The Inaugural Vista's Official Trippingpara Mayhem in the Mediterranean Review

[trippingpara]

We woke up to the bright sunshine of southern Spain. It was a beautiful sight but we were saddened by the thought that it was going to be our last morning of waking up to this. Tomorrow morning we would wake up in our home with a blasting alarm clock telling us that we need to go to work. Blah!!

 

We finally crawled out of bed of began packing everything up and getting ready for our long journey back to New England. Once we were all packed up, we headed up Las Ramblas to Plaça de Catalunya to catch a cab. Luckily for us, taxis are allowed on Las Ramblas and we were able to grab one just down the street from our apartment.

 

We said our goodbyes to lovely Barcelona and boarded our place for Dublin, Ireland.

 

 

 

Flying over the French Pyrénées

 

 

 

We had a bit of a layover in Dublin (I can certainly think of worst airports to be stuck in!!!) so we headed up to grab something to eat. We were sort of in the mood for a good ol' American style burger so we stopped at a Burger King. Not the biggest fans of fast food restaurants but when you see this sign:

 

 

 

 

 

 

It puts things in a bit of a better light! The other thing I love about flying out of Dublin is the fact that you can get served Guinness while sitting at your gate. Yep, a guy rolls a cart up with a keg and starts serving people. Man, I love the Irish!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming up...final thoughts

 

 

.

[trippingpara]

We knew that we were in for an adventure on this trip. It was our first inaugural cruise and our first time cruising in the Med. Overall, the cruise gets an A++. We are often asked what was our favorite port. Surprisingly, it was a place that wasn't even a part of our cruise! Slovenia. We were shocked to find out just how beautiful this country was. Now there are always beautiful parts to any country on Earth. I've been to some horrible places courtesy of the Marine Corps, but even in those places, I was able to find some beauty. What surprised us with Slovenia was the fact that was all that we saw. There was beauty everywhere we looked! The scenery, the buildings, the people, the food...everything! This of course, does not take away from any of the other places we visited. We loved them all.

 

On the other side of the coin, if we had to pick our least favorite, it was Athens. The amount of graffiti was appalling. Now there was graffiti in just about every place we visited (including Slovenia) but it was hard to find a place or building that did not have graffiti on it including national monuments. I also saw "Keep the illegal immigrants, get rid of the legal tourists" spray painted several times. With a mentality like that, its easy to see why Greece is struggling financially! The strikes, traffic jams and sheer crowds did not help Athens' case either. Maybe we would like it at a different time with different circumstances, but in our experience on this cruise, that's was (or is) our feelings towards Athens. Now I know many others on our cruise loved Athens. It is a great city and should be a must visit on one's bucket list of places to visit, I just doubt if it would end up on our list of "must return to" places.

 

As for the Vista itself, we loved her. We liked the more modern minimalist type of decor on her. Which, if you knew us would find very shocking as we generally hate the minimalist style of decor. I guess we just find it a welcome relief from the gaudy decor on Carnival's older ships. Since it was the inaugural run, not everything was perfect and we ran into some hiccups (like debarkation the first couple days) and some of the service levels in the MDR. But overall, we thought the service was great. We absolutely loved the new Pixels and truly hope they roll that out fleet wide. It was awesome to be able to look at your photos in the luxury of your cabin and then select what ones you want with your tv remote. Soooo much better than trying to sort through thousands of photos hanging on the wall to find yours. We also really loved the SportsSquare which is where we spent a lot of our free time. Probably our biggest complaint was the elevators. It was a constant source of irritation for many of the cruisers.

 

I would love to go back on the Vista when she was on a regular Caribbean run where we could get a chance to explore her better. We were too exhausted much of the time to truly enjoy all that she offered. I know that some reviewers skipped several ports and explored the ship a whole lot more than we did. I'm glad they did as I learned some more about the ship that I didn't know (or see). But at the cost of skipping Europeans ports, that wasn't going to happen for us since we travel for the ports, not the ship. There was just no way that we were going to skip seeing a century (or more) old port just so I could explore a ship. Its a whole lot cheaper to sail on the ship again than it is to visit that European port again. But that is the beauty of Cruise Critic. There are some awesome reviewers out there with different views than ours that take the time to explore and write about areas and things that we were not able to see or experience for ourselves. A giant thank you to those reviewers for doing so!

 

Would I do another inaugural cruise? Maybe. I guess it would depend on the itinerary and dates. We are looking at cruising the new Horizon when she is built and are praying that she cruises the Baltic instead of the Med. Once the dates are announced we will just have to look to see if the inaugural cruise will fit into our schedule or not. Now that we have checked off an inaugural cruise off our bucket list, it's no longer a hot agenda item to do.

 

As always, if anyone has any questions, please do not hesitate to ask. I hope you all enjoyed this super long and extended review. It was the longest that I've written so far. Be on the lookout for my upcoming reviews for our Canadian cruise out of New York City and our Alaskan cruise out of Seattle. Thanks to everyone for all of your patience as I wrote this.

 

Peace and happy cruising to all!!

Cheers,

the Trip family

 

 

.

[pghsteelerfan]

Thank you again, so much, for sharing your Vista Inaugural European cruise with all of us. As you know, I have enjoyed all of your reviews and this one was no different, except this time it was Europe and not the southern Caribbean. When we think "cruise", we think "Caribbean", but I think cruising would be the way to go to visit Europe, especially some of the places you visited...the scenery and buildings were just so breathtaking and you really captured the beauty in your pictures.

 

This past weekend, you were kind of in our neck of the woods here in VA. Yes, we're Steeler fans, but we're "displaced" Steeler fans living in the northern part of VA. Virginia Beach is only about 2 1/2 to 3 hours from us. I hope you had a nice visit with Trippette and enjoyed the Hermine experience. We had some clouds and a little breezy, but most of the bad weather stayed to the east.

 

Thank you again for another great review and looking forward to seeing your future reviews from Sunshine out of NY and the Alaskan cruise.

[pghsteelerfan]

Oops...double post. :eek: Sorry. :p

Edited September 5, 2016 by pghsteelerfan

[addicted2travel]

Wait!! I live in Va Beach, and had NO idea the the world renowned Trips were here!! I'm always a day late and a dollar short! [emoji12] I hope you enjoyed your visit, although we didn't have the best weather.

 

In all seriousness though, thank you so much for taking the time to write this great review! Your photos were amazing, and your stories were hilarious, insightful, and incredibly useful! I'm sorry to see this review come to an end. You really should write a book, as you have a great writing style!

 

My mom and I sail on the Vista on Oct. 1st, and it was a pleasure getting a preview of what's to come.

 

Thanks again and best wishes to the Trip family from the Doty family! [emoji1]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[Shih-tzu]

**sigh** i guess all good things have to come to an end.....?I looked forward to seeing if there were more posts added each time I loģged on. Say "hi" to Hermoine for me.....looking at tge spaghetti models it may come right up the Bay of Fundy...hopefully it will fizzle out.

 

Dont suppose you could take another cruise so I have great material to read????

 

Great job...hopefully will see you in Saint John!!!!!!

[maryann2]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do such a great review. I leave for Athens in just over 4 weeks doing the last Med cruise and the TA.

Sorry to see that it was your least favourite port.

[Rosesgt]

Thanks for this complete review. Our favorite was the 3 days we spent in Venice, also Trieste was awesome. Agree with you about Athens, We spent a week there when the Parthenon was a happening place. It sure has changed.

We had a blast cruising with y'all and sharing our last supper with you. Hope to cruise with y'all again.

Joyce

&

[19cruiser59]

Really fantastic review! Thank You so much for sharing. Truly enjoyed your photos and commentary. Kept me going for many a day !

Best of luck with your next trip wherever that may be. :)

[trippingpara]

Thank you again, so much, for sharing your Vista Inaugural European cruise with all of us. As you know, I have enjoyed all of your reviews and this one was no different, except this time it was Europe and not the southern Caribbean. When we think "cruise", we think "Caribbean", but I think cruising would be the way to go to visit Europe, especially some of the places you visited...the scenery and buildings were just so breathtaking and you really captured the beauty in your pictures.

 

This past weekend, you were kind of in our neck of the woods here in VA. Yes, we're Steeler fans, but we're "displaced" Steeler fans living in the northern part of VA. Virginia Beach is only about 2 1/2 to 3 hours from us. I hope you had a nice visit with Trippette and enjoyed the Hermine experience. We had some clouds and a little breezy, but most of the bad weather stayed to the east.

 

Thank you again for another great review and looking forward to seeing your future reviews from Sunshine out of NY and the Alaskan cruise.

 

Thank you again for such kind words, I really appreciate it! I was thinking of you when we flew into Virginia. I remembered you telling me about being a displaced Steelers fan in VA. Unfortunately, Trippette took after her mother and is a Steelers fan too. I am completely outnumbered! There actually were quite a few Steelers fans running around Virginia Beach. It was quite unsettling!

[trippingpara]

Wait!! I live in Va Beach, and had NO idea the the world renowned Trips were here!! I'm always a day late and a dollar short! [emoji12] I hope you enjoyed your visit, although we didn't have the best weather.

 

In all seriousness though, thank you so much for taking the time to write this great review! Your photos were amazing, and your stories were hilarious, insightful, and incredibly useful! I'm sorry to see this review come to an end. You really should write a book, as you have a great writing style!

 

My mom and I sail on the Vista on Oct. 1st, and it was a pleasure getting a preview of what's to come.

 

Thanks again and best wishes to the Trip family from the Doty family! [emoji1]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

 

 

What?? The news media didn't announced our arrival?! I guess our heralded arrival into Virginia Beach didn't trump the arrival of Tropical Storm Hermine. I think we were a whole lot more fun though!!

 

Any ways, thank you so much for taking the time to leave me such nice feedback. Getting such comments really makes all of those countless hours in front of the computer working on the review worth it. Its funny that you talk about me writing a book. One of my close friends just got his book published and it has left me seriously considering getting back on that horse and writing a novel. Hmmm, maybe I'll write one about a murder mystery on a cruise ship...:p I can think of quite a few people here on Cruise Critic that would make great characters in the book!

[trippingpara]

**sigh** i guess all good things have to come to an end.....?I looked forward to seeing if there were more posts added each time I loģged on. Say "hi" to Hermoine for me.....looking at tge spaghetti models it may come right up the Bay of Fundy...hopefully it will fizzle out.

 

Dont suppose you could take another cruise so I have great material to read????

 

Great job...hopefully will see you in Saint John!!!!!!

 

 

Shih-tzu,

Thank you so much for following along and providing some much needed humor along the way. I do hope that we can run into each other in Saint John. Just be sure to alert the townsfolk that d'em Trips are invading the north and they better unlock their liquor cabinets!! We'll be looking for some good ol' Canadian beer, whiskey and some of those funny looking round bacon thingies you guys eat. I'm quite sure that another one of the extremely talented reviewers we have here on Cruise Critic will keep you entertained until the Trips are able to destroy, err, visit your neck of the woods.

 

Good luck with Hermine! Hopefully we've taken all of her steam out between Virginia Beach and Rhode Island. Nothing like a double dose from the same bloody storm!!

Cheers mate!

Trip

 

.

[trippingpara]

Thank you so much for taking the time to do such a great review. I leave for Athens in just over 4 weeks doing the last Med cruise and the TA.

Sorry to see that it was your least favourite port.

 

 

Maryann,

You are very welcome and thank you for the kind feedback. I am quite sure that you will love Athens. I know of many on our cruise had a blast there and I have read many other reviewers since the inaugural that have stayed in Athens and had wonderful things to say about it. That is one of the downsides to cruising. If you have a bad day in a port, it can leave a bad taste in your mouth about it. We did enjoy Athens but when compared to the other ports we visited and all of the wonderful experiences we had across the Med, Athens just fell to the bottom of the list for us. Somebody had to be last and somebody had to be first. Its the nature of a list! Happy cruising!!

[trippingpara]

Thanks for this complete review. Our favorite was the 3 days we spent in Venice, also Trieste was awesome. Agree with you about Athens, We spent a week there when the Parthenon was a happening place. It sure has changed.

We had a blast cruising with y'all and sharing our last supper with you. Hope to cruise with y'all again.

Joyce

& John

 

 

Johnny-Boy! Thank you for dropping in and following along with my version of War and Peace. We also loved Venice. Its pretty hard not to fall in love with that place and its people. Truly breath taking! Sorta like me in that dress with the parasol. Those shoes just accented my calves beautifully! We couldn't think of a better way to end such an awesome cruise than to share our last supper there with you two. Give that lovely wife of yours a kiss from us and don't you worry, we shall cruise together again! Then again, that may be a good reason TO worry! :eek:

 

.

[trippingpara]

Really fantastic review! Thank You so much for sharing. Truly enjoyed your photos and commentary. Kept me going for many a day !

Best of luck with your next trip wherever that may be. :)

 

 

19cruiser59,

Thank you so much for following along and leaving me such lovely comments. I really do appreciate the sediment. Best of luck to your Eagles this weekend. Hopefully, they will be gentle with my Browns. Hopefully Wentz won't rip apart our defense too badly!

 

.

[pghsteelerfan]

Thank you again for such kind words, I really appreciate it! I was thinking of you when we flew into Virginia. I remembered you telling me about being a displaced Steelers fan in VA. Unfortunately, Trippette took after her mother and is a Steelers fan too. I am completely outnumbered! There actually were quite a few Steelers fans running around Virginia Beach. It was quite unsettling!

 

Yesss for Trippette!!! Steeler fans running around Virginia Beach...no!!! :eek:Actually, not surprised. :D There are a lot of fellow (displaced) Steeler fans in our area (Manassas area) as well and there are also a couple of local "Steeler" bars. I think a lot of people from the Pittsburgh area ended up down here for employment, just like we did, as it's only a 4 - 5 hour drive. My husband tried to get a job up there for a couple of years after college with no luck, so ended up down here and I followed once we were married.

 

Well, I'm glad you had a nice visit and I will look forward to your next cruise because I just know you'll have another review. I forgot to mention, I love your writing style with the humor.

[RiotAct]

Yesss for Trippette!!! Steeler fans running around Virginia Beach...no!!! :eek:Actually, not surprised. :D There are a lot of fellow (displaced) Steeler fans in our area (Manassas area) as well and there are also a couple of local "Steeler" bars. I think a lot of people from the Pittsburgh area ended up down here for employment, just like we did, as it's only a 4 - 5 hour drive. My husband tried to get a job up there for a couple of years after college with no luck, so ended up down here and I followed once we were married.

 

Hey I lived in Manassas (right off of Sudley Manor) for a few years... just moved away recently! It seemed I saw as many Steelers bumper stickers and whatnot as I did Redskins paraphernalia.

[pghsteelerfan]

Hey I lived in Manassas (right off of Sudley Manor) for a few years... just moved away recently! It seemed I saw as many Steelers bumper stickers and whatnot as I did Redskins paraphernalia.

 

I do remember you from when we were commenting back and forth on my Liberty review from our cruise last year and how we were both in Manassas, just on opposite ends. My husband's sister and her husband live in Bristow right off Sudley Manor. Part of the conversation was how we ended up having to make a trip to the huge mall in San Juan (hubby's luggage was lost by airline) and how their JC Penny was probably larger than our local mall and you commented that if I meant Manassas Mall, it wasn't a fair comparison. :D When did you move? Big changes coming to Manassas Mall. Not "mall type" places but places that may start attracting people - indoor go carts (where Target was), some new burger place, bowling, and I forget what else. Oh, and I'm driving around in a vehicle with a Steeler license plate frame, but I do notice the Steelers (and Penguins) bumper stickers/license plate frames almost every time we go out. Not the poor Pirates though. :)

 

Trip...I don't know if this is considered "hi-jacking" since you finished your review or not. If so, I apologize. I just ran into a former "neighbor". :)

Edited September 9, 2016 by pghsteelerfan

[trippingpara]

Trip...I don't know if this is considered "hi-jacking" since you finished your review or not. If so, I apologize. I just ran into a former "neighbor". :)

 

No worries at all! I write these reviews for everyone's enjoyment, however they may receive it! Even better if it can bring friends and neighbors together again!

[glam33]

What an amazing trip. Great pictures and text. Looks like you and Lady Trip address having the time of your lives! Thanks fur sharing your amazing adventure with us

[trippingpara]

What an amazing trip. Great pictures and text. Looks like you and Lady Trip address having the time of your lives! Thanks fur sharing your amazing adventure with us

 

Thank you so much for such kind words, glad you enjoyed the review. Cheers!

[CakeGirl]

Thank you so much for this thorough and honest review of the Vista. I especially enjoyed the pictures of the Chef's Table. I booked the Vista for our 10th wedding anniversary and was excited in the beginning for it. After doing some more research I started to get a little discouraged by what I was hearing about the ship. I was almost to the point of canceling when I remembered cruise critic. I decided to check it out to see what anyone had to say about the Vista. I found this review and after reading through it twice I've found myself more excited everyday. I just had to drop a comment to let you know. Thanks very much. Now I'm off to the roll call to make friends with my fellow cruisers.

[trippingpara]

Thank you so much for this thorough and honest review of the Vista. I especially enjoyed the pictures of the Chef's Table. I booked the Vista for our 10th wedding anniversary and was excited in the beginning for it. After doing some more research I started to get a little discouraged by what I was hearing about the ship. I was almost to the point of canceling when I remembered cruise critic. I decided to check it out to see what anyone had to say about the Vista. I found this review and after reading through it twice I've found myself more excited everyday. I just had to drop a comment to let you know. Thanks very much. Now I'm off to the roll call to make friends with my fellow cruisers.

 

CakeGirl,

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave me such flattering feedback, I really appreciate it. Glad you found my review helpful. You're going to have a blast on the Vista and congratulations on celebrating your 10th wedding anniversary!

Cheers,

Trip

[willdra]

Wow! This.Review.Is.Everything!!! 👍🏾I learned so much, and I honestly felt like I was right there with you (but not in a creepy stalker-ish way)😉. Thanks so much for taking the time to share this masterpiece. It is helping me prepare for our April Horizon Cruise from Barcelona!

[trippingpara]

Wow! This.Review.Is.Everything!!! 👍🏾I learned so much, and I honestly felt like I was right there with you (but not in a creepy stalker-ish way)😉. Thanks so much for taking the time to share this masterpiece. It is helping me prepare for our April Horizon Cruise from Barcelona!

 

Hi Willdra,

 

Thank you so much for the kind words. I'm glad my review was helpful and was able to put you right there with me. I am soooo jealous that you're going on the Horizon. We absolutely loved Barcelona and would love to return there! We seriously considered Horizon's inaugural run but it just wasn't in the cards. I guess I'm just gonna have to live vicariously through reviews. I'll try not to stalk any of them!