Carnival Vista Review
Average cruise on board Carnival's newest ship.
Rating by category
Additional details
Ship information
Having cruised on numerous cruise lines (RCL, Celebrity, NCL etc) and other Carnival ships, you can tell the Vista sells itself as a ship for entertainment rather than for exceptional service.
The ship itself is brand new and felt very clean and modern which was a great start. It was laid out well but the lack of main atrium with glass lifts etc was strange - there was no main area on board.
Cabin Review
Balcony
Standard balcony.
Expect average, but new, furnishings and a decent amount of storage.
However the walls seemed to be ridiculously thin and we were forever complaining about hearing the room next door's television.
Port Reviews
Grand Turk
Beautiful.
Took a taxi to a beach as well as a tour of the island. Enjoyed the clear blue sea and the white sandy beach.
Bonaire
Another gorgeous beach day here! Took a short taxi to Spice Beach and enjoyed an afternoon swimming and snorkelling.
Aruba
Port is right next to the main town so walked around in the morning. Very pretty with lots of shops and bars.
Taxi to a beautiful beach in the afternoon. $10 each way which was miles cheaper than the ship excursions. Beach had several refreshment stands and the opportunity to rent a sun lounger - we just took the ship beach towels.
St. Martin
With 6 other large cruise ships and 20k extra people on the island, finding a taxi/trip in the morning was chaos. Taxi rank is next to the port so we eventually took one to the famous beach next to the airport. The beach was very crowded with so many people in but the water was clear blue and worth a visit to watch the airplanes flying so low over the top.
Taxi to Philipsberg, the capital. Lots of shops, bars and restaurants here.
Water taxi back to the port. $7 for an all day wristband pass or $5 for a single. Leaves and returns right back where the cruise terminal is.