Hello Vista! A Full PICTORIAL Trip Report of Carnival's Newest Ship

[19cruiser59]

Really great review! Thank you for sharing. I am looking forward to seeing the Vista in July! :)

[ginjer2911]

Awesome review. Great pictures. I have loved reading your review; gonna have to check out your blog for all your travel fun.

[sonicbuffalo]

My jaw was at my knees the minute we walked into the church. I knew what was waiting for me inside. I’ve seen dozens of pictures. But nothing could prepare me for the overwhelming masterpiece that lays inside in the detailed carvings, the high, vaulted ceilings and the richly stained glass that cast shadows in every hue of the rainbow across the entire space. Every wall I looked at, every small detail I caught, each was more beautiful that the last. Pictures don’t even do it justice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do you have to pay extra to get the URL? I can't get photobucket to work like it used to. How do you download pictures from it? Thanks! Beautiful pictures!

[h_blond2]

Fabulous review! I loved reading it!

[mistyPA]

Thank you for such a well constructed review, photos, comments and opinions were all so well written. I looked forward to reading it as it took me a few days to read through it. We are on the Vista in May, this will be our 2nd cruise on Carnival. We did cruise the Dream a few years ago, we always enjoy our cruises, but if I had to rate the Dream against the other ships, it would have been on the lower end of ships we enjoyed...relatively speaking that's still excellent as far as vacations go. We are looking forward to the Vista, but even more so after seeing all of your pictures and reading about your experience. Enjoy your cruise on the Sunshine and will look for your review. Thank you again.

[DebbieMo]

Enjoying your review and now I want to go on an European cruise even more than I did before. What was the average cost per person for the tours, if you don't mind me asking? Did you notice if there were tours available once you got off the ship that weren't run by Carnival? Do you think someone could tour on their own in these ports?

 

 

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[cruise pup]

What happened to Nicole? She didn't finish this excellent review and hasn't been on the thread since last month. I know that life can get in the way. Just hope all is OK.

[CruisinMama2003]

What happened to Nicole? She didn't finish this excellent review and hasn't been on the thread since last month. I know that life can get in the way. Just hope all is OK.

 

 

I was wondering the same thing a couple of weeks ago----so I just went to her blog site (link is in her previous posts) and finished the review :)

[cruise pup]

On closer inspection it looks like she was in Orlando at Disney and then did a cruise on the Sunshine. I'll check out her blog.

[Nicole721]

I've so enjoyed reading your review and look forward to your sunshine review as we sail on her in 2018

 

Thank you!

 

Hi all!

 

Nicole ~ have a great time at Disney! Looking forward to your Sunshine review whenever you do it.

 

Happy New Year & all the best in 2017!:D

 

~ Jo ~ :)

 

Thanks, Jo! Have a couple of weeks of travel ahead of me (Seattle for work this week, New Mexico for a few days the week after I get back), but I should be starting that Sunshine review soon!

 

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[Nicole721]

Your review was very informative and enjoyed reading along, together with its nice pictures.

 

I'm glad you've enjoyed it!

 

Really great review! Thank you for sharing. I am looking forward to seeing the Vista in July! :)

 

I hope you enjoy the Vista as much as we did!

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[Nicole721]

Awesome review. Great pictures. I have loved reading your review; gonna have to check out your blog for all your travel fun.

 

I have some fun posts coming up! Wrapping up a post about San Francisco and then finishing up some posts about Zurich and Paris :)

 

Do you have to pay extra to get the URL? I can't get photobucket to work like it used to. How do you download pictures from it? Thanks! Beautiful pictures!

 

For Photobucket? Yeah, I had to upgrade to a premium account a few years ago because posting pictures on my blog or here was using up more bandwidth than a free account allowed for.

[Nicole721]

Fabulous review! I loved reading it!

 

Thank you!!

 

Thank you for such a well constructed review, photos, comments and opinions were all so well written. I looked forward to reading it as it took me a few days to read through it. We are on the Vista in May, this will be our 2nd cruise on Carnival. We did cruise the Dream a few years ago, we always enjoy our cruises, but if I had to rate the Dream against the other ships, it would have been on the lower end of ships we enjoyed...relatively speaking that's still excellent as far as vacations go. We are looking forward to the Vista, but even more so after seeing all of your pictures and reading about your experience. Enjoy your cruise on the Sunshine and will look for your review. Thank you again.

 

I've been on the Dream twice (I think!) and I enjoyed the ship, though I probably wouldn't rank it amongst my absolute favorites. That said, I think the Vista is just really a class of it's own and truly is unique and different from the other ships in the fleet. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did! :)

[Nicole721]

Enjoying your review and now I want to go on an European cruise even more than I did before. What was the average cost per person for the tours, if you don't mind me asking? Did you notice if there were tours available once you got off the ship that weren't run by Carnival? Do you think someone could tour on their own in these ports?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

I don't mind at all!

 

I've found Europe excursions to be significantly more expensive than Caribbean ones -- they're an expense to factor in of their own. The "on your own" tours are generally the least expensive, ranging from $40 - $100, with general tours ranging from $100 all the way up to $400 (per port!).

 

Some ports, you can do on your own. Rhodes is one that comes to mind. We docked in Cannes the year before and that was another one that had plenty to do within walking distance of the pier. In Athens, there were hop on/hop off busses that stopped in Piraeus, where the boat was docked.

 

But on Mediterranean cruises, generally you're not docking at the destination cities -- instead, the ship docks at an industrial dock in a gateway city. Florence is about two hours away from the piers in Livorno and La Spezia. Rome is about an hour/hour and a half (depending on traffic) away from Civitavecchia. There aren't tour operators hanging out at the piers, so your options are kind of limited. You can book a ship tour (which we've done just because our destinations were so far away from the ship, itself, that we felt more comfortable with the guarantee that the ship would wait for us if our tour was late), you can book a private tour or you can try to DIY a tour yourself by figuring out how to take public busses/trains into the destination city.

 

Hope that helps!

 

What happened to Nicole? She didn't finish this excellent review and hasn't been on the thread since last month. I know that life can get in the way. Just hope all is OK.

 

Hi there! I'm here! The wifi was pretty terrible on the Sunshine, which meant no posting from there, and I've been sick pretty much since we got home :( But I'm back and I hope you enjoy the next post on Athens! :)

[Nicole721]

I was wondering the same thing a couple of weeks ago----so I just went to her blog site (link is in her previous posts) and finished the review :)

 

Ha! Hope you enjoyed it :D

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[Nicole721]

Day 13: Athens, Greece

 

I'm not a morning person, and I’m really bad at waking up. It doesn’t really matter where I am or what the circumstances are. I’m awful at getting out of bed.

 

But when I woke up, intense, bright sunshine streaming into our room, I couldn’t linger in bed for long. We had a big day ahead of us: not only were we docked in Athens for our last port (an overnight visit), but it was our last day onboard the Carnival Vista and we had no time to waste.

 

If you’re visiting Athens for the first time, there’s nothing I recommend more than taking a trip up to the Acropolis to visit the Parthenon (either on your own, with a tour or with a ship excursion). It’s beautiful, awe-inspiring and it’s some of the deepest history you can walk through.

 

 

We contemplated a return visit this year just because it was such a moving experience last year, but with limited time to spend in port, we opted to do it our way: on our own, at our own pace.

 

But on that note, as a general sentiment of cruising in general, I really don’t like having port days on the final day of any itinerary. When you’re traveling (especially when you’re traveling so far from the US to Europe), there’s always some kind of pressure to go out and explore. It didn’t make sense to come all the way to Europe to spend a day in Athens on a ship (even a ship as shiny, new and magnificent as the Vista). But we had packing to do. And we did want to spend more time onboard the Vista. And beyond all of that, we were completely and utterly exhausted. I don’t think there’s an adequate synonym for intense to describe the feeling of touring eight ports in ten days. So on our final day, we slept in a little bit. We grabbed a quick breakfast up on the Lido deck and then we headed out to explore Athens for a few hours.

 

When we docked in Piraeus on the Vision of the Seas last year, we took a guided tour through the ship that offered a tour of the Acropolis and then free time to wander around. We noticed, though, that the Hop On Hop Off bus stopped right outside our ship. That was option one. Option two was a last minute transfer offered by the ship, only announced that morning, a roundtrip transfer to Plaka for five and a half hours for $17. We weighed both options and ultimately decided on the Hop On Hop Off bus. Five and a half hours in Plaka seemed like a bit much and even though we’d have to transfer on the Hop On Hop Off bus, we’d have the flexibility to come and go as we pleased.

 

[Nicole721]

We had three options of Hop On Hop Off bus, each lined up next to each other literally right outside the ship. All of them offered similar itineraries and free wifi. We ultimately went with Citysights because that was the one we’d researched. Tickets were €22 (€20 with the on-site discount they gave us) and the tickets would be valid for 24 hours. Citysights has three lines: a Piraeus line, an Athens line and a beach line. The Piraeus line is what stops at the ship. It’ll take you through the town of Piraeus (which is much more charming than what we saw of it the year before), where you can transfer to the beach line, or to the Acropolis, where you can transfer to the Athens line. We did the latter, riding through Piraeus and admiring the beautiful beach and seascape they have, until we arrived at the Acropolis, where we could transfer to the city line.

 

 

 

 

 

Although we had no plans of going up to the Acropolis this visit, I have to say, staring at it from the parking lot was so tempting. It’s just such a stunning sight. Alas, I was veto’ed by Stephanie, so we just admired it from the line for the Athens bus.

 

 

[Nicole721]

It was a scorcher of a day in Athens and although the top deck of the bus offered a nice breeze, it also put us right under the sun. Mom sat downstairs and Stephanie and I tried to shade each other because nothing sounded less appealing than walking around the Athens airport the next day with big backpacks on sunburnt shoulders.

 

 

We hopped off the bus at Syntagma Square, which is in the middle of all of the downtown Athens action, right by the Old Royal Palace. The year before, we’d found a café, Orange Bakery, as we drove by on the tour. We circled back during our free time and discovered the absurd deliciousness of the cappuccino freddo. I’d been dreaming of those freddos ever since, so you can imagine our disappointment as we walked up and found our little gem of a bakery had shut down.

 

 

 

 

Undeterred and under-caffeinated, we headed next door to Paul, a French patisserie we’d seen in Arles, for still-good-but-not-AS-good freddos and some pastries to start our day with.

 

[Nicole721]

Athens has always offered an interesting juxtaposition for me: the impact of the financial crisis is obvious from every corner of the city, in crumbling facades, unfinished buildings and graffiti. The area the patisserie is located in is as opulent as Athens gets – almost reminiscent of a Grecian Beverly Hills. But amidst the glamour are political messages scrawled in black spray paint, or an intricate building façade that’s broken down and crumbling. In front of the high end department store is a man panhandling and another selling lottery tickets to make a living. It’s impossible to ignore.

 

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

To that end, though, we’ve walked quite a bit through the city on both this visit and our last one, and in no part did we ever witness anything sketchy or feel unsafe. Syntagma Square or Plaka are probably the grittiest of the downtown areas. If you linger anywhere long enough, you’ll probably be approached by someone wanting to sell you something or “give” you something for a tip (this time, it was roses). If you make eye contact with a street musician, they’ll come play for you and expect payment out of it. General common sense rules of travel awareness and safety should keep you safe in Athens.

 

 

We probably could have picked up the Hop On Hop Off bus to take us to Plaka, but it was such a nice day out that we just decided to walk it, stopping to browse in some of the shops we found on our way and marvel at the way the city had been built around the ruins left behind from ancient times.

 

 

 

 

[Nicole721]

Plaka is the cultural epicenter of Athens. Everyone gathers in Plaka – to shop, to eat, to stroll along the tree-canopied streets. Plaka was built around the ancient Greek Agora and houses many of Athens’ museums. By the time we walked over, we were parched, so we stopped at the first café we saw: a yogurt café. The Greek yogurt we buy in the grocery stores here in the US has nothing on real Greek yogurt. For one, real Greek yogurt has about 8% milk fat, which makes it entirely decadent, but it’s much more mild tasting, too. A cup of Greek yogurt topped with honey and walnuts and (another) cappuccino freddo made a perfect snack for such a hot day.

 

 

[Nicole721]

We continued our walk around Plaka, stopping in and out of the shops we found, but we didn’t buy much – we’d already bought so much in our first seven ports, and between that and all of the things we bought on our Athens visit the year prior, there wasn’t much we needed to buy. We walked as far into Plaka as we could, we sat in a park for awhile and enjoyed the warm weather. It was a perfect day in Athens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruise pup]

Hi there! I'm here! The wifi was pretty terrible on the Sunshine, which meant no posting from there, and I've been sick pretty much since we got home :( But I'm back and I hope you enjoy the next post on Athens.

 

I went to your blog as suggested by another poster so I actually got to see it a while ago. Feel better! Sounds like you got a repeat of your Vista-itis.

Edited January 28, 2017 by cruise pup

[Nicole721]

When we were done wandering around, we made our way back towards the main street where we could catch the Hop On Hop Off bus. We noticed a line out of this hole in the wall for pita sandwiches and decided to grab a quick lunch before we headed back to the ship. We sat on a bench underneath the trees people watching and eating our pitas and it was the perfect way to end our time in Greece.

 

 

 

 

We headed back to the Vista around 3:00 pm, hoping we’d have enough time to pack and enjoy the ship before dusk. The bus left us off where it had picked us up, right at the terminal, and we took some time to browse the terminal shops for luggage (terribly overpriced) and last-minute souvenirs.

 

 

For as much as we travel, we’re all terrible at packing. We’re terrible at estimating how much we need, we’re terrible at eliminating items we’ll never use and we’re terrible at estimating how much space we’ll need for souvenirs. We were flying home business class, so we could fly with three suitcases each, each one up to 75 pounds. But before we flew home, we’d have to fly from Athens to Zurich on Swiss Air, a European carrier. European carriers are much more strict with their luggage allowances, which made packing for our next destination so much more stressful with two weeks worth of purchases coming with us. Flying business on Swiss didn’t allow us any extra luggage allowance, so we pre-purchased an extra bag when we checked into our flight, which would save us a few dollars from having to do so at the airport.

 

[Nicole721]

When we literally couldn’t pack anymore, we headed downstairs for our last dinner in the dining room. We had a different dining staff every night, so there were no drawn out farewells – it was just another meal in the dining room. I can’t really say too much about it because I was too congested at this point to taste anything I was eating.

 

Flatbread

 

Vine Ripened Tomatoes and Chopped Lettuce

 

Beef Carpaccio

 

Shrimp Cocktail

 

Ricotta Ravioli