Horizon Review - 10/19 - 10/27

[ishap]

Some of what we saw walking to our Havana Cabana. Pics are of the hallway, piano bar, and the Havana lounge and bar. 
 

 

[ishap]

3 minutes ago, nybumpkin said:

My assistant at work sailed on Norwegian Sky the same day you sailed on Horizon. Not only her first cruise, but also her first time on a plane. Fortunately she traveled with an experienced cruiser; however, their flights came as part of their NCL travel package and NCL booked them on a same-day flight. At midnight before flying she got a call from her cruise partner saying he had just received an e-mail that their flight was delayed and they would miss their connecting flight. They ended up leaving at 2 a.m. to go to another airport for a re-booked flight (actually better than the original flight) and made it to Miami in plenty of time. However, she was exhausted and stressed - I was thankful to see her post an onboard photo with drink in hand.

 

The week before she traveled I thought about sending her a video I had seen of tips for first-time cruisers; however, the first tip was DO NOT FLY IN THE DAY OF THE CRUISE. Knowing she was doing exactly that, I didn't share the video.😮

 

Thanks for sharing your vacation!

Oh boy would I have been stressed!  Yeah that’s exactly why you don’t do that lol. At least she made it in time and now she knows for next time!  Hopefully she enjoyed her first cruise!

[nybumpkin]

8 minutes ago, ishap said:

Hopefully she enjoyed her first cruise!

It was a rough start, but she's hooked. She's already looking for the next one.

[reeinaz]

8 hours ago, ishap said:

Thank god my wife is like me...early is ontime, ontime is late, and late is being left behind.  We get to the airport early...

I'm the same way. Years ago I was in a car accident (I was a passenger) on my way to the airport and the first thing that came to mind was that I was early enough to still be able to make my flight. However, the medics insisted on driving me to the ER to have my broken hip treated 😂

[lasvegascruising]

Let's talk about carry on luggage.  I have read here on cruise critic stories of lost luggage.  You all know the flyer that shows up in your cabin, hey we are looking for a black rolling piece of luggage.  The story that will never leave my memory is of a lady that never received her bag and had no clothes for the entire week.  She was over heard at guest services and other ladies who over heard this gave her some of their clothes.  This will never happen to me, ever.  I leave the house, a day before the cruise, to the airport with my carry on.  That bag never leaves my sight until I am in my cabin.  Hubby and I each have one carry on and then we have a large bag with stuff that I want to have but if is lost, not the end of the world.  Even typing this makes me nervous about my up coming trip.  I think I will plan to leave to the airport even earlier than ever and my carry on will have even more clothes, shoes and swimming suits.

[Irene225]

3 hours ago, ishap said:

- This ship has the new smart elevators. The biggest downfall for the smart elevators is that it relies on stupid people

Literally LOLed at this. Love it. 

[beshears]

It is 2:48AM and instead of sleeping like most people do, I am up on the computer, and found your posting on the Horizon.  I see you did (I believe) the 8 day cruise, but 8 of us (my 3 sons, 3 d-i-ls, and friend) are to do the 6 day in March, and I like reading the pros/cons of everyone that writes reviews, like myself after a cruise. 🙂 In my 19 cruises I have done, I have never gone in the day before, as I leave my airport EARLY in the morning, to make sure I have plenty of time to arrive, but my sons/wives want to go in the day before, so that is what we will be doing.  As you post, I will continue to follow along, and thank you for your posting.

[jimbri]

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[ishap]

2 hours ago, beshears said:

It is 2:48AM and instead of sleeping like most people do, I am up on the computer, and found your posting on the Horizon.  I see you did (I believe) the 8 day cruise, but 8 of us (my 3 sons, 3 d-i-ls, and friend) are to do the 6 day in March, and I like reading the pros/cons of everyone that writes reviews, like myself after a cruise. 🙂 In my 19 cruises I have done, I have never gone in the day before, as I leave my airport EARLY in the morning, to make sure I have plenty of time to arrive, but my sons/wives want to go in the day before, so that is what we will be doing.  As you post, I will continue to follow along, and thank you for your posting.

 

For me it's never the "getting to the airport" that worries me, it's the "your flight is delayed by 6 hours", or "your flight is canceled".  

[ishap]

8 hours ago, lasvegascruising said:

Let's talk about carry on luggage.  I have read here on cruise critic stories of lost luggage.  You all know the flyer that shows up in your cabin, hey we are looking for a black rolling piece of luggage.  The story that will never leave my memory is of a lady that never received her bag and had no clothes for the entire week.  She was over heard at guest services and other ladies who over heard this gave her some of their clothes.  This will never happen to me, ever.  I leave the house, a day before the cruise, to the airport with my carry on.  That bag never leaves my sight until I am in my cabin.  Hubby and I each have one carry on and then we have a large bag with stuff that I want to have but if is lost, not the end of the world.  Even typing this makes me nervous about my up coming trip.  I think I will plan to leave to the airport even earlier than ever and my carry on will have even more clothes, shoes and swimming suits.

 

Truthfully, I must have missed those stories.  I don't think I've read one of those on here.  We usually split our clothes between two bags so if something did happen to one, we would just have to re-wear some stuff.

[ishap]

Into the room we go to drop off our carry on bags.  The room wasn't quite ready when we got there.  Our room steward said it would be ready in about 15 minutes, but we removed valuables from our bags, tossed the bags in the closet, and went out to explore some more.

 

If you notice, the towels they give you in the Havana area are brown, unlike the typical blue Carnival towels everywhere else.  Just another thing to separate the Havana from the rest of the ship.

 

While our room wasn't quite ready, our sign and sail cards were at the room, along with our Havana wristbands, so we grabbed them as well before we hit the rest of the ship.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by ishap
Added extra text

[ishap]

Havana area is our first stop.  A couple of shots of the pool and hot tubs, along with the Conquest that is docked behind us and the Port of Miami.

 

While the pool level looks low, it is typically filled above the level of the pool with about two inches of water through-out the entire area.  That way people can sit under the cabana and still have their feet in the water.  

 

 

 

I don't think I got any shots of the Havana area while we were underway, but it was only "crowded" once and that was the last sea day.  And when I say crowded, I mean about 15-20 people in and around the pool itself, with about 30 or so people hanging out in the entire Havana area.

 

I will also say that we became a big family back there.  You get to know the Havana people as they are the ones that are hanging in the pool every day.  We would see them all after a port day and everyone would talk about their excursions or their time in port.  We got to know a lot of people back there and everyone talked about how much they enjoyed the exclusivity of the Havana area.  

Edited October 29, 2019 by ishap
Extra comments

[grandmarnnurse]

4 hours ago, beshears said:

It is 2:48AM and instead of sleeping like most people do, I am up on the computer, and found your posting on the Horizon.  I see you did (I believe) the 8 day cruise, but 8 of us (my 3 sons, 3 d-i-ls, and friend) are to do the 6 day in March, and I like reading the pros/cons of everyone that writes reviews, like myself after a cruise. 🙂 In my 19 cruises I have done, I have never gone in the day before, as I leave my airport EARLY in the morning, to make sure I have plenty of time to arrive, but my sons/wives want to go in the day before, so that is what we will be doing.  As you post, I will continue to follow along, and thank you for your posting.

Having a nervous breakdown just reading about anyone who flies in the day of cruise! Living in a part of the country where snowstorms, blizzards, delayed and cancelled flights are common, flying in day of cruise could mean missing your cruise. No way. We fly in at the very least, one day ahead. Our next cruise in February out of NOLA, we are flying in from Rochester, NY (instead of Buffalo, as the price was cheaper, so staying day before flight in hotel as well) and three days before cruise. 

[grandmarnnurse]

2 hours ago, ishap said:

 

Truthfully, I must have missed those stories.  I don't think I've read one of those on here.  We usually split our clothes between two bags so if something did happen to one, we would just have to re-wear some stuff.

We have always each had our own large suitcase plus carryon. On our last cruise, after reading about a few people who never got their luggage, either from airport or ship, I divided clothing for each of us between both bags. We had a little of each of our clothing in each bag. 

[Daliaha]

Will be on the Horizon in December.   Loving your review so far.   Hubby and me are like you, We want to get to the port city the night before.  On our 3rd cruise we did a Fly in day of.  Had to be up and at the airport at 8am, so we left at 5am.  I would rather be sleeping ( or trying to sleep ) in a hotel.  

 

So excited to keep reading your review. Keep up the good work...

 

 

[ishap]

We continued our walk around the ship. Most of my cruises ended up being on Conquest class ships and this one is setup very differently.  I forgot to take pictures of the sports deck so unfortunately I don’t have any of the sky ride and ropes course.
 

The sky ride was open the entire cruise so anyone who is sailing shouldn’t have to worry about it being closed for maintenance.  I never did get up to ride it though and I am a little regretful of that. 
 

Here is the library and self serve wine bar in the library. 

[ishap]

Here are the lobby, lobby tornado, and casino tornado. 
 

The casino is on deck 4 but when walking on deck 5 you go past the upper tornado and can look down into the casino bar. There is glass that encloses the top of the casino tornado which keeps all the smoke from seeping out. And yes, the casino bar is always packed with smokers.  

[ishap]

7 minutes ago, Daliaha said:

Will be on the Horizon in December.   Loving your review so far.   Hubby and me are like you, We want to get to the port city the night before.  On our 3rd cruise we did a Fly in day of.  Had to be up and at the airport at 8am, so we left at 5am.  I would rather be sleeping ( or trying to sleep ) in a hotel.  

 

So excited to keep reading your review. Keep up the good work...

 

 

Thank you for reading and following along!

[ishap]

Here is a pic of the Lido pool along with some pics of Miami from the upper decks. 

 

[MamaBraz]

I am enjoying reading your review; however, there are parts of it that give me added stress.  My husband and I are both school teachers.  It is impossible for us to fly out the day before.  We have a very early flight on the day of the cruise.  We have done it before without any incident, but when I read some of your warnings...I do have a bit of anxiety.  I am trying to be calm about it.  We fly out and sail on March 21st.  We have a direct flight from Indianapolis to FLL.

[ishap]

Now, all this walking was making me thirsty, so first beer stop was down at the pig and anchor bar on deck 5. This bar was my favorite the entire cruise for 2 reasons...first, the smoked porter and toasted amber are fantastic beers. Second, it was very convenient to me being on deck 5 right near the Havana rooms. We seemed to walk by the pig and anchor all the time. 
 

After I got my first beer, we figured we would grab some BBQ while we were there. No one was in line for food. 
 

Pro tip:  A LOT of people thought the BBQ cost extra. In reality it only costs extra at dinner. During lunch it was free, including while in port. Therefore the line for BBQ was always short or had no one waiting. The pulled pork, smoked Andouille sausage, and Mac and cheese were awesome!  I smoke my own bbq at home so if I say it’s good, it’s good. 
 

I was excited to take a tour of the brewery until I found out they charged $25 per person for the tour. I can tour breweries for free at home so we skipped that. 
 

 

[ricew001]

19 hours ago, ishap said:

  And I will never understand why people drag their luggage with them instead of using the porters.  Too much hassle.

 

I'm afraid that's going to be us this time. We did 5:30 pm steakhouse reservations and I worry our luggage will not be to our room on time for us to get ready.

[purplephenom]

I'm a little disappointed to see the scooters in Miami.  I spend a lot of time in Washington DC and Baltimore, and both have the scooters.  It's bad enough when locals who know where they're going are using them, and you have to dodge people in a huge rush to get where they're going.  But add in tourists who don't know where they're going, and just rent the things to play on, or people that are looking at the sites instead of where their scooter is going, and it gets messy.

 

The Havana area looks great- I can't wait to spend some time back there when we do this ship in February.  We normally book a deck 1 inside, and we've gone with a Havana interior for our next 2 cruises, so I'm really hoping the area makes us happy since its a lot more money than we usually spend.  The idea of getting to know everyone back there is nice too- I like the idea of making cruise friends, but I rarely will be the one to walk up to someone and start a conversation, so a small group might make it easier to find some buddies. 

 

Looking forward to more and thanks for taking the time to do this!

[grandmarnnurse]

2 hours ago, MamaBraz said:

I am enjoying reading your review; however, there are parts of it that give me added stress.  My husband and I are both school teachers.  It is impossible for us to fly out the day before.  We have a very early flight on the day of the cruise.  We have done it before without any incident, but when I read some of your warnings...I do have a bit of anxiety.  I am trying to be calm about it.  We fly out and sail on March 21st.  We have a direct flight from Indianapolis to FLL.

I understand your concerns. Personally, I’d never fly out day of. There are far to many things that could go wrong. I’d just request an additional day off from work. Find subs for your classroom. I once worked for a school district, in their health offices, and took a 2 week vacation that was not during school holidays. They were not happy, but they dealt with it. What you have to lose is possibly all the money you’ve invested in your cruise. 

[grandmarnnurse]

2 hours ago, ishap said:

We continued our walk around the ship. Most of my cruises ended up being on Conquest class ships and this one is setup very differently.  I forgot to take pictures of the sports deck so unfortunately I don’t have any of the sky ride and ropes course.
 

The sky ride was open the entire cruise so anyone who is sailing shouldn’t have to worry about it being closed for maintenance.  I never did get up to ride it though and I am a little regretful of that. 
 

Here is the library and self serve wine bar in the library. 

How much does the wine cost from the self serve?