Carnival Horizon Review: Day 7 – Florencefeatured

There’s this scene in Eat, Pray, Love that has always resonated with me.

I used to have this appetite for food, for my life, and now it’s just gone. I want to go some place where I can marvel at something. Language. Gelato. Spaghetti. Something.

And then she books a flight to Florence and begins to rediscover the vigor for life she had been missing.

Every time I’m in Florence, it’s this big, all-encompassing sensation of wonder that resonates from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, dropping my jaw to the ground and my eyes towards the sky. Florence reminds me of how small I am, and how big and vastly beautiful the rest of the world is outside of my little Windy City bubble.

Livorno was the first port of call on our itinerary, a gateway to not only Florence, but nearby Pisa, Cinque Terre and the region of Tuscany. We’d been twice prior. On our first visit, we did a guided tour of Florence. The second time we visited, we did a combo Florence and Pisa On Your Own tour. And this time? Just Florence. Because no matter how many times we’ve visited or how many hours we have on each visit, it’s never been enough. I’m not sure it ever could be.

Our tour was scheduled to meet in the Liquid Lounge at 7:40 AM, which meant an ungodly 6:00 AM wake up call (vacation what?!). On port days when the Lido Marketplace can get oppressively crowded, the Horizon also has a lesser known breakfast spot: Ocean Plaza. We picked up on it on the Vista and were pleased to find it on the Horizon, as well. The options may not be as expansive, but it covers all of the staples (eggs, meats, potatoes, baked goods, hot and cold cereals, yogurts and fruits) with none of the lines.

We booked our Florence On Your Own tour directly through the ship. We probably could have made our way into Florence by ourselves, but after our experience of doing Stockholm on our own the year before (losing out on time because our train was running so late, missing our intended train back because we couldn’t figure out how to get through the automated ticketing gates…as much as we travel, we definitely aren’t immune to those moments!), we just felt a little safer doing it through the ship. Our tickets noted a 7:40 AM departure time from the Liquid Lounge and we headed over around 7:20 AM, only to find a line that wrapped from the Liquid Lounge all the way back to the casino on Deck 4, and to be told that we were too early to enter the line. They did finally let us enter the line around 7:30 AM, and it moved quickly as we were handed our stickers and guided to the inside of the lounge to wait for our tour number to be called. We were escorted down the stairs from Deck 4 to Deck 0, scanned out and directed to meet our bus outside the terminal.

At the Port of Livorno, there are a handful of stalls inside the terminal building offering tours, car rentals and driver services, but not any shops. Just outside of there is where most tours will meet, and we quickly found our bus and waited for the rest of our group to follow suit. Our transfer to Florence was on a large, comfortable motor coach that was immaculately clean and even had a Nespresso machine onboard (which we didn’t get to use but still found it funny enough to note!). And we waited. And we waited. Our guide, Isadora, would function less of a guide and more of a host guiding us through our transfer and making sure we knew when we needed to meet back and where. Isadora made an announcement that 10 people were missing from the counts the ship had given her and the ship had not cleared us to depart as a result, and we ended up delayed by about a half hour as a result. I’m not sure where the other eight people were (or if they existed or cancelled), but two of them were sent onto the wrong tour bus by the Carnival Shore Excursions team and, well, needless to say, there were a few angry people on the bus that were upset that they were delayed. It’s unfortunate but not really a ton you can do about it, you know?

The drive to Florence from Livorno takes about an hour and a half, depending on traffic. Isadora gave highlights, directions and tips and I took a nap because bus motion makes me sleepy. When I woke up, we were crossing the Arno River, where the bus shortly thereafter would drop us off and Isadora led us on the short walk to the Piazza del Santa Croce, which would be the main site closest to our meeting point.

We were set free to explore on our own around 10:30 AM, and given a meeting time of 4:15 PM, giving us just under six hours to do whatever we wanted. We collectively had three priorities as a family: handbag shopping, photo snapping and pasta. And somehow, six hours didn’t feel like enough. Florence is a rabbit hole to my own proverbial wonderland. I hop in, my world shifts in a haze of people, art and the smell of tannin leather and I come out on the other side feeling like no time has passed at all.

The forecast for the day called for heavy rain, and we felt a few drops as we were leaving Piazza del Santa Croce, but after that, though the skies were dark and cloudy, not a single drop fell until we were leaving later in the afternoon. Incredibly fortuitous, too, because our plans for the day by and large involved wandering around outside. We could have booked tickets to the Uffizi Gallery or one of the many other museums, but whenever I’m in Florence, I just want to be in the presence of those larger than life monuments, and to feel that heavy set wonder.

We started the way we do every time we have free time in Florence: we pick a street, any street, and just start walking. The street we chose led us to the Piazza della Signoria and the Palazzo Vecchio, where a replica of Michelangelo’s David stands in the same place the original once stood. The square, though crowded in the traditional sense, was less so than we’ve seen it in the past, and if the weather was good for nothing else, it kept the crowds manageable for the day.

Nearby was the Loggia del Lanzi, an outdoor gallery featuring Renaissance-era sculptures, including my favorite, Cellini’s Persus with the Head of Medusa. Walking through the gallery is free of charge and no reservations are needed.

After the Palazzo Vecchio and the Loggia del Lanzi, we walked back towards the Arno River to see the Ponte Vecchio, considered by some to be the most beautiful bridge in the world. I’m more partial to the Golden Gate Bridge, but the Ponte Vecchio, with it’s colorful windows and stone archways, is such a beautiful site. One of these days, we might make it across the bridge, but this time, we just settled for admiring it from the banks of the river.

We crossed back towards the town, through the crowds in line at the Uffizi Gallery, until we reached my favorite spot in Florence, Il Duomo di Firenze and the Florence Cathedral. When I got home from our first trip to Florence, I came across a picture I took at the duomo, this big, imposing structure, and what struck me about it was just how small everyone looked in comparison to this big cathedral. In some ways, it reminded me of how small we all are to the world around us and the magnitude of the beauty within it. Every time I’m at the duomo, I just stand there and marvel at it. I stare. For minutes. I’d probably have been there for hours if Stephanie and Mom weren’t starving for lunch and telling me to wrap it up. It’s just so…big and elaborate and beautiful, and how fortunate was I to not only experience it once (let alone three times!), but to be able to revel in it and experience it in person at all?

The one thing we didn’t do right by Florence was adequately preparing a Google Map of places to eat or shop before we arrived, so as we left the duomo in search of lunch, we were randomly turning down streets to see what we’d find. This might be why we never have enough time in Florence – we never have an actual plan for Florence outside of planning for the time I’ll spend gawking in front of the duomo.

By the time we got to the Piazza della Repubblica, Stephanie was approaching hangry status and while I’m sure we could have found more authentic, more off the beaten path types of restaurants in a less traffic’ed area, there was still so much we wanted to do. We found a row of restaurants and told Stephanie she could choose whichever looked the best to her, which is how we ended up at Fiorino d’Oro, where we feasted on cappuccino, burrata, bruschetta, pastas and pizza. An Italian feast of bright colors and subtle flavors.

With the photo stops and lunch under our belts, we focused on our top priority for the day: shopping. Of all of the Italy ports we’d visited before, we knew Florence would be the best one for shopping, with deals on leather goods and textiles. I gave Mom permission to cut up my credit card if I tried to buy anything at Gucci or Louis Vuitton because I still haven’t unboxed the handbags I’ve bought on two of our previous three Europe trips (they just look so pretty in the boxes!). But I did want a new spring handbag and a leather backpack if I could find one. We made our way into at least half a dozen stores. I was disappointed that the merchandise we were finding wasn’t entirely different from what we found two years prior. I did find a new spring handbag. I couldn’t find a deal I couldn’t turn down on a backpack, but I still had plenty of ports ahead of me.

Somehow, we were approaching our meet up time and I didn’t know where the day went. One minute, we were getting dressed and riding on a bus, the next I was telling Mom to take in the fact that she was sitting in Florence eating pizza and the next, the day was drawing to a close. We started making our way back to Piazza del Santa Croce so we’d be near our meeting point and we just kind of meandered around, taking pictures, stopping in some more stores and enjoying some gelato (because it’s always gelato weather in Italy, even when it’s cold and rainy).

Our group met outside a large store that must have been affiliated with the ship or tour company because they offered free public restrooms and sold merchandise at a marked up price that they then gave several “discounts” on. The rain really started coming down as we walked back to the bus, and I swear the walk felt like it would never stop. By the end of it, I didn’t know where the hours in the day went and I didn’t feel like we accomplished a ton, but we’d walked over seven miles and between the walking, the cold and the rain, I wanted back on that bus. Otherwise, I’d just dwell in how much more I wanted to see instead of reveling in everything I had experienced. I’ll always want more of Florence, more time, more pictures, more of that delish spaghetti carbonara, because something about everything there inspires the kind of awe that I have trouble conjuring at home. I’ll stare at the Sears Tower or at the Museum Campus on my walk home from work every day and I feel like I don’t even see them sometimes. They’re just there. I go to Florence for a few hours and everything is live action poetry that I’ll wax on about until my next visit.

The drive back from Florence should have only taken an hour and a half, two hours max, but a terrible accident that killed four people shut down the highway. Thanks to the diligence of our driver and guide, they pulled us out of the traffic and onto an alternative route. It added an extra hour to our drive, but that was a drop in the bucket: the ship left 15 people in Florence who were on private tours and got stuck in traffic. And, listen, I’m not going to turn this into a private tour vs ships tour thing: we’ve done it both ways and there are certainly merits and drawbacks to both. No one should decide where they book their excursion from because the possibility exists that a car accident is going to kill a number of people and shut down the highway. It’s such a fringe possibility. That said, this was a reminder that these things do happen, and that if we do book privately and remove the safety net of having the ship wait for us, we should reconsider what a safe buffer looks like.

We were one of the last buses to pull up to Livorno, and I was so happy to see that the Horizon didn’t just open one gangway or two gangways, but three: one forward, one middle, one aft. Not only did this help ease crowding immensely, but it allowed us to choose the gangway closest to our room and board there. The walk back to the cabin from the gangway always feels like it takes forever, and having a gangway one deck below your room? That’s super convenient when you’ve had a long day.

We were absolutely famished by the time we got back to the room, so we were elated to see that our room had already been turned down for the evening. We dropped our bags on our beds, freshened up and headed up to deck five to check in for dinner. On the Horizon, instead of going to the dining room to get a table, if you have Your Time Dining, you’ll check in with a hostess in a booth off Ocean Plaza. I’ve heard that if you’re Platinum or Diamond, you can circumvent this and go directly to the dining room, but we’ve just always stopped on our way. There was no line to check in and we were assigned a private table in seconds before being directed downstairs to the dining room, where there was a line from the host stand all the way back to the staircase. The only downside to sailing on an inaugural cruise is that there are a ton of kinks that need to get worked out and those only settle with time. Our dining staff for the evening was efficient and friendly (and got our order 100% correct – a feat with how this family orders sometimes!), and the dining manager made the rounds to each table, personally apologizing for the missteps the first two nights. Since we’d dined at the specialty restaurants, we had no idea what he was referring to, but apparently, there were some pacing issues, as well as some food quality issues, by what we gathered from the ladies sitting at the table next to us. Thankfully, we faced no issues and and a really great first meal in the main dining room.

The ship left slightly behind schedule, as we were finishing our desserts and coffee. With no Playlist Show, deck party or any big organized activity, we headed out to the atrium to watch the Thriller Dance Lesson (where CD Mike made his Mom join the group and dance along with him!) and browse through some of the shops.

We called it an early evening, and I hate to say it because this ship is so beautiful and has so much to offer, and we were done for the evening by 10:00 PM. We’d get to explore every part of the ship as we moved away from the early morning wakeups. We had a number of sea days (and easy port days) ahead of us, and plenty of time to continue our getting to know you with the Horizon.