Vista 4/2-9, 2022 Review -- It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...

[keels81]

Hello everyone. It's me, your friendly neighborhood Keels and I'm fresh off the Carnival Vista to bring you the latest review from my first (of two) birthday sailings this month.

 

How shall I start my review? Let's go with this:

 

 

Yes, shipmates, that's my stuff. Sitting at the tailgate of my travel krewe's Kia in the Express Lot at Port of Galveston ... waiting. And waiting ... and waiting. 

 

Pull the Yellow Strap ... because this is going to be a RIDE.

[keels81]

First up, a little about me and the reason for this trip!

 

I'm turning *cough* 41 *cough* on Monday and I usually do a trip with my girlfriends every year for my birthday. It's a hard time for my husband to travel because of the Masters and NBA playoffs and the start of baseball, so it's just kinda become a thing that my friends and I look forward to every year. The trip is also my birthday present from my husband, so he's off the hook for ever having to pick out a gift and I get to escape with my friends for a week. Just one of the keys to a successful marriage ...

 

I've recently turned two of my girlfriends on to cruising -- for the sake of this review, we'll refer to them as 1 & 2 -- and after our sailing on the Mardi Gras last October, they've been hooked. 

 

For this trip, we thought about Disneyland, Wine Country, NYC and when dates couldn't work out for the large group of us that normally travel together, we started breaking up trip plans into mini trips with smaller groups of us. Thanks to my incredible losing streak on-board, I still have a couple great casino offers in my VIFP account that were just begging to be used.

 

1 & 2 live in Fort Worth, Texas and after 1 and I had a successful Sailabration trip on the Breeze three weeks ago, we decided to book it back to Galveston for a spin on the Vista and my first time on a Vista-class ship. The plan was for me to fly in from New Orleans on Friday, landing around 1 at IAH and they'd pick me up and we'd have a fun afternoon/evening in Galveston before our stay the night before at Gaido's Seaside Inn. At least that was the plan.

 

I'll show their faces eventually, but in my avatar -- 2 is on the left and 1 is on the right. At least I know how to take a picture in a photo booth ... but here is a big group picture of all of us from my birthday trip to Disney last year!

[keels81]

So, I think for the sake of this review I'll start out with the amazing/good/bad/ugly/OMG stuff and then go back day by day.

 

We stayed in an 8A cabin on Deck 6 forward, had a boarding time of 10:30-11a, had anytime dining and had pre-booked reservations for 555 and Chef's Table. We also dined at JiJi, Cucina and Bonsai Sushi. We did excursions in all three ports, none booked through Carnival. The only Carnival "excursion" I purchased was an 8am shuttle to IAH on disembarkation day.

 

The Amazing:

* The crew. They always keep me coming back and sticking with the brand, even when there are repeatable (minor) issues that frustrate me. Mostly, I'm talking about the bartenders. People say you want to see your name in lights? I want to see my name in boozes. Like this:

 

Edited April 9, 2022 by keels81

[lazydayz]

Great start.  Looking forward to reading about your cruise.  

[peteandpris]

Awesome, Happy Birthday can't wait for more.

[arctickitty]

Looking forward to reading more!

[princess76021]

can't wait for more!!

going on the vista in a couple of months

hugs neighbor!

 

 

 

[keels81]

Back at it -- and finally back home! 

 

To add a little more to my "awesome" -- the bartending and food service staff were great, as always. Our "Stewart" was absolutely great and even thanked us for keeping a tidy cabin when we left, but I also got the chance to interact with many members of the ship-wide cleaning crew and goodness, they were amazing. Next time you cruise, take a moment to chat up the crew member that may be wiping down the bar top or staircase handle next to you. But more on that later.

 

Up next!

 

The Good:

* The Itinerary. Yeah, I know, but FOR ME ... it's been a hot minute since I'd been to Jamaica and Grand Cayman, so I was willing to "roll the dice" that the ports would make and we'd actually get to visit. And we did! 

* The Excursions. I always try to book non-cruise excursions when I have a chance, mostly because I don't want to ride on a big boat or bus with 70 other people for an experience. Yes, it comes with a price ... but as I did the math over the course of these three port days, they were all worth it. More to come on the day-by-day breakdown, but to keep the people interested:

 

DO YOU LIKE STINGRAYS?!

 

WHAT ABOUT BIG BLUE HOLES?

[keels81]

This next one isn't easy, but I'll highlight it more in my day-to-day

 

The Bad:

* Cruise Director Savannah. At first, I thought she just wasn't my style and she was doing the affected Southern accent to pander to the broad Texas passenger base. But then, as the week went along more issues with her and the Fun Squad kept coming up. A literally "on-stage" argument between her and a new Fun Squad/ACD that I'd just seen on the Breeze during Sailabration. Never saw her around. No prizes that she released to the Fun Squad for games. The same guy got pulled for both Deal or No Deal games. Multiple arguments between Fun Squad members about "well, Savannah said this" and frustration towards guests just wanting to do things like cornhole tournament. It was clear to me that she didn't even communicate to her immediate staff. The worst was Cozumel day when she came on the intercom to say what was going on and completely lied. The Captain came on not even 30 seconds later and told us exactly what was going on and that now we'd have a delay getting to Galveston.

* HUB App. Completely crashed and was unusable on the first sea day. Even charged us twice for the Chat once they rebooted the whole dumb system. Still better than Disney IT but that's not saying much.

* Guest Services. Staffed with two people max, the whole time. And when you finally got to them, you had to really get a paper trail of what they were doing. Let's just say the $600 gift card I applied actually ended up as a $600 credit limit on my main card ...

* Sign & Sail Cards -- PEELAPALOOOZA

 

But it's not all bad? Is it bad when the sundress you brought with you matches the curtains?

 

[Indiansbaseball]

Awesome so far !! 

[Retiredmedic]

On the 3-19 to 3-26 sailing on the Vista they could not get the HUB app to work till Monday afternoon and when it did start to work it charged me and my girlfriend 4 times each. I also had to replace my sign and sail card three times as it kept peeling apart, thankfully I'm a early riser and there is no line at Guest Services at 4:30 in the morning.

[pc2425]

9 hours ago, keels81 said:

This next one isn't easy, but I'll highlight it more in my day-to-day

 

The Bad:

* Cruise Director Savannah. At first, I thought she just wasn't my style and she was doing the affected Southern accent to pander to the broad Texas passenger base. But then, as the week went along more issues with her and the Fun Squad kept coming up. A literally "on-stage" argument between her and a new Fun Squad/ACD that I'd just seen on the Breeze during Sailabration. Never saw her around. No prizes that she released to the Fun Squad for games. The same guy got pulled for both Deal or No Deal games. Multiple arguments between Fun Squad members about "well, Savannah said this" and frustration towards guests just wanting to do things like cornhole tournament. It was clear to me that she didn't even communicate to her immediate staff. The worst was Cozumel day when she came on the intercom to say what was going on and completely lied. The Captain came on not even 30 seconds later and told us exactly what was going on and that now we'd have a delay getting to Galveston.

* HUB App. Completely crashed and was unusable on the first sea day. Even charged us twice for the Chat once they rebooted the whole dumb system. Still better than Disney IT but that's not saying much.

* Guest Services. Staffed with two people max, the whole time. And when you finally got to them, you had to really get a paper trail of what they were doing. Let's just say the $600 gift card I applied actually ended up as a $600 credit limit on my main card ...

* Sign & Sail Cards -- PEELAPALOOOZA

 

But it's not all bad? Is it bad when the sundress you brought with you matches the curtains?

 

We (DH and myself) were also on the Vista 4/2-4/9.  I can’t agree more about CD Savannah.  I also thought at first that she just wasn’t my cup of tea and that I would get used to her.  Nope, never did.  I found her extremely annoying.  Also the issue with the Hub app was awful. Dinner the first night for anytime dining was CHAOS because nobody could check in for a table. And when you went to the dining room they just kept saying “use the Hub app to check in” like they had no idea that the app wasn’t working! Finally they started checking in people manually.  The app didn’t start working fully until Monday, I believe.

[crazy4themouse]

Happy Birthday! And love the pic at Epcot -- great shot! Love your curtain-matching sundress too, lol. It looks like you pulled a Giselle from Enchanted and just cut your dress straight from the drapes. 😁

 

Also don't hate that my husband and I aren't the ones ones who absolutely can't stand Savannah... We hope she's long gone from Vista and maybe Carnival by the time our next Vista trip rolls around. 

 

Looking forward to the rest of your review!

 

[keels81]

One last thing and then I'm going to close the chapter on the Savannah thing -- I will give her a little grace that she is a human and life isn't always the best, and she was likely just having a bad cruise from the start considering the medical emergency and the failure of the Hub App on the first Sea Day. Sometimes you just can't get things back on track so really the whole cruise vibe felt "off" and she never really got it back. But being a CD isn't just about being a fun, guest-forward face -- there is so much more organizationally and planning-wise that goes along with the job that really fell short this cruise. I HATED that the "Love & Marriage Show" was scheduled on the same night as the Mega Deck Party and it had to be cut short. This was a seven day cruise with really short port days -- I'm talking back on board by 4:00, 1:30 and 3:30 -- and there was hardly any trivia or games after 4 p.m.

 

I know she was disappointed to get pulled to the Vista when she was expecting the Horizon, and she did say in her Q & Awesome that she was hoping to work Australia so she could get some time home and with family/friends. She signs off in a few weeks to go home, so I hope she gets a refresh and restart, or finds something else that makes her happy.

 

Let's head on to ...

 

The Ugly.

And when I say ugly, boy do I mean UGLY.

 

* Shifting and ultimately short port times. Yes, things change and the cruise is allowed to do that ... and we were notified quite a few times leading up to the cruise so we'd be prepared. But the times in port were just ... short. Almost impossibly short to be able to find value in a good tour. We got off the ship in Falmouth around 9 a.m. (back on-board by 4:00 p.m.), tendered on the first water shuttle in Grand Cayman and made it just in time for an 8:30 tour start, and had to catch the last water shuttle by 1:15 p.m. We weren't cleared off the ship in Cozumel until 10:30 a.m. ... with two Royal ships (including that idiocracy ship Oasis of the Seas) and two(?) Carny ships already in port, it made for an already crowded port and taxi stand. Back on board in Cozumel at 3:30 p.m. Speaking of boarding the ship in Cozumel ...

* We'll call this the Cozumel Debacle. Before we were even off the ship, guests were informed that at least one (and ended up being two) Carnival excursions were already going to be starting late -- one was birds and ruins, another was Paradise Beach -- so those busses likely wouldn't be making it back to port until 4 p.m. No biggie, it happens more often than not and this sailing seemed to really enjoy hollering at pier runners. But take a look at this line to get back on the ship at 3:30 p.m.:

Insane, right? Fast forward two hours ... we're getting ready to head down to Chef's Table at six and we still haven't sailed away. Turns out, we were waiting on an essential member of the crew that had not returned and had reached the "point of no return" in this waiting period where if we didn't get going, things were going to be thrown off for the entire next sailing. The captain made the call to leave behind that crew member and off we went. From that point, both the captain and Savannah were pretty transparent that we were going to attempt to make up as much time as possible overnight and into the last sea day, but we likely were going to have a delayed arrival. Expectation was roughly an hour.

* Disembarkation Day. We were definitely going to be late. But the hour delay crept to 90 minutes and then inched closer and closer to 10 a.m. before customs finally cleared the ship to disembark. There was panic everywhere from people with flights even as late as 1 or 2 p.m. I was in the early flights/suites waiting lounge as I had a flight at 12:45 p.m. with purchased Carnival transportation, so I was off the ship and boarding the bus around 10:45 a.m. The bus left the Vista terminal around 11 a.m. and was on its way to ... Terminal 1, to sit and wait for guests of the Dream to board for airport transport. At this point, I was not making my flight via this bus and I didn't want to get stuck at one airport if there was a way I could get a flight out of the other airport. So, I got off the bus and paid the driver $20 to help me get my suitcases. In the meantime, I thought I had a Lyft booked with the driver arriving in 6 minutes and then he canceled. The next available driver was 32 minutes away. So, I was stuck.

 

And that's how I ended up waiting in the Express Lot at the Port of Galveston with all of my bags at the tailgate of 1's SUV.

 

By the time they'd arrived, I'd gotten myself on a flight out of Love Field the following morning, so I was just gonna keep the party going and drive up to the Metroplex with them. Lo and behold, just as we were nearing downtown Houston, a spot on a flight at 4:55 p.m. out of IAH opened up and I was in. I shouted "TAKE ME TO BUSH" and the rest is history.

 

I saw many familiar faces from the ship already in the customer service lines for Spirit, American and Southwest and I truly hope all those people eventually made it home.

Edited April 10, 2022 by keels81

[Indytraveler83]

I'm glad someone else has noticed CD issues at times (though sorry it happened to you).

 

On every cruise so far, our CD has either made our cruise better or worse.  We had Chris "Donkey" on our last cruise and he was awesome.  The two cruises before that we had some terrible CD's that made us seriously reconsider future trips with Carnival.  Hopefully your next cruise grants you an improved CD experience!

[keels81]

Now to bring this trip report back up to the happier side, let's close out this intro portion with ...

 

The OMG.

Newbie cruisers, this is for you. DON'T DO THIS.

 

So, we never saw the people in the cabin two doors down from us, but by the end of the cruise we just assumed they were teenaged boys. We'd come back to our stateroom after cabin service had started and would always find something random that our Stewart had pulled out of their stateroom to return to public space somewhere on the ship.

 

Like a stanchion from outside the Thrill Theater. A placard from Pixels advertising some special. And then this:

 

Yes, y'all. That's a patio chair from the Lanai on Deck 5.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

And that will conclude the intro portion of this trip report! Get ready for day by day ... it's going to feature a LOT of food and drinks, some excursion photos and absolutely NO Fun Times because I forgot to get those. I can still see the daily on my Hub App right now, so if you have an immediate questions about that stuff, ask ASAP.

 

The IMAX movies were "The Batman" and "Morbius", along with some nature-y things.

[keels81]

8 minutes ago, Indytraveler83 said:

I'm glad someone else has noticed CD issues at times (though sorry it happened to you).

 

On every cruise so far, our CD has either made our cruise better or worse.  We had Chris "Donkey" on our last cruise and he was awesome.  The two cruises before that we had some terrible CD's that made us seriously reconsider future trips with Carnival.  Hopefully your next cruise grants you an improved CD experience!

 

I used to cruise exclusively on Celebrity, so my only experience with Carnival has been since 2019. On Celeb, the cruise director isn't overly entertaining but is very heavy-handed with the daily on-ship experience so that's what I was used to.

 

My first cruise director was Lee Mason and one day, I got to sit next to him and talk to him and it was like talking to a rock star. Just a totally different experience and one of the reason I keep going back to Carnival more (other than just sheer convenience and casino offers). I've cruised with Lee, Cookie, Flying Scotsman and Mike Pack, just to name a few, and they all create such a fun vibe and you can really feel the "culture" that they create on their sailings among the crew and Fun Squad. I loved all of Mike Pack's Fun Squad from the Mardi Gras and am so happy to see so many of them as CDs on their own now (Andy, Jake, Georgia and Leilani) so I'm hoping to sail with them soon.

 

I'm just going to miss Donkey by a couple weeks this summer on the Mardi Gras, so I'm a little disappointed by that but I'm sure I'll catch him soon.

[1kaper]

15 hours ago, keels81 said:

This next one isn't easy, but I'll highlight it more in my day-to-day

 

The Bad:

* Cruise Director Savannah. At first, I thought she just wasn't my style and she was doing the affected Southern accent to pander to the broad Texas passenger base. But then, as the week went along more issues with her and the Fun Squad kept coming up. A literally "on-stage" argument between her and a new Fun Squad/ACD that I'd just seen on the Breeze during Sailabration. Never saw her around. No prizes that she released to the Fun Squad for games. The same guy got pulled for both Deal or No Deal games. Multiple arguments between Fun Squad members about "well, Savannah said this" and frustration towards guests just wanting to do things like cornhole tournament. It was clear to me that she didn't even communicate to her immediate staff. The worst was Cozumel day when she came on the intercom to say what was going on and completely lied. The Captain came on not even 30 seconds later and told us exactly what was going on and that now we'd have a delay getting to Galveston.

* HUB App. Completely crashed and was unusable on the first sea day. Even charged us twice for the Chat once they rebooted the whole dumb system. Still better than Disney IT but that's not saying much.

* Guest Services. Staffed with two people max, the whole time. And when you finally got to them, you had to really get a paper trail of what they were doing. Let's just say the $600 gift card I applied actually ended up as a $600 credit limit on my main card ...

* Sign & Sail Cards -- PEELAPALOOOZA

 

But it's not all bad? Is it bad when the sundress you brought with you matches the curtains?

 

I love your dress!  
 

and I had to get my card on the dream last week replaced 3 times. 

[1kaper]

5 hours ago, pc2425 said:

We (DH and myself) were also on the Vista 4/2-4/9.  I can’t agree more about CD Savannah.  I also thought at first that she just wasn’t my cup of tea and that I would get used to her.  Nope, never did.  I found her extremely annoying.  Also the issue with the Hub app was awful. Dinner the first night for anytime dining was CHAOS because nobody could check in for a table. And when you went to the dining room they just kept saying “use the Hub app to check in” like they had no idea that the app wasn’t working! Finally they started checking in people manually.  The app didn’t start working fully until Monday, I believe.

we had the same issue on our first Elegant night. Couldn’t check in, waited in a long line to check in only to be told it would be more than an hour and a half. Ate supper at the buffet instead. 
it did work most of the rest of the time but that was a huge piss off. 

[Indytraveler83]

10 minutes ago, keels81 said:

 

I used to cruise exclusively on Celebrity, so my only experience with Carnival has been since 2019. On Celeb, the cruise director isn't overly entertaining but is very heavy-handed with the daily on-ship experience so that's what I was used to.

 

My first cruise director was Lee Mason and one day, I got to sit next to him and talk to him and it was like talking to a rock star. Just a totally different experience and one of the reason I keep going back to Carnival more (other than just sheer convenience and casino offers). I've cruised with Lee, Cookie, Flying Scotsman and Mike Pack, just to name a few, and they all create such a fun vibe and you can really feel the "culture" that they create on their sailings among the crew and Fun Squad. I loved all of Mike Pack's Fun Squad from the Mardi Gras and am so happy to see so many of them as CDs on their own now (Andy, Jake, Georgia and Leilani) so I'm hoping to sail with them soon.

 

I'm just going to miss Donkey by a couple weeks this summer on the Mardi Gras, so I'm a little disappointed by that but I'm sure I'll catch him soon.

 

"Donkey" is much more toned down than the "Flying Scottsman" or "The Rev. Dr. E", but we've enjoyed all of them.

 

We once had "Jase" and couldn't stand him.  He was full of himself and even the crew seemed sick of it.  We had a CD on the Miracle a few years ago who was an absolute ghost.  Don't even remember who it was, but the Fun Squad ran everything, including shows (they did a rather good job of it though).  The only reason we knew he was onboard was the constant hammering of announcements, especially on sea days (for real, at one point it was every 20 minutes for hours).

 

We have a love/hate relationship with CD's! Lol

[mondello]

I was on Vista 3/26-4/2 and had a pretty good cruise. You could have gotten Cruiser 1/Cruiser 2 t-shirts in the FunShops for your mates. Don't know why you're mired on a casino losing streak; I'm well along my 3 cruise streak of $1500+(2016), $800+(12/26), and $900+(3/26). Sorry to hear of the medical emergency and shortened ports. We just hopped in a taxi to Paradise Beach and had a wonderful day; they had a $5.00 online discount for prebooking. Glad you made it to Grand Cayman, always love Seven Mile Beach; sad to see some of the beach clubs didn't survive Covid and redevelopers. Savannah may just be luck of the draw, Kyndall Fire had been on Vista. Seems they're all angling for reassignments amid the constant CD movement.

 

Funny to hear of your transportation issues. I knew something was up when our return flight started posting repeated changes before we even left the cruiseport. Our 7:05pm flight was changed a (record?) ten (10!) times before finally being cancelled Sat. Night. This was conveniently around the time all the airport restaraunts were closing. Southwest gate clerks worked well into the night trying to help stranded pax, was told first we'd be home Mon. but they caved and got us on a Sun. am flight. Lucky because 2 of the 3 flights Sun. were eventually cancelled, too.

[keels81]

36 minutes ago, Indytraveler83 said:

We once had "Jase" and couldn't stand him.  He was full of himself and even the crew seemed sick of it.  We had a CD on the Miracle a few years ago who was an absolute ghost.  Don't even remember who it was, but the Fun Squad ran everything, including shows (they did a rather good job of it though).  The only reason we knew he was onboard was the constant hammering of announcements, especially on sea days (for real, at one point it was every 20 minutes for hours).

 

 

Marty on the Valor is very much like this but I didn't mind it (minus the constant announcements -- he really only did that for muster). He had lots of events planned, was visible around the ship but empowered his Fun Squad to really be the "face of the program", so to speak, and gave them a lot of leeway with incentives, etc. Every time I participated in a lobby game or something like the karaoke contest, I'd always find a handwritten note back in my stateroom from that Fun Squad member thanking me for participating and an extra surprise like a medallion or chocolate-covered strawberries. They were incredibly meaningful gestures to me.

[Indytraveler83]

5 minutes ago, keels81 said:

 

Marty on the Valor is very much like this but I didn't mind it (minus the constant announcements -- he really only did that for muster). He had lots of events planned, was visible around the ship but empowered his Fun Squad to really be the "face of the program", so to speak, and gave them a lot of leeway with incentives, etc. Every time I participated in a lobby game or something like the karaoke contest, I'd always find a handwritten note back in my stateroom from that Fun Squad member thanking me for participating and an extra surprise like a medallion or chocolate-covered strawberries. They were incredibly meaningful gestures to me.

 

That's sort of what we had with "Donkey.". The Fun Squad was very visible, but clearly had his support.

 

My favorite moment with him was something very subtle- During the "One Night Only" performance he snuck out to watch near the end of the performance.  After a few minutes, passengers turned their attention to watching him, instead of the performance.  As soon as he notice, he sucked back behind the stage until it was over, determined not to steal the spotlight.  

 

He's also been one of the better announcement CD's- only delivering a few a day. 

[ilovesparky13]

7 hours ago, keels81 said:

 

I used to cruise exclusively on Celebrity, so my only experience with Carnival has been since 2019. On Celeb, the cruise director isn't overly entertaining but is very heavy-handed with the daily on-ship experience so that's what I was used to.

 

My first cruise director was Lee Mason and one day, I got to sit next to him and talk to him and it was like talking to a rock star. Just a totally different experience and one of the reason I keep going back to Carnival more (other than just sheer convenience and casino offers). I've cruised with Lee, Cookie, Flying Scotsman and Mike Pack, just to name a few, and they all create such a fun vibe and you can really feel the "culture" that they create on their sailings among the crew and Fun Squad. I loved all of Mike Pack's Fun Squad from the Mardi Gras and am so happy to see so many of them as CDs on their own now (Andy, Jake, Georgia and Leilani) so I'm hoping to sail with them soon.

 

I'm just going to miss Donkey by a couple weeks this summer on the Mardi Gras, so I'm a little disappointed by that but I'm sure I'll catch him soon.

Lee is easily one of my favorite CDs. 

[dolfndreams]

Great review, love your style.