Julitta Posted January 24, 2011 #1 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Hello! I've written a review of our holiday last week. Glad to answer any questions or beat out any flames. ;) I was traveling with my husband and 3-year-old DD. We flew into San Juan the day before and I will never again take a 3-connection flight with a small child. Enough said. In San Juan we stayed at the Miramar Hotel. It was very clean and was located between the airport and the cruise ship terminal. Will add more at the end, as we stayed another 3 days after. Day 1 – Embarkation and general impressions. We arrived at the pier at noon and there was a moderate crowd but the system was efficient and we moved through quickly. By 1:00 we were on the Lido deck with our DODs which I knew were not free but what the heck. At 2:30 we got to our room on Riviera aft (deck 1), an inside cabin which was supposed to have a drop-down bed but in fact it had two and neither were dropped. The room steward came by and explained that they usually don’t drop the beds for small children for safety reasons. I’m sure he would have if we had insisted, but we were fine with that. When they join the two beds together I don’t think it’s a standard size – it seemed to be somewhere between a queen and a king. It was ok if a little hard, and we could detect the seam down the middle but it wasn’t uncomfortable. I didn’t like the pillows, they were enormous and undefeatably fluffly. I probably should have asked for something else but I didn’t so I dealt with them. I had been concerned about an inside cabin with my claustrophobia but it was FINE. I was surprised how large and how nice the cabin was for the reasonable price we paid. Everything worked and the storage space was well planned. I loved the shower – I can’t stand low flow showers and this one darn near pinned me to the wall. It was awesome. Also the shower head came off so I was able to wash DD easily. There is indeed an extractor fan in the bathroom and it’s very effective for ventilation and to dry clothes that we hung up. This is the bottom of the ship folks, if you pay $500 for your cruise this is what you get: The #1 subject on everyone’s mind is always the food. My overall experience with the food was it was very good. I actually preferred the Lido buffet to the main dining room and would have eaten there every night but DH liked the MDR. I thought the selection on the buffet was very good and being able to look at the food in advance, I liked everything I tried. The buffet was never especially busy except at breakfast times. Peak time seemed to be from about 8:00 on. DD also was easy to feed from the buffet because she could try a lot of different things. I didn’t eat at the wok (peanut allergy) or the grill but the pizza was really good. My DH witnessed two drunk American women fighting with the poor pizza guy to get them some Ranch dressing. The pizza restaurant is nowhere near anywhere he could get salad dressing, and he couldn’t leave it to get them some. They made him call his manager. We couldn’t believe it. In the MDR, I only ordered two things I thought were stinkin awful, the Mahi Mahi and the Basa. I ordered them for myself and DD on the same night and I swear they were indistinguishable from each other, and both disgusting (and we like fish). The best meal I had was the lamb on the first night, and the prime rib was very good too. The best dessert by a mile was the Grand Marnier soufflé - oh, or maybe the Tiramisu... it was great too. I didn’t swoon over the famous warm chocolate melting cake, it was just ok. In the MDR, because we had a small child, they seated us in a corner at our own table. The only other table in the area was occupied by a very nice couple from Chicago who had left their little kids at home. We felt very lucky because they were child-friendly and we enjoyed talking to them every night. The décor of the ship was at times garish &/or hilarious. People have described it as Las Vegas-y and I agree. But IMO if it’s a little loud at least they tried hard. You will find plenty of pics in other reviews so I will spare your bandwidth. I don’t know if I was surprised or not but over half of the fellow passengers were Puerto Rican and there were also several from St. Lucia and Barbados. There was a lot of Spanish spoken on the ship. I didn’t notice any rudeness that other reviewers have complained of. Nobody cut in the buffet line except occasionally to grab one thing which doesn’t bother me at all. The staff onboard were all very friendly and courteous. I can’t complain about a single incident except I found our Maitre D’ a tad phoney. The room stewards were so nice, there was one (Wason) who didn’t even work in our section but we walked past him every night and he talked to DD and gave her chocolates and was very sweet. DD went several times to Camp Carnival and loved it. She called it her “new school” and asked to go all day. They did a lot of activities and she had her face painted 3 times. There were a few kids on the ship but not crowds of them. Observations on each day follow. Bear in mind that we had a fabulous holiday and I have no complaints. Although I liked some islands better than others, I didn’t ever feel unsafe. In some cases I know we made no effort to see the whole island because we were traveling with a small child and it was exhausting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julitta Posted January 24, 2011 Author #2 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Day 2 – St. Thomas, USVI I had no preconceptions of St. Thomas. We thought we might ride the aerial tram because it was in walking distance and DD would like it, then go to a nearby beach. What ended up happening was we got hustled off a street corner by a taxi driver (Elvis) who did tours for Sunny Liston. He took us into town to pick up some other passengers who had been shopping, and we got stuck in traffic. I was not immediately impressed but we got free eventually and drove up the mountain, where the views were lovely. Next it was over to Magen’s Bay which was beautiful and where two of our fellow passengers stayed, then across to Sapphire Beach where everyone else wanted to go. Sapphire Beach was beautiful although the bathrooms were incredibly gross. There was a bit of surf and DD enjoyed it. She was entertained by a flock of marauding ducks and an iguana. There were some vendors but they stayed up behind the beach and didn’t approach anyone. There is a small reef at the south end where people were snorkeling but we don’t snorkel so not sure if it was good. This is the reef end with people snorkeling. Overall I was pleasantly surprised with St. Thomas and we liked it very much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julitta Posted January 24, 2011 Author #3 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Day 3: Fun day at sea. I did some laundry and we hung around and ate and went in the pool. This day was mostly rainy and overcast. We sailed into some fog at one point and everyone was exclaiming at the rainbows in it. (OMG a double rainbow!) This was the first formal night and due to space constraints* I was unabashedly underdressed. The Puerto Rican passengers were gung ho and most of the ladies were wearing prom dresses. (* We flew in on Delta with 3 connections each way. At $25 per bag, I wasn’t sure if they would charge us for each connection – so each bag could have cost $150. Turns out it was paid once each way but still. We only brought one checked suitcase.) During the sea day I noticed some motion on the boat. By nighttime it was rocking and rolling, and something in our cabin started vibrating loudly and woke me up. I did some exploration and discovered it was the ceiling panel vibrating on a brass light trim, so I folded up my deck plan and jammed it between them and it stopped. In the evening we went to a show. (I think it was this night anyway) I’m not bothered about shows or comedians one way or the other and as far as I could tell it was well done. We didn’t see the comedians. I was being polite. I don’t like comedians at all. Day 4: Barbados. Barbados was the reason we booked this cruise. I have wanted to go there all my life. I can’t say what it was but I didn’t love it. The island is flat and not overly scenic. We booked a tour with Glory Tours and got a private car with a guide called Colin. He was nice. We went around the city for awhile then to the beach at Accra which was probably the best beach EVER with clean changing rooms, lifeguards, chairs and umbrellas, and we were there at 10:30 am so it was virtually empty. The surf was pounding and DD had a blast playing in her lifejacket. I swam out past where the waves were breaking and the surf didn’t knock me off my feet anymore. It was very cool when, between waves, I was standing in waist-deep water and a school of large silver and black fish swam past 2 feet away from my legs. Next we went to a fish market, where we got some fish guts to feed the turtles. At the fishing pier there were 4 turtles and no tourists, and he said we could either feed them from the dock or get in the water with them. We had just dried off from the beach and, as much as I love critters, the water was boiling with hundreds of garfish (read: eels) attracted to the bait, so we stayed on the dock. See the garfish? Now, this was never explained to me but the tour we booked included feeding the turtles from a glass-bottomed boat. There was no boat. My only guess is that it was so windy the boat wasn’t going out, but that wasn’t clarified. I’m not upset and the tour wasn’t expensive. One thing I will say for Barbados is the people are polite and the island is very clean. Even the broken public toilet with parts missing that we used at the fish market was spotless, which I found amusing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julitta Posted January 24, 2011 Author #4 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Day 5: St. Lucia. The weather was hazy and rainy on & off, and hot and humid. We had no plans for St. Lucia. We got off the boat and decided to walk into town. It’s not far but they don’t make it easy, they want you to pay for a taxi. For half the way there is no sidewalk, just a muddy boulevard where the taxi drivers wait and get ruder and ruder as you don’t get in a taxi. We walked to a large covered market which was intresting. We were charged $1 for a single banana for DD, and rather than haggle I just thought “fine, take the dollar, if I didn’t give you a dollar for a banana then we’d send it to you in international aid”. The occasional vendor was crazy &/or clearly intoxicated. I can’t say I liked St. Lucia at all but in its defense we didn’t really do anything there. The activities seemed to be mostly extreme sports (no good for DD) or sailing-based. My dad has 2 sailboats and I grew up on one, so I didn’t feel inclined to pay $200 to go on one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divers2 Posted January 24, 2011 #5 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Great review. More please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nytonowhere Posted January 24, 2011 #6 Share Posted January 24, 2011 wow..this is quite negitive ive been on the victory june 09 and LOVE LOVE LOOOOVED it! St. Thomas is beautiful, Barbados is even better, and St. Lucia was my favorite. We have it booked for March and CANNOT wait!!! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julitta Posted January 24, 2011 Author #7 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Day 6: St. Kitts. We loved St. Kitts. It was our favourite island. We booked “the” tour with Thenford Grey and it was wonderful. We ended up with only ourselves and 3 other passengers, two of whom are our new best friends in the whole wide world “BrooklinNorth” from CruiseCritic (I hope you’re reading this L). I felt a little bad for Thenford as he has a large, beautiful bus/van and one couple no-showed so he didn’t have a very full tour at all. Thenford is knowledgeable and likes to learn new things. He was constantly telling us about things he had “recently learned”. He is pleasant and friendly but not fake and exuberant. Before becoming a tour guide he worked in the now-defunct sugar industry. St. Kitts is very tourism-focused now that it has lost the sugar industry. First we went through Basseterre, then all the way around the whole island. We saw the Black Rocks lava flow, which was beautiful, and then to the Batik factory and gardens at an old plantation. I love gardens and apparently Batik too, and I bought way too much stuff there. Black Rocks Plantation Garden After that we went to the Brimstone Fortress which was also interesting. We ended up at Cockleshell Beach and told Thenford that we only wanted an hour. We spent that hour waiting for food at the beach restaurant. The food was good but the service was epically slow. It only made me more annoyed that the waitresses were wearing shirts that said “rush slowly” on the back. Like really. While I paid, DH took DD into the water for the last 10 minutes just to say they had. We hadn’t had a chance to look around the beach but where we were, there was nice sand with patches of lots of seashells. DH said there were nasty rocks in the water until you got to about knee deep then there weren’t any more. There was no surf here, it was flat calm. We liked the beach, it was different but nice. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures at Cockleshell. These are some other nice island views. By the end of the tour I was feeling a cold coming on. When we got back on the ship I went to bed and didn’t get up for dinner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julitta Posted January 24, 2011 Author #8 Share Posted January 24, 2011 wow..this is quite negitive ive been on the victory june 09 and LOVE LOVE LOOOOVED it! Wow, that's odd, I'm not sure what you're reading into my commentary but we loved it too. I didn't think this was a negative review at all. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julitta Posted January 24, 2011 Author #9 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Day 7: St. Maarten. We had intended to go to the zoo and the beach in St. Maarten, but I was suffering pretty badly with my cold so we just went to the zoo. It was not San Diego but it was a very nice and well-maintained small tropical zoo. There were many birds, tortoises, monkeys, an ocelot, bats, an ostrich, some fish and reptiles, goats, misc small mammals, and a playground. All the animals had fresh food and looked clean and appropriately housed. DD loved it and I enjoyed it too except I was not feeling well. The taxi driver told us it had been destroyed in a hurricane a few years ago and all the animals were missing or dead, so they had to start over. :( (The dress is Carabelle Batik from St. Kitts) I must revise my previous post, BrooklinNorth is only my second-best new friend in the whole wide world because one of the goats the petting zoo is the best. ;) She was so cute. I will not share the rest of my observations of St. Maarten because I’m pretty sure we didn’t see the scenic parts of it. Day 8-10: Back in San Juan. We booked our holiday with 3 extra days in San Juan at the end. Although we were exhausted, it was not a mistake because Puerto Rico is wonderful. I thought it was all the best features of the USA, Mexico/Caribbean, and a bit of old Europe, combined. We returned to the Miramar hotel and were informed that we had been booked for the previous night and had been cancelled as “no-shows”. I had prepaid in full so this was alarming. They got us a room anyway without hassle. I decided to suck it up and not complain about paying for an extra day. It may have been my fault and I have no proof either way because I can’t find my email confirmation. We stayed in two different rooms and they were both large and very clean, although the décor was sort of antiquated. The best thing about the hotel is the Pueblo supermarket a block away, 3 pharmacies within 5 blocks, and several restaurants. With the microwave and bar fridge in the room, it was easy to stay inexpensively and only eat in restaurants when we wanted to. My camera shutter got a grain of sand in it and stuck open so no more photos. Glad to say I fixed it at home. We visited the San Cristobel fortress which had free admission for Martin Luther King Day. We also did a rainforest tour and went to El Yunque national forest. There was a short (for me; I am an avid hiker at home) hike and swimming in a waterfall, which was probably DD’s favourite part of the trip. I couldn’t get her out. The rainforest was stunning. Back to the Miramar and our room keys didn’t work. Went to the front desk and was informed that we had checked out that morning. Umm, nope… So they had us checking in AND out a day early. It was fixed again with no hassle (good thing, all our stuff was still in the room) and didn’t pay for an extra day after all. So the next day was back to the airport. We’re already thinking about our next holiday…it might be a shorter cruise. Not sure yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dolfndreams Posted January 24, 2011 #10 Share Posted January 24, 2011 Great review, and I agree, I didn't find it negative at all. Love the pics and your ideas on the islands. I went last year and am off again this Sunday:) Thanks, really enjoying seeing the sights again and hearing your experiences on the island. Beautiful daughter by the way, loved the rainbow shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prairie_Gal Posted February 5, 2011 #11 Share Posted February 5, 2011 Thanks for your review, I enjoyed it. Too bad you caught a cold on your vacation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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