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Overdue Triumph review...more pics than anything...

PreciousJewel

By PreciousJewel,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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PreciousJewel

PreciousJewel

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Hey people!!

 

I experienced my first cruise ever on Carnival Triumph 8/11/2007. I LOVED IT!!!!! LOVED IT!! When I came back I was on too much of a high to post a review and by now I know I've forgotten some details, but I figured I'd still share my experience. It was about 20 degrees the other day and while riding the commuter bus in to work the other day I started reliving my cruise through the photos on my iPod and I just figured I'd come and share some of them with you all.

 

We (my SO and I) booked an inside guarantee on my family cruise (group of 27 people). It was my first cruise and his 5th or 6th. Our room was 2449 and while the cabin was comfy...I don't think I'd spring for a room sooooo low again. Well lemme back up. We arrived to the pier around 1pm and was horrified to see a LONNNNNNNNNNGGG line to enter the terminal. It was ridiculously hot outside and I immediately felt myself tensing up in preparation for a miserable embarkation. Fortunately, we found my sister, stepmom and friend in line so chatting and catchin up with them made the time go by quicker. Once we entered the air-conditioned terminal, I think the wait was only about 30 minutes to getting the sail and sign cards. My BF was teasing me because everyone else had a gold or platinum card and mine was blue, lol. I think we stepped into the ship atrium around 2:15 or so. We went straight to our room and dropped off our bags then headed out to explore. Muster drill was uneventful...I think I was just too excited to be annoyed. I do remember that it was SO hot in our muster station.

 

We went up to lido for sail-away and got a couple drinks of the day and listened to the band play. The band was actually pretty good! They played a little bit of every type of genre of music, and sounded great. Every hour or so one of us would go down to check on bags, our final bag arrived just before dinner.

 

Sunday- Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

My BF and I are both usually fairly early risers, but I suppose the excitement of the previous night mixed with the darkness of the cabin and we were KNOCKED OUT. All I remember is that at one point Sunday morning we both awoke with a LOUD BANG. We both sat STRAIGHT UP. He said "Oh, I guess we dropped anchor". We continued to hear loud creaks and moans of the vessel, but we just went on and got up and got dressed and headed up to Lido for breakfast. On the way up, we heard the Captain saying that he was delaying tendering because of the rain. I wanted to BAWL!!!

 

...to be continued...

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PreciousJewel

PreciousJewel

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So we got up to the Lido deck and saw that it was pouring outside. We could see the beautiful island, but it wasn’t looking good for us to get off the ship. We got breakfast at the buffet and just sat there and looked out at the water. Captain announced that if things kept on lightening up, they would start tendering shortly (it was still raining). My SO asked if I wanted to go over since it was raining. I said that if they were tendering...I was getting off. I didn’t come on my first cruise to sit on the ship while in port. When they announced they’d be starting tendering soon, we went back to the room to get a bag together and then headed to the lounge to get a tender number. I would say that we were boarding a tender about 15 minutes after arriving to the lounge.

 

**I’ll be adding pictures in posts by themselves, I don’t feel like going into shutterfly to insert them while I’m typing...maybe I’ll edit later**

 

The island was nice, but we really couldn’t enjoy it because if it wasn’t raining, it was cloudy. Everything was wet but you know what? WE WERE STILL ON VACATION!!! One of the adult comedians had a saying “F*** it, we on vacation” and that ended up being our motto for the entire week, lol. Yeah it rained, no BBQ, family decided not to get off the ship, sand was wet...but F*** it, we on vaction, lol. We got a couple Miami Vice drinks from the bar, perused the shops and just went and dipped in the water. After it started raining again, we headed back to the ship. I heard some of our tender-mates saying that HMC was a bust, but I really enjoyed myself.

Monday- Sea Day/Formal Night

 

Monday we really didn’t have any plans, we just got up, went to breakfast as normal and laid out in the sun all day. Again, we slept late because of the cave-like atmosphere of the cabin, I’d say we didn’t get up until about 10am. When I’m home, I wake up automatically no later than 7 or 8. I got an awesome tan. The deck was really crowded, but we found some chairs up on deck 10. I didn’t really care to be near the pool, I liked being in a more secluded spot. I did find that we were approached by the floating bartenders fairly frequently. Honestly, i don’t think the drinks of the day are that good, but it’s just the novelty of it all. Midway through the day I started feeling ill, maybe it was allergies, maybe it was too much sun, but I was nauseated and had a horrible headache. I was able to secure some allergy tablets from one of the shops for about 3 times as much as I would have paid at home. Around 4, I went back to the cabin to prepare for dinner. I went into my SO’s bag to steam his suit and realized that he left his suit pants at home. I really think he did it on purpose, but whatever. He ended up just wearing a button-up shirt and some slacks. I didn’t sweat it too much. Once I got the clothes situated, we both headed to the spa. I got a pedicure and a massage and he got a facial and his head shaved. He was VERY unhappy with the result, as it looked like an amateur buzz-cut when he was done. He ended up coming back to the cabin and having me touch up his head myself...we could have saved about $30 and did that from the beginning but F*** it, we on vacation. Formal night was great. We had a large group, so it was just really nice being able to take pictures with everyone. We got several really nice memories captured by the ship’s photographers.

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PreciousJewel

PreciousJewel

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Tuesday- St. Thomas, USVI

The weather was beautiful here!!! We loved this island, it was actually my favorite port of all. We didn’t have any excursions booked, we just planned to do some shopping then catch a bus or cab to the beach. We found some trinkets for people at home, and purchased some liquor and several other souvenirs in the shopping area near the ship. After a while, we headed over to Magen’s Bay beach and FELL IN LOVE!! This was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. The views and the color of the sky and the skyline, OHHHHH, my pictures don’t do it justice. My sister and her friend were with us and we just relaxed and made it a beach day. We were further down the beach so we didn’t encounter a bunch of people or vendors pushing items, it was just a really relaxing day. See the pics for our sights in St. Thomas

 

Wednesday- San Juan, Puerto Rico

It was HOT! We did a tour of Old San Juan and toured the fort, then did some shopping on our own. This city holds SO much history and enlightened me to a lot of things I didn’t know about the town. The architecture at the Fort was gorgeous and we got some awesome pictures of ourselves and the fort and surroundings. Not far from the Fort was a frozen yogurt cart and we sat out in a little courtyard and cooled off and ate frozen yogurt, lol. I think there were about 8 out of our group traveling together during this port stop. We went in several of the shops in OSJ and found a lot of nice stuff to bring back. After a while, the heat and all the walking got to me and I started getting a little cranky. We decided to split off from the group and head on back to the ship. Took a LONG nap and headed to dinner.

 

Thursday – Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos

This was my SO’s favorite port. He’s been wanting to travel to T&C for a long time and he was most excited about stopping here. Hurricane Ivan was on our tails the entire trip and it was a bit cloudy when we docked so I was a little worried that we wouldn’t be able to enjoy ourselves. We went straight to the beach and grabbed a couple chairs. As we were taking pictures, we noticed people coming from an area to the left with HUGE seashells. He wanted a few, so he took the camera and headed off that way. After a bit, I hear him yelling for me and waving for me to follow up. I gathered our belongings and went and I’m SOOOO glad I did. There was a little spot that he found that had 2 deck chairs on a little wooden deck with a shade covering of some trees. There were white rocks leading up into this little paradise and it was just perfect. It was comfortable and romantic and off from general beach area. Everyone that walked by looked and pointed and I couldn’t help but feel a little happy that they were a bit jealous of our find! LOL It rained all of about 5 minutes while we were there. I have awesome pictures of the storm coming in, hovering and then moving out. After a while of relaxing in peace, we headed over to margaritaville to do a little “partying” before heading back to the ship. Can I just say that those were THE BEST Margaritas I’ve EVER had!? There were entirely too many people over near the MVille pool, but it was a nice change after being secluded all day. The Crown Princess was in port at the same time as we were so there were just people everywhere. The shops were VERY commercial and I found that the items for sale were cheaply made and entirely too expensive. We didn’t end up purchasing anything while we were there.

 

The rest of the cruise was pretty much a blur, debarkation was LONG, but we were not in a rush to get off because our flight back to DC wasn’t until 5pm.

....

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PreciousJewel

PreciousJewel

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The Ship:

Since it was my first cruise, I have nothing to compare it too but like I said, I had a wonderful time. I did notice little things here and there, rust, spotty carpet, a sewer smell here and there, cheesy decor...but NONE of this put a damper on my cruise whatsoever. I didn’t particularly like my cabin either...it was too low for my taste, we heard every creak of the ship and there was a lot of rocking, but it didn’t ruin my trip at all. I just won’t book a cabin that low again. I did mention that we were outrunning Hurricane Ivan the entire trip, so I suppose that made some of the waters a bit choppy and I noticed (especially after having several drinks and heading back to the room after disco at 2am) quite a bit of rocking.

Shipboard activities:

We attended the shows each night and they were pretty cool. Some of the stuff was kind of cheesy, but hey...(say it with me) we’re on vacation! Eddie Capone was one of the comedians and I found him to be pretty funny. The adult show was very vulgar at times, but he was so funny that even my 71-year old GMa enjoyed herself. The deck parties were kind of lame for our tastes. I was a little annoyed that they seemed to play the SAME SONGS over and over and over again and I was tempted to hook my iPod up to the speakers and show everyone a real party. The gym was NICE! I only went twice, but my BF went everyday. I loved the walking track. The view while walking was great. The pools were a bit smaller than what I would have imagined. There seemed to be a lot of kids on board and splashing around in the main pool. We only partook in the back pool and hot tubs. I didn’t particularly care for the hot tubs, the water wasn’t really warm and didn’t seem like there was too much “bubbly” going on, lol. It was kind of like being in a lukewarm bath and splashing around. I guess they were just having a jet problem when we used them because the next day, they looked fine. The night club was ok, it was just a bit too smoky for my taste. The music was mainly hiphop and I think it went on until about 3am.

Food:

We ate breakfast on Lido every morning and it got to be pretty monotonous after a week, but the choices were ok. We ate a lot of fruit and yogurt with each breakfast, so it was cool...we aren’t too picky. My SO acted like it was KILLING him to eat in the dining room with the family each night, so we skipped a few nights. He is severely allergic to seafood so with a lot of the choices being seafood, he just kind of felt left out. After I shared with him that he could always order chicken or steak, he was happy. Since he’s allergic to seafood, I didn’t partake in any either :( because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to engage in any PDA LOL,j/k. Several things that I particularly enjoyed were the steak, the prime rib, and the lamb. I ADORED the chocolate melting cake and I had one pretty much every night. Our waiters knew our likes and dislikes by the 2nd or 3rd night and tended to have our preferences waiting at our table when we arrived each night. My grandmother loves extra onions for her salad and meals so they always had a bowl waiting for her when she arrived. The dining staff was just fabulous and patient with us since we were such a large party.

Whew.....if you have any specific questions, lemme know. Otherwise I’m just going to stop rambling and post some pictures. :)

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