Carnival Horizon Review - March 9th Sailing - Southern Caribbean

[Bulldogsoc]

Many thx for your review.  We will be on the same ship and itinerary next March out of Pearson.  The Miami Heat is a great idea. Thx again. Mark

[SNJCruisers]

8 hours ago, Jenjer said:

How was the steak house? Are the plates HUGE or the potions pretty small? I mean that looks like a 3 oz filet

Even though many disagree, I feel the quality of the steakhouse has gone down over the years.  Items such as the porterhouse have been eliminated and the price has recently been increased from 30 to 38. 

I would prefer the Cucina del Capitano for 15 pp and especially the Tomahawk Pork Chop.  We had an app, entree, and dessert each and shared a pasta and a side.  Had leftovers. Looking forward to this meal in August on the Horizon.

[jfaw]

On 3/26/2019 at 7:41 PM, smurfm69 said:

We are doing this same itinerary in May.  Enjoying your review and pics!

When are you going in May?  We are going May 12th :)

[smurfm69]

8 hours ago, jhesler said:

When are you going in May?  We are going May 12th :)

 

 We are going May 18th out of Miami.  There's time for you to change to our cruise.  Lol

[Cant wait until March]

On 3/27/2019 at 11:10 AM, declansdad said:

 

This is the menu from Fahrenheit 555 steakhouse.

 

https://www.carnival.com/~/media/Images/explore/dining/menus/fahrenheit-555-menu.pdf

The plates were quite large and they had an interesting way of serving tableside.  The fillet was a little small for me but my wife is usually sitting there watching me eat well after she is done.  I would say the fillet was between 7-8 oz and the lobster tail was a little small but very well prepared.  The meal was very good overall and worth the extra money.

[Cant wait until March]

On 3/27/2019 at 2:45 PM, JaniceB said:

Enjoying your review.  I think you were cruising during spring break which always tends to bring out more of the unruly children and parents who don't care.  We chose to take our children on a spring break cruise on Holland America one year.  There were lots of generations of families and not as many unruly children.  I think they were behaving for the grandparents or else.  

I am loving your pictures.  I am sailing the end of May and plan on visiting the steakhouse.

Yes it was spring break.  It is the only time we can travel as my wife works for the school system and they can only take their holidays at Christmas or spring break.  Next year we are going in April because her new contract states that they can take time outside of those times without pay if they choose to.  

[Cant wait until March]

Vacation Day 4 - March 12 - La Romana

 

This is the port I was looking forward to the least out of the 4.  We had trouble deciding what we wanted to do here as far as an excursion went.  About a month before we left for this vacation we had decided to do the Blue Hole Eco Tour and Animal Encounter mainly because we hike quite a bit in Canada throughout the year and enjoy the outdoors.  More about our excursion in a few.

 

I was up early as I usually am so I went for a walk around the ship before Sherry got up and watch the sun come up. 

Sometimes it's nice to sort of have the ships common areas to yourself and explore a little, maybe see something that you would be interested in doing later when the entertainment is in full swing.

I liked the pool at the rear of the ship, not because I like the crowds but I liked the tile work in the bottom of the pool.  Looks pretty good when there is nobody in it.  I also wandered into the Havana Bar.  I think it was 3rd or 4th floor aft.  The horn section that was in the show the night before played here all week along with a couple other musicians.  I liked the décor in the Havana Bar area.  Lots of comfortable seating and a good amount of space. 

This is the entrance to the Havana Bar.

 

As the sun came up we were getting closer to port and La Romana looks a little industrial.  On one side of the ship was a beautiful home with and unbelievable piece of land attached and then right beside that was a place to load cargo ships and a cargo ship.

 

We had arranged to have room service bring our breakfast which is what we do most port days so I went back to our cabin to have breakfast and see if Sherry was ready to get going as we were meeting our tour pretty close to the time we docked.

Ready to go.

 

We got off the ship with no problem and went to meet our tour operator.  You walk through all of the regular store area and duty free shop to get to the buses.  There were a lot of buses and we found a young man holding a sign for out tour.  He took our tickets and showed us which bus to get on.  Our bus held about 25 people and it was full along with another full bus so there were about 52 people on our tour.  

 

Now here is the problem with this excursion.  The bus ride to the Blue Hole Eco Park was not advertised anywhere and after the bus started moving the guide said to sit back and relax because we would be on the bus for an hour each way.  Since it's only a 4.5 hour tour we were spending about half of it on the highway on a bus.  It would be nice if they were to mention that some place because we would have opted to do something else.

 

We arrived at the Blue Hole Eco Park and had a chance to use the restrooms then got in line to get a wrist band.  This wrist band was something that could be scanned electronically to activate gates and cameras around the park in case you wanted to purchase their photos of you.  We basically ran through the bush on manicured trails, stopped at a few signs about the local vegetation and pushed on to the blue hole.

This is just inside the gate.  It leads you into the park through the gift shop and restaurant.

Many of the orchids and vegetation is quite beautiful just don't plan on learning anything from the guide about them.  He was in a hurry to get to the blue hole.  After about a 20 -25 minute walk we arrived.

There are little open cubbies to put you towels and other belongings so you can swim.  The platform is about 20 feet above the water and the water is roughly 40 feet deep.  It's fresh water that comes up through the ground and filter through some kind of mineral to give to the brilliant blue colour. 

 

The rock face that overhangs the water was huge and there were honey bee colonies protruding from the rock all over the place.  Like any honey bee, if you don't bother them they won't bother you.  I'm allergic to bee stings but my dad was a bee keeper for years in his retirement so I was used to them being around.

Really spectacular hives considering the people just leave them alone and don't harvest the honey.

 

There were more than 100 people there and it was getting crowded so our guide advised us to get ready to go.  By the time half of our group was ready to go our guide and the other half of the group had gone already.  We just took our time going back because we knew when the bus was leaving anyway.  We made our way back to the animal portion of the park.  They had some small monkeys, snakes, many different parrots, and a lot of iguanas.  You couldn't interact with the monkeys and snakes, but the parrots were accessible and so were the iguanas.  You could tell the animals were well care for and used to people being around all of the time.

After about 45 minutes with the animals everyone was boarding the bus to go back to the ship.  All in all the Eco Park would be a great place to visit with more time and less people.  This excursion was not exactly what was advertised and in my opinion not worth that money.

 

The hour long bus ride back to the ship was uneventful. Most folks seemed tired and just sat quietly.  When we got back to the port we looked around the stores a bit and then beat the line up and got back on the ship.

 

We didn't do much with the rest of our day after the ship left La Romana.  Took a nap, got ready for dinner and headed to the dining room.  I had the seafood Newberg and my wife had the beef wellington, followed by a chocolate melting cake for each of us for desert.  Both meals were good and the service in the dining room was very good.  

After dinner we went outside to see if we could catch the sunset and we did.

We just sat and relaxed for a bit as the outside decks were unusually quiet.  We had a bit of time before the love and marriage show that we had planned on seeing.

 

We made our way to the Liquid Lounge to watch the show.  It was packed and we were lucky to get a seat.  If we had been 5 minutes later we wouldn't have.  The show was great.  All three couple chosen were pretty funny and did know each other quite well.  After the show was over there was a White Hot Night Party with Schwarts in the lobby.  We didn't feel like attending so we went to try our luck at the casino for a while before bed.  We played roulette a little bit and a few slot machines.   After leaving enough of a donation in the casino we walked over to the sports bar so see what was happening in the world of sports since we have been disconnected from our phones and the internet for the last few days.  Nothing much going on in the bar so we sat and watched a few March Madness game highlights and then wandered off to bed.

 

Tomorrow is Curacao.  Can't wait.

 

 

[Cruzer1102]

Thanks for the great review! Looking forward to the rest. 

[RTR 21-0]

Beautiful pics.  You have quite an eye behind the lens.  

[markntara]

18 hours ago, smurfm69 said:

 

 We are going May 18th out of Miami.  There's time for you to change to our cruise.  Lol

 

We are too.

[JaniceB]

Great sunrise and sunset pictures.  Sorry you had such a long ride in the bus and it would have been nice to know ahead of time.  

[sabhoy]

Thanks for the great review

Just booked Horizon end of September..question about Pig and Anchor.  Do they cook outside or is the cooking and serving done inside?  The room we booked is upstairs from it.

Edited March 29, 2019 by sabhoy

[cruises42]

Thanks for the review! We are doing this cruise in a week. We are also doing the Blue Hole excursion. Would you consider it safe to leave a camera in the little cubicles? Did you wear your bathing suit for the whole excursion or is there a place to get changed?

[Cant wait until March]

3 hours ago, sabhoy said:

Thanks for the great review

Just booked Horizon end of September..question about Pig and Anchor.  Do they cook outside or is the cooking and serving done inside?  The room we booked is upstairs from it.

There are smokers and grills outside on deck 5.  but it's pretty well contained within the little buffet structure so I don't think you would get any smoke on your balcony.

[Cant wait until March]

27 minutes ago, cruises42 said:

Thanks for the review! We are doing this cruise in a week. We are also doing the Blue Hole excursion. Would you consider it safe to leave a camera in the little cubicles? Did you wear your bathing suit for the whole excursion or is there a place to get changed?

You can leave your things in the cubbies.  I left my DSLR, lenses, camera bag, etc and had no problem.  There are employee's watching things and also the space is fairly small so you would see if anyone was messing with your stuff.

[cruises42]

2 minutes ago, Cant wait until March said:

You can leave your things in the cubbies.  I left my DSLR, lenses, camera bag, etc and had no problem.  There are employee's watching things and also the space is fairly small so you would see if anyone was messing with your stuff.

Thanks I was wondering if I should take my DSLR or just the underwater one. Now, I'll take both! How about the bathing suit question (above)?

[Cant wait until March]

10 hours ago, cruises42 said:

Thanks I was wondering if I should take my DSLR or just the underwater one. Now, I'll take both! How about the bathing suit question (above)?

There is a little restroom just before you get to the blue hole where we changed in and out of our suits. It's not the Hilton but it will do.

[Biris]

Thank you for taking the time to write your review. Beautiful pictures.  Following. 

[cruises42]

12 hours ago, Cant wait until March said:

There is a little restroom just before you get to the blue hole where we changed in and out of our suits. It's not the Hilton but it will do.

Thanks!

[Cant wait until March]

Vacation Day 5 - March 13 - Curacao

 

This was the port I was most interested in.  We had never been here before and everyone tells us that we would love it.  We were scheduled to be in port from 2:30 PM - 10:30 PM.

 

I was awake early but didn't feel like getting up so I just stayed in bed and enjoyed the movement of the ship.  After a while I got up and went for a walk. As we neared curacao it seemed a little hazy and you couldn't see the landscape very clearly. I missed the sunrise this morning, however I did get an interesting shot of the sunlight coming through the clouds.

By the time we got ourselves ready to eat the air seemed to clear and it was a beautiful day.  My wife wanted to relax a little before we got ready to get off the ship so I just looked around a bit to see if anything of interest was happening.  Up on the Lido deck there was a guy doing an ice carving demonstration.  He had 20 minutes to turn this 300lb block of ice into something.  Many people were guessing as he carved and he ended up with this fish.

 

Pretty good considering the time limit and the temperature.  The people that were watching seemed pretty entertained, me included.

 

The ship arrived on time as always and the captain made his usual announcement about enjoying your day in Curacao.  When you get into port it is a bit of a mix of industrial looking places and very colourful and clean buildings.

 

 

We had booked the All West Beach Hopping Tour with a company online called Irie Tours.  We were instructed to meet our tour guide at the end of the pier as soon as we could get off the ship and they would show us where to go.  We met a young lady holding a sign for Irie Tours and she had us wait until the rest of the people got off the ship as we were waiting for 4 more after us.  There was about 20 of in total for this tour.  The lady loaded us on a brightly coloured open air bus and introduced us to our guide for the day.

His name was Eddy, he said he was 71 years old, gave us a brief history of the island as we drove to our first destination.  He was very friendly, entertaining, and knowledgeable.  He was originally from Aruba but came to Curacao over 30 years ago for work and never left.  His only rules on the bus were to be safe, enjoy yourself, and if you wanted a drink you had to say "Eddy, fetch me a drink". Pretty simple rules.

 

We drove for about 20 minutes through terrain that changed from desert like conditions one minute to lush green vegetation the next. We stopped briefly at the smallest Catholic church on the island were Eddy explained it's history and the legend around it and then we kept driving. Not exactly a place with a large congregation.

Our next stop was National Park Shete Boka.  It's on the west coast of the island and quite spectacular.  The waves are crashing into the coast all of the time and there are caves and paths to show you where to go.  It's well marked and very clean.

 

 

 

 

 

There was this great little sign at the head of the first trail that I thought ever national park needed everywhere.

We were hear for about 35 - 45 minutes and then back on the bus.  If you wanted something to eat there was a snack bar here also but we didn't try anything.

 

We drove about 15 - 20 minutes to our next destination which was a place called Playa Piscado.  It was a beautiful little beach that was an old place where fisherman use to come ashore and clean their catch.  The would throw their unwanted fish and scraps back into the water and the sea turtles would come and clean it up.  Now there are turtles there all of the time. We had about an hour to snorkel (equipment was provided) and look around.  This was an absolute highlight for me.  We got ready and went in the water.  We went out about 75 feet and there is a rock wall on one side of the beach that you can follow.  There are fish everywhere and then we came across the turtles away from the rock wall about 30 feet.  There were too many to count.  They just go about their day like you are not even there.  They are amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you can smile while wearing a snorkel we were.

 

After this we got back on the bus and drove for about 5 minutes to the other side of the same cove.  There was a restaurant that they stop at incase you want to use the restroom and there is a place for cliff diving if you are so inclined.  I'm not.  Some of our group tried it and had a good time.  It was roughly a 40 foot drop to the water and 200 foot swim back to a ladder to come back up.

 

 I was more interested in the local vegetation and wildlife that seemed to be everywhere you stepped.

 

We boarded the bus once again and went on to another beach that Eddy said was one time in the top 10 beaches in the world.  It was called Kenepa Beach.

It was stunning.  The water was a brilliant colour and the sand was clean and white.  We had about an hour here to swim, snorkel, or just relax.  We did a little of all three. There wasn't as many fish to see here because it was mostly just sand and no rocks or coral.  Still beautiful though.

 

 

This bird just walked down the beach and was obviously used to all the people being around.  He looked young and a little confused at times.

 

We got back on the bus and went to yet another beach with a little restaurant, restrooms, and change rooms if you wanted to get out of your bathing suit.  It was called Playa Porto Marie. It was a picturesque little place with wild pigs laying around on the beach which they ask you not to feed for obvious reasons.

 

 

Just sleeping on the beach without a care in the world.  Not a bad way to live.

 

We were here for about and hour and 15 minutes and it was getting close to dusk.  Our last stop was a salt lake at St. Willibrodus to see the wild flamingos.  It was getting dark at this time and I didn't get very many good shots.  We were there for a short time and then boarded the bus to head back to the ship.

 

Eddy said he could either take us right to the port or drop us downtown within walking distance to the ship in case we wanted to look around before we got back on the ship.  We opted to see a bit of downtown as we had about an hour before we had to be back on the Horizon.  

 

 

 

 

After a great day we made our way back to the ship and decided to have something to eat.  We ended up eating at the Seafood Shack on the Lido deck, Aft.  It was very good and well worth the money.  I had clam chowder and fried buffalo shrimp, while my wife had crab cakes and the fried buffalo shrimp.  We could have ordered only one order of the shrimp as the portions were huge.  Sorry no pics of it, I left my camera in our cabin.

 

We ate as much as we could and basically got cleaned up and went to bed after a long but amazing day.

 

Tomorrow we arrive in Aruba. 

 

 

[Cant wait until March]

Vacation Day 6 - March 14 - Aruba

 

Today we arrived in Aruba and were scheduled to be there between 8:30 AM and 4:00 PM.  The ship of course arrived on time and the captain made an announcement that wished everyone well for the day and to warn everyone to hold their belonging getting off the ship because of the wind.  He was not kidding.

 

We were up fairly early and had breakfast in our cabin from the room service menu.  They are very good at getting it to you at the time you request it.  We ate and got ready to get off the  ship for the day.  The excursion we chose was the North Coast Jeep Safari.  We had read some good reviews for it and you get to see quite a bit of the island.  We got off the ship and found our group in the cruise terminal.  When everyone was accounted for we were led to a coach bus and taken over to ABC Tours where we were split into groups of 8 or less and put in the jeeps.  We were lucky enough to be in the lead jeep with the head tour guide Kenneth.  He was highly entertaining and we were always at the front of the pack so we got a lot less dirty than the other jeeps.

 

The man on the left is our guide Kenneth

 

We had read that this was sometimes a very bumpy rough ride at times and they were not joking.  Kenneth deliberately hit as many bumps and pot holes as he could find and even went over a couple of jumps where we became airborne.  I'm not complaining just warning that some people may not like this tour for that reason.  We had a great time.  We zig zagged our way through the city past the airport and our first stop was a donkey sanctuary.  The morning we got there the owner explained that there were some vandals that broke in over night and one of the building was in disarray. We managed to see the donkeys and learn about the operation anyway and the man was very friendly.

 

 

After being there for about half an hour we loaded back into the jeeps and headed for our next stop.  The next stop was a bumpy ride of about 20 minutes to the Ayo Rock Formations.  It was pretty neat.  The grounds were very clean and easy to navigate.  We hiked up and through the rock formations while all of the ABC Tours guys walked with everyone and helped out with whatever they could.  They would take pics if you wanted them together, get drinks for people, and I even saw some of them carrying stuff for some of the older folks.

 

 

 

After leaving here we went on another very bumpy road/trail to get to the natural bridge site on the north coast of the island.  It was much like the rocky coast in Curacao the previous day.  Beautiful scenery but at the same time the water crashed the shore with such violence.  It makes you wonder how explorers survived all those years ago trying to come ashore on that side of the island.  There were a number of fishing huts that were still being used along this coast also, I don't know how they would get to and from land onto the boat to fish.

 

 

 

 

We didn't stay at the natural bridge site very long and were back in the jeeps again to our next destination.  It was about a 15 - 20 minute drive over the roughest terrain we had seen yet to get to the Alto Vista Church.  It was a small church atop a hill surrounded buy what can only be described as desert.  There were cactus everywhere, sand and a lot of lizards. We didn't stop here long, about 20 minutes. There were also a lot of bike trails that started at the church site that were well mapped out and they seemed to be well used.

 

 

These little lizards were all over the place in the underbrush and around the cacti.  They were all the same colour and we probably saw 50 of them in about 10 minutes.

 

From Alto Vista we drove our last rough stretch of road for about 20 minutes to the California Lighthouse where the roads became paved again.  Oddly the lighthouses name has nothing to do with the state of California but the builder named it after a ship that was wrecked off the coast that his family was on.  He built the lighthouse so that wouldn't happen to anyone else's family.

When everyone in out tour was ready we continued on to a pretty little beach down the hill and had about 45 minutes to relax or swim.  They also provided snorkelling gear if you wanted it and had snacks and drinks throughout the day as well.  We elected to go snorkelling a bit and see if we could see anything.  There were a few rocks and coral outside of the roped swimming area so we headed over there.  the water was warm and shallow but the sand was getting picked up by the waves quite a bit so you couldn't see as clearly as you would like at times.  Still a beautiful beach and we did get to see some fish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After about 30 minutes of snorkelling we got out of the water, returned our gear, and got changed out of our wet clothes.  This gave us a few minutes to eat a little something and have a drink before we headed back to the port area.

 

This was a really fun tour and I would do it all over again if we were to return to Aruba.  The ABC guys and Kenneth were awesome.

 

They took us back to the port and dropped us off.  We had about and hour or so before we had to be back on the ship so we walked around the downtown core for a bit.  It's very clean and you can tell that tourism is alive and well in Aruba.  One of the hotels, I think it was the Regency Hotel and Casino, on the main street had this cool water taxi entrance from the bay right into the hotel.

 

 

We went to check it out and there were different iguanas and crabs all over the place.  It's funny that the locals don't even seem to notice them and all of the tourists are fascinated by them.  I wonder if they came to Canada would they be fascinated by our black squirrels, etc...

 

 

We only had a bit of time to get back to the ship so we headed that way and boarded the Horizon.  We took a bit of time to clean up and then found a couple of deck chairs and just relaxed in the sun for a while.

 

As the ship was preparing to cast off there was a ships announcement looking for 2 people.  A man and woman.  They made the announcement in various different ways about 10 times in 10 minutes.  We were watching the gate at the port entrance and didn't see anyone hurrying to get back to the ship.  The gate was locked and they cast off to get under way.  I don't know if anyone got left behind or not.  They pulled up the gang way and we left.  I guess there are worse places to be left behind in?

 

After watching Aruba disappear behind us we decided on dinner in the dining room. Sherry started with a cold soup but I don't remember what kind it was.

 

I started with a broccoli and cheddar soup and a shrimp cocktail.  Both were very good.

 

Sherry's main was crab cakes and something on the side (my old guy memory again) and mine was the grilled tuna with potatoes and veg, and a side of mac and cheese with bacon.  All prepared very well but the portion sizes were small so I ended up ordering 2 of them.

 

After we finished dinner we walked around the ship a little and then went to Liquid Lounge for tonight's show.  It was called Amor Cubano.  About 90% of it was in Spanish but if you don't speak the language it didn't matter.  You would still understand what was going on.  The singing and dancing was very good and the band was great. Again the costume changes in this show were unbelievable and seamless.

 

 

 

The entertainment on this ship was top notch.  We enjoyed every show we went to.

 

After the show was over there was an 80's dance party hosted by Schwarts on the Lido deck where he was teaching the Thriller dance to about 200 people.  Some were getting it and some were not.  It was pretty funny.  We watched that for a while and then went to the casino to donate some more money to the slot machines except this time we both won.  Not a usual thing.  I only ever put in what I am will to lose because we typically do.  This night we walked out with more than $500 between us so all in all a pretty good night.

 

It was getting late and since we had a few sea days ahead of us we went to bed with the intentions of sleeping in.  Easier said than done.

 

Tomorrow: Sea day #1

 

 

 

 

[JaniceB]

Loving your review and the description of your tours.

[markntara]

On 3/28/2019 at 8:24 PM, Cant wait until March said:

Vacation Day 4 - March 12 - La Romana

I liked the décor in the Havana Bar area.  Lots of comfortable seating and a good amount of space. 

This is the entrance to the Havana Bar.

 

Nice review so far,  thank you for taking time to review your cruise.   I'm aware certain elements of the Havana Area is only available to Havana Cabins, while other areas are made available to the entire ship during certain time frames.  

Can you advise when the Havana Bar is available to those not it Havana cabins?

Thank you in advance.  

[Jenjer]

The Inside Haven bar is available to everyone all the time. The Haven Pool area and bar, the area beyond the doors you see in the very back is for Haven guests only (12 and up)  until 7:00 pm. After 7:00 pm its open to everyone there is some discussion if its everyone 12 and up or if they allow kids under 12 in after 7 pm. 

[lele100]

On 3/28/2019 at 7:11 PM, smurfm69 said:

 

 We are going May 18th out of Miami.  There's time for you to change to our cruise.  Lol

Hi there we are going that same cruise.  Can't wait