Victory 1/9 Review

We recently sailed on the Victory out of Miami...this review will probably be in several parts and I'll try to cover things that I haven't seen covered by other reviewers lately. First of all, many thanks to everyone here who have shared their tips and experiences with us...your advice has been priceless!

Pre-Cruise. We flew into Miami a day ahead of our cruise...it was great to be in Miami a day before sailing and let us unwind from the stress of traveling. Took the Carnival bus to the Miami Hyatt. We arrived there about 12:30 and were able to check in early. We had asked for rooms with a view of the port and got them...it was great being able to look out our balcony and see the Carnival ships in port far off to our left, also to watch the drawbridge below us raise to allow ships to pass. Some previous posters have said the noise from nearby construction and traffic bothered them, however, we kept our balcony door open most of the time we were there just to luxuriate in the warm breezes. Hotel employees were among the friendliest and most helpful we have ever met. Deon, the concierge, in particular went out of his way to answer our questions and point us in the right direction. Our room itself was nice..not great, but more than adequate for our needs. We were traveling with two other couples, after quick showers we all met downstairs at the bar to plan the rest of our day. Drinks were expensive there..for four drinks for the first of us to arrive the tab was $38. We decided to take the free "People Mover" ( a buslike vehicle that rides on rails above ground level) to Bayside Marketplace. Highly recommended. At Bayside we walked and shopped for a while and then decided to dine at Bubba Gumps. I'm glad we ate there, but would probably never do it again...service was so-so, food was very good, but we thought prices were too high. My wife and I had an appetizer each and two drinks..total came to $64 with automatic gratuity. Yikes! More soon, Paul

After eating at Bubbas', four of us decided to take a tour on one of the sightseeing boats lined up down at the waterfront for $15 each. It turned out to be a tour of the surrounding bays, focusing mainly on the multimillion $ homes of the rich and famous (Shaquille O Neal, Elizabeth Taylor, etc.). Kind of a "touristy" thing to do, which we usually avoid, but between the foo-foo drinks and beer that they sell on board and our fellow partying passengers, we actually had a lot of fun. BTW, the tour operators narrate the entire tour in both English and Spanish. Afterwards, we walked and shopped at Bayside again and eventually ended up on the second story level of shops. Next time we are at Bayside this is where we will dine. There are are multitude of restaurants here...Chinese, BBQ, Cajun, etc. selling large plates full of food for about $5. This is where most of the locals were eating and it all looked and smelled delicious. Eventually we stopped at Fat Tuesdays and each bought a 32 oz frozen drink. We asked if we could smoke there and were told no, that we had to go outside..no big deal, but while making our way down the stairs to go outside, we noticed a small unoccupied bar directly behind Fat Tuesdays that had a patio overlooking the music pavilion below. Tables with ashtrays were set out on this patio, so we decided to enjoy our drinks there. To get out on the patio look for a doorway to the right of the bar at Fat Tuesdays'. A live band was now playing at the Pavilion, so we stayed to enjoy the music and people watching (and drinks!) for a couple of hours. Very relaxing and enjoyable. Several other couples noticed us out there and joined us..two of them were sailing on the Victory with us and we quickly made new friends. Around 11pm, we decided we had better get back to our Hotel..walked a couple of blocks to the people mover and took the short ride back to the Knight Center station. This is the pickup and dropoff point for anyone staying at the Hyatt... it is attached to the Hyatt and just a short walk thru the Hotel. There were a couple of scruffy looking characters riding the shuttle, but we were in a group of six and so were not really concerned. Next morning, after coffee in our rooms, we decided to have breakfast at a place we had read about here on these boards. From the Hotel lobby, we headed down the stairs towards the Maimi River,...go out thru the doors and take a right turn. A few steps away is the entrance to the Brick Restaurant. Open at 7:30, $7.50 for a breakfast buffet. Buffet was average, but the price and convenience of being so close was nice. Also, they had several outdoor tables on the river where you could dine if you wished. All for now, more tomorrow, Paul

Can't wait to hear the rest of your review!! My sister and I are considering cruising on the Victory April 2 - we have a great quote lined up, but need to decide by tomorrow afternoon!!!

Overall, did you have a good experience?

Newbiecruiser, Yes, our overall experience onboard was good, however, which itinerary are you going on, Eastern or Western? I'll try to get to the details tomorrow, but we enjoyed the Western Ports of Call last year much more than the Eastern this year. P

Can't wait to hear the rest of your review!! My sister and I are considering cruising on the Victory April 2 - we have a great quote lined up, but need to decide by tomorrow afternoon!!!

Overall, did you have a good experience?

newbie if you can take the May 1 cruise compare the prices... I booked last week and the May 1 was significantly cheaper... the prices went up on thursday and friday though soI'm not sure how it compares now....

Wow, you guys are up early, too!!

It would be Eastern Caribbean and leave April 3. We have a limited time frame due to my sister's job, so we are looking at that week. If my sister's friend comes along, for the 3 of us, we can cruise for $574pp in a balcony cabin. We are also looking at the Oosterdam in the Mexican Riviera that week, but it's alot higher.

Okay, Quick version of why we preferred the Western route....long day in Cozumel...8am til midnight was the highlight of our cruise, Eastern rte, your first POC is San Juan form about 5pm til midnight, many on our cruise referred to it as a "wasted" stop, then you have 8 hour days in St Martin & St Thomas. If you are looking to buy Jewelry, cameras, etc or go to a nude beach (Orient Beach on St Martin) then this is the cruise for you. BTW, Loved the ship itself, recently out of drydock..very clean and an amicable crew for the most part. If you do sail on the Victory, be sure not to miss Kevin's sing a long show in the Piano Bar..usually at 9:30, but get there early to get a good seat. Have fun, Paul

Sunday morning at 9am a carnival rep set up at a table in the lobby for "pre-registration". Brought our DOCs to her, pre-registered and were given a sticker to place on our DOCs to signify that we were pre-registered. We then had to decide whether to wait until noon to ride to the port on Carnivals' bus or find our own transportation to the port. We wanted to get aboard as soon as possible, so we asked Deon, the Concierge, what he would recommend. He made a phone call and hooked us up with Cillia(Sp?) Transportation. $5 per person for the six of us in a van. We were picked up at 10:45 and at the pier by 11:00. Once past security,we showed our DOCs with the sticker on them to the nearest Carnival rep and then we were able to proceed directly upstairs, bypassing the long lines of people who were not pre-registered. There were still a couple of hundred people ahead of us in the upstairs waiting area. Waited there until about noon when boarding began. Once aboard, our party of six hurried to the Aegean Sports Bar to establish seats for the Packer playoff game which began at 4. We all took turns going up to the buffet on the Lido deck for lunch. Had to leave our seats for the Life Boat drill about 3:30, then returned to watch the game...bar was full of Packer fans and we managed to have a lot of fun even though our Packers lost. The ship left port shortly after 4 and we immediately encountered some fairly rough seas, which mainly continued thru out our voyage...more on that and on the ship herself, tomorrow.

Babsandpaul,

You stayed at the Hyatt Regency Miami, right? We were there last year and didn't know anything about pre registration? Is this new? Do they have this service every week? I would love to hear more. We are cruising on the Victory on April 24th. I am really enjoying your review.

Thanks,

Dayna

HEY PAUL miss a day of work so you can finish this review. also we lost your email. :)

We stayed at the Hilton and they had preregistration. It took us about 20 minutes from the time we arrived at the port until we were onboard.

HEY PAUL miss a day of work so you can finish this review. also we lost your email. :)

I agree.... LOL

It would save me writing mine....

Ok I will write my own tonight

I am very excited to hear the rest of your Victory review. My husband and I, along with seven relatives, will be on the Victory for the Eastern July 10 sailing. We have only sailed on the Fantasy class ships, so this will be a big change for us. I have booked cabin 9257 on the Lido deck. Your thoughts on the location would be appreciated. My thought was we could walk right out and be at the deck chairs and it would be easy enough to run back and forth to the room if we had to.

The Piano bar is our favorite, so I will certainly take your advice on this one!

I am curious about the Hyatt, the Carnival bus to the hotel the day before, etc. Did you book air through Carnival? If not, please tell me how this all works. Sounds like a good plan for us.

I really appreciate your help - I am really into the planning right now, so having someone like you to write a good review and be so helpful, is great!

Hi Everyone, Thanks for your comments, sorry I have been unable to continue my review, but I have a situation at work that is causing me to work very long days..not much time left to post here. However, I should be able to continue my review tomorrow morning...keep watching, Paul

Cindij, Yes, our airline was booked thru our Travel Agency, who booked with Carnival, if that makes sense. Anyway, all transfers..from the airport to Hotel, Hotel to ship, etc were included. We decided to pay extra the morning of embarkation for private transportation because we really wanted to get onboard as soon as possible. The Concierge told us that on the days that Carnival has a lot of people staying at the Hyatt they almost always have a rep in the lobby. I'll check on your room location and get back to you on that. Paul

Thanks Paul! I really appreciate your help and your review is great!

Woke up Monday morning with a world class hangover and some signs of seasickness..of course, with all of the partying the night before I had forgotten to take my Bonine. Ordered coffee from room service arond 5:30 and it was delivered about 5 minutes later..my DW and I both like strong coffee..last year on the Triumph the coffee seemed weak, but on this cruise we were pleasantly surprised..coffee was much better..Made our way to the buffet on Lido Deck shortly before the posted time for breakfast to find the food already out, with no lines yet...we mainly continued this practice of getting to the buffet shortly before they were supposed to be open and on most mornings were able to beat the rush. A few words here on the food in general...my wife and I are not really "foodies" (except on the islands where we always look for food with a local flavor), we mainly want something to take the wrinkles out of our bellies, with a minimum of fuss, so that we can move on to other things. Hence we always hit the buffet, BBQ, Deli, Pizzaria, etc. If you are looking here for a review of the main dining room food, sorry, but we never saw the inside of the place. From what we heard from our friends and relatives who sailed with us, the food in the dining room was either average or very good and every opinion in between. Anyway, back to the cruise...my bout of seasickness seemed to intensify, ship was rocking pretty good, so I didn't do much that morning..seas were rough..and this continued thruout most of the cruise. My wife was not affected and spent the morning visiting with some of the 14 family members who sailed with us, some of them were also suffering from the rough seas. Around noon, she and I laid down to take a nap, which was shortly interrupted by our smoke alarm going off (BTW, several other cruisers reported similar problems with their smoke detectors on this cruise). almost immediately the phone started ringing and someone was pounding on the door..we ignored the phone and answered the door..standing there was a ship's officer and a fireman wanting to know where the fire was! We assured them that there was no fire and asked them why our alarm had gone off..they spotted our partially open balcony door and said we could not leave the door open even a crack because the humidity would set off the alarm. This was news to us because on our last cruise we had kept the door wide open almost every minute that we were in our room. (After first turning the AC off). So we closed the balcony door and tried to get back to sleep. A short time later, the alarm went off again..since I was now wide awake, I made it to the phone quickly..the person on the phone wanted to know what WE were doing to set the alarm off..I stated what had happened a little while earlier... and told them that we were not smoking, holding the door open, etc. I also said that if the damned thing went off again, I wanted it replaced. They said they would, but still sounded like we were doing something wrong to cause it to go off. Fast forward to 1am the next morning..my bout of seasickness was finally over late that evening and we were both getting a good nights' sleep when, you guessed it..the alarm went off again. This time I was not in a very good mood as whoever was on the other end of the phone said we either had to be using the shower, holding our balcony door open or smoking! In no uncertain terms I stated that in fact we were sound asleep and did not appreciate being awakened at 1am by a faulty detector..and I demanded that it be replaced. They finally agreed that, yes it would be replaced first thing the next morning. They finally replaced the *! thing at 9am and we had no further problems. Gotta run, more tomorrow. Paul

First of all in reply to Cindi's inquiry..your cabin location looks fine..one tip for you and anyone else reading this....if you go all the way forward on Decks 5,6,8,& 9 there are doorways at the very end of the hallway which lead to open decks at the bow of the ship...very windy out there while the ship is underway, but if you go out there as the ship is approaching a port, there are some great views and very few other passengers. Bring your camera!

Back to our cruise..Monday afternoon our CC meet & greet was scheduled...only two of the posters who we had met here on CC managed to make the meeting and it was great to sit and talk with them....because of the lingering effects of my bout of seasickness I was not able to stay as long as I wanted to. BTW, the two posters who were the most active on our pre-cruise roll call were the two who did show up,...Vicki and Deb, it was great meeting you and running into you again later in the voyage. Thanks again for all of your help. Back in a minute.

Tuesday was our first Port..San Juan P.R. It seemed that everyone aboard was eager to get off the ship and on to solid land after two days of fairly rough seas... disembarking was slow and crowded. If I had it to do over again, I would wait for the crowds to clear out before attempting to disembark. We had no definite plans for SJ, other than to walk around shopping a bit and to try to find some local flavored food to. Walked uphill from the ship and immediately ran into huge crowds of people on the city streets..it seemed that everywhere we went we were trying to walk against the flow of people. Streets are narrow, traffic is so close to the sidewalks that you could reach out and touch it, sidewalks are barely wide enough for one person to walk at a time. A note here for those in wheelchairs and their helpers. We saw several people attempting to get around these sidewalks with wheelchairs and because of the steepness of the terrain, coupled with so many tourists and the narrow sidewalks ..they were having a tough time. We wandered about for a while..rain showers popped up from time to time..a few beggars pestered us..didn't find any thing worth buying from the shops that were open. Finally spotted some tables set out in a side street where people were dining, didn't look too crowded so we stopped there. The place was named the Ambrosia Restaurant (Calle Cristo #250, near Christo Chapel)...owned by an ex-Californian. Four of us had dinner there..advertised as *Real* Puerto Rican food and it was very good. Afterwards, we spoke to the owner (Paul?) and he recommeneded that we take a walk down along the waterfront to get back near the ship. This turned out to be the highlight of our stop in PR. Following his directions. we went one block down Calle Cristo and then about one block to the left, which led us thru a large tunnel under the old city wall. Once thru the tunnel we came to a paved trail which led along the water front. A sign said this trail was a mile and a half long and where we entered was somewhere in the middle of this distance. The old city wall loomed above us, the ocean in front of us and the entire walk was very picturesque. Fairly well lit. Many cats crawling around, some nice photo ops of the walls..not many people around. We had met several of our relatives back at Ambrosia, so we were now a group of about 10 people and felt safe in this relatively deserted area, but I don't know if we would have felt safe in a group of two. There was a security guard who came by occasionally in a golf cart. We walked along towards the ships pier, stopping frequently to take pictures and eventually came to "La Princesa", a large building that was the former prison..now being used as Tourism headquarters. In front of the building is a beautiful fountain and sculptures..more photos! Eventually this trail comes out near the pier and we wandered back to the ship. Several of the couples with us commented that this walk was very *romantic* and the best part of our stop in PR. Gotta run..saga continues tomorrow.

Wednesday was our stop at St Maarten, Eight other ships were in port before us, so our original plan was to take a taxi across the island for some beach time, but wind was still blowing pretty strongly and rain showers were falling intermitently, so we decided to first check out the downtown area and go from there. We waited onboard for the first rush of passengers to leave the ship and then were able to walk off without waiting in any lines. We walked into downtown, about a 15 minute hike along new sidewalks. Just before we got to the downtown area we took a shortcut thru a building that brought us out near a large restaurant and a few vendors. Found a shop there selling nice Hawaiian shirts 3 for $20, bought a bunch of them for gifts. Continued on to the downtown area, did a little shopping and then hit a beachfront restaurant for lunch and some beach time. With nine ships in port, streets downtown were beyond crowded. Weather had mainly cleared up by then, but we decided we did not have enough time left to go to the other side of the island and back in time to make the ship. Eventually we ran into some of our relatives who were buying some rather pricey jewelry and waiting for it to be sized. Wandered around with them, had a couple of free rum samples and bought some Guavaberry Liqueur to bring home. We all walked back to the ship together, stopping at the Hawaiian shirt vendor again because our relatives wanted to purchase shirts at those prices. If we had it to do all over again, I think we would have taken a taxi to the other side of the island immediately and taken our chances with the weather. Our niece and her friend did just that...they went to the famous (infamous?) Orient Beach and said that they had a good time. They did mention that most of the "nekkid" people they saw there were not very attractive that way, LOL. One other note here..one of our group wanted to "smuggle" a bottle of booze back to his stateroom. He had purchased five bottles, so what he did is...he placed one bottle inside his wifes' rather large purse and then carried the other bottles himself. When we went thru the xray boarding the ship, the ships' officer told him to go to the next table and leave his booze there. Which he did, but conveniently forgot about the other bottle in his wifes' purse.

Wednesday night a flyer was delivered to our cabin along with our Carnival Capers that informed us that all passengers aboard had to go thru immigration on the ship the following morning. This had to do with the fact that we had been to a foreign country (St Maarten) and were now coming back to a U.S. port. (St. Thomas) Going thru immigration meant everyone had to be at the Adriatic Lounge between 6 am and 8:30 am Thursday morning. There was much grumbling about this from fellow passengers that evening. My DW and I are both early risers, so we weren't too concerned, but we knew others who regularly slept 'til 8 or later and they considered this a major pain in the *ss. We were up about 5 the next morning and ordered coffee from room service as we usually did. On most mornings the coffee was delivered within 5 minutes or so after we ordered. On this morning however, after waiting for about a half hour, we realised that room service was probably swamped by requests because everyone had to be up early. So we canceled room service and I took our insulated mugs up to the Lido Deck and returned with our coffee fix. Going thru immigration itself was not too bad, you bring your Identification and S&S card with you and immigration officials check it against their list. Entire process took about 15 minutes. We did see one poor guy in line in front of us..wearing only his Carnival bathrobe...he looked awfully sleepy and very unhappy about the procedure. In addition, he should have been more careful about keeping his robe closed..not a pretty sight at 6 in the morning, LOL. After breakfast we decided to see if we could get off the ship in the first wave today. We walked down towards Deck O to see if there were large crowds waiting. To our surprise there were no lines at all and we walked off with out any wait. Of course it was raining again, but we were determined to see more of St Thomas than we had of St Maarten. We caught a Taxi over to Coral World, intending to check out Coral World until the rain stopped and then going to Coki Beach (next door). Coral world was interesting, one of those things you can enjoy once, but would probably not do again. Rain and wind continued. We had wanted to try parasailing, but saw one parasail go up for just a short time and then immediately come back down probably due to the high winds. So, once again we caught a taxi back to town (Charlotte Amalie). We shared out Taxi with a mother and daughter who were sailing on one of those "other" cruiselines. The mother grilled us about the Victory during the entire trip into town. Seems she was not impressed with her ship and thought that the Carnival passengers seemed like they were having much more fun. Said their ship was full of "stuffy" people and wanted to know how many times we had been down that "beautiful" slide on the open deck. Finally said that their next cruise would be on Carnival.

Before our cruise we had heard that prices on St Thomas were cheaper for many items than on St Maarten. We did not find this to be true, especially for jewelry, clothing and cigarettes. Ate lunch at a local place, (Cuzzins) shopped a little and then caught a taxi back to the pier. We bought a few items at the Havensight shops, had a final foo-foo drink at an outdoor bar and proceeded back to the ship. More soon, Paul

Babs and Paul - You are so helpful. Are there deck chairs out on the decks of 5,6,8 and 9 that we can use for laying in the sun?

You bring up an interesting point. When we were on a tour in St. Thomas we picked up four other passengers that were also from another ship. They were "youngsters" probably early to mid-twenties. When they learned we were from the Victory, they had tons of questions-especially about what we were eating. They seemed very jealous and said they wished they were with Carnival. They also gave the impression of "stuffy" people and not having much fun with the activities. Maybe it was our group-I know I never ran out of things to do and met a lot of fun people having a great time.

Paul, you're doing an exceptional job with this review. I could not remember all of the details-especially after a couple of parties I attended. In St. Marteen, we rented a car and immediately left the port city and toured the island. Within a couple of minutes the crowds disappeared as we headed around the island. The only problem after that was trying to dodge the locals. At times I thought I was in a demolition derby.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks Duane for your kind words, and you too Cindi. Sorry it's taking me so long to finish my review, but I'm a very slow typist and really pressed for time...I'll try to finish soon. Cindi, no, there are no deck chairs out there..it would be entirely too windy while underway to even consider lying out there..trust me on this...it was difficult for me to even open the door to get out there while we were underway..but as I said, a great place to be when approaching port. P

This should finish my review. Friday and Saturday were two consecutive sea days heading back to Miami. After the flurry of 3 ports jammed together in about 48 hours, the two days were a welcome relief. Truth be told we didn't do much other than relax, catch some sun and do some overdue laundry...and we enjoyed every minute. Notes on doing laundry. On each cruise we've been on, around mid-cruise, The Capers advertises a laundry "special"...for $15 they will wash, dry and fold all the laundry you can place into a bag they provide for this purpose. Bag is about the size of a tall kitchen garbage bag. We didn't consider this to be much of a deal. There is a self service laundry room located on each deck of the ship. The location is marked by a small white sign hanging overhead in the hallway. I went down to the pursers' desk to get quarters and got to the laundry room about 6am..had the whole place to myself...three sets of washers and dryers in each laundry. $2 for each load. Washer takes about 45 minutes per cycle and dryer about an hour. My wife had remembered to bring along a couple of small ziploc bags with detergent, although there is a machine there selling small boxes for a buck. Other notes,...we were invited to the past cruisers party, which took place late Friday afternoon in the Adriatic lounge. As we made our way to the lounge we were surprised by the large crush of people heading in the same direction and wondered what was going on. Turns out they were all heading to the past cruisers party for the free drinks and canapes. Due to tips we had read here on these boards, we knew to go directly to the bar to order our usual drink of choice, rather than just grab the assortment of drinks being offered by the traveling waiters. Actually kind of funny watching so many people wolf down the drinks just because they were free. Canapes to us were nothing special. Last year on the Triumph they seemed to have a much better selection and quality. Oh well, it was still fun. One final tip, in the months before we cruise I keep a small notebook next to our computer in which I write down things I learn on these boards that might be of value on our next sailing. For example, places we may want to eat at on shore, directions to shops or restaurants, best place to buy liquor, etc. There have been times here where some of the best places mentioned by other CC'ers have only been mentioned once and if I don't write down the details I can never seem to find the info again. I also use the notebook while on the cruise to keep track of places where we had either good or bad experiences or perhaps some place where we had an exceptional meal. This really helps when we get back when someone needs advice here. Also, if we ever sail to these ports again some time down the road we'll have these notes to refresh our memory. Again thanks for your patience while I wrote this and special thanks to all the CC members who have offered up their tips and advice to us in the past,..you're the best! Paul and Babs