JennN

Figured out the picture situation so up next? Half Moon Cay. We (I) did our (my) research here and after a few months of going back and forth, I convinced my wife that we needed a cabana. Marriage is all about compromise, kids, and since I couldn't convince her to do the private oasis or the Villa (hehehe), we settled on a cabana. And boy are we glad we did! When we first got on board the Victory, we made our way right to the excursions desk and were first to pick our cabana - we wanted something far enough away from the crowds but not too far out there so we couldn't pee/eat as needed. So lucky cabana #11 it was (we also put in our soda request)! Later,t he excursions staff told us 6 people wanted #11 so I am glad reserving it was our first stop!

Let me just say that HMC is stunning! I've never looked forward to a port more and I was worried, because I was holding it in such high regard based on all the other reviews, that I'd be disappointed. We were on the first tender (thanks FTTF) where passengers crammed into the top and all the food and supplies were in the bottom of the boat. I didn't realize the contract with the Bahamians meant that Carnival had to bring everything from the straws to the napkins tot he food to the liquor (nor did I realize that a pitcher of spiked lemonade, normally $25 on the ship would now cost us $50 in the Bahamas because of the way they tax). So, when we arrived, things weren't quite ready.

Now, we're not those uppity people who think our shiz don't stink but the only thing that bothered us - there were three Carnival employees smoking and hanging out on the hammock by our cabana. Hey, staff deserve to relax and chill out but they were rowdy AND SMOKING! Ugh. Chain smoking at that for 35 minutes until the supplies arrived. I just wished they had moved away from us when smoking. But I digress...

I give you, Half Moon Cay (and me):

I took this one from our cabana. I just loved that this was far enough away from the ship that you didn't feel like you were swimming next to it but was close enough too.

#11 treated us well! We were glad to have some respite from the sun and later, when it sprinkled a bit, we were glad to have somewhere dry to sit and nosh. Speaking of noshing:

Look at all that food! We each got two sodas and there were two giant waters in the cooler they brought over. We had more than half the bag of chips leftover and we gave a water to the lifeguards. Totally worth it in my (not so) humble opinion!

There were only two drawbacks to HMC - the first isn't anyone but the asker's fault but we had 4 people ask us to use our shower. FOUR. My take was that if you wanted a shower, you too could have shelled out the money for a cabana! Why would you put the ownness on me? Two were mom's asking for kids and I felt bad saying no but if your kid had an accident, I don't want to be walking in that each time I came back to the cabana or used the shower I paid for! Two were drunk people and I had no problem saying no. There was also someone that came and took a float off the cabana and started using it. Um, we weren't using it at the time but you don't think to ask? It's rude! Again, I paid for the cabana right? Is this uppity of me?

The second drawback is that the rope cuts swimmers off too short. I wish I could go further out, so I could barley touch and just wade. If the water was waist high, that was generous. Maybe when the tide comes in, it gets a bit deeper but we were on the last tender back (BECAUSE WE DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE) and it was still pretty shallow.

We love you Cabana #11! Next time we go to HMC (in April), we will be with more family and I think we'll rent a Villa - a bit more space for the 7 of us.

Grand Turk cont'd

My wife is a sea glass hunting machine and she found a ton down the beach at Jack's Shack!

The service was good, drinks plenty strong (we even got a free shot online) and the beach was beautiful. We didn't want to leave! Except we had to because one of the waiters started hitting on me and my wife wasn't thrilled. Topher told us it was time to go after that!

Bye Grand Turk and bye Jack's! Highly recommend walking down there. I think we spent $50, beach access where it was not crowded and two apps and a few beers/drinks for that price!

...more to come after my meeting! Promise this will be done in two more posts!

Not sure why the pics all posted at different sizes (maybe because of the panorama one?) but anyway...

Food was good - Lido is always underwhelming to me and the fact that the Victory didn't get a Guys or Blue Iguana was disappointing to say the least.

We've never sailed in August before and the ship was definitely more crowded than our usual 1st week of December sailing!

We couldn't ever get a seat in the Serenity area, which was sad. So we just hung out and read on deck 3:

or in the arcade (not sure how kosher it was to be in there with an alcoholic beverage but we made sure to leave the glasses by the casino bar - see? we're responsible adults!):

Now for the ports: first stop? Grand Turk! We've been here once before and made the mistake of renting a cabana in Margaritaville, not having done my research beforehand about the free beach. Well, this time I was more well-informed and we spent the day at Jack's Shack. It was great!

Hi folks,

I was asked by a few to do a review of our 8/22 sailing on the Carnival Victory. As I do with all my reviews, I start with a warning - my wife and I are both females. This makes us gay/lesbian - if that offends you in any way, please click that red X right now!

Ok, still with me? Good. Let me preface by stating this isn't going to be a lengthy review as sadly (for you, not for me) I started a new job and won't have days to devote to a review. So here's the quick down and dirty!

This was our first cruise IN THREE YEARS that my MIL was not on with us. Don't get me wrong, I love the woman to pieces (though not at this very second as she's currently on a Carnival Alaskan cruise WITHOUT US), but after three years, we wanted some alone time! We started cruising in 2010, solely on Carnival, as we will be hitting Platinum by this time next September when we board the Victory for our 10 year wedding anniversary cruise (today marks 9 years, for the record!).

We flew from DC to Miami after work (a whole 12 whopping days after I started my new job) on Friday night, arrived at the hotel LATE because we didn't take the day off and just literally crashed as soon as we got in the room!

We stayed at the Hilton Miami downtown and it was a-ok! We didn't do anything but go to sleep and wake up but it was fine in our books.

We purchased FTTF and always think it's worth it. Got to port via taxi around 11am and we were board and in our room by 12pm. We were in Room 1003, which is an accessible room (we are legally handicap, but would have given up the room if they needed it as it was wheelchair accessible).

We were on this Victory this past February and were excited to see the upgrades. However, those updates were NOT reflected in our room - carpet was tacky in places, and of course, filthy. But the room was big. Now a word about our room steward, Paula. Sadly, she was pretty bad as far as they go - she was pretty, well, lazy. I read here on some reviews that if you tip beforehand it might motivate - tried and failed. She didn't bring things when we asked or audibly sighed at us (we asked for a laundry bag, for example and she didn't bring the paper to write it all out on, and sighed when we asked for it - she didn't bring it the first time nor was it in a drawer). This doesn't make or break a cruise for us but would have added to the great trip we had.

However, we were thrilled about the addition of Alchemy!!! So thrilled, we were there EVERY night - Ioana was amazing!!! She's apparently opened 5 Alchemy's in the fleet. She'll be opening the Vista too, but we will miss her by 6 weeks. Anyway, here she is, in all her glory!

Thanks to her (and her mom who makes them) I'm not the proud owner of a pair of carnival wine charm earrings!

Interesting phenomenon - for three days, the seas were THIS calm - the water really looked like glass!

It was in advance of [hurricane] Danny so people have told me it was the proverbial "calm before the storm" only there was no REAL storm. We had a few hours of thunder and lightening in the Bahamas (enough to cancel our Aquaventure but not enough to cool anything down) but even then, the waves were only 1-2 feet. It was amazing and eerie at the same time. We had fun with it though!

Our Wait staff was amazing!!! Jacob took care of us so well and was so professional, we felt like we were in a fine dining establishment! He and his team were great - we had YTD in the Atlantic Dining Room and were there between 6-7 every night. Table 134 was the best!

...to be continued with 6 more pictures in next post!

I got to page 28 Gambee and now it is time for me to depart for the airport - I am on this very cruise tomorrow!

Thank you for the amazing review (PS - the reason why there are so many darned seagulls is because people like you feed them! STOP :) Haha, I do not like birds)!

I got the same email - just presumed they haven't updated their email templates in a while.

PS - I am on the same cruise as the OP!

Thank you so much for the replies. :)

 

What is the usual wait time to get into the room without FTTF? Are we talking hours?

We started using FTTF about 3 or so cruises ago. Before that, our room sometimes wasn't ready until 3:30 (right before muster). Other times, it was ready around 2pm or so. It all depends.

I agree that choosing if it is right is up to you. Not only is the room ready, but luggage is there a LOT faster in some cases (of our 4 cruises w/o FFTF, we had to wait until about 7pm on average to get our luggage - making Come as you are for dinner totally valid!). We also like to tender first (had 2 bad experiences of waiting almost 2 hours to tender) and "cut the line" at CS. Our time when on vacation is totally worth it to us!

Have a great time!!!

I somehow missed this post. I was pulling for Jamie Dee but hope Matt is awesome!

They presumably would give you a better cabin. If not available would think they would have to leave you alone

My wife and I are in a 4J (front of ship, 10th floor, handicap room). We are young but my wife is technically and more importantly, legally handicapped (though not wheelchair bound so she is more able bodied). We're going to bring her card with us but in case they offer to move us for an upgrade, me might hold off. especially if they really need the room for someone in a wheelchair. We sail in 10 days so I will let you know!

We loved the Dream and it was a different itinerary so we were on her twice. We had the same thing on the Victory, though she's not a favorite ship but we wanted to do the second itinerary so we boarded her again. And I will be on the Victory again in 2 weeks, again because of the itinerary.

Of all our ships, mine ranked in order of favorites are:

Sunshine

Breeze

Dream

Valor

Victory

Basically, I have never thought a ship was sooo bad that I'd refuse to get on her again but I wouldn't do it for the same itinerary. We hit the Splendor in November as well!

Splurge:

FTTF - our time is worth the $50-60.

Cabin - Wife can't be in an interior room so we've been booking the secret deck rooms (4J?) and will be splurging in November and next September on an aft-view extended and a Havana Cabana...

Food - always eat in 1-2 specialty restaurants, when available. Always trying things in port too!

Excursions - we treat this as once in a lifetime!

Save:

Pictures - learned my lesson with buying too many once

Alcohol - I am usually good with bringing my 2 bottles of champagne (but have been known to have 1-2 more a day on longer cruises)

Cruiseline - we're loyal to Carnival

Souvenirs - usually a magnet for us if we've not been to that port before otherwise, nothing for nobody! lol

Medicine - I bring a large "emergency" kit with us on each cruise. Everything from nyQuil to Benedryl. Both my wife and I got sick on one cruise and spent $100 in the shop on the ship (2 days at sea) for tissues and meds. NEVER AGAIN!

Ours has ranged - the highest was $1,400 when my MIL turned 60 - I bought every picture, we did the Steakhouse AND Chef's Table (both on us), drinks, souvenirs galore...

The lowest it's ever been is about $300.

Generally, it's about $500 between tips, drinks, casino and store purchases.

We're on the Splendor this year for Thanksgiving for the first time ever. Since it's only my wife and I normally for a holiday, and my MIL is joining us for this cruise, I am hoping that it feels more like a holiday, without the stress. We'll be in Puerto Rico on Thanksgiving Day and plan on eating Mufungo for our pre-turkey lunch in port but staying mostly on the ship!

We did this excursion in February and had a horrible experience - the cabana wasn't really clean. There is only ONE waiter for all the cabanas (10 I think in total) and while we were among the first people there and selected the least dirty cabana of them all, we couldn't get the waiter to come. They lost so much food and beverage money. On top of which, people just didn't care an tried using our patio and chairs, etc.

We're going again in 2 weeks and are just hitting the free beach down by Jack's Shack.

Hi all,

Not sure if I've posted in here before! My wife and I have been married for 9 years. Officially anyway, legally for 4 years. Hahaha.

We've been cruising for 5 years and are addicted, as you can see in my signature!

Thank you!

So disappointed that this menu won't be an option on our next cruises though. The port of call is an amazing "new" concept!

Posters should keep in mind that the kitchen is pretty flexible - they can make most anything you request. Thinking vegetarian-ly, if you like the vegetable pot pie thing, you can usually ask that you have it more than one night (I've done this before, though not a vegetarian, with another dish and got it three times - presuming they just put three aside for me?).

Thank you again for posting this!

I was on the Sunshine in December - they offer chicken fingers at the back grill as well as on the buffet.

10 is not (as evidenced by my faux fall last December). 11 and 12 are. See pics

Hubby would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE chicken wings!

They now have wings on the new room service menu (additional fee - about $5 I've heard but can tell you in a few weeks!)

I love reading - great job! Still here :) Making me excited for my first trip to HMC - we got a cabana as well. Thinking we will rent #9 - my wife doesn't like people that much (at least, in close proximity to us, hahaha).

My first of your reviews (I am not really a CC regular so please forgive my ignorance). Great job and look forward to reading more.

Thanks for the ic of the SI Ferry - I am from SI!! Makes me long for home...but also my August cruise, even though it is on the Victory!

If you love me so much, you should take me on the Victory with you in August. :D Or at least come back with a review! Love you too, Jenn!!!

I will. My wife and I will even do the Seuss Breakfast in your honor (and maybe eat things other than orange sherbet for your mom and dad...but I still get to eat the cheese plate every night!).

I usually do reviews but all my links to the pictures broke so I took them out of my signature.

Ok, I spoke to a Verizon rewards representative, she was very surprised I called about this, so it kind of sounded like they have no way to track these mishaps.:eek: Anyway, she sent me a shipping label to send the wrong order back to her, and she will send me my card once she receives these 5 back. She did say that she deactivated my card so no one could use it and will reissue a new one to me.

 

She also threw me some extras for being so honest. But I firmly believe in Karma, if I would have kept them it would bite me in the A$$ later, and it would just be the wrong thing to do.

 

Now I just hope I get my card before final payment.

I believe in karma too and am glad to hear that not only did you do the right thing but that you were rewarded for it in the end!

I love you and am so glad you are back!

We pass the Pride all the time but haven't sailed on her. Looking forward to reading your perspective because, let's face it, I really am a 2 year old at heart!