our/their steward that there were three of the rescued people in that cabin and the other three were on the other side of the ship, on the same deck. The Captain later announced that the “other six” people had been rescued by the Coast Guard. When we left our cabin yesterday morning at 7:40 to debark, there were three people who appeared to be a staff member, a security guard, and a uniformed policeman standing at the cabin door. It was well after self-assist had started, so apparently they were not taken off the ship before the passengers could leave.

SAS Transportation goes to a number of hotels in Fort Lauderdale. Very comfortable vans, good drivers, great communication for $15 pp. They have a list of hotels on their website, hopefully yours will be included. We used them from a Marriott in Fort Lauderdale to the Port of Miami in October. .

His great review was the main reason I was looking forward to the new menus. For instance, I couldn’t wait to try the pepper steak with “cheesy potato straws” because of @jam19872016 ‘s photo. What I was served was the same pepper steak, but topped with plain, cold, unsalted, crinkle French fries. There were literally three spots of a watery yellow substance scattered on top of the dish. When asked by the waiter, I very nicely stated that I expected cheese sauce on the fries. He pointed to one of the spots and said, “See that yellow spot? That is the cheese.” Apparently it is specifically the Vista that is having trouble producing meals that actually match Carnival’s menu descriptions. Edited to add: I don’t mind the lack of tablecloths, but I was not thrilled with the waiter removing my used fork from my appetizer plate and laying it on the table so I could use it again for my entree.

Last night’s crawfish fettuccine was lukewarm and contained 2.5 pieces of crawfish the size of a small green pea and not a single one of the scallops listed in the description. The lobster was mushy and bland. The prime rib was full of ugly chunks of fat and was unappetizing enough to ruin the meal on its own. Yesterday’s lunch at JiJi’s (free) was carmelized pineapple pork noodles. There was one small piece each of pineapple, red pepper, and broccoli on the top of the large bowl of bland noodles, along with five small pieces of pork. They looked like garnishes instead of ingredients actually listed in the description of the dish. I was served an Emeril’s salad with peppercorn dressing in the description, absolutely dry, without a drop of dressing. When I requested salad dressing, I was eventually brought a container of garlic mayonnaise. The key lime pie in the buffet had not a drop of lime juice, was just sweetened condensed milk. The bass with Charleston grits was served in four small bites placed evenly over the grits, but that was fine because it was too hard and dried out to eat anyway. Even the tall cakes had more fluffy, flavorless icing made of vegetable shortening than actual cake. The poblano and corn soup was a lukewarm and thin, like chicken broth thickened with potato flakes and has four carrot slivers on top - no peppers, potatoes, corn, or flavor. Mushroom soup pretty much the same, very watered down. By the beginning of day three, instead of hunger as lunch and dinner times approached, I feel my stomach just clench and a feeling of dread. Only the second cruise ever where I was ready to go home days before the end of the cruise. My cruises have been about 50% Royal Caribbean and 30% Carnival, with about four each on Princess, Celebrity, and MSC. We have been on all five in 2023. We have also cruised on Norwegian three times but will no longer book with them. There have been cutbacks on all five lines, but none come even close to what Carnival has done.

We are currently on the Vista, experiencing our absolute worst cruise out of ninety-five on different cruise lines. I thought people were exaggerating about inedible and disgusting food, but now understand exactly what they were saying. They were also correct about the horrible design of the Liquid Lounge, and of the smoke. We are booked on the Venezia in January 2025 but will be canceling it as soon as we get home. Thank you to all of you who have posted here for confirming our concerns.

We are on the Vista, out of Port Canaveral. We were in Amber Cove on Wednesday and should have gone to Grand Turk yesterday. Instead, that became a sea day so we could take a different and less rough route back to PC tomorrow morning. Yesterday afternoon we were “between Cuba and the Bahamas”, with 8-9’ seas and a lot of rocking from side to side. I just woke up (6 a.m. on Friday) and can feel a huge difference already. We are in a porthole cabin. I can hear the waves hitting the hull and the spray is splashing up higher than our window. I am not really concerned about the next 24 hours at sea, but very worried about the drive from Port Canaveral across the state to the west coast (Bradenton) tomorrow. i can’t even imagine going to HMC today.

The other side had been painted when we arrived on Tuesday.

The temperature was about 76 and it was sunny, so it wouldn’t have been a bad walk if it wasn’t for the five pieces of luggage (another cruise tomorrow, so more than the usual amount for four nights) and the number of people from the Celebration blocking the sidewalk.

Royal did not even provide info about the sailing we were on 🙄. I don’t know which terminal would be better. We got to G on Tuesday at 12:30, due to our extended tour of the highways in Miami. The entire ship’s system was down, so we waited in line for a while before entering the gangway. While we were standing there, one of the terminal employees mentioned that they “didn’t complete debark until noon”. I don’t know how that was possible, though, because the line we were in wasn’t that long and there were a huge number of people on board. I asked one of the terminal E employees if it always took as long as it did this morning and she said, “Every time.” If nothing else, this has strengthened our position of no more Miami cruises.

We debarked this morning from the last Serenade sailing before the WC. Left the cabin at 7:50, got to the car 1 hour and 54 minutes later. “Technical issues” with the terminal, extremely long, slow lines, and no facial recognition. Finally made it outside the terminal and were surprised that we didn’t see the parking garage. We had to ask to find out that we were at Terminal E, not G where we embarked. We were told to go across the street and wait for a bus to be taken to the parking garage. “A bus should be there every 30 minutes or so.” We walked instead. About twenty minutes, past the terminal with thousands of people from the Carnival Celebration, then the Independence in G, where we expected to be. At 11:20, I noticed a text from Royal from one hour earlier, stating “There has been a change…”. Apparently the painters busily painting the outside of the ship had more notice than we did.

I love mine except when I accidentally have my arm under the faucet when it is activated. At least we live in Florida so no long sleeves are involved.

My SO tried to do that. One of the valves turned easily, but not the other one. The condo is thirty-some years old and there are some things best left alone. Especially the night before a cruise when there is no time to fix something that has gone wrong. The battery box is under the sink in an easy-to-reach position and all he has to do is remove one battery (out of six or eight).

The morning that Hurricane Ian was predicted to make landfall three miles from our condo, I quickly found a cruise ship to evacuate to. Fourth floor condo, so no worry about our home flooding and nothing we could have done outside anyway. While we were gone, Ian hit south of us, but there was a 24 hour power outage. When we got home, the quarter was frozen into the ice just half the height of the quarter (less than 1/8”), so I knew the only thing I should probably dispose of was a bag of frozen blueberries. I hope we can keep that same cup of ice in there indefinitely.