A Halloween Escape on the Horizon

[Indytraveler83]

 

'Tis but a fever dream. We live life, go to work and have families. We pay bills, go shopping and try our best to be part of the world. Then we board the ship and life begins anew. It was like this we found ourselves aboard the Carnival Horizon again, living those rare moments without responsibility nor care.  

 

 

 

I wrote that shortly after boarding the Horizon.  It often feels like real life turns off while you board a ship, and you are able to release the world for just a little while.  However, let's back up a little bit and make some introductions:

 

My name is Shaun and this is my 7th cruise with my husband Jake.  We booked a Halloween trip on the Horizon shortly after getting off a 6 day journey on the ship last year.  His birthday is Oct 29th, the day we boarded, and Halloween is his favorite holiday, so this trip seemed ideal and we were VERY excited for it.

 

 

This was an 8 day trip with visits to Aruba, Curacao, La Romana and Amber Cove.  We booked it on our last "Free Cheers for you" offer and intended to go a little wild for this trip.

 

However, life can get crazy, and we made the decision to move out of a declining neighborhood, leaving us shorter on money and energy than we intended.  We literally closed the final real estate agreement in the O'Hare airport bar via phone right before our long delayed flight finally took off for Miami, landing at 3 AM.

 

The result was us boarding the Horizon tired, worn out and ready to simply relax.  I'll start our Day 1 post shortly!

[kelkel2]

I can’t wait to read more! 

[Indytraveler83]

Day 1: Boarding the ship and first impressions-

 

Having gotten into Miami late, we took full advantage of the noon checkout at the Best Western near the airport and took an Uber to the cruise terminal for our 12:30 check-in.  We arrived at the terminal by 12:10 and were completely shocked that they waved us in, despite being so early.  The check-in process continues to get smoother, and we never sat or stopped.  Our first steps on the Horizon occured at 12:18 PM.  Our muster station was near the atrium, so we sat through all 2 minutes of that before heading down to the Pig and Anchor for lunch.  At exactly 12:30 I found myself sampling the limited holiday run of their beers:

 

We mostly lounged around the ship until our rooms were ready and bags were delivered.  Now, the Horizon is BEAUTIFUL in the new blue hulled paint scheme.  This is the first time we've seen that in person, and it was a great choice.  We also noticed that the ship was spotless.  We would see painting, cleaning and maintenance through the cruise.  Carnival is certainly making sure the Horizon doesn't get mistaken for one of the older ships that everyone seems to complain about.

 

We had selected a cove balcony for this cruise, room 2315 which was under the forward dining room and just a quick flight of stairs to the atrium.  I had received an upsell call days before the cruise offering us a suite for $500 total.  While tempting, we couldn't take it with so much money tied up in the home purchase.  Still... the view on cove's can't be beat:

 

 

Our room steward greeted us around the time our luggage came.  I had no idea how to pronounce his name, but he told us to pronounce it "Ninja." It was appropriate, as this would be only one of two times we would see him the entire cruise.  However, as soon as we left our room in the morning, even if just for a minute, our ninja steward would sweep in and have everything spotless before we returned.  

 

Up next: Day one, Part 2- The Chef's Table and a late night.

 

[Indytraveler83]

Before money got tight, we purchased excursions and the Chef's Table.  We did the Chef's table on the first night, Jake's birthday. It turned out to be an amazing choice, as we were two of only six people who were attending that night.  The event was hosted by a sous chef, an assistant, a wonderful server and the best magician we've ever seen on Carnival's ships.  

 

 

I took a LOT of photos, but now realize most of them contain the other guests faces.  The one above is a photo of the best bread we've ever had.  

 

 

This is just another one of the dozen or so courses that were served to us.  The Horizon has a fabulous private dining room inside the kitchen where we were served wine and watched as our chefs made our food fresh in front of us.  

 

It's hard to describe the entire experience (and I don't want to spoil the surprise.  But think of it as a culinary excursion worth taking, not an expensive dinner.  We got a brief lesson in making chocolate melting cake and a tour of the galley that we could only compare to a beehive, with hundreds of people moving about in orchestrated chaos.  We all joked that while there were only 6 people, someone would have thought it was a booked out night by the sheer volume of wine we went through...

 

Afterwards we headed to Ocean Plaza, the oversized entertainment area in the aft of the ship where we watched the Horizon Rock band and then the duo of Missy and Gabe (more on them later) before retiring to our room, feeling the effects of the endless wine.  

 

Next up: Day 2: Our first sea day (likely will post tomorrow, as our flight home takes off shortly.)

 

Please let me know if you have questions or shared the ship with us, and I'll be sure to get back to everyone!

 

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Indytraveler83

[MardiGras10022021]

following  nice work guys

 

[DebOinKC]

We will be on this ship 10/28/23 with the same itinerary as you. So following along 🙂

[TrqoisWtrs]

Looking forward to more :)

[ninjacat123]

Sounds awesome and looking forward to more!!

[Indytraveler83]

Day 2: The First Sea Day

 

We dreamed of rivers of Merlot while having Pinot Grigio nightmares.  Through clouds of tannins we climbed until we finally awoke to late morning sun on our balcony.

 

Exhausted from the prior days, we chose not to rise, instead waiting for lunch to order in. Napping through the day, we didn't finally make our way from the cabin until dinnertime.  

 

We had hoped for a fine dinner on the first formal night, but our plans were quickly changed, and the evening turned from relaxing to irritating.

 

"What do you want?" asked the server.  Ok, so maybe he was new?  He's failed to introduce himself or his team, simply pulling out his notepad and taking our order.  Jake ordered steak, I ordered the striped bass, and the server left without another word.  

 

"Will someone else take our drink order?" Jake asked.  

"Usually," I replied.  

 

Our appetizers were quickly dumped on our table without a word, and no time to order drinks or even a water refill.  The plates were pulled from us without a word, and the main courses dumped before us unceremoniously.

 

I found the striped bass to be dry and tasteless, but had no chance to request a change.  After spending too much time with it, it was ripped from before me and our desserts slammed on the table with a clank.  We started watching our serving team then, and saw the head waiter angrily motioning to his team and storming around the dining room. 

 

We left shortly after the single worst dinner service we'd ever had on a ship.  The Maitre D was nowhere to be found, and the hostesses had lines to visit them.  After swearing we'd never go through such a service again, we decided to handle this issue later and not let it ruin our night.

 

As live music fools, we again settled down to music in the ocean plaza.  Jake decided that whiskey would clear the taste of dinner, while I settled for a non-boozy milkshake to give my worn out body a break.  

 

Thankfully the ship's musicians were far friendlier than the servers, and we ended the night with Missy and Gabe.  They took requests, but didn't know many of our songs.  

"Just wait till Aruba," they said.  "We get better internet and will learn them for you."

 

On that promise and cheerier note, we headed to bed to prepare for Halloween onboard the ship.

 

Next up: Day 3- 🎃 Halloween!

[pe4all]

Loving your review!  Off to a great start- looking forward to the rest.

[pinto18]

4 hours ago, Indytraveler83 said:

We dreamed of rivers of Merlot while having Pinot Grigio nightmares.  Through clouds of tannins we climbed until we finally awoke to late morning sun on our balcony.

haha! Ive never done Chefs table but it sounds like it would be so much fun with only 6 people! ( assuming the other 4 weren't duds)

[Indytraveler83]

18 minutes ago, pinto18 said:

haha! Ive never done Chefs table but it sounds like it would be so much fun with only 6 people! ( assuming the other 4 weren't duds)

Oh we felt so lucky.  The family with us was ready to have a ton of fun too, and I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe at many points!

[Indytraveler83]

Day 3: Halloween!!!

 

Some people are just counting the days till Christmas.  Jake, on the other hand is made for Halloween.  We awoke fairly early on his favorite day of the year to get breakfast, then do the least Halloween thing imaginable- sunbathe!

 

Heading into the MDR, we were seated at a table near the back windows.  A far more polite server introduced himself as Mark: "Call me Marky Mark!" and his assistant... Mark.  

 

Hearing his voice, another couple loudly called out to him from another section. He asked us if we mind they be seated at the table next to us (his section was unusually busy) and we told him that would be ok.

 

They sat down, introduced themselves, apologized for the intrusion, but really wanted this server.  As we got to know them, we found out they were celebrating their milestone 25th cruise, as well as his birthday.  We told them about our experience the prior day, and they were none too pleased either.  They helped us find a very nice hostess named Elana who heard our story and said she would be happy to seat us in Mark's section for the rest of the cruise.  Happy for the help, we thanked everyone and made our way to the Serenity deck.

The Serenity deck was nice (as always), but we did notice a lack of bar servers walking around.  None too discouraged, we made friends with the bartenders quickly and enjoyed the afternoon and watched the Explorer of the Seas spend the day slowly overtaking us. Then the weather turned...

 

 

Rain hit around 4:30, intense enough to drive everyone inside.  Believe it or not, the two photos above are less than an hour apart! The seas got rougher (not too bad, but it had been silky smooth up to this point).  We retreated to our cove balcony, but did notice dryers spaced through the hallways. Showering revealed a very slow drain, that others may have missed, and we heard a few people talk about overflowing showers.  For us, simply turning the water pressure down a bit seemed to remedy the issue.  Regardless, we got dressed in costume and prepared for a night of trick or treat!

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Indytraveler83

[Indytraveler83]

We dressed in costume and headed out to get some pictures and walk around for Halloween fun!  

 

Carnival was doing quite a few fun things around the ship, but we noticed a large and rather irritating crowd was hogging many of the spaces (come to find out later it was about 100 people from the same singles group that seemed intent on small area takeovers.  More on them later...).  

 

We headed to dinner, where we found our hostess who set is in our requested secrion. Marky Mark and Mark provided significantly better and friendlier service, capped off by a special cheesecake!  The couple we met at breakfast was seated a few tables down from us, and we ended up going back and forth chatting with them, much to the irritation of the table next to us, who seemed to think dinner in silence was preferable.  

 

We left dinner and got too caught up on music again (a common thread with us) to make all of the Halloween festivities.  However, we did end up attending the costume contest.  We had thought about participating, but the participant pool was huge, and we decided we would rather watch.  We ended up seated next to the group from the Chef's table (who had already gotten any early start on their Cheers) and spent most of the rest of the evening laughing and commenting on costumes.

 

Now... that costume contest was something else.  There was a large group who participated with a stunningly accurate and high quality set of costumes for the cast of Bridgerton.  There were several "IT" costumes and quite a few other complex arrangements I couldn't even imagine trying to get through airport security.  There were several... um... less family friendly costumes, and some that were so weird we still don't know what they were.  Regardless, it was a ton of fun, however we retired shortly after to prepare for our day in Aruba!

 

Next up: Seabobs and island exploration ( tomorrow)

[seayourself]

Great review! You write so eloquently. We will be on the Horizon this Saturday. Thanks for the review! 

Following.

[RenoNanaOz]

Loving your review! We are on this (almost) same itinerary in January. We stop at Bonaire instead of Curacao.

[Indytraveler83]

Day 4: Aruba

 

After following our usual pattern of breakfast in the dining room, we headed off the ship for the Seabob excursion Jake had selected for Aruba.  We arrived and our group of 16 was split in half.  One had was to enjoy Arashi beach first while the other half went in the water, then we flipped.

 

Arashi beach was a cool sandscape where cactus meets beach.  However, the Seabob adventure was awesome.  Our guide fed fish at various points along the reed, attracting sea birds to dice for them.  He fed a massive moray eel for us all to see, found sea turtles that we followed (at a respectable distance) for a while to watch them swim, and took us all up and down the colorful reef on that side of the island.  The Seabobs were insanely easy to use and didn't even require more than a few simple instructions (aim it where you want it, pull the trigger).  

 

We enjoyed the excursion, then headed into the colorful buildings, wondering just how long we would want to stay on the island (docked for 12 hours).  Unfortunately, Aruba is not what it once was.  

 

Local shops were shuttered with various signs of storm damage.  The only customers were the birds, happy to take advantage of the 100% discount on what few foods may have remained inside.  Disappointed, we returned to the ship.

[Indytraveler83]

Returning to the ship touched off another set of frustrations.  Upon arrival to the cabin, our neighbor (a part of the singles group) had both his front door and the balcony door propped open, with music blaring and the noises of the women (yes, several) currently in his cabin destroying any chance of a peaceful moment. 

 

We showered, changed for dinner later, then did something we NEVER do: visit guest services.  The only reason we've ever stepped to that desk in the past is to replace a cabin card smeared and damaged by saltwater.  I addressed my concern as politely as possible to the guest service staff, who promised to send security down immediately.  

 

Dinner proved interesting, as the hostess automatically checked us in at 5:30 (our usual time).  When we arrived, we found she had done the same for our new dinner friends, seating is next to each other.  For the rest of the cruise, this would occur, effectively turning Your Time Dining for 2 into a seated time for 4.  With irritation at other passengers increasing, we were very glad to know that dinner would be good conversation with a good wait staff for the remainder of the cruise.  

 

Afterwards we watched more music, and continued to befriend the bar staff in the atrium. We didn't stay long though, as the day had been tiring (and maybe our most irritating) of the cruise, and we were ready for Curacao.  So was the Horizon, as it zoomed through the dark sea:

 

Up Next: Day 5-Curacao 

 

Edited November 8, 2022 by Indytraveler83

[tradewinds traveler]

We also had problems with single group. We had assigned dining & they took our table. We went to the Maitre D & change our table. Then the next evening, we went to our new assigned table & guess what? The single group took this table so once again back to the Maitre D again & he changed our table again. We went guest services & they informed us they do not handle dining room problems! She called the Maitre D & I explained that you don't want to honor assigned dining then don't have it. He said this was a large group & they just did what they wanted. Finally, I said call security If they are taking over assigned tables. I will not be moved again! After that, we finally had our table. I remember seeing you guys in Ocean Plaza one evening having a great time.

 

 

[Indytraveler83]

2 hours ago, tradewinds traveler said:

We also had problems with single group. We had assigned dining & they took our table. We went to the Maitre D & change our table. Then the next evening, we went to our new assigned table & guess what? The single group took this table so once again back to the Maitre D again & he changed our table again. We went guest services & they informed us they do not handle dining room problems! She called the Maitre D & I explained that you don't want to honor assigned dining then don't have it. He said this was a large group & they just did what they wanted. Finally, I said call security If they are taking over assigned tables. I will not be moved again! After that, we finally had our table. I remember seeing you guys in Ocean Plaza one evening having a great time.

 

 

We loved our Ocean Plaza and atrium mini-concerts!  It's one of our favorite things on cruising.  

 

And yeah, that singles group was a major issue the entire cruise.  Unfortunately, I also think the Maitre D enjoyed looking busy over actually doing anything.  We saw him walking around on his phone frequently, but rarely actually interacting with guests or staff.  One time, our dinner friends were approached by him late in the cruise and they said "If you couldn't listen to us before, we won't talk to you now" and walked away from him.  

[Steph0224]

We were also on the Horizon last week. The singles group was also as issue for us the entire cruise. I have never experienced anything like that on a cruise. 

[Indytraveler83]

1 hour ago, Steph0224 said:

We were also on the Horizon last week. The singles group was also as issue for us the entire cruise. I have never experienced anything like that on a cruise. 

 

Our friends at dinner suggested making a fake profile on their website just to monitor when they cruise, so that it doesn't happen again.  I may just do that...

[Indytraveler83]

Day 5: Curacao

 

The day dawned anew, and we awoke to the nearly teal water before the multicolored buildings of an island unlike anything we'd quite seen before.  The ship docked at 7:15, but afraid that nothing would be open so early, we took our time and got off around 9:00am.

 

 

The actual port area is fairly small, but leads you right onto a path that goes straight through the fort, down a vendor-lined path and right to the famous floating bridge, into the crayola inspired "floating market" 

 

For everything that Aruba was not, Curacao fit the bill.  Local vendors, artists, musicians and cafe's where everywhere.  The usually port vendors you see at every stop seemed to limited to the area before the fort.  

 

We spent hours walking, buying art and getting nearly lost in this gorgeous city.  Everyone here was very friendly, however on two separate occasions, a very friendly local also offered us some... substances... to make our visit even more psychedelic than the colorful buildings had already.  We politely declined. 

 

Instead we sat down at a local cafe, near a band playing and ate Arepas while listening to more music.

 

 

After nearly 5 hours of walking in sweltering heat, we finally made our way back to the ship and some much needed A/C.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Indytraveler83

[Indytraveler83]

Getting back onboard, one of the Horizon's well known problems seemed to surface.  Pockets of warm air existed through the ship, blasting you in random hallways or rooms.  We found it rather excusable when the ship was sitting with doors open in the heat, but the problem continued through the night.  It wasn't a big deal to us, but be warned, this can/does happen.  

 

The fans in the hallways of deck 2 had also seemed to reproduce, and a funky smell was coming from the aft part of the deck.  Thankfully we were forward, but the Family Harbor area in the aft part of the ship was beginning to smell like a forgotten load of wet laundry.

 

With neither issue being much more than a footnote to us, we headed out for food.  Just as we opened the door, the phone rang, so I stepped back in to answer it.  Guest services was following up on our neighbors, and confirmed that security has visited them.  Thankfully all had gone quiet, and aside from a few balcony door slams, we didn't hear from them again.

 

I decided to get sushi at Bonsai for a "snack" and Jake was going to go get a Guys Burger. However, we realized that the Bonsai menu has expanded a lot since we were last there years ago, offering non-sushi beef and chicken entrees.  The Udon with beef was calling his name, so we both set down for the snack... Ok second lunch and enjoyed ourselves.

 

We had overheated, so spent the rest of the afternoon in the casino, which seemed as if the slots had been tightened up significantly, then the shops where we bought a bit of 50th anniversary merchandise.  

 

Dinner was great (as usual) but then in the evening we came up against our old familiar foe: other passenger.

 

 

We had seated ourselves in Pig and Anchor to watch our favorite duo, until a large group (singles maybe?) decided to take over the table where we were sitting (literally pulled chairs up to our table and sat around us).  

 

We moved to the Atrium to instead watch the string trio, but again found the area overrun by singles.  This is where somehow... some way it seemed a stand was taken.  

 

There was a group of 3 or 4 couples that pretty regularly found themselves in the atrium.  We had gotten to know all the bartenders quiet well at that point who has also grown increasingly annoyed with the loud and irritating group.  Once we placed our drink orders, the bartenders kept track of us, and would wave us up to the bar for our next order if the glasses were empty.  It didn't really matter if they had 2 or 20 people waiting.  They pushed us ahead and would stop the singles drink orders to make ours. 

 

At the same time, we all also decided we were attending a concert.  Grouped together, we sang, clapped and danced, which while not being obnoxious, certainly didn't fit the tense prom scene that was unfolding amongst the increasingly desperate singles group.  

 

They slowly got the message, and seemed to seek a different place for their... activities.

We celebrated late into the night, but pizza on the aft deck would not be our friend either. For whatever changes Carnival thinks they made to speed the line up... It wasn't on display.

 

We then admitted defeat, ordering room service and curling up in bed for some Food Network. We were so tired, that before I knew it, it was 4am, Guy Fieri was yelling at me from the other side of the TV screen and a half eaten pizza lay precariously on the edge of the bed...

 

Up next: La Romana- Monkeys, cocoa and a bit of misplaced electricity...

[Steph0224]

5 hours ago, Indytraveler83 said:

 

Our friends at dinner suggested making a fake profile on their website just to monitor when they cruise, so that it doesn't happen again.  I may just do that...

I did look up the website. They have all the cruises they are doing listed. I checked my future bookings to make sure they aren't on the same cruise.