Carnival Horizon Review
Family Spring Break cruise to Southern Caribbean, Cabin 22**
Rating by category
Additional details
The ship was big and there was a lot to explore, and for some background, I only have experience with Carnival, and the other ships were Magic, Dream, and Fantasy. We were lucky enough to snag "Faster to the Fun" and we believe it was worth it - even just for the embarkation/debarkation. My husband and I were excited to turn to "Gold" status on this cruise, but in actuality, the only major difference was card color, we got a little pin from the Pixel shop for our trip and 2x 1 ltr bottles of water in the cabin. We travelled with our 2 teen-aged daughters (19 and 15), and we booked a Cove balcony (LOVE the Cove balconies!!), but it was a bit tight. Our last cruise was pre-Covid, so it had been a while. This cruise was booked in July 2022, when we were originally supposed to go (same ship/itinerary), but my youngest child tested positive for Covid three days prior to embarkation. We actually saved money by booking this in the spring (April 2023) compared to what we paid for the July 2022 cruise date. We were refunded the difference via gift cards, which is what we originally used to pay for the cruise (AARP has discounts on Carnival gift cards, and you can purchase up to 5 cards x month. It was $450 for a $500 card).
Embarkation: This cruise sailed out of Miami, and we stayed at the Hilton Downtown Miami, so we were pretty close to the ship (we saw it from our hotel room), and on embarkation day, we headed over to the cruise terminal at 10 am. The cruise port was pretty big and we got somewhat turned around, but eventually found the correct terminal and the place that was suggested for parking. (As a side note, your ship may not come back to the same terminal when returning, so be mindful of where you parked so you don't get lost like we did). The "appointment" time that I scheduled was 1pm (because I missed booking earlier when it opened up). We parked at the terminal because we didn't not want the hassle of shuttling to/from a lot. Also, having a friend living in the area, she warned me to pick a good place to keep my car (we drove to this cruise) since there are a lot of car thefts in Miami. Parking was pretty easy and were able to go through the check in process quickly (thanks FTTF!!) and were on the ship by 10:30 am. One note - if you use pink highlighter on your boarding pass (to highlight the name of the passenger), you could be pulled aside, as it seems that Carnival uses that specific color to denote passengers that have issues. I learned that the hard way, b/c I highlighted each of my family members names in pink to keep the boarding passes organized. Ok - so lesson learned, DO NOT highlight names on boarding passes. Got it. lol. The boarding process was very easy and there was one additional step that I didn't experience in previous cruises was to have a drug dog sniff my carry on (we did it right before going through security, which was pretty much right before boarding the ship). Not sure if this port has issues with illegal drugs or if it's a new thing, but it was interesting/unexpected. Took maybe an extra 3-5 minutes total for that, and nobody in my group (or before/after us) were pulled aside for "further review." After boarding, we were herded into the front dining area to check in for "muster." It was actually like we had the route roped off and people directed us to the area before doing anything else. There was a staff member who would scan the sign/sail (aka for me - "badge" lol), to check the pax in. Once there were about 20-30 ppl in the room, another staff member went over the life jacket procedure and reminded us that this dining room was our muster station of anything were to go wrong on the cruise. Once that was done (less than 5 minutes for that whole thing), we were released and allowed free reign - well, except for the cabins. They had those blocked off and the signs stated they would be ready by 1pm (which was pretty accurate). We headed to the Cucina del Capitano (Italian) restaurant for lunch, as that is one of the most under-utilized places for embarkation day (we really wanted to avoid the Lido craziness).
Guest Services: While we waited for our cabin to be ready (so we didn't yet have our "badges," we went to guest services to load gift cards on our account. As stated above, we had a few, one being over $1k from the refund of the previous cruise to this one. The guest services agents were all very friendly and helpful, and we were able to get all but the largest (over $1k) gift card loaded. The agents were able to "see" the amount, so they knew the g/c was valid, but their system would NOT allow the amount to be credited to our account. The initial agent thought it was an IT thing, so they tried to get IT involved. There was a ticket put in and since we departed on Saturday, we technically couldn't get any sort of response until Monday. Now, it wasn't a HUGE deal, since we had a credit card attached to our account, but it was, in a way, since it was over $1k. So how it eventually was worked out, and how we got credited was that one of the agents suggested breaking up the amount entered and instead entered it at an increment less than $1k (I think she tried $500) and it went through. SO - we all learned a lesson at that point, if (you) ever have a gift card balance OVER $1k, have them apply an amount less than that (try $500 at first) and hopefully (you) will avoid multiple trips to guest services to have that issue resolved. In the end, it was resolved, so I don't count that as a negative, but as a learning experience.
Cabin Review
Cove Balcony
The Cabin: While it was the same size (I believe) as the ones on the Magic and Dream, felt smaller. There was less storage space, which was a challenge. There was one "wall locker" that would hold all of the long hanging items (dresses, outfits on hangers, etc), the second "wall locker" was two hanging areas (2 bars as well) so the cruise, could potentially, hang up shirts at the top/ bottom. The "shelf" in the middle had a hinge on it and there was a clasp against the wall so in essence, one could use that area similarly to the first one. The third "wall locker" was divided up into three shelves, the safe, then three drawers. It made it a bit difficult to divide up that area between 4 (adult sized individuals). The drawers were ok size, but the top drawer slide lost it's screw and my daughter (who was using the drawer) had a hard time sliding (the drawer) in/out throughout the cruise. On the last day, I had had enough and used a car key (b/c I did not have Phillips head screwdriver) to attempt to fix the drawer slide. I could have called maintenance, but we had another issue in the cabin that caused us to call maintenance several times, so the drawer slide/screw seemed like something I could handle myself and not bother maintenance. I didn't fix it as well as I'd have liked, but at least the next cruisers using that room would have a functioning drawer.
Another issue in the cabin was the safe. On the first day, we had an issue in that it wouldn't work - we followed the steps in how to program it but got a code that looked like the battery had an issue. Maintenance came and swiped a card (maybe we could have done that with a used gift card?), and cleared any codes and then it worked again. Unfortunately, this happened several times throughout the cruise, so after the 3rd time, we just kept the safe unlocked. The bathroom in the cabin was the same as most other cabins (non-suite) in the ship. All four of us were able to use the bathroom and had minimal issues. One big one that again, we didn't call maintenance, but maybe should have, was that the drain in the shower was clogged and the "tub" area in the shower would fill with shower water b/c it drained incredibly slowly. We just dealt with it, as it wasn't a deal breaker, but it would have been nice to have had a regularly functioning shower.
When we first were able to gain access to the room, the couch was not made into a bed, nor was the pullman bed pulled down from the ceiling and made up. There were four of us in the cabin, and when we first saw the room, it looked like only two of us had a place to sleep. I know that these cabin stewards are extremely busy, and the beds were eventually made, so we all had places to sleep, but it was a disappointment not to have the room set up correctly when we first entered. Our cabin steward was nice and she worked hard but I didn't really feel a connection with her. She and her peer who I always saw working together kept their cart parked next to our door throughout the cruise (on occasion it would be gone), so we typically just used it as a landmark when walking down the corridor. We'd take the aft elevators to either 10 for food or 5 for the Havana area/Coffee shop...