This was the 2nd cruise for both my wife and me. We had previously gone on the Carnival Freedom in the Caribbean, and we felt like we had a better time on the Freedom, although the Vista was fairly good as well.

The Vista has a variety of things to do on the ship, including entertainment (comedy shows, game shows, live informational shows, movies, the casino, etc.), multiple places to eat, and on the upper decks, there is mini golf, billards, basketball, hanging bicycles you can ride around the ship, a large screen for movies, as well as pools and hot tubs. I also enjoyed just sitting and relaxing and taking in the views, as well as taking photos.

We didn't go on any excursions, but we enjoyed going off the ship to do some shopping. I think the downside is that the stops were all generally in areas that are set up for tourists from the ship, with inflated prices and many of the same shops (Diamonds International and Del Sol seem to be common shops in these cruise ship destinations). One place where we were able to leave the tourist area was Belize - It's nice to see the actual city and see locals, buy some local fruit etc., and things are also much cheaper in the city when you leave the tourist area. One thing I was looking forward to from our last time around was visiting Moho Chocolate, a nice little chocolate shop in Belize that also makes some great smoothies, but Moho Chocolate was no longer there - We were informed that they had moved. Read more