It’s always great to be on a cruise, but I probably will not be going on a large ship like the Horizon again. I much more enjoyed the Carnival Breeze and the Conquest, so would look to book on one of those next time instead.
Embarkation
3 out of 5
Got to the terminal at the assigned time, but still had to wait over an hour to board. Even with that delay, they weren’t set up yet to take our boarding picture.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
4 out of 5
The service staff in the main dining room is overworked. The food is beginning to suffer a bit. The fillet on the first elegant night was tough and chewy. As for the buffet, well, it is buffet food, nothing really that special. Did Fahrenheit 555 steakhouse restaurant and it was fantastic. Well worth the extra cost. It is getting harder to find places to eat later in the evening. The buffet closes at 9 o’clock, so the deli and Pizza place are the only places open so the lines can get quite long.
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
The pool area is, of course, crowded, but I get up early and was able to always manage to get chairs in a location that I wanted. I did the sky ride a couple of times, and that was rather fun. We had a spa room and I used the steam room every day. That was really good. But the thermal pool was a big disappointment. It is much smaller than on other ships and it is not very hot and it wasn’t even working a couple of days.
Entertainment
3 out of 5
The main theaters shows had to be canceled a couple of times. Once I think was for technical reasons, and another time was some of the performers were ill. The fill-in shows were comics, and some of them were quite good but a couple were just soso . The final show with the string trio was amazing. I listened to the string trio out in the main lobby during the week and they were great there too. The music in the main pool area was quite energetic and loud, but being on a Caribbean cruise, I would very much like to hear more Caribbean type music such as reggae and steel drums, and they barely played any of that.
Children's Programs
No kids with us.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Something that never changes on these Cruises is the staff. They are always great, hardworking, and friendly. Our dining room, staff, Gladys, and Sanjoy, although overworked, were always ready with a smile, and whenever they saw us elsewhere on the ship, stopped to talk to us and call us by name.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
The ship is very clean, the staff is constantly cleaning and working all the time.
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Had an inside spa room cabin, which is pretty much a typical sized inside cabin room. You do get robes for the spa and if you request slippers, you can get them also. You also get a complementary scrub kit at the spa desk. Our room steward, Achmed, always had a fresh bucket of ice in our room every day. They, too, are very overworked.
Ship tip
The elevators are a bit different. There are column devices that you tap in a screen comes up where you then indicate what floor you want. You have to do that for each member of your party that will be traveling in the elevator with you. This way the elevator knows what floor to go to and how many people will be on that elevator so it’s supposedly won’t allow it to get too crowded. Unfortunately, most people don’t know that that’s what they’re supposed to do.
Getting out of the cruise port was kind of a nightmare. It was so busy that at one point they closed the road leaving it for a few minutes so you had to travel back around the cruise port before you could exit again.
We did the Atlantis submarine excursion. It was rather interesting, but it is very tight inside. I now know what sardines feel like. You do see a sunken ship and you actually touch down on the ocean floor at 140 feet.
We did the UniMogg tour. It goes off road and is quite bumpy, but our driver/guide, Chris, was very informative, stopping along the way to describe things, and inform us about plant life and other aspects of the island. The beach stop was not much of a stop. We were there about 15 minutes and it was pretty crowded. We had enough time to just basically walk into the water, stand there a bit and then get out before we had to leave. If you are looking for a beach break, this would not be the tour to take.
Carnival has a big new pool area resort here at the port which was not there last year. It is a nice spot to go if you want to get off the ship and don’t have any excursions planned. Can be rather crowded if you don’t get there early enough. Umbrellas are available for $10 rental fee.
Did the same thing here as in La Romana. Their resort layout here is much bigger and it has a zip line and water slides. So there are more activities to do. They also have cabanas up in the hills and over the water. There is no beach to go swimming here or at La Romana.
We were one of the last numbers to get called to disembark and weeded as long as we could so getting off really wasn’t too bad. Trying to get out of the port was more difficult. A lot of people, a lot of cars, and a lot of hecticness.
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