Carnival Vista Review/thoughts - Southern 8 day - July 1st

[Liljo22]

I am right there with you on Nono. She is amazing. I was thinking the same as you. When is she getting her own ship.

[Clarea]

Enjoyed the review and very nice photos.:)

[E@syPe@zy]

Great review georgiafan! I have the Vista on my radar and like you I prefer the 8 day or longer cruises. I just can't bring myself to pay for airfare for anything less than 7 days.

I've been to Aruba 2 x on cruises and for some reason I'm thinking you were on Palm Beach instead of Eagle. I might be wrong. We always go to Eagle Beach since it's not as busy as Palm. I love Aruba and could go back for a 10-14 day stay easily. I'm watching airfare for a good deal.

Thanks again for a very fine review!

[georgiafan]

Red Frog Pub / Coke Package

 

I don't drink beer, but I did get lots of cokes at the bars so I spent a good amount of time there. It was one of my major negatives about the ship as it was hard to find a bar especially on decks 11-13. A lot of the time the bars was either closed or severally understaffed.

 

I got the bottomless bubbles coke package and they charged me tax on the two cokes I tried to get before we reached international waters. I ended up refusing them just out of principal so never signed for the tab still I was charged 18 cents and ended up having to pay for both of them anyway. I know its a really small amount just annoying and never seen that before.

 

I got over 40 cokes on the ship and every time other then 2 or 3 they had to scan my card, look at face and then give me a paper back to sign with a 0 amount to it. This really slowed down the process I guess this was done to try and get a tip. I would sit my yeti cup on the bar and sometime they would fill that up without me asking.

 

In general the bar tenders wasn't friendly with the exception of the females at the bar across from the ocean plaza. This could have been because they was always under staffed I am not sure.

 

I will not go into all the details, but if you have younger females traveling with you watch out for the bartender Wade at the Red Frog Pub (young, short, dark skin. He likes to dip his pen in the company ink if you know what I mean.

 

 



 

 



 

 



 

 

 

 



 

 

Edited July 18, 2017 by georgiafan

[georgiafan]

Great review georgiafan! I have the Vista on my radar and like you I prefer the 8 day or longer cruises. I just can't bring myself to pay for airfare for anything less than 7 days.

I've been to Aruba 2 x on cruises and for some reason I'm thinking you were on Palm Beach instead of Eagle. I might be wrong. We always go to Eagle Beach since it's not as busy as Palm. I love Aruba and could go back for a 10-14 day stay easily. I'm watching airfare for a good deal.

Thanks again for a very fine review!

 

 

Thanks, that's possible when I emailed the Delphi people once they called it palm eagle beach and another just eagle. Whatever beach the Hyatt is in front of is the one I was at. The 8th day did make a huge difference as far as the time going by so fast. I like how the ship does a 8 day and 6 day makes a lot of sense

 

Enjoyed the review and very nice photos.:)

 

Thanks I should have some more photos up soon

[georgiafan]

I am right there with you on Nono. She is amazing. I was thinking the same as you. When is she getting her own ship.

 

All I know is Matt said he was pushing hard for her to become a cruise director I didn't want to bother him so I didn't ask a follow up question when he mentioned it. He seemed like a straight shooter so I am sure he was telling the truth. I am keeping my fingers crossed for her and it would be cool to see as they are not many female CD's.

[georgiafan]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[georgiafan]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JaniceB]

Thanks for sharing all these pictures of the ship, the food and the ports. I can't wait to cruise again.

[georgiafan]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Turk

[E@syPe@zy]

georgiafan...do you happen to recall how many hot tubs were on the ship and their locations. I've been looking at some info. on the Vista and I'm getting conflicting information. TIA

[georgiafan]

georgiafan...do you happen to recall how many hot tubs were on the ship and their locations. I've been looking at some info. on the Vista and I'm getting conflicting information. TIA

 

I didn't ever use the hot tubs since I have one at home so I don't know the exact number. In general though It seemed like it was a little less then a normal ship. I don't remember seeing any on deck 5 which had a ton of wasted space with chairs that nobody ever used. I believe all the hot tubs was on deck 10. I will go through my pics and see if I can find any pics of hot tubs.

[nemini]

Havana has 2 (which seem to be the only ones on Deck 5, and are kinda lukewarm according to most reports I've read). Beach Pool (Lido, mid-ship) has 0. Tides Pool (Lido, aft) has 2. Serenity (Serenity, forward) has 2. Oh, and technically the Cloud 9 Spa has one.

 

So there look to be a total of 7, but only 2 of those are totally open for anyone at most any time. The Havana spas are Havana-only until 7 pm. The Cloud 9 one is only open to Cloud 9 cabins and anyone who's paid for a cruise-long or daily spa pass. Serenity are adult-only.

[summercruisin']

Thank you for this review! I look forward to hearing more about your trip. I am joining the 8/12 Vista crowd :cool:. It will be my 1st time on the Vista, my 2nd time doing this itinerary, and my 3rd time with Matt as CD :hearteyes: (in fact, he is one reason I booked this particular trip). Now, thanks to you, I'm looking forward to all the options this ship offers and to meeting Nono and Ryan!

[georgiafan]

 

 

[georgiafan]

La Romana

 

It was by far the worst port of the 4 that we went to it did have some places to get unique souvenirs which you will see below. Carnival just didn't offer any excursion that blew me away so I didn't want to spend a 100$ on something that was just ok. I ended up taking a 16$ trolley bus tour that was located right off the ship which I said in advance I wasn't going to. It was decent and worth the low price if your looking for something cheap. In the end Carnival doesn't need to be going to this port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JaniceB]

The wood carvings look very nice!

[trvlgirlmq]

Did the trolley have any stops where you could get off and then on again later? Did it go to the beach at Bayahibe?

[amyotravel]

Agree about La Romana. Plus, Carnival makes it very difficult for people to do non-Carnival-sponsored excursions there the way they have it set up. I feel bad for the tour operators, and that's part of what makes it so expensive to do tours there. I don't really care to go back.

[georgiafan]

Thank you for this review! I look forward to hearing more about your trip. I am joining the 8/12 Vista crowd :cool:. It will be my 1st time on the Vista' date=' my 2nd time doing this itinerary, and my 3rd time with Matt as CD :hearteyes: (in fact, he is one reason I booked this particular trip). Now, thanks to you, I'm looking forward to all the options this ship offers and to meeting Nono and Ryan![/quote']

 

 

 

I'm glad I could help I still have a few more things I want to mention before I'm done. Matt definitely makes the difference when your deciding on what ship to go on. Be sure to get a picture of Nono for me [emoji3]

 

 

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[georgiafan]

The wood carvings look very nice!

 

 

 

Yea they wood carvings was a cool I bought a smaller one of parrots and my cousin got the flamingo with a price of 10-20$. The good things is they break down so they will easily fit into your luggage if your flying

 

 

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[georgiafan]

Did the trolley have any stops where you could get off and then on again later? Did it go to the beach at Bayahibe?

 

 

 

The trolley we did was just a city tour I believe it's a 30+ min drive to the beaches. I'm sure there is a way to get there just will be pricey. I have a friend who owns land on the island so she warned me about booking 3rd party excursions mostly bc people there are always running late. Also on the tour we took they had police that followed us so I didn't want to venture to far off on my own.

 

 

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[georgiafan]

Agree about La Romana. Plus, Carnival makes it very difficult for people to do non-Carnival-sponsored excursions there the way they have it set up. I feel bad for the tour operators, and that's part of what makes it so expensive to do tours there. I don't really care to go back.

 

 

 

Yea none of our group care to go back to that port it seems the other places In DR are better then la romana. The beaches are nice, but it was going to cost 100$ to do them while grand Turk was free and Aruba was like 20$. So unless your a beach nut it's hard to justify spending that much on a 3rd beach stop. Like I mentioned in the other post I didn't feel comfortable going out on my own after i started doing research and talking to others that have stopped here.

 

 

 

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[cyntil8ing]

We are going to chance a private excursion in a few weeks. The "Saona Carnival Special" with Seavis is highly rated and if folks were getting left behind, we would see posts about it. It's a $15 round trip taxi fare to Bayahibe. This will be the only new-to-us port in the cruise, so we have to do something.

 

 

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[FIREFIGHTERCRUISER]

Thanks for the review. Nice work.

How was the nightly entertainment/show options. Also are the alternative food options like Guys free?

thx in advance.