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l2f

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About Me

  • Interests
    Cruising, Travel, Camping
  • Favorite Cruise Line(s)
    Carnival
  • Favorite Cruise Destination Or Port of Call
    Carribean

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  1. Not to get into the checked bag size luggage being carried on debate, but wondered due to the shuttle bus to the terminal if you are required to hand over your check bag to the porters. Or if you can still lug it (on the shuttle) if you choose.
  2. We were on Deck 7 as well. I saw the forward cabins every mail slot had FunTimes. I asked our steward and he said he only provided if requested. But just asking that question, he gave us a FunTimes every day. I have PDF for all the FunTimes. I can email them to you if you would like to include the missing ones. I made this offer in my review. GREAT REVIEW!!!
  3. Don't want to high jack your great review. We were at the Hilton (and on the Horizon) as well. We were told the electric was out on the entire block. So, 1 elevator due to back up generator.
  4. On our April 29 Horizon cruise, we were on Deck 7 AFT, Portside. Forward every mailbox got a Funtimes. MID & AFT none. For our section, if you asked the steward put them in you cabin.
  5. On our recent April 29 Horizon cruise, about half our section needed paper menus. And the whole cruise, the wait team only had 6 menus. They had to be passed to several tables every night.
  6. Sorry. We didn't use/attend either of these venues.
  7. Yes. I was referring to the Tides Pool Area. To our group the area seemed small and was magnified by chair hogs in full force. One morning I was up before sunrise and went to take sunrise pictures. I was in the Tides Pool area and some chairs already had towels on them before the sun was up. We did see an employee walk thru and place stickers on chairs with belongings but no people. But only observed this once ourselves. Woodwind is great.
  8. Entertainment Production Shows – the shows playing this week were: Soulbound, Vintage Pop, Amor Cubano, Celestial Strings, and The World Works Here. We didn’t attend any of the production shows this cruise. Music - A few years back we really got into listening to the live band. The spring of 2014 on the Pride, we discovered we really enjoyed listening to the live band. A band called Hi Lux was on the Pride and they were really good. Every cruise since 2014 we have gotten lucky and the bands have been really good. Well until this one. The violist were good, but the band and the duo singers weren’t for us. We understand these bands (or it used to be this way we heard) don’t work together forever. Individual members contracts end, and a new member joins the band. The band has to get into sync with new member. The piano bar seemed off as well. The piano player was good, but really didn’t try to get the crown into it the night we went. Comedy Shows - We did go to most of the adult comedy shows. We saw John Knight, Arvin Mitchell, Ronnie Bullard, and Carl Faulkenberry. All were pretty funny. Casino - We aren’t big gamblers. Never any tables games. Usually we spend a little on slots. The casino never seemed overly busy the times we walked thru. The smoke wasn’t as bad as some cruises, but noticeable. Not to start a smoking/non-smoking debate, just an observation. Bingo – we did one sessions of bingo. The last bingo of the cruise for the $5,000 pot. No luck, again. Cruise Director The CD was Cookie. Not may announcements. Didn’t see him around the ship all week in the areas we were using. Likewise he wasn’t at the gangway greeting us upon returning to the ship like some CDs. Didn’t have an option one way or the other. Ports Aruba – Grabbed a taxi ($15 one way for the 4 of us) and went to Eagle Beach. Rented chairs/umbrella $15 per chair. Great day. Bonaire – All 4 planned a snorkel trip with Woodwind. But 2 didn’t go. The two that did go had a great time. One of best snorkeling excursions we have done. Curacao – Hired Around Curacao Tours for a private driver for the day. We have used them in the past and Andy the owner is great. We had an authentic lunch and hung out at Playa Kenepa Beach for the day. Disembarkation Our group met on Lido near omelet station for our last breakfast. We all had late afternoon flights, and knew the airlines won’t let us thru the security checkpoint until 3-4 hours prior to our flights. We got out of the cabins early and hung out in Ocean Plaza until last call, which was around 9:15-9:30. Customs went really quick. It was raining and we were flying from different airports so had to say our goodbyes quickly after security but before standing in the rain. Next is probably the worse part of our trip. We had reservations with SAS Shuttle from POM to FLL. Spoke to Steve and went to the parking garage across the street as instructed. There were others also waiting there for SAS. We all waited over 2 hours. Steve wouldn’t answer his phone. If he did the reply was sitting in traffic not sure when the drivers will get there. However we saw many other shuttle companies. Eventually another company calls to pick us up. Now this is unconfirmed, but several people told us SAS over committed to the F1 race in Miami. If Steve was going to re-book us to another company, this should have been done much sooner than after 2 hours of waiting in the rain. When the sub-contracted company showed up, the van was over full. 3 different groups that were waiting for SAS got picked up by this sub-contractor. The rear two seats… each had one passenger with one butt check on the seat and the other hanging off. We have used SAS in the past with no issues, but the lack of communication this trip and over 2 hour wait, we will never use them again. Airport Our flight had 3 delays. We all made it home after a long day of sitting in airports and long drives once landing at our destinations. We all got home close to midnight. A couple of final thoughts Weather was great. Horizon rear pool / lounge chair area is too small. Entertainment for us was a bit lacking this sailing. The platinum gift was a fannypack. We did save the FunTimes. Reply with your email if you want a copy. All the crew we encountered were smiling and working hard. We had another great cruise and looking forward to planning the next one.
  9. Embarkation We are excited. Our first time on Horizon. We had check in time of 10:00 – 10:30. Our friends had 11:00 – 11:30. We checked out and left the hotel approx. 10:45 (give/take a few minutes.) We arrived at terminal, went right thru security, and directed right on the ship. Cabins hall doors were shut with no access to cabin until 1:30PM signs posted. We carried on all of our luggage. We dropped off in the cabin and left. Went and knocked eMuster out. Then had lunch at Ji Ji. After lunch we went back to the cabin approx. 1:30PM and unpacked. Vacation has officially begun. Cabin We had a Deck 7 Aft cabin portside. Friends had Deck 8 Mid Ship starboard side. Our Sign & Sail cards were waiting in the cabin mailbox when we returned at 1:30PM to unpack. Cabin Steward stopped by as we arrived at our cabin. Introduced himself. His name was Pedro. We chatted a moment and he asked us if we wanted our cabin serviced AM or PM. Also if we needed anything. Requested ice twice a day. Cabin Steward did a great job all week. Probably top 2 or 3 Cabin Steward we ever had on any cruise. Food Food is so subjective. For us… Breakfast – We usually have all breakfast meals in the MDR. But for this cruise, we had all breakfast on Lido. Usually omelet station, but did hit Blue Iguana few times. Bacon police were on duty this sailing. Only available every other day. We didn’t go to Sea Day Brunch any this cruise. We aren’t fans. Not so much the menu as it is the 8:30 opening time. At home, we both (as well as our friends we were cruising with) get up early and eat breakfast by 6:00AM. It is hard to wait until 8:30AM, which really becomes 9:00AM by the time you actually get food. Lunch – We ate at Lido, Guys, Blue Iguana, Pig & Anchor, Pizza, deli, and Ji Ji. Ji Ji was good but didn’t like we had to pick from a pre set menu. Miss Mongolian Wok. All in all everything we ate for lunch was good. Dinner – Always in the MDR. We had the assigned, early dining in the Reflections Forward Dining Room. Our wait team was very slow. We were the only table of 4 in the section. Then a few 8-10 tops. The section next to us were getting food in under 15 minutes from ordering. We were in the 1 hour range. In comparing it appeared our team took all orders, then retrieved all the food. The other section the smaller tables, the team retrieved their orders first. Definitely noticed smaller portions sizes, which we have no problem with. As well as changes. One very disappointing item. We always get the Italian Sausage Linguini. 3 of the 4 at the table got this dish. Literally had 3 slices of sausage. I mean 3 quarter round, maybe 1/8” thick pieces. In the past you would get an entire link or more. And short on the sauce as well. Basically ate linguini noodles that night. Funny thing is they had Italian sausage on lido breakfast almost daily. The other noticeable let down was Prime Rib night. Again 3 of the 4 at the table, and all had shoe leather tough prime rib. We always found something to eat and by no means went hungry.
  10. This is be a short (no photos) review of the April 29, 2023, 8 Day, Horizon Sailing out of Miami. Itinerary: Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. This sailing had 4 sea days. This was our experience and opinions of this cruise. This was our thirteenth cruise (all on Carnival) and 6th time sailing from Miami. Pre-Pre Cruise Our last cruise was the Spring of 2019. Like so many, we had to cancel our cruise for 2020 and 2021. Both were this same itinerary. We booked our airfare in late 2022. In early February 2023 airlines changed the flight times and the new times just didn’t work. Only way to make work was to switch from flying into Miami to flying into Fort Lauderdale, and taking a ground transportation to Miami Hilton downtown. The choice was wake up around 3:00 AM to go to airport or lose some time and not arrive in Miami until about 4:30 PM. Pre-Cruise We flew to Florida the day before our cruise departed. Since our second cruise, we have always flown in the day before. We got into FLL after 3:00 PM, which apparently is the cut off for shuttles to run to Miami. So we hired an Uber. $87.50 with tip. Hotel The hotel this trip was Downtown Miami Hilton on 1601 Biscayne Blvd. We have stayed at Hilton’ before. Usually one of our first few choices for a hotel. Although we got 2 price drops in April 2023, the price was probably the highest we ever paid for a pre-cruise hotel. We had several issues this visit. One was getting special requested items to the room. Saturday morning, apparently there were electrical issues on the entire block. There was only 1 elevator working on generator power. Due to no room service, Hotel was offering breakfast buffet free. Evening in Miami After checking in, we dropped off bags off, met our friends (their flight got in about 4 hours earlier than ours) and went to dinner.
  11. Hello, Does anyone have the movies that are showing for April? Also if a sail date starts in April but ends in May, will the movies changes for the May portion of the sailing? Thx L2F
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