First cruise on Carnival...

Carnival Vista Cruise Review to Caribbean - Southern

headshothills

Contributor Level: Purser

Cruises: 1 cruise (first)

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 36

Overall rating:

4 out of 5

8 Night Southern Caribbean (Miami Roundtrip)

Sail date: March 11, 2017

Ship: Carnival Vista

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 6645

Traveled as: Large Group

Reviewed: 7 years ago

Review summary

This was our first cruise and we did not know what to expect. We signed up for excursions for everyday we stopped in port, we also did the Spa tour on the first day and signed up for some of the spa treatments.

One of the major turn-offs about the spa was that everything you signed up for there was always an up-sell at the end and a justification as to WHY you needed to buy product. While I understand them making the product avail to us, the persistence and behavior when we turned it down after a massage was rather rude and distasteful. We had already spent close to 2500 in spa products and on the second the last day we had our couples massage and they tried to push more products on us, and when we said no thank you, they got upset and then tried to push another product and even went as far as applying it on my wife saying she needed it. Another way of saying you look like crap. It was a huge turn off, we signed up for the spa stuff to begin with, you dont always need to make another sell, huge turn off... now we know..

Another thing was the fact that there was over 1000+ kids on our cruise, our mistake in not realizing it was Spring Break, but next time will definitely keep that in mind, otherwise we would have brought our own kids.

Overall, it was a great experience, met a lot of good people and interacted with some very interesting people.

Chloe and Abi at the Spa were amazing - Hope to see them again next time.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Mohomid our seated dinner staff was amazing. Our other staff for dinner seemed a little less concerned with speed and efficiency, but Mohomid hustled and was awesome!! We do with there were better and healthier food choices onboard though outside of the seated dinner option.

Onboard Activities

5 out of 5

Entertainment

5 out of 5

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Paul our Room Ninja was awesome. Thank you so much for taking care of our room and all of the interesting Towel Pets!!

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5

Our Cabin was awesome, back of the ship, and our Room Ninja Paul was awesome and always had our room in tip top shape!!

Ship tip

Be prepared to take the stairs or wait long times to get from floor to floor. People are lazy and will wait 20 min for an elevator then another 20 min while the elevator stops are every floor on the way to the one you want. Its much easier and healthier to just takes the stairs!!

Thumbs up

Ports of call

Miami, Florida

2 out of 5

Traffic is a nightmare during rush hour.

Thumbs Up 4

Grand Turk Island

2 out of 5

If you happen to go out of port in Grand Turk, be prepared, it looks like a 3rd world country outside of the gates. If you are trying to decide on an excursion to do here, do the snorkeling.

Thumbs Up 5

La Romana, Dominican Republic

3 out of 5

The Dolphin Excursion here was amazing. It is a 45-50min ride to Punta Cana to get there, dont plan on having any additional shopping time unless your ship plans on being here for 6+ hours. Also the Zip Line excursion here is amazing through the rain forrest.

Thumbs Up 1

Bonaire, Netherlands Special Municipality

2 out of 5

Bonaire is nice, but very rocky, stick with the beach stuff at the resorts here.

Thumbs Up 0

Oranjestad, Aruba

3 out of 5

Aruba was great, although very windy, snorkeling was soso, go to one of the resorts and snorkel off the beach, you will see more doing that than doing a snorkeling excursion.

Thumbs Up 3

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