Horizon / (*Not) Live / Solo - May - 25 - June - 2024...

[pcvtmom]

1 minute ago, kittyraptors said:

Haha sorry! Never been on a Carnival cruise (looking to book one next year so I like reading reviews/recaps to get an idea of the experience of each ship). At the Alchemy bar, do you just order the liquor and they make a drink out of it? 

 

Who knows, if you go on a cruise next year my group and I might be those dreaded blue cards sitting next to you... 😂🤣

 

Thanks for posting your recap! 

There's a menu at Alchemy, but you can just request that they concoct something special. You can choose liquors or flavors (I like anything lime/coconut/almond, etc.).  They're masters at mixology!

[kittyraptors]

1 minute ago, pcvtmom said:

There's a menu at Alchemy, but you can just request that they concoct something special. You can choose liquors or flavors (I like anything lime/coconut/almond, etc.).  They're masters at mixology!

Awesome, thank you! That sounds so fun 🙂

[sid_9169]

Saturday June 1st - The final Fun Day at Sea before returning back to Miami... 

 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, cause this is the last day of this 8 night cruise on the Carnival Horizon... I was up at 8:15 for my large black Americano at the Ocean Plaza Bar. I gave the girl there a nice tip for making my coffee for me all week. After that, upstairs to the buffet for an omelette while the line was still short. A lot of people sleeping in on this final day on board...

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

It had rained over night, and the deck was still wet when I got up to Lido. The chogs were still sleeping at this point.

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

The final sea day Atrium tornado with a Dr Seuss theme...

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

Passengers emerged from their slumber and claimed their poolside loungers... By this time tomorrow the pools and hot tubs would be closed...

 

 

 

 

Edited June 10 by sid_9169

[sid_9169]

I just wandered around snapping a picture here and there... Honestly, I was just about ready for it to be over. I had already ate drank and slept my fill in these past eight nights...

 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

Serenity was still mostly empty at this point...

 

 

[cellfree]

24 minutes ago, sid_9169 said:

Saturday June 1st - The final Fun Day at Sea before returning back to Miami... 

 

Smoke 'em if you got 'em, cause this is the last day of this 8 night cruise on the Carnival Horizon... I was up at 8:15 for my large black Americano at the Ocean Plaza Bar. I gave the girl there a nice tip for making my coffee for me all week. After that, upstairs to the buffet for an omelette while the line was still short. A lot of people sleeping in on this final day on board...

 

 

 

 

 

Sid, you are really a generous guy, I am sure you “made her day,” along with many others. 

[sid_9169]

I had to make a decision on what would be my final lunch on board would be. I'd pretty much had it with the buffet, so around 11:40 I went out to deck 5 and waited for Guy's Pig and Anchor BBQ to open. By the time they opened at noon there were fifty people in line coming from two different directions. I got some pork, chicken, brisket, collard greens, potato salad, and beans. Took the plate inside Guy's Pig and Anchor Bar and found a table before everyone else got their plates...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

I hadn't had one of those Pig and Anchor bloody Marys yet, so I went straight from my table after lunch and made my way to the bar there.

 

 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

Since I wasn't doing an official "Live Review" I hadn't bothered with my "costume of the day" pictures, but today was a special day, so...

 

 

[sid_9169]

And then I was bored, so I just walked around taking in the scene of the final day on board...

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

Next thing I knew, it was getting close to 4:00, so I made my way up to Alchemy to wait for it to open... I'd long given up on the good tequila so I just stuck with the filthy dirty martinis, this time made by Ivana, Sara's Serbian "twin"... (They're both tall and blonde) 

 

She was bringing a tray full of drinks out to some customers at the outer bar when someone bumped her and the entire tray of drinks crashed to the floor. Broken glass and ice and liquid everywhere, so I grabbed a couple of handfuls of paper towels from behind the bar and went to work. Ivana insisted that she would take care of it, but I didn't want anyone to slip and end up in a pile of broken glass. The weird thing is that with my OCD that the last thing I really wanted was to be on hands and knees cleaning the floor, but I'm an enigma sometimes... Plus, I was helping out a beautiful girl in distress, so... 

 

 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

I had a few meaningful conversations with a couple of other people at the bar that afternoon, and pretty soon it was time to start thinking about what I would do for my final dinner on board the Horizon... I decided that the likelihood of ever sailing a ship with Jiji Asian again is pretty much slim to none, so I went up there and inquired about availability for one. Next thing I knew, I was having my final dinner on board. I tried a couple of new to me things tonight, as well as some of the old favorites... Spring rolls, the duck appetizer, Kung POW chicken, and the chicken fried rice... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

After dinner I wandered down to Alchemy Bar for a couple more of those filthy dirty martinis and went back to my room to get some more of the packing out of the way. It was another relatively early night for me, and I had placed a wakeup call for 6:30, even though I didn't plan on leaving my cabin till exactly 8:30... 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

Sunday June 2nd - arriving back to Miami and the debarkation from hell...

 

I had a wakeup call for 6:30, but I'd been awake since around 4:30, so I just got up and went downstairs to wait for the Ocean Plaza bar to open. When it was getting close to 6:00 there was still nobody there so I just walked over to Java Blue for the very first time this cruise. There were only a couple of people in line and soon I had my large black Americano in hand. I headed back up to the cabin to continue my packing...

 

When I was at a stopping point I headed up to the buffet for my final meal on board. I ended up just getting three real fried eggs, and I also paid a visit to the bacon police.

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

I was up on deck before the sun had even come up yet, and we still hadn't parked at the pier. We passed the Celebration on the way in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

About this time I headed down to my room to do the final packing and take a shower before heading out for real. A couple of days earlier we were given the instructions for the digital debarkation, and were told to pick our preferred time to debark. I chose my time, and I figured it was a done deal. Little did I know the cluster "you know what" I was about to endure...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sid_9169]

When I was showered and ready to go I did a double check throughout the cabin to make sure I had everything. At exactly 8:30 I headed out to wait for my debarkation window to arrive. Around this time I was also trying to coordinate with "C" as to what time to get there to pick me up. If everything had gone correctly I would've been out in the curb at about 9:30, but things didn't actually turn out that way. 

 

They repeatedly made announcements not to come down to deck 3 until you receive the message through the Hub app. Well, apparently about 2,000 people completely ignored this information, and when I arrived at the elevator lobby from deck 5 to deck 4 it was complete madness. There was a line to get to the stairs, so I just stood there and waited to try and get down to deck 4. About a half hour later I had finally made it to the stairs. (About 30 feet in a half hour) 

 

Once I got to deck 4 it was clear that everyone had just decided to debark all at the same time no matter what time they'd chosen. On top of that, people who were taking the elevator down ended right in front of EVERYONE who had already been waiting in this line for an hour at this point. Finally, after a little more than an hour I was on the final push on the way to the bridge that connects to the terminal. This was easily the worst debarkation experience for me personally in almost 30 cruises. A complete and utter disaster... I finally made it out front around a few minutes after 10:00... I called "C" who had been waiting on the other side of the port bridge to tell her I was outside now. I went as far to the left as I could, away from the crowds both arriving and trying to catch their transportation home. I was standing all by myself on the side of the road to hopefully make it as easy as possible to find me. About 25 minutes later I could see her rental car coming around the corner. She just stopped briefly while I threw my stuff in, and we were off... Now we just had to get out of the mess at the port and get to Ft Lauderdale for my flight that wasn't for around three more hours...

 

*** The last two pictures I took before going down to take a shower...

 

 

 

[atanac]

2 hours ago, sid_9169 said:

Since I wasn't doing an official "Live Review" I hadn't bothered with my "costume of the day" pictures, but today was a special day, so...

 

 

Sid, gotta ask...did they use your fingers to model the Face Hugger?

[sid_9169]

3 minutes ago, atanac said:

Sid, gotta ask...did they use your fingers to model the Face Hugger?

Do you mean the thing from the Alien movie? I guess that I do have pretty big hands. Here's a picture of them on top of Shaq's handprint from the Celebration...

 

 

[loretta]

23 hours ago, AmyJA said:

 

sid's walls inspired carpet. 

Great minds think alike! I posted this comment a couple of days ago but glad to see others with a discerning eye picked up on it too.

[atanac]

2 hours ago, sid_9169 said:

Do you mean the thing from the Alien movie? I guess that I do have pretty big hands. Here's a picture of them on top of Shaq's handprint from the Celebration...

 

 

Yes, in that photo I was referencing your fingers are long & spindly like the legs on the face hugger.