Cruise-ginity lost on Carnival’s Victory – 10/7-10/14 Review

Seeing how I have been lurking in the background for some time reading reviews (thank you all!), I have decided that it is about time that I return the favor. Since this is my first review as well, please be gentle with me (I’m a delicate flower!!). Seriously now, I will try not to be too wordy (which I’m known for) and I will try to keep my stupid jokes to a minimum (which I’m not known for). There will be plenty of photos to go around. Legal disclaimer: this review reflects my opinions and my opinions only. Your opinions and reviews may differ – something my wife likes to remind me about a lot.

Anyways, here is a quick breakdown on everything. I will write in much more detail on everything but for those that are skimmers or have no interest in actually reading all of my blabbering, here are the cliffnotes:

Ship: Overall, in very good condition for being 12+ years old with a constant weekly cruise schedule. The décor is bit over the top for my liking and a wee bit outdated but it does keep a continual theme of the seven seas throughout the entire ship and many aspects of the décor is quite beautiful such as the Atrium. Just watch out for the hundreds of seahorses, they have a tendency to bite! The Victory does not yet have the 2.0 upgrades but it does have the Punchliner Comedy Club and the Serenity Deck on it. There are no restaurants aside from the MDR and the buffet options. At the end of the day, I’d give her an A.

Rooms: I was highly impressed with the size and appointments of our room. Of course, the last time that I was on a ship was as a Marine and the Navy was not known for giving Marines the most accommodating bunks so maybe my views are a little skewed. Both the cabin and the restroom (or Head as we say in the Marines since we are talking about a ship!) had plenty of storage. Not too sure why anyone would need a shoe hanger for additional storage or to keep things organized. But on the other hand, there were only two of us in the cabin. With a family, such a device might have more use. Watch out for the shower, it was hot…very, very hot I tell you! I swear that water came straight from the boiler room! I really could have done without the outdated light pink décor in there but since that’s my only complaint, I think we’re doing pretty well. Grade: A.

Staff: Incredibly friendly and very outgoing. Many years ago, I had a roommate that worked on a cruise ship as a musician and he was strictly not allowed to interact with the passengers on or off the ship. That was the picture that I had in my head about the staff – very friendly and accommodating but would instantly shy away from you outside of their actual duties. Hardly the case here. The staff members seemed to welcome conversations with you and would bend over backwards to make you happy. Our cabin steward, Yuaday was great. I swear that he lived in a secret closet in the room. We could leave for 10 minutes and the room was suddenly squared away. It almost became a game trying to catch him cleaning our room but that little bugger was fast and very good! Grade: A+

Food: Of course with all of the foodies on CC, I had to address this one. This is where my wife and I differ in our opinions. That being said, since she is the smarter one (and generally always right), you may want to take my review here with a grain of salt (and a margarita for good measure – no sense breaking the salt out without a margarita handy!). Anyways, I’ll break the food down into two areas, the MDR and the Buffet.

MDR: We ate here every night except one and for breakfast the morning of our sea day. The food here was excellent. I have read many reviews saying the quality has declined and the service takes too long. We certainly did not experience this. I’m your typical guy. Get me in and get me out. I have very little patience in waiting for my food. Ioan from Romania was our head waiter. He had this knack of knowing when we had made our selections and was quickly standing at our side to take our order. The food was brought out in very short order and was outstanding. The only compliant that I can think of is that I was not able to eat more of it. Something about my six pack abs quickly turning into a keg’s worth of abs kept stopping me from ordering more. Grade: A+

Buffet: We ate every breakfast and a couple lunches here. I found the food to be mediocre at best. My wife holds a better opinion of it than I do but she is also a lot nicer than me and an all around great gal. Anyways, most meals seemed to be a crap shoot with about 45% being pretty good (not great) and 55% being subpar yet still slightly better than the gourmet dog food that my wife insists on feeding our dogs. However, I did find the pizza to be very good (of course in my eyes, even a bad pizza is still good). I did notice that the breakfast options fared much better in my stomach than the lunch options did. Omelets were made quickly and custom ordered and yes, they will add bacon to it if you ask. (that will always boost one’s grade up some!) I would suggest going to the Off the Grill station in the back of the Lido Deck (next to the Siren Pool) for faster service in the morning. Grade: C

Entertainment: Turns out, there is a ton to do on the ship. Who knew! Some of it is slightly childish yet rather entertaining (think Hairy Chest Contest) while others were gut busting funny and extremely entertaining (think The Newlywed Game) with everything in between (think Towel Animal folding classes). We did not like the Welcome Show which gave you a small splattering of the Victory dancers and the two comedians. Although it was well put together, we found it lacking anything of substance. We didn’t take part in a ton of the ship activities but what we did take part in was rather entertaining. Our Cruise Director (Goose) was very good. He wasn’t overly in your face or constantly on the loudspeaker. I gotta give a shout out to my man, Srki from Macedonia. He was a riot! Overall grade: B

Ports of Call: What can I say about getting to see 6 tropical islands on one cruise?! If you can’t find something enjoyable to do on them, you may want to check your pulse. I will obviously go into more detail on each one but they were all beautiful in their own little way. It is important to note that we were not able to dock at St. Maarten due to Tropical Storm Rafael so we had an additional sea day. Not very happy about that, but then again I was lounging around in the sun in a bathing suit with a drink in my hand instead of wearing an actual suit and pretending that I was actually doing something of substance at work with a coffee in my hand. Which one do you think is more enjoyable! Grade: A+ (even though we weren’t able to see St. Maarten, I won’t take off for that).

Spa: We did not take part in any of the spa facilities so I cannot grade it. However, it did look very pretty in there.

Casino: We did not partake in the casino facilities since I have about as much chance in winning as a broken down pony does in the Kentucky Derby. However, we did hang out at the casino bar quite often, does that count? By the way, the Sushi Bar is located right next to the Casino Bar, so if you’re a sushi fanatic like my wife is, you too will be spending a lot of time at the Casino Bar!

Overall, a great cruise and would highly recommend it to anyone with a pulse. Now please bear with me as I struggle to figure out this whole uploading photos thing while I write this.

Thanks for your wonderful...funny...review! Six pack into a keg what a visual!

Sounds great, we are on her in 4 weeks. Did you go to the piano bar? There is not a steakhouse on Victory?

I love reviews with humor. Thanks for writing this. We are going on the Victory again in December and even though we have been before (review in my signature) I love reading reviews for other opinions and ideas from them. Again thanks for taking the time to do it. :cool::D

Sounds great, we are on her in 4 weeks. Did you go to the piano bar? There is not a steakhouse on Victory?

We did go to the piano bar. I'm sure I have a picture somewhere buried in the 1,200+ photos we took. It was pretty fun, especially if you have a couple of drinks in you and don't care what yours (or anyone else's) voice sounds like.

There is no steakhouse on the Victory, just the two MDRs (Atlantic and Pacific) and the buffet stations on the Lido deck.

Thank you for a very entertaining start to your review - looking forward to the details. Victory was our first cruise as well, although our itinerary (Canada) was very different! I love her "Seven Seas" theme. Now you need another cruise to get to St. Maarten.

And if you hadn't said Marines earlier, I would have figured it out as soon as you described your cabin being "squared away." BIL is retired Navy and DS is a midshipman at the Merchant Marine Academy.:D

Great review

First cruise in November on victory

we too lost our cruise-ginity on the Victory last December. We're returning this January with our 'boys' (18 & 22 on college break), just prior to the Valor taking her place. Loved your humor in your review we agreed with many of your comments

Sounds great, we are on her in 4 weeks. Did you go to the piano bar? There is not a steakhouse on Victory?

Been on this ship 3 times LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!!!!!!!! Also there is NO steakhouse on this ship....

...we agreed with many of your comments

Whew! I'm happy to see that I'm not completely insane and off my rocker!

Glad everyone is enjoying the review so far. Its surprising how therapeutic it is to write about your vacation. Helps to ease one back into the harsh world of reality. Although I have to admit that I much prefer trippingpara's world...it's so much more relaxing and fun!! This reality thing is buggers!

Now, does anybody have any idea how long it takes to upload 1,200+ photos to an online webpage? Let me tell you...a very, very, very long friggin' time!

Okay, let me do a test of uploading a photo here...

Hmm...this isn't working!!

Let's try this again...

It worked!!!!

Great review! Thanks for sharing your experiences!:)

So happy to see a new Victory review. Also glad to see it was a great trip. I've read a few others lately that didn't seem to enjoy it as much due to the Puerto Rican's on the boat. Can't wait to continue reading. We leave in less than 3 weeks.

Saturday, Oct. 6th - San Juan, Puerto Rico

We flew in directly from Boston via JetBlue. We arrived around 11:20 am and quickly grabbed a cab to SOFO Casa Blanca in Old San Juan. The fare was $21 plus $1 per bag (they don’t count carry ons). We quickly checked in and were whisked up to our room (please note, the Casa Blanca does not have an elevator and there are five floors. Luckily, a gentleman quickly appeared and offered to take our main suitcase up the four flights of stairs to our room. When he opened the door for us, I was so taken aback by the room that I completely forgot to tip the poor guy. Sorry buddy!! The entire hotel, including the rooms are decorated in a Moroccan theme. It is done very tastefully and not too over the top. (They even play the movie Casablanca nonstop in the lobby).

The lobby:

Our room:

After checking in, and once I could tear my wife away from her camera and the room, we headed out on foot to tour Old San Juan.

Here are some general shots of Old San Juan:

I heard that Old San Juan can be taxing to walk around due to the steep hills and cobblestone streets. The sidewalks are very narrow and you can't walk in the street for long because a car will run you over. However, I never noticed any of the hills or streets to be too terribly different to navigate. I have bad knees and had no problem walking around all day.

Our next stop: El Morro National Park

What a great review so far! Thank you. We leave on the Victory in 11 days...

Enjoying your review! Glad you figured out how to upload your pictures, they are great.

Great review, bro. Ooorah and SF. For the Navy pukes...BZ

Awesome job with your review! I agree with you about the MDR and the buffet on Carnival ships. When the only thing I can find that I want to eat for breakfast is oatmeal, there's a problem. I would love to see omelets or eggs benedict made with crab, salmon, avocado, hollandaise, asparagus, spinach, and other really yummy ingredients.

Awesome job with your review! I agree with you about the MDR and the buffet on Carnival ships. When the only thing I can find that I want to eat for breakfast is oatmeal, there's a problem. I would love to see omelets or eggs benedict made with crab, salmon, avocado, hollandaise, asparagus, spinach, and other really yummy ingredients.

I would love to see whole grain meusli (not granola), truly 100% whole grain bread/toast, brie, plain unflavored and unsweetened yogurt, good breakfast sausage with no fillers, and good thick cut bacon. But these items, as well as the items you listed are expensive, and we will never see them on Carnival. Their menu will probably continue to be gutted, and the offerings will lean more and more towards fast food. This is one of the reasons we are going to try Princess next year. Hopefully, we will find better food there.

Loving the review. I too along with my 4 cousins leave in 10 days :D. You are increasing my excitement.:D