Carnival Vista Review
Rating by category
Additional details
Decided literally a few days before that we had time to get a cruise in before the summer school holidays and this one popped up as the most convenient and reasonable price. We also wanted to experience being on a new ship, and being so "heavy" to check out how stable it is on the open seas (I suffer from motion sickness).
Cons: no black out curtains in the oceanview staterooms and with the sun coming up around 5am, a bit disturbing, and insulation between staterooms very poor - the flushing of toilets from the staterooms around one make a horrific noise especially during the night.
Pros: very large comfortable stateroom, an extra was having 2 bathrooms, one with bath. Stateroom staff of very superior quality, spoke excellent English and most helpful. (Second last day of cruise we had water leaking in our stateroom (these things happen), immediately the engineers came and blowers were put around. The problem was also in the passage around our stateroom, not sure if any other staterooms had the same problem.)
Cabin Review
Deluxe Ocean View
Very large, comfortable, 2 bathrooms, one with shower/basin/toilet the other with basin/shower/bathtub. Might have been more useful having 2 toilets instead of the bath but did use it a few times for the experience.
Curtains leak a lot of light.
Plenty of cupboard and drawer space, but terrible noise from toilet flushing, obviously lack of insulation between cabins.
Port Reviews
Barcelona
Stayed in Barcelona for 3 nights before the cruise, just to wander around as we had been here a few times and "done" all the major sites. Enjoyed our stay very much.
Palermo (Sicily)
Found it very interesting, especially the Norman Cathedral and Palace and also wandering around the historical Jewish quarter, finding street signs written in Hebrew, Arabic and Latin letters.
Very easy to get around on one's own.
Naples
Naples is Naples. We have been here very often and just like to walk around for an hour or two, As it was already well into June, too hot for much more. I find the main shopping streets cleaner and cleaner, a change from the old days.
Rome (Civitavecchia)
Civit is Civit, would not go into Rome as we have stayed there literally hundreds of times for up to a week each trip. Have stayed over in Civit also a few times, so just took an hour's walk in the centre of town, which is very quaint.
Florence (Livorno)
Again, having been here often, took the shuttle into town and walked around for a couple of hours before heading back to the air conditioned ship....
Marseille
First time in Marseilles, much cleaner (at least the area around the harbour where we were) and more modern than we had expected, wide boulevards with large open areas, lots of coffee shops, beautiful harbour. Plenty of museums and historical sites for those who want to experience them. We walked up to the Grand Synagogue which is worth a visit - totally amazing how it has been kept up. Of course, soldiers outside on guard duty.
Did not find any indication of hassling, and felt completely safe walking around the main pedestrian mall.
Palma de Mallorca (Majorca)
had not been here before so once again our first port of call was to find the synagogue, which we did. Being the day before a Holy Holiday, we were lucky enough to find someone who had come from Israel to conduct the Holiday services. We were welcomed in to see the synagogue which is on the ground floor under an apartment building. No guards or soldiers outside, doors open and everyone welcome.
After that walked around a while along the non touristic streets, through the local indoor market which was a pleasant surprise, but were disappointed to find so many shops closed due to the economic situation.
Beautiful harbour promenade, lots of hotels, apartments and restaurants.
This is a place to come for a couple of weeks before the heat of summer.