Spaniel Lover

One of the biggest disappointments of our cruise on the Carnival Vista was the absolutely horrible Internet service aboard. Having been on 42 cruises, I know not to expect the same kind of high-speed Internet service on a cruise ship as we have come to expect at home. But the Internet service on Carnival Vista wasn't just slow, it was incredibly slow. Remember the days of dial-up 28k modems? It was even slower than that, and here's the proof...

The results of an Internet speed test performed on Carnival Vista.

By the way, "Fast" is the name of the site that performed the test.

It was NOT a summary of the results!

Yes, the Carnival Vista really did have Internet speeds of 20 Kbps during much of the cruise. Not 20 meg, 20 K... and that's absolutely HORRIBLE, even for a cruise ship. This surprised me. I expected better from Carnival's newest ship. I've had better on some of Carnival's much older ships. I don't know what the Vista's problem was. It was not that 4600 passengers were all trying to use the Internet at the same time. I made measurements at quite a few different times of the day, throughout the cruise. Even at 6 AM, when almost all of the passengers were asleep, the throughput was abysmally slow. It also had nothing to do with the fact that we travelled way far south in the Caribbean. I made measurements all along the way as we cruised during the 8 days. Even in the most mainstream areas of the Caribbean, the Internet service was dismal.

Carnival offers several different options for purchasing Internet access. First off, you don't have to pay by the minute anymore like you did in the old days. So, you don't have to rush to quickly disconnect to save your minutes for later. I scanned a sheet they gave me that details the pricing of their various plans.

A bright spot was Carnival's Hub App. It doesn't use the Internet, it uses Carnival's Wi-Fi system, and you do NOT have to purchase an Internet plan to use it. The most useful part of the Hub app is the texting feature, which costs $5 to use. I used it extensively throughout the week to coordinate plans with Liz and Kimble and Kat.

One last thing about Internet access:

If you want to experience the state-of-the-art in Internet connectivity at sea, you have to cruise on Royal Caribbean's newest ships, such as Allure Of The Seas, Anthem Of The Seas, Harmony Of The Seas, etc. They use

Cruise Director Schwartz

 

Having done 42 cruises on five different cruise lines, I've seen a lot of Cruise Directors in action. I have to say that Carnival does a really good job at picking the right people for this very important job. The Cruise Director... through public address announcements, appearances before and after stage shows, and at poolside events... sets a tone for the entire cruise. There have only been a couple of Carnival CD's that made me cringe, and a very large number that have impressed me.

Carnival Vista's regular Cruise Director is Matt Mitcham, but he was on vacation the week we cruised, and Schwartz was filling in. That's right... no first name, just Schwartz.

Schwartz did fine, putting a lot of personality in to the job, and being a good representative for Carnival. There was just one thing that I would work with him on if I were his advisor. He's got a little signature move that he uses as his little trademark whenever he makes an announcement or an appearance. At the end of his speech, he says what he'd say at the end of a phone call to a dear family member... he says "I love you". This is funny and quirky on the first day he does it. The second day he mixes it up just a little, by adding another line to the joke. After "I Love You", he pauses for a few seconds, and then says "No, I Love You More". This is funny on day two of the cruise. But it's an 8-day cruise, and he sticks with the joke for every announcement and every stage appearance for the entire rest of the cruise. This gets old. If I was his mentor, I'd urge him to think of an entirely new tag line for every day of the cruise, so the joke doesn't get stale.

While we're on the subject of Cruise Directors... I'd just like to give a shout out to the best I've ever sailed with: Carnival's Jaime Dee. Jaime, the reality of my vacation scheduling is that I usually have to book my cruises a year or more in advance. Unfortunately, the Cruise Director schedule is only published about 6-9 months in advance... so it's impossible for me to plan a cruise on a ship that you will be on. If I could, I'd cruise with you every time!

One other observation regarding Cruise Directors... I mentioned that Carnival does a really good job of picking them. And I've made a couple of very positive remarks already about "The Haven" on Norwegian cruise line. Oddly enough, though, Norwegian seems to be the absolute worst at picking Cruise Directors! I've had one good one in five NCL cruises. So, if a top-notch Cruise Director is important to you, be advised!

I've had a lot of success on YouTube... ad revenues from my YouTube videos are what pay for my cruises these days... and

Because of that, I always visit the Waterworks area whenever I'm on a Carnival cruise ship. For that reason, and also because I'm just a big kid at heart and love to play in a water park!

As I mentioned earlier, we were cruising on Carnival Vista with our friends, Kimble and Liz, and their young daughter, Kat. So that gave me an even better reason to spend some time in the Waterworks area: I got to have some fun with Kat in the water park and in the pool! And I think I got a pretty good YouTube video out of it, too:

Kat got a lot of screen time in that video, but I do have to say that the breakout star of the video was the kid in the very last shot, who did the incredible dismount from the waterslide. He's either a natural born athlete, a natural born YouTube star, or possibly both!

As a photographer, I always manage to shoot a few sunrise and sunset photos during a cruise.

Here are a few of the best ones I shot on Carnival Vista.



Most people are in vacation mode and are still sleeping during the sunrises.

I'm an early riser by nature, so I'm happy to show you what they all missed:









 

The thing about cruise sunsets is that they often happen when people are at dinner.

So, a lot of folks miss those, too. Here's one:

 

One morning when the sun was rising directly in front of the ship, I walked to the Serenity deck to get a photo of it and there were actually a few other early risers up there before me...

People had other things to do at 7 o'clock in the evening,

so the aft pool area was nearly empty when I snapped this sunset photo:





 

 

Finally, I want to share a picture from a cruise a few years ago.

I think it's the best sunrise photo I've ever taken:





A sunrise photo I shot on Carnival Freedom in 2015

One of the most iconic features of the Carnival Vista is the vortex video thingie. If you've read anything about Carnival Vista at all, I'm sure you've seen pictures of them. Did you know that there are two of them? There's one in the main atrium lobby area, which is three decks tall... and there's one in the middle of the casino, that's two decks tall. As you walk along the promenade on deck five, one of the most travelled paths from the front of the ship to the rear of the ship, you can't miss it popping up out of the casino.

It looks great from a distance, but when you get close to it, you see the pixels:

 

I hope that someday, on a future ship, they make a higher resolution version of this so that you could stand up close to it and not see pixels at all. If this was an operating system, it would be Windows 3.0... impressive, for sure, but once Windows 98 comes out, we'll all look back at it and laugh a little.

By the way, the official name for the vortex video funnel thingie is "Dreamscape"... but no one I know ever calls it that. I read that it's made of 3000 individual video monitors that are wrapped around the vortex form.

During our 8-day cruise, I somehow managed to not shoot a single photo of another one of Carnival Vista's most iconic features: the SkyRide. So, for this review, I've had to resort to using this photo supplied by Carnival:

I also didn't end up riding SkyRide during our cruise... the lines were just too long. The next photo shows the line for the ride on the day I went up there in hopes of riding it. But since only two people can ride the SkyRide at a time, the line moves extremely slow. I overheard someone say that the line you see here represented a roughly one hour wait for the ride...

One of the big improvements that they made on Carnival Vista compared to the other Carnival ships I've sailed on is that they've gotten away from printing a hard copy of every single photo that the ship's photographers take of you. It was always such a waste! They would print a copy of every photo so you could look them over and buy the photo if you wanted it. They would throw away SO MANY photos over the course of a cruise... and that was a huge waste of photo paper, ink, and time.

On the Carnival Vista, there's none of that. All photos are displayed electronically in the ship's photo gallery, known as Pixels. You look through your photos on a screen, and if there are any you would like to buy, they can print up a hard copy for you.

A small improvement that I noticed in the photo gallery is that you can now buy professional photos of the ship itself, and of some of Carnival's most scenic destinations. There are hard copies of these photos already printed up, in two different sizes, and you just grab one that interests you and take it to the checkout register to pay for it. Seems like a smart idea to me.

 

In the evenings, on Lido deck, they show movies on the big screen by the mid-ship pool. They're not current releases like they show in the IMAX theater, but more like what would be considered a new release on Netflix or Redbox. But what they have going for them is free admission, and free popcorn, too. Here's one of the best places to watch the movies from:

 

 

These seats are also good, but you do occasionally have people walking by in front of you:

 

 



 

 

If you've been on other Carnival ships, you may have seen a candy store known as Cherry On Top:





 

On the Carnival Vista, they had improved Cherry On Top with a great feature I hadn't seen in the candy stores on other Carnival ships: an ice cream station! They can scoop ice cream in to cups or cones, create sundaes, and they even offer ice cream cookie sandwiches.

The new ice cream station in Cherry On Top

Something else I had never seen before on a Carnival ship was these two big ice cream machines in the Lido buffet restaurant.

The only time we ever saw these machines in action was at lunch time. A worker told us the machines made ice cream, but a passenger said it was gelato. I'm not sure which was correct... and frankly, I'm not sure I understand the difference!

Back to Carnival Vista...

Now let's take a look at the aft pool area at the back end of the Lido deck:

 

Since we were in a Havana Suite on the Carnival Vista and had our own designated pool to use, we didn't spend any time at the Lido pools, although I did walk through a few times, to shoot a few photos. On all of our other cruises, the aft pool area has been our go-to place for fun in the sun or in the water. The mid-ship pool is a loud, crowded place... but the aft pool is much quieter and doesn't feel as crowded, even when every lounger is in use. I view the mid-ship pool at the place for young people, and the aft pool as better suited to an old guy like me. One day, I walked to the aft pool to shoot a photo and was surprised to see that they had the pool closed...

Seeing it closed like that in the middle of the day on a sea day would typically mean that they are disinfecting it after one of two things happened: somebody accidentally puked in it, or somebody accidentally pooped in it. My bet is for the vomit. I have to admit that I chuckled when I saw this, as this was a cruise I had already jokingly started to refer to as "the vomit cruise". There had been two incidents already, and this was the third. I don't know for sure that anyone barfed in the aft pool, but I think it's a reasonable guess.

The mid-ship pool usually has music playing, and it's also the scene of some funny games and competitions. I found all that interesting during my first few Carnival cruises, but this was my 27th Carnival cruise. At this point, I look for a more relaxing pool scene. The Havana pool was PERFECT for me!

Carnival Vista's mid-ship pool on Lido deck

If you can't find an available lounger at the mid-ship pool, be sure to climb the steps to the next level above it... where it's usually a lot easier to find a lounger. If you don't find one available overlooking the pool, just keep walking a little further... there are LOTS of loungers over the entire length of this deck! There's almost always some available down near the SkyRide.

 

I'm not going to try to detail every feature of the ship, but there are a few things about Carnival Vista that I want to make sure you know about. The first is that it is currently the only ship in the entire world that is outfitted with a genuine IMAX movie theater! They offer first-run movies, and the prices are comparable to what it would cost to see a movie in IMAX format on land. Plus, they offer a senior citizen discount for anyone 55 years old or over!

 

The lobby for the IMAX movie house and the Thrill Theater.

In case you're wondering... yes, of course they offer movie-style popcorn.

 

This next photo, an aerial view supplied by Carnival,

offers a good look at all those forward viewing areas:



 

In case you're wondering about that Jacuzzi at the bow of the ship... that's for crew members, only. Something I find fascinating about the front end of the Carnival Vista is that for whatever reason, the ship's designers chose not to put "Captain's Suites" directly above the bridge. "Captain's Suites" are not cabins for the actual ship's Captain to sleep in... they are very large suites that certain ships in the Carnival fleet have directly above the navigational bridge. My wife and I stayed in one on the Carnival Sunshine, and it was pretty cool! They feature huge picture windows with an amazing view forward, as well as an extremely large balcony with a spectacular 180 degree view.

 

I like to be VERY casual when I'm on vacation and that goes with eating, too. The last thing I want to do on a cruise is dress up for dinner, or have a two-hour sit down meal in some fancy restaurant. That's just not my thing! My wife is the same way, so we generally eat all of our meals in the buffet restaurant whenever we cruise. The only exception is for specialty restaurants such as a steakhouse.

The Buffet Restaurant On Carnival Vista's Lido Deck







 



"The Ringer", my favorite version of a Guy Fieri burger

It has an onion ring above the cheese... and a delicious sauce.

 

 

 

 



 

 

There was a total FUBAR situation at breakfast one morning, though. The day the ship docked in the Dominican Republic, our ship arrival at the island quite early in the morning and there were a whole bunch of shore excursions with meeting times of 8:15 and 8:30 AM. The buffet restaurant doesn't even open until 7 AM, so on that particular morning the restaurant was jam-packed with people right at 7 AM who needed an early breakfast in order to be ready for their early shore excursion calls. Unfortunately, the restaurant was totally unprepared to deal with the large crowd of people that early. On a normal day on the ship, they open up one of the four buffet lines at 7 AM, a second one at 7:30, and the other two even later than that. For some reason, they treated this day just like any other in the buffet, and when hundreds of people all lined up for an early 7 AM breakfast, they simply could not handle that big of a crowd. It was a mess. It was close to 7:30 by the time I got my omelette, and then there was a second gigantic line that I would have had to stand in if I had wanted potatoes and all the other stuff with it. That simply was not going to work with an early shore excursion coming up soon.

So, I decided that I was just going to have to skip the potatoes and the other stuff on this particular day, and just ate my omelette. After breakfast, as I was heading back to our cabin on deck five, I got a very lucky break and discovered that just a little ways from our Havana cabin, they serve breakfast at The Taste Bar in Ocean Plaza. And I was apparently not the only passenger on the ship that did not know this! At the same exact moment that the Lido buffet restaurant was a total mob scene, the Taste Bar was delightfully un-crowded. I grabbed a plate and got my breakfast potatoes, croissant, and some bacon... which made me much happier for our excursion later that morning.

Breakfast at "The Taste Bar" in Ocean Plaza, on deck five.

If the buffet on Lido is too crowded, this is the place to have breakfast.

If you like spending time in the warm waters of the Caribbean, on a sandy beach, an excursion that I can very strongly recommend is the "Beach Day" shore excursion that takes you to Mambo Beach in Curacao. It's especially easy to get in and out of the water, because there are no waves in the swimming area, and no sudden drop-offs. A breakwater stops all the waves and makes the water in the swimming area completely calm. Because Curacao is so far south in the Caribbean... in fact, it's just off the coast of South America, and not that far from the equator... the water is delightfully warm here.

 

We've been to this beach before on a previous visit to Curacao, and I was so excited to be back. The last time we were here, I discovered that at a little bar at this particular beach, they make the best Margaritas I've ever tasted! Unfortunately, on our last visit, I didn't discover those Margaritas until about 20 minutes before we had to leave. This time, I made sure to visit that bar shortly after our arrival... and those Margaritas were just as good as I remembered. This is not a "I'm looking to get quickly drunk" Margarita... those you can get at the Blue Iguana Tequila Bar back on the ship. These Margaritas were a little lighter on the Tequila and a lot smoother and sweeter. As far as I'm concerned, it's the Margarita I will judge all others by.

Out at that rocky breakwater, there are a lot of small fish. No snorkeling gear is supplied on this excursion, but I have a good snorkel set from Amazon.com that I carry with me on vacation and so I was able to snorkel over to the breakwater and got to visit with the fish for a while. Another thing I like to do on that particular beach is to swim over to the floating wooden platform and jump off. It makes me feel 12, not 60.

 

There are actually two versions of the excursion to Mambo Beach. The one we did is simply called "Beach Day" and it transports you from the ship and to the beach by air conditioned bus. An alternate version of the same basic excursion is called "Beach Break By Boat"... and as you might be able to guess, instead of a bus, it transports you between the ship and the beach on a boat, the Pelican Express, which you can see in the photo at the top of this section.

There are pros and cons to both versions of the shore excursion. The boat version leaves the ship earlier, which gets you to the beach earlier, which gives you more loungers to choose from when you arrive on the beach. The bus version would be better for anyone that might possibly be prone to seasickness, and it also gives you a little more relaxing morning on the ship since you don't have to be ready to leave quite so early as you do for the other version. However, by the time you arrive at the beach, the best shady lounger locations may have already been taken.

We did the bus version, because I like that the bus goes over the big bridge which gives you a spectacular view of the port of Curacao. However, I failed to get a single decent photo from that bridge!

At the end of the day, as our ship sailed away from Curacao, I set up my GoPro to record an interesting time lapse video of our departure. Take a look:

In Aruba, we went on another boat ride... this time in order to do some snorkeling. I like to snorkel, so this seemed like an excursion perfectly suited to me... especially when I read the full description of the shore excursion and they mentioned that after snorkeling there would be an open bar and a barbecue lunch prepared onboard.

If anything, Carnival's description of this shore excursion didn't go far enough to explain what was so special about it. They mentioned in the description that we would be aboard a custom built 115 foot wooden schooner, but those words didn't paint a very vivid picture in my mind. If I had seen a photo of the boat, I would have more easy realized what a special excursion this was going to be.

The wooden schooner was really cool! It was way better than travelling by a normal tender like we had the day before. The schooner had a lot of personality. The best part was that in the two rear corners of the schooner, there were daybeds... and Kellyn and I were lucky in that we were 3rd and 4th in line as we boarded the schooner at the pier. The first two people quickly looked over the schooner to decide where the best seats were and plopped themselves down on the first daybed. I quickly realized that they had made the right choice, and plopped down on the other daybed. With everyone else in more traditional seats, I felt a bit like the king of the world surveying the Caribbean from the comfort of our schooner's daybed!

So, my advice to you, if you book this particular shore excursion, is that as your tour group is walking from the cruise ship dock to the little marina where the schooner is tied up, work your way to the front of the line so that you can have first choice of seats aboard.

I liked this shore excursion so much that I put a little video together in hopes of publicizing the excursion among the cruise community. I think the video does a good job of showing you what was so great about this excursion. Trivia fact: the guy in the red t-shirt is one of my YouTube subscribers and recognized me as I walked around with my camera! We had a really nice chat.

Our excursion guides on the schooner didn't really do a good job of explaining to everyone where the good snorkeling was at this particular site. I had actually been there once or twice before on previous cruises, so I knew exactly where to snorkel to. But I think a lot of people were just snorkeling near the boat, and missed the really great snorkeling at the rocks near shore. If you find yourself on this particular shore excursion, do yourself a favor and snorkel towards shore until you run in to some big rocks just before the beach. That's where the best snorkeling is, where you'll see lots of fish.

After the excursion was all over and we were walking back to the Carnival Vista,

I snapped this picture of her tied up to the dock in Aruba:



 

One other thing to mention about our visit to Aruba...

There was one other cruise ship that was docked in Aruba that day, and it seemed odd to me... since during two previous visits to Aruba, I had seen this exact same ship docked in the exact same place. Here's a photo of it:

 

It seemed like too big of a coincidence to have run in to the same cruise ship tied up at the exact same spot on three visits in a row to Aruba. So, I Googled it, to see if that might provide any clues to the situation. Wikipedia had the answer.

It turns out that the Freewinds is owned by the church of Scientology. Aruba is basically its home port and it stays tied up there quite a bit of the time.

According to Wikipedia:

The Freewinds is the exclusive training center for the highest level of Scientology. Members of the Church of Scientology who have reached the highest levels must receive their training on the Freewinds, as the Church does not deliver this service anywhere else.

Besides the high level training, the Freewinds is used for delivering lower-level classes and auditing services. She is also used as a recreational vessel for Scientologists. The ship hosts a "Freewinds Maiden Voyage" each June as a summit for high-ranking Scientologists at which Scientology accomplishments and plans for the future are publicly celebrated.

The religion's founder, L. Ron Hubbard, had researched and ministered the first levels of Scientology aboard a ship in the late 1960s. A ship therefore has particular religious significance to Scientologists.

La Romana, Dominican Republic:

"Catalina Island Beach Break" shore excursion

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Kellyn and I are beach people. We live in a beach town in California, and on the weekends we like to relax in the sun in our backyard. If the ocean water at California beaches was warm like it is in the Caribbean or the Mexican Riviera, I'd probably spend a day or two each week in the water. But unfortunately, the ocean water in California is quite cold! I think some people that visit California are actually surprised by that. You always see the pictures of the crowds at California beaches... but the reality is that most Californians don't go in the water, because that water is usually somewhere around 50 degrees for much of the year... and never more than about 60 at the warmest parts of the year. When we're on vacation, we absolutely LOVE to spend time at a nice beach with warm ocean water that I can swim in. The water in the Caribbean is the warmest in September -- that warm water is what creates the conditions that allow hurricanes to form -- so we almost always book a cruise for September, to be able to take advantage of the warmest water of the year at some of the world's best beaches.

I've been to La Romana before, but I guess it's been a few years because the passenger facilities at the port have been improved quite a bit since the last time we were there. That was impressive to see. There didn't use to be much there at the dock in La Romana, but now they have some nice shops and restrooms and things like that.

The Catalina Island shore excursion starts by meeting at the pier and waiting for everyone to gather. Once the whole group is together, you take a short walk up to the parking lot and board a nice air conditioned bus. There's a very short bus ride from the parking lot to a small pier very near where the Carnival Vista was docked. During that short bus ride, I did notice quite a few trees that had been knocked down by hurricane Maria a week or so earlier. But I didn't see any damaged buildings at all, just trees. I think hurricane Maria had brushed up against the north coast of the Dominican Republic... and La Romana is on the south coast, and didn't seem to have been hit very badly.

Once the bus finished the short ride to the small pier where a boat was waiting for us, we moved from the bus on to a tender roughly the size of one of Carnival Vista's lifeboats. If you've ever sailed to Grand Cayman or to Belize, you'll know what I mean when I say our tender was about the same size as of one of the boats that tender you to shore there.

Once everyone was on the tender, it begins the approximately 35 minute journey to Catalina Island, which lies just offshore of the south side of the Dominican Republic. The boat ride starts out with a pretty great photo opportunity... you pass right by your cruise ship!

 

As you can see, the water is kind of green there at the cruise ship dock in La Romana. It's just because that dock sits right where the Rio Dulce meets the Carribean. The river water meeting the ocean water, and the fact that there is no sand there, makes the water look green.

Once the tender passes the cruise ship, it heads out in to the open ocean waters... and at that point, a few of our fellow passengers looked a little green! Let's just say that I can't recommend this excursion to anyone prone to seasickness. The water was a little rough. I thought it was kind of fun, but the little boy sitting near us sure didn't... he started looking very green himself after ten or fifteen minutes on that choppy boat ride... and eventually he puked all over his grandma.

I found this somewhat ironic, as just the night before, in the comedy club, a gentleman in his early 20's had done the same... although in that guy's case, I think it was too much booze, not seasickness, that had done him in.

In any case, we eventually made it to Catalina Island, and it truly was a little slice of paradise. There was no hurricane damage that I could see. We tipped a guy a couple of bucks for bringing us some loungers to sit on, and then eventually decided we had better not risk a sunburn on our first shore excursion of the cruise... so we forked over a few more dollars (I think it was $5) to have an umbrella to shade us. I spent most of the time in that wonderfully warm Caribbean water, but every now and then I took a break under the umbrella... and during one of those breaks, Kellyn snapped this photo of me:

 

 

 

Here's one more photo to give you a good idea of what the scene at Catalina beach was like:

 

The original itinerary that we signed up for had the ship stopping at Grand Turk, The Dominican Republic, Aruba, and Curacao. However, our cruise was in September and that's the peak of hurricane season. A category 5 storm, hurricane Maria, rolled across the Atlantic and seriously impacted many islands in the Eastern Caribbean: Dominica, Antigua, St Kitts, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, and the Turks & Caicos islands, just to name a few.

Grand Turk, which was to be the first stop of our cruise, was seriously affected by the hurricane and unable to host cruise ships for a period of time following the hurricane. So, our ship was unable to stop there, and we simply had a "fun day at sea" that day instead.

However, there were no problems preventing us from visiting our three other scheduled ports of call. Let me tell you about the shore excursions we booked, and all the fun we had...

For me, this cruise was simply about spending time at the un-crowded Havana pool area, and taking excursions to some of the world's best beaches. Everything else was just the icing on the cake. There were three big production shows in the Vista's theater during our 8-day cruise, but two of them didn't sound like they featured my kind of music, so I blew them off. But the show I did attend, I really enjoyed! It was full of "my music". Back in the 1970s and 1980s, I was a DJ and radio announcer... and some of the most memorable music of that era was disco. The "Studio VIP" show was a new version of a previous Carnival production show I had seen on the Carnival Sunshine a few years ago. I really enjoyed it.

 

Now that you've had a very good look at the Havana area and the Havana suite that Kellyn and I stayed in, I'd like to give you a tour of a very different kind of cabin on Carnival Vista. Our friends, Liz & Kimble (and their daughter, Kat) were staying in an unusual type of cabin known as a "cove balcony" cabin. It's called a cove balcony because the balcony literally sits inside a protective metal cove. These cove balcony cabins are located very low on the ship, on deck 2, and if the ship were to encounter extremely rough seas, deck two is low enough to potentially get hit by a large wave. So, the balconies are engineered in such a way to be able to withstand that... including a watertight door that can be closed around the regular balcony door to keep any water out of the cabin.

I've been looking forward to this review and really enjoy reading your reviews and your website. You sold us on the Haven Spa Suite on the Norwegian Escape' date=' and based on that review, we took an upgrade to the Haven last summer and it was the best cruise we have had so far. I cheated and read all of the Vista review on your website, and want to thank you for the info on the "VIP Cruise and Snorkel" excursion in Aruba, as we have now booked it for next summer while we are on the Sunshine. We sail on the Vista in February, and cannot wait to experience all she has to offer. Keep up the great work, and thank you for all the hard work you put in providing these reviews and recommendations.[/quote']

Ron, I really appreciate what you said. Putting these reviews together literally takes weeks, but it's worth it to me because I know people enjoy them. How do I know that? People like you tell me. And those small words of thanks make we want to do a full review for every cruise I take, even though it's a lot of work. Thanks for taking the time to put in a good word!

 

Every night while we were out at dinner or a show, our stateroom steward would clean up our suite, turn down the bed, and leave us a towel animal. On this particular night, he also left us each gifts for being Platinum in Carnival's loyalty program, and an invitation to a special event.

Speaking of the stateroom steward... Carnival changed something important since the last time we cruised with them, two years ago: No more snoozin'/cruisin' sign. For those of you who have never cruised with Carnival before, that's there version of a "do not disturb / make up room" sign. Anyway, now the only choice is snoozin'... and I think that's too bad. I always found it very convenient to use the cruisin' sign to alert the stateroom steward to a period of time when we would be away from the cabin for awhile, giving them an opportunity to do their thing when we wouldn't be around. What we ended up doing in lieu of a cruisin' sign on this cruise was to just make a point of finding the cabin steward (they're usually working on a cabin not far from yours, with the door open) and letting them know that we were leaving, and when we'd be back. This seemed to work well, and our cabin was usually all fixed up by the time we got back. Of course, if you're going to be gone for long periods of time, like on a shore excursion, there is no need to do this... they know you'll be gone.

I really liked the fact that the Havana Suites have TWO televisions. In addition to the one in the bedroom, there's also a slightly smaller one at the desk, which can easily be viewed from the couch in the living room. I liked to leave the living room TV set to the map channel, which not only shows the current location of the ship, but also the wind speed and wind direction.

 

It's really handy to be able to see the wind speed and wind direction when you're in your cabin. Sometimes in the comfort of your cabin, even if you have a balcony cabin, you have no idea of what the actual conditions are outside. If you're thinking of taking a walk from your Havana cabin at the back of the ship to somewhere on one of the upper decks at the front of the ship, knowing that there's a 40 knot wind blowing on to the port side of the ship is very useful. In that case, you'd be smart to take a path that puts you on the starboard side of the ship, which will seem much less windy than if you had walked along the port side.

Overall, we very much enjoyed our stay in the Havana Suite, but there was a downside to the location. The Havana bar is located very nearby, and just about every night there's a Cuban band that plays there. On some nights, they play until 12:30 AM.

 

So, I had managed to book us in to the cabin (5234) that is literally closer to the band than any other Havana cabin. Before the cruise, I thought that the big white thing in the deck plans of the Havana bar was the bandstand. Nope. That's the bar. The band sets up where the piano is in the deck plans... literally just twenty or thirty feet from our bed. No wonder we heard so much noise from the band at night! If you book a deck five Havana cabin and you want to get a little further away from the band than we were, pick a cabin like 5212 or something near that. Don't go all the way down to the end, though... 5202, for example. Down there you'll not only be dealing with noise from the elevators, but also a totally different band that plays in Ocean Plaza, just forward of 5202. Actually, something on the starboard side of the ship, like 5207 or 5209, would be a safe distance from the elevators, the band at Ocean Plaza, and the band in the Havana Bar. Just keep in mind that if you want a Havana Suite, the largest Havana cabins, your only choices are 5233-5236.

The Cuban band in the Havana bar wasn't the only source of noise in our cabin. On deck four, directly below our cabin, is the Horizons restaurant. If you've ever sailed on a Carnival ship, I'm sure you know that in the ship's main restaurant they try to create a fun atmosphere by having the waiters dance to music at the end of the meal. The musical accompaniment to all that dancing is played on speakers which are mounted in to the ceiling of the restaurant... and the ceiling of the restaurant on deck four is the floor of the Havana cabins on deck 5. So, if you find yourself inside a Havana cabin at the same time the waiters are dancing downstairs in the restaurant, you will hear every single bit of it through the floor.

Enough about the patio... let's go back inside to look at a few details of the Havana suite...

 

This view of the bedroom, from a slightly different angle, shows the closets that are located between the bedroom and the bathroom. I would describe the amount of closet space as "adequate but not generous". It's basically the same closet arrangement you'd have on almost any cabin on any Carnival cruise ship from recent years. It was a little surprising to me that they didn't splurge on more generous closets for the most expensive suite on the ship. We were fine with it, though. It was enough space for us.

I think the reason it surprises me comes from our three previous experiences in suites on Norwegian Cruise Line. NCL suites are somewhat over the top! They are hugely more expensive than Carnival suites, so I guess it makes sense. But if you ever want to splurge on a cruise that takes most of the great things about a Carnival cruise and then boosts the pampering and the "amazing lavish suite" quotient by a factor of about a hundred... give The Haven on NCL a try sometime.

 

This photo does a better job of helping you to visualize how the bedroom area is connected to the living room and desk area. Note that the curtains separating the living room from the bedroom have been slid behind the shutters. One other thing to notice in the photo is the small passageway between the desk and the end of the orange couch. It's enough room to get through there when no one is sitting at the desk, but if Kellyn was at the desk working on her makeup, or if I was at the desk using my laptop computer, the only way for the other person to get from the bedroom to the patio was to jump up on to the couch and over. Awkward design.

On deck five, there is a long row of 14 Havana cabins and suites that share an unusual design feature. Each has a large 100 square foot patio that backs up to a shared walkway leading to the Havana pool area.

 

 

 

 

Each of the Havana balcony cabins on deck five has a really cool feature... a swing!



 

An artist's rendering of the original plan for the balconies of the Havana Suites

 

As you can see in the photo, there's a pretty great view from those patios! What is not quite as apparent is that those three pieces of patio furniture are not very comfortable. My wife totally LOVED the swing, but she's a small person. The swing wasn't comfortable for me as designed. If the back of the swing's seat had been taller, it would have been a lot better for me. That middle piece of furniture is just a complete oddball. I heard several other Havana guests say how uncomfortable it is, and I completely agree. The back is set at WAY too steep of an angle, and it is not adjustable. At least they put a padded cushion on it. With my wife in the swing, I defaulted to that little chair in the middle since it at least had a cushion. But I sat upright and did not lean back. They really screwed up in not adding cushions to the lounger on the right. I can't really understand the thought process in not adding cushions to the lounger on the patio of the most expensive suite on the ship. And the lounger sits way too low to the ground... so if you do relax on it, it's VERY difficult to get out of it. I sincerely hope that they do not stick with this arrangement on Carnival Vista's upcoming sister ship, the Carnival Horizon.

I always do a lot of photography and videography when I'm on a cruise ship, so one other little problem with being in a Havana cabin on deck five was the big glass wall at the edge of the ship. If you're just looking at the view from the patio with your eyes, your brain easily ignores the fencing and the glass. But as a photographer and videographer, it presents a problem. There's only so many shots you can take through the glass before you want to find an unobstructed vantage point. I found myself walking to the elevator quite often, to shoot photos from deck 12 or 14 in order to not shoot through glass.

 

 

 

 

While we were at sea, a finch flew directly in to our neighbor's patio window

and knocked himself out cold. Our neighbor revived him!



 

When my wife and I started cruising back in 1996... we did it on a shoestring. We booked the cheapest inside cabin we could find, on the shortest cruise we could find, from the closest port to our house. We crammed two adults and two kids in to a tiny cabin, and we were thankful to be able to afford such an extravagant vacation... since up until that point, just about all of our vacations had consisted of driving to stay at a relative's house somewhere.

My wife and I enjoyed that first cruise, but the kids really didn't enjoy it all that much! So, there were no more cruises for our family for the next twelve years after that. But once the kids flew the coop, Kellyn and I started cruising again. We were still financially supporting two 20-somethings, so our cruises for the first couple of years after that were still on a limited budget... but at least we could usually afford a balcony cabin.

With each passing year, I was making a little more money (thanks IBEW and those annual wage increases!) and the kids were costing us a little less. So, over time, our vacation budgets slowly increased. In 2010, we stayed in a suite for the first time. In 2011, we were able to afford to fly to Miami for the first time and do a Caribbean cruise. We started to do a lot of back-to-back cruises. In 2013, thanks to the profits from

I must be the luckiest guy in the world, because here in 2017 I totally lucked in to a lucrative situation at my "real job" which will provide a big financial boost for the rest of my years there, until I'm ready to retire somewhere around 3-5 years from now. And my YouTube channel has turned in to a huge deal, providing an incredible extra income that I never expected.

The reason that I'm telling you all this is that I know I'm incredibly blessed, and that most people can't afford what I'm about to describe to you. Please understand that it hasn't always been this way for me. I've worked hard since I was 20 years old (and that was 40 years ago) and finally now I am able to enjoy some rewards from that hard work. I know that not everyone has been so blessed, and I understand how reading some of this story might frustrate some readers who aren't able to afford this kind of vacation. I wasn't able to either, for quite a long time, but finally there are rewards from years of hard work and good choices... and a little bit of luck. I hope some day you will be as fortunate.