Carol Jones

More steak house food porn...

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Dessert menu from first night.

We went to the steakhouse for dinner. $35 per person and includes gratuity. The people that work here were all very very friendly. They knew we were celebrating my birthday and they brought us all a glass of champagne. How nice!! Before our appetizers came they gave everyone a complementary mini hamburger slider. I am not sure if you can tell the size by the pic but it is about the size of a half dollar. Cute and tasty. See below for some some pictures of our appetizers: salad, tuna tartare, pork belly, shrimp cocktail. This meal was off to a great start but it was about to get better much, much better. Our yummy entrées were the cowboy steak, the surf and turf and the wagyu steak. We had mashed potatoes, onion rings, mushrooms and macaroni and cheese for the sides. Everything we had was VERY delicious but probably the wagyu was the best of all. For dessert we opted to get the table art. This is a pretty cool experience where the chef comes to your table and creates edible art right there on a very large cutting board.The centerpiece of the art is the chocolate sphere. They also gave us a free bottle of house wine for visiting on the first night or we could’ve had any other bottle of wine for 50% off. Since we had just purchased the vineyards package we decided just to go with the free one. It was OK. Not great, but not bad. I let DH drink most of it.

Steak house photos...

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We walked by the bonsai sushi place. Looked at the menu and we are considering checking this out later in the cruise. DH loves sushi.

Next to the red frog pub So my husband and son could sign up for the brewery tour. They will be going tomorrow at 2:30. I have read several places that you should sign up on the first day because the tours typically sell out. I’ll give you more details on that tour later.

Went back to the room and rested for an hour or so before the muster drill. Our muster station was in the casino. This was so much better than being outside in the extreme heat and not having a place to sit, but the casino is very very smoky and I wondered if that would be a problem for some people that have asthma and other respiratory issues.

On the way back to our room I stopped by the dining room to take a picture of the posted menu for the evening. I knew we would not be eating there because we had reservations at the Fahrenheit 555 steakhouse but thought someone might want them. Pardon the purple lighting on the pics.

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BBQ lunch...

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More of Ji Ji’s menu

My son loves Carnival’s pizzas so we got a pizza and checked out the aft pool then we made our way toward the anchor and pig for barbecue. Excellent pork butt and barbecue chicken. My husband really liked the collards. I didn’t much care for the potato salad it was a little odd. Really it’s more like potato wedges covered in a yogurt sauce.

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Disappointed to hear Matt Mitchum would not be our cruise director. He just left for vacation. We are going to have Adam Cornes. Havent heard of him. I’m with holding judgement and will keep you posted on him.

Meet room steward, Suantara. Very friendly and efficient. I have a CPAP machine and mentioned that I forgot to bring the extension cord. He was more than happy to take care of that for us. He had one waiting in the room for us when we returned. I mentioned that I liked having ice and he had that here in no time. We picked up the fun times from the room. Here is the first day. Sorry I know the picture is not the greatest.

Went to look for lunch. I had read that Ji Ji Asian kitchen, which has an extra $15 charge for dinner has but is free for sea day lunches. During this time it’s called mongolian walk.I took a picture of the sheet you use to order lunch. My husband got muscles and calamari. I got chicken with lo mein and vegetables and also an Asian salad with fried wontons. My son got rice noodles with beef. See below for photos. To be completely honest we were totally unimpressed with this and decided to look for something else. Anyway, I don’t think we will be coming, but I took a photo of the evening menu.

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Initial impression of ship. Very clean. Pretty. Much more toned down than many of Carnival’s ships. I didn’t miss huge atrium with glass elevators. I know many do. We enjoyed funnel screen. Made our way to the room. Mid ship balcony on lido deck 10264. Great location....very close to lido but couldn’t hear it....,Nice decor, room seems wider than others we’ve had, frig worked well, nice size tv, nice temp (some ships have rooms that are so hot) handy shelves on vanity, nice long mirror on the inside of the closet door. There is extra storage on the bottom of the couch. It has two pull out drawers. Not as much closet space as other Carnival ships. Thank goodness we always bring extra hangers ( that I leave in the room) as we sure needed them!! Also, I’m really missing not having a reading light on the back of the bed. The only light you can use for this is the bedside lamp and it puts out way too much light for the other person in the room to be comfortable napping/sleeping while the other reads. The room is fine for 3 but if we had 4 it would be tight.

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Trying to do this review while on line so bear with me. I always scour cruise critic before I cruise looking for reviews of the boat I will be on (funny my auto correct changed critic to crutches...I changed it back... but that might be a better description for the site). I’ve read so many recent reviews that were tremendously helpful ( big thanks to Sid 9169, AmBear and Californiacruizers). Thought it was time I should give back....

We (myself, husband and son-21 year old home on summer break from UGA (Go Dawgs!! Woof woof!) live in the central and complete west part of Georgia. The drive to Miami was going to be 9 or so hours and we couldn’t leave until my Hubby got finished work Friday 3pm. Too tired to make it all the way to Miami so we got a hotel (Quality Inn) Fort Pierce ( about 2 hours out) not a luxury hotel by any means but clean and sufficient for the night. Got up and ate breakfast ( hotel provided) Made our 2 hour drive to Miami. I sometimes talk to people that say they would never drive that many hours. We do all the time! We have several times driven to key west (13 hours) and NYC (20 hours). When the kids were young there were 5 of us sailing so saving money that would otherwise be used for airline tickets has helped us be able to travel as we have. My 21 year old son (only 1 of the 3 still at home) turned Platnium on this cruise.

Embarkation- So hot and congested! We got there right at 11. Still many getting off the boat in the way of those trying to get on. The workers had to keep making announcements asking people that had departed to move to the other side of the street if the were waiting to be picked up. I was initially concerned about the crowd but was on ship in 15 minutes. Why people with 1 pm check in time get there at 11 am, I will never know. Yes, people do this. After we went through security when we got in the big building, we could barely move through because so many people were gathered. Not really in line, just in the way. I heard someone tell another person there time was 1 but they were going to try to go ahead and get on. This just makes it bad for everyone.

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1 day!! Vista (July 14)

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Matt is definitely starting his vacation tomorrow July 14. Check out his Instagram story. He’s counting down the hours on there.

Thanks for the info. I wonder who we will have.

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I was looking at the cruise director schedule I’ve seen posted and it confuses me. We are on Vista’s July 14 sailing. The schedule shows Matt leaving on that date and Chris Williams is the next person they show for Vista BUT not until July 24. ALSO, the schedule has Chris Williams on the Horizon until July 24. ??? I mentioned this on our roll call for this sailing and someone replied that Matt will be postponing his vacation by a week so he will still be on the Vista for the July 14 (tomorrow yay!) sailing. I hope this is correct.

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We will be on this same cruise. We are platinum and our scheduled boarding time is between. 11-11:30. We don’t plan on getting there any earlier. I got an email from carnival a few days ago reminding me of my scheduled time and stating that those that came outside of their designated time could expect a longer than normal wait time.

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We’ve been to the Blue Hole before. Beautiful place and the price is incredible. We had the same wonderful experience with the fantastic staff.

So glad you are mentioning the tips you give. I always believe In tipping good experience good service. particularly in areas where I know it’s much needed. Seems sometimes people forget that. Even my extended family. Ive been mortified when we have cruised with them and they don’t tip.

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I’m very much enjoying your review and excellent pictures. We will be sailing on the Vista July 14.

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There age doesn’t matter if their parents are traveling with them. However, I am quite sure if they’re on their own then they have to both be at least 21 or if not one person in the room has to be 25.

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People so often forget about things that have been added, like Alchemy and the nibbles they provide @ 5. Everything isn't a cut back just because it goes away...sometimes things are just changes in favor of other things. Take Sunshine - when they added Havana, they added the breakfast and lunch mini buffet with some great nibbles. Some ships have added Indian or BBQ. So where one thing drops off, please don't forget about the things that have been added.

Well said! Excellent point!

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So I'll flip this around if anyone cares to comment. How early do you leave to make any possible contingency accounted for? And if air travel, how many connections, etc. does it take because that's certainly a factor.

We leave early enough so that we arrive at the port no later than 930 or 10. I know you can’t typically get on the ship at that point so when we get to the port city,we might stop somewhere to buy the sodas we’re taking on the ship.

To each his own. But driving instead of flying has allowed us (financially) to take many more cruises than what we could do otherwise.

Also, DH is often on call the night before so we can’t technically leave until the morning of.

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We drive from from San Antonio to Galveston at about 9pm the night before, stay the night in Katy, then do Katy to Galveston about 630am the day of. I would never feel comfortable leaving San Antonio the morning of the cruise, and it's less than 4 hours away. That's said, there are plenty of people who do.

 

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We do quite frequently. We live 2 hours south of Atlanta and we have ( the morning of a cruise) driven to New Orleans (about 7 hours), Orlando ( more than 7 hours) and Mobile (just over 4 hours). We are taking a Christmas cruise out of Jacksonville and that will be almost 6 hours.

Anytime we drive the morning of, we always park at the port. After all the driving we don’t want to hassle with a shuttle/park. Also, we are platinum, so that helps to get on quickly. Before we were platinum we always made sure to purchase Faster to the Fun if we were AM driving.

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Following too. We leave on July 14th. Unfortunately, Matt is leaving that day on vacation.

 

 

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We will be on that sailing as well. Looking at the cruise director schedule I’ve seen posted confuses me. Any idea who will be the cruise director for Vista’s July 14 sailing? The schedule shows Matt leaving on that date and Chris Williams is the next person they show for Vista but not until July 24. However, the schedule has Chris Williams on the Horizon until that time.

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I am on the vista right now. In my Facebook group so and posted the picture of the flooding on the eighth floor. A few people commented on the picture and said there was flooding on the fifth floor and another floor. Someone also mentioned a few people got displaced as well.

 

 

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Could you post the picture here?

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Where’d you go??

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Looking forward to your review. We will be on the vista on July 14. Curious as to your thoughts of how the Vista compares with the Breeze. We love the Breeze!

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Save your excursion money for other ports of call. Grand Turk has a fabulous free HUGE swimming pool right at the end of the pier, and also a free beach at the pier (with free loungers). And with your large group, some members might be casino players, and Grand Turk is one of very few ports where the ship's casino is open while the ship is docked (and is less smoky because most passengers are off the ship).

 

Have a great cruise with your large group!

Hmmmmm... I did not realize the casino stayed open. Anyone know what other ports this is true for?

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Looking forward to it! Especially the menus....cannot find up to date ones anywhere! We’re cruising Vista July 14.

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