SHIP REVIEW:

DECK 3

The atrium. It has a very pretty THING in the middle that turns into pictures every few minutes. The pictures change and they are pretty neat. I think it's some type of LED screen. They also have one in the casino as well. 

Of course my favorite one...

MERIDIAN RESTAURANT

DECK 4

CASINO

There were a lot of new games (slots) that I hadn't seen before and a few of the oldies but goodies as well.

This was something new that I had never seen before...you could lay your phone down on the slot machine while playing and charge it.

LIMELIGHT LOUNGE: This is the place they held the comedy shows...not nearly big enough!

Outside the club and along the wall, they had pictures hanging that you could purchase. They were printed on metal and pretty neat, but just pictures that someone had taken. I kept thinking I could do this with some of my pictures...and probably never need to work again since they were selling them for over $500 each and up. YIKES

THE LIQUID LOUNGE

This is the theater on the ship, which wasn't really a "lounge" but a theater and I thought it was a weird choice of naming

You will find the shops along the middle of the ship and around the Atrium on both decks 4 & 5

SKYBOX SPORTS BAR

It had a video poker table (Texas Holdem) that the hubby enjoyed watching and playing a few times.

DECK 5

ALCHEMY BAR

BONSAI TEPPANYAKI SUSHI AREA

I always think this place is a neatly decorated area. However, I felt that it was a little big and not many people in there at any given time during our cruise at least. I guess they were expecting a bigger turnout. (There was also seating outside with tables as well).

CHERRY ON TOP CANDY AREA

You could find some odd things in here as well (like snorkeling equipment: masks, goggles, snorkels, full face masks)

555° FAHRENHEIT STEAKHOUSE

PIG & ANCHOR.

Now this place was a little shocking for me I guess. Some of the other newer ships have Pig & Anchor BBQ on the outside of the ship (which is free and only open during certain times) but this ship also had an entire restaurant dedicated to this as well....fOR A CHARGE! They did offer other foods that you couldn't get outside at the free area, but this place was HUGE! I guess they also expected a lot of people to jump on this as well...and there were only a handful of people at any given time in here. This place ran along the walkway down the side of the ship all the way to the other side of the ship. It had tables and chairs along the walkway, all the way over to the other side and another dining area. It was huge. It did have a small band area as well.

It also included a bar down the side

PIG & ANCHOR OUTSIDE

HAVANA BAR AND AREA

I guess you have to be staying in one of the Havana rooms to enjoy the private area outside with the pool. I absolutely love the way the havana outside areas look. It's like having your own small personal patio. However, children under 12 years old are not allowed to stay in these rooms from what I understand.

Here is the bar area. I loved the colors

THE LANAI AREA

Outside on deck 5th was plenty of walking areas. Several of the restaurants had outside seating here and then there were just places to hang out as well. Here's the area for smokers. They have nice comfy chairs and beds. 

LIBRARY BAR

OCEAN PLAZA AREA

Along the side, they had a specialty coffee shop and you could get donuts as well.

Along the walkway leading out...plenty of Pixels tablets and seats to order or review your pictures taken by the ship staff.

PIANO BAR

Outside the piano bar was a creation of a Santa Chocolate Village on display. Now notice I said DISPLAY! Like I'm almost 110% sure you are not supposed to eat this. However, on our first day, while exploring the ship, there were 2 ladies who came up to this, inspected it really close, they broke some pieces off and ATE IT! 🤣😮

PIXELS

This is the area you go to for your pictures. There are TONS of tablets everywhere for you to use to view the pictures and place orders. As always, they were also selling things like the scrapbooks and odds and ends items.

They also had 2 walls of pictures, that was like a t.v screen that displayed peoples pictures randomly. It was neat to walk by and try to see if you might spot yours up there. I do believe I spotted the hubbys picture from being up on the sports deck flipping around on this screen once.

DECK 6

To get to Circle C or The Warehouse arcade, you must go up the steps and over and back down on the other side. It was odd.

Circle C

The Warehouse arcade

IMAX MOVIE THEATER

This is the area you purchased tickets (either from the person behind the counter or by using one of the several self-ordering pads located in this area). They sold tickets to the IMAX theater where you could watch normal movies and normal movies in 3D or you could experience the Thrill Theater with the short movie clips you watch in 3D with moving seats and other effects. They also sold candy, bagged popcorn and drinks (which you could use your bottomless bubbles package here).

Waiting area

DECK 10

MAIN POOL AREA: BEACH POOL

Here you will find the main activities going on during the day with contests and prizes, music playing and also a live d.j. at times. This is where they have the movies playing on the big screen at night and they will have fresh popcorn you can get from the bars as well.  They have several dance parties out here on the deck during the evenings too.

Towel exchange area and also where they now carry the life vests for those that can't swim.

BLUE IGUANA TEQUILA BAR

RED FROG RUM BAR

This is where you can get fresh popped popcorn during the movies in the evenings.

BLUE IGUANA CANTINA

This place is awesome and has freshly made to order burritos. You pick out the ingredients and sauces and they whip you up a yummy burrito. They are open during breakfast as well and I love their breakfast burritos.

Now usually they have a night that they have fresh chips and salsa's during their latin night, but I didn't see it this cruise and could have just missed it.

GUYS BURGERS

Awesome food and fries with a condiment bar for plenty of toppings.

Heading inside to the buffet area.

LIDO MARKETPLACE

This place also reminded me a lot of the Breeze (Dream class ships) with the trees and decor inside.

This area is pretty big and there was always places to sit despite how large this ship is and the amount of passengers.

In the back (and within the Lido marketplace) you will also find the deli, which is open extended hours and I believe up until 11pm.

PIZZERIA CAPITANO

Located on the back of the ship with several different options of pizza's. I believe they are open all the time.

You will find a beverage station back here too, so no need to walk back into the Lido Marketplace area for drinks.

SEAFOOD SHACK.

This is an extra charge place. I have had it once and it was pretty good.

BACK/AFT POOL:  TIDES POOL

Here is a smaller pool than the main pool and usually it seemed less crowded. There are 2 whirlpool tubs here too.

Staff that watches the swimmers. I started noticing these people popping up a few cruises ago. I know there has been so much talk about drownings and why don't they have lifeguards. They do have "someone" (not sure if they are lifeguards or what their training is) watching all pools at all hours they are open. They switch people frequently.

DECK 11 

CAMP OCEAN 

Sorry but we didn't go to Camp Ocean on the first day and that's normally when I would take pictures of the inside. So, I didn't get any this time. However, I noticed there was a little play area, outside, that was attached to this area. Sad to say, I passed by this area a lot and never seen any children playing out there. I'm not sure if they utilize this area or not. Maybe it's during free play for the little kids and when parents can take them in there to play?

DR SUESS BOOKVILLE

Within the waiting area to sign in children at Camp Ocean, they had a book place to go here every Dr Suess book would be found here and there and everywhere.

CUCINA DEL CAPITANO

The Italian restaurant (extra charge for evenings and free during certain hours during the day-usually sea days).

Access by stairs leading from the Lido Marketplace or you can come in from the 11th deck aft area.

JI JI ASIAN KITCHEN

Also another pay venue but is free during lunch on certain days and times

For those that are smokers...you area's are: 11th deck on the aft of the ship above the pool area, along that side 11th deck above the main pool area and around, 5th deck Lanai area, and casino.

Here's the area around the aft pool on deck 11.

11th deck around main pool area (I didn't get a picture of the rest of the area and just thought this area was neat looking with the tables that light up in the evenings during the movies)

DECK 12

CLOUD 9 SPA AREA: As always, I don't do spa's so there won't be any pictures of the interior of the spa area. But, here's the area leading into it...spa-like looking tile is all I can provide. lol  Along that area is also the backside to the waterworks area outside.

DR SUESS WATERWORKS

This place is a childrens (and adults) water heaven. LOL Plenty of water spouting everywhere, 2 slides for the big children (meaning adults as well) and 2 small slides for the munchkins. There's a bucket that dumps water every so often and small little buckets that fill up and randomly dump to those unexpected. The one thing I noticed than was different about this waterworks area, compared to the other ships, is that they removed the ability to control some of the sprays and such. BOO HISS! I don't have a lot of pictures here, but you will see more of the area within my review when we go there.

SPORTS SQUARE

Putt putt and games area. You'll find putt putt in this area (which extends up another deck as well), pool tables, twister,  corn hole and so on. Inside the Clubhouse, you'll find other games like ping pong tables and a life size pool table that you play with huge soft balls and your feet. Tons of fun. 

SKYCOURT BASKETBALL

We always love to play a few games during our cruise however...we found that they LOCK this place up after a certain time (after dark) for some reason. WHY???? We have never encountered this on past cruises. It's hot during the day and we prefer to go up and play during the evening when it's cooler and every night it would be locked and closed. During the day there's just too many people there playing or the kids club would have it making it unusable to everyone else. It sucked!

SKYFITNESS AREA

Sakari really loves this area for some reason. Every cruise that has this, she's there. I think she feels like it's a playground but she actually does the workout as you should.

See those vents??? There is ice cold air coming out of them! I would discover them later in the cruise when it was a very hot day and the hubs and Sakari decided to do the skycourse cars and I was waiting for them to go by to take a picture of them...these were a lifesaver and an amazing find! Standing under them meant I was nice and cooled off while waiting!

RANDOM

Part of the skyride bike course but you will see more later in the review

DECK 15 

SERENITY-The adult only retreat 

In the past, we have never hung out here. I had thought that once Sakari became a little older and/or went to the kids club in the evenings, I'd like to hang out here. However, there's no pool to cool off in and only some whirlpools. I'm always on the go and like staying active all the time so just hanging out in a chair or one of the beds would bore me to death. Therefore, we didn't hang out here at all. I guess it's just not the "thing" for me. 

Ok, let's talk elevators now...

The Horizon has this new system that is called "Smart Elevators". I'm not entirely convinced it's better or works the way it should. However, you are supposed to pick what deck you are going to and depending on how many people have pushed that button on the different floors and where everyone is going, it will assign you a certain elevator to get on based on the space and the number of people.

There are several screens by the elevators...it's a touch screen and you push what deck you are going to:

It immediately assigns an elevator to you and tells you which one to go wait by. (They are all alphabet letters). It will give you an arrow to see which direction to look for the elevator and also that particular elevator will blink the letter above it to alert you where it's located. 

On the main floors, you will also have a t.v screen with all of the elevators and what floors they are going to.

Inside the elevator, don't expect any buttons to push a floor...you won't find them. So if you think you are tired of waiting on a certain elevator and another one opens up and you'll get in and just go on that one, it will NOT go to the floor you want and only to the floors that previous people have pushed. 

There is a display along the side (inside the elevator) that will light up the floors it is going to on this particular ride.

Some areas have the t.v. screen with directions

I did read that this system is supposed to make the elevators move people quicker...but like I said, I'm not so sure it worked that way a lot of the times. For instance...we were on deck 1 (our room) and going up to whatever deck. We'd push the button and wait and wait and wait...it got annoying sometimes. We were assigned, say elevator M, but after waiting for quite some time, elevator S showed up. Well....why can't we get on it???? Why would it not have assigned us to that elevator? I'm mean we are on the bottom floor and it can only go up right!?!  But no, it opens, people get out and off it goes back up while we continue to wait. Very annoying!  Deck 11 was pretty annoying with the waiting forever as well. 

STAIR ART

I usually take pictures of all the stair art. I find them interesting. However, on this ship all the stair art was....I guess you can say...in the same type of "form". They were all a huge picture with smaller cut outs of that picture laying over top of it to create a 2D layered picture I guess you would call it. They were neat, but not too interesting after seeing them over and over.

Here's just a few.

Just a few "extras" and the ship review part will be done.

Carnival has raised their daily service charge to $13.95 daily for most. Here's the breakdown they now show:

Here's a sneak peak at one of the Havana areas. We stumbled upon it one night and someone had left the gate open.

Ok, so that's all of the ship review.