Beautiful large new ship. Elevator system is different. They have stations outside the elevators with a touchscreen. It shows you all the decks and you push the one you want to go on and it tells you which elevator you should go to. Seemed to work very well, but then again our ship was only about 2/3 full. Not sure how it will work if it is a full ship. We did the fly2fun program this time because we did not want to take a chance on bad weather coming out of our hometown. It worked very well. Someone was waiting at the airport and guided us to where we would pick up our luggage and wait for our transfer to the ship. When the bus came they took us on the bus and brought us to the ship.
Embarkation
5 out of 5
Very easy. Quite a bit of walking. The most time was spent in the beginning with the vaccination clearing.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
Anyone that’s been on a cruise knows what the buffet food is like. The main dining room is a step up, but still not that great. The specialty restaurants, however, are a different matter. We tried out the Fahrenheit 555 steakhouse one night and it was fantastic. It cost $38 per person to eat there, but what you get is well worth the cost. Each person can choose two appetizers, a main entrée, two sides, and a dessert and each one was delicious. This was easily as good as any fancy high-end restaurant I’ve been to on land and much cheaper considering everything you get. Just to give you an idea of what you can order, I had the stuffed mushrooms and baked French onion soup. The soup was in a big enough bowl that it could’ve been a meal by itself. I had fillet and lobster tail and my wife just had the lobster. Hers came with two tails. For dessert we each got a slice of cheesecake. Each slice was about the size of an eighth of a cake and about 6 inches high. We ate one and brought the other one back to our room to eat later. Will do this again.
Ocean Plaza
5 out of 5
Nice little find behind the Java blue coffee bar. Serves breakfast and less crowded in the morning.
Liquid Lounge
3 out of 5
Smaller theater then other ships.
Onboard Activities
5 out of 5
My wife hurt her leg just before we went on this cruise so we did not do a lot of activities. We did go every day up to the spa since we were in a spa room. There are two steam rooms, one has aroma therapy, and an infrared room and a dry heat room. There are about nine heated lounge chairs and three showers all in the same room that also contains a small whirlpool. It is nothing like the whirlpool you will find on the Breeze, for instance, which is very large. That was disappointing. The locker room has a couple of showers, toilet, sink and a Sauna, but there are no toiletries, in case you would want to shave. My wife did get a facial and I did get a shave and both were very satisfying.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
To start off with, this ship has a smaller theater than the other ships I’ve been on which seems strange seeing as this is a bigger ship than the other ones. That being said, it wasn’t really a problem because every show we went to still had plenty of seats available. The shows were not as good as the other cruises I’ve been on which is a bit disappointing. The first show we went to had a magician act which was pretty good. There was also a single performer doing songs one night, which I think could’ve easily been done in one of the other venues. There were two variety shows which we normally enjoy the most, but neither one was all that memorable. As far as I’m concerned, the best performances were done by three female electric violin players in the atrium lobby.
Children's Programs
No kids with
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
As always, the staff is great. The dining staff does their best to be attentive, but are worked very hard. The room stewards only make up your room once, but are available at any time for anything that you might need. Any staff you meet on the ship is always ready with a smile and a good morning or hello.
Ship Quality
3 out of 5
The cleanliness and maintenance is fantastic. Constant cleaning all the time. As for the design of the ship, I am not a big fan. It may be that I’m used to the other ships designs and it’s just hard to get used to a new one, but I did not think the layout was as good as the other ships. Everything seems more crammed. The atrium lobby is only two floors high which makes it seem more closed in and small, which it is. All the other ships I’ve been on have very high atrium lobbies that go up 8 or more floors which makes it seem very expansive.
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
The bed I think is very comfortable and the room is nice and clean. Inside cabins are not very large, but they serve their purpose. I have read that people think the bathrooms on the Horizon are smaller than others, but to me they seem exactly the same size. My only problem with the room is I believe they cut out one closet. My rooms before always had two sections for holding hanging clothes and a section with shelves and drawers. This ship has only one section for hanging clothes and then the section with shelves and drawers.
Ship tip
Make sure to check out both sections of the Lido deck buffets. Many times they have different food at each section. The front section might have comfort food and the aft section might have Italian inspired food.
We did the Everglades excursion mainly because we had a late flight out and this gave us something to do and got us to the airport. You go out in a large air boat for about 30 to 40 minutes and then come back and see a quick alligator show where he does a few little tricks with one alligator and talks about the rescue. The air boat can be very loud when he makes it go fast but they stay on water and don’t ever go onto land so it’s kinda like just riding in a regular boat. Afterwards our bus driver stopped at a convenience store and let us get out and try some Cuban coffee or get snacks for the airport which was nice since we had plenty of time to spare anyway.
Because of my wife’s sore leg we did not do any excursions on any islands. But I broke my flip-flop the first day in the spa so I went out to the pier stores and shopped around a little bit to buy new ones. They are a handful of stores right by the pier which all have the same types of souvenirs: shirts, dresses and small knickknacks. Was here on a previous cruise and did the Kukoobus. That was a lot of fun.
My wife and I just walked around the stores near the pier. It was a holiday the day we came in. A lot of the stores were unfortunately closed. It seems like a very pretty place.
We had early this embarkation. We gathered in the liquid lounge theater and from there left the ship. Picked up our luggage from an airport type conveyor belt and went through customs. There was no one there so it was quite quick. And then off to our tour.
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