Triumph Review 10 years after Inaugural sailing!

[Troller's]

My wife and I were on the Triumph 10 years ago for it's first cruise out of NY and we are happy to have recently been on It's last NY cruise.

 

We were on Triumph's last 7 day Canada cruise for the year. It was very cold on the ship. The outside temperature was in the high 30's low 40's at times. The cabins on the Triumph have no heating controls, just vents in the ceilings for air conditioning. staff and crew on board the ship were telling passangers the ship had no heat because it was a caribbean ship. I guess that is why Carnival does not keep a ship in NY year round.

 

I found the ship to be in pretty good condition for being 10 years old. We were in the same rough weather that Caribbean Princess was in last week and the Triumph seemed to hold her own. The ship shows some wear and a few lights were out here and there. Paint looked good. Very little rust. Varnish was nice and shiny. Some decorative trim was out of place and there was dust in the corners, but over all the ship was clean and really looks great! Everything seemed to work OK. Well, except for the elevators, Carnival needs to show them some attention. The service was exceptional. Everyone was really great even though the tips are automatic now. It was really suprising to see how hard these people still work on these ships even with the tipping changes.

 

The staff was fantastic. Our dining room team was great. The food was good. Even the Lido buffet lunch and the breakfast were good. Reuben sandwich at NY deli was great and even the pizza was ok! Some of the menu selections weren't what I would call tasty, but there were plenty of choices to find something you would like. Overall the food was pretty much what you get at any good resturant. The deserts were ok. I still haven't found a cruise line that can reproduce real NY style cheesecake. Carnival comes close but you have to buy it at the coffee shop along the Promanade.

 

We had 4 cabins amongst our group, 2 with one steward and 2 with another. The 1st 2 cabins were always made up early before 9:00AM. The other 2 were not touched untill well after noon. That was just because the stewards had to start and stop somewhere, right? Cabin condition was hit and miss. Our cabin was in great shape. The beds were perfect and everything was very clean. In my parents cabin the bed had a horrible sag. The cabinets were badly chipped and there was a ton of dust under the bed. I can really see why so many reviews of the same cruise can differ so. There were no bad smells. Carpets all looked clean and new. All in all both stewards did a fine job maintaining all of our cabins thru the week.

 

The entertainment was also good. The cruise director Jorge is the funniest Fat Latino guy I have ever seen. He makes George Lopez look like just a regular guy and not a comedian. We spent most of our late nights in the atrium bar begging Justin to play a little Jon Bon Jovi oldies music for us so we could sing along. Even the shows in the Rome Lounge were good, at least in my opinion. The first comedian was ok. Lucky for him he did finally hook up with Christina from the audience on his last night. We never got to see the second comedian because of the overcrowded Club Rio. I thought he would have 2 shows but there was only 1! He should have been in the Rome Lounge for his late show that night so more people could have seen the show. We also missed the magician and the legends show. We enjoyed spending our last night hanging out with Justin in the atrium bar listening to his guitar.

 

Our son loved Camp Carnival. He stuffed a Freddie doll to bring home. They made projects, had face painting, read stories with milk and cookies, played games and had fun with all the toys. The Camp Carnival staff were very good with the children. There were 15 kids in the 2 to 5 program.

 

Everyone onboard the ship from the dining room waiter and busboy to the room steward and the bartenders went out of their way to make his time on board really fun. Our busboy Marcus made him a paper bird one night at dinner and at the atrium bar Fahara made him a tiny shirt out of a dollar bill. Don't forget those cool towel animals in his bed every night! We were suprised how many crew and staff knew him by name. Everywhere we went people would shout out Hi Stephen, give me five. He loved it! We are so glad he really enjoyed this cruise and can't wait for our spring cruise on the Pride.

 

It has been about 8 years since our last Carnival cruise and I was concerned after reading so many negative things on this site. Our last 2 cruises were on RCCL and NCL. I feel we can now make a good comparison among the 3 and I feel that for the money Carnival still gives you the best value. We had a "Fun" vacation on the Carnival Triumph and would recomend this ship to anyone!

 

Oh! by the way. On Triumph's first cruise in July 1999, out of NY up to Canada, the air conditioning did not work the entire cruise. The ceiling panels over top of the casino bar had to be pulled down to repair leaky plumbing that flooded the Promanade deck. Toilets were plugged up all over the ship. The new staff were poorly trained and new to the ship. It was packed beyond capacity. There was a long line back into the Rome lounge every day with passangers complaining about the problems with the ship and every where you looked workers were taking apart panels to fix something else that was broken. Back then My wife and I could care less. We were recently engaged then and had no worries. We were on vacation and made a "Fun" time of it.

 

We didn't book the inagural cruise on the Triumph back then. Ours was supposed to be the 5th or 6th sailing of the Triumph. Unfortunatly for all those unlucky people their cruises were cancelled when there were problems with the Azipods during sea trials. Triumph had to go into drydock for repairs before crossing the Atlantic from the Italian ship yards where she was built. Our sailing became the new inaugural sailing. That was how we became the lucky passangers to help Carnival work out Triumphs new ship bugs.

[yogimax]

Thanks for your review!