You're about to tour the best cabin there is, on Carnival's best ship!
It's what's known as a Havana Suite, and there are only four of them on the Carnival Vista.
There are about sixty cabins that are Havana cabins...
Those are the cabins that give you access to the exclusive Havana Pool area.
But of those sixty Havana cabins, only four of them are suites...
The highest category of Havana cabins, and the most expensive cabin on the ship.
And totally worth it, in my opinion!
Havana suites are much bigger than a regular cabin.
A standard Carnival cabin is 185 square feet plus a 35 square foot balcony.
The Havana Suite is 260 square feet, with a 100 square foot balcony!
The best visual I can give you on it is to compare our Havana suite to its neighbors... which are called Havana Cabanas.
The balconies are the same size... both have a 100 square foot balcony. But...
When we go out in to the hallway, the difference in size is easy to see.
See how the hallway is straight in this section, because all these Havana cabanas on the right are all the same size.
But when we get down to our cabin, 5234, the Havana Suite...
The hallway has to jog way to the left to account for the size difference between the Havana cabanas and the Havana Suite.
This length of hallway you see here is basically all the extra length of a Havana Suite compared to a Havana cabana.
It's about ten feet!
And a whole lot of that space is devoted to a pretty cool bathroom and shower.
Let's start our tour there.
This shower is really the #1 main reason to get a Havana suite instead of a Havana cabana.
It's big enough for two people to share, which makes this suite perfect for a romantic couple.
There's a rainfall shower head in the ceiling, plus a second shower head on a rail...
So you can adjust the height up or down for tall people or short people...
Or take the shower head off completely and go handheld.
There's a bench for the ladies to easily prop up a leg for shaving.
And notice the beautiful earth tones they've used in the color scheme.
Truly, this a hugely nicer shower than I have at home.
The kind of thing you'd find in a dream house.
The bathroom itself is quite large for a cruise ship bathroom.
And has double sinks and quite a few places to store things.
And I should point out that only the four Havana suites on Carnival Vista have these big bathrooms and showers.
The other 56 Havana cabins, and all the hundreds of other cabins onboard don't have what you see here.
Moving out of the bathroom and in to the main cabin itself...
It's basically divided in to two sections, separated by those shutters...
and a curtain that can be pulled closed to provide some privacy between the bedroom section and the living room section.
You see, this cabin can actually handle three or four people...
Because the couch can become two little beds.
I just can't see putting an adult on the couch for the night. It's too small for that.
And they actually don't allow anyone younger than 12 years old in a Havana cabin.
So, I guess the idea is to put a teenager or two on the couch...
And to draw the curtain between the bedroom and the living room to provide everyone a little privacy.
I think it's a horrible idea, actually!
If you can afford a Havana suite, which is the most expensive cabin on the ship...
And you're travelling with teenagers or other relatives...
I say book an interior Havana cabin across the hall for them...
So that you can have your own room, in the Havana Suite, with some real privacy.
There are actually two televisions in the Havana suite.
There's a nice-sized one at the desk, that you can watch from the couch in the living room...
And then there's an even larger one in the bedroom, that you can watch from the bed.
At the desk in the living room, you've got two electrical outlets, plus two USB charging points.
And a refrigerator hidden in the cabinet under the desk.
In the bedroom section, you've got the big bed, of course, with night stands on both sides.
Surprisingly, there were no electrical outlets there at the night stands.
For a brand new ship, that really surprised me.
I thought all the cruise lines had started to figure out that on their new ships, they needed to put electrical outlets by the bed...
So that people could charge a cell phone at night, or plug in a CPAP machine.
Closet space was the other thing that surprised me a little bit.
It's adequate, but basically the same as almost any other cabin on any other Carnival cruise ship.
I expected, on the most expensive suite on the ship, that there would be more closet space.
Here's a look at the right side of the closets... and then the left side, where there is also a safe.
As I said, adequate, but not generous.
I really liked the TV in the bedroom. It was good quality and a decent size.
I was hoping that they might offer a good selection of free movies on the TV.
In the suites within "The Haven" on Norwegian Cruise Line, all the "Pay TV" movies are free for the suite guests.
I was hoping it would be that way in Carnival's Havana suite, but no.
Now let's go out on to the balcony, because that's an important part of these Havana cabins.
The balcony cabins on deck five all have identical balconies: 100 square feet...
With a full size lounger, a mini lounge chair, and my wife's favorite balcony feature: the swing!
That was her spot whenever she was out on the balcony.
I have to say that their choice of outdoor furniture for the balconies was HORRIBLE.
They don't even have pads on that big wicker lounger.
It's uncomfortable. It sits too low to the ground, and without pads, it's just not something you're going to want to sit on for very long.
Here's a video I shot up at the Serenity retreat.
This is what they should have done on the balconies of the Havana cabins.
Those blue pads on the wicker loungers make all the difference.
And think of how great it would be if the balconies of the suites had day beds!
Maybe they'll do something like that on a future sister ship.
For these Havana cabins on deck five, you have this walkway...
That makes it easy to get from your little balcony patio down to the Havana pool area.
That's super convenient, to just pop out your balcony door and a minute later you're at the Havana pool.
However, the downside of having that walkway by your patio is that when you're inside your cabin...
You may occasionally see people walking by.
So, use the curtains as needed for privacy.
And if occasionally having some neighbor walk by your patio bothers you...
Consider booking a Havana cabin on deck 6 or 7 instead of one of these here on deck 5.
The ones on decks 6 and 7 overlook the Havana pool area and offer more privacy on the balconies.
Next time I cruise on a Vista-class ship, I will definitely be in a Havana cabin again.
I totally LOVED the un-crowded Havana pool area and the Jacuzzis and sun deck. But...
I think I may just try one of the aft-wrap balcony cabins that overlook the Havana area...
And see how being in one of those strikes me compared to these down here on deck five that have the walkway outside the patio.
And I guess I should explain, just in case you don't already know, that...
The big deal about staying in any of the Havana cabins...
Is that it comes with access to this awesome un-crowded Havana pool area.
The Carnival Vista is a gigantic cruise ship... the largest Carnival ship of them all.
The week we sailed on her, there were 4600 passengers aboard.
That's an awful lot of passengers to share a pool or a Jacuzzi with!
But the only people that have access to the Havana area at the back of the ship...
Including the Havana pool, and the Jacuzzis, and the loungers and daybeds...
Are the people staying in the sixty Havana cabins.
So, that works out to be about 130 guests. And let me tell you...
It's way better to share a pool with 130 people than it is to share a pool with 4500 people!
Because on a cruise ship, at any given time, 130 guests are doing 20 different things...
And only a fraction of them are trying to lounge around the pool at the same time you are.
The most I ever saw in the Havana pool at any one time was about 12 or 15 people.
And maybe two dozen more in the loungers around the pool.
It was VERY uncrowded at the Havana pool and as far as I'm concerned...
That made paying a little extra for a Havana cabin totally worth it!
So, that's the tour. I'm Jim Zim.
If you want to read about some of the other cruise ships I've been on...
Visit my web site at JimZim.net.
I'm going to pop up links to tours of a couple of other really interesting Carnival cabins I've stayed in...
Including the Captain's Suite on the Carnival Sunshine. You should definitely check that one out.
Thank you for watching!