Review: Carnival Horizon Western Caribbean Cruise – Part 6 – Ship Programming

~ Chris Wada

During our Carnival Horizon cruise, we explored almost everything the ship had to offer, including the musical shows and other programming.

View other posts in this series:

The musical performances in Liquid Lounge

If you’re in the mood for a musical performance, you’ll want to check out the musical performances on Decks 4 and 5 at Liquid Lounge. There were a total of three musical performances during our six-night cruise. That’s about one every other night.

Unlike the performances on the Celebrity Solstice, it seemed like not many people bothered to show up to watch. That was surprising. That did make it easy to show up minutes before the show and get a great seat. But if I were a performer, I would love to show off to a full crowd. The theatre is also isn’t anywhere near as large as on the Celebrity Solstice. Sadly it seemed like not many cruisers were interested in watching.

You can choose either a seat on Deck 4 where the action is or up on Deck 5 for an aerial view. We always sat on Deck 4. Sometimes the performers would end up right next to us as they roamed the crowd, which was cool.

All of the musical performances were kid-appropriate.

The performances were fine. They’re not up to the level of a Broadway show. I’d say it’s a little quirky with a song selection that was more niche. So let’s call it Off-Broadway quality. That’s not necessarily a bad thing–it just doesn’t have that broader appeal for every show.

I’m not the best judge of choreography, but it was generally fine and lacked a “wow” element. To me, it seemed like an awful lot of the show depended on the giant video screen behind the performers. That enabled some extra graphics to go along with the dancing but also detracted from the experience somewhat if things didn’t mesh.

Soulbound

In total, I’d say it works if you’re looking for a musical performance. But if the subject matter of the show doesn’t interest you, don’t go. The niche nature of the programming makes it hard to stay engaged. And perhaps that explains the lighter attendance than I expected.

Amor Cubano

Trivia is crowded

On Deck 5 at the Ocean Plaza, you’ll find most of the trivia on the ship. These tend to be fairly crowded and they simply don’t have enough seating for all. So if you want to participate, you need to come early.

Sometimes the names of the trivia don’t match what’s actually being asked. Take the “One Hit Wonders” trivia session. You’d think this is about songs performed by artists who only had one popular song. Nope, it’s just any song: not necessarily popular songs and definitely not songs that meet the commonly accepted definition of a “one hit wonder”. Some songs were even repeated during the same trivia session. Usher’s Yeah! was the answer twice. What the actual what?

We came away from that experience like the trivia sessions skewed slightly towards being lazy rather than fun. The prize for getting the top place was generally a small ship to commemorate your time on the Carnival Horizon. So we didn’t feel like we missed on much.

Dr. Seuss parade: Good for younger children

Also starting at the Ocean Plaza is the Dr. Seuss parade. Pretty much every younger child on the ship and their parents showed up for this one. As you can imagine, it’s hard to find a seat, but that’s not too bad because while it starts at Ocean Plaza, everyone moves to the other end of the ship.

You’ll find Thing 1, Thing 2, and Sam I Am dressed up and ready to lead the crowd. Staff also hands out a noisemaker to every child and encouraged to make as much noise as possible on the walk. This is definitely not the thing to do if you’re suffering from a migraine.

With so many people walking on the path, it takes a long time to get to the other end. I think the younger children enjoyed the ability to hoot and holler without getting into trouble. Older kids probably would feel embarrassed.

As we got closer to the Liquid Lounge (our destination), we passed by the bar, which was decorated nicely for the occasion.

Now at Liquid Lounge, we deposited our noisemakers and sat down to watch a short song and dance. The Cat in the Hat also made a very brief appearance.

Lastly, the cruise director read Green Eggs and Ham and engaged with the crowd. For some kids, this was a highlight of the cruise.

Game Shows

We watched two game shows, both hosted in Liquid Lounge. One show was What’s Age Got to Do with It?, a game where four pairs of kids and parents compete to show off how much they know about each other. Think of it as a family-friendly version of The Newlywed Game. It’s a cute game with watching kids struggle to think of answers.

The other show we watched was Deal or No Deal. The kids absolutely loved watching this one and it works identically to the TV show.

Naturally, you can also participate if you’re not the one choosing briefcases. Just buy your packages and play along in the crowd. If the case you select matches the number the live contestant chooses, you might win a prize.

The prizes for those in the crowd actually scale up to better prizes than the live contestant can win. But it’s going to be darn near impossible to win the best prizes. Still, the engagement with the crowd is high with this game.

Captain’s Toast

During the cruise, the captain and senior staff came out to receive honors from everyone in attendance. We’ve been to these on other ships and thought that–perhaps–they would hand out champagne glasses to everyone in attendance.

Well, they did. But only to the captain and the crew (should the captain be drinking?). The Carnival Horizon is too cheap to provide a glass of sparkling wine to the few attendees who wanted to stick around to watch. It was fine enough just to see the captain and the others, but it’s not the same when they ask for a toast and no one has a glass to toast with.

It’s BYOC (bring your own champagne) for this toast.

Catch a comedy performance at Limelight Lounge

One evening I took Alex to watch a comedy show on the ship. There are both kid-appropriate shows as well as adults-only shows (for language). If the performance is age-restricted, there is a bouncer validating ages to prevent those trying to sneak in.

If you’re looking to get a drink, they do not have a bar in this lounge. Instead, the servers need to go to the sports bar next door to get your drinks. That means service is slow. I also found it interesting that the server wanted to know if I wanted to drink a bucket of beers on my own. My assumption was that’s what he is scripted to say, but it was just me and my eight-year-old son. I joked with the server that maybe we’ll do that in 13 years.

The performance was actually pretty funny, even though it was kid-appropriate. It was so enjoyable that Alex wanted to watch another one. I’d also say it was the best comedy show I’ve been to in a very, very long time. Sadly, we only made it for the one performance. If there’s one thing Carnival gets right, it’s the comedy shows.

Bottom line

As mentioned, the best entertainment in our opinion is the comedy club. If you’ve got younger children, the Dr. Seuss parade is worth attending. And the musical performances are good if you’re a fan of the niche subject matter of the shows. So there is some promise to the ship’s programming.

That said, there were several nights on the ship where it felt like nothing was going on. And that let the feeling of disappointment creep in. On top of that, the scheduling of the performances didn’t make sense. Sometimes there would be a couple of bigger ticket items at the same time, but then a lull where nothing is available afterwards. I’m not sure why they don’t enable someone to do all the more important performances. It’s almost like each team scheduled their own stuff without regard to what other teams were doing.

Stay tuned for the next installment where we’ll take a look at the features of the Carnival Horizon.

Author

Discover more from food.wada.travel

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply