My first Review - Victory Cruise - July 15-22, 2012

[cruisinwithdad]

OMG, I have tried writing this three times and somehow keep deleting it! My laptop keyboard messes up sometimes and I think it is when I try to type DH..

 

Room Stewards - They were GREAT!!

 

Dining - We had anytime dining. We liked having the option to go whenever we wanted. However, after the first elegant night we decided we didn't want to go to the dining room anymore. They wree slow...really slow. We were sat at the back of the room facing a wall (felt like we were being punished!)...and taken there again one time when we specifically asked NOT to be put there..and we did ask nicely I promise. But we left. The food on the buffet is the same and the salad bar is bigger. Sometimes there was a line and sometimes not...but that seems to be because of the people getting their food...come on folks, just get a little of everything an move on...LOL> We also got into a habit of going to get sushi after coming back on the ship. This was nice as we were hungry right then!

 

Shows -The boys don't really like singing and dancing so we did the comedian shows. The first two nights were really good, then they got off in Barbados and two new guys got on in St. Kitts. We didn't like the new guys as well. DH and I went to the Welcome Aboard show and the Marriage show. Oh and we went to the "Game Show"...it was fun, DH got to go on stage and help give an answer and I got put in timeout for shouting out an answer to the contestants....we both walked away with medals.:):D While we were there DS had partipated in some Trivia game and won a Ship on a Stick:D:D...can't believe he out did us.

 

Chair Hogs - Because I get up early anyway I wanted to go out on the one sea day to see if I could beat the chair hogs. They were all ready out and about. Apparently they run in packs of 8 -10 on our ship! I got my coffee, sat down, saved a couple of chairs for the boys and watched it all unfold. Honestly, it wasn't too bad.

[cruisinwithdad]

Ok, if you are going to do this itinerary in July you must know that this is the rainy season. I looked it up AFTER I booked the cruise. LOL. However, it is also off season...so you are the ONLY ship in port. I told myself that we would probably see rain but it would not last long and let's face it...there are rainforests there!!! It wound up being overcast off on on everyday, but that really helped with the temperature. It makes snorkeling a little harder. Before we left Thursday was the only day that it predicted clear weather...and it rained all day - this was St. Lucia! I was looking forward to this port the most, and you know what...I still fell in love with St. Lucia in the rain..and I am a sunshine kinda girl.

[BettyPC]

Enjoying your review! Thanks for sharing

[DiamondBill102]

One of the best reviews I've read in a long time.

[WiscoGirl32]

Thank you so much for this review!! I love your details!!! Keep up the great week!! I really appreciate it!!!

[jimbo5544]

Did you happen to stop in to the piano bar? Was wondering what you thought of the piano player if you did.

[cruisinwithdad]

Wish we had planned more for this port. Primarily because it was the first one. We took the skylift up the mountain. It is overpriced but we still had fun. It is very pretty and they have lots of animals up there. My DH and DS hiked further up the mountain on the hiking trail. DH had to come back because he was getting scratched by the cactus. DS continued on and had a blast. He wanted to go to the top but he ran into a fence.

 

If you do the skylift, be sure and take the last of the three cars up the mountain and the first on the way down for the best views.

 

Next it was onto Saphire Beach. It was not crowded. I forgot to bring DH's swimsuit so he sat in the shade and took pics. DS and I snorkeled and it wasn't bad. Now, I have never successfully snorkeled and wanted to practice so I would know what I was doing once I got to Barbados with the turtles!

 

DS and DH did decided to kayak out to a little island. It looked farther away then it was and didn't take them long to get there. The taxi driver said he would come to get us at a certain time to take us back to the ship and sure enough he was there. We did a little shopping then back on board for sailaway.

 

 

 

 

 

Testing out my underwater camera and trying to learn to snorkle!

 

 

 

 

 

[cruisinwithdad]

Did you happen to stop in to the piano bar? Was wondering what you thought of the piano player if you did.

 

Actually we did stop in the Piano Bar. I don't recall the gentleman's name but he was really good. My DH really liked him. For some reason, I was distracted by the everything else that was going on right there. At that part of the ship is the Piano Bar, the lounge where they have the comedy shows and the lounge where they do Karaoke. So, I never really just sat there and listened for a long period of time, but my hubby did and enjoyed it.

[hockeyluver]

Thanks for adding in the pix of your cabin, we have a 4J booked for our B2B, ours isnt a hc but it is one of the end ones (on the lido) they look quite spacious!!

 

We LOVED Sapphire beach!! Thought it was much nicer than Meagan's Bay.

[cruisinwithdad]

Thanks everybody for the kinds words. I forgot to post some pics of the Baccardi factory. Here they are:

 

The tour consists of waiting under the bat shaped pavillion drinking one or both of your free drinks until it is time to to on the tour. They take you by tram because you are not allowed to walk on the grounds...it is a very short ride over to the area where they do the tour. You enter a room with some cool pictures and the tour guide begins the story. Next stop a theatre room for a short video. Then onto another room with some historic pieces (be sure to follow the rules of no picture taking in this room! I thought someone was going to get kicked out on our tour!!!). Then into a bar setting to learn about how to make different rum drinks - we received a demo by someone who said they don't tend bar, but they know how to make these drinks. Oh, and in the previous room there were little barrels with lids where you could take a wiff of all the different rum flavors. We really thought we might get to see how they make and bottle the rum...not so much. It was fun anyway though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jimbo5544]

Actually we did stop in the Piano Bar. I don't recall the gentleman's name but he was really good. My DH really liked him. For some reason, I was distracted by the everything else that was going on right there. At that part of the ship is the Piano Bar, the lounge where they have the comedy shows and the lounge where they do Karaoke. So, I never really just sat there and listened for a long period of time, but my hubby did and enjoyed it.

Thanks for the update, we are on the Victory this weekend.

[cruisinwithdad]

I guess I was in a hurry to get to the ports since I forgot to post the pics of Baccardi and Sailaway!

 

One note about this cruise that was different from the one that I had been on before and the one that DS & DH went on is that this cruise really did up the sailaway parties a lot more! My DH mentioned when they got back from his cruise that he only went out on the lido one night and didn't realize that there were lights out there!! I went out at night quite a bit and there was never anything going on...and it was so beautiful. Of course my cruise was before they put so many big screens on the ships.

 

 

 

 

Somone had asked about Freddy and we had a spotting on our ship!

 

 

 

[MustardMan]

Ok, I am back. Sorry, but I had to take a break and focus on my son's Eagle Scout Court of Honor. We are also getting ready to send him off to college this week.

 

I will pick up the pace.:D

 

 

Great review so far and congrats on the Eagle Scout! (I have one as well!) Congrats to your son on that achievement!

[cruisinwithdad]

Ok, now that I am caught up...Baccardi, Sailaway, St. Thomas...it must be time for the Sea Day... I think I have already made my comments about chair hogs, games etc. We watched the hairy chest contest, the mixology contest, and enjoyed the live band music (I had read they were cutting down on this, but we still had a pretty good band out there). People were nice and polite and even if I left my chair, I could usually find another. DH and DS never really took up a spot so I gave one of our chairs to a family next to us who needed one more. Also, I didn't really take advantage of the Serenity deck. Being a people watcher I enjoyed watching the crowds of people on the main deck area. My only complaint would be that the PA system was way to LOUD!!! Even my DH who is a bit hard of hearing complained about it.

[cruisinwithdad]

This was one of my favorite ports. Although I had not pre-booked an excursion, I knew what I wanted to do... Swim with turtles ~!:D First I had looked at Silver Moon and a couple of other charters..than I read on CC about someone who had simply taken a taxi to Payne's Bay and swam out to the turtles and considered this to be a very cost efficient option. However, since our not so planned day in St. Thomas was just ok, when the girl at the information desk suggested doing a catamaran cruise, I took her up on it. We sailed with El Tigre...and had a blast. We opted for the 3.5 hour cruise/snorkle which was about $20 a person cheaper than the 5 hr tour with lunch. Basically we all snorkled together and then they let us out on a beach and provided transportation back to the ship while they then sailed to another beach for lunch.

 

El Tigre was great. It is not a big fancy catamaran, but it was plenty big for the 18 or so people that were on it. The crew was extremely nice and attentive. Someone had made some kind of fruit bread that they shared and the drinks were good and plentiful...rum, margaritas, beer, Diet Coke, water, etc..

 

When we got to the site with the turtles they handed out everything and explained that we would not use fins there but did offer floatation vests. The line at the stairs seemed to stop as they helped smaller kids and their families, but they invited those of us who wanted to to simply jump in and go for it. DS was one of the first ones in, DH followed and I figured if he could do it so could I.

 

There was another catamaran there... but the crew was good about wrangling some turtles our direction. It was so much fun. At one point I was looking around because I thought all the turtles had swam off and then I felt someting nudge me...and it was a turtle swimming right up under my left side!!! Very glad I had practiced my snorkling in St. Thomas. After a while it was time to leave and go on to the next location. I enjoyed the next location also. Not a lot of big fish, but I saw a bunch of blue fish that were so cool. One of the crew members had some food and would throw it out and the fish would just gather around and jump! For the experienced snorklers out there who have been in the big open water and seen some big fish this might not seem like much but I had a blast.

 

 

They are so close!!! :D

LOL, trying to get one of me and the turtle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This crew member (below) was very nice and I am terrible with names so of course I have forgotten his, but he offered to take pictures of all 3 of us, he was also responsible for sticking with the younger kids out in the water. One little girl would not let go of him, she was so cute!

 

[cruisinwithdad]

The turtles are so graceful looking.

 

 

Here are some fish and other sea life pics:

 

Hey, get out of my shot!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruisinwithdad]

Great review so far and congrats on the Eagle Scout! (I have one as well!) Congrats to your son on that achievement!

 

Thank you so much! With an Eagle Scout yourself you certainly know first hand how hard they work for this honor. With graduation, vacation, scout camps etc, we almost let the summer go by without having the court of honor and that was just not going to happen.:)

[cruisinwithdad]

So glad that we did the catamarn excursion as it gave us a chance to meet more people from the ship and reminded me that it is the people that truly make for a wonderful experience wherever you are in life.

 

We met a young newly wed couple and a family with 3 kiddos. The two little girls reminded me of my grand daughters and I think they adopted me as they grandma for the week! After his port day we saw them everywhere we went and the girls would always run up and give me a hug. Great family. The same with the newly weds... no hugs but always good conversation.

 

After snorkling, we were dropped off at a beach to catch our ride back to the ship. I had heard a gentleman and his wife inquiring about the Boatyard when we were at the information desk at the port and remembered reading something about it on CC...so I asked the driver if he could take myself, DH and DS there. Apparently for $10 pp you could utilize the equip at the beach have a free drink and a free shuttle back to the port. The others in the van with us asked me what the Boatyard was and why we wanted to go there...and before you know it...we were all on our way together!

 

This worked out great. There were small blow up trampolines and pyramids in the water for the kids to play on and a rope swing/diving area off the pier. The loungers were very nice and came with umbrellas and the beach was beautiful. The clouds had pretty much disappeared and we all had fun at this beach area before heading back to the ship. By the time we got back on board we were very hungry and very tired. What a great day.:)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OH, here is a pic of El Tigre's catamaran:

[Dirkgun]

Thanks for doing this review it is awesome... I am really enjoying it. Love the pictures. Especially the turtles in Barbados... what camera are you using?? Nice job. :D

[ComeSailWithME]

 

We ate something that I don't remember the name. They made it by putting some kind of batter on a bannana leaf, filling the the batter with meat, and then frying it. We each got one, but I only took a couple of bites out of mine as it tasted quite greasy to me. My DS polished mine off.

This is called an alcapurria. My stepdad is Puerto Rican and I spent a very long family vacation in PR. On our first cruise, we stopped in San Juan and having seen everything, all I knew I wanted to do was get some alcapurrias to have DH (then just my bf) try them! Sorry you weren't a fan. they can be greasy since they are deep fried and the plantain soaks up so much oil.

 

For the skyride in St Thomas, where did you purchase the tickets?

[jimbri]

Enjoying your review. We took our first cruise on the Victory. Love the pictures.

[cruisinwithdad]

Thanks for doing this review it is awesome... I am really enjoying it. Love the pictures. Especially the turtles in Barbados... what camera are you using?? Nice job. :D

 

 

Thanks. The underwater camera is a Panasonic and then my hubby has a better camera that he just bought it is a Cannon Rebel.

[mysh442olds]

glad you enjoyed it this is our favorite port to sail from and will do again

[cruisinwithdad]

This is called an alcapurria. My stepdad is Puerto Rican and I spent a very long family vacation in PR. On our first cruise, we stopped in San Juan and having seen everything, all I knew I wanted to do was get some alcapurrias to have DH (then just my bf) try them! Sorry you weren't a fan. they can be greasy since they are deep fried and the plantain soaks up so much oil.

 

For the skyride in St Thomas, where did you purchase the tickets?

 

Yes! This is what they were exactly! Of course had I had the chance to finish mine, the next couple of bites might have been better, but my DS polished it off.

 

We purchased our tickets for the skyride in St. Thomas, but to be honest the Carnival price was a couple of dollars cheaper.

[gapearl]

Great review and pics! Ready to read more. :D