Carnival Vista Review 1st Oct 2016. -Oh No I`ve lost my anchor!!!

[trogmd]

Loving your review. Thank you so much for sharing. I'm sure your partner was smiling down on you

 

Sent from my SM-G925V using Forums mobile app

 

Thanks for your kind words and welcome to the review.

[trogmd]

I am so sorry for your loss I know Kieron is watching down on you. My partner and I were on the same cruise I am sorry we didn't meet up. Thank you for taking the time to do the review.

 

Tom

 

Thanks Tom for your nice words, it was a good cruise and it would have been nice to meet you. Enjoy the rest of the review.

[trogmd]

I am loving your review - I think Kieron would be so proud of you for going ahead with your plans that he had a big part of. My husband and I are on the Vista on Dec 31st out of Miami and am looking forward to hearing all about your experience. Take care of you !

 

Thanks Ykgorbie, it is a great ship I am sure you will enjoy it. Hope you have a great cruise and enjoy the rest of the review.

[trogmd]

Thanks for the review.

 

Your welcome.

[trogmd]

Thanks for your review, I can't wait to read the rest.

Greetings from Chile.

 

Thank you Vivianahm from Chile, welcome to the review. :)

[bazbov]

Hello Mark aka trog. First of all may i offer my condolences on the loss of your beloved Kieran. I'm sure you must have felt his strength as you traveled on this your latest voyage. I have never traveled on Carnival but have done many cruises with other lines and enjoy reading about other peoples experiences,so thank you for taking the time to post this. I am following along and look forward to the next installment. I'm pleased you liked Barcelona. We love Barcelona too and Spain is now the country we have chosen to live in.

Once again, thanks for this review,Take care and happy cruising. :)

[trogmd]

Hello Mark aka trog. First of all may i offer my condolences on the loss of your beloved Kieran. I'm sure you must have felt his strength as you traveled on this your latest voyage. I have never traveled on Carnival but have done many cruises with other lines and enjoy reading about other peoples experiences,so thank you for taking the time to post this. I am following along and look forward to the next installment. I'm pleased you liked Barcelona. We love Barcelona too and Spain is now the country we have chosen to live in.

Once again, thanks for this review,Take care and happy cruising. :)

 

Thanks bazbov, I`m sure he was there as well.

I do love Barcelona and will visit it again I am sure. Glad you like the review and thanks for your kind words.

[trogmd]

So I arrived at the zoo....

 

 

I did look at prices on the Internet and it was 20euro to get in, but if I purchased a ticket online it was only 9.95euro, great a half price saving.

Anyway here are a few pics from the zoo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[trogmd]

A few more from inside the zoo.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[trogmd]

And some more....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a lot of construction going on as it was out of season, and the Elephants were being housed in a much smaller enclosure during the refurbishment of their habitat. I did feel sorry for them and was surprised how run down the place looked as this was supposed to be a premier zoo in Europe.

[trogmd]

Last couple of pics from zoo...

 

 

 

So I left the zoo at about 3.15pm and made my way past the tall building in the next picture to the seafront.

 

 

And arrived at this lovely Marina area...

 

 

[minikiss]

Oh Mark I am so sorry to hear about Kieron.

You never mentioned it in the roll call...... But i'm glad you went without him.

He will have been with you all the way.

My Best friend of 33 years past away in April and I know she follows me and was there on board to. I have had a few things happen since I lost her, that could only have worked out with a little help from above. I had the girls in the Alchemy bar make me a cocktail to toast her with. It made them laugh as It looked horrible but to me it tasted Great. I asked for Raspberry and chocolate.

I am sorry we never bumped in to each other, in fact we never really met anyone other than those on the Naples tour.

I'm going to do a small review nothing on your scale though, but I can say I will not be rushing to book another Carnival cruise.

 

So sorry again to hear about Kieron but as I said he's always going to be there for you and with you.

[minikiss]

Hi, my name is Mark age 51yrs and I am a cruise addict. This was my 12th cruise.

My first cruise was in 1997 on the Carnival Inspiration.

 

First let me explain my title for this review. My partner in life for 27yrs died a few weeks before this cruise he was also only 51yrs old and he did a lot of the planning for our cruises. He was with me on all my previous cruises so I was very sad after all his hard work in planning this cruise that he would not be there on the Vista enjoying this fantastic ship and crew.

I was not sure whether I could do a review without him here to help me, but I have decided to give it a go and try to do it on my own and that I would dedicate this review to him. :)

 

I was not completely on my own on the cruise as my brother was also booked to join us on the cruise.

I was on my own in Barcelona though for my pre-cruise stay. Obviously there were a lot of sad moments when I thought how Kieron would have liked this or that but I just had to get on with it and somehow get through this holiday without him.

I did enjoy many parts of the holiday with my brothers support and I also met some lovely people on this cruise, which is one of the many things I love about cruising.

 

Anyway onto the review. First off a pic of the Vista in Rhodes which is the only place she was docked where you could get a full picture of her in all her glory without anything blocking the view. :(

 

 

Mark

we walked to the same spot for the same photo shop of the ship. Agree that was the best port stop for it. Loved Rhodes but my shoes didn't as they split the soles after walking on the pebble cobble streets of the old town.

[trogmd]

Looking out to sea I had the Marina on the left and the beach to the right of me.

This is the beach on my right...

 

 

I had to walk all the way along the beach front to reach my next destination which was where the cable car was in the middle left part of this pic...

 

 

I wanted to go to this spot because there is a lovely inland harbor here with nice shops and restaurants.

There is a particular restaurant here that I wanted to go to called simply, WOK Barcelona. It is a fantastic Chinese restaurant that Kieron and I visited in 2009 while on a cruise aboard The Independence of the Seas. So I wanted to go there for a meal as I had only had breakfast so far today.

[jbhcw]

You are doing a wonderful job with this review...loving your pictures...So sorry for the loss of you partner. I will be following along:):):)

[LisaH]

Thanks for taking the time to review. In some small way I think it will help you doing so and I'm sure your partner would have wanted you to continue to enjoy cruising and encourage you to write your review.

 

Good luck... Look forward to it. :)

 

 

 

Perfect sentiment...I agree

[trogmd]

Back again, just been trying to upload a couple of small videos to PB with no luck so just uploaded them to YouTube instead. Where is Kieron when I need him lol.

 

[YOUTUBE]4XHFrwBRDvo[/YOUTUBE]

 

[YOUTUBE]c1bX4gOCb7I[/YOUTUBE]

 

Hope these work.

[trogmd]

Ya hoo at last I managed to get the vids on this review only took 3hrs lol.

 

Anyway back to my mega walk along the seafront to the Wok restaurant.

 

The beach was a gorgeous white sandy beach which was very busy.

 

 

 

A lovely sail boat passed by ...

 

 

I was finally getting closer to my goal....

 

 

At last I am at the cable car...

 

 

[trogmd]

However I was nowhere near where I wanted to be. I was on the opposite side of the inland harbor that I needed to be on so I had to try and find my way round to the other side or the harbor.

This is what I passed along the way....

 

 

A huge yacht for Gambee...

 

 

 

At last I was getting very close to my goal, just had to cross this bridge that leads to the huge shopping area.

 

 

 

Last time we crossed this bridge it opened up to let some boats through.

 

[trogmd]

So I walked across the bridge and around the corner to have my heavenly Chinese meal...

 

 

I looked along the restaurants on the waters edge only to find that my Wok restaurant was no longer here :(

 

I was so disappointed, how dare they replace it with a Spanish restaurant :rolleyes:

anyone would think we were in Spain :D

 

 

So I had to look for somewhere else to eat.

[trogmd]

I eventually decided on Italian as it now was getting close to 5pm and I was starving.

I found a nice looking place a bit further along the water, it was called Ginos and this is my view from the table I was sat at....

 

 

 

 

I am afraid I did not get a pic of the menu but I did get pics of the food....

 

Garlic bread with cheese and bacon, it was delicious.

 

 

However my spaghetti carbonara was so dry as I think they did not put any creamy sauce on it at all.

 

 

I ate it anyway as I was so hungry, I am afraid I am not someone who complains. I just usually never eat there again if I am not happy with something.

[trogmd]

I made my way back to the hotel by walking up Las Ramblas all the way to Av. Diagonal which was quite a long way. I was hoping my poor feet could make it as they were starting to feel sore by now.

Here a few pics of my journey back to my hotel and my favorite cafe for a 1euro latte.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I eventually arrived back at my hotel room at 8.15pm after leaving to go out for the day at 10am. I was absolutely shattered but I had had a good day.

 

[trogmd]

I will just finish up Friday 30th with a few more pics of the room.

 

 

 

 

Thats it for Friday. Tomorrow would be the 1st Oct, cruise boarding day, :)

 

 

Next up Saturday 1st Oct.

[trogmd]

Oh Mark I am so sorry to hear about Kieron.

You never mentioned it in the roll call...... But i'm glad you went without him.

He will have been with you all the way.

My Best friend of 33 years past away in April and I know she follows me and was there on board to. I have had a few things happen since I lost her, that could only have worked out with a little help from above. I had the girls in the Alchemy bar make me a cocktail to toast her with. It made them laugh as It looked horrible but to me it tasted Great. I asked for Raspberry and chocolate.

I am sorry we never bumped in to each other, in fact we never really met anyone other than those on the Naples tour.

I'm going to do a small review nothing on your scale though, but I can say I will not be rushing to book another Carnival cruise.

 

So sorry again to hear about Kieron but as I said he's always going to be there for you and with you.

 

 

Thanks Jules for such kind words, sorry we did not get to meet. As you can imagine my plans changed a lot after Kieron died and I did not do quite a bit of what we had planned.

Sorry to hear of your loss as well, the people we lose will always be in our hearts and minds forever.

Take care,

Mark. :)

[trogmd]

You are doing a wonderful job with this review...loving your pictures...So sorry for the loss of you partner. I will be following along:):):)

 

 

Thanks for your kind words Jane, glad you are enjoying the review. :)