Fun family cruise
Carnival Horizon Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern
Contributor Level:
Second Mate
Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Reviews: 2
Helpful Votes: 17
8 Night Southern Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)
Sail date: March 02, 2024
Ship: Carnival Horizon
Cabin type: Inside
Cabin number: 1201
Traveled as: Family (young children)
Reviewed: 8 months ago
Review summary
Overall, it was a good cruise. A bit long for the little one. Waterslides were fun, ropes course was cool. MDR was good as well. We did a specialty restaurant one night, the hibachi dinner. Was delicious and the guy was hilarrrrrrious. We did the dr seuss breakfast....the idea is cute but i dont really recommend it because everything is dyed different colors and my kids as well as many others that i saw wouldn't eat the food because it was red or green, etc lol.Embarkation
embarkation was nice and easy. Though we were scheduled to get on board at 12:30, we were able to get in significantly earlier than that which was nice since we would have been in the waiting area for 1-2 hours otherwise.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
The MDR for the most part was great. Dinner always had great, fast service. The music they would play during dinner was fun for the kids. Most of the staff were wonderful with our young kids if they needed anything or didnt like something, they were quick to nicely offer something else. For some weird reason anytime the kids ordered chocolate milk no matter the time of day, it took FOREVER. multiple times where the kids were completely done with their meals before the drink even showed up. this was frustrating for an 8 and 4 year old. Even asking for it multiple times. Breakfast in MDR was much slower, and is a brunch menu rather than more "continental breakfast". Shoutout to Pocholo in the MDR, my daughter LOVED him and he seemed to be one of the only staff that could convince her to get up and dance! Blue iguana cantina- delicious. guys burgers was good, though i think i like their fries more than the burger lol. the Java blue cafe was OK. im a big coffee drinker, and thought it was just kinda blah considering its something you pay for on the ship. We tried seafood shack, but only the clam chowder. Being someone from new england, it was pretty good! the pizza place is delicious. I also really liked the food at the deli. We usually only went to the buffet as a last resort. even still, the food was decent. But if its been sitting a while i don't usually bother.
Onboard Activities
the ropes course was cool. My eight year old did it with my husband, i stayed on the sidelines with my daughter who isnt old enough. I didnt get a chance to try the skyride, but i really wish i did. it seemed to be very popular. The pools were good. It would be nice if they were a little bigger though honestly, on sea days they are pretty much full all day. The hot tubs were always full so i never got a chance to go in those.
Entertainment
Entertainment was pretty good as well. the cruise director Georgia is so sweet, and fun. The DJ's were good, and music/bands all around the ship were nice as well. Always a fun contest or something going on on lido.
Children's Programs
I only managed to get my daughter to go to the kids camp once for a few hours. But the staff and all the activities they always have going on are GREAT. i do wish they were willing to give the kids a snack or something though. They will not feed the kids in any way due to allergies.
Service and Staff
waiters, room stewards, everyone was wonderful. They do all generally seem happy to be there.
Ship Quality
i will say the ONLY thing i did not like about the design of the ship was where the casino is. its right in the middle and theres no way to go around it like on the other decks. so you have to go up a floor or down or go through it. It wreaks of smoke so we always went around, but you could tell it was a common inconvenience for many people.
Cabin / Stateroom
well. i was really hoping to rate this better but unfortunately i can't. 4-5 days out of our cruise, they were doing maintenance directly in front of our room. Like we walked into it when leaving/entering our room. They started doing this at 7AM. waking us up for the majority of the cruise. We had a twin converted to king, with two upper pullmans for the kids. I cannot tell you how many times we all smacked our heads on them lol. Also, the work they were doing went on for hours usually into the early afternoon. The shower drain seemed to drain VERY slow. There was one night when i showered that it did overflow into the toilet area.
Ports of call
Miami is, miami. Been here many times, but usually just flying in here, or getting on/off the boat here. I dont do excursions or anything else here really.
Thumbs Up
0
Aruba was beautiful. We got off the boat with no plans really, found some guy that rented cars, and picked one up for the day, drove around and found a few beaches. We DID need an actual map from the rental people though as navigation doesnt work in the vehicles, and no gps on your phone.
Also beautiful, similar to Aruba i felt like. We rented a tuk tuk! which was pretty fun. Drove around and found a beach here as well. If your looking into renting one of these, you NEED to know how to drive a motorcycle and have experience. It's similar to a motorcycle but doesnt seem like they keep up on service on them at all. No breaks really, had to downshift to stop, stalled a few times. They offer a map, which is electronic, but again, if you don't have phone service you can't use it.
We did the monkeyland excursion here. Was a cool experience. My 4 year old was afraid though. Took a little over an hour to get there. On carnivals website it states a 30 min drive, not the case. the entire dominican republic is a very poor area. You are really better off booking an excursion. It's not really a place that you can just get off the boat and look for something to do.
Amber Cove (Puerto Plata), Dominican Republic
similar to la romana. However, when you get off the boat, there is a touristy area right there with a free pool, bar, music, $ zip lining, bathrooms, cabana rental, kayak and paddle board rental etc. We stayed in this area.
Disembarkation
We had them take our luggage, and i did choose higher numbers when grabbing my luggage tags so we wouldnt have to rush off. We grabbed our carry-ons, went to the javablue cafe and grabbed a coffee to wait to get off. I would say it was maybe 1030ish by the time we were actually off the boat.
Traveler Photos
