Well, it’s time to say goodbye to the Carnival Horizon, as this is the final day of our eight-day cruise.
For this latest adventure, we trekked across the Southern Caribbean from PortMiami, stopping in Oranjestad, Aruba; Kralendijk, Bonaire; and Willemstad, Curaçao, along the way. In my opinion, this is one of the best itineraries a mainstream cruise line can offer and one that’s traditionally referred to as an ABC Islands cruise.
We’re spending this final day onboard at sea, the second of two back-to-back sea days as we head toward PortMiami for our 7:00 a.m. arrival tomorrow morning.
As you can see in the itinerary below, our three ports of call were bookended by two sea days on each end. If you prefer a port-intensive itinerary, this may not be the cruise for you, as there are more sea days than land days.
Southern Caribbean Cruise from Miami on Carnival Horizon
Dates: July 4 – July 12, 2026
Homeport: Miami, Florida
An 8-night Southern Caribbean sailing aboard Carnival Horizon with visits to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, along with plenty of sea days before returning to Miami.
| Date | Port | Country | Times |
| July 4 | Miami, Florida | USA | Departing at 3:30 pm |
| July 5 | At Sea | – | – |
| July 6 | At Sea | – | – |
| July 7 | Aruba | Aruba | 8:00 am to 10:00 pm |
| July 8 | Bonaire | Caribbean Netherlands | 8:00 am to 8:00 pm |
| July 9 | Curaçao | Curaçao | 7:00 am to 4:00 pm |
| July 10 | At Sea | – | – |
| July 11 | At Sea | – | – |
| July 12 | Miami, Florida | USA | Arriving at 8:00 am |
As I usually do in my final-day report, I’m going to give an overall review of the cruise for those who haven’t been following along with the daily reports or who simply want a concise rundown of the entire trip.
Before I get into that, however, let’s talk about a few other things.
Are Guy’s Burgers Really This Good?
First up is one of those topics Carnival loyalists will fight about until the end of time: Are Guy’s Burger Joint burgers the best burgers in the history of burgers, or are they complete trash?
Across the Carnival fleet, the line’s burger joint is a creation of Food Network celebrity and often-polarizing chef Guy Fieri. His name is also attached to the line’s barbecue restaurant, Guy’s Pig & Anchor Smokehouse | Brewhouse.
The barbecue spot doesn’t exactly receive rave reviews everywhere, but opinions on the burgers are usually split right down the middle. People either love them or hate them.
The burgers are cooked on a flat-top grill and are similar to smash burgers. As the menu below shows, you can order them several different ways and load them up even more at the nearby toppings bar.
However, if cleanliness is important to you, you may want to avoid the toppings bar. Guests frequently turn it into a disgusting mess. You’ll find sautéed onions, shredded lettuce, pickles, jalapeños and other toppings, along with assorted sauces for your burger and fries.
Guy's Burger Joint Menu
Available on: all ships
Where do I stand in this love-it-or-hate-it relationship?
I’m definitely not a fan.
Still, for the sake of this report, I headed over to Guy’s Burger Joint at around 1:00 p.m. You can easily find it by looking for a long line of people and following the smell of burger grease.
God love the crew members who work here. I can only imagine they spend the rest of their day in the shower trying to get the smell off them.
I ordered the Plain Jane and then, despite my better judgment, headed over to the sloppy mess of a toppings bar to add some shredded lettuce and pickles. I followed that up with a heavy dose of hand sanitizer.
The burger itself was completely flavorless. There was no salt, no pepper and no seasoning of any kind. Not even the cheese added much flavor. The only thing that did was the spicy pickles.
It was a true flavorless grease bomb.
Then there were the fries.
When Guy’s Burger Joint first debuted across the fleet, it served hand-cut fries. Somewhere along the way, someone in accounting must have realized Carnival could save a certain amount of money each year by switching to frozen fries.
The blowback from guests was apparently enough that the person in accounting probably had to put together a presentation explaining how Carnival could satisfy both guests and the bottom line by bringing back the hand-cut fries while no longer seasoning the burgers with salt and pepper.
That’s completely in jest, of course, but you get the point.
The hand-cut fries were limp, lacked any kind of flavor and were about as greasy and uninspiring as the burger itself.
So yes, put me squarely in the “hate them” category when it comes to Guy Fieri’s grease bombs. Give me Shaq’s Big Chicken on one of Carnival’s Excel-class ships any day.
However, hang in there. My quest for a much better burger wasn’t over just yet.
Keep reading.
The Great Gratuity Debate
One of the highlights of my day was people-watching from the different levels of the atrium as passengers lined up at Guest Services, located all the way down on Deck 3.
Why was the line so long?
Because gratuities had posted to everyone’s onboard accounts.
When that happens on a Carnival cruise, people line up to have them, unfortunately, removed.
This is another VERY polarizing topic across every cruise line.
Some cruise lines charge gratuities to your onboard account each day, while Carnival posts the entire amount as one lump sum either on the final day or the day before.
Carnival’s current daily gratuity rate is $17 per person for standard staterooms and $19 per person for suites. You can use my daily gratuity calculator to see the current rates, calculate the total for your cruise and compare Carnival’s charges with those of the other major cruise lines.
These gratuities are distributed among the many crew members who provide service throughout your trip. That includes your stateroom attendant, main dining room hosts and servers, and plenty of people working behind the scenes whom you may never see.
Gratuities make up a large portion of many crew members’ compensation, and they remain a major bone of contention among cruisers.
Some passengers remove the automatic gratuities and tip only their stateroom attendant in cash, but that cuts out all the other crew members who would normally receive a share.
Others keep the gratuities in place, give their room steward additional cash and tip other crew members throughout the ship as well.
Then there are those who remove the gratuities completely and don’t tip anyone.
Spend five minutes in any cruise forum or Facebook group and you’ll see just how controversial cruise tipping can be. It’s an even hotter subject now that we’re living in a tipping culture where even the person handing you your morning coffee at the drive-thru expects a tip.
So yes, when gratuities post, head down to Guest Services if you want to see one of the longest lines you’ll encounter at any point during a cruise.
Now, back to burgers.
You absolutely can get a burger for dinner, but not from Guy’s Burger Joint. It closes at around 6:00 p.m., and burgers generally aren’t available on the buffet at night.
However, you can order one in the main dining room or at the ship’s steakhouse, Fahrenheit 555.
In the main dining room, the burger appears under the Steakhouse Selections section. These optional premium entrées will set you back an additional $25 plus a 20% service charge, as you can see in tonight’s main dining room menu:
Carnival Cruise Line Main Dining Room Dinner Menu - Night 4
Some ships in the fleet are still offering the pre-2026 new menu. This is NOT the 2026 new menu release.
Available on: all ships
The dining room and steakhouse version is a 14-ounce Wagyu cheeseburger served with aged cheddar, bacon, lettuce, tomato, pickles and frizzled onions, along with a side of seasoned fries.
Over at Fahrenheit 555, the burger is included as an entrée in the standard $52-per-person steakhouse dinner, plus the 20% service charge. You also receive your choice of starters and a dessert, just as you would when ordering a steak.
As I sat at the steakhouse bar, I debated my options.
Should I go to JiJi Asian Kitchen, one restaurant I hadn’t visited during this cruise, or should I take one for the team and order the steakhouse burger?
There’s a little backstory here.
When this burger first appeared on Carnival’s menus, it was $25 in the main dining room and also carried an additional $25 surcharge in the steakhouse. That meant if you ordered it at Fahrenheit 555, you would have paid the standard $52 steakhouse charge, plus another $25, plus the 20% service charge.
Because it was considered an upcharge item, you could also order a second entrée with it.
I tried the burger at the steakhouse aboard Carnival Celebration in August 2025, and it was a hot mess, to say the least – see for yourself in the video below. Because of that experience, I was genuinely considering skipping it this time.
However, time wasn’t on my side. I looked at my watch and closing time was quickly approaching for the specialty restaurants. The steakhouse dining room was also completely full.
I quickly flagged down the manager, Nelson, and asked if I could order a burger at the bar.
Normally, guests aren’t allowed to eat at the steakhouse bar, but he made an exception. I’m assuming that was because it was literally the end of their serving hours.
I quickly put in my order, and Nelson set a place for me at the bar.
Fahrenheit 555 Menu
Available on: All ships
After a short wait, my medium-well burger arrived with dripping melted cheese, bacon and the same type of limp fries that could use a double dose of Viagra over at Guy’s Burger Joint.
This time, however, the burger was much better put together than the one I had previously tried. It wasn’t the sloppy mess I remembered, the bun was fresh, and the burger was perfectly seasoned.
It actually had flavor.
Imagine that!
Redemption was at hand. I had finally found a much better burger, even though it set me back $52 instead of being included in the cruise fare.
I still would have preferred the frozen crinkle-cut fries served alongside the steaks rather than the greasy hand-cut fries that came with the burger, but overall, this was a significant improvement.
So, sorry Guy, your burgers still suck.
Congratulations, Fahrenheit 555. You’re the winner this time around, and this burger earned a much better review than the last one I tried when it first appeared on the menu.
Phew.
With all of that nonsense out of the way, let’s get into my overall review of this eight-day cruise aboard Carnival Horizon.
Embarkation at PortMiami
For this cruise, I took Brightline from Boca Raton to Miami, which remains the easiest and least stressful way to get to PortMiami. My 10:00 a.m. train departed right on time, arrived at MiamiCentral at 11:00 a.m., and an Uber had me at Carnival’s Terminal F by 11:25 a.m.
I arrived earlier than I normally would because it was a holiday weekend, traffic warnings had already been issued for downtown Miami, and final boarding was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. I knew arriving early would mean lines, and with Carnival Horizon joined in port by MSC World America, Norwegian Luna and Icon of the Seas, that is exactly what I found.
The line outside Terminal F stretched the length of the building and moved slowly. Once inside, the check-in counters were staffed, but the process had not yet started. When I finally reached an agent, my reservation was flagged because it had been booked at the last minute, so I had to be escorted through security and then to Guest Services inside the terminal for additional verification.
After that, it was another wait for boarding to begin. From the time I arrived at the terminal until the moment I stepped onboard, the entire process took 70 minutes.
Even though I knew arriving early would involve some waiting, this still ranked among the worst embarkation experiences I’ve had. Carnival’s Miami operation feels dated and inefficient, especially compared with MSC’s new terminal just down the road, where the embarkation process can take a fraction of the time.
Standard Interior Stateroom 11263 on Carnival Horizon
For this cruise, I stayed in Stateroom 11263, a standard interior cabin located forward on Deck 11. The location put me very close to the Lido pool and Lido Marketplace. A short walk down the hall and one deck down placed me right in the middle of the action, which was especially convenient for grabbing food or heading outside.
Before the cruise, I was concerned that the nearby Lido Deck would make this a noisy location at night. Thankfully, that never became a major issue. The room was relatively quiet overall, and the limited number of cabins in this section helped keep hallway traffic down.
That doesn’t mean it was completely peaceful. Kids still ran through the hallways at all hours of the day and evening, and someone even stole the “Snoozing” sign from my door on the final night. Even with those minor annoyances, this wasn’t a bad location, and the convenience of being so close to the Lido Deck was a definite plus.
The cabin itself was a typical Carnival interior stateroom. It offered enough space and storage for a solo traveler, but I would have found it tight with a second person. This particular room sleeps two, with twin beds that can be combined into a king. There were no upper berths or sofa bed, which helped keep the room from feeling even more cramped.
The room also included a television across from the bed, a small cooler, an in-room safe and adequate storage. Power outlets were limited to the desk area, where there were two USB-A ports, two U.S. outlets and one U.K. outlet. There were no outlets at the bedside, so bringing a longer charging cable is a good idea.
The bathroom was Carnival’s standard older-style setup, with a shower curtain, toilet and vanity. It was functional but dated, especially compared with the more modern bathrooms and glass shower doors found on Carnival’s newer Excel-class ships.
Overall, Stateroom 11263 worked well for a solo traveler. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was comfortable, quiet enough and conveniently located near the Lido Deck.
Carnival Horizon Food
Carnival Horizon offers a decent variety of dining options, although it lacks some of the restaurants and quick-service choices found aboard Carnival’s larger Excel-class ships.
Included options include the main dining rooms, Lido Marketplace buffet, Guy’s Burger Joint, BlueIguana Cantina, Pizzeria del Capitano and select lunchtime offerings at several specialty restaurants. Seafood Shack is also available on the Lido Deck, but its seafood selections are priced à la carte.
Specialty dining includes Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse, Cucina del Capitano, JiJi Asian Kitchen, Bonsai Sushi and Bonsai Teppanyaki. The ship also has Guy’s Pig & Anchor Bar-B-Que Smokehouse, which serves a complimentary lunch on select sea days and dinner is à la carte.
The main dining room offers a limited breakfast menu on port days, Sea Day Brunch and dinner each evening. Guests can choose between traditional early or late dining or use Your Time Dining and request a table through the Carnival app.
Carnival Horizon was still using Carnival’s older main dining room menus during this cruise. The line has been testing updated menus on select ships, but those had not yet made their way to Horizon. The menus offered enough variety, but I am not a fan of the buffet or main dining room food on Carnival, so I generally ignore those spots and opt for speciality dining. On elegant night, the special “Feast” menu included prime rib and lobster tail, and wait times for Your Time Dining reached 60 to 70 minutes during the busiest part of the evening. You can check out all the menus on my Carnival Cruise Line Menu page.
The Lido Marketplace buffet was one of the weakest parts of the ship’s food operation. Breakfast was generally fine and offered the usual eggs, breakfast meats, breads, fruit and other standards. Lunch and dinner were a different story. Much of the food was not visually appealing and often looked like slop sitting in metal trays.
The buffet pizza also suffered during the cruise when the regular pizza ovens were taken out of service for maintenance. Replacement pizzas were brought out to the buffet, but they were poor substitutes for the freshly prepared pizzas normally served at Pizzeria del Capitano.
Cucina del Capitano was my first dinner of the cruise. Dinner costs $24 per person plus the service charge, while a build-your-own pasta lunch is included during the day. I was the only guest in the restaurant for much of my embarkation-night meal and dinner here, even with all my upcharge items that I ordered, was well worth it!
Bonsai Teppanyaki was one of the more entertaining meals of the week. Dinner costs $49 per person plus the service charge, and reservations are essential because the restaurant has only two tables with three seatings each evening. The meal included appetizers such as pork belly with asparagus and dashi-fried tuna, followed by the usual teppanyaki cooking show and entrées prepared directly in front of guests.
The Chef’s Table was the standout dining experiences of the cruise. At $124 per person plus the service charge, it isn’t inexpensive, but the evening included multiple courses, unlimited red and white wine, a galley tour and plenty of interaction with Chef Mohammed. Between courses, he discussed what it takes to feed thousands of passengers and crew members each day and demonstrated how Carnival’s popular chocolate melting cake is prepared.
Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse was easily the strongest restaurant aboard Horizon, even if not every dish was a winner. Dinner costs $52 per person plus a 20% service charge and includes a choice of starters, an entrée and dessert.
On one visit, the risotto was cooked correctly but lacked flavor, while the French onion soup had plenty of cheese but very few onions and was almost tasteless. Things improved considerably when the main course arrived. The filet was cooked perfectly Pittsburgh rare, and the full-size lobster tail, available for an additional $25, was excellent.
Seafood Shack offered lobster, oysters, red snapper and other seafood priced by the item or by weight. During this sailing, lobster was listed at $26 per pound, oysters were $2.50 each and red snapper was $22 per pound. I didn’t order anything there, so I can’t comment on the preparation or quality.
I also didn’t make it to JiJi Asian Kitchen for dinner or eat at Pig & Anchor Smokehouse. I considered JiJi on the final night, but the steakhouse burger won out instead.
Overall, Carnival Horizon’s food ranged from disappointing to excellent, depending on where you ate. The buffet and most of the complimentary quick-service locations were forgettable, while the specialty restaurants, particularly Fahrenheit 555, Bonsai Teppanyaki and the Chef’s Table, delivered the best meals of the cruise.
My overall ratings would be:
- Main Dining Room, included: did not experience
- Lido Marketplace, included: ⭐
- Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse, $52 per person: ⭐⭐⭐ (would have been four had it not been for a few disappointing dishes)
- Chef’s Table, $124 per person: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Bonsai Teppanyaki, $49 per person: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Cucina del Capitano, $24 per person: ⭐⭐⭐1/2
- JiJi Asian Kitchen, $24 per person: did not experience
- Pizzeria del Capitano, included: ⭐⭐ (buffet pizza excluded)
- Guy’s Burger Joint, included: ⭐ (only because you can’t give something zero stars)
- BlueIguana Cantina, included: ⭐⭐⭐ (solid tacos and burritos)
- Seafood Shack, à la carte: did not experience, but normally good
- Pig & Anchor Smokehouse: did not experience
Pools, WaterWorks and Havana on Carnival Horizon
I mentioned yesterday that I would take some time to talk about the pools and water attractions aboard Carnival Horizon, so here we go.
The ship has two main swimming pools, both located on Deck 10. The Beach Pool (aka Lido Pool) sits midship in the center of the Lido Deck and serves as the ship’s main outdoor gathering place. It’s surrounded by loungers and tiered seating, with additional sun deck space overlooking the pool from above. This is also where many of Carnival’s daytime activities, sail-away celebrations and nighttime deck parties take place, so expect it to be the louder and livelier of the two pools.
The Beach Pool is in a very convenient location, with BlueIguana Cantina and Guy’s Burger Joint nearby on one side and the Lido Marketplace just steps away. That makes it easy to grab something to eat without having to venture far from your chair, although the entire area can become very busy during peak lunch hours and on sea days.
At the opposite end of Deck 10 is the aft Tides Pool. This area has its own pool, two hot tubs and plenty of outdoor seating overlooking the ship’s wake. The Seafood Shack, Tides Bar and Pizzeria del Capitano are all located nearby, giving the aft pool its own collection of food and drink options.
While neither pool is enormous, the two separate areas help spread people out. There is also plenty of additional deck space surrounding them for those who simply want to find a chair, bake in the sun and occasionally cool off. As with most large cruise ships, however, the pool areas are at their busiest on sea days, especially when everyone decides they need a chair at the exact same time.
Guests staying in Havana staterooms also have access to a separate outdoor retreat on Deck 5. The Havana area includes a private pool, hot tubs, loungers and an outdoor bar, giving eligible guests another place to relax away from the busier Lido Deck. Access is restricted to Havana guests, making it one of the more exclusive outdoor spaces aboard Carnival Horizon.
Families and anyone looking for something more exciting than a standard swimming pool can head up to WaterWorks on Deck 12. Carnival Horizon’s water park includes twisting waterslides, enclosed sections, open slide sections and other water features. It occupies a large portion of the forward outdoor deck and is positioned near the children’s and family recreation areas.
Also on Deck 12 is SportSquare, which includes a ropes course, miniature golf, outdoor games and a jogging track that loops around the upper deck. Farther aft, there is a basketball court and additional fitness space. Between WaterWorks and SportSquare, this deck is where you’ll find most of the ship’s active outdoor attractions.
Adults looking to get away from the families and activity have the Serenity Adult-Only Retreat on the upper forward deck. This area is reserved for guests 21 and older and includes loungers, shaded seating, two hot tubs and its own bar. Fresh Creations, Carnival’s complimentary build-your-own salad station, is also located here.
Serenity is intended to be the quieter alternative to the Lido Deck, although how peaceful it feels can depend on the day, the weather and how crowded the ship is. Still, it provides a more relaxed setting for adults who want to sit outside without being in the middle of the pool games, music and general chaos happening below.
Carnival Horizon Fellow Passengers
Carnival may market itself as the Fun Ship cruise line, but an eight-day Southern Caribbean sailing is a very different experience from one of the short weekend cruises that has helped create Carnival’s “booze cruise” reputation.
Because this cruise sailed over the Fourth of July holiday and during the middle of summer vacation, there were plenty of families onboard, including a large number of children and teenagers. At times, that was impossible to miss. The passenger mix was still fairly broad, with couples, solo travelers, families and several large multigenerational groups traveling together.
The atmosphere was fun, as usual, especially around the Lido pool, casino and nighttime parties, but it never felt like the nonstop drunken free-for-all some people expect from Carnival. The longer itinerary, four sea days and distant Southern Caribbean ports attracted passengers who were there for more than just a quick weekend of drinking.
There were certainly loud moments and the usual examples of passengers forgetting that they weren’t the only people on the ship, but I didn’t witness any fights, serious disturbances or other headline-worthy incidents during the cruise.
Sorry, social media.
Carnival Horizon Lido Deck Tour
Carnival Horizon Service
Service throughout the cruise was consistently good. I never encountered a crew member who was rude, dismissive or unwilling to help, and I didn’t notice any areas that appeared noticeably short-staffed.
The crew members working in the bars, restaurants, public areas and stateroom corridors were friendly and professional. They were always willing to answer questions or assist when needed, even during busy periods when venues were crowded.
A few crew members stood out, including Nelson and Vernessa at Fahrenheit 555, who went out of their way to accommodate me each evening at the steakhouse bar or in the restaurant – even when it was close to closing time.
Overall, the crew delivered the level of service I expected and helped make the cruise an enjoyable one.
Carnival Horizon Condition
Carnival Horizon entered service in 2018, so it isn’t one of the newest ships in the fleet, but it remains in generally good condition although there are areas showing wear. Out on The Lanai on Deck 5 there are several glass panels that have been broken and replaced with temporary black metal. Many areas outside are in need of painting and there is a good deal of rust that could use some touch-up. Many tables that are permanently fixed on the second level of the lido (deck 11) are bent from people sitting on them or doing whatever it takes to bend metal.
Despite minor things like that, I made a point of looking for obvious signs of neglect or areas badly in need of cosmetic work. Fortunately, I didn’t find anything significant enough to make me stop and wonder what had happened. Public spaces were kept clean, and most lounges, restaurants and other public areas were in good shape.
Debarkation at PortMiami
Debarkation was significantly smoother and better organized than embarkation.
Carnival uses a digital debarkation system through the HUB app. Guests select a preferred departure time and indicate whether they plan to carry their luggage off themselves or place it outside their stateroom for collection and pickup inside the terminal.
I decided to check my luggage rather than carry it off. As a Platinum guest, I was assigned an 8:00 a.m. meeting time, but I headed off the ship at around 7:30 a.m. instead.
The process was quick, and when I entered the terminal, my luggage was already waiting in the designated collection area. After retrieving it, I passed through the facial-recognition immigration checkpoint with no delay and was outside the terminal much earlier than expected.
Since everything moved so quickly, I changed my Brightline reservation from the 9:50 a.m. departure out of MiamiCentral to the 8:45 a.m. train. I made it to the station with time to spare and boarded without any problems.
From leaving the ship to collecting my luggage, clearing the terminal and reaching Brightline, the entire experience was flawless After the 70-minute embarkation ordeal at the beginning of the cruise, it was nice to end the trip with a process that worked exactly as it should.
Overall, debarkation was far more organized than embarkation and provided a much better final impression of Carnival’s operation at PortMiami.
Closing Notes
The cruise delivered about what I expected from Carnival. The ship may lack some of the bells and whistles found aboard Mardi Gras, Carnival Celebration and Carnival Jubilee, but there was still more than enough to do throughout the cruise.
While this adventure has come to an end, I have several more cruises planned between now and January. Upcoming ships include Princess Cruises’ Regal Princess, a return to Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, Holland America Line’s Rotterdam and Nieuw Amsterdam, and my first sailing aboard Volendam, the oldest ship currently in Holland America’s fleet, along with a few others.
Thanks for following along on this eight-day Southern Caribbean adventure aboard Carnival Horizon. Stay tuned, because the next cruise will be here before you know it.
Fun Times for Day 8:
This is also available as a PDF by clicking here.
