We boarded with anticipation this is a brand new ship and we were first in this US port to board. The new system they have in place is they scan your passport and use that picture for your sail and sign card identification. Our cabin was easy to find and ready for us so we could drop our carryon baggage and go eat before the Muster Drill. We ate mainly in the dining room and the food was on par nothing special to speak home about. Entertainment with Mike Pack the cruise director was so interactive we loved it. Service around the ship and help desk was on par. We loved Aruba and Curaco so we are returning to those ports to do excursions. Our Cruise Director Mike Pack was so awesome without him the ship would have been boring. Our Meet and Mingle was a great turnout almost a hundred showed up our Video can be seen on Carnival Cruise Director Mike Packs facebook page if you would like to view. So be sure you sign up for your meet and mingle on cruise critic its a sure fire way to get to know your fellow guest who will be onboard for the next 8 days. We enjoyed know our fellow guest by name and shared our experiences as days went on. Great Smiles for all. Oh and the new elevator system they have is awesome no waiting. Read Less

I am a travel agent so I am an avid cruiser. Before our vacation, I came here to read reviews about the ship. I was shocked at how many negative reviews I read and in all honesty, I almost wasn't even excited for the trip anymore. I can not think of one negative thing to say about the ship, staff, entertainment or itineraries. Anyone that could cruise on the Horizon and not have a good time is absolutely crazy in my opinion. I'll start with the activities and things to do on the ship. There was never a time to be bored- ever. From the movie theatre, the ropes course, the play area (one of my favorites!), swimming pools, water slides and water park, casino, games and shows, serenity area, spa, trivia, bingo, kids clubs and activities, etc... Carnival has it all. My children lost their father a little over a year ago and they have severe separation anxiety. We have tried kids clubs on other ships without luck and many tears. My children actually cried when it was time for me to pick them up. The kids staff was absolutely amazing and went above and beyond. Every single one made such sweet, genuine connections with our family and I am forever grateful. I wish that my children's teachers were this great in the real world. I was a little bit disappointed that the bicycles were broken on our sailing. However, I understand that these types of things are out of their control. The food was just okay, but there are so many options that there is something for everyone. I loved the Italian restaurant and I LOVE that it is complimentary during lunch time. I also really enjoyed Guy's Burger Joint and the Taco Bar area. Midnight pizza might have been my favorite way to end the night and I love that they deliver now to anywhere on the ship. Embarkation was a bit of a nightmare as boarding didn't start until 1 PM. After waiting in line for 2 hours, once we got on board it was time to go straight to the safety briefing. My children and I were starving and it took us a little while to find food after the sail away party started- but things happen! Most of the time, it isn't the cruise line's fault and I feel bad that the customers take it out on the staff. Until customs clears the ship, no one can get off or on! The Horizon can not be beat for the price. Carnival is the only cruise line to own all of their ships, which is why they can give their customers such great rates. Carnival is hands down my favorite cruise line and for the first time ever- I want to sail back on the Horizon ASAP! (I usually want to see new ships and have never wanted to sail on the same ship twice). If you are reading this and considering this cruise ship- PLEASE BOOK IT IMMEDIATLY! If you have a positive attitude and remember that you are sailing on a floating dream boat in paradise, who could possibly be disappointed? Read Less

The cruise was chosen because of the skyride. Of course, the night before the cruise, a email was sent stating the ride was down. The staff was inexperienced and unformed. The food was good, but the same for lunch and dinner on the lido deck. Not a large variety to choose from and shut down time in between breakfast, lunch and dinner. Most popular food venues were expensive. Entertainment was good, but the venue was too small to accommodate the large amount of people. Long lines were often the sight prior to a show. The dining room experience was somewhat difficult. Singing in for dinner on one floor, and eating on another. The staff was pleasant, but never had a chance to get to know them because of unassigned table settings and locations. My room steward was excellent, very nice and polite. The ports were great and the weather was beautiful. Read Less

I had the opportunity to sail for two nights on the Carnival Horizon, Carnival's newest ship! The cruise left out of Miami and made a day stop in Nassau. The first thing I did after boarding was go the gym. This ship has a small gym space but the equipment was new and worked very well. The views were amazing. I toured the spa just afterward, if you like to have a spa session while on your cruise, the Cloud9 Spa smells great and seems very comfortable. Be sure to ask about day passes as they are limited. Carnival had a giant presentation on the pool deck with Carnival Horizon Sr. officers and the CFO, Shaquille O'Neal! Shaq lead some games with Alonzo Mourning, Glen Rice, Shane Battier and guests, they even even gave away a free 7 night cruise. Carnival really showed a fun time. The FunShip blimp was hovering above and Carnival dedicated 1M dollars of donation to St. Jude's children's hospital to celebrate the Horizon Homecoming! As far as the ship goes, the fun never stops! A lot like the Carnival Vista, there are some small changes here and there. The Pig and Anchor pub, a Guy Fieri exclusive, which on the Vista is RedFrog bar, has a more local feel, with a full food menu and Carnival beers brewed on board! Of course you have the ropes course and the Skyride on the activities deck as well as the waterpark and sports court and other games for all ages! My other blog has details about all the ship facilities. Mostly on this cruise I enjoyed the Pig and Anchor bar, the activities deck and the Skybox sports bar. Read Less

Embarkation was wonderful so long as you show up at your assigned time. We had put in our credit card during the online check-in. The morning of the cruise my bank notified me a$100 authorization was posted. I assumed to make sure the credit card was good. When checking in at the airport, that process took seconds as they did not check our credit cards again. We just took the boarding pass we had printed and proceeded immediately on board. When we reached our cabin which was ready at 1130, keys were in a sealed envelop next to our cabin. (BTW, later that day, we walked down our hall and about 15 envelopes were strewed on the floor. Someone witnessed some kids pulling out all the envelops and throwing them on the floor. This is just the beginning of the thugs we had on board this sailing. After Vista brought me back to Carnival, I quickly booked the 2 night Miami inaugural. Had I cruised Horizon first, it would have been my last with Carnival. It actually may well be again. I'm not sure if newly appointed Cruise Fun Officer Shaq O'neal has changed the demographics of cruisers but I've never come across such rude and obnoxious cruisers before. A young man walked around with a huge amplifier blasting music in the halls, staircase (thank God he didn't use the elevator, the pool area, even the marketplace buffet the entire two days. It was all about him and total disrespect for his fellow cruisers. And no he wasn't the DJ. This cruise had huge groups that would move furniture making it impossible to get around and pass. Regardless of the hour for breakfast, lunch and even dinner hour, young women were in the buffet area in their skimpy bikinis or thongs which covered very little. There was no such thing as Serenity area. This 21+ area hot tubs were packed with kids and toddlers. I did not see any staff or security speak with those breaking policies at all. Numerous people also mentioned the strong smell of weed in the hallways, including me. I only saw the Cruise Director once before the welcome aboard show. His assistant Alex was fun at Trivia, although not swapping answers left much to be trusted with "winners." Having a formal night on a 2 night cruise was silly, but at least they served Lobster and Prime Rib which was delicious. It wasn't hard to figure out the elevators, although they were extremely slow and there was no way of knowing when it would come. We gave up on most and just walked. Most people saw an elevator and jumped on it, never knowing which floor it was heading to. So elevators were crowded. Leaving your cabin the last night was a disaster as the elevator doesn't take into consideration people are boarding the elevators with luggage. Disembarkation was quick but once within the Customs terminal the lines were extremely long, thank God we had our Global Entry cards with us. Read Less

Okay first off I went last year on Carnival Victory and had an amazing time food, staff and entertainment was awesome...I wanted to book right away again for another Carnival cruise i chose Carnival Horizon because it looked amazing online the pictures so i figured it would be an even better experience. By far from the truth. My husband and I went with our very good friends just this past week and i must say i will not return to Horizon. ALOT of the things on the ship you were not able to use the Sky rider was not running and the basketball courts were locked and it was at 3pm daytime still when we attempted to try and use it. A few of the staff members were extremely rude and their AC throughout the ship felt like it was not working. I did enjoy the comedy show and my waitstaff in the main dining room. There was no one telling us how to get around i had to keep bothering the bartenders for directions and the service in the BBQ restaurant was horrible. When i got off the ship i had better service and the hardrock cafe in Miami. I definitely still love carnival i just think Horizon needs to step their game up in a few areas! Read Less

I choose the Carnival Horizon for a 2 day cruise because I wasn't sure when I would be able to go on this one for a week or longer. The ship is beautiful! The food was great, however at the lido for breakfast their weren't many options as I expected. There are 2 buffets at the lido and each station is set up with 4 sides, each station had the same stuff. Also, for lunch at the lido it was the same set up so of course we had many options besides the lido such as the pizza, Guy's burgers, the deli and Blue Iguana. Guy's Burgers as usual is awesome. Blue Iguana was great. The deli really surprised us. Normally on Carnival ships the deli is pretty basic with wraps and not too many options but this deli had a menu of cold and hot items, plus fries and cookies. The hot items were great you had hot dogs, buffalo chicken sandwiches and meatball subs plus more. The gelato station was nice they offer 2 flavors and then you have a toppings bar. Unfortunately we couldn't find the cotton candy station. The dinner at the main dining was great we never had a complain about the service or the food. The breakfast served at the Meridian restaurant was just as great. Another big surprise was seeing a Victoria Secret which was very different. Cherry on top was great especially in the back where you can sit and eat your ice cream, it was very quiet and relaxing. We do have unfortunately some cons to write about. When we first got on the ship until about after the Muster drill ended, the elevators were not working so most people did not want to wait 20 plus minutes so we all decided to take the stairs to each deck which was horrible. This has never happened on any ship. Every Carnival ship that we go on we get 1 free liter of water for each guest and after asking our room steward for them we only ended up getting 2 bottles and we were 4 in our cabin. I didn't have the time or energy to continue asking for them. Another disappointment was the comedian (PG) I completely forgot his name but he was not funny at all and I feel like Carnival failed when it came to this type of entertainment. Also the Sky ride and obstacle course were down due to maintenance...really? Why couldn't this get fixed before you boarded 3,000 plus people? Huge disappointment that we couldn't experience that. The thrill theater was very fun and when we got there it was 8 pm and I was able to book tickets for an 8:15 show so we were very lucky. Overall we had a great time although it was very short. We are looking forward to booking on the Horizon again for a much longer time. Read Less

Cruised on Carnival Horizon Sep 2018. The elevators were 'state of the art' which means confusing. you go to a kiosk, choose your floor and the screen tells you which elevator to go to. Then you wait and wait. There is no indication on where your elevator is or when it will arrive. Once inside, you are stuck. You go to the floor that you choose on the kiosk plus any other floors where others are waiting to go to the same floor. Just strange. Never book spa balcony cabin 11234. When looking at the deck plans, there was an unlabeled cabin next to 11234. I asked my agent what that was and she put me on hold to call Carnival and ask. They said it is a storage closet. I figured no noise from a storage closet at night when I am trying to sleep. Well it wasn't a storage closet. 11234 is next to the thermal pool mechanical room and at 2am the first 2 nights, it drained the thermal pool so it sounded like a toilet flushing (but really loud) that lasted for 10-20 minutes. We switched to another open balcony room after the second night. Went to the Serenity (adults only) deck and one of the whirlpool spas wasn't working at all. Considering this is a new ship, that is a fail. The entertainment was awesome. Food was very good as well. Read Less

I chose this cruise with the thought of how wonderful it would be to sail on a new cruise ship. This was not my first cruise and I can say I was not that impressed. The hot tubs were filled with kids and no parents, soon became a kiddie pool with kids sitting on steps and diving in splashing around, went in with shoes on, complained to a staff member and nothing was done. Bathrooms were far and few between, had to travel quite a bit to find one, they were not that clean either. Not impressed with the Cruise Director, barely saw him or heard him, except for the two times he was dancing on the bar and at the sail away party. Buffets were not impressive, and "the fun ship" always had a lot more things going on, especially on the lido deck, they used to have ice sculptures and midnight buffets on the deck itself. Didn't think it was appropriate to pay to watch a movie or thrill ride in the 2 new theaters, and one reason that really made me want to take this ship was the sky ride that was not working. Embarkation and disembarkation was very good and moved quickly. The Meridian Main Dining Room was great, wait staff great as well as the food. Read Less

We did this cruise because we had to cancel another cruise; boy was I glad we got to take this cruise. It was the last cruise on this ship out of New York, and they did it New York way! Getting on the ship was fine, as long as you show up on your designated time on your boarding pass, otherwise you have to go into another line. I have cruised many carnival ships before, but this cruise ranked #2 on all my cruises. We had the best cruise director ever. Ryan and his staff kept us quite entertained. Never had a boring day. The comedians were fantastic, Mike Davis and Jeffery Jene kept us in stitches. The food was good, the ship was clean. I would recommend eating at the 55 steakhouse. It was such a great experience. The service was more personal because you have less people to attend to unlike the main dining room. The dining room service was fast, I am not sure why people are complaining, but on our cruise we did not have to wait for dinner. One tip is that you can eat at the Pig and Anchor for free on the first day of the cruise until 3:30pm. Drop your bags off, and go there, you will not be disappointed. All and all a good time was had by all. Florence ruin our beach day in Bermuda, because the waves on the beach were large and we had red flag warning. I will be cruising again in January with Carnival and I hope Ryan is our cruise director. I also stayed in a spa cabin which was a first, but would do it again. Like having access to the spa and its amenities it had to offer. Also the celestial show was amazing. You can only see this show on the Horizon. Book your cruise on Horizon, you won't be disappointed. Read Less