Victory Dec. 4 review (Western) (and semi-long)

[WeatherGeek]

I'll divide this into 3 parts - the good, the disappointing and the ugly. This was the first cruise I've been on that had all 3. Before anyone flames me (because you KNOW someone will), the "disappointing" did not interfere with my cruising experience at all, but is more of me paying more attention to Carnival penny pinching and cutting back on things.

 

Also, bear in mind that these are MY views of the trip, which may not necessarily coincide with YOUR views of the trip or the Victory or Carnival or the ports of call, etc.

 

This was my third cruise with Carnival in the past two years and I think it might be my last with Carnival for a while - no, the cruise was NOT so terrible that I'm finished with Carnival. I know I'll be back! I love Carnival! However, I think that after 3 cruises in 2 years, I'm getting burnt out on the same tired cruise director jokes, the same tired dinner menus, the same tired sub-par lido deck food, the same tired pizzeria pizzas, the same tired dance routines the waiters perform, etc. Who knows though, maybe it's the same on all of the lines! I just want to make clear that this is not any kind of slam on Carnival because they've been great, I am just ready to try something else.

 

So, let's get the shorter things out of the way, shall we?

 

The Disappointing

1. The Capers. While I love the new layout, the times were never right!!!! On one side, it stated the breakfast buffet opened at 7am. On the other side, it stated the breakfast buffet opened at 7:30am. It stated the gym opened at 6am.....was up there around 6:30 one morning and it was not open and a sign on the spa door said it opened at 7am! This was annoying, but at the same time I didnt' care too much because there was always another option available (i.e. eat danishes for breakfast, run on the jogging track).

2. Food. No flourless chocolate cake and no bitter and blanc bread pudding. Ahh! Need I say more?! Oh and just out of curiosity, what happened to the cute little towers of butter? They've been replaced by individually wrapped butter squares. NOT a big deal in the slightest (obviously), but I'm just curious why they changed. Penny pinching? More sanitary? The chocolate buffet was not advertised in the Capers, but thankfully I happened to be in the right place at the right time! I also got a real big kick out of a sign for chocolate "tid" bits that said something kind of gross sounding as a result of a misspelling :D

3. Room steward. He never introduced himself and we spent all week trying to figure out which one he was. He also never gave us a beach towel that we asked for that he forgot to replace. Go figure that was for the port day where we were actually in the water all day. Oh well, not the biggest deal in the world. His redeeming quality was that he did leave a ton of cool towel animals, including 2 swans kissing on the night that our cabin was decorated with happy honeymoon decorations. Totally cute.

4. The room. We booked an 8A GTY and ended up with an 8B. The balcony door's handle was corroded so badly that it would not budge, so the door simply pushed open and never latched shut properly. There was duct tape holding something together on the ceiling above the window, but I could never quite figure out what it was holding together. No fridge? None of these were a big deal, just kind of annoying, but nothing to dwell on. Other than that, the room was great and in cabin 7353, we had a great location on the ship. The balcony chairs seemed uncomfortable compared to those that we've had on the Valor.

5. Seahorses. There are these annoying seahorses EVERYWHERE when you take the stairs and I have an enormous bruise on the side of my leg proving exactly how dangerous they can be. Please, if you're cruising on the Victory in the future, be careful and do not cut corners short when taking the stairs!!!!

 

The ugly:

1. The purser's desk when attempting to contest a charge that I know I did not make. On the day we were in Costa Maya, a mysterious charge appeared on our sail and sign bill. The amount was extremely insignificant in the grand scheme of things (think: a drink), but the principal (principle?) of the matter is that I should not be required to pay for something that I know I did not purchase. I went to the purser's desk as soon as I saw it on the bill and had them send an inquiry to the accounting department. The next day, an inquiry form was slid under our door stating that the charge had been verified as mine and to please see the attached page, which was the receipt with a signature on it. First and foremost, I knew something was wrong because it was a manually written receipt (like when you buy lido deck drinks from someone carrying a tray of them or water/soda before going into port) and not a computer receipt and I know that I had not signed a manual receipt (and never did during the entire cruise). Second, I looked at the signature, which looked NOTHING like my name and NOTHING like my husband's name. I took it to the purser's desk right away and explained that it was not my signature. It was my folio number, but it had to have been written down wrong, with the numbers in the wrong order from whomever's card was purchasing whatever this was at the time. They could not grasp the concept that the bar staff (or whomever the receipt had come from) had written down the wrong folio number and now I am being mischarged. The purser I was talking to then pointed out that the person who signed for it, their name started with "S" and so did my husband's, so he must have signed for it. After a bit more arguing, he said the charge would just be removed and that he would take care of it. Two days later, the charge was still there. My husband and I both went to the purser this time, armed with our ID cards that have our signatures on them to show that the signature on the receipt looked nothing like our signatures. Again, we were told that the charge would be removed. Saturday morning it was still there. After getting the runaround from the purser's desk and the accounting department, the charge was removed. Yes, it was an insignificant amount, but I am not going to pay for someone else's whatever-they-bought because someone on the Carnival staff made a mistake.

2. Embarkation. The worst I've ever experienced. This was a nightmare since we thought getting there early would allow us to beat the crowd. HAHAHA! Not when there are only three people checking 1000 people in. After we stood in line for approximately one hour (and had moved about 50-75 feet, no joke), they shuffled the entire line to a different line, where we stood without moving for about 25 minutes. Once this line got moving, we were on the ship in no time. We arrived at the pier at about 11:15 and were finally on the ship by about 1:00pm. The reason this takes me by surprise is because I've arrived at the pier at around the same time for my last 2 cruises and had no issues whatsoever. I know that all cruises are different, but it did take me by surprise. It was about 80 degrees in the terminal building, so waiting in line for all that time was not pleasant.

3. Costa Maya. I will never go to this port ever again. If I have no choice (as I had no choice in this case since we got rerouted from Cozumel), I will not get off of the ship. The local vendors were the pushiest I've ever experienced. A simple "no thanks" or "no gracias" did nothing to get them off of your back. When a vendor grabs my hand and yanks me into his shop, he has crossed the line and this happened on three occasions, which is three too many for me. The taxi driver dropped us off on the far side of town (and it's not a far walk to the taxi stand, so no complaints there, as the town of Majahual is very small) and we had to walk past all of the street vendors trying to get back to Island Marketing where we would meet our tour operator. We took a tour to the Chacchoben Ruins, which was mildly entertaining (but our tour guide, Salvador, was FANTASTIC! If you do the Chacchoben Ruins tour, ask for him!), but our tour operator spoke very limited English and the long 45 minute rides out to the ruins and back from the ruins became even longer due to the lack of conversation. I realize I'm in Mexico and their primary language is Spanish and it's my fault for forgetting 5 years worth of studying the language, but if you're giving tours to American tourists, one would imagine that the tour operator would speak English fluently.

4. Nativeway. The guy was nowhere to be found at the designated meeting spot at the designated time. As a result, the tour did not depart at 9am, as advertised and assured by the person I had e-mailed prior to booking the excursion. She also assured me that we would get back to the pier at 2pm, but we got back at 3:15pm. There was a couple on the same tour, but on a different boat that got back roughly the same time that we did, but their ship advertised the last tender at 2:30. I wonder if they missed their ship. Anyway, I was not happy with the late arrival because I had no time to do any kind of souvenir shopping and had I known the tour would last that long, I would not have booked it. I also did not get hardly any time with the stingrays, but that is NOT Nativeway's fault and I do not hold them responsible for that.

 

 

The Good

I don't even know where to begin. I suppose I'll start with....

1. Rum Point Beach. If you're in Grand Cayman, you just can't miss this place!! It is the most gorgeous place I've ever been to in my life. Pictures of it don't do it justice. This was probably the highlight of my cruise.

2. Our wait staff. We had early seating at 5:45pm in the Pacific Dining room at table 576 with Som and David for waitstaff. They were wonderful waiters and always had a smile on their faces. The second night of the trip (first formal night), they brought one of our desserts with 2 candles on it and plunked it down between hubby and I and sang "Hoppy Honeymoon Two Shoes" to us. It was really great. They were awesome.

3. Ship Decor. The ship looks positively lovely! I really dug the aqua/seas theme. It was very tastefully decorated and the only thing that was over the top was the red and black seas lounge....too much red and black, haha!

4. Marva Shaw in Jamaica. I've always gotten the feeling that Jamaica has a bad reputation around the CC boards. I've been there twice now and have thoroughly enjoyed it each time. I think the key to having a great time there is to book a private excursion with a private tour guide. Marva was excellent. She was so knowledgeable and so personable. We went river tubing on the White River, toured the Ocho Rios area where the wealthy lived (some awesome homes) and ate jerk chicken at The Ranch, which was really good. We called it a day pretty early (around 12:30pm) because we were very tired from the stingray excursion we'd went on the day before. We were also scheduled to go hiking in Jamaica, but cancelled on that since we were so tired. We even braved the local craft market, made a couple of bartered "deals" (hubby got ripped off.....one day he'll learn the art of bartering :D) and once the locals started becoming too pushy, we just left. I enjoyed Jamaica the most out of the three ports on this trip.

5. Karl (assistant cruise director) and Phillippe (or is it Felipe?) (social host). I loved them!!!!! I vote for Karl for cruise director. Dana Hodson (cruise director) was OK, but Karl was more visible and seemed more charismatic and I don't think I EVER saw him without a smile on his face.

6. The formal night shows. Vroooooom! and Livin In America were very entertaining and I loved the fact that I knew most of the songs in both shows. Penny Gold and Lawrence Neals (singers) work really well together and they sound great.

7. We were chosen to play in the Newlywed game as the Newlywed couple. It was a lot of fun and if you can manage to get the opportunity to do it, definitely do!!

8. The deli turkey sandwiches. I could eat these from now until forever and die a happy woman. I kept forgetting about the deli though every time I walked by the grill and smelled the burgers.....

9. Good food. While there was some not-so-good food (Lido deck lunch/dinner buffets), there was some quite tasty food in the main dining rooms for dinner. Filet mignon and Chateaubriand were the two favorites of the week that I had. The southwestern egg roll was also delicious, as was the tortilla with beans, guacamole, salsa and sour cream (can't remember the name of it).

10. Foo foo drinks. I could drink those mudslides and daquiries forever......

11. The slide. I went down it for the first time in 3 cruises and it was fun! Hubby loved to lay down and pick up lots of speed to make a big splash at the end, but I preferred to sail down a little more slowly and make a littler splash :D

12. The "hidden decks" If you're on decks 6, 7, 9 or 10, and you walk all the way fore and go out the exit door, you're on the "secret deck." It's very windy, but there's never anyone out there. Well, maybe there will be now, since I told you all :o

13. Weather. Sunday through Wednesday, I couldn't even tell that I was on a moving vessel. They were the absolute smoothest seas I've ever sailed in. Thursday and Friday it was a bit choppy, but nothing too terribly rough. It rained for a grand total of 45 seconds that I am aware of on Wednesday, our second sea day. Other than that, sunshine, sunshine and more sunshine, except for the last day at sea, which was a touch on the cloudy side.

14. Wednesday. This was our second sea day and the day was actually chock full of things to do. We love trivia and there were several trivia games on this day so that made our day. I can't remember what else was going on (too lazy to get up and look at the Capers right now) but I do know that the whole day was nonstop. This pleasantly surprised me because sea days on the Conquest and Valor were pretty boring....

15. Debarkation. The easiest EVER! We had a tour of South Beach before being dropped off at the FLL airport and aside from 37 people being delayed from an alleged drug bust on the Valor, everything went smoothly. Met in the Ionian lounge, wore a sticker with our tour name on it, debarked before everyone else (but after the self assist debarkers) got on the bus and would have been on our merry way were it not for the 37 Valor people. Oh well. Stuff happens.

Some other random tidbits that don't really fit anywhere:

Never had open seating breakfast, but did the open seating lunch once in the dining room. I didn't think it was anything to write home about. Would have rather been eating my burger out on the Lido Deck while working on my tan.

We did not go to after-dinner shows other than the formal night shows, but I do know there was a hypnotist and a couple of comedians as well as a guest talent show. If you have any specific questions, I will be happy to look up anything in my Capers.

Umm....too tired to think anymore. If you have questions, ask ask ask!!

 

Also, I have about 350 pictures that I'll eventually get uploaded to Webshots this week and I'll be sure to post a link to those for anyone who may be interested in seeing them.

[CruiseFever]

I'm going back to read the rest of your review but this jumped off the page:

 

"....butter? They've been replaced by individually wrapped butter squares...."

 

Did these individually wrapped butter squares by chance say "Presidents" butter on them??

[CruiseFever]

Ok read the rest. Thanks for your frank comments and for taking the time to tell us about your cruise!

[WeatherGeek]

Haha, you know, I have no idea, I never looked. All I know is that they said "mantequilla con sal" and I was thrilled to remember what that meant from Spanish class from 3 years ago!

[Baroncoop]

Wow, good review! I've been on the Victory recently and you're right, if you try to save time by cutting the corners on those stairs those seahorses will bruise you good! Thanks for taking the time out to write this!

[CruzinTamela]

Tonya,

 

Thanks so much for this GREAT, well written review! I am sailing the Victory in January (Eastern itinerary) and will be sure to watch out for those seahorses!!!

[caprcorn28]

Thanks for the review! I can't wait to see the pics!!!! :D

[Baroncoop]

I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like Costa Maya. I hate that SOME ships still go to Cozumel and some are forced to Costa Maya. Do you know when things will go back to the way they were?

[WeatherGeek]

No....but you can call Carnival and ask. Or go to their website. Or book the Conquest.