Carnival Vista Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We loved the variety of the ports of call,  and the ability to see so much in the short amount of time. The cruise director was incredible. He kept us laughing and well informed.  I will certainly recommend the Carnival Vista to friends. 

First of all let me say I am a retired educator and still love being around children, however on this ship there were 1200 children. Many of them were running everywhere at every opportunity, sitting on bar stools, in casinos and at inappropriate shows for their age. They took over the tiny pools on the ship and pressed every single elevator button when no one was looking. On the third day of this we went to security to report our observations. We were told that the discipline was up to the parents and that the crew/staff couldn't do anything. The security officer thanked us for our comments and our meeting concluded. I will NEVER take a Carnival cruise again in my life, nor will I recommend it to anyone. The attitude of security and the behavior of the children was totally unacceptable for paying passengers.  

The cruise was wonderful and the staff were very friendly.  The room steward especially makes an effort to remember your name.  The dining room staff were efficient and the maître d was amazing.  This was the first cruise that I have every gone on the maître d was involved in the entertainment.  He sang every night. 

The excursion were well worth the money.  I suggest to anyone that plans to take Mediterranean cruise book an excursion. 

My favorite part of the cruise is the itinerary and that was my reason for booking.  However, I loved the cruise ship itself.  there were great amenities, my son loved the waterworks and Ocean Camp.  The food was delicious with great variety every day.  Guy's Burgers were really good and I do not eat burgers regularly, more like almost never.  I loved the on demand movies available, after a full sightseeing day of mostly walking it was nice to just relax in your room.  The Broadway style shows every night were great for entertainment as well.  There were lots of activity options all the time, we had a GREAT time. 

Overall the ship was very nice. Itinerary was very good. I enjoyed the cruise a lot. But they still have some kinks to get out. Nothing major. To get an elevator you need to press several buttons rather than just one. It also causes most elevators to stop at virtually every floor often with no one getting on. Waiters and bus people sometimes forget to bring you things you ask for. The person handling the drinks rarely stopped by to ask whether I wanted a drink. One time when I ordered a beer I literally waited 25 minutes to get it. Also they tell you no draft beer in the dining room even though the bar is right outside. Also, buffet has limited offerings because you need to sit down in a restaurant (no charge) on a different floor to get pasta or asian noodles. Makes no sense. In Serenity there is no pool, just hottubs. Finally took two hours to embark. Horrible.

The best part about this trip was the shore excursions! Naples and Marseille were our favorites - The best of the Amalfi Coast and A Day in Cassis.  The most unbelievable sights I've ever seen. 

The ship is clean and has everything you could want.  The only downside is that they do charge for most of the restaurants.  Believe me, the extra $15 per person is totally worth it.  The Japanese, steakhouse and Italian were amazing and we went back more than once! Service is far above the dining room.

Only complaint about the ship is for the staff - they do not anticipate needs.  Other than that, they are friendly and prompt.

Great cruise!

The ship is really nice. Décor is very simple but real nice. The ship has some nice new features. I took a ride on the new SkyRide which was really a lot of fun. Only bad thing there is a long line due to the fact we only had 2 sea days, so everyone wanted to try it. I would ride it again when I cruise on the Vista again. The crew are really great friendly and funny. We met a lot of nice new friends.

Our ports were very busy, we packed a lot into every day. All in all we would love to cruise on the Vista again when it comes to the states.

Vista is a new ship with lots of deck space since they sacrificed pool areas. The Havana area has its own pool zone but the suites have no distinct areas for them. There are several good specialty restaurants but the anytime dining is a disaster since everyone wants to eat late. Gym area is ok, sometimes a little warm and it could have used some more room for weight area. If you play basketball you are out of luck until 11pm since someone designed this ship with the specialty restaurants right under the court. Cabins are nice but they have poorly positioned night lights that are too bright. Overall a pretty good cruise.

Activities for kids. Need to ad quality shows for adults. We skipped Turkey and got a $23. Credit!

We ended in Barcelona but had a 6:30 AM departure!' No time to see Barcelona. 

That make two ports never seeing!

As a result of our 6:30 AM DISEMBARKMENT, we did not get

a final bill. Please mail one for my eleven people on my charge 

Flights that were rebooked due to Air France Striking putt my son's family of 5

stranded in Chicago for 30 hours!! 

Ports of call very educational. Ship shore excursions should be more active in use of countries tours (should be more than correct bus). 

Shows on ship poorer than other carnival cruises. Showroom (lido lounge)unsuitable for shows-insufficient seating,obstructions, acoustics.

ship clean and neat, staff overall helpful. 

App sold inconsistent operationally.

The first thing that immediately captured my attention was, while the ship holds many passengers (4800), the way the ship was engineered with the layout, you rarely felt crowded. Carnival did an excellent job of that. I've been on other cruise ships that carried approximately the same number of passengers and you always felt a little claustrophobic. The decor of the ship was simple, yet elegant and the feature in the middle of the ship (looked like a giant lava lamp) reached up 2 floors and was stunning. There were 2 of them, that had a different pattern in each of them which changed several times a day, very pretty.

I cannot say enough about our cabin steward, Zoran, he was so attentive and gave superior service. Also, our sitting for dinner was @6PM and Alex, was such a great waiter. We traveled with a party of eight people and by the first evening he had each and every one of our names memorized. Very personable and memorable employee.

As for the itinerary, I fell in love with Italy and have found 2 places I've added back into the bucket list to spend more time. One location was Sorrento and the other was San Gimigiano in the Tuscany region. In France we visited Aix en Provence which was very nice. Greece was also great but when all was said and done, Italy was the gem. 

Sailing 2 months after the maiden voyage of this ship, we figured that most of the bugs would have been worked out, which wasn't exactly true. We had a nice balcony room 10216, which was a great room. Was never noisy and a great location. However, the A/C went down twice which was a little annoying. After the 2nd time it had to be repaired I worked with customer service who gave us a credit on the account. That did help repair the annoyance factor a bit.

The food on this ship was very good. The specialty restaurant Ji Ji was fun, tasty and reasonably priced. The 555 steak house was a little more expensive but certainly worth it in the end considering all they offered. Fabulous ship, exceptional service and great employees. There was only one sourpuss that we ran into the entire cruise, in customer service and she should not be working that position. Her name is Irina. They need to find another position for her, perhaps behind the scenes. She was rude, unfriendly and not helpful.

One other note, the Mediterranean, beautiful area, but July is not exactly the best time to go as it was hot, hot, hot and not in a good way. I've heard that April and May are better choices. 

All in all, I would highly recommend the Carnival Vista. 

Our 10 night itinerary took us from Barcelona to Marseilles, Livorno/Pisa, Civitavecchia/Rome, Naples, Heraklion Crete, Rhodes, and Athens.  Our planned stop in Ephesus, Turkey was canceled due to government instability (bummer). The food was excellent, as was the service.  We utilized most services (except room service and spa) while aboard the ship.  The ship is new, clean, and well managed.   Staff was attentive and professional, and responded in a timely manner to nearly all of our concerns and needs. 

Family Harbor accommodations and services were fantastic for our family of 6.  This was our first cruise, and I suspect we will be less happy with any other cruise that does not offer this option.  The family lounge offered a place to escape the tight quarters of a stateroom with beds out for 4 people.  The kids enjoyed the games and easy access to food in the lounge, making breakfast available for early and late risers right down the hall from our stateroom.  The lounge staff was very attentive and friendly.  It was a very useful option for us!

One area that deserves attention on the ship is their wireless internet access system, using the Carnival Hub app.  The system would consistently kick my smartphone off the network, requiring revalidation and re-logon several (like more than 50) times EACH DAY.  The customer service desk offered helpful advice that worked... for about 2 hours.  It was incredibly frustrating, and being kicked off the network repeatedly made the shipboard chat feature useless to my family.  The Carnival Hub app provides access to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp applications for communications outside the ship, even at sea.  This painful experience in service is the reason I deducted a star.

We experienced a 60 minute wait time before being seated on the first night for our "anytime dining" option, and service was pretty slow.  However, every other time was much better in that regard.  Shows, movies, kids activities were all very nice, and the food selection was varied and fun. I particularly enjoyed the "port of call" food offerings, which matched up a menu from one of the ship's destinations. 

This was my Mom and Dad's 50th anniversary, and I admit that the reaction to this news by the crew was less than excited.  My parents were not recognized or offered anything special to honor this rare milestone, and that was disappointing. 

A true negative was the incredibly expensive cost of ship-arranged tours and photography services.  As a person who has previously lived in Europe, we opted out of most offerings from the cruise line for shore excursions due to their steep prices and our large group of 6 travelers, utilizing local operators and self-guided tours instead.  We did take advantage of a few of the ship's "last minute" tour offerings, which provided bus transportation to/from a major point of interest or central location in the city with a few hours built in for self guided shopping and sightseeing opportunities.  The cost was much lower for these "last minute" offerings than the published tours.   Photographs were encouraged day and night by ship's photography staff.  The images were good, high quality work, but the prices were prohibitive.  Charging in the area of $20 per digital image was excessive and not affordable to my large family, so we didn't purchase any.  If they had been more reasonable and offered better package prices, perhaps we would have bought some.

Our port call in Ephesus, Turkey was cancelled due to government instability.  I understand the reason for canceling the port call, but instead of spending a day at another nearby port we spent an additional day at sea.  This was a very disappointing replacement option for my family of 6.

The Carnival Vista is a beautiful ship and stopped at amazing incredible ports in the Mediterranean. On the cruise,  We loved the serenity deck for adults only.  Matt our cruise director was very funny and very lively! He was very entertaining. The meals were delicious too. Well for some improvements we could change the confusion about dinner. It's ridiculous to send us to a location on the 5th floor to be given a pager/buzzer to go off when our table on the 3rd floor becomes available. The pagers often didn't work and 2x  when we went to the Horizon dining on the 3rd floor bc the pager went off the hostess said oh no you must be mistaken about the lager going off bc there isn't a table for you. Very strange way! 

Also in a couple of the ports there should be added free bus shuttle service to get to the end of the port! Overall we loved the amazing cruise. 

Love this ship. staff were amazing. The ports is what made this trip. My 3 child my wife and I loved this cruise. Great for a family. The best way to visit Europe on a family budget.

The trip of a lifetime. I would experience this ship whiles it's in Europe.

Thanks Carnival!

Renewing our vows ceremony with the Captain and crew. It was special to see how they took care of any and all details to make it a memorable trip of a lifetime.

This was our first time ever on a cruise. My wife and I enjoyed the overall experience. Best part had to be the spa deck on level 12. My wife and I would visit every night after all our outings before going back to our cabin for the night. I would have loved to give 5 stars, but the service was not what we expected.

For starters our open dinning experience was chaotic and unorganized. Some nights we would have to wait for more than an our after our check in to be seated. Once we sat down, servers seemed distraught and rushed. One night my wife and I got up and left before being offered dessert...the waiter never showed up to check up on us. In some cases our side dishes never made it the table or our drinks.  It seemed to me that the wait staff was new, or not properly trained to handle a ship with that many customers. I don't recommend paying tips ahead of time like us...as the level of service was not what we expected. 

When  at pool side, rarely did a cocktail serve come up to us for a drink order. When they did we waited a long time for our drinks. We vacationed with other individuals that assures us other cruise lines they traveled with had better service. 

Lastly, I would of loved the adult section Serenity to have had a pool. There are two hot tubs, but after a long day out off the ports, it would have been nice to jump into an adults only pool.

Summary, for out first cruise it was not bad. Food was good and some of the pay restaurants we ate in were awesome! We will travel with other cruise lines in the future just to experience the level of service provided on those cruses.  

Regards,

Jesus Martinez  

Great way to show a part of Europe to a young person who has never been their.

For them to be able to see part of history before they study it in school will give them a better understanding world.

The itinerary of all the stops was absolutely amazing! Loved it! 

The boat is brand new and it has some really cool new things like an imax theatre and now instead of eating every night in the dining room there are 5 other restaurants to eat at that only charge a little bit extra money in case you want to mix it up. The boat is very alternative and new but lacks the detail the other boats have that were made with wood and seem more luxurious to me. 

I would say the biggest difference this cruise had was the staff. They were for the most part very nice but a few things went wrong on my stay and they were not accommodating at all to help. For example, I booked a balcony room for 4 ppl. In the states I've stayed in a 4 person room and have been very comfortable and in fact can still remember how comfortable the bunk beds were to this day! This 4 person room had one bunk bed and someone had to sleep on the sofa bed. The sofa bed and the bunk bed were probably the worst thing we had ever had to sleep on besides the floor! They were incredibly uncomfortable. Since it was a 10 night cruise we asked 4 times what we could do to make the beds not so miserable and the staff only offered to add more blankets on as padding. I was really disappointed in that.

Our favorite part of the cruise all the ports it offered and that the destination was different.

we felt there entertainment was just ok.  The were no time for people who at latter.mias the table clothes. Day at sea not enough fun free stuff to do.  Dinner was a bit skippy.

The cruise was great.  We had amazing waiters and ship crew.  The places we visited were amazing.  I wouldn't book through ever again.  You are never able to reach the original agent you booked with, then you wait on hold forever, only to be put back on hold for them to call Carnival.  I thought the price of the excursion to Pompeii was ridiculously overpriced.  And there is too much chaos after disembarking.  Nowhere near enough room, or taxi's.  We even hired a private driver and we weren't able to find each other for over an hour.