Hits and Misses from our Carnival Vista cruise

My daughter and I recently returned from a 7-night cruise on the Carnival Vista out of Galveston, Texas. This was one of my “free” cruises I earned from matching my Hyatt Explorist status to MGM Gold status to Carnival Players Club (this matching is ending in a few days! See this post).  If you can believe it, this was my 5th cruise this year (one more to go). Overall, we had a great time! But, as I’ve mentioned before, no cruise or vacation is perfect. Here are some of the Hits and Misses from our recent cruise on the Carnival Vista.

Hit: Itinerary

One of the reasons I booked this particular cruise is because the port stops included Roatan and Belize. In all of my cruises, I had never been to either of these places before. We enjoyed our time at both ports! I already wrote a post about our wonderful overwater bungalow in Roatan. I’l share more information about our time in Belize soon.

Hit: Comedy Shows

One of the things I loved about our previous cruise on the Carnival Celebration earlier this year was the comedy show lineup. My daughter and I were happy to see that Carnival Vista also had a lineup of comedians with multiple shows every night. My daughter attended the PG shows with me every night, and I attended a couple of adult-only comedy shows. There were 4-5 different comedians on board throughout the week. We were rolling with laughter on several occasions.

Hit: Ducks

We brought some #cruisingducks with us to hide. My daughter loved hiding ducks almost more than finding ducks! She was in charge of hiding the ducks. Sometimes, we would sit a ways away from where we hid the duck to watch someone find it. You’d be amazed at how much joy people have when finding a duck! Adults, too.

Hit: Category 4J Inside Stateroom

I already shared a post about how we loved our “inside” stateroom that actually had a window and a public “balcony” a few doors down (see this post).

Our room felt so spacious, and we had great access to these amazing sunsets on our return up the coast. Our beds were comfortable. In addition, our stateroom host was friendly and hard-working. We got a towel animal every single night!

Hit: Dining Room Food and Service

On our cruise last month on Royal Caribbean, we didn’t love the main dining room food. On this cruise, we looked forward to it every night! We had “My Time Dining”, but we had no issues getting a table for 2 at our desired time (which was usually around 5:30-6:00 p.m.). The food was great, and the servers were attentive.

Hit: Cruise Director

Never, in all of my cruises, did I ever care about the identity of the Cruise Director. But, there’s a first time for everything. The Cruise Director on the Carnival Vista, Leon, was hilarious and memorable. He was all over the ship talking to people and making people laugh. My daughter and I looked forward to every time he came over the loud speaker.

Hit: IMAX Theatre

On this cruise, my daughter and I saw The Little Mermaid in the IMAX theatre. I was shocked at how big this theatre is! It was definitely the nicest movie theatre we’ve been to on a cruise ship. There is an extra charge to see a movie, but the movies are new-releases.

Miss: Hand Washing

As I mentioned on my review of the Carnival Celebration earlier this year, Carnival does not take hand sanitation as seriously at Disney Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean. At each entrance to the Lido Marketplace buffet, there was only one hand-washing sink. ONE! And nobody was saying “Washy, washy” or in any way encouraging anyone to wash hands or use hand sanitizer before entering restaurants. In my Facebook group, several people reported having stomach issues toward the end of the cruise.

Miss: Buffet

The buffet on the Carnival Vista was the smallest cruise buffet I’ve ever seen. I was really shocked at how few offerings there were. However, the ship has more included fast-food restaurants (Deli, Pizza place, Guy’s Burgers and BlueIguana Cantina) than most ships that make up for the lack of choices at the buffet.

Miss: Main Theatre Shows

While we enjoyed the comedy shows, we didn’t really love the main theatre show productions. They were all more like variety song and dance shows without the innovation and creativity that we’ve seen on other ships, like on Odyssey of the Seas.

Mostly Non-Issues

On our previous Carnival cruise on the Carnival Celebration, we had two big issues: The anti-kids sentiment and aggressive passenger behavior (fights on board). For the most part, these were non-issues on our Carnival Vista cruise. We did see some people vent about poorly behaved kids in our Facebook group, but it wasn’t constant complaining.

On the whole, there were a lot more kids and families on this cruise compared to our Celebration cruise out of Miami. Of course, school is out, so that helps. We still saw a lot of security guards on board, but I didn’t witness the hostile behavior we saw on the Celebration.

Overall Thoughts

My daughter and I had a fun week on the Carnival Vista. I’m happy we had a lot of “chill” time during our cruise, and that we got to visit two new-to-us countries. Would I sail on Carnival again? Absolutely. Cruising is a very cost-efficient way to see the world, especially when you have hungry teenagers to feed.