Indytraveler83

Anyone have any educated guesses on how much longer Elation and Paradise will remain?

Elation was our first, and we'd love to sail one last time before she heads to the breakers.  We've been hoping the updates and new paint mean she's still got a few more years left?

They did not have these (or the facility for them) on the Horizon. Carnival's own website does not list art auctions for the Horizon, Panorama or the Mardi Gras. 

Hopefully it is an outgoing facility. I thought the Pixels themed ship with the photos from Mr. Radu were far more tasteful.

We were at this port recently, my advice:

1)Take the tram to the free beach: the one after beach club 360, as it's essentially the same thing. 

2) If you have time, walk the long pier to/from the ship. There's a lot of sea life right below you and the water is clear.

It's not a great port, but it's not bad either. Just an average beach port for a good day in the sun or surf. 

The ones I remember:

Chris "The Flying Scotsman"- insanely talented singer and performer, he's the best CD we've had.

"Donkey" Salazar- much more reserved than Chris, he was a lot of fun and knew how to stay out of the way (and kept announcements to a minimum).

The "Reverend Dr E"- also very talented and a lot of fun. 

We also had one we hated, his first name was "Jace" but I can't remember his last name. I just remember he thought he was talented and funny, but he wasn't. He also didn't seem capable of leaving the PA system alone...

9 minutes ago, retiring soon said:

HI all!

 

travelplus ~ ha ha you know they DIDn't, just gave me a refund.

I've bought it again for my Glory cruise in Feb so hope it's a go.🤞

 

Shaun ~ thanks for your review, was nice to follow along even though your cruise was much different than mine. SInce I am not a beach, pool or bar person the cruise was really different for me. I also was sailing solo, not with my partner, so there's that element too.

 

I was on the 8 day before this cruise & this was my 1st BTB . I hadn't realized that the shows & menus would be the same both weeks, which gave me a chance to make other choices.

 

I really enjoyed HMC as I took the trolley ride excursion around it which stopped at the Horse coral & Stingray beach where we also saw Starfish.

 

I had done a great excursion the previous week at Amber Cove so just stayed onboard that day.

 

At Bimini I walked down that LONG pier admiring the assorted fish alongside.

At the beach across the road we saw a little Seahorse which was a thrill for me. Those are the things I like on a cruise, nature, flowers & fauna, but of course food, shows etc.

I played Bingo once & was surprised at how big the prizes were, although I didn't win any.

 

I agree with your assessment of Donkey & was impressed that he gave the hearing impaired older couple with signer, a spot in the Love & Marriage show, a first for him.

 

Usually I play trivia on cruises but not this time. During Covid I've discovered audio books so spent a lot of time "reading" or playing around on my phone.

 

Different strokes eh? That's what's so great about cruising, you can make it your dream vacation. OH, that reminds me I loved the Dreamscapes & took pictures of them each time I saw a different one. I also liked the new elevator system, very efficient.

 

I forgot about the elevators!  We only used them a few times, but honestly did like them. I'm not sure if they are faster or not, but they were certainly less chaotic. 

If I ever go to Bimini again, I'd do the same as you.

Glad to hear you enjoyed yourself as well!

1 hour ago, MPH711 said:

Thanks for your review. At the beginning you said you would answer:

What capacity was the Horizon sailing at?
 

Maybe I missed it?

I was told our sailing was a little under 2,500 passengers, putting us at maybe 60%ish capacity. 

Was also told that the 8 day Southern Caribbean route is usually fuller, but that the 6 day with the replacement Bahamas itinerary (used to be Western Caribbean) is particularly slow right now. 

20 minutes ago, bgrmini said:

I just recommend you behave the night before so you don't have to be such a mess on embarkation day. 

😛

No kidding, right???

South Beach beat us down, we won't be making that mistake again!!!

Overall Final thoughts:

The Horizon itself:  Having spent years avoiding the Vista class, we were shocked at how much we liked this ship.  I always thought of it as a bloated Dream class ship, but that is far from the truth.  They may look very similar, but the way they use the spaces are not very similar at all.  On the downside, the piano bar, steakhouse and Alchemy Bar are too small and packed every night, even on a half full ship.  On the positive side, there is so much more to do, so many more isolated alcoves, seating areas and places that I actually do think I like this more than the Dream class.  The loss of the scam art "gallery" was also something we appreciated.  Overall we are happy to return for the 8 day Southern Caribbean on this ship next fall.  I do however, think that the worst experiences on this ship would be likely during a crowded summer cruise.

Carnival Changes:  Usually we tend to dislike the "updates" that seemed to slowly take things away from guests these past years.  However, the loss of single use plastics didn't affect our experience at all, and things like the new Pixels Gallery, hub check in for dinner and new muster drill all made for a much better experience that seem to have removed several places where you previously stood in line or in big crowds waiting.

Food: The menu in the MDR is definitely smaller.  But there was also very little sign of the "microwave dinner" style meals that we've experienced in the past.  I'll gladly take this experience over any of our cruises before.  There are also many more options to eat on the Horizon than some of the other ships, which made us quickly realize we didn't even have time to try everything this cruise.  Our only complaint is that some places (Like Blue Iguana Tacos) are only open 12-3, which can make it tough to visit if you are doing other things.

Staff:  Absolutely wonderful.  Everyone seems to be grateful to be back onboard the ship, and we've never had a better experience.  These folks were simply amazing, and I can't say enough about how personal and friendly each and every person was.  

Ports:

-Amber Cove has some great excursions, but the port area itself isn't a destination on its own, as much as it tries.  A great place to have an adventure, or to step off the ship for a few hours.

-Half Moon Cay is beautiful.  One of our favorite beach ports of all time, even with the rain and rough waters we experienced.  I would go back in a heartbeat.

-Bimini was beautiful, but is just a rough enough experience around the edges to keep me from being excited about it.  It's true a different person on a different day may have had a much better time, but I still think it needs work to be anything more than just another stop in the Bahamas.

Overall:  

I'll be honest, I really don't do brand loyalty.  I've rarely bought the same brand of phone, car or stayed loyal to any provider of anything for very long.  I'm always looking for the best deal and best experience.  However, six cruises in, and I find that I compare RCI to Carnival and NCL, and Carnival has won my business every time.  The more I hear about the direction each company is taking, the more likely I am to stay loyal to Carnival.  While I'd love to try one of the Oasis class ships some day, I also have a list of Carnival ships I'd love to try (Pride, Sunshine, Mardi Gras) as well as two upcoming cruises with Carnival.

In the end, the stage shows aren't great and the food is pretty good, while the ships aren't quite as elegant as RCI's ships seem to be.  However, for a few music lovers who have to watch the total price, we find the the staff from our PVP all the way to the onboard staff are some of the best we've ever encountered, and the ships have a fun, informal feel that matches us really well.  We would fair poorly on a cruise line that put much energy into formalities or overly formal dress code.  

So goodbye for now Carnival Horizon, but we will see you again soon (and the Valor shortly after).

I thank everyone for reading, and if you still have questions about anything, please ask and I'll give you as much of an answer as I can.  For those of you who sailed with me, was your experience similar?  How did it differ from us?

Think my dog missed me?

Debarkation Day:

We woke up around 7 am, still entirely unpacked.  It doesn't take us long to pack up our suitcases, and by 7:45 we were packed and showered, and went down to the dining room for our final meal on the ship.  As always, breakfast was wonderful.  At the end, the server asked "Can we do anything else for you?" and I responded "Hide me on the ship so I don't have to leave!" He thought I was joking... lol.

We returned to our room and vacated it around 8:30, in no rush to head to the airport, as our flight wasn't until a little before 3 pm.  We ended up sitting on the lanai, talking and catching up on our phones, now that we could pull them out of airplane mode.  We listened as the announcements went from "Oh my gosh, I can't believe you have to go!"  to "All zones are free to debark, feel free to make your way down, there's no line!"  to "All guests should debark immediately."  An officer walking the lanai gave us a side eyed look, so we figured it was probably time to finally leave the beautiful Horizon.

There was little wait to get off the ship, and customs has switched to facial recognition software that is way, way faster than the old method of some customs agent asking you random questions and giving you weird looks.  We found ourselves outside the terminal, standing in stagnant Miami heat as the taxi line was still very long, and other guests were pushing past to get checked in for the next voyage.

We were a ways back in the taxi line, getting rather warm, when we saw two women get into a taxi, then immediately get out.  The employee talked to a few people in line, then in a frustrated voice shouted "Is there a party of two that doesn't need an air conditioned cab?"  We waited a second, and noone in front of us moved.  Hmm... stand in the line in stagnant heat for another half hour, or get in a taxi with the windows down?  We bolted forward and the driver was very apologetic, but we didn't really care, as it was far cooler with the cab moving than it was in the line.  

The Miami airport was chaos, and particularly humid.  For as big of an airport as they are, they still don't seem to know how to handle all of the ships in port letting off passengers at once.  We got inside and had no idea where to go.  Eventually, we stumbled upon an empty American Airlines baggage check.  We checked our bags, and the agent at the counter got us checked in without an issue.  It all seemed odd.  As we were leaving, we saw someone else get kicked out of the area, and only then noticed a small, turned sign that stated it was First Class Passenger check in, which we certainly were not.  Aw well!

We got pushed to three different security check in lines, as each one got overwhelmed with passengers.  Eventually we got into the terminal, and even though it had taken nearly two hours, we still had a few more hours to spare before our flight.  We ate, and grew increasingly warm as the airport was already crowded.  It was here and now that we felt the least safe, in a very crowded airport with people of unknown vaccination status and mixed mask compliance all huddled together for a couple of hours.  If you are worried about your exposure, this is likely the place you least want to be.

The flight itself was mostly uneventful, but when we finally got out of the airport and to our car, we realized we had been wearing increasingly foul smelling masks for the better part of 12 hours, and were eager to finally get outside and remove them.  We were greeted with snow.  HMC had white fluffy sand.  Detroit had white fluffy snow.

Up next: Final thoughts

Day 6 Part 2:

Back on the Horizon, we were grumpy and hungry.  We ordered room service again, this time ordering a quesadilla and the spicy fried shrimp (forget what they call it).  Room service was again very fast, and we took our time eating and relaxing on the balcony, noting we were having a far better time here than on the beach.  We spent a few hours on the balcony doing what we wished we could have on the beach.

Eventually we showered and got ready for dinner, which was again very easy to get to.  By now our moods had improved and we were glad we'd gotten back on the ship early.  We were still docked during most of dinner, where the wait staff gave the typical goodbye song, and we were truly sad to leave them. The food and service in the dining room was well above the normal standard of Carnival, and while I wont' say it was 5 star dining or anything crazy, it was certainly a great experience that left me not caring at all that the menu and selections were much slimmer than before.  I'd rather they do 10 things well, than 40 things not so well.

After dinner, we ended up going to our only show of the trip, "One Night Only" which turns out to be every musician on the ship (except the piano bar singers) doing their own collaborative concert.  It was really cool, and really fun.  We aren't much into the "shows" that are put on usually, but this was purely a concert and was one of my favorite experiences in a ship's theater.  Another small thing we thought was really cool:  Donkey snuck out to watch the performances and was standing in an obscure corner to try and see everyone perform.  After a while, people starting to watch him instead of the performers.  As soon as he was aware, he disappeared again, refusing to steal any part of the spotlight.  Very classy.

After the show we returned to the piano bar to say goodbye to all of our friends as well as Eden.  What we didn't realize, was that Jeffrey Muntz stayed after his scheduled time, and with Eden they performed a little routine together as well, which ended with them playing "Hotel California" on the same piano, as the same time.  It was incredibly cool, and we were seated in a place where we could see both of their hands flying across the keys together.  After Jeffrey left, the show went fairly "adults only" with Eden and Mignon having an intense (and hilarious) "argument" between songs, and her joining him for a few songs as well.  We said somewhat tearful goodbyes to everyone afterwards and returned to our cabin a little after midnight, suddenly very sad.

Up next: Debarkation day and my final thoughts/summary

Our favorite photo of the trip. See how much better these are than the old gangway photos?

Unfortunately the sun didn't pay us much of a visit today. 

Our view at Beach 360. Most of the people in front of us would eventually be asked to leave, not knowing they needed to pay for these seats. 

Day 6: Bimini (and our last full day onboard)-

Part 1: I'm definitely breaking this one down into two parts, because this was a tale of two experiences this day.

We woke up exhausted from staying up too late and overusing Cheers all week.  The weather was somewhat rainy, and we had booked the Beach 360 excursion which is an "on your own time" thing, so we dragged our feet in the morning.  We got breakfast in the dining room, then packed a few things to take to the beach club with us, hoping for only a relaxing day on the beach.

Getting off the ship, we were happy to see yet again that photographers were positioned on the pier and other places with cool backgrounds, rather than the annoying gangway photos.  (Quick rant: Why gangway photos?  The gangway is ugly, and it's always the worst photo showing the rusty part of the ship in a poorly lit area.  This trip, photographers were positioned to get photos with the islands in the background, or a little further to capture the entire ship behind you.  Dramatic improvement!)

The pier is VERY long, but there is a tram that parks right in front of where the ship docks and can take you all the way down the pier and to your destination.  The tram is definitely free even if you don't have an excursion.  Carnival does have a "priority" line for people going on excursions that need the tram.  We did hear after the fact though, that if you choose to walk instead, there's lots of marine life to look at below the pier, and the water is crystal clear.

We got on the tram, and took the short ride to Beach 360.  It was a little odd, because while they announced the free beach before, they didn't announce where we were when we arrived.  We got into the club without any issues, got our free drink and were brought out to a beautiful beach with the promised 2 chairs with a large umbrella over it.  At first, it seemed like exactly what we'd wanted.

Not long after we arrived, someone had some sort of medical issue on the beach.  I'm not entirely sure what happened, but there was a large crowd and it appeared serious.  It took a long while before he was wheeled off the beach and to an emergency crew that was in the parking lot.  Best wishes to him and his family, as that's not the way you want a vacation to end.

As we sat on the beach, some men were opening coconuts in front of us, then pouring drinks in, charging $15 initially, then $5 for a refill.  I ordered one and it was quite good.  Shortly after though, the police came and removed them from the beach.  I never found out why, but it was a bit unsettling.

The beach at the club is apparently free, but using the club chairs and facilities are not.  There is no signage, so we watched as people regularly took a seat, only to be told to pay or leave.  The first few times wasn't a big deal, but it became a pattern, and we noticed that the club staff seemed to wait for people to fully settle in, even taking drink orders before asking them to pay up or leave.  This caused the quiet beach day to quickly turn into a constant sea of people arguing with staff.

After a while, a small boat pulled up by the beach about 30 feet from shore, just on the other side of the buoys.  The passengers got into the water and the boat began blaring loud music that clashed with the club's music.  At this point, we were irritated and done.  We packed up and left, noticing that the stop after us was a large free beach that likely would have been much more peaceful.

Thoughts on Beach 360 overall: Don't bother.  It is beautiful, but poorly run.  If they want it to be paying guests only, they do a very poor job of enforcing that.  The constant patrol of staff kicking upset people off the beach is enough to be a pain, but combined with overpriced food and drinks, it just isn't worth the price of admission.  

Bimini overall is a decent port, and one I'd likely use the free beach on if we went again, but it doesn't hold a candle to HMC, Mahogany Bay, Grant Turk or the Grand Caymans.  There's just much better stops out there.  

We rode the tram back to the ship, not in the best of moods, and got back to the Horizon around 2:30 to try and make a better day out of one that had so far gone rather poorly...

Up next: Photos and then part 2- the last night onboard

I'm following and enjoying the pictures so much!  The Elation was my first ship, when she sailed out of New Orleans. I'm excited to see how she's changed and how she's remained the same!

I think Carnival is trying some different rates, much like NCL has done.

Right now I have past guest, early saver, cheers included, free wifi and a few other rates to choose from it I wanted to book. 

We usually book early saver as well, but the free cheers offers have gotten us to book twice now, lol

The end of the beach at HMC. Where the rocks jut out into the water is supposed to have a great reef, but the water was too rough to allow us to explore it.

We felt so far from the ship!  It was so surreal to be so far from everyone, and I only wish we could be back there just like that!

We got back onboard just in time as heavy rain rolled in just before 4 pm.

Day 5: Half Moon Cay

We were awaken by room service again, about 15 minutes before our alarms were set to go off.  Clumsily getting dressed, I took the tray, tipped the staff member, put it on the table, and promptly went back to sleep.  We slept in until around 9 am when we finally decided to have coffee and try to get moving.  

There was quite a bit of rain early in the morning, which left us even less motivated than usual to get going, but eventually we made our way down to the theater area to get our tender tickets.  Our new friend on staff had told us there was a nice reef on the far side of the beach, and I had my snorkel gear in tow to check it out.  Debarkation was fairly organized, and we got onto our tender around 10:30 am with rain threatening and many passengers choosing to stay on the ship.

The water was fairly rough, and we were glad for the tender ride from the ship to be very short.  Once on land, we made a bee-line for the far side of the beach.  Now, we didn't realize that the sand at Half Moon Cay stretches two entire miles, so it took us over a half hour to reach the end where it gets rocky and signs tell you not to go any further.  

I can't get over how gorgeous of a beach this is... even with bad weather on the horizon.  The sand is nearly white and almost as fine as flour.  What made it even better, was that only a handful of other people bothered to go that far down the beach, and as we found ourselves with plenty of space to lay out on the sand.  

One of the other couples out that far had also heard about the reef, and I saw one of them make it out to a point of interest before eventually coming in.  He'd said his better half chickened out in the rough water, but he'd managed to view some of the reef.  Jake has never been particularly interested in snorkeling, and especially not with hard waves slamming into the shoreline, so I went out on my own.

I reached the far edge of the reef where I saw little bits of coral clinging to a rocky outcropping, and quite a few small fish swimming around.  The waves threatened to push me into the higher parts of the rock, so I attempted to swim toward where I knew the rest of the reef was.  

Suddenly, I felt very cold water pulling me away and out to deeper water (toward the ship).  Even with snorkel gear, I couldn't resist the rip current, and did my best to try and swim sideways out of it.  It pulled me 50 or 75 yards before I finally was released, and found myself in a strong overall current and high waves.  Thankfully I'm a decent swimmer and had snorkel fins on, but it still took quite a while just to get back into shallow waters.  Once on shore, I ditched the snorkel gear and decided it was far too lonely and far too dangerous to keep trying.  

Instead of snorkeling, Jake and I played in the increasingly rough surf along the shore line.  The others who'd ventured out there to snorkel had all gone, leaving us alone on the beach as far as the eye could see.  It was a truly, one in a lifetime experience to have been on such a stunning beachfront without the sounds or sights of anyone else near us.  We wanted to savor those moments forever.  Once we grew tired, we decided to try and nap on the beach, laying in the sand with no one in sight.  Just as I drifted off, another particularly large wave washed all the way back to where we were, soaking our towels and much of our backpacks.  We decided this might have been a sign it was time to go, and with increasingly dark clouds gathering in the distance, we slowly walked back down the beach where everyone else was.

By then, it was after 3 PM and the Carnival staff was already packing much of their things away and lugging them back onto the ship, aware of the approaching storm.  We were starving, but the free buffet had closed, and we didn't really want to pay for whatever scraps may have been left behind at that point.  Instead, we decided to head back on board and find some food on the ship.  

It took a while for them to load the tender, and both of us were getting urgently hungry at that point, but we were still wet, covered in sand and badly in need of a shower.  As the packed tender pulled up to the Horizon and began connecting, I had a light bulb go off in my head.  The Hub app worked from where we were, so I logged on and ordered room service while the tender still was connecting to the ship.

Room service arrived at our cabin only a few seconds after we did, so we sat on the balcony, still sandy and wet, enjoying quesadillas and hot wings while we watched a rain storm roll and and start soaking those still trying to get back on the later tenders.  

We were lazy in the room until dinner time, but were still starving right at 5:30 pm.  I tried the pumpkin cheese pie, while Jake had the lasagna.  Both were good, but the staff must not have had the best feedback on the cheese pie, because they kept asking me if it was ok or if I wanted something else.  The table next to us were seated as we had dessert (the apple pie, which was ok, but not great).  Interested in conversation, we ended up ordering several more rounds of wine in the still nearly empty MDR as we chatted with the folks next to us.  

This night we went to the piano bar for a little while, but decided to attend the deck party with Donkey.  It was actually a lot of fun, and we danced with the other couples we'd started to grow close to during the cruise.  Donkey was a lot of fun, and this was really our first lengthy exposure to him so far.  My only complaint was that the deck party was only a very short 30 minutes, leaving most of us pretty energized and looking for more to do afterwards.  

We headed to the nightclub after, but our energy quickly crashed as the wine from dinner caught up to us (did I mention this is our first experience with CHEERS?) and we headed back to our cabin to try and prepare for our last full day on the ship!

Next up: pictures and then Bimini!

Quick note:

One thing I wanted to mention, as I haven't yet, is about our CD, Chris "Donkey" Salazar.  We heard announcements from Donkey about twice a day.  He always started his announcements introducing himself as the "voice from above" and they typically seemed shorter than most we'd heard.

Throughout the cruise, whenever Donkey would appear, he'd do whatever he needed to do, then disappear like magic, letting the talent he'd just introduced take center stage.  After having some particularly bad CD's in the past who seemed to think their jobs were self promotion and endless announcements, it was refreshing to have a CD who did just enough to keep you informed, then gladly shined the spotlight on everyone else.  We'd see him throughout the ship, friendly and fun, but he just didn't seem to act like he needed the spotlight to do his job, which was a very welcome relief.  

Heavy clouds rolled in just before sunset.

Our towel animal collection grows!

Not the best picture, but our regular view at the piano bar.

Silly piano bar selfie!

Day 4: Sea Day #2!

We woke up rather late (for us) on this day, around 9am.  Deciding to repeat our dining room experience, we found our way back into the dining room for breakfast (or seaday brunch as Carnival calls it).  This menu is slightly different than the port day breakfasts and features "breakfast burgers" as well as several other things that weren't really appropriate for our stomachs at 9am.  We had a bit of an odd experience at first.  The assistant waiter that brought us to our table seemed distracted as soon as we walked over with him.  He grabbed Jake's chair as if to pull it out, then ended up staring off into space for a while.  I sat down on my own, and Jake eventually was able to get seated himself, the waiter still distracted.  He offered us coffee without making eye contact, then left, never to be seen again.

Thankfully our head waiter noticed we hadn't been served, and quickly got our breakfast service back on track.  Jake got the steak and eggs, and was delighted to find out they used the filet mignon cut for the steak!  It wasn't as good as the MDR (or steakhouse) variety, but is a far cry above what is normal provided for steak and eggs.  I got the huevos rancheros, which were pretty good, but nothing particularly memorable either.  While we were eating, we saw a uniformed officer station himself near our table watching the servers, and couldn't help but wonder if it had something to do with our disappearing assistant waiter.  

After breakfast, we changed and found ourselves back up on the Serenity deck, which was starting to get full at around 10 am.  I started reading the book I had been gifted the night before, and Jake pulled out headphones, putting us both hard at work relaxing.  At one point I drifted off to sleep.  Then suddenly:

"SHAWN!"  I jumped up, thinking Jake had yelled it.  He had been dozing too, and was looking around now.

"SEAN!  SHAWN!  SHAAAAAAAWN!"  came the yell.  We soon came to realize there was a rather intoxicated man wandering the deck looking for his friend, who unfortunately shared my name.  He was attempting to impress some women he'd just met, and was desperate to find his wingman.

"SHHHHHAAAAWWWWNNN!!!!!"

It went on for over an hour, even after her found "Shawn" (or Sean or Shawn).  Every story started with that man's name, every sentence, every utterance "Hey SHAWN!!"  Thankfully the bar staff started ignoring this man, swiftly walking right by him without asking him if he wanted yet another round.  Shawn himself eventually grew tired and headed off to his cabin, and his friend decided to follow.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in relative peace on the Serenity deck, but angry clouds started to roll in right before dinnertime, causing the ship to start to move a little more than it had most of the trip.  We spent a few minutes in the casino, trying to do just enough to keep the casino offers coming for us on future bookings.  Jake ended up ahead by $4.00, while I lost $20.00.  I wouldn't have really cared, but a woman next to me won a $350 minor jackpot, while the slot machine slowly ate the money I fed it, which was a little discouraging, but aw well!

Dinner was yet another wine tour, though Jake and I had narrowed to our favorites,  The table next to us filled in for the first time, and we actually had good conversation with the family next to us, sharing stories about our dogs back him and about what we'd each done in Amber Cove.  They'd all stated that the rocking of the ship was really starting to bother them, and it showed when the barely touched their own dinners.  Through the night we heard several people complain about the movement of the ship, but after riding out a pretty good storm on the Elation, and endless choppy waters in the Magic, this seemed like pretty normal sailing to us.

We arrived in the piano bar early so we could hear Jeffrey play for a while, and it was particularly good, if not entirely different than Eden's show.  Throughout both of the shows, we found Mignon the main bartender at the piano bar to be funny and particularly talented as she started whipping up her own drink concoctions for us that would rival anything in the Alchemy bar (which was far too full every night to even dream about visiting).  

At the end of Eden's show, we stopped and talked to him a little more, where he opened up about his personal life a little bit, something that had started to seem regular on this cruise, even though we've barely experienced it in past cruises.  At the end of a pretty cool discussion, he'd mentioned that the next cruise (occurring right now) would be his last on this current contract. 

We asked him what he was going to do after this contract, and he stated that first he intended to take the holidays off.  He said he didn't mind staying away from home too much during the year, but he really did like going home for the holiday season, and likely wouldn't start his next contract until after Christmas.  We then asked him about where he was going, and he said he didn't really know.  Apparently Carnival has made it known to him that they intend to outbid anyone else for his services, but those other companies hadn't started bidding yet, so he didn't have any definitive answers yet.  However, he didn't seem very worried about it and figured he'd find himself onboard another Carnival ship in January.    

Tired and wanting to be sure we saved up some energy for Half Moon Cay, we retreated to the room with some pizza, with the intention of having a quick snack and heading to bed before 1 am.  We ended up on the balcony chatting and enchanted by the dark water just beyond our reach, and before we knew it 2:30 had arrived and we were still awake.  Knowing we'd never make it to breakfast, we quickly filled out a room service card and finally got to bed a little after 3 am.

Up next: Pictures and then Half Moon Cay!

I haven't cruised Princess, but my parents have cruised both. Here's what they said:

Princess is slower paced and less exciting.  Furnishings are higher end, the experience is more formal. Princess ships appear a little less crowded to them. 

Carnival is less formal, more fun.  They did think the decor was a little less appealing on Carnival. There's more activities on Carnival ships.

They found the service and food to be similar, but again Carnival is far less formal, using first names more friendly than "proper."

Both lines are owned by the same parent company, so expect a lot of similarities. 

I think id rather get an honest "We are too busy to take your call" than waste an hour or more of my time on hold, just to give up in frustration. 

There's tons of surges right now in demand and customer contact every time something changes. They have a finite number of people who can answer phones. Happens to about any company now and then. 

After dinner, we noticed that the Aura pop duo was performing "all requests" in one of the aft lounges.  Impressed with the little bit we'd seen previously, we decided to take our wine glasses from the MDR to the performance, in the hopes of requesting a few songs.

When we arrived, there was a small group of people near the bar, politely chatting with each other about the day, but paying no attention to the musicians.  We grabbed one of the request books and started listing songs we wanted to hear.  To our surprise, while a few others sat down, no one else made any requests.  We felt strange when we handed them a handful of songs (about 15), but they were very graceful, and since we had made the only requests, they arranged our songs in the order they wanted to play them, then spent the next hour playing just our requests as we drank wine, sang along and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  It felt like a little private concert that Carnival was putting on just for us!

As we neared their break, several other requests started to come in, and we decided to head to the piano bar to get seats early.  We thanked them as soon as they started their break, and headed off to get seats in the piano bar about 30 minutes early.  To our surprise, another piano player was playing.  We soon learned that much like the comedians, there were double the piano players on the ship, and Jeffrey Muntz was playing from about 5:30 to 8:45.  Jeffrey doesn't sing much during his sets, instead playing a mix of covers and original music while the doors between the steakhouse and the piano bar remained open.

When his set was over, he struck up a conversation with the small group of us sitting there, and we learned that not only was he a talented musician, but also an author working on his second book. A wanna be author myself, I talked with him a little bit more, wondering how he had time to compose music and write books.  At some point, Jake snuck off with him and had a little chat, coming back with a gifted and signed copy of Jeffrey's first book, with some words of encouragement inside the cover.  How cool!

As Eden made his way in and got the set started, we started to form our "group" with about 5 other couples that were all very enthusiastic about Eden's show.  He'd previously announced how much he hates playing "Sweet Caroline" despite the fact it gets requested every night.  So of course, each of us put in a request, and made sure it was the top 10 requests he had sitting on the piano when he came in.  We thought he was about to jump overboard!

Mid way through the show, Jake got up to use the restroom.  Remember all that wine we'd been sipping that night?  Well upon his return, he misjudged the doorway and walked directly into one of the glass panels instead!  Everyone heard a loud "THUMP" that almost caused Eden to stop playing.  Jake retreated in embarrassment as his glasses cut open his face in a few places, and it dripped down his face.  It was a while before he slid back into the piano bar, tail firmly tucked between his legs.

The night ended with the large group of us going up to the "nightclub" hosted on the Serenity deck.  Despite two swollen red spots on his face that still threatened to bleed, Jake danced the night away, and we are still hoping that the videos taken that night never find their way to our social media circles... 

Up next: Second sea day!

That's some serious avocado toast!

Our first chance  to see the Horizon without a terminal in the way. Notice we are all alone!

Sea turtle (statue):selfie!

Amber Cove Pt. 2:

Arriving back on the Horizon, we changed and I placed an order on the Hub for lobster rolls at Seafood Shack.  We got to the aft pool area of the ship and Jake got pizza while I picked up my order, then got a mudslide from the bar.  The lobster rolls were fairly good, but I also didn't really understand how two small portions of lobster on toasted bread was worth $12.00.  Jake gladly ate his free pizza.

While sitting there, a guy walked up to us and said he'd seen us applauding for the violin trio earlier, and envied our energy.  He started to strike up a conversation, then asked us what we thought about the ship.  After giving him mostly positive thoughts, he started going on a rant about how Carnival doesn't respect single travelers, and how much more NCL and RCI did for singles.  We started to tune him out, because while I understand the point, it doesn't really apply to us (if anything, we need a group rate when sailing with large family groups).  

Somewhere in tuning him out, he started dropping weird hints to us, and repeatedly mentioned how NCL caters meet and greets for the LGBTQ community.  He kept referring to getting people together, meeting "like minded people" and we soon realized he wanted more than conversation.  He reached for my hand to shake it, and I used it as an escape, letting him know it was sticky from my food, and I needed to go wash my hands.  Jake joined me in leaving, and we made sure not to return.  How creepy...

Instead, we went up and decided to try out the ropes course and the sky ride.  The sky ride was actually quite a bit more fun than we thought it would be, and the sun was starting to go down when we went across the back of the ship, giving us a great view of the sky.  We then tried the ropes course, and I realized about as soon as I got up there that I was petrified!  I was a little embarrassed as a few young children sped by on the course next to me, while I went in slow motion, terrified I'd end up falling on the deck below.  Jake somehow convinced me to try both courses, and I was slightly less terrified the second time around, but still was rather surprised at how hard I found it to be!

We went to dinner around 6, and found ourselves at the same table quite quickly again.  We had a nice conversation with our Lead waiter Nelson, and found out he'd been a wine steward when he originally started with Carnival.  He had a pretty extensive knowledge of wines, and knowing that we had Cheers, offered to let us try wines by the glass, and he'd help us find our favorites.  I honestly don't even entirely remember what we had for dinner, as he essentially gave us a private wine tour that night, which we enjoyed more than anything they put on the plate...

More pics, then sorry, Part 3!