Our Triumph-ant First Cruise!

Hello everyone! If I could get the world to stop rocking, I could probably get this review posted quicker. :p I will tell you up front that this may be a bit long. I will try to post some pictures later, but I'm still waiting for the DH to download them to the computer. This was our first cruise, on the Triumph (just in case you didn't get that from the title!). We did the Western Carribean route from Miami, with port stops in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Ocho Rios. Our sailing dates were 11-16 to 11-23. We had an absolutely fantastic time, and yes, I am now hooked! I told my husband I wanted to go to Disney for my 40th birthday, but now I'm rethinking. It's a tough decision! Cruising and Disney both have so many things going for them, it's hard to choose between them. And before anyone says, "Try a Disney Cruise!" that's not the answer either! I liked them each for thier own reasons, and would be very happy with either one. Guess we'll see what happens later next year! Anyway, on to the review!

A bit of back ground: I am 39, having celebrated a birthday on the ship. My DH is 38. A cruise is something my DH always wanted to do. I was always a bit hesitant as I don't really like boats. And let me say right now, if one person out there is thinking "It's a big boat and you don't even know you're on a boat." be warned, I may have to slap you silly! We had a ton of movement on our cruise! Even people with multiple cruises under their belts were saying how rocky the boat was. Happily, I can say it didn't bother me, other than the bruises from crashing into walls. My DH took to walking about 2 feet behind me since I kept crashing into him when we were walking. But, no nausea for me, yea! We don't have kids of our own, but took the cruise as practice, just in case we liked it and decided to bring our nieces and nephew along on the next one. At least that's what I told the hubby when I decided I liked crusing after all! We had booked this cruise in September of 2007, so we had a bit of a wait for it. Luckily, I found cruisecritic in May, and have spent lots of time here figuring out what's what. And a good thing too, since I knew what to expect in certain situations. I hate the stupid feeling you get when you're not quite sure what to do, and everyone here at cruisecritic prepared me so well I never had that feeling. So, thank you all!

Pre-cruise: Our original plan was to fly into FLL Saturday night and have a relaxing morning before the cruise. Thanks to Delta, that never happened! We were scheduled to leave from Bradley airport at 1700 hrs and got there around 1530. We checked in and went thru security. My DH had injured his knee at work on Thursday, and is now wearing a brace with metal. Can you tell where this is going? He set the metal detector off, and they had to send him to the bomb-proof room. In case any of you were wondering what that little glass box is between the metal detectors, it's the bomb-proof room. They sent in a TSA guy with a hand-held metal detector, and they checked the DH out pretty thoroughly, including swabbing his hands for bomb residue. I kid you not! This will happen everytime we go thru a metal detector for the rest of the trip. At about 1630 they gave us all our pink tags for gate-checking our carry-ons. The plane was too small to accomodate carry-ons in the passenger compartment, so they actually had to go under. We all sat back down, there were about 20 people flying. I noticed a woman check her cell phone, and then get up and start rampaging around. About a minute later, they announced that our flight was delayed by 3 hours, and would be getting us into JFK to late to make any connecting flight! We had the last flight out of the airport, so there was no way to make it out of here tonight! *****! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We get in line and change our flight to leaving Sunday morning at 0600, landing in FLL at 1130. So much for my relaxing morning! I did feel bad, since a few people were catching international flights that they had to make. One guy was flying to Santiago, Chile, and there wasn't another flight going there for 4 days. He and two guys going to Frankfurt, Germany and another guy going to Singapore ended up taking a taxi to JFK from Bradley to the tune of $325. Better than $80 a person, and Delta wouldn't pay for anything, taxis, hotels, nothing. I felt bad for them. Anyway, we cancelled our hotel in FLL, and thanks Choice Hotels for not charging us for the late cancellation! We then found the hotel in Bradley where we were originally going to stay before we decided to go early. They gave us a room with shuttle tranfers for $75. And they driver took us to some local places to eat as well, so it was OK. My sister had driven us to the aiport, so we didn't have a car. We decided to stay over rather than go back home since we would have had to leave our house at 0300 hrs. to get back in time for the flight. It just wasn't worth it. We still ended up getting up at 0400 to catch the shuttle to the airport, but it was an extra 90 minutes of sleep for us! We also had to call the car company and change everything around, going from a set pick up at the hotel to an airport transfer. What a pain in the neck, and other anatomical parts. We ended up at Friendly's for dinner, complete with ice cream, and headed to bed at about 2200. I had trouble sleeping, because I just kept thinking we should be in FLL, not CT! I finally fell asleep, only to have our wake-up call come in at 0400!

Day 1, The flight from He@* and embarkation: Finally our flight took off on time, a bit early actually, and we landed in Cincinnati just before 0800. Our next flight was scheduled to leave at 0900, and we boarded at 0830. At 0915, they announced we would have to de-ice, since it was snowing. We sat there for another 15 minutes, when they came back on and announced that there was a mechanical problem, and that we were pulling back into the gate to see if they could fix it. After another 40 minutes, they announced that the problem was fixed, and we were now going to de-ice. We finally took off at 1030, about 90 minutes late. The DH and I were starting to get a bit panicky now, since we knew we had about an hour drive to the port from the airport, and it was getting a bit tight for time. I had everything planned out perfectly, and these wretched airlines have ruined my plans! We were supposed to be sleeping in FLL, not flying around in broken planes! I just kept thinking that the car was supposed to pick us up at our hotel at 1030, after eating the nice hot breakfast included in our stay. That would have got us to the port at 1115 or so, and hopefully on board for lunch by 1300! AARRGGHH! My vaction is falling apart! We finally land in FLL at about 1250 and we bail to get our luggage. I checked my phone and found 2 messages from the car guy. The first said he saw we had been delayed, and would be waiting for our call when we got in. The second was him again, saying that he was hanging out at the airport so that we could get moving right away, since he knew time was tight! I called him back, told him we had one bag and were waiting for the other. He told me to go outside and stand directly under the Delta sign and he would be right there. Stress is setting in, our bag finally comes, and we run outside. A black town car pulls up, and drives right past us! Seriously, what is wrong here! As we are looking to the side to see if he is here for us, an awesome stretch Dodge Magnum limo pulls up right in front of us! The driver gets out, and asks if we are Tonya and Bill! I said yes, since the DH's jaw is on the ground now (he's a die-hard Mopar fan!) and he throws all our luggage in the back and off we go! He tells us there won't be a problem making it to the port on time, but that there will probably be a long line since it is so late. At this point, I don't care, as long as they let us in that line! As we're driving down, Alex is pointing out sights like Dolphin Stadium and Bayside. My DH is so intent on the car he doesn't hear a word the guy is saying. I'm glad something has finally gone our way, and the DH is in love with the car. The driver finally gets us to the port, and the line is out the door. We hand off our bags to the nice porter, along with a tip to ensure their safe arrival, and we stand in line. The good news is, we aren't the last ones here, so I guess it's OK now! We thread our way thru the building, and the DH once again gets stopped at the metal detector. They frisk him, much quicker than the airport guys, and send us on our way upstairs. The wait upstairs is lots shorter, as evidently deck 8 has already checked in, and there are only like 20 people in front of us in line. We finally get to the nice lady who checks our DLs and takes our CC. She hands us our pretty blue and red cards, and sends us up more stairs. One more line to get embarkation pictures taken, and we head out to the glass walkway leading to the ship. There's a bit more of a line, but it's moving steadily, so it's cool. While we are in line, I see a guy ahead of us turning around and looking weirdly at us. I'm thinking, now what, when he says, "Are you Tonya?" I said yes, and they introduced themselves as Jon and MaryJo, formerly known as ruggerhugger from my roll call! Now you are proabably wondering how they recognized me out of 3000 other people at embarkation. I had described our tattoos, since they are fairly obvious, and that was indeed what Jon recognized! Pretty observant of him. So, we got to talk to them for a bit while we headed thru the last lines, got on the ship, and headed into the lobby for the last picture for the s&s card. Since it was well after 1330 by this time, we said goodbye to Jon and MaryJo and headed up to our room, gawking like the tourists we were at everything! We were finally here, we weren't the last people on board, and had already met 2 super nice people! We were going cruisin'!

Well, it's late here, and I have to be back in at work at 0800 tomorrow. At least you know we made it! I have plenty more to tell you, if you want to know! See you later. Happy Thanksgiving all!

Hello everyone! If I could get the world to stop rocking, I could probably get this review posted quicker. :p I will tell you up front that this may be a bit long. I will try to post some pictures later, but I'm still waiting for the DH to download them to the computer. This was our first cruise, on the Triumph (just in case you didn't get that from the title!). We did the Western Carribean route from Miami, with port stops in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Ocho Rios. Our sailing dates were 11-16 to 11-23. We had an absolutely fantastic time, and yes, I am now hooked! I told my husband I wanted to go to Disney for my 40th birthday, but now I'm rethinking. It's a tough decision! Cruising and Disney both have so many things going for them, it's hard to choose between them. And before anyone says, "Try a Disney Cruise!" that's not the answer either! I liked them each for thier own reasons, and would be very happy with either one. Guess we'll see what happens later next year! Anyway, on to the review!

 

A bit of back ground: I am 39, having celebrated a birthday on the ship. My DH is 38. A cruise is something my DH always wanted to do. I was always a bit hesitant as I don't really like boats. And let me say right now, if one person out there is thinking "It's a big boat and you don't even know you're on a boat." be warned, I may have to slap you silly! We had a ton of movement on our cruise! Even people with multiple cruises under their belts were saying how rocky the boat was. Happily, I can say it didn't bother me, other than the bruises from crashing into walls. My DH took to walking about 2 feet behind me since I kept crashing into him when we were walking. But, no nausea for me, yea! We don't have kids of our own, but took the cruise as practice, just in case we liked it and decided to bring our nieces and nephew along on the next one. At least that's what I told the hubby when I decided I liked crusing after all! We had booked this cruise in September of 2007, so we had a bit of a wait for it. Luckily, I found cruisecritic in May, and have spent lots of time here figuring out what's what. And a good thing too, since I knew what to expect in certain situations. I hate the stupid feeling you get when you're not quite sure what to do, and everyone here at cruisecritic prepared me so well I never had that feeling. So, thank you all!

 

Pre-cruise: Our original plan was to fly into FLL Saturday night and have a relaxing morning before the cruise. Thanks to Delta, that never happened! We were scheduled to leave from Bradley airport at 1700 hrs and got there around 1530. We checked in and went thru security. My DH had injured his knee at work on Thursday, and is now wearing a brace with metal. Can you tell where this is going? He set the metal detector off, and they had to send him to the bomb-proof room. In case any of you were wondering what that little glass box is between the metal detectors, it's the bomb-proof room. They sent in a TSA guy with a hand-held metal detector, and they checked the DH out pretty thoroughly, including swabbing his hands for bomb residue. I kid you not! This will happen everytime we go thru a metal detector for the rest of the trip. At about 1630 they gave us all our pink tags for gate-checking our carry-ons. The plane was too small to accomodate carry-ons in the passenger compartment, so they actually had to go under. We all sat back down, there were about 20 people flying. I noticed a woman check her cell phone, and then get up and start rampaging around. About a minute later, they announced that our flight was delayed by 3 hours, and would be getting us into JFK to late to make any connecting flight! We had the last flight out of the airport, so there was no way to make it out of here tonight! *****! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We get in line and change our flight to leaving Sunday morning at 0600, landing in FLL at 1130. So much for my relaxing morning! I did feel bad, since a few people were catching international flights that they had to make. One guy was flying to Santiago, Chile, and there wasn't another flight going there for 4 days. He and two guys going to Frankfurt, Germany and another guy going to Singapore ended up taking a taxi to JFK from Bradley to the tune of $325. Better than $80 a person, and Delta wouldn't pay for anything, taxis, hotels, nothing. I felt bad for them. Anyway, we cancelled our hotel in FLL, and thanks Choice Hotels for not charging us for the late cancellation! We then found the hotel in Bradley where we were originally going to stay before we decided to go early. They gave us a room with shuttle tranfers for $75. And they driver took us to some local places to eat as well, so it was OK. My sister had driven us to the aiport, so we didn't have a car. We decided to stay over rather than go back home since we would have had to leave our house at 0300 hrs. to get back in time for the flight. It just wasn't worth it. We still ended up getting up at 0400 to catch the shuttle to the airport, but it was an extra 90 minutes of sleep for us! We also had to call the car company and change everything around, going from a set pick up at the hotel to an airport transfer. What a pain in the neck, and other anatomical parts. We ended up at Friendly's for dinner, complete with ice cream, and headed to bed at about 2200. I had trouble sleeping, because I just kept thinking we should be in FLL, not CT! I finally fell asleep, only to have our wake-up call come in at 0400!

 

Day 1, The flight from He@* and embarkation: Finally our flight took off on time, a bit early actually, and we landed in Cincinnati just before 0800. Our next flight was scheduled to leave at 0900, and we boarded at 0830. At 0915, they announced we would have to de-ice, since it was snowing. We sat there for another 15 minutes, when they came back on and announced that there was a mechanical problem, and that we were pulling back into the gate to see if they could fix it. After another 40 minutes, they announced that the problem was fixed, and we were now going to de-ice. We finally took off at 1030, about 90 minutes late. The DH and I were starting to get a bit panicky now, since we knew we had about an hour drive to the port from the airport, and it was getting a bit tight for time. I had everything planned out perfectly, and these wretched airlines have ruined my plans! We were supposed to be sleeping in FLL, not flying around in broken planes! I just kept thinking that the car was supposed to pick us up at our hotel at 1030, after eating the nice hot breakfast included in our stay. That would have got us to the port at 1115 or so, and hopefully on board for lunch by 1300! AARRGGHH! My vaction is falling apart! We finally land in FLL at about 1250 and we bail to get our luggage. I checked my phone and found 2 messages from the car guy. The first said he saw we had been delayed, and would be waiting for our call when we got in. The second was him again, saying that he was hanging out at the airport so that we could get moving right away, since he knew time was tight! I called him back, told him we had one bag and were waiting for the other. He told me to go outside and stand directly under the Delta sign and he would be right there. Stress is setting in, our bag finally comes, and we run outside. A black town car pulls up, and drives right past us! Seriously, what is wrong here! As we are looking to the side to see if he is here for us, an awesome stretch Dodge Magnum limo pulls up right in front of us! The driver gets out, and asks if we are Tonya and Bill! I said yes, since the DH's jaw is on the ground now (he's a die-hard Mopar fan!) and he throws all our luggage in the back and off we go! He tells us there won't be a problem making it to the port on time, but that there will probably be a long line since it is so late. At this point, I don't care, as long as they let us in that line! As we're driving down, Alex is pointing out sights like Dolphin Stadium and Bayside. My DH is so intent on the car he doesn't hear a word the guy is saying. I'm glad something has finally gone our way, and the DH is in love with the car. The driver finally gets us to the port, and the line is out the door. We hand off our bags to the nice porter, along with a tip to ensure their safe arrival, and we stand in line. The good news is, we aren't the last ones here, so I guess it's OK now! We thread our way thru the building, and the DH once again gets stopped at the metal detector. They frisk him, much quicker than the airport guys, and send us on our way upstairs. The wait upstairs is lots shorter, as evidently deck 8 has already checked in, and there are only like 20 people in front of us in line. We finally get to the nice lady who checks our DLs and takes our CC. She hands us our pretty blue and red cards, and sends us up more stairs. One more line to get embarkation pictures taken, and we head out to the glass walkway leading to the ship. There's a bit more of a line, but it's moving steadily, so it's cool. While we are in line, I see a guy ahead of us turning around and looking weirdly at us. I'm thinking, now what, when he says, "Are you Tonya?" I said yes, and they introduced themselves as Jon and MaryJo, formerly known as ruggerhugger from my roll call! Now you are proabably wondering how they recognized me out of 3000 other people at embarkation. I had described our tattoos, since they are fairly obvious, and that was indeed what Jon recognized! Pretty observant of him. So, we got to talk to them for a bit while we headed thru the last lines, got on the ship, and headed into the lobby for the last picture for the s&s card. Since it was well after 1330 by this time, we said goodbye to Jon and MaryJo and headed up to our room, gawking like the tourists we were at everything! We were finally here, we weren't the last people on board, and had already met 2 super nice people! We were going cruisin'!

 

Well, it's late here, and I have to be back in at work at 0800 tomorrow. At least you know we made it! I have plenty more to tell you, if you want to know! See you later. Happy Thanksgiving all!

Great to hear you got back ok. I have been waiting for your review and those Pics of "OUR" cabin #8430..:D Get some sleep and I will check back tomorrow.. Welcome Home..:)..Kurt.

great review so far. So sorry to hear about your flight woes. we are cruising on the Triumph in Jan. and I cant wait to read the rest of your review including reviews of the ports. Thanks, and hurry back! Happy Thanksgiving!

Did someone say Review or Photo's ? :D ;)

Sorry Jailer, the day at work yesterday got a bit hectic, and then trying to get to 2 families for the holiday made things a bit tight for time. I still am working on getting our pictures up, but I will continue with the review!

Day 1, continued: Well, we made it! The boat was beautiful, lots of colors and things to look at. Some people call her tacky, but I found her pretty awesome. Nothing is plain, there are little things all over to notice. We were first off amazed at how big the ship really is! I think seeing pictures doesn't give you quite the scale to appreciate the size! We had checked everything but a back-pack, since we weren't really interested in swimming once we got on-board. Which turned out to be a good thing, since the pools weren't open anyway. This would turn out to bit a bit of a recurring theme for the cruise. It didn't bother us, I never planned on using them anyway! You enter the ship on Deck 3 right into the atrium. There are two sets of glass stairs that go up, and we headed up after taking a few photos. Our cabin was 8430, an aft balcony. We climbed up several sets of stairs, which we took on purpose. After reaching deck 8, we headed all the way aft to find our room. My DH had ordered the birthday decor for the room, so as soon as we entered we were surrounded by blue and red stars and streamers. It was very festive. I'm assuming this is a typical room. It was peachy colored, right down to the couch. The bed was made together into a king, and it was so comfortable! This cabin only sleeps 2, there are no bunks. I had ordered the soda cooler and 2 chocolate ships to be in the room at embarkation, and they were there. The TV was on and tuned to one of the ship's stations. We absolutely loved this room! But, we were starving, so left our back-pack, but grabbed our camera and headed off to the Lido deck. We simply walked up to the stairway and up one flight and came out right in the middle of the South Beach buffet area. The aft pool was straight ahead, (technically to the back, but since the stairs loop once, you come out facing the back of the ship). We decided based on smell alone that we wanted burgers and fries. The DH and I have been doing Weight Watchers for almost 8 months, and had managed to lose 94 and 91 pounds respectively, and this cruise turned out to be a real challenge, mostly because neither of us have any will power! I can see how they say the average weight gain is 7 to 10 pounds! Anyway, I grabbed a cheeseburger with fries, the DH got a minute steak, we slathered them with grilled onions and mushrooms and found a table right by the grill to eat. We drink mostly water and iced tea at home, and this cruise would prove no different. We bought a few sodas, and had 4 drinks all week, starting with a fun-ship special with lunch! I wanted some of the souvenier cups to take home for the kids (nieces and nephew) so had to have a few drinks to get enough! The burgers come with tomato, lettuce, raw onions, and a big slice of deli pickle to the side. I gave my tomato to the DH and slapped the rest on, with a bit of mayo as glue. Most of the tables had salt and pepper shakers, as well as ketchup, but I did have a few rough times finding mustard. It was cool tho, I can live without it. My DH absolutely CAN NOT live without ketchup, so I was glad it was on the tables and we didn't have to chase it out of a dispenser. He has a tendency to eat a LOT of ketchup! We also enjoyed two slightly lopsided chocolate low-fat yogurt cones. I am not a successful ice-cream cone maker. :D Mine were always lopsided and not very pretty. Still tasted good! After lunch, we walked around the lido and higher decks to see what was what. The putt putt area was grooving already, and there was music playing and lots of excitement! It was quite catchy too. Pretty soon, they started announcing that we would be sailing away after our muster drill, and that we needed to get our life jackets and head towards our respective meeting areas. They did give a listing over the loudspeakers, but we headed back to our cabin and read where it was posted. There are also signs in the hallways that give you your letter and meeting spot. We waited a few minutes, and headed down. There were crew members in bright green hats everywhere ready to point you in the right direction. We met on the 4th deck to the aft and port side. I don't remember being by any bar or lounge, just kind of off to the side. It was a bit hot, and we ended up being in the back row, but there were only two rows of people, so it wasn't bad. Pretty soon, the ship's horn blasted out 7 short notes and one long one. This is the signal that We Have A Problem Houston. The drill went pretty quick, they explained how to put the jacket on and what number of lifeboats we were to use. There weren't many kids on board, I think I saw 4 in our muster area. All the kids wear colored wrist bands to indicate their muster area. They explained how an evacuation would happen and how the kids would be brought there or taken to another raft if there was no one there to take responsibility. I could see some people were really worried about this happening, but I figured the chances of this boat sinking were pretty small. I mean, really, how many cruises has she been on safely? I know this drill is required by USCG standards, but to me it only made people nervous. I doubt if the ship was evacuating that anyone would actually remember to proceed calmly, DO NOT RUN, to your muster station with your life jacket in hand. Just my opinion. Oh yea, you can't use the elevators during the muster drill, so be prepared for the stairs! They did get crowded. We headed back to our room, dropped off our lifejackets, and headed up to the Lido for sailaway. It was scheduled for 1600, but it was about 1630 that we noticed we were moving. The Norwegian Jewel, which was behind us, had left, they were backed into their dock so just pulled forward, but we were facing upwards. We did see the Valor sail past us, and then we pulled away from the dock. We went upstream to turn around, passing one of RCCL (I think) ships. In no time at all, we were turned around and heading out to sea! WOO HOO, it is really starting now! We watched for a while, but it was too croded for our taste, so we headed back to the cabin and enjoyed our own sail away from there. We got some good pictures of Miami, and finally an awesome sunset picture. We went inside and decided to take a bit of a nap. We had late dinner (2015) in London DR, so decided to get up around 1945 to get ready. We hadn't planned on changing for dinner, since it is casual the first night. While we were on the balcony, we had heard a noise in the hallway, so went to see what it was. Our luggage was all there, and it was only 1720! Very exciting! We drug it in, put everything away, and stowed our luggage under the beds. There is plenty of room to put stuff away. We each had our own drawer and closet, then shared another drawer. Our dirty laundry we put in the closet with the safe and life jackets. We had one slight problem, when we went to access the safe, it was closed, so we had to call someone to open it for us. They were there in no time, so we did end up napping from 1800 to about 1930. It was refreshing, and I'm not sure we would have made it the rest of the night without that nap! It was now time to head up for our first dinner. We had table 169 in lower London. I was very happy to see it was a table for 8! We wanted to sit at a table with other people in order to have that real cruise experience. We were the first there, but it was OK. Two other couples soon showed up, and the other two seats stayed empty the rest of the time. Jim and Diana were from Seattle, he's a retired shool teacher and she owns a printing shop. Luis and Christina were from New Hampshire via Brazil. He's a pastor, she works in a dental office. Both couples were celebrating anniversaries on board, Jim and Diana had their second, and Luis and Christina had their 25th! Our head waiter was Hengke from Indonesia and Siwa from Cambodia. Hengke was awesome, Siwa was pretty quiet, but very attentive. They really made our dining experince wonderful! We did eat in the dining room every night, and enjoyed it very much. For all you people out there who skip the DR because they don't want to dress up, you are losing out on a wonderful experience! Grab a nicer T-shirt and head up. Nice shorts are OK now, and we saw a few. Honestly, I hardly noticed what other people were wearing. Who cares anyway? I can't believe some of the other reviews I've read, where people were offended by the clothing other people wore to dinner. Get over it! Did it really affect the taste of the food, or the excellent service you received? I couldn't have cared less it they came to dinner naked! I just wanted to eat my dinner and enjoy being waited on! Really! Anyways, Hengke explained that he would take our orders for starters and entrees, then come back for dessert orders. He did tell us to order as much as we wanted, and to try new things. He never reccomended anything unless specifically asked. For starters that night, I had a tropical fruit plat adn DH had a heart of iceburg lettuce with tomato and zucchini fritters. We also split chicken tenders with marinated cucmbers. The fruit was a bit of a let down, I was expecting Tropical fruits, you know; papaya, mango, etc. I got cantelope, honeydew, orange, grapefruit, a strawberry, a grape (!), 2 slices of kiwi and a slice of pineapple. It was good, but not what I considered "Tropical." Honestly, the regular fruit plate wasn't that much different. The DH said his stuff was good, the fritters were just big pieces of fried veggies, which he liked with the ranch dressing. The marinated cucmbers were a bit weird, but the tenders were yummy. For our entrees, I had Chicken a la Grecque and the DH had a NY strip steak. The chicken came in a marinara sauce with artichokes and was quite delish! DH said the steak was cooked well, and he liked the creamy peas, but said the mac n' cheese was just OK. For dessert, we decided to split 3 between us. We had our first of several Warm Chocolate Melting Cakes (WCMC), vanilla creme brulee, and a chocolate cherry gateau. The WCMC was awesome, the gateau was good, and the creme brulee was a disappointment. It didn't have much flavor, and was a bit soupy. We didn't end up finshing it, even split between us. Just lacked something, and needed to be cooked a bit more. Other than that, we were very happy with our first night's dinner. Yes, the portions are not quite what as large as us Americans are used to, but they are certainly adequate. And if you're still hungry, order something else, or hit the pizza place afterwards! There is so much food available to you all the time, I can't imagine anyone saying they were hungry! After dinner, we headed to the Rome lounge for the Welcome Aboard show. I forgot my capers at home, so I'll have to check the name of the comedien, but he was only OK. I think they offered a late showing with him doing an adult-only show, but we really weren't interested in seeing it. The dancers were awesome, the costumes are a bit risque for kids, but the DH sure appreciated them! :D I've read other reviews that say the dancers aren't great, and I have one thing to say. Can you do better? No, they weren't the Rockettes, but they were good. As the cruise progressed, and the boat was a rockin, they didn't fall over while spinning on one foot, which truly amazed me. We really enjoyed the shows, and thought the dancers did awesome jobs! . By this time, it was headin towards midnight, we had been up for about 20 hours, minus that little nap, and we were exhausted. We headed back to our room, (about as far from the Rome lounge as you can get!), took showers, and went to bed. BTW, these beds are extremely comfortable, and with the rocking of the boat, we slept like babies the whole week. All in all, a very happy start to our first cruise! Truthfully, we were just happy to be on board! I don't think anything could have ruined our cruise at this point! Or could it? to be continued......

Sorry Jailer, the day at work yesterday got a bit hectic, and then trying to get to 2 families for the holiday made things a bit tight for time. I still am working on getting our pictures up, but I will continue with the review!

 

Day 1, continued: Well, we made it! The boat was beautiful, lots of colors and things to look at. Some people call her tacky, but I found her pretty awesome. Nothing is plain, there are little things all over to notice. We were first off amazed at how big the ship really is! I think seeing pictures doesn't give you quite the scale to appreciate the size! We had checked everything but a back-pack, since we weren't really interested in swimming once we got on-board. Which turned out to be a good thing, since the pools weren't open anyway. This would turn out to bit a bit of a recurring theme for the cruise. It didn't bother us, I never planned on using them anyway! You enter the ship on Deck 3 right into the atrium. There are two sets of glass stairs that go up, and we headed up after taking a few photos. Our cabin was 8430, an aft balcony. We climbed up several sets of stairs, which we took on purpose. After reaching deck 8, we headed all the way aft to find our room. My DH had ordered the birthday decor for the room, so as soon as we entered we were surrounded by blue and red stars and streamers. It was very festive. I'm assuming this is a typical room. It was peachy colored, right down to the couch. The bed was made together into a king, and it was so comfortable! This cabin only sleeps 2, there are no bunks. I had ordered the soda cooler and 2 chocolate ships to be in the room at embarkation, and they were there. The TV was on and tuned to one of the ship's stations. We absolutely loved this room! But, we were starving, so left our back-pack, but grabbed our camera and headed off to the Lido deck. We simply walked up to the stairway and up one flight and came out right in the middle of the South Beach buffet area. The aft pool was straight ahead, (technically to the back, but since the stairs loop once, you come out facing the back of the ship). We decided based on smell alone that we wanted burgers and fries. The DH and I have been doing Weight Watchers for almost 8 months, and had managed to lose 94 and 91 pounds respectively, and this cruise turned out to be a real challenge, mostly because neither of us have any will power! I can see how they say the average weight gain is 7 to 10 pounds! Anyway, I grabbed a cheeseburger with fries, the DH got a minute steak, we slathered them with grilled onions and mushrooms and found a table right by the grill to eat. We drink mostly water and iced tea at home, and this cruise would prove no different. We bought a few sodas, and had 4 drinks all week, starting with a fun-ship special with lunch! I wanted some of the souvenier cups to take home for the kids (nieces and nephew) so had to have a few drinks to get enough! The burgers come with tomato, lettuce, raw onions, and a big slice of deli pickle to the side. I gave my tomato to the DH and slapped the rest on, with a bit of mayo as glue. Most of the tables had salt and pepper shakers, as well as ketchup, but I did have a few rough times finding mustard. It was cool tho, I can live without it. My DH absolutely CAN NOT live without ketchup, so I was glad it was on the tables and we didn't have to chase it out of a dispenser. He has a tendency to eat a LOT of ketchup! We also enjoyed two slightly lopsided chocolate low-fat yogurt cones. I am not a successful ice-cream cone maker. :D Mine were always lopsided and not very pretty. Still tasted good! After lunch, we walked around the lido and higher decks to see what was what. The putt putt area was grooving already, and there was music playing and lots of excitement! It was quite catchy too. Pretty soon, they started announcing that we would be sialing away after our muster drill, and that we needed to get our life jackets and head towards our respective meeting areas. They did give a listing over the loudspeakers, but we headed back to our cabin and read where it was posted. There are also signs in the hallways that give you your letter and meeting spot. We waited a few minutes, and headed down. There were crew memebers in bright green hats everywhere ready to point you in the right direction. We met on the 4th deck to the aft and port side. I don't remember being by any bar or lounge, just kind of off to the side. It was a bit hot, and we ended up being in the back row, but there were only two rows of people, so it wasn't bad. Pretty soon, the ship's horn blasted out 7 short notes and one long one. This is the signal that We Have A Problem Houston. The drill went pretty quick, they explained how to put the jacket on and what number of lifeboats wew were to use. There weren't many kids on board, I think I saw 4 in our muster area. All the kids wear colored wrist bands to indicate their muster area. They explained how an evacuation would happen and how the kids would be brought there or taken to another raft if there was no one there to take responsibility. I could see some poeple were really worried about this happeneing, but I figured the chances of this boat sinking were pretty small. I mean, really, how many cruises has she been on safely? I know this is required by USCG standards, but to me it only made people nervous. I doubt if the ship was evacuating that anyone would actually remember to proceed calmly, DO NOT RUN, to your muster station with your life jacket in hand. Just my opinion. Oh yea, you can't use the elevators during the muster drill, so be prepared for the stairs! They did get crowded. We headed back to our room, dropped off our lifejackets, and headed up to the Lido for sailawy. It was scheduled for 1600, but it was about 1630 that we noticed we were moving. The Norwegian Jewel, which was behind us, had left, they were abcked into their dock so just pulled forward, but we were facing upwards. We did see the Valor sail past us, and then we pulled away from the dock. We went upstream to turn around, passing one of RCCL (I think) ships. In no time at all, we were turned around and heading out to sea! WOO HOO, it is really starting now! We watched for a while, but it was too croded for our taste, so we headed back to the cabin and enjoyed our own sail away from there. We got some good pictures of Miami, and finally an awesome sunset picture. We went inside and decided to take a bit of a nap. We had late dinner (2015) in London DR, so decided to get up around 1945 to get ready. We hadn't planned on changing for dinner, since it is casual the first night. While we were on the deck, we had heard a noise in the hallway, so went to see what it was. Our luggage was all there, and it was only 1720! Very exciting! We drug it in, put everything away, and stowed our luggage under the beds. There is plenty of room to put stuff away. We each had our own drawer and closet, then shared another drawer. Our dirty laundry we put in the closet with the safe and life jackets. We had one slight problem, when we went to access the safe, it was closed, so we had to call someone to open it for us. They were there in no time, so we did end up napping from 1800 to about 1930. It was refreshing, and I'm not sure we would have made it the rest of the night without that nap! It was now time to head up for our first dinner. We had table 169 in lower London. I was very happy to see it was a table for 8! We wanted to sit at a table with other people in order to have that real cruise experience. We were the first there, but it was OK. Two other couples soon showed up, and the other two seats stayed empty the rest of the time. Jim and Diana were from Seattle, he's a retired shool teacher and she owns a printing shop. Luis and Christina were from New Hampshire via Brazil. He's a pastor, she works in a dental office. Both couples were celebrating anniversaries on board, Jim and Diana had their second, and Luis and Christina had their 25th! Our head waiter was Hengke from Indonesia and Siwa from Cambodia. Hengke was awesome, Siwa was pretty quiet, but very attentive. They really made our dining experince wonderful! We did eat in the dining room every night, and enjoyed it very much. For all you people out there who skip the DR because they don't want to dress up, you are losing out on a wonderful experience! Grab a nicer T-shirt and head up. Nice shorts are OK now, and we saw a few. Honestly, I hardly noticed what other people were wearing. Who cares anyway? I can't believe some of the other reviews I've read, where people were offended by the clothing other people wore to dinner. Get over it! Did it really affect the taste of the food, or the excellent service you received? I couldn't have cared less it they came to dinner naked! I just wanted to eat my dinner and enjoy being waited on! Really! Anyways, Hengke explained that he would take our orders for starters and entrees, then come back for dessert orders. He did tell us to order as much as we wanted, and to try new things. He never reccomended anything unless specifically asked. For starters that night, I had a tropical fruit plat adn DH had a heart of iceburg lettuce with tomato and zucchini fritters. We also split chicken tenders with marinated cucmbers. The fruit was a bit of a let down, I was expecting Tropical fruits, you know; papaya, mango, etc. I got cantelope, honeydew, orange, grapefruit, a strawberry, a grape (!), 2 slices of kiwi and a slice of pineapple. It was good, but not what I considered "Tropical." Honestly, the regular fruit plate wasn't that much different. The DH said his stuff was good, the fritters were just big pieces of fried veggies, which he liked with the ranch dressing. The marinated cucmbers were a bit weird, but the tenders were yummy. For our entrees, I had Chicken a la Grecque and the DH had a NY strip steak. The chicken came in a marinara sauce with artichikes and was quite delish! DH said the steak was cooked well, and he liked the creamy peas, but said the mac n' cheese was just OK. For dessert, we decided to split 3 between us. We had our first of several Warm Chocolate Melting Cakes (WCMC), vailla creme brulee, and a chocolate cherry gateau. The WCMC was awesome, the gateau was good, and the creme brulee was a disappointment. It didn't have much flavor, and was a bit soupy. We didn't end up finshing it, even split between us. Just lacked something, and needed to be cooked a bit more. Other than that, we were very happy with our first night's dinner. Yes, the portions are not quite what as large as us Americans are used to, but they are certainly adequate. And if you're still hungry, order something else, or hit the pizza place afterwards! There is so much food available to you all the time, I can't imagine anyone saying they were hungry! After dinner, we headed to the Rome lounge for the Welcome Aboard show. I forgot my capers at home, so I'll have to check the name of the comedien, but he was only OK. I think they offered a late showing with him doing an adult-only show, but we really weren't interested in seeing it. The dancers were awesome, the costumes are a bit risque for kids, but the DH sure appreciated them! :D I've read other reviews that say the dancers aren't great, and I have one thing to say. Can you do better? No, they weren't the Rockettes, but they were good. As the cruise progressed, and the boat was a rockin, they didn't fall over while spinning on one foot, which truly amazed me. We really enjoyed the shows, and thought the dancers did awesome jobs! . By this time, it was headin towards midnight, we had been up for about 20 hours, minus that little nap, and we were exhausted. We headed back to our room, (about as far from the Rome lounge as you can get!), took showers, and went to bed. BTW, these beds are extremely comfortable, and with the rocking of the boat, we slept like babies the whole week. All in all, a very happy start to our first cruise! Truthfully, we were just happy to be on board! I don't think anything could have ruined our cruise at this point! Or could it? to be continued......

I'll be here and waiting .. Photos P L E A S E :D ;) :D And Thanks again for your time on this..:D

oohhhh I can't wait for more! We sail in 8 days....we are sooooo excited!:D

Just in case you were looking for your Thread ! ;) :D

OK, I've been uploading photos to webshots. Gonna try a photo here. Let's see if it works. Then I'll add some more. My battery died about half way thru, so got to find the extra, then will be able to do the rest. But for now, let's see if the picture of the limo come out!

URL=http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2682175240104454228ihCDtg][/url]

see if this works

Trying some more.

Here's the Triumph in Miami

And here is where you come in through the Atrium

Here is another picture of the Atrium from up a few decks

Here is a picture of our floor plan. They are posted in all the staircases in case you get lost. The layout is a bit confusing. They don't really show how to get from place to lace, since it doesn't show which hallways actaully go all the way through. Navigation will prove somewhat tricky through out the whole cruise.

Here's a picture of my DH, Bill in front of our door. Jailer, I know I have your attention. Pictures of the room coming up next!

I think I'm getting the hang of this! Takes a bit of time. I'll try to catch up pictures of the first day, then I'll add them into the review as I go. Thanks for taking the time to read this! I appreciate any feedback, and will answer any questions. Feel free to comment!

:D:D UHH !! Don't STOP NOW !! :eek: :D

So, here are some pictures of the room. This is just as you come in from the hallway. This room is all the way aft and port. The only thing more port-side is a 9A wrap.

Here's a better picture of the bed. You may notice the protector is off already. I admit I forgot to take pictures of the room before hand, I was a bit distracted by the room decorations.

Here is a picture of the balcony door and window. When the curtain is back and the sun is out, it makes the room very bright, and HOT! Thank someone for air conditioning. Closing the curtain significantly reduces the heat level. I can see this being much more of a problem in July or August. It never made the room unbearable, but is was also in the high 70's when we travelled.

Here is a picture of one chair on the balcony. We had two chairs and a small table, and used about 1/3 of the available deck space. It was truly huge! You could have a party out there and not feel crowded.

Here is another picture of the balcony. There is enough space on both sides of the door to put both chairs on either side of it, taking advantage of the shade to sit out there. You can also see the connecting balcony door behind me. We did notice that you couldn't open all the connectors, for example the divider between us and the aft-wrap, and the door between the second and third aft rooms. I guess it's something to think about if you are doing multiple rooms on the aft of the ship.

Here is a picture of the sitting area by the mirror and the drawers and stuff. You can see we have already unpacked, please ignore our water!

We had the floor plan down by the second day. To get to the Oxford lounge and Paris dining room you just walk all the way to the back of deck five by the lounges, then go down a flight or two.

Here's a picture of the couch. Nothing special, but the thing I found pretty cool was the little reading light right over it. They were on the head of the bed too, and you could shut the lights off right from the headboard! I thought that was an awesome touch, since it meant not having to go through the room in the dark!

Here are a few pictures of Miami, taken from our balcony and up on the Lido deck. Can't remember which are which, sorry! This picture we took for Bill's brother, since it is the street that shows up in Grand Theft Auto Miami, which is one of his favorite games!

And just a few more for good measure!

Here is a picture of the Carnival Valor leaving Miami before us. The Norwegian Jewel was backed in behind us, but all the other ships had to go up to a turn-around and, well, turn around. We left just after the Valor, and the Freedom of the Seas must have left after us.

OK guys, that's it for now. I have to actually try and do some work here. I'll come back later and post some more pictures of the ship that we took while walking around. It makes me smile to look at all these pictures again, and I watched a slide show of all my pictures 3 times on Thursday!

Thanks very much for the photo's of the cabin !! :D I am cruising in August so the heat factor is something I need to consider. I will either keep this cabin or take a 8E Forward Deck 10 Panorama Balcony as that would be a ALOT more convenient to the Deck 11 kids club that we will be using often.. Deck 10 also sounds like a very quiet location as well as their are few cabins up there. Was their a breeze at all in the Balcony ? Most say not unless it's the wrap arounds ? How bad was the motion back ther ? I know you wrote that you were swaying a bit when you got back. :D I have to decide soon as there are still some nice Panorama End balcony's midship still open with just one neighbor by the front sliding doors to the outside pool deck.. If you were a custody dad traveling with a 9 year old "Little man" which would you take as you just got off that ship :D ? Thanks again for the great photo's and review. I can't wait to read and see the rest..:)

Enjoying your detailed review!!

We sailed on the Triumph, two years in a row.... on the very same itinerary!! Will be looking forward to your adventure!

Catrin

I'm so excited to read about your trip! I have never cruised before either and we're looking at the Triumph as a possible cruise - I can't wait to hear about your experience and your pictures are fantastic! Keep 'em coming! :D

Good morning everyone! Downloading the second half of our trip photos to webshots today. This is rather time consuming, but does make for an awesome review! My computer isn't the fastest thing on the earth either, so I need to be patient. I've got about 240 pictures to put up there. I'll link to all the photos at the end, that way if you want to see them, you can take a peek.

Jailer, I don't know that I'm the one to ask about this cabin being good for you or not. It is pretty far from Camp Carnival, but very close to Lido deck. We enjoyed it, but we are going to look into a different balcony for our next cruise. We tried the aft, now we want to try a regular balcony to see the difference, especially with the price difference now. When we booked, this cabin was an 8C, now it's an 8I. Significant monetary difference! I do think that the room would be HOT in August, especially on the deck. But if you like that kind of thing, go for it. I will say the room was very quiet, little to no noise from other people, and very minimal noise from the Lido. We usually slept thru it, and only heard it if we were actually awake. I really liked the room, but I'm not sure it's worth the extra money. Of course, I've got nothing to comapre it too, which is why I must book another cruise!:p

Good morning everyone! Downloading the second half of our trip photos to webshots today. This is rather time consuming, but does make for an awesome review! My computer isn't the fastest thing on the earth either, so I need to be patient. I've got about 240 pictures to put up there. I'll link to all the photos at the end, that way if you want to see them, you can take a peek.

 

Jailer, I don't know that I'm the one to ask about this cabin being good for you or not. It is pretty far from Camp Carnival, but very close to Lido deck. We enjoyed it, but we are going to look into a different balcony for our next cruise. We tried the aft, now we want to try a regular balcony to see the difference, especially with the price difference now. When we booked, this cabin was an 8C, now it's an 8I. Significant monetary difference! I do think that the room would be HOT in August, especially on the deck. But if you like that kind of thing, go for it. I will say the room was very quiet, little to no noise from other people, and very minimal noise from the Lido. We usually slept thru it, and only heard it if we were actually awake. I really liked the room, but I'm not sure it's worth the extra money. Of course, I've got nothing to comapre it too, which is why I must book another cruise!:p

Thanks Again !! :)

Ok everyone! I'm back, but only for a short bit. We are heading out for dinner with some friends for their daughter's first birthday! She's so cute! Now that I have everything downloaded, this should go lots quicker!

Here are some photos of the ship. These are the aft hot tubs. These are pretty much right above the hallway in front of our room.

This is the pool, which you can see is closed. There are only two pools on the boat, except for the little wading pool for Camp Carnival, and it was tough to find them all open on the same day. Didn't bother me, I hadn't planned on using them anyway. I saved my salt water swimming for excursions!

Here are some pictures of the casino. It is obviously not open. It's only open when the ship is at sea. Laws about gambling, ya know! Our lucky black- jack table will be the first one to the left.

Here is the Casino bar, called the World Bar. Interestingly enough, they did lots of karaoke here. There was also this guy, Jacques aka Mr Music, who played synthesizer music a few hours a day. My DH kept calling him Michael Mann. He's the guy who did all the synthesizer music for Miami Vice back in the 80's.

This is a picture of the mid-ship Lido deck, including the new big screen! I was looking forward to it, and I don't think we sat down once to see anything. They played some OK concerts, but nothing we really listen to. The movies all were stuff we had either seen, or had no interest in seeing. You really had to search the Capers somedays to find what would be there. The main pool is blocked by the water slide, which was open and in use the first day. As was the pool.

This is a picture of the glass elevators in the atrium. The opening is all the way up on deck 9, and you can see up and out to the clouds during a clear day. Made me a bit queasy to look over the edge from our deck and see straight down to Deck 3, but I'm not great with heights. The DH said it was cool to be able to see all the way up and down. I took his word for it!

Excellent review/pictures, appreciate all of your hard work in doing it !

Gonna try to knock out a bit more today. I will post all of the pictures from day 1, and then hopefully continue onto Day 2. Doesn't seem to be getting too good of a response, I guess I'm boring. Sorry

Here are some pictures we took of South Beach. I found it amazing how every last inch of beach property is built up with hotels and condos. Around here, it's mostly private homes with water front property.

Here's one more. Can you tell it wasn't very warm? There's hardly anyone at the beach!

Here is one of our few sunset photos. We tended to be napping around sunset getting ready for dinner, and since we get up pretty early at home, desperately wanted to avoid sunrise pictures. So this turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of the whole cruise!

OK, here are some of the ship taken at night. I really liked the blue neon around the Lido deck. Thought it made it easier to tell there were several levels there.

Here's one of the funnel. This was taken from the jogging track, which ended up being closed a few days due to the high winds. There are some shuffleboard spots up here too, but we don't know how toplay, and saw a few games getting rather serious, so never tried it.

You're not boring at all! I'm looking forward to reading more about your cruise! I also love your pictures! I didn't mention this before, but I'm sorry you had issues at Bradley (we're from w. mass and flew out of Bradley for most of our trips....in fact my dad still does). I have to admit, I'm happy we fly out of Logan now....I'm definitely looking forward to your next update :D

So this ends Day 1, except for a few thoughts now that I have my capers in front of me and can refresh my memory again.

Here is a picture of our first towel animal, a walrus. We always had fun going back to the room and debating which wonderful animal would be lounging on our bed. They were all so cute, and made an awesome addition to making our cruise so special. I absolutely loved them!

So, just to brush up on a few things. Almost didn't make it, but here now, and VERY HAPPY! Had our luggage early, but wore what we were wearing when we boarded to dinner. Dinner first night was relaxed, I guess they know not eveyone is getting dressed up. We saw lots of shorts and a few tanks, but mostly T-shirts. Didn't bother us. One set of our tablemates thought first night was elegant night (she is so NOT a CC member!) so came to the table dressed extremely nice. Our other set was well-dressed, but not as well dressed as they would be for even the casual nights the rest of the week. But, we were definitely the "slobs" at our table. We are not snappy dressers in real life, and won't be here either. I am willing to bet all 4 of our table mates dress well in the real world. Oh well, we both wear uniforms in the real world, so clothes just aren't our thing! We made an attempt to dress nice, and didn't feel out of place even when the tuxes and evening gowns came out later in the week. If I offended anyone there with my slightly more casual dress, so be it. This was my vacation too! I don't like dressing up, and honestly don't own that many super dressy clothes to start with. I was never a true slob, we never wore jeans other than night one. The DH wore khakis and polos to all the casual dinners, I wore capris with nice tops. Elegant evenings he wore a tie and jacket, I wore a cotton dress. Nothing too fancy compared to the tuxes and gowns, but it was as nice as I was willing to go! If you are really going to have a horrible cruise because I wore a cotton dress to elegant night, perhaps you should stay home! Nothing we saw being worn offended us in any way.

The show tonight featured the dancers and singers we would see the rest of the week. Louise Eddens has a fantastic voice, but her male counterpart, Kevin Jayroe was not so good. His voice was alright, but not as great as hers. The comedien tonight was Marvin Todd. He was OK, but the comedien later in the week was the best! There was plenty going on after sail away. We had late seating, and I'm not sure that's the way to go. It seemed like lots of stuff was scheduled thru the dinner seatings that we ended up missing. Don't get me wrong, there was stuff during the early seating too, but it seemed like the stuff I wanted was during our dinner. Also, we never went near the spa, so I can't answer any questions about it, other than to tell you what the daily specials were, and then only because they were posted in the Capers.

And so ends Day 1, and onto Day 2. See you next post, got to go stir my turkey soup!