Victory CTN from Norfolk - mini-review 6/9-6/11

[vacruizer]

We are just back from our very short cruise to nowhere on the Victory and had a great time. We had an overall fabulous trip but also had a few mixed opinions about the trip. This was our second cruise - our first was on the Miracle out of Tampa last year and we have two more booked for the Liberty. We booked this as a last minute deal when prices dropped by about half - the CTN is usually pretty expensive for a two night trip.

 

Embarkation - We arrived about 11:30am and they were still disembarking from the prior cruise. Security and check-in were very quick, but we had about an hour wait until they even began boarding for our cruise. After that it only took another 20 minutes or so for us to board. Heard from others on the ship who arrived later that the wait was very long. The new terminal in Norfolk is very nice and well laid out - it will hopefully bring more cruises to the area very soon. It was really nice not to fly to port.

 

Warning! - For those of you who may still have those old Carnival party ship, lowbrow cruise line notions - this is not the cruise to disabuse you of that idea. Please take a longer cruise and see what Carnival truly has to offer. This was definitely a party ship and also a very different demographic from what we experienced on a seven day cruise last year. We kind of expected that and were fine with it, but saw a lot more drunken and rude behavior than we saw on the Miracle. On the flip side, we also met some great people as well.

 

Ship - The Victory is a great ship and the decor seemed a little more subdued than some other ships. She seems to be well maintained and there are people cleaning everywhere you go. The only real issue we had with the ship itself was traffic flow. We knew the trick about using decks 5 and 9 to go front to back, but there always seemed to be a few spots where traffic bottlenecked - especially near the buffet and by the Promenade shops on deck 5.

 

Cabin - We booked a last minute 1A and were upgraded to a 4B inside. The room was fine for two days, but wow was it small. My best guess is only slightly more than 50% of the size of the balcony we experienced on the Miracle. I will be glad to have a balcony again on our next cruise. The bed was in the corner of the room so the inside person had to climb over the other one if they needed to get up in the middle of the night. The foot of the bed was blocked by a case holding the life jackets. There was no sofa - just a chair and no mini-bar or fridge. Since this was our first inside, we weren't sure if this was an odd room or if they were all that small. Our cabin was 2329, midship. Our only issues with the location were a loud banging noise inside the back wall that happened about every five minutes during the night. There was also a lot of foot traffic in the halls, an unfortunately lots of screaming drunks in the halls at all hours of the night. Wish I could say I'd gotten more sleep but the noise kept me awake. I will bring ear plugs next time!

 

Dining - We had dinner both nights in the Pacific dining room as well as lunch on Sunday. Food was good but seemed to be a little bland for the most part. The Mango Cream soup was really good and one of the standouts along with the warm chocolate melting cake! The buffet was the usual fare, although the pizza place was closed both mornings of the cruise while maintenance was being done. DH was a bit disappointed as he is one of those people who likes pizza for breakfast! Lines at the buffet were really long at peak times. Saw lots of jeans/shorts in the dining room as well as people using their cell phones during dinner.:eek: Formal night was a bit less formal than on a 7 day (which I also expected) - mostly nice dresses for ladies and shirt and tie for men. I would guess over half the ship did not dress up at all for dinner. I did see several people turned away from the Captain's cocktail party who were dressed in shorts and tee-shirts.

 

Pools/hot tubs - we pretty much couldn't get into a pool for the crowds. Chair hogs were out in force. The aft adult only hot tubs were only open briefly on sailaway day and were full of children doing cannonballs into the hot tubs:eek: . Even the hot tubs in the spa were crowded. I sunburn easily so I wasn't too upset about the chairs and pools but would have liked to see them enforce the adult only hot tubs as well as keep them open more.

 

Shows - We went to the Livin' in America show on Saturday night as well as the adult midnight comedian. Livin' in America we thought was just ok - DH really liked the costumes, though!:D The comedian was pretty funny. We planned to go to the show on our second night, but discovered right after dinner that the liquor we had ordered was delivered to our cabin wrong and spent show time in the liquor store getting that fixed. We were too tired for the adult show that night.

 

There's probably much more I can say, but if you have any more questions just ask. Overall I have kind of a mixed feeling about the whole experience. We had a good time - the cruise just didn't quite live up to our expectations after what we experienced on the Miracle.

 

Pros - A quick weekend getaway, beatiful ship, loved sailing from Norfolk and seeing Hampton Roads from the water after growing up in the area. Staff was always friendly and courteous. Ship had a nice roll to it from the waves on Sunday which I thought was fun. A day on a cruise is always better than a day at work! There is no customs on this cruise. You pay a flat 3% tax on any onboard purchases of liquor, jewelry, cigarettes, etc. and there is no limit to how much you can take off the ship -just be aware there is no porter service for the two day cruises so you have to be able to lug it yourself. Virginia is very expensive for liquor since the state runs our liquor stores so this was a great way to stock up.

 

Cons - This cruise just seemed to lack a little of the extra touches we expected. No towel animals the first night, no singing in the dining room (which some of you might like:) , but we enjoy it). Our sea day activities seemed a bit limited. Cruise director was Malcolm Burn - he seemed ok but we never saw him - just heard his constant announcements over the loudspeaker which was also in our cabin. Drunken screaming in the hallways at 3am. Disembarkation was called by deck but was still a huge bottleneck at the stairs since the atrium was closed off. A fair number of the people onboard just seemed to act like they'd never been out in public before. Not the majority, but enough that it was noticeable. They seemed to be using this cruise to do a lot of major maintenance on the ship and many areas were closed for a fair bit of the cruise (pizza, ice cream, hot tubs, jogging track.)

 

Funny moment of the cruise - I would guess that 90% of the people onboard were first time cruisers. The TV in our room listed the seas as "moderate -4.5-7ft - just enough to feel it a bit. About 11am Sunday we felt the ship tilt slightly to the side as we started to make our turn to head back to Norfolk. About that time a woman started screeched and then started complaining about how this ship "shouldn't move like this" and that they should also keep it from swaying back and forth. Not sure what part of waves she didn't get, but we got a good laugh our of it.

 

Would I do a CTN again? Maybe. It was by no means a bad cruise. If the price were right, it was a great way to do a quick cruise. I might also try it again to see if maybe the wild crowd on our sailing was just a fluke. We thought that the lack of the little extras might be related to having to prepay tips for this cruise when booking. I was glad this wasn't our first cruise - we may not have had as much of the great impression of Carnival we had from the Miracle.

[marshabear]

not to discourage you, but our CTN was pretty much as you described...we left from NYC and it too was a "party ship" for the weekend...

 

we are sailing on this ship next week for the canada route and hope we have a different experience than you did...(we have previously done a canada trip on the triumph and had a great time )

 

thanks for the review...

 

 

Marsha

[vacruizer]

I did kind of expect the party atmosphere. One more thing I forgot to add - there were no comment cards given out which we thought was odd (unless they already know what the comments will be for this type cruise.)

[MrPete]

My Legend CTN didn't have that party atmosphere. maybe it was the time of year (October) and the fact it left on a Thursday.

 

Way to short for me. I hate the last full day of any cruise, and that time, it was also my first full day! :mad:

[rebeljohn]

Thanks for your review...........We had noticed the price drop, and actually thought about doing this cruise, since it was a close drive for us, but we decided a couple of days isn't enough...........

[JohnGaltny]

The problem with a cruise to nowhere is that you get there right away.

 

Spending two days bobbing around the ocean is tough on the hypersensitive motion sick brigade (in which I am an Admiral).

 

Otherwise, we did a CTN on Fascination 10 years ago and, aside from the chunder, it was great.

[aprilvw69]

Well I just got back on sat from norfolk we were on the victory. As far as the ship was concerened for being our first time i thought it was nice. Most of the crew that we came in contact with were very nice to you and tried to do whatever you wanted. We just got back from a week we went to the bahamas and back so for the ones who got on the cruise to nowhere it might have been not as good. Our captain and cruise director malcolm told us that they were headed to New York for another cruise after the one to nowhere and there they were to get restocked, so if those that where on the cruise to nowhere felt like they didn't have anything they may not have. When ours got in we had alot of problems getting off the ship which probably caused the other cruise to get behind. But overall our cruise was pretty good the food, the shows, we loved our diningroom staff. I guess it might have been bad for the next cruise because it was short and in between two cruises that were a week long.

[vacruizer]

April - I wouldn't say it was a bad cruise at all - just some minor disappointments. We did notice you guys were late getting off as we arrived. We didn't make it onto the ship until about 1pm.

 

MrPete - yes, it was way too short!:) We talked to a lot of people onboard who agreed that it would be better as a three day - maybe leave on Friday night and come back Monday morning with two full sea days. Still not as good as a week, but good for a quick weekend trip.

 

I do have to say that I had read your comments about the attacking seahorses and was confused when I saw them. I found out what you meant when the ship was rocking and I ended up going down the stairs diagonally - I almost lost a kneecap!:D

 

[MrPete]

I almost lost a kneecap!:D

 

 

WELL. I JUST CAUGHT MYSELF LAUGHING OUT LOUD!!!!!!! :) :D :p

[aprilvw69]

Vacruizer........Well I hope you did enjoy your short cruise...I understand what you meant about disappointments the ship got in 4 hours late for us which got us into Nassau 4 hrs later than planned which messed our day up completely. Overall it was nice Nassau in my opinion wasn't as nice. We will cruise again just not sure when.

[vacruizer]

Vacruizer........Well I hope you did enjoy your short cruise...I understand what you meant about disappointments the ship got in 4 hours late for us which got us into Nassau 4 hrs later than planned which messed our day up completely. Overall it was nice Nassau in my opinion wasn't as nice. We will cruise again just not sure when.

 

We will definitely cruise again - we still love sailing and Carnival - it wasn't THAT bad. Looking forward to doing both eastern and western itins. on the Liberty in the next 14 months.:D

[makeda]

did the ctn last weekend...only a couple of negatives...arrived at port at 11:00, didn't get on until 1:00, but watching people arrive was fun to do (the stupid starts early)

 

cabin was 8303, first interior, not bad for one person on a very short cruise, more than 3 nights might be a little much in a space with no window for me, but i have no complaints, steward kept it neat and ice in cooler

 

food was ok, but i really missed lobster and pumpkin soup...and i am still wondering how chocolate sauce gets billed as "chocolate melting cake"...were is the CAKE??????

 

cruisers seemed to be having fun...didn't experience much disturbance with "drunken funsters", nothing more than i would experienced the night before in the hotel...loud laughing for a very short period as people pass through the halls

 

did encounter "chair savers" for the first time who didn't even put a towel in the chair, just tried to claim it because they were "sitting there before" ...there really are some incredibly rude people and believe me, i am not the one to deal with it quietly...i called some names that i will NOT apologize for

 

one night towel animals and one night waiter "show"

 

comment cards were in cabin

 

all in all a great way to spend an all too short weekend and i am looking into the miracle ctn in october!