Just off Horizon 4-30-2022 to ABC's

[keywest1]

Had an amazing cruise and just want to share a few of my thoughts and observations.  Just my opinions of course 🙂

Embarkation was easy peasy.  We had 10 AM arrival appointment and sailed right through the process.  We had boarding zone A3 (no status, just luck).  Didn't notice the exact time we boarded.  I was too excited to be stepping onto a ship again after more than 2 years.

I had completed Verifly for the three of us.  It was a little cumbersome to complete at home-- I had to manually enter our vax info.  One helpful hint I picked up here:  open the app and pull up your profile before entering the terminal.  I had all three of our profiles on my phone.  The agent gave each profile a glance then waved us on through. 

We did our muster as soon as we boarded, since it was on deck three forward in Meridian MDR.  We waited till there were about 8 and then watched the life jacket demo.  All done except for watching in room video as we unpacked.  

Loved our cove balcony 2277.  We only had a bit of noise one evening from the atrium, and when DH turned on TV we could no longer hear the noise.  There was some sort of event that evening in atrium, so louder than usual.  

I LOVED the new elevator system.  I learned how it worked from the fine folks here.  We were out and about a lot, and I can only recall a handful of times that the elevator felt crowded.  Even then it wasn't the clown car experience we disliked so much on other cruises.  It was mostly only the three of us.  We never had to wait more than 3-4 minutes, and usually only a minute or two.  There were a couple of times we waited by choice since the cars had folks on scooters or walkers and we didn't want to crowd them.  

We had a much better experience with the dining app than we had on our last cruise on the Magic.  They had the system down pat and it worked very well for us.

Crew was outstanding, food was good, shows were awesome.  Don't miss Celestial Strings show with the Playlist cast performing with the violinists.  Top notch IMO.  

Was the cruise perfect?  No, but it was darn close and Horizon is my new favorite ship.  Donkey was our CD and he is tied with Mike Pack as my overall favorite.

Most aggravating thing?  Seeing the long lines at Guest Services the day gratuities were charged.  IMO, they make it too easy.  

Thanks for reading my ramblings, and thanks for all the helpful tips I picked up here.  Two more days till we hit Platinum--that will happen in Feb on Mardi Gras (unless Carnival raises the bar 😖 😆)

Edited May 9, 2022 by keywest1
correct spelling

[helene109]

So helpful! We board the Horizon Saturday 8 days! Never been to Aruba and Curacao! Hopefully elevators are easy! Do you know what movies were on the IMAX? Thanks!

[keywest1]

26 minutes ago, helene109 said:

So helpful! We board the Horizon Saturday 8 days! Never been to Aruba and Curacao! Hopefully elevators are easy! Do you know what movies were on the IMAX? Thanks!

I know there was one with Dumbledore in the title--had to be new as DD hadn't seen it yet 😁

I can't recall anything else--sorry about that!!

[Doug910]

Thanks for your review. Sailed in a Cove balcony many years ago and loved it!

[peteandpris]

Thank you for review.

[kaybeebee]

Sailing in 13 days! Did you happen to go to the piano bar?  Last time we were on Horizon Eden Parker was playing, and it was so much fun.

[keywest1]

32 minutes ago, kaybeebee said:

Sailing in 13 days! Did you happen to go to the piano bar?  Last time we were on Horizon Eden Parker was playing, and it was so much fun.

We did not.  I believe Keys McLaughlin was the pianist?  I intended to go for the first time on this cruise, but there was so much to do, we didn't get around to it.  

[Jamman54]

36 minutes ago, kaybeebee said:

Sailing in 13 days! Did you happen to go to the piano bar?  Last time we were on Horizon Eden Parker was playing, and it was so much fun.

Eden is currently on the Mardi Gras.

[cpshaye]

7 hours ago, helene109 said:

So helpful! We board the Horizon Saturday 8 days! Never been to Aruba and Curacao! Hopefully elevators are easy! Do you know what movies were on the IMAX? Thanks!

 

I was told Fantastic Beasts and Morbius.  

 

See you Saturday! Can't wait!

[Guest BasicSailor]

9 hours ago, helene109 said:

So helpful! We board the Horizon Saturday 8 days! Never been to Aruba and Curacao! Hopefully elevators are easy! Do you know what movies were on the IMAX? Thanks!

Never been? You're in for a treat .😎

[mz-s]

15 minutes ago, BasicSailor said:

Never been? You're in for a treat .😎

 

Indeed, wow I could go every cruise to those islands and never get tired of them.

[emm126]

Thank you for the review. I just checked as it sounded familiar, I am in the same cabin in October. I try to get cabin #'s that are easy for my 82 year old mom to remember and cabins that are close to the elevator. Ok maybe for me too! take care. 

[cruzluver2]

We were on the same cruise last week and are doing a b2b this week.  The ship is beautiful!  We miss the Fabulous Duo dancing in the atrium and would love to know who they were. They were so entertaining!  I do feel Horizon could have better entertainment.  The musicians other than violinists are lacking.

[keywest1]

4 hours ago, cruzluver2 said:

We were on the same cruise last week and are doing a b2b this week.  The ship is beautiful!  We miss the Fabulous Duo dancing in the atrium and would love to know who they were. They were so entertaining!  I do feel Horizon could have better entertainment.  The musicians other than violinists are lacking.

I'm jealous!!  I was disappointed in the comedy shows.  The PG shows were not kid friendly.  Both

Brett and JC (? the female comic) were a bit raunchy, JC in particular.  The last evening, she was much better, but Brett basically regurgitated his first show.  

I liked Sideshow Bert--he was funny and entertaining.

Enjoy the rest of your cruise and safe travels home 🙂

[cpshaye]

7 hours ago, cruzluver2 said:

We were on the same cruise last week and are doing a b2b this week.  The ship is beautiful!  We miss the Fabulous Duo dancing in the atrium and would love to know who they were. They were so entertaining!  I do feel Horizon could have better entertainment.  The musicians other than violinists are lacking.

Bummed to hear the musicians are lacking. But we won't let that "ruin" our cruise! 

 

For the B2B, are they currently doing the testing on the last night of the first cruise? I hear it's up to the Captain.

[bar1068]

1 hour ago, cpshaye said:

Bummed to hear the musicians are lacking. But we won't let that "ruin" our cruise! 

 

For the B2B, are they currently doing the testing on the last night of the first cruise? I hear it's up to the Captain.

We were on this cruise also, last weeks Horizon ABCs. I spoke with someone who was doing a b2b and asked her the same about testing before this weeks cruise and she said nope, not required to test.

[cpshaye]

9 minutes ago, bar1068 said:

We were on this cruise also, last weeks Horizon ABCs. I spoke with someone who was doing a b2b and asked her the same about testing before this weeks cruise and she said nope, not required to test.

Thank you! One less thing to stress about! 

[sunshower9]

I was on this cruise as well.  Had a few small disappointments but overall another great cruise.  I thought the food was good, aside from my one breakfast in the MDR that was just plain awful.  Service was outstanding.  I never had a long wait in the MDR or any of the other restaurants.  The whole crew is so hardworking and they do such a great job.  I enjoyed the entertainment and the singers on this ship much better than on the Mardi Gras.  Donkey was a fantastic CD and I loved Trevor in the comedy club.  He was so much fun.  We had a great time and I'm sad to be back home lol.

[helene109]

So great to hear! Looking forward to Saturday 4 ports oh my!

[cruzluver2]

They no longer require testing onboard for a b2b!

[nat_mychelle]

We were on this cruise too and had an amazing cruise! Our next cruise is also the Mardi Gras in Feb. What is the date of your Mardi Gras cruise? Ours is Feb 25

[keywest1]

1 hour ago, nat_mychelle said:

We were on this cruise too and had an amazing cruise! Our next cruise is also the Mardi Gras in Feb. What is the date of your Mardi Gras cruise? Ours is Feb 25

We're on the week before you.  Darn--would've loved to meet you!

[tattoos]

If you sailed on the April 30th 8 day cruise on the Horizon and know who that elderly couple were that dressed up every night and danced in the Atrium, please let me know.

[sunshower9]

3 minutes ago, tattoos said:

If you sailed on the April 30th 8 day cruise on the Horizon and know who that elderly couple were that dressed up every night and danced in the Atrium, please let me know.

My husband and I talked to them.  Their names are Jeff and Jackie.  He's a 67 year old retired lawyer, she's a 70 year old retired dancer.  Both have been on hundreds of cruises.  We were curious about them so we went up to them just to talk.  They were really nice and gracious enough to chat with us for a bit.  Jackie told me that on their last cruise, they had people lined up waiting to talk to them.

[tattoos]

Thank you sunshower9....they were in the Atrium every evening dancing.  The first night I noticed them, Jeff was  wearing a pink suit with matching pink shoes.  They appeared to be ex Arthur Murray dance teachers and drew quite a crowd whenever they were in the Atrium dancing.  I believe they created more interest than the "tepid" entertainment offered on the ship.