Horizon Review - 6 Day (with pictures) - 01/19 to 01/25 by mlshum

marshhawk · February 3, 2020

11 hours ago, mlshum said:

Thank you! Are you doing the 6 or 8 day itinerary? I know you’ll have a fantastic cruise either way!

We are doing the 8 day-ABC islands.

Lem_On_Ade · February 3, 2020

Hi Michelle! WV girl here too! I was actually in Cozumel the same day you were, but on NCL Escape. This was our first time not sailing on Carnival and when I saw the Horizon in port I was wishing I was on there with you! Hope you had a great cruise. Like you, I am on CC year round and already looking for my next one 🙂

mlshum · February 3, 2020

3 hours ago, fyree39 said:

J8

Great review! This looks like Dr. John revisited.

Thanks and I’m so glad you’re reading along! I’m not familiar with Dr. John but this guy could certainly play.

3 hours ago, Lem_On_Ade said:

Hi Michelle! WV girl here too! I was actually in Cozumel the same day you were, but on NCL Escape. This was our first time not sailing on Carnival and when I saw the Horizon in port I was wishing I was on there with you! Hope you had a great cruise. Like you, I am on CC year round and already looking for my next one 🙂

Hi, there! We sound like kindred spirits! Lol. We are down in the very southern tip of the state just a few miles from the VA border in Princeton. Where are you located?

I’m planning to upload my section on Cozumel later this evening. It’s one of my favorite ports and I’ve always had the absolute best shore excursions there. What did you do while you were there?

Lem_On_Ade · February 3, 2020

4 hours ago, mlshum said:

Hi, there! We sound like kindred spirits! Lol. We are down in the very southern tip of the state just a few miles from the VA border in Princeton. Where are you located?

I’m planning to upload my section on Cozumel later this evening. It’s one of my favorite ports and I’ve always had the absolute best shore excursions there. What did you do while you were there?

We’re from Logan. We did a private Jeep tour of the eastern side of the island. It was a great day, Cozumel is one of my favorites too.

mlshum · February 3, 2020

12 minutes ago, Lem_On_Ade said:

We’re from Logan. We did a private Jeep tour of the eastern side of the island. It was a great day, Cozumel is one of my favorites too.

No way! I grew up in Madison! I've definitely been to Logan many times.

In the past, we have run the "Amazing Cozumel Race" and learned to sail an America's Cup sailboat in Cozumel. Both were amazing! I'm posting my Cozumel day later tonight if you want to see some pictures of what we did this time. I don't want to give away anything. This one was kind of a "redemption" event for me! LOL

Jamesatgsu · February 3, 2020

We'll be going in August, so I'm very much looking forward to it, though disappointed I wasn't able to book a Havana Room (doing a Spa room instead). We've primarily been on Fantasy class ships since we took the Dream (it will also be the first since then without any of our kids), so really looking forward to something new.

Do you know how much the IMAX was? I saw some pricing, but that was from when it first sailed, so the information may be dated. Mostly curious if they still offer an unlimited viewing option.

jimbo5544 · February 3, 2020

Great review and pice, love the Horizon.

Hooked2 · February 3, 2020

Love your review and all of your pic!! Toes are super cute too! Can you explain the ducks? It looks like an adorable thing too, I have not head of this. Thank-You!

On 2/1/2020 at 11:13 AM, mlshum said:

I know what you mean! It’s such a silly thing but I really enjoy it.

Thank you so much for reading along! I really appreciate it! I hope to have Jamaica up later this evening.

mlshum · February 4, 2020

2 hours ago, Jamesatgsu said:

We'll be going in August, so I'm very much looking forward to it, though disappointed I wasn't able to book a Havana Room (doing a Spa room instead). We've primarily been on Fantasy class ships since we took the Dream (it will also be the first since then without any of our kids), so really looking forward to something new.

Do you know how much the IMAX was? I saw some pricing, but that was from when it first sailed, so the information may be dated. Mostly curious if they still offer an unlimited viewing option.

That sounds fantastic and I hope you have a wonderful time! I didn't go to the spa but I hear it is wonderful. I didn't go to the IMAX either so, unfortunately, I don't know the pricing. I would guess if you posted a question here on CC someone would know the answer. Thanks so much for reading along!

mlshum · February 4, 2020

2 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

Great review and pice, love the Horizon.

Thank you so much for reading my review!

2 hours ago, Hooked2 said:

Love your review and all of your pic!! Toes are super cute too! Can you explain the ducks? It looks like an adorable thing too, I have not head of this. Thank-You!

Thank you so much and thanks for reading! I'm glad you liked my toes. LOL When I saw the anchors I had to have them.

The duck thing was started by a little girl from Ohio a couple of years ago. I believe her name is Abby. She took some rubber ducks on a cruise to hide and it was so much fun it just caught on from there. They're called "cruising ducks" and are very similar to the painted "friendship rocks" that were really popular a couple of years ago. There are several Facebook groups that track the cruising ducks. Basically, people take them on a cruise and hid them. They usually have a tag that gives the persons name and where they're from. The person who finds the duck can either keep it or rehide it. It's great if they will post a picture on one of the Facebook groups when they are found but I don't think that happens that often. None of mine ever showed up on Facebook. You can't hide them in pools, hot tubs or stores...but pretty much any other public place out of the way. Some of the crew collect them as well. You can't see if from the photo in this review but the piano player had one on his piano. Some people take a lot, some not so many. I took one for each day. I found two but left the second one there so someone else could find it and I brought the first one home. It's a lot of fun! If you do a search or look on Facebook, you'll find lots of information.

mlshum · February 4, 2020

Thursday, January 23rd – Cozumel

Cozumel has always been, and remains to be, one of my favorite ports. I have always had great shore excursions at Cozumel and this trip would be no exception.

We didn’t dock until 10am so there was no hurry on this day. We got up and had a leisurely breakfast on the Lido deck, then went to the Lanai area to watch while we docked. Our shore excursion was not scheduled until noon, but we wanted to go ahead into port before our excursion. We docked promptly at 10 and it didn’t take us long to head into town. We wandered around town for a while and bought a couple of things. Around noon, we met Sergio at the port area for “Discover Scuba”.

Hanging out on the Lanai while the ship was docking.

We docked beside the Legend.

And we headed into town!

We finally settled into the port area to wait for our meeting with our shore excursion at noon.

If you read my review of our trip on Carnival Fascination last year, you know that I had a very bad experience in St. Thomas attempting to scuba dive. Ron had dived before in Grand Cayman and again last year in St. Thomas. I really wanted to dive but I was very nervous. We read about this excursion and the description said that you walked into the water, rather than being pushed off a boat like I was last year. Walking in sounded doable to me so we booked the excursion.

As I said, we were met in the dock area by Sergio. There were six of us who would be diving. We were taken to Sand Dollar Sports and Sergio took us to a classroom where he began the lesson. He went over all of the skills that we would be required to do and showed us the equipment. The skills included clearing your mask, clearing your regulator and “popping” your ears to equalize the pressure as you descended. I was familiar with these things from last year but was still just a little terrified. Sergio announced that there would be three students to one instructor. Our instructor was to be Raphael.

We went outside to be suited up in our scuba gear. Once we had on our gear, we carried our flippers and walked into the water. The water was choppy that day, although nothing like the day before. Once we were in the water, Raphael instructed us to put on our flippers and he took us under water one by one to do our skills check. Ron said I had a look of terror on my face. I didn’t realize it. I was just really concentrating to make sure I could make this happen this time.

It was finally my turn to do the skills check. I got through the check with no problem at all. I was breathing through the regulator and that wasn’t hard, so it was time to go down. Raphael told us to stay close, but he actually decided to swim with me. He took my hand and showed me where to hold onto his vest when we started out. He asked me multiple times if I was OK. I felt very comforted that he was helping me so much.

As the dive continued, I began to relax and really enjoy it. There were a couple of underwater sculptures, which were really interesting. The coral was beautiful. We even saw an eel among the coral! I was loving this! I kept wondering if at some point I was going to lose my nerve, but I kept going and Raphael stayed with me the whole time. And just like that, it was over. I had completely lost track of time and didn’t realize that 30 – 45 minutes had passed. It made me feel so good that I had actually completed the dive. I felt so much better about myself! Now I want to go again!

We purchased copies of the pictures they had taken while we were diving, and I went to the dive shop to buy a t-shirt. This was the one t-shirt I really, really wanted! (and I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of the shirt!)

Here's a picture of our "getting ready to dive" picture.....

...and here's a picture of our "25 feet under" picture with my hair standing straight up! LOL

Since we had gotten off the ship fairly early, we were ready to head back after we finished our dive. We dropped off things in our room and headed up to Blue Iguana for lunch, then grabbed some key lime pie for dessert. Since we were still in our bathing suits, we decided it was the perfect time to try out the water slides. I went first and did the inner tube slide twice, then the body slide. While I liked the inner tube slide best, they were both fun. Ron took a couple of turns himself. By that time, it was time to go get ready for dinner. Time flies when you’re on a cruise!

This was on our way back to the ship after diving. I was so excited that I had done it this time!!!!!

It isn't just for kids!

The Dreamscape....

For dinner we both had veal parmesan. This is one of my favorite Carnival meals. Ron had apple pie for dessert, and I had orange sherbet.

...and we stopped for another picture.

A new game was being introduced that night in the Liquid Lounge. It was a “Deal or No Deal” game based on the old TV show. This was supposed to be the very first time it was being played on any Carnival ship although it was my understanding that it would be coming to other ships in the fleet later. If you wanted to play, you bought a card for $40. This gave you several chances to win. You could buy a single chance for $25. We opted to just watch.

The computer system randomly selected a gentleman from the audience to play on stage. Just like on the TV show, he was presented with a board that showed 20 (I think) briefcases. He had to select one and was trying to win as much money as possible. He was supposed to open a certain number of briefcases and after that, the “banker” would call with an offer.

The contestant selected his briefcase as started opening briefcases. His first round was pretty unfortunate. The hope is that you will open the briefcases containing lower amounts early on and that you will have a higher or the highest ($1000) amount in your briefcase. The very first case he opened was $1000. After opening five cases, his offer was in the $70 range. He continued to the second round, where he opened four cases. That round went better, and his offer was in the $90 range. The next round he opened three cases, which also went well, and his offer was $122. When I used to watch the show at home, I always thought that when the offer topped $100, I would be ready to cash out. At the $122 offer, I thought he would cash out, but he opted to continue.

He continued to the end, had some more bad luck and finally wound up with $9. It was a fun game, but I wish he’d had better luck. Several audience members won various prizes (fun shop credit, Pixels gallery credit, etc.) based on their cards matching numbers on his board.

It was fun to watch but I was glad we hadn’t spent $40 to play! We tried to go to the comedy show but it was standing room only, so we weren’t able to get in. Instead, we went to the lobby to listen to the Emotions Trio and had an ice cream sundae from Cherry on Top. I had vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cup mix in and Nutella topping in a waffle bowl. It was delicious!

The "Emotions Trio" who also play in "Celestial Strings". They were fantastic!

Another Dreamscape pic!

And our towel animal for the night.

Up next......our final Sea Day.

Hooked2 · February 4, 2020

13 hours ago, mlshum said:

Thank you so much for reading my review!

Thank you so much and thanks for reading! I'm glad you liked my toes. LOL When I saw the anchors I had to have them.

The duck thing was started by a little girl from Ohio a couple of years ago. I believe her name is Abby. She took some rubber ducks on a cruise to hide and it was so much fun it just caught on from there. They're called "cruising ducks" and are very similar to the painted "friendship rocks" that were really popular a couple of years ago. There are several Facebook groups that track the cruising ducks. Basically, people take them on a cruise and hid them. They usually have a tag that gives the persons name and where they're from. The person who finds the duck can either keep it or rehide it. It's great if they will post a picture on one of the Facebook groups when they are found but I don't think that happens that often. None of mine ever showed up on Facebook. You can't hide them in pools, hot tubs or stores...but pretty much any other public place out of the way. Some of the crew collect them as well. You can't see if from the photo in this review but the piano player had one on his piano. Some people take a lot, some not so many. I took one for each day. I found two but left the second one there so someone else could find it and I brought the first one home. It's a lot of fun! If you do a search or look on Facebook, you'll find lots of information.

Thank you so much for the info!! Sounds so fun! I am going to hide the ducks too!!

MzOhioLady · February 4, 2020

Hello!! From One Michelle to Another. Thank You for doing this review. I'll be on the Horizon 6 Night Caribbean Cruise as well in Early October. Looking at your pictures is making me anxious and it seems like time is moving super slow. Not trying to rush the year but geez lets get the winter over with. LOL

jennybeek · February 4, 2020

On 2/1/2020 at 12:09 PM, mlshum said:

Thank you so much! I love doing this! It’s almost like it makes the experience last a little bit longer. Thanks for reading!

I’m sorry to say that I didn’t. Before we sailed, I found some really good videos on YouTube that had both the menus and pictures of a lot of the dishes. I think I searched “Carnival Horizon Dining” but I’m not completely sure. Check out YouTube and I’m sure you’ll find some great info. Ron laughed at me because I was on the elliptical while I was reading about all this great food. 🤣

I do have copies of all the Fun Times with the exception of the last sea day. I was having trouble getting them so scan because they are larger than my scanner. I could take pictures if you would like to see them but it will take 4-6 pictures per sheet. I’m happy to do that if you’d like to see those and if you think everyone wouldn’t mind all of the extra pics.

I am really enjoying it. My hubby and I are doing this itinerary for our 25th wedding anniversary in June. I only asked about the menus because we are considering some specialty restaurants this time around. I will check out you tube. Thanks for the tip.

If others want the fun times that would be great but you do not have to on my account. :)

Looking forward to rest of your trip report.

jennybeek · February 4, 2020

On 2/1/2020 at 6:42 PM, mlshum said:

Gizelle instructed us to put on water shoes. You could purchase them if you didn’t have some with you. They were very specific and were checking to be certain that everyone who was climbing the falls did have water shoes. They also did not allow you to take loose items up the falls. Again, Ron was able to take the Go Pro as long as it was on the wrist attachment.

When we arrived at the falls, we were ushered through the entrance where we met our guide, Marvin. He was very high energy and was a lot of fun. We also had a videographer with us. He was also a lot of fun and we did a lot of yelling and laughing. I can’t remember his name. Although I’m sure the video turned out very well, we didn’t buy one at $40.

We went down a staircase to the beach where our group assembled. The falls empty into the sea right at the beach. Marvin gave us a few instructions and we started our climb. The first part of the climb was done hand in hand. We climbed a short distance and then stopped for some pictures and to actually sit under the falls with the water falling on this. We alternated between climbing and stopping. One time we stopped and had the opportunity to fall backwards into a deep pool. At another stop we could slide down the rocks, which formed a natural slide. The whole thing was SO MUCH FUN! This is one of my favorite shore excursions yet! The entire climb took about 45 minutes. When we reached the top of the falls, Gizelle met us and took us back to our bus. The final stop was to be at Bamboo Beach Club.

)This is the only photo that I could get to upload. We have several short videos but I can't get the site to accept those. Sorry!)

Love the Dunns River Falls photo. Brings back a lot of fun memories. We did this on our honeymoon many years ago.We did an all inclusive in Montego Bay but did excursions throughout the island. This port was one of the reasons my hubby picked the itinerary he did for our trip.

mlshum · February 4, 2020

4 hours ago, jennybeek said:

I am really enjoying it. My hubby and I are doing this itinerary for our 25th wedding anniversary in June. I only asked about the menus because we are considering some specialty restaurants this time around. I will check out you tube. Thanks for the tip.

If others want the fun times that would be great but you do not have to on my account. :)

Looking forward to rest of your trip report.

Thank you! I didn't go to any of the specialty restaurants other than for lunch so I'm afraid I don't have much information about those either. I am going to upload the Fun Times at the end of the cruise description. I had pretty much decided that I wanted to do it anyway! LOL I'm glad to know that you will be interested in seeing them. I looked multiple times for those before my cruise so I decided to add these.

mlshum · February 4, 2020

6 hours ago, MzOhioLady said:

Hello!! From One Michelle to Another. Thank You for doing this review. I'll be on the Horizon 6 Night Caribbean Cruise as well in Early October. Looking at your pictures is making me anxious and it seems like time is moving super slow. Not trying to rush the year but geez lets get the winter over with. LOL

Hello and thanks so much for reading along! I totally understand what you mean about wanting the time to go by quickly. I'm already looking forward to next year's cruise! I hope you have as great a cruise as we did. We loved Horizon!

mlshum · February 4, 2020

Friday, January 24th – Sea Day

Is it possible that we are actually to our last day of the cruise?!?!? Where did the time go?!?

We got up and went up for breakfast. I decided to do something I’m not sure I have ever done and eat pizza for breakfast. I’m not typically a big breakfast eater anyway and I just wanted some pizza!

We purposefully headed to the Sky Ride as early as possible that morning. The line was really short and we only had to wait about 15 minutes each time. We rode it twice and then did the ropes course. After that, we played a round of mini golf. I put out the last duck on in the mini golf area. This was a day of “last time I can do this until next year”. It hid the last duck, ate at Guy’s Burgers the last time, rode the Sky Ride the last time, played trivia the last time…..you get the idea.

So here's the Sky Ride....

….and the ropes course.

IMG_0373.jpg.003cb28d6ef54324cbd7e42f33b3fcd8.jpg

Ron couldn't resist taking the Go Pro down the water slide.

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The Dreamscape was displaying drawings that had been done by kids at St. Jude's.

Here's the last duck of the cruise....

...and a really excellent photo of my finger (oops!)….

…..that's much better!

We played trivia again that afternoon. One of the games was a “which came first in history” type of game. We only missed one question. We would have won another solid gold plastic ship on a stick but decided to give it to the second place team since we already had one. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the Lanai reading. It was very relaxing. I love looking out and seeing nothing but water! The water was as calm and beautiful as I’ve ever seen it and the temperatures were perfect.

When we finished reading, we went to Pixels to order pictures. One of the really neat things you can do on the HUB app now is preview your pictures as they are taken. I love this feature! We decided to go up to Pixels however, because you can make them bigger on the tablets that are available there. They are much easier to see that way. You order the photos right on the tablet or in the app and they are ready within an hour or so.

The Lanai was NEVER crowded!

It was time for our last dinner. Although it wasn’t elegant night, prime rib was on the menu so we both chose that as our entrée. I had the chocolate melting cake one last time. Right after dinner we headed out to catch the comedy show. This time we were able to get in and get a seat. As usual, it was a lot of fun. We headed to the Ocean Plaza bar on Deck 5 to get our free fruity slushies before heading back to our room to begin packing.

Let me stop here and say that during the whole week, the bar at Ocean Plaza was never crowded. This was our go-to stop for our Diet Pepsi refills most of the time during the week.

The last night is always the "Leaving On a Funship" song by the singing and dancing wait staff. They also carried flaming Baked Alaska, which was on the menu for the evening.

And these are my last two shots of the Dreamscape.

It was time to go pack. The bags had to be outside the rooms by 11pm. This part is always kind of sad for me. It’s like at this point vacation was over. After packing we were both tired and decided to read a little before bed. The next day it was time to go back to reality.

Tomorrow.....Debarkation

mlshum · February 5, 2020

Saturday, January 25th – Debarkation

It didn’t seem possible but the inevitable happened and vacation was over. It was a wonderful vacation! We enjoyed every minute of it! We got up, showered and went to the Lido deck for one last breakfast. One interesting thing did happen that hasn’t happened before. One of the wait staff on the Lido deck had brought a guitar and he and several others sang the “Leaving on a Fun Ship” song. I thought that was a nice touch! I’m pretty sure they just did it on their own and they did a good job.

After breakfast, we decided to wait in the Liquid Lounge. We had heard Mike, the cruise director, say that you could wait for debarkation there if you wanted. It seemed like a good idea. It turned out to be the right choice because as zones were being called, they were announced there first, before the announcement over the PA system, so we had a few extra minutes. Debarkation was fast and easy. In this case, they had facial recognition technology that really improved the flow at customs. Instead of the typical lines where you show your passport, you go to an agent first and they check you through using facial recognition. It went really quickly. We got our bags and headed out to catch our shuttle to the airport.

If you have the chance to wait in the Liquid Lounge (below), take it! It's less crowded, closer to the doors and faster overall.

It is about a 30 – 45 minute ride via the Carnival shuttle service to the Ft. Lauderdale airport. It was an uneventful trip. We were in the first drop off at the airport. Allegiant didn’t allow anyone to check in more than two hours before their boarding time so we had about a 45 minute wait before we could check in. We found a place to land for a little while and caught up on our email and social media. After that, it was time to check in and go through security. Again, I had a pat down. I have no idea what caused that to occur but there doesn’t appear to be much I can do about it except cooperate. LOL

Here's our traditional "now our cruise is over and we're pouting" picture.

We ate a snack while we were waiting. We really didn’t have to wait long at all. We boarded our flight just a little after one and after an uneventful two-hour flight, we were back on the ground in Concord, NC. One of the advantages of flying in and out of a small airport is the ease of retrieving your luggage. This didn’t take long at all and we were on our way home.

Waiting area in the Ft. Lauderdale airport.

Random thought while I waited....I liked this pink plane with a flamingo on the tail....no idea why! LOL

Florida falls away behind us as we head back to winter.

So, there it is! Our trip in a nutshell. This was the best cruise yet. I know I saw that every year, but every year I mean it.

Thank you for reading along with me. I enjoy writing the review because it gives me an opportunity to enjoy the experience just a little bit longer. See you next year!!!

Joe817 · February 6, 2020

Loved your review and writing style! Thank you for taking us along! 👍

mlshum · February 6, 2020

14 minutes ago, Joe817 said:

Loved your review and writing style! Thank you for taking us along! 👍

Thank you so much for taking the time to read it!

tradewinds traveler · February 6, 2020

Thank you so much for your review. It was so great for you to share with us!

mlshum · February 6, 2020

Here are the Fun Times, in order by day. Unfortunately, I didn't make it home with the last Sea Day but I do have everything else. These would not fit on the bed of my scanner so I had to photograph them. I hope you can read them!

Day 1 - Embarkation