Pirate Sees 8 Days of Fun on the HORIZON! Oct 6-14, 2018 Review

[BENHANDEL]

Thank you so much for this review!

 

Where will I find the coconut gelato?

[pirate4me2]

13 hours ago, BettyCruiser said:

Great start!

Love all those pictures of Topher. 

 

The elevator system is intriguing, I'm just off NCL Bliss and they definately need a better system.

Thanks Beth!! It was great to see Topher again, I have been missing Grand Turk! 

 

2 hours ago, TravelE said:

I am enjoying your review. I really want a Havana cabin now!!

Thank you for reading! The Havana cabins are awesome, I’ve been spoiled!!

 

1 hour ago, pallasanila said:

Very nice! I especially like your pictures.

Thank you!! 

 

1 hour ago, BENHANDEL said:

Thank you so much for this review!

 

Where will I find the coconut gelato?

If you go to the Lido buffet at lunchtime, it was at one of the Sweet Spot stations...I’m wanting to say the forward, not the aft one. 

[dizzneebabe]

Enjoying your review! Sailing on Horizon in 57 days! 

[tandemcruzr]

Really enjoying your review. Especially like the Topher photos. Looked like he was showing off for you.

[laumicmah]

I was on it too and did a review. We also drove from NC. You say the muster was quick and painless??? We were told to get there at 3:30, the alarm buzz sound went off at like 4 and it didn't begin until like 4:15. We sat and sat and sat (in there for almost an hour). We were also in Havana but on deck 6. We ate our breakfast in that ocean plaza buffet right around the corner from Havana. Did you know about that? That was awesome to have right there. We too only did the MDR 4 times (in my TR I say 3 times but just realized it was 4 and we skipped dinner 1 night and did pay extra places 4 nights...that's what messed me up in my TR because we did sushi one night after doing the MDR...we were not impressed with the MDR as our meals took about 2 hours and some of the food wasn't all that great...the pay extra food was fantastic). Enjoying reading your take. Thanks for sharing.

Edited October 19, 2018 by laumicmah

[mom2tcdx2]

Enjoying your review, we will finally get to sail the Horizon October 2019.  We have booked for the Halloween cruise next year - too bad it will only be a 6 day cruise though.  Not sure I like that they do rotating 6 and 8 day cruises.  But at least we will finally get to do one of the new ships.  Last one I did was the Breeze and we have yet to sail the Vista.  We do at least have a two week cruise on the Pride in January, but really looking forward to seeing the Horizon.  

[Jamman54]

Great start to your review. Keep it coming! 😎

[newdestination]

Great review.  Thanks for doing it!

[pirate4me2]

2 hours ago, dizzneebabe said:

Enjoying your review! Sailing on Horizon in 57 days! 

I hope you have a wonderful time!!

 

1 hour ago, tandemcruzr said:

Really enjoying your review. Especially like the Topher photos. Looked like he was showing off for you.

I think he likes to show off for people. :)

 

1 hour ago, laumicmah said:

I was on it too and did a review. We also drove from NC. You say the muster was quick and painless??? We were told to get there at 3:30, the alarm buzz sound went off at like 4 and it didn't begin until like 4:15. We sat and sat and sat (in there for almost an hour). We were also in Havana but on deck 6. We ate our breakfast in that ocean plaza buffet right around the corner from Havana. Did you know about that? That was awesome to have right there. We too only did the MDR 4 times (in my TR I say 3 times but just realized it was 4 and we skipped dinner 1 night and did pay extra places 4 nights...that's what messed me up in my TR because we did sushi one night after doing the MDR...we were not impressed with the MDR as our meals took about 2 hours and some of the food wasn't all that great...the pay extra food was fantastic). Enjoying reading your take. Thanks for sharing.

Hey I was just looking at your review! How did you insert your pics and then be able to write in between them? I'd like to be able to label things in my review, but when I go to upload my pics it doesn't give me the option how to order them/write above them. Maybe it's because I am using an iPad?

As for muster....I believe the FunTimes listed it as being at 3:30, but we didn't go to our station until Mike announced over the PA to go, which was after that. We waited maybe 10 minutes for it to start after we got down there. It was much better than past drills we have been in.

 

1 hour ago, mom2tcdx2 said:

Enjoying your review, we will finally get to sail the Horizon October 2019.  We have booked for the Halloween cruise next year - too bad it will only be a 6 day cruise though.  Not sure I like that they do rotating 6 and 8 day cruises.  But at least we will finally get to do one of the new ships.  Last one I did was the Breeze and we have yet to sail the Vista.  We do at least have a two week cruise on the Pride in January, but really looking forward to seeing the Horizon.  

Oh have fun on your Halloween cruise!!

 

1 hour ago, Jamman54 said:

Great start to your review. Keep it coming! 😎

Thanks for following along Jeff! More to come when I get home tonight, I hope to be able to finish it. I'm excited to sail with y'all next year!

 

48 minutes ago, newdestination said:

Great review.  Thanks for doing it!

Thanks for reading!

[laumicmah]

@pirate4me2 I typed a report up on another forum (a Disney one because we stopped at Disney day before the cruise) and so I just cut and pasted from there. I knew how to upload pics there, onto the reply form and then type stuff in between and once I submit the post I can go back and select edit and copy the text (pics are in url or whatever). The pasted here on CC. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

We had the Hub app going and it told us to be at muster at 3:30, so we went and sat. Our friends were the upper meridian DR and we were the lower meridian DR so we couldn't even hang with them. We had a nice buzz going too and sat for 45 minutes. We should have waited for that loud buzz alarm before we went. I tried to tell my group we had time but they were all convinced that Hub message saying 3:30 was when we just had to be there. I don't know why they didn't just say 4pm and sound the alarm at 4pm...I think that's how it's been on past cruises.

[VolzCruiser]

Thank you for sharing. Enjoying as I have my 8 day Horizon in about 14 days. 

 

[JaniceB]

Very nice review.  I have question about your pre-cruise hotel was the shuttle included and car parking?  How far from the pier?

[pirate4me2]

5 hours ago, VolzCruiser said:

Thank you for sharing. Enjoying as I have my 8 day Horizon in about 14 days. 

 

Thanks for following along, enjoy your cruise! 

 

5 hours ago, JaniceB said:

Very nice review.  I have question about your pre-cruise hotel was the shuttle included and car parking?  How far from the pier?

The hotel included a shuttle to the port, but not back from. We called an Uber to get back, and it was a $10 ride. 

As for the parking at the hotel, it was not included but was just $10/day. Cheaper than parking at the port! I think we were about 2.5 miles from PortMiami.

[pirate4me2]

Welcome to St. Kitts!

 

I woke up at 9 this morning, and mom and I opted to do breakfast in the MDR today. I got Eggs Benedict with no ham, hashbrowns, and chicken sausage. Breakfast was perfect!

 

Once we finished eating we headed out to explore. Since we had no excursions planned we decided just to walk the port area and some of the Historic Bassettere area around it. I may or may not have got my dog a HUGE stuffed turtle to play with, and I may or may not have ended up buying myself 5 new pairs of shoes. It was a dangerous day for my pocketbook!

 

We ended up back onboard the Horizon at 2, and we hung out in the Havana area until 6. It wasn’t too crowded today, I think the first sea day was just everyone wanted to get some sun and warmth all at the same time. I read some more of my book, swam, drank a few drinks, enjoyed the hot tubs…it was a very relaxing afternoon.

 

Mom and I opted to eat on Lido for dinner tonight. I went to the deli and asked them to do my usual tomato & mozzarella sandwich, but could they also add some bacon to it? You know, make it a fancy BLT! All I can say is….OMG. That was the best sandwich! There were also some crispy shrimps on the buffet so I grabbed some of those to try, and they were yummy! To give myself some veggies I also got coleslaw, and it was great. Lido dinner tonight gets an A+!

 

Since we had done so much walking yesterday in San Juan and today in St. Kitts, Mom, and I decided to be lazy and take the elevator down from deck 10 to deck 5. However the elevators seemed to be running a tad slow today, and my drinks may or may not have caught up with me and I got impatient. I told Mom that I was going to race the elevator, and win. She told me no, don’t be stupid, but I was already gone. I heard the elevator ding just as I started down the stairs, and I figured she would win….but guess what? I got to deck 5 a full 30 seconds before her! Na-na-na-na-naaa!!! She just rolled her eyes and told me to go back to the room and go to bed to sleep it off. Which I did. Like a 8 year old, I went to bed at 8:15.

[pirate4me2]

I slept good last night. Maybe it was the drinks, maybe it was me finally relaxing down and getting into vacation mode, but man…I slept great. I woke up at 9 again today, and we were in St. Maarten. Mom and I decided to for-go the traditional breakfast and get PIZZA! Mmmmmm, it was great, he had to make it fresh just for us since we were the only people wanting some. That mushroom pizza rocks.

 

Mom and I had decided to walk to downtown and the boardwalk area, and we left the ship about 10:45. There were clouds in the sky, and about halfway to town the skies let loose. We quickly ducked under a porch area on a restaurant that was closed to wait it out, and it passed in about 10 minutes so we continued on. I got Chris his steak sauce he adores, as well as a bottle of BBQ sauce to try, and we just meandered the shops. Once we finished with shopping we hit the beach area right there at the boardwalk to get our toes wet. It seemed like a pretty decent beach area.

 

We ended up back onboard about 1:45, and we went to the Havana area. The skies were letting loose again, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the hot tubs! I went from them to a chair to read my book and back to the hot tubs. That was my routine until about 4:45, and then we headed to our patio area. The neighbors a few doors down were having a HUGE fight, which was kind of awkward. It was bad, I was waiting on security to get called. Another guy even tried to intervene and told the husband he needed to apologize for that things he was calling his wife, and that made them quiet down for a bit, then they started back up. This went on for a while, and everyone around us kept coming out on balconies and slamming their doors I think to try and make them stop. They finally got quiet, and all I can say is….if you all need to fight with your significant others, try and do so where others won’t hear it. Or just try not to fight, you’re on vacation! 

 

We noticed that the “swoosh, swoosh” water noise above our cabin was back, so we called Guest Services to let them know. I forget who we spoke to, but they said they would look into the issue. It was not as loud as it had been before, but we figured we should let them know before it got bad!

 

We opted for another dinner on Lido tonight, and can you believe that when I went to the deli I got a different sandwich?! I love buffalo chicken and was having a craving, so I ordered that. I also got some coleslaw from the salad line and went and sat down to enjoy it….only to find out that they hadn’t put buffalo sauce on the sandwich. Um…ok. So it’s just a crispy chicken sandwich with tomato jam. That’s ok, I actually had some Texas Pete sauce packets in my pocket (yes, I carry my own sauce with me, don’t judge, you never know when you may need it!) so I added that instead of going back to the line. One other thing I noticed about the deli this trip was that on the Vista they would add lettuce and such to the buffalo chicken sandwich automatically, this time it was just the tomato jam and sauce. No biggies, I am sure I could have asked for lettuce and whatnot.

 

After we ate we went back to the cabin to get ready for the Halloween festivities that night. There were special drinks at the bars, and a costume contest on the Lido deck at 10:30. We strutted our stuff on the “catwalk” but we were nowhere near winning. It was fun though, and after that we decided we wanted a late night snack so we went and got…PIZZA! Nomnomnom. The line was long but moved pretty quick. We enjoyed our pizza and headed back to the cabin about midnight. It had been a fun-filled day! The water noise was still there, but we were both tired and figured we would go to Guest Services in the morning if it was still happening.

 

[pirate4me2]

Well, our days in port have come to an end, we are back to sea days. But you know, I am beginning to get to the point that I like sea days almost as much as port days! They give me a chance to relax and be lazy if I want, or be active. It is kind of nice!

 

Anyway, today I slept in until….TEN O’CLOCK. Can you believe it?? It was wonderful. When we got up we realized the water noise was still happening and was louder than it had previously been, so we got dressed and headed down to Guest Services. Marabella listened as I told her what was happening and how we had already notified them twice of the issue, and then she followed me to the cabin to listen for herself. She heard it and her eyes got wide and she said “that isn’t good.” She pulled out her phone and called someone that she referred to as “chief” and told him that “there is a loud water noise coming from above 5216, and it is annoying! Very loud!” About 5 minutes later a gentleman in a white shirt and another gentleman in a blue outfit came to the door and stepped inside to listen. The gentleman in white shook his head and said “It’s a secret crew-only whirlpool above you. Maybe in the middle of the night it will go “splash” and you get a free shower!” He was trying to lighten the mood and we all laughed but he said seriously, “Let us look into this. We need to find it.” They told us we were free to go enjoy our day, so Mom and I headed to find some grub.

 

We decided on sea day brunch in the MDR. I got my usual eggs benedict with no meat, a side of chicken sausage, and a grilled tomato. It was all good except the tomato, which was just blah. It was overly cooked I think. I also ordered a Pirate Punch to use my Platinum free drink coupon, and it was strong and delicious!

 

We decided to walk off some of our breakfast by browsing the shops, and then we went to hang in the Havana area. We were there until about 4 just enjoying the pool and hot tubs. The egg drop competition in the atrium had me interested, so we cleaned up and headed there. Mike had teams (which had signed up earlier in the day) that had come up with contraptions that they hoped would keep their egg from breaking when dropping from deck 5 down to deck 3. It was quite funny, and some of the ideas people came up with to keep their eggs safe amazed me!

 

We decided after watching all those eggs drop that it was dinner time. We headed back to the room, and just as we were about to go get some food there was a knock at the door. The gentleman in white from earlier asked us if we could be out of the room for a little bit as they needed to get into the ceiling to investigate more. We told him that was not a problem and headed up to Lido for dinner. I am sure you all can guess what I had. Hahaha. Then we went to the Dive In move that was playing, Ocean’s 8, which was AWESOME. I had been wanting to see it, and I was so happy when I saw that they were playing it!

 

We headed back to our room after the movie ended, and the water noisy was STILL happening. Ugh! Mom and I decided that hey, they are trying to figure it out so we will give them more time, and if it is still happening tomorrow we will storm down to Guest Services. Let’s enjoy tonight. So we looked at the time and saw that it was only 9:15, why not go take a swim in the Havana pool? We went back there and I expected that since the area was open to the public after 7 it would be crowded, but there was NOBODY back there. Mom and I got in the pool for a little bit, then decided to jump into one of the hot tubs. It was wonderful. A few people came back while we were in the hot tubs, but nobody joined us. We stayed there until 10, then decided to call it a day.

[pirate4me2]

It’s our last day onboard, wahhhhhhhhhh!!!!

 

I got up at 9, and mom and I decided to enjoy one last nice, sit down breakfast. For me back home, breakfast consists of sucking down a protein shake on the way to work. I love a good warm breakfast on vacation, so today I got one last Eggs Benedict, chicken sausage, grilled tomato, and fruit platter. It was all delicious, today’s grilled tomato was nice and firm, unlike my soggy one the other day.

 

After breakfast we wandered the shops and bought a few items. I got a Horizon hoodie and 2 key chains. As we were wandering back to our cabin with our goodies we came upon the TV theme song trivia in Ocean Plaza, so we sat and listened. Apparently my mom and uncle have this game back home where they will play the TV theme songs and if you guess wrong you have to drink…lemme just say that if we had gotten there in time for mom to sign up, she would have won. 

 

After watching the trivia Mom and I decided to spend a little time enjoying our balcony, so we sat out there and read some more of our books. When the Pig & Anchor fired up about lunchtime, the scent of BBQ started drifting down our way and Mom piped up, “Let’s get BBQ for our last lunch onboard.” OK!! We went there about 1:30, and everything was yummy, just like last time.

 

I think it was about 2:30 when Mike did his Q&A in the Limelight Lounge. When that ended we had about a half hour until the Platinum & Diamond Reunion in the Liquid Lounge, so we headed up that way and got in line. It was OK, but Mike just didn’t make it as fun as Matt and Chris Williams do. We still enjoyed ourselves, and Mike is such a genuinely nice person. I really can’t stress enough how sweet he is. Also, bar service during the party was hard to get, so Mom and I finally situated ourselves next to the unattended drink trays at the bar. That MAY or may not have been a bad idea. We did eventually get the attention of Diana, who was very sweet, and when Mom asked for a Mocha Chocolate Getaway and I asked for a Twilight Zone….she brought 2 of each. Add that to the many drinks we snatched off the unattended trays, and we were in pretty darn good shape! Or not. Hahaha.

 

After the party ended we stumbled back to our patio and hung out there and in the Havana area until 7:30. The Havana area was so quiet, I think a lot of people were packing. We finally decided to do one more deli dinner, and I will let you guys guess what I ended up eating. I am so predictable.

 

We wandered the ship a little after dinner, then finally resigned ourselves to the fact that vacation was ending and we would have a very early morning tomorrow. Self assist Platinum and Diamond cruisers were to meet in the forward dining room at 6:30….yikes! We went back to the room and packed our belongings, then headed to bed about 9. Our cruise had come to an end.

[pirate4me2]

Here are some random photos I got that I forgot to include in the review. The new cakes at the dessert station on Lido are so pretty! They had a Texas Chocolate one that was AMAZING. 

Also, ignore our messy room, I took those pics on the last day. 😂

[MrFunInTheSun]

Nice review. Thanks for sharing. Looks like it was a super cruise. 

[pirate4me2]

23 minutes ago, MrFunInTheSun said:

Nice review. Thanks for sharing. Looks like it was a super cruise. 

Thanks for reading! It was a pretty darn good cruise. 

[BENHANDEL]

I am so curious to know more about the mysterious water noise...

[mickeyhereicome]

Do you happen to have a picture of the disembark times?  Trying to decide what time to get off the ship.  Do they do it by deck or by the luggage tag time you grab?  Do you remember what the latest time is?

[laumicmah]

1 hour ago, mickeyhereicome said:

Do you happen to have a picture of the disembark times?  Trying to decide what time to get off the ship.  Do they do it by deck or by the luggage tag time you grab?  Do you remember what the latest time is?

Was supposed to be 7:30-8:30 for self assist and then 8:30-10:30 for all luggage tag folks (who put out their luggage night before). They delayed until 7:45ish and called SA decks 10 and up and luggage tags 1 and 2 (maybe they only give those to folks with early flights...they don't put tags in the cabins, you have to go get them). Then they didn't call next group until about 8:15ish (maybe delayed due to vomit situation...not sure if OP here posted about that or somewhere else but someone got sick all over the place on the way out and maybe they delayed to clean up). But at 8:15 they only called 8 and up. I didn't hear if they called any luggage tags then. We went ahead and got off even though we were deck 6. Didn't want to wait another 30 minutes as we had to drive back to NC. 

[pirate4me2]

3 hours ago, BENHANDEL said:

I am so curious to know more about the mysterious water noise...

 

We never heard what it was. They worked all the last sea day outside our room, and it was never resolved. Since they were continually working we didn’t go bother Guest Services. Guest Services did give us $50 onboard credit for the inconvenience. 

[retiring soon]

HI all!

 

pirate ~ nice review! Sounds like you & your Mom had a nice relaxing, well fed time.

 

~ Jo ~😊