diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 2bc545c9f7..60c5d91aaa 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
  * Add the ability to disable bulk loading of SSTables (CASSANDRA-18781)
  * Clean up obsolete functions and simplify cql_version handling in cqlsh (CASSANDRA-18787)
 Merged from 5.0:
+ * Fix schema loading of UDTs inside vectors inside UDTs (CASSANDRA-18964)
  * Add cqlsh autocompletion for the vector data type (CASSANDRA-18946)
  * Fix nodetool tablehistograms output to avoid printing repeated information and ensure at most two arguments (CASSANDRA-18955)
  * Change the checksum algorithm SAI-related files use from CRC32 to CRC32C (CASSANDRA-18836)
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/CQL3Type.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/CQL3Type.java
index 6b8b97877d..304363ad1d 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/CQL3Type.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/CQL3Type.java
@@ -899,6 +899,12 @@ public interface CQL3Type
                 return true;
             }
 
+            @Override
+            public boolean referencesUserType(String name)
+            {
+                return element.referencesUserType(name);
+            }
+
             @Override
             public boolean supportsFreezing()
             {
diff --git a/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/validation/operations/CQLVectorTest.java b/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/validation/operations/CQLVectorTest.java
index 42daab6ada..3b361bd29c 100644
--- a/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/validation/operations/CQLVectorTest.java
+++ b/test/unit/org/apache/cassandra/cql3/validation/operations/CQLVectorTest.java
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ import org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.FloatType;
 import org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.Int32Type;
 import org.apache.cassandra.db.marshal.VectorType;
 import org.apache.cassandra.exceptions.InvalidRequestException;
+import org.apache.cassandra.schema.SchemaKeyspace;
 import org.apache.cassandra.transport.ProtocolVersion;
 import org.apache.cassandra.utils.ByteBufferUtil;
 import org.assertj.core.api.Assertions;
@@ -188,6 +189,22 @@ public class CQLVectorTest extends CQLTester.InMemory
                                   "INSERT INTO %s (pk, value) VALUES (0, ?)", vector("a", "b", "c"));
     }
 
+    @Test
+    public void sandwichBetweenUDTs()
+    {
+        schemaChange("CREATE TYPE cql_test_keyspace.b (y int);");
+        schemaChange("CREATE TYPE cql_test_keyspace.a (z vector<frozen<b>, 2>);");
+
+        // make sure types can be loaded back; see https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-18964
+        SchemaKeyspace.fetchNonSystemKeyspaces();
+
+        createTable("CREATE TABLE %s (pk int primary key, value a)");
+
+        execute("INSERT INTO %s (pk, value) VALUES (0, {z: [{y:1}, {y:2}]})");
+        assertRows(execute("SELECT * FROM %s"),
+                   row(0, userType("z", vector(userType("y", 1), userType("y", 2)))));
+    }
+
     @Test
     public void invalidElementTypeFixedWidth() throws Throwable
     {