Carnival Horizon Review: Day 15 – Sea Dayfeatured

After two weeks in Europe and more than a week and a half onboard the Carnival Horizon, a span that took us to eight countries, even more cities, no destination sounded better than the ship, itself.

Sea days on such a port-intensive voyage were like gold coins – valued, rare and treasured.

A quick peek outside showed us calm seas and my Apple Watch told me the temps were in the upper 50’s – pleasant enough to spend some time outside, but not warm enough for sunbathing or swimming. And since we had no where to be and nothing to do, we got dressed and headed to Sea Day Brunch, where we feasted on filet mignon (for brekkie!) and pancakes.

After our leisurely brunch, we took to the outdoors, grabbing some loungers in the shade on the lanai. The Horizon doesn’t have a promenade on deck 3 like many of the other Carnival ships do, but instead has a full walk-around patio on deck 5 with tons of loungers, sea beds and comfy chairs, perfect for relaxing with some primo sea views. Mom and Stephanie probably read their Outlander books or something. I was engrossed with…pulling menus off of the Hub app to take home to post for you guys. But I did it while staring at the open seas on a super cushy lounge chair, so I like to think of it as a leisure time activity.

We took our first siesta of the day after our time on Ocean Plaza, tailing it back to the room to shower and take a nap because, you know, doing nothing can be highly exhausting. Particularly when you’re already exhausted.

Later on, we headed upstairs to the Serenity deck for a late lunch. Serenity may be an odd choice for a lunch venue, except that’s where they had the Fresh Creations salad bar. On the Vista (and maybe other Carnival ships, but definitely the Vista), this is a stand where a staff member will create a salad for you. On the Horizon, it’s a run of the mill salad bar, except the only run of the mill thing about it is the fact that it’s a salad bar. The options on the line are numerous and the possibilities endless. My favorite combo was field greens with a ton of pickled onions and radishes, brioche croutons, feta cheese and chia seeds.

We took our salad bowls down to the Lido Marketplace to pair our salads with…cake. I’m all about that sea day balance, and those cakes were just as good as they looked. And kudos to Carnival there – I’ve never had cake on a cruise ship from a complimentary eatery that looked as good as it tasted, and these cakes were not only beautiful, but they were delicious. It didn’t go unnoticed – the lines to get a slice were almost comical. Like, I’d have laughed at myself for waiting in line for a slice of cake if I hadn’t already tasted the cake and knew just how good it was.

Full and fueled, we set out to walk around the ship. First stop? The Fun Shops. The merch in the stores, particularly the beauty store, was stuff we actually wanted to buy. A feat because when you’ve seen the merch on one cruise, you’ve generally seen the merch on them all, but between the high end cosmetics and skincare in one of the shops and the pop up inaugural shop with gear to commemorate the Horizon’s inaugural season, we loved browsing the shops and contemplating what we had to have versus what was just really nice to look at.

After the shops, we made our way over to Ocean Plaza to see if we could snag a seat for trivia. The trivia sessions were packed each sea day, and I couldn’t tell if it was the trivia, itself, or just the venue that led to the crowds, but thankfully, we were able to snag a table for Mean Girls trivia. Less fortunately, we lost Mean Girls trivia. I don’t know how – one of my former direct reports and I still toss Mean Girls quotes to each other every day. Literally. I’m a veritable vending machine of quotes. It’s October third. I’m a mouse…duh. But you love Ladysmith Black Mambazo! I even answered the questions in quote form. Alas, that 24k gold plastic ship on a stick wasn’t meant for my luggage.

Emotionally exhausted from the loss of another round of trivia that we should have won, we headed back to the room for siesta numero dos. Stephanie took a nap. I straightened my hair for formal night. I couldn’t stay in the room for long, though. It looked so beautiful out and even though it wasn’t super hot, it was pleasant. So I headed to the upper decks for some sun and sea time, walking around to see what I could find and enjoying the day. The weather was so turbulent back home – snowing one day and in the mid-60s the next – that I didn’t know what I was going home to, but I knew it couldn’t hold a candle to this.

By the time I got back to the room, Mom and Stephanie were nearly done getting their elegant evening glam on, leaving me to cram through my routine (skipping the lashes in the interest of expediency, because putting on lashes on a moving ship is never an easy or quick process!). We snapped a few obligatory look-we-fancy shots in the atrium before heading to the check in desk for dinner.

We didn’t dine a ton in the main dining room on this cruise. At least, it didn’t feel like we did. We spent more time in the specialty restaurants than we normally do. One, because the menus were great, but two, because we found the main dining room to be inconsistent. Some nights, we’d have really great staff and others, we’d have staff that was just okay. This evening’s staff fell under the latter, with an aggressive head waiter who kept pushing drink menus on us and food that was good, not great. Carnival seems to be playing around with some new menu items and I think that’s awesome. I think the menus for the American Feast nights probably need a little revamp, too. Except for the Stuffed Mushrooms. Never change the Stuffed Mushrooms. Unless they’re bringing back the breadstick to sop up all that saucy goodness. Bring that back. But don’t change it otherwise 🙂

Stephanie ducked out of dinner early to get in line at the Liquid Lounge to get seats for the early performance of Vintage Pop, a new Playlist Production show they were debuting this evening. I miss the days when the lounge was just open and you could enter and sit as early (or as late) as you wanted to because what this has created is an environment where people are lining up an hour before a show just to get seats inside.

But I don’t want to focus on the lines or the Liquid Lounge. I want to focus on Vintage Pop, a show that takes both old school songs from the Harlem Renaissance and current pop faves and mashes them up with a 1920’s flapper beat. It’s unique and different from any other show they currently have in rotation, and the Horizon’s cast is one of the most talented we’ve ever seen. We were tapping our toes, twisting in our seats and singing along, and if that’s not the mark of a good show, I don’t know what is!

After the show, we headed up to the Lido Marketplace for some tea – Stephanie was coming down with her obligatory end of cruise cold – before we headed back to the room to find our Platinum gifts waiting on our beds: some over the ear headphones. They didn’t come with a carrying case, which meant using them or transporting them would be a little…clunky…but we appreciated the gesture of appreciation from Carnival nonetheless.

Mom crashed because, well, Mom crashed every night before my makeup could even come off. Stephanie and I intended on doing a little bar hop. We had done so much and still felt left with a ton to see before we left the ship. We were in some rocky seas, though. Not the worst we’ve ever sailed through, but heavy enough that Mom and Stephanie were drowsy and disoriented. So we stayed in the room, watching the shipboard programming on repeat, until the rocking of the boat lulled us all to sleep.