Wonderful Carnival Victory Cruise 05/27-06/03/2012

Just got off of the Victory day before yesterday and just wanted to say that I absolutely had an AMAZING CRUISE!! Stayed at the Sheraton Old San Juan for 2 nights before the cruise. We had an amazing room with a balcony (extra long balcony!!) with a view of the harbor. I made some coffee Sunday morning at 5:30 am and my daughter and I stood outside and watched the Victory come into port!! An excellent way to start the day! My daughters first cruise and my fifth.

Truly enjoyed every moment on the Victory. I had read so many poor reviews of the ship so I definately wanted to say that I have nothing negative to say about the Victory. From day one to the last few hours on board my daughter (Congrats Cruise!) and I thoroughly enjoyed our 7 days. The ports were amazing too. St. Thomas we enjoyed Coral World/Coki Beach, Barbados we enjoyed Calabaza sailing with the sea turtles and snorkeling, St. Lucia enjoyed Cosol tour, St. Kitts nothing really planned here. 'Big Banana' approached us once we got off of the ship and we ended up doing a 2 1/2 island tour with them and then was taken to Carombola Beach Resort (sp?) for 2 hours which had a beautiful beach and our final day at St. Maarten we spent 6 hours at Maho Beach watching the planes land and take off.

We really enjoyed every meal in the diningroom. Our wait staff was great. Every one we came in contact with on the ship was friendly and courteous. Went out of their way to please us and make our stay on the Victory a memorable one.

We flew US Airways and had a flight out of San Juan at 12:30 pm. We were given zone 2 and met in the Lounge area at 8 and off the ship by 8:30 and at the airport by 9:30 am. Everything went quite smoothly.

I am hoping to write a more detailed review and post some pix when my life slows down a bit from being gone 10 days on my WONDERFUL CARNIVAL VICTORY CRUISE!! ;)

Glad you had a great time! We loved Victory!

Who were your MDR servers, do you remember their names?

Looking forward to reading your detailed review! Glad you had a great cruise!:)

We also did Calabaza in Barbados and had a great time with Gina, Danny and Andrew.

We did the week before and loved the cruise

Looking forward to a Victory review! :)

We will be on the Valor out of San Juan in March 2013. I am looking forward to your reviews of the ports as these are the islands we will be visiting!

Can't wait for a more detailed review! We go in 2.5 months.

Also doing Coral World/Coki Beach and Calabaza....would love to hear more!!!

Looking forward to your detailed review in the future. And hopefully, you'll include lots of pix! But take your time! It's true - "real life" can be quite busy and hard to adjust to again after 10 days away. :D

Glad to hear you enjoyed Calabaza so much. We absolutely loved our time with them. One of the highlights of the trip!!

Looking forward to the detailed review - we sail her on our honeymoon in 101 days!

Can you still buy bottle of booze before boarding the ship?

My fiance and I are sailing on the Victory in 10 days for our honeymoon!! I've sailed on her once before and LOVED it! Glad to hear she's still in good shape. Can't wait!!! I'd love to read a more detailed review if you have time to write one.

Looking forward to your review - we sail on Victory in 45 days!!!!!

Did you do anytime dining or whatever they call it on Carnival? My mother

would like to change from first dining to anytime on our cruise in Sept. on the

Victory. We have done anytime lots on Princess but never on Carnival. Thanks.

Can you still buy bottle of booze before boarding the ship?

Thru BV? Yes.

If you mean in San Juan - only a 750ml bottle of wine per adult over 21 is allowed

We were on the same cruise the week before and also LOVED it! Great ship, great food, great service and great ports. Looking forward to your detailed review to re-live it again. I am trying to find the time to do a review myself..just haven't been able to find the time yet.

A little bit of info about myself. This is my 5th cruise on Carnival and my daughters 1st cruise. The cruise was her graduation gift. It may take a couple of days to write the full review and I will end with pix. We took over 2,000 pix on this cruise!! We both thoroughly enjoyed everything from start to finish. So here goes.....

Thursday May 24th, 2012 ~ We headed to Denver, CO (several hour drive!) after work that evening. Our flight left at 12:45 a.m. Flew US Airways and was pleasantly surprised at the plane. It looked almost brand new!! We flew to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and then on into San Juan, PR. I was very impressed with US Airways. This was a CONGRATS CRUISE for my oldest daughter as her graduation gift. We both slept on both of the flights so we would be wide awake once we got to San Juan.

Friday May 25th ~ Once we landed in San Juan we took a taxi to the Sheraton Old San Juan which cost $19.00 plus $1.00 per bag. It was so exciting to finally get to the Sheraton knowing our Victory cruise was to begin in just two days!! I had booked this cruise back in March of 2011 and it was finally here. We checked in and was pleasantly surprised at the room we were given. We were on the 9th floor and had a HUGE BALCONY with a beautiful view of the Carnival pier!! This was fantastic!! We got settled in and then off we went. Started off with lunch at Senor Frogs. We had our first (of many!) pina colada!! I had read about the free trolley on cruise critic so we caught it and went to Fort San Cristobal. What a beautiful place. We walked around for a couple of hours and took many pictures. So much history there and what a view of the ocean. We then took the free trolley back to the hotel. We both fell asleep and woke up at 7 p.m. We went downstairs and ate at the Chicago Burger Co. Restaurant and had a good meal. We enjoyed listening to the singer and just relaxed. Our first day in San Juan has come to an end.

Saturday May 26th ~ Woke up and made some coffee. Enjoyed the view from our balcony. Soon we were off exploring some more of San Juan. We happened to walk by Dooney & Bourke and Coach Factory stores and enjoyed getting some bargains!! We loved looking at the architecture of the buildings. Plus the cobblestone streets. WOW!! As the day progressed it seemed like it got hotter and hotter and more humid for me!! There was a slight breeze which was wonderful I might add! I had read about Barrachina Restaurant on cruise critic and we had to find it and try one of their pina coladas. We ate lunch there and each had 2 pina coladas! They were wonderful just like I had read about! We dropped off our bags at the hotel and headed to Fort El Morro. The free trolley sure came in handy. El Morro was spectacular. Walking up to the fort was truly beautiful. Many more pix were taken and we spent a few hours walking around in the fort. So much history. Just truly enjoyed both of the forts. Took the trolley back but got off at a different spot so we could walk more in Old San Juan. We stopped at an outdoor cafe for dinner. We both of course had another pina colada!! I had garlic chicken with mofongo and my daugher had garlic shrimp with mofongo. We both like garlic, but this garlic was over the top!! Way too garlicy for us, but we enjoyed the mofongo (fried sweet plantains). We continued to enjoy our evening in San Juan. Down by the ocean walk area there was a festival going on. We enjoyed looking at all of the goods for sale and of course found a stand which had pina coladas for only $3.00. How could we pass that up???? We strolled slowly back to the Sheraton and before heading to bed enjoyed our balcony knowing that the Victory would be coming into port bright and early the next morning....

Sunday May 27th ~ OH MY!! Today is the day I have been waiting for....I had an early wake up call and had coffee made by 5:30 a.m. Woke up my daughter and out on the balcony we went. We enjoyed some music on the radio, sipped our coffee and patiently waited. My daughter noticed a small boat came in view and I knew that was the pilot boat. Shortly after here came the Victory!! What a spectacular sight that was. I did my 'happy dance' and videoed some and took many pix!! My daughter was in awe of the size of the ship. We got the rest of our things packed up and headed out for breakfast. Once again cruise critic came through. We headed to the Cafeteria Mallorca and we each had some orange juice which tasted like we were drinking directly from an orange! And we had this breakfast sandwich which was made from a light bread with powdered sugar on top. We chose the one with egg and bacon and it was wonderful! We had to buy 2 more of those rolls to go. My daughter was highly impressed with what I had learned from cruise critic. We headed over to CVS Pharmacy which was just down the street from the Sheraton and bought our drinks and a bottle of wine to bring onboard. Back to the hotel to send a few emails to say the Victory had come for us! And then we checked out at 11 arrived at the pier by 11:30 (walked the short walk down the street with our suitcases) and were given zone 9. Boarding began at noon and we were on the ship by 12:30 eating lunch on the Lido deck. By the time we were done eating our cabin was ready. Our suitcases were already there. I was so excited to show my daughter the cabin. We had one of the L-shaped cabins at the back of the ship and I had it decorated with 'bon voyage'. She was surprised!! We enjoyed the extra long balcony. We freshened up a bit and she wanted to have another pina colada at the Barrachina so off we went!! We enjoyed a few more hours walking around Old San Juan. Of course we had a couple more pina coladas each and back to the ship we went. Dinner of pizza on the Lido deck. The muster drill was around 9:30 pm and we celebrated 'sail away' on our balcony drinking some wine mixed with 7-up. The Fort El Morro was beautiful to pass by after dark. We went to the Lido deck for their sail away party for awhile and then headed back to our cabin and fell fastly asleep...

Monday May 28th ~ St. Thomas ~ The thrusters at the back of the ship woke us up and out on the balcony we went to watch as we pulled into port. The ocean was so beautiful blue! We had breakfast in the MDR and off the ship we went. We took a cab to Coral World which was $9.00 per person. We went to Coral World primarily so we could get a locker to lock up all of our stuff for the day. Coral World was okay. We did enjoy watching the fish get fed and then watching them feed the small sharks. Even got to touch one. Using their restrooms was nice too I will admit. Then off to Coki Beach we headed. We rented 2 lounge chairs and 1 umbrella for $15.00 total. We enjoyed most of the afternoon out in the water floating and snorkeling. It was must a relaxed beautiful day in St. Thomas. I would highly recommend Coki Beach as we thoroughly enjoyed our day there. We did eat some lunch there of jerked chicked with rice and beans. Dawn and Wes were awesome servers that day. Dawn was so friendly. It was nice to freshen up after our day at the beach at Coral World. There were many iguanas just walking around. I sat down to put my shoes on and was surprised when I had 3 of them down by my feet!! I think they just wanted some food. We left around 2 p.m. and asked if the taxi driver would take us back to the ship the scenic route which he did. We went to the MDR for dinner tonight. We had early dining on the lower level Pacific DR table #506. It was at a booth however our table mates never once came. That was okay with us. We had 3 amazing servers (cannot remember their names though!). They made every evening in the MDR special. We had grilled pork with golden sliced potatoes, zucchini and mashed squash. It was wonderful. We went back to our cabin to change however we both were tired so we got ready for bed. Watched some tv and fell fast asleep. Our day at St. Thomas was amazing....

Glad you had a great time. Sailed the same itinerary in Nov and I think it was my favorite cruise ever!

Glad you had a great time. Sailed the same itinerary in Nov and I think it was my favorite cruise ever!

I agree! I hopefully will do this same cruise again in 2013 or 2014!! More review to come!! :D

Awww Can you come back and finish this review. I was loving it:eek: