6 Night Carnival Horizon Cruise

We are platinum cruisers with Carnival so we were whisked to the very front of the line and immediately taken to have pictures taken. This is the top 'platinum' perk in my opinion as the line was wrapped clearly around the building to get to the first check point.

I was on the same exact ship in April 2019 doing an eight day cruise then followed it up with this 6 day cruise. The food to me is adequate as I am not that picky on certain foods I have to eat or consider myself a "foodie". I do enjoy the deli on board the ship, guys burgers of course, and the pizza joint towards the back of the ship. For some reason I am not a really big fan of the blue iguana cantina on any of the Carnival ships. I know a lot of people enjoy it but for some reason that I can't put my finger on it I just pass this place up. I tried it for breakfast back in April and didn't care for it either. Who knows why? I do like the pasta bar that is on deck 11 on stairs you have to go up to enjoy it. I find it odd that each cruise several cruisers do not even know this place exists. It is one of my favorites that I do enjoy eating at. They do have limited hours 12-230pm for the "free" side of the restaurant. After 530pm it becomes a paid restaurant for a price of $15 per person. I have never paid to go there at night so I make sure I take full advantage of it during the limited hours earlier in the day. The dinner buffets are okay to me as after about the third day I tend to skip out on this place all together. The food is okay like I said but tends to get boring with the same food laid out each and every night. After the third night of the cruise I didn't eat here any longer. I did notice that the last couple of nights they seemed to kind of toss some meals together what looked like leftover goods from previous meals. Like I said I didn't eat this but I did see a lot of others piling up their plates high and chowing down. So, it appeared that everyone seemed to enjoy eating it time after time. We did order room service one night for a couple of PBJ sandwiches, chips, and a slice of cheesecake. I will say the cheesecake was a lot better than most of the other desserts they have laid out. I can only remember a cruise a couple of years ago that I thought the red velvet cake was really good. I am not that big on sweets like this so it really doesn't matter to me either way. We didn't even take advantage of the nightly dinner in the main dining rooms. I know the cruise in April we took I think we only went maybe twice the entire eight days.

My favorite part of any Carnival ship is taking full advantage of the serenity deck on the newer ships. The Horizon ship is laid out exactly like the Vista we were on last year so we knew exactly where everything was located. I am a big fan of the two big whirlpool tubs located on this deck. But, the last two cruises I did notice that neither of them seemed really "hot" and neither really was 'bubbly' like you would expect out of a hot tub. I did enjoy them enough to sit in them for at least a couple of hours and watch the sea go by. I don't think I have been in a pool on a cruise ship in at least a decade or so. I did enjoy the water park on this ship. Again, it is just like the Vista so I did make sure that I took full advantage on the slides on both of our sea days. A big disappoint on this ship as well as the cruise in April 2019 the sky ride was closed the entire time. I did manage to ride it just once in April before it was closed for the remainder of the cruise. I don't know what the issue is with this attraction but personally I think this is a big bust for Carnival. If they can't keep a peddle car going on these ships how in the world do they think a roller coaster on the new Mardi Gras is going to fair? I would be okay if Carnival took this thing down entirely as most guests are really disappointed once they get on board and find out this thing isn't working at all. We didn't even receive an email letting us know ahead of time that this wouldn't be working. Major fail. Just get rid of this thing and send it to the scrap yard.

We are not big 'stage show' people but we did enjoy the poolside DJ's as well as the trio that plays the violins around the steps on the ship.

No kids joined us on the cruise.

We stayed on the sun deck 11 room 11252. Our room steward was Marciel which we didn't meet the first day at all but she did introduce herself on the second day. She asked anything that we would like to have during the week. I am not a 'picky' person on my room so the only thing I really ever want is my ice bucket to be filled with ice daily an clean fresh towels for the bathroom. She asked if we wanted the ice service twice a day and I told her yes that would be fine. I am sure there are other cruisers that demand A LOT out of these people but we are pretty simply in what we need for the week. She always met us in the hallway and knew our names from day one. She was pretty awesome.

Horizon and Vista are identical ships so again I knew the layout before we boarded. The layout to me is fine and seemed to be spotless the entire 6 days we were on board. They always seemed to be wiping something down, scrubbing the metal to a shine, or pushing the mops around taking up excess water. These people really work hard. I am always telling them thank you and that we appreciate the work that they do.

We normally stay on the lido deck port side but when we booked that floor was sold out. We booked the floor right above in and it seemed just like the room we had in April. The room was clean when we first boarded and stayed that way the entire time. The balcony was perfect just how we like it. I am still waiting for Carnival to get rid of that awkward table that always seems to be in the way no matter where you put it. This thing is covered with several books that always seems to end up on the floor. Just get rid of this thing once and for all.

We always do the self assist and we were assembled at 645am and after customs cleared us we were on our way out the door at 710am. We ordered up an Uber and was back in our hotel in FLL at 830am. Nothing to complain about there!