Cruising is back on the HORIZON!!! (with pics) – 8/21/2021.

[Jamman54]

4 hours ago, bontx33 said:

Really enjoying your review as hopefully I will be going on Carnival Vista next Sat after getting negative test results on Thurs. Thanks Bonnie 

 

Thanks for reading! Enjoy your cruise on the Vista! 👍

 

3 hours ago, CoasterGuy said:

Thank you so much for your review. Enjoying all the pictures and that cruising is back. 

 

Thanks for following along! Yep, cruising is back! 😎

 

3 hours ago, LouChamp said:

Thank you so much for your report and especially the food pictures. I was born and raised in lower manhattan and like you watched the towers being built.  Then lived in battery park city across the street and moved on September 10 2001.  Our building which we now rent out our condo can be seen in your pictures. Love sailing from new york but actually from anyplace lol.  We are hoping to resume cruising next year as we are caring for my mom now who has dementia but enjoy sailing vicariously with you.

Good Health and love!

 

Thanks for reading and for sharing your story! 👍😎

[Princess Cruiser27]

Another great read Jeff.  Curacao is another Island I like to get back to. 

[Frank12]

Another great review. Thanks for sharing!

[emm126]

Well you are doing such a great job on your review, today I booked the Horizon again for December! same itinerary as yours. Was going to do the Legend from Baltimore, as it is an easy 4 hour drive from LI but now I will have a 3 hour flight to Miami- lol. Interested to see what you did in La Ramona as that is the only port I have not done yet. I have stayed a couple of times at a hotel there, so I am familiar with the area. Thank you!

[Jamman54]

17 hours ago, Princess Cruiser27 said:

Another great read Jeff.  Curacao is another Island I like to get back to. 

 

Thanks Barb!

 

 

14 hours ago, Frank12 said:

Another great review. Thanks for sharing!

 

Thanks for following along! More coming later today.🤗

 

14 hours ago, emm126 said:

Well you are doing such a great job on your review, today I booked the Horizon again for December! same itinerary as yours. Was going to do the Legend from Baltimore, as it is an easy 4 hour drive from LI but now I will have a 3 hour flight to Miami- lol. Interested to see what you did in La Ramona as that is the only port I have not done yet. I have stayed a couple of times at a hotel there, so I am familiar with the area. Thank you!

 

Thanks for reading. You will love the Horizon and the Southern Caribbean. I'll be starting the La Romana segment later today. 😎

[helene109]

Highlight of my day! Love all the pictures!!

[Jamman54]

4 hours ago, helene109 said:

Highlight of my day! Love all the pictures!!

Thanks for reading! 

[Jamman54]

Day # 6 – La Romana, DR (11:30am – 6pm) - 8/26/21

 

We were up at 7am. The seas were a little choppy and it was partly cloudy as the Carnival Horizon sailed north towards La Romana, DR. Sorry, we forgot to grab the Fun Times today. We do not have an excursion booked today, but instead we will just leave the ship and explore the port area for a little while.

 

We hung out in the cabin until around 9:30 when we decided to grab some breakfast down at the Ocean Plaza. When we got there, they were doing some sort of trivia there……

 

 

Here is the Ocean Plaza breakfast buffet…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Patti peeked out at the starboard side lanai. There was no one out there…..

 

 

 

We went up to the Lido to hang out for a while. The ship’s photographer caught this picture of Patti out on deck….

 

 

Soon we were approaching La Romana…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

Edited September 13, 2021 by Jamman54

[Jamman54]

Once we got close, the Captain spun the Horizon around so that we could back into the pier…..

 

 

 

 

We are now backing into our berth at the pier…..

 

 

 

 

The dock workers and store employees are waiting for us to dock…..

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued….

[Jamman54]

Here are some long range views of the port area as we back in…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[CruiserJul]

I always enjoy your reviews! I am excited to be sailing on the Sunrise soon!

 

Looking at your breakfast pics, I am always curious who eats cold cuts for breakfast...😃

[Jamman54]

We are almost there…..

 

 

 

The dock workers tie us up to the pier…..

 

 

 

 

 

Around noon we left the ship…..

 

 

Port of La Romana sign…..

 

 

Sugar Breeze Cruise Terminal sign…..

 

 

The band welcomes everyone to La Romana and invites you to play the drums…..

 

 

Here is the La Romana Cruise Terminal sign just outside the terminal entrance…..

 

 

 

To be continued…….

[cruisingbajan]

On 9/3/2021 at 2:44 PM, Jamman54 said:

Ahoy, Cruise Critic family! My lovely wife Patti and I have just returned from our first post shutdown cruise on the beautiful Carnival Horizon. This was an 8 day cruise to the Southern Caribbean from Miami with port stops in Aruba, Curacao, La Romana, and Amber Cove. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 1 year, 11 months, and 25 days, (but who’s counting?), since we last sailed on a B2B on the Carnival Sunrise. This was our longest break between cruises since 1995 when we took 3 years off to have our two sons.

 

We were originally not supposed to sail until October when we head back out to Long Beach to sail on the Miracle and Panorama, but we received a casino offer that we just couldn’t refuse, so we booked the Horizon. Air fares were through the roof, with many last minute cancellations, so we decided that we would drive down to Miami and back.

 

I still have a multitude of behind the scenes prep work to do, but I have enough done to get this party started. For those that are wondering, our go to camera is the Canon PowerShot XS720 HS, and our water camera is the Fuji FinePix XP60.

 

We are so excited to be doing our reviews again. This will be our first cruise on a Vista Class ship, so Patti is so happy to be able to photograph something a little different than our previous cruises. Our format will remain the same as our past reviews, with a day by day account of all the fun. As always, there will be many, many pictures with plenty of explanations and details. We strive to make you feel that you are cruising right along with us. So, grab yourself a DOD, hop on board with us, and join the fun!

 

T-Minus 3 Days -  8/18/21 - Off we go!!!

 

Well, not quite.  A couple of weeks before the cruise we received an email from Carnival that we would have to be tested for Covid-19 before we could board the ship. Since our cruise leaves on a Saturday, they said we could be tested anytime starting the Wednesday before. Since we’re both vaccinated we were allowed to get the rapid antigen test.

 

We immediately booked appointments at a fairly close CVS for Wednesday the 18^th. That’s today, so we drove over to CVS and got our tests. When we were done they told us that they were a little backed up so it would be about 3 hours before we got our results, which they would text and email to us.

 

Those 3 hours were the most tense and stressful hours of our journey. We were all packed and the car loaded up for the trip down to Florida. What if we tested positive? What is our contingency plan? Should we even have a contingency plan?  Finally, at 5pm, almost exactly 3 hours since we were tested, the results were revealed….

 

 

             

We were both negative! A giant weight had been lifted from our shoulders, and now we could relax. I could now take my nap before beginning our drive.

 

Since we had the time, we would take two days to drive down to Miami. When we drive down to Florida, we like to leave at night to avoid the morning rush hour traffic in Baltimore and Washington. It is such an easy drive when there is very little traffic on the roads. I just set the cruise control to 79 mph and listen to tunes all night long. We left at 11pm, and of course Ryan took the obligatory departure picture......

 

 

To be continued…..

 

Fantastic!! Another Jamman review👍. I am a bit late to the party it seems but am looking forward to catching up.

[Jamman54]

On 9/13/2021 at 4:58 PM, CruiserJul said:

I always enjoy your reviews! I am excited to be sailing on the Sunrise soon!

 

Looking at your breakfast pics, I am always curious who eats cold cuts for breakfast...😃

 

Thanks for reading! Enjoy the Sunrise. We had two great cruises on her. 

 

2 hours ago, Bajan Keith said:

 

Fantastic!! Another Jamman review👍. I am a bit late to the party it seems but am looking forward to catching up.

 

Always great to have you along for the ride! 

[Jamman54]

Patti and I explore the small terminal area……

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Jackson is in the house!

 

 

 

I was feeling a little thirsty, so I found this little Husband Day Care where I enjoyed a few of the local beers…..

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Patti continues to explore the terminal area. Here is a map…..

 

 

People are enjoying the Fish Spa…..

 

 

 

Photo ops with parrots or monkeys were available…..

 

 

 

 

Here are some views of the terminal area…..

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Here are some more views of the Sugar Breeze Cruise Terminal…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patti collects me and we head back to the ship…..

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

We are back on board the Horizon around 1:30pm. We grab a bite to eat and head over to the Red Frog Rum Bar for a couple of drinks…..

 

 

We decide to head back to the cabin to relax before sail away, but first walk around the open decks enjoying the sights. Here’s a view looking down at the Havana area on Deck 5. We will have a Havana cabin when we sail on the Panorama in October…..

 

 

Here are some views of La Romana from the upper decks…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

We watched the sail away from our balcony. The Cruise Terminal is just about empty…..

 

 

The last passengers are making their way aboard the ship…..

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

Right at 6 pm, the Captain takes us back out to sea…..

 

 

What was really cool was that the band and a lot of the employees came down to the pier to wave goodbye to us…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are sailing away from La Romana…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be continued…..

[Jamman54]

At 7pm we made our way to the Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse for dinner…..

 

 

 

The Chefs are hard at work…..

 

 

Our bread plates……

 

 

This was the amuse bouche. Don’t remember what it was but it was good…..

 

 

For our starters we both had the shrimp cocktail and a Caesar salad…..

 

 

 

Here we are at the Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse…..

 

 

 

For our mains, Patti had the lobster and a baked potato…..

 

 

I had the spice rubbed ribeye and the wasabi mashed potatoes…..

 

 

For our desserts Patti had the fruit plate and I had the cheesecake which was delicious…..

 

 

 

After dinner we took a walk around the ship. Patti decided to head back to the cabin to read, while I went to the casino to play a little blackjack. After a couple of hours I had lost a little bit, but Indra kept the drinks coming! I stopped at the Skybox Sports Bar for a couple drinks with Lucian before calling it a night. Here is tonight’s towel creature…..

 

 

Coming up next: Our return to Amber Cove!

[sfaaa]

Great review especially the pictures. I am loving' it.

[lennythenose]

On 9/13/2021 at 3:58 PM, CruiserJul said:Looking at your breakfast pics, I am always curious who eats cold cuts for breakfast...😃

I think it’s a European thing. The first time I remember seeing it was at the breakfast buffet in Moscow when we were in Russia to adopt our sons. 

[luvcruzing]

Patti: Beautiful dress. Looks great on you. 🙂

[Princess Cruiser27]

Another great read and food photos. Yep, there's times i don't do shore tours, I just walk around the shops in port. BTW Jeff, I didn't make it to a Patriots game this year...