AryMay's January Photo Review of the Victory

[AryMay]

Are you a loco gringo dot com person? Hmmmm I wonder if their forums are on this tapatalk thing I just I just loaded on my iPhone & pad?

 

Yes...I am a "cooler carrying member" of Loco Gringo!!

 

How do you like Tapatalk? I have considered putting it on my iPad.

[AryMay]

This was once again a great review. I read your review of the Legend before our cruise - it was so helpful. We are booked on the first sailing of the Valor out of San Juan and we are very excited about hitting some new places. Although we live in FL and Jet Blue has a non stop flight once a day, it is still over $200pp. Not a huge deal but we have always driven to the port. I am having difficulty swallowing the cost of a room. My daughter that is also going works for a hotel chain, and hoping she can find us all a couple of employee rates. Anyway, thank you so much for your review, suggestions, and gorgeous pictures.

 

Oh how jealous I am of you "Florida people"! ;) Our flight to San Juan was almost $700 per person...and the only way we could get away with not paying more was by driving 3 1/2 hours to Minneapolis.

 

Our son also works for a large hotel chain but he wasn't able to get us any deals...hopefully you will have better luck.

[JLTx2]

Yes...I am a "cooler carrying member" of Loco Gringo!!

 

How do you like Tapatalk? I have considered putting it on my iPad.

 

Oh yeah. I forgot about the cooler. I have/ had the famous UGLYYYY yellow one. Lol.

Tapatalk I had to pay for on my iPhone but when I went to load it on my iPad it was free. If you want the HD version, why I don't know, it was like $4.99.

[ah334798]

I'm so glad I found this review and you finished it just in time. Leave for my cruise in 10 days. Really appreciate all the hard work you put into the review. Thanks.

[steelers10]

Awesome review and pics. We sail on the Victiry in Junev- can't wait! Also researching your tour advice. Bthank for posting.

[sandy point]

Awesome review and pics. We sail on the Victiry in Junev- can't wait! Also researching your tour advice. Bthank for posting.

WOW!! What a review, it feels like I just took this cruise. What a wealth of information and it came in just in time since my wife and I will be taking the Victory in a couple of weeks.Now we know what to expect on our first cruise.

Almost pack!

[AryMay]

WOW!! What a review, it feels like I just took this cruise. What a wealth of information and it came in just in time since my wife and I will be taking the Victory in a couple of weeks.Now we know what to expect on our first cruise.

Almost pack!

 

Glad you enjoyed the review! This itinerary wouldn't have been my first pick, but we joined in after the cruise had been chosen so didn't have a choice. BUT...it turns out it was fabulous!! St. Lucia and St. Kitts are my definition of paradise!

 

Have a great cruise...and even though it is your first I'll bet it won't be the last! :)

[mjmiller]

Absolutely fantastic review! Thank you so much for taking your time and effort to post all these pictures. You have a nice balance of text - just enough detail, but not hard to wade through.

 

We are booking for next Jan - we're doing B2B this cruise, then the repositioning to Miami. :D

[AryMay]

Absolutely fantastic review! Thank you so much for taking your time and effort to post all these pictures. You have a nice balance of text - just enough detail, but not hard to wade through.

 

We are booking for next Jan - we're doing B2B this cruise, then the repositioning to Miami. :D

 

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the review.

 

What ports will you visit on the repositioning cruise? Doing the B2B sounds great!

 

Only flying one way to San Juan would be nice as well...the airfare was pretty steep.

[Kubanita]

Great review and awesome photos!!! Thank you because I got some great ideas!! Will hopefully be doing this trip next month. I REALLY ENJOYED THE REVIEW!!! :)

[cocontom]

Ok thanks! I'm looking for a reputable tour guide in St. Lucia. Have read some horror stories here! We love the land based tour but was wondering if there was a reputable tour that instead of driving us back to the ship after the Pitons, if it would take us back to the ship by water taxi.

 

I'm just afraid that all day in a van may be too much for my older parents.

I remember seeing one on the Ports of Call section that does that- I think it's Cosol, but I wouldn't swear to it. Unfortunately, it was before I realized everything was running together and I put together the itinerary.

[Mikel1733]

Thanks for a great review. We did this itinerary on the Festivale years ago and loved it. Maybe it's time to do it again.

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for posting an awesome review of your cruise. Also for posting your wonderful pictures. Glad you had a good cruise.

[aberthelot]

Some more from inside the fort...

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a great view of the Victory from on top of the fort...

 

Nice shots! What type of camera do you have?

[YearlyCruiser]

Looking forward to the rest of your review. We are cruising is same cruise in October :)

We are on the same cruise on Oct 7 and we are also from Minnesota. This is our second time on the Victory out of San Juan.

[AryMay]

Nice shots! What type of camera do you have?

 

Thanks for the compliment! Most of the photos were taken with a Canon D10. It is a point and shoot and also can be used underwater. If you check out my review of the Legend you can see a lot of underwater photos tht I took. Here is the link to the review. Although this camera is a bit bulky I am always pleased with the photos.

 

I also did some of the ship photos with my old Canon SD200. I like it because I can carry it in my pocket, but it is starting to give me some problems. Not sure how much longer I will use it.

[AryMay]

We are on the same cruise on Oct 7 and we are also from Minnesota. This is our second time on the Victory out of San Juan.

 

Have a great cruise! Hopefully you were able to get a decent price on your airfare...boy was it expensive to fly from Minneapolis! At least if you are in Eagan you don't have far to go to get to the airport!

[hockeyluver]

thanks for your review, although we arent doing the same itinerary i am looking forward to the Victory. We have a 4J booked lido deck, so hopefully no one on our cruise knows about the secret door...... hoping we will have a very large secret balcony :D

[Dirkgun]

Awesome review.... thanks for doing it. They are time consuming to write but so fun to relive the experience. We loved the Victory so much we are doing it again this December..... only this time it does not have Dominica on the itinerary, which is sad because I really like that island.

[MrFunInTheSun]

Another great review by AryMay. Thank you for sharing your wonderful experiences and pictures. Hope your kids aren't still to upset with you both for not taking them along during this adventure. :-) When's your next cruise? :-)

[AryMay]

Awesome review.... thanks for doing it. They are time consuming to write but so fun to relive the experience. We loved the Victory so much we are doing it again this December..... only this time it does not have Dominica on the itinerary, which is sad because I really like that island.

 

I was sorry that the itinerary did not include Dominica...it is one island that I would like to visit someday. HOWEVER...it was nice to have one sea day. I'm not sure I would have survived a port every day!!

 

Have a great time on your cruise!

[AryMay]

Another great review by AryMay. Thank you for sharing your wonderful experiences and pictures. Hope your kids aren't still to upset with you both for not taking them along during this adventure. :-) When's your next cruise? :-)

 

Thank you so much for the compliment! I love going back and rereading my own reviews (is that vain??). It is fun to relive the fun times we had. I usually do a "Cruise DVD" set to music as well but never did get that done this time.

 

We don't have any cruises planned at the present...and not sure when we will do another family cruise again. Three months ago we became Grandma & Grandpa for the first time and I'm pretty sure there will be more grandkids coming in the future. Having little ones will change the type of family vacations I'm sure. I am SO GLAD that we did the two big family cruises when we did...we will always cherish those memories!

[hockeyluver]

Thanks for the review, going on the Victory in February, but have decided to do this itinerary on the Valor January 2014 :D

[Hello...2 thumbs up]

Great review!!! Thank you for sharing your trip with us.

[Pellaz]

Thanks for the great review, and thanks also to the people who posted in it and brought it to the top of the board so I saw it. :)

 

I'm strongly considering Victory for a cruise out of Miami in October and it was great seeing pics of the ship. We were on Liberty about two months ago and I'm comparing the two, since they are the same class but Victory won't have her upgrades to FunShip 2.0 before October. Trying to figure out what dining options beyond the "usual" Victory will have......

 

It was nifty seeing a write-up about the scuba excursion at Coki Beach. I did the Snuba excursion on our cruise, which is handled out of Coral World next to Coki. I was really happy with it, but I wish I'd brought my own snorkel gear from the ship since we had 90 'bonus' minutes to kill...and Coki Beach was a few steps away. Coral World itself is pretty cool, and it was included in the excursion price, but darnit, snorkeling would have been fun, especially since we had already missed our call at Half Moon Cay.

 

 

There was this from your review....

 

 

Tuesday, January 24 – A Sea Day

 

…I went to one of my favorite places…the deck outside the lobby. For much of the morning I felt like I had the world’s largest private balcony…I was the only one there! I read my book…and enjoyed just watching the ocean go by.

 

 

 

If you are looking for a quiet, peaceful place to spend a sea day...this was it. No loud music...no chair hogs. Eventually a couple of other people showed up...but for the most part the deck was mine...all mine!!!

 

 

This is so amazingly true! At various times a lot of the doors to the deck were blocked by, e.g., photographers' backdrops and such, but we found it almost always empty, and my sister could smoke on the starboard side.

The deck actually looks quite 'retro,' with few nods to modern design, and we decided it looked a lot like something you might have seen on Titanic, but without that nasty salt-water aftertaste. :)