Carnival Newbie Victory Review - 1/1/15 - 1/5/15

[ReRe71]

This was my first Carnival cruise and my boyfriend's second. We chose it based on the sail dates and I have been wanting to try Carnival. We flew to FLL on the 31st and stayed at Embassy Suites which was great. The shuttle was scheduled to pick us up at 11:30am on the 1st for transport to POM and they actually called us an hour early offering to pick us up...thought that was pretty nice of them. We kept the 11:30am pick up time and arrived at POM a little after 12pm. Walked right in, got our set & sail cards and walked on the ship....great embarkation!

 

Ship

Just going to put it out there....the decor is horrible. And it made the ship feel very dark. I also found it difficult to navigate....not very much signage. The pools seemed very small as well. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy one night on the big screen.

 

Stateroom

We were in 2426 interior. Besides the fact that the room is VERY dated (pink bathroom and box tv) I must say it was a good size. One thing that we found odd was that the bed was against the wall and the box with the life vest (why weren't they in the closet??) was at the foot of the bed, so my boyfriend had to climb over me to get in and out of the bed. We saw our stateroom attendant one time (on the first day) but never saw him again. Liked the fact that you use your key card to open/close the safe vice keying in a code.

 

Main Dining Room

We chose ATD for this cruise and I will probably never go back to early/late seating. Very convenient going to dinner when we chose to go. Every night we walked right in to our table (we really liked our server the first night and chose her section every night). The last night was the only night we had to wait for a table and they gave us a beeper....waited about 10 minutes.

 

All of our meals were pretty good. I actually had the surf and turf (for the upcharge) on two nights. Some of the items we had were caesar salad, crab cakes, flat iron steak, chicken alfredo.

 

Lido Bufffet

Didn't have a good experience at the buffet. Food was cold and just not very tasty. Yes, I know it's a buffet but the food was very bland. My boyfriend found hair in his eggs one day :eek:. One day my bacon was coated in so much grease it was white:eek:.

 

Off the Grille

Enjoyed the offerings here....good burgers and hot dogs. There were 2 locations so that was convenient as they stayed pretty busy.

 

Pizza Pirate

I like thin cruse pizza so I enjoyed it. Our only issue was that there was always a long line....seems like they don't continuously make the pizzas, as they should because it was always crowded (they are open 24 hours).

 

Casino

We are non-smokers but didn't find the casino too smokey. We also one a good chunk of money too ;).

 

Entertainment

Attended Game Mania, Love & Marriage, Battle of the Sexes, Beyonce Dance Class (just watched...didn't participate...lol). All were pretty good. Also went to the comedy show....it was John Cabonara and he was very funny. There was another comedian but we didn't see it. They showed the NFL playoff games in the Aegean bar so my boyfriend spent time in there on Sunday (he's a diehard Dallas fan).

 

Sea Day Brunch

I was so looking forward to this. Brunch is one of my favorite meals! We came away very disappointed (as did others). My boyfriend ordered scrambled eggs, bacon and cheese grits. I ordered chicken breast with lemon and hot peppers. Both of our meals were barely room temperature. My chicken has tomato sauce poured over it and a jalapeno pepper on top and tasted awful. His eggs were terrible and the grits had a slice of cheese sitting on top (not even melted!). Another gentlemen eggs were cold and steak was cooked wrong (twice). The best part of my meal was my mimosa!

 

Key West

We had planned on renting bikes but decided to just walk around Duval Street and some other areas.

 

Cozumel

We booked the Ancient Cultural/Mayan Ruins & Island Sightseeing tour. So worth it! Alex and Hector were our guides and they were great. Very informative and kept us interested the whole time. I think some in our group did not realize how the terrain would be (it was pretty rocky in some areas). But we had a great time!

 

There were definitely hits and misses on this cruise for us, but I won't rule out Carnival. We are looking at booking another cruise on Carnival but are looking at the newer ships. I know the things like food and decor are subjective but for us these do make a difference. Does it ruin the cruise? Of course not. We still had a great time and look forward to booking another cruise soon :).

[tawaik]

Thanks for the review. I'm presently searching for another cruise for 2016 and thought about leaving from the Baltimore since the port is about two hours away from home. The only downside, the ships are going to the Bahamas and we have no desire to return there now.

[opshannon]

Sailed on the Victory over Thanksgiving. Your review hits every nail on its head. Not the best Carnival experience I've had. The decor is utterly horrible. Good point about the ship being quite dark throughout. I had forgotten that in some other comments I made in other threads.

[ReRe71]

Thanks for the review. I'm presently searching for another cruise for 2016 and thought about leaving from the Baltimore since the port is about two hours away from home. The only downside, the ships are going to the Bahamas and we have no desire to return there now.

 

 

We live in Maryland but I'm in the same boat as you.....really don't want to go to the Bahamas again.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[ReRe71]

Sailed on the Victory over Thanksgiving. Your review hits every nail on its head. Not the best Carnival experience I've had. The decor is utterly horrible. Good point about the ship being quite dark throughout. I had forgotten that in some other comments I made in other threads.

 

 

At first I thought it was just me, then my boyfriend said, no it's really dark here....lol. I've always been "wowed" when I walked on a RCCL ship....didn't happen this time.

 

How was your dining experiences?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[cruiser fanatic]

Thanks for the review. It sounds like the bigger ships with the upgrades would be better for you.

Edited January 6, 2015 by cruiser fanatic

[opshannon]

At first I thought it was just me, then my boyfriend said, no it's really dark here....lol. I've always been "wowed" when I walked on a RCCL ship....didn't happen this time.

 

How was your dining experiences?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Dining was okay. The food was what I expected. The service was hit and miss. We had traditional dining. It didn't matter if we were first or last in our section, the wait staff always started with the biggest table first. We were always last in the rotation. Most nights it didn't matter because we weren't in any rush. On Elegant Night we had plans after dinner. On that night it was 45 from the time we sat until we had our first course delivered. We left before dessert.

[ReRe71]

Thanks for the review. It sounds like the bigger ships with the upgrades would be better for you.

 

Yeah, I think I will stick with those :)

 

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using Forums mobile app