I was very let down with my onboard experience with the room steward and waitress staff. Not to mention that some things cheap cruises told us was not true like we were told the prepaid gratuity was included and then on our 5th day my parents account was hit with $700 of gratuity charges.
Embarkation
3 out of 5
We booked as a group and we all boarded in separate groups.
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
3 out of 5
In the Herizon dinning room we had a table of 18 in our group and we had 1 waitress and it took over 2 hours every evening. It was a long wait in between courses. When ordering the flat iron steak they were always prepared wrong. Most of the plates had a tomato sauce and that got old on every dish every night. At the sushi place I had a California roll and the crab tased rotten. Needless to say the food was nothing special at all. I have been on one other cruise with carnival and the service was excellent and the food was exceptional. I don’t know what went wrong on the Vista.
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
We enjoyed the activities on board, we did the sky ride and the rope course, the slides. I suggest that if it is too windy to ride the sky ride you make a age limit or weight limit to ride. There were several kids 12 and under that got stuck and the 2 workers got there workout props to them Julie and Danielle! But it also caused a frustration time for waiting because the workers told everyone that it is very windy and it will be hard to ride.
Entertainment
5 out of 5
Whatever Trevor was great in the comedy club. Matt was amazing always entertaining and fun, I got to experience one show because of the dinner delays. But it was good too. I enjoyed the shows on my previous cruise but the timing was bad to catch the comedy show and the stage shows for late dinning.
Children's Programs
All the kids in my group were 17 and over.
Service and Staff
1 out of 5
As I said before the waitress was horrible and we had long wait times. We had 1 waitress for 18 people. Room service was not excellent but it was just ok. Staff around the ship could have been nicer and smile more.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
It was always clean everywhere you went and well managed. The layout could have been easier to navigate while getting to the dinning rooms.
Cabin / Stateroom
3 out of 5
Everything was ok but it would have been nice to have a extra closet space and drawer space.
Ship tip
The bigger the ship is not necessarily the best experience. Lesson learned a smaller ship with more staff is a better experience.
Cozumel is always fun, We went to Playa Mia all inclusive it was wonderful. We did not book an excursion here we chose to get a cab and go to the beach.
Belize had a very good tourism area but when you went Into the town it was rough looking. I did enjoy the tour guide we had he explained a lot about Belize and it was nice to know We did cave tubing and lunch and it was amazing. Just some feed back waters would be nice to have for the trip back or when we got off the bus. It was very hot and really no time to stop and get something to drink to cool off with a long hot walk to the cave.
If you're parents paid $700 in gratuities, they had more than 5 people. I was on the Vista this past March and gratuity was only $98 for each adult in my cabin. Also if you dispute the amount or the service you didn't have to pay the gratuity. Carnival still give you the opportunity to have it removed from your bill, if you feel the service was not worth the amount of the gratuity that is being charged. I do agree with you about the Horizon Dinning, we had 10 at our table and we only had 1 person waiting on our table and it took about an hour. But we went doing Spring Break, so we was expecting long lines and waiting time. Just made the best of it, had great conversation with the people at the table which helped pass the time.
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