Our Triumph-ant First Cruise!

[kiraryker]

Wonderful review and loving the pictures - we will be on the Triumph in March but doing the Eastern Carib. St. Thomas, St. Martin & San Juan - can't wait!!!

Keep it comin your doing an awesome job!!!

[amcjeep4life]

Good morning everyone! I would like to pffer profuse apologies for the delay in posting my final day. My computer crashed at home, and I ended up in court 4 days last week, so just haven't had much time to get on-board here and finish this. So Sorry!

Either today or tommorrow I will finsh up. I only have one day left, I wouldn't leave you guys hanging!

Again, I would like to thank everyone for all the kind comments. It's nice to know that there are a few of you actually reading this.

Princessa, the only open seating day for dinner was in Cozumel. We were docked from 0800 to 2200, so I think they were expecting a lot of people to be off the ship. The other two port days was regular assigned seating. Hope that helps. I don't know how it would be if youare doing an Eastern, since this was a western trip. Also, the dining room was not open for lunch on port days, your only option was the Lido deck, which was fine. We didn't really enjoy the dining room for lunch the day we tried it.

I promise, I'll be back to finish this weekend! Thanks for hanging in!

[lesley74]

Hi Tonya

I have really enjoyed reading your trip report on here!

On returning from our cruise, firstly we thought it wasn't as enjoyable as we had expected, but in hindsight it was still a good trip. I think the weather let us down a bit when it was quite chilly those first few days. The over-airconditioning on the boat annoyed me a little too. I go on vacation for a heat!

The trip has also made me realise that although we had a nice enough time on the islands, the Caribbean probably isn't for us.....we don't like water activities and a lot of the trips were based around that. I think next time we cruise it will be Mediterranean, possibly Greece area.

Looking at your pictures you seemed to have great fun doing all the things I'm scared of. Swimming with those scary stingrays, taking pics of reptiles....and then I read you've got snakes at home. OMG I'm terrified of those things!!! lol!

Great report, was nice to meet you, and hope you have many more fun vacations in the future!

Lesley

[queenanneitis]

Hey, thanks for the great review and pictures. It looks like you guys had an amazing time! My DH and I love to cruise and our next one is on the Triumph. We're actually taking our little grandson on his very first cruise so we're really excited about it.

For those of you asking about the aft wrap cabin and deck, we're booked in one of those aft wraps for our Triumph cruise and I always post reviews and pictures so I'll make sure and get plenty for you to see!

Thanks again! Sounds like you guys are hooked!! Welcome to the club!

[thomasale]

Great review and too bad they don't pay you for this kinda stuff you would have earned another cruise!!.we are going on the same ship in Feb but Eastern Itinerary (I prefer it to the western but thats just me)

Thanks again, I have linked this thread to all my brothers and sisters and hope they take advantage of it

[Cruisin Kay D]

Enjoyed all your comments & photos. We are going late March taking 6 grandkids ages 9-16. Our 1st time on Carnival, although this will be our 22nd cruise overall.

We have booked 2 balcony cabins on Spa Deck -- you say you never got up that high? You said you had rough seas? Hoping to avoid that!!

[amcjeep4life]

Well, without further ado, here is the last day of our cruise. I apologize for the lateness, things have been crazy here! And I don't mean the holidays either, I'm talking just day-to-day stuff at home and at work! I actually took some overtime to finish this review! How sad is that!

 

So, today was our last full day on the ship. We started out with breakfast in the dining room. We had, can you guess? Eggs benedict, corned beef hash, hash browns, stewed bananas and pineapple juice. Yes, the items available for breakfast are pretty much the same everyday. But, we switched it up with some room service breakfast, and did try a few different things, but when you find something you like, you stick with it. I am so looking forward to my next cruise and the eggs benedict! And the stewed bananas, I just can't say enough about how good they were! OMG! Loved them! Over some vanilla ice cream and they would have made an awesome dessert, better than some of the ones we tried from the buffet!

 

Anyway, after breakfast we headed back to our room to grab some towels for the towel folding class. My advice, don't bother bringing your own! They have a whole cart of towels to give you once you get there. It says in the capers to bring your own, but they did offer them. There were a few room stewards there, wandering around and offering help. Marcello, who has a terrible accent, was trying to explain, but you could see some people just weren't getting it! It can be tough to try to roll and fold on the little marbel tables, so I would suggest spreading out a bit and keeping a seat next to you open. You could go up on the stage, but there were a ton of kids there, and there just isn't that much room. We had a blast! We did end up buying the book, and I actually bought some towels when we got home. I now fold an animal for my nephew when he stays over! He thought it was so cute! Here are some pictures of the animals we made. This is my dog:

 

 

Here is Bill's dog:

 

 

Here is my elephant:

 

 

Here is Bill's elephant: (notice the head position!)

 

 

Here is my bunny:

 

 

Unfortunately, Bill's bunny died a tragic death. It is a bit difficult, but we had fun. The book has about 40 different animals, some of them are pretty similar to each other. The dog, the bunny and the monkey, just to name a few, all start with the same body, then the heads are changed up a bit. It was fun, and it took us 30 minutes to do 3 animals. I can see the stewards whipping them out in about 3 minutes, but still, it takes time. I now think the stewards deserve a bigger tip just for making my towel animal every night. They must make them in the room, they aren't really able to travel well.

 

After the towel folding class, they had a game of bingo, which we decided to play. We only spent $60 on bingo the whole trip, so I figured we were doing OK. We certainly never went out of our way to play, only joined in if we happened to be there. After losing again at bingo, we hung around for the debarkation talk. I was glad we did, since we were newbies, but I don't know that I would need to go again. I can't imagaine thangs change so radically that I can't put out my luggage with the tags before midnoght, then get off the ship AFTER my number was called. Doesn't sound very hard. Little did I know.......

 

After the talk, we headed to the photo gallery to find the last few photos we wanted. We bought a few frames, and then went to the Vienna Cafe. The chocolate covered strawberries were calling our names! Bill also needed, yes, needed, a piece of chocolate cake, so we headed back to our room to put the photos away and eat our snacks. We hung out on the balcony, savoring our last views of the clear blue waters of the Carribean. Boy, that water is just gorgeous!

[amcjeep4life]

For lunch, we headed up to the Lido deck to grab some stuff. The Taste of the Nations today was American. Yea, that's what I said too! I had a piece of fried chicken and a spinach turnover. Then we got some hot dogs and onion rings, and I had some chicken nuggetts. They need some dipping sauces for those, besides ketchup! There was no way I was standing in line at the buffet to get some ranch dressing, so ketchup it was! We grabbed a few desserts fromthe buffet, the diet and low-carb cheesecakes are both really good! After luch, we headed to the casino to press our luck. Our lucky table was open, so we sat down and started playing. We weren't doing all that great, and then some guy sat down and got 6 $100 chips. He played for ablout 10 minutes, finally losing all his money (I would have killed myself if I lost that much money!). AFter he left, our luch started turning around a bit. Bill was doing OK, then started loosing again. He had about $45 left, and put it all on one bet. He got a Blakjack, which paid him about $112! We played for a bit more, then deicded to cash out. I left with $100, Bill left with about $200! So, we officially ended up for the week, even with our Bingo losses figured in. I was very happy!

 

After playing at the casino, we were supposed to meet a member of our roll call for tea. We really wanted to do the galley tour, which is scheduled for basically the same time (tea at 1500, galley tour at 1515). We met John, told him we wanted to do the galley tour, and asked him to come to that instead. He agreed, and off we went! The galley tour is amazing! The hotel manager was explaining to us how all the food is taken on in the US, since the guidelines they have to follow for inspected food says they have to. I can't find the paper they give out that tells you how much food they take on every week, but it's on here somewhere. It was a lot! He also said they take on enough food for 9 days, just in case. You never know when you might not be able to put into your home port due to weather. Look at the COnquest back in September, they ended up at sea for an extra 3 days due to Ike. I bet they were glad for that extra food! My family used to own a bakery, so the size fo the kitchen here just amazed me. The guy also said that there was more money invested in the stainless steel in the galley than there was in the engines! There's something to think about! Here are a few pictures from the tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They have photos of the finished dishes up on the wall so the chefs can see what it is supposed to look like. That way, they all look the same! It was pretty cool to get this behind the scenes tour and see where all our awesome food comes from. The galley is set up between the two dining rooms, that way the servers can get the food to your table quicker and hot! The guide was telling us that he was a a server before that idea took place, and how hard it was to walk all the food from the galley to the far dining room. I thought it was a great idea too, and was just amazed by the size fo the place. I really enjoyed the tour, it only took about 30 minutes or so, and I definitely recommend it to anyone even remotely interested in learning where your food comes from!

[kiraryker]

Wonderful review!! A question - do you recall did the rooms have flat screen tv's in them? Just wondering if that was part of the improvements

[NickCDN]

Excellent review. We leave in one month today on the triumph. I have a question though. Did they advertise the galley tour in the capers or did you inquire about at the pursers desk?

[Classycpl4fun]

Thank you for the great review and we are looking forward to our first cruise on Carnival Triumph 2/8/09. We have taken about 15 cruises but always with RCCL. If you can tell us about some of the good things on this ship it would be great. Hope to hear back from some of the great friends here.

 

Tim & Linda

[royal dog]

Here is something I forgot from Day 1. The limits on the casino tables are lower the first night than they will be all week, $3 minimum versus $5 for the rest of the week. Bill lost his $20 in about 5 minutes. I have never gambled before, so wasn't too keen on joining in. Sadly enough, we live less than 10 minutes away from 2 casinos here in CT. I just work too hard to give my money to those Indians tho. The reason I remembered this now is because I sort of picked up a small dose of the gambling bug today on the ship! You'll see!:p

 

And so begins Day 2. We didn't get up early enough to see a sunrise, which will become a bit of a theme this cruise. The DH gets up early at home, but I work a bunch of afternoon shifts. The DH was happy to sleep late, and I just continued my schedule from work. Today was a sea day, and there was soooo much stuff to do. Too much at times. You had to make decisions between some things you wanted to do, but we muddled thru! Today was also our scheduled meet and greet, and I was looking forward to that. We had already met 2 couples, I think I forgot to mention that we bumped into Alan and Norma from North Carolina during sail away. He had stated they would be wearing orange Harley shirts, and we were able to spot them and chat for a while. They had also found Lesley and Kevin, our resident Scots, and said they would be fairly easy to find at the meet and greet!

 

I'm sorry to say I don't have a whole lot of pictures today, don't know what happened. I think we were so busy, we just forgot to take pictures. We have tons of pictures from our port days, but not so many from sea days. Sorry!

 

Did I mention today was my birthday! Bill had a nice card for me, and told me I could get some stuff today at the shops for my birthday gift. Yea!

 

Anyway, we started our day with breakfast in the Paris dining room. They both look pretty similar, but this is the bigger dining room, probably the reason they keep it open for breakfast and lunch. We did end up with a table for 2 on the upper level. I had read so much about the eggs bendedict that I knew I had to try it. Bill ordered a belgian waffle with stewed bananas and strawberries. We both had chicken sausage and hasbrowns to round the meal out. They come around with a little basket of pastries, and I tried a cinnamon roll, while the DH had a cheese danish. They were both warm and delicious. My family used to own a bakery, so it takes a lot for bread and pastries to impress me, and these were good! We also both decided to have pieaplle juice rather than OJ, and neither of us drink coffee. They will come to your table with the coffee repeatedly, but noticed they didn't offer refills on the juice. If you wanted more, you had to ask. Our breakfast came out quickly, and having never had experience with hollandaise sauce before, it tasted wonderful to me. I had asked for my eggs to come out well-done, since runny yolks tend to gross me out, and they were done to perfection to me. Not hard-boiled, but definitely firm. I didn't like the chicken sausage at all, and ended up leaving it. Bill said it was OK, but he didn't order it the rest of the week, so I guess it wan't all that great to him either. The hash-browns are these two little crispy potato cakes. They were quite yummy. Normally Bill eats eggs and potatoes with ketchup, but there wasn't any on the table. He never asked for it either, so I guess the food was all right without it. I will tell you, if you like bananas foster, order the stewed bananas! Today, it came in a bowl with a caramel-like sauce. That's it, no bananas in sight! We assumed they were mushed in there, so never thought anything about it, but it tasted sooooo good! He put it over his strawberries on his waffle, and then had to hold himself back from licking his plate! Oh yea, more on the stewed bananas to come!

 

After breakfast, we wandered about the ship some more. We joined in a game of trivia by the Vienna Cafe, but decided we weren't quite smart enough to keep playing and wandered away. We went to the photo gallery and found our embarkation photo. One of the things we said we wanted to do was get lots of pictures taken, since we have so few of us together. I knew you didn't have to buy them just because you had them taken, and honestly, they were very good about telling you that right away! We did end up buying a few. I'll see if I can get the hub to figure out the scanner later.

 

At about 1230, we decided we night have enough room in our tummies for lunch. We went to the Lido deck, where the buffet lines were huge! We hadn't really wanted to eat there anyway, but I was absolutley amazed by how many people were in line! I got in line at the NY Deli, since I had talked Bill into trying a reuben. He doesn't like sauerkraut, but was willing to give it a try. He went over to the Hong Kong Noodle Co. He loves Chinese food, it was his staple diet before we got together, so was very excited to hear there was a place onboard. While I was in line, these 3 Hispanic ladies in very noticable dresses got in line at the buffet. The dresses were not to be missed, which is how I saw them. I only bring this up now to make a point. I'll get there in a few. I got our two reubens, and found a table in front of the buffet and to the port side. Bill soon joined me, so I went off to get us iced teas. I came back to a plate with chicken lo-mein, hoisin beef, and spring rolls. The ruebens were fantastic, they grill them in a panini machine, so no butter on the outside bread, which means they aren't very greasy! They make them fresh as you order them, they aren't sitting around getting soggy.YEA! Bill even said they were good, since I asked for his with light sauerkraut. The Chinese food was tasty, except for the spring roll. I thought it was greasy and tasted like shrimp. I am not a seafood person, and should have known better. A lot of the spring rolls in our area are made with shrimp, as are the egg rolls. I will usually ask for a pork egg roll just to make sure. Bill said all the food is made while you wait, they have bins of noodles and veggies, and they throw it in a wok and warm it up. I guess if you wanted somethig substituted this would be the place to go! We both decided we wanted something a bit sweet, so I went to the buffet dessert area. We had some diet cheesecake and some fruity layered thing that was yummy. As I was sitting down with our dessert plates, I noticed the 3 brightly dressed Hispanic ladies sittting down at a table near ours! Holey smokes! They had gotten in line at the same time I did, and were just now sitting down, although we had eaten our entire meals and were working on dessert! The line for the buffet was huge! (Told you I'd get around to that point!) We avidly avoided the buffet the whole trip, for various reasons.

 

After lunch, we headed out to the Lido deck, and were quite bummed to realize we had missed the Ice Carving demo. But, we were just in time for the hairy chest competition. It was very entertaining. I think a few of the guys got talked into it by their women folk, and weren't told what was going to happen. It's not just who has the hairiest chest, it was dancing around, and pretending to wrestle a snake and yelling like Tarzan! Funny stuff! The guy who won was 50 ish, a bit round, bald, and funny! He really did a good job! It was closing in on 1400, so we headed down to Deck 5 and the Vienna Cafe for the Triumph Hunt. Chicken Little was there, and told us how the Hunt would work. They give you a paper with questions about various areas on the ship. You need to find the area, and then answer a question about it. You got to work as a team. There was a group of 5 mid-twenties guys there that were ALL IN THE SAME CABIN!! Boy do I feel sorry for their room steward. I thought it was pretty coll that they were here, rather than getting smashingly drunk, and continued to see them around the ship a lot. Sometimes they had some beer, but often they were pretty sober. I was impressed, especially with Carnival's reputation for partying. Anyway, my team consisted of me and the gimp. Remember I mentioned earlier that Bill had hurt his knee? I knew I was destined to lose, with some of the other teams consisting of 4 to 12 people! Oh well! After getting the sheets, I sent Bill on a few closer areas and ran upstairs to start at Deck 11 and work my way down. This is not a leisurely thing, since you have to meet back in 20 minutes with your answers! We met back up in the Vienna cafe and I wrote his answers down and then waited for everyone else to get back. I can't remember if there were 26 or more possible points, but the winning teams had 16. We got 14, so I was pretty happy, and some of the questions were tough! How many black keys are around the piano bar? I couldn't even find the piano bar! I had asked a memeber of the crew, and he kept telling me it was the atrium lounge. I think there may have been a bit of a language barrier going on here. Also, don't ask the crew for the answers, they will give you the wrong ones on purpose. I found the internet cafe, but asked the guy how many screens rather than counting them myself. He gave me the wrong answer! Lesson learned. I will give you another small hint, if you do this yourself. Here it is: Sherbet IS NOT ice cream! That's it. Remember that and you'll understand when you get there. After running up and down 6 flights of stairs, I managed to find a little hollow spot in my tummy, and since we were right at the Vienna Cafe, which is where they hide the chocolate covered strawberries, we decided to get some. Did I mention that today was my birthday? I had told Bill I didn't want him to preorder the strawberries for our room, since they are much cheaper on board then thru the Bon Voyage department. Unfortunately, they were temporarily out of them, but the girl said they would be more than happy to deliver them to our room when she gpt some later. So, we ordered 2 chocolate shakes and 10 strawberries, signed our name, and headed off to our room. Our meet and greet was scheduled for 1500 in the New World Bar, which is all the way aft on the Lido deck. It's right next to the Pizzeria. We had said we would wear mardi-gras beads to be recognized. We drank our shakes, hung out on the balcony for about 15 minutes, grabbed our beads and walked up one flight of stairs and out to the bar. There were afew people already there, so we walked up and introduced ourselves. I am the one who did all the planning and stuff for the cruise, and my hub never got onto the roll-call, but he had fun talking to everyone there. We had 17 "people" on our roll call, and 9 of them showed up, which meant a total of about 20 people. I'm sorry we missed the others, I can see how there is so much stuff going on you just miss it. We had an awesome time meeting everyone, and would end up bumping into them time and time again. Lori and Barry, you guys were awesome. How old is Barry now? Steve, Darrell, Heather, Pat and Hannah, we had a blast going to DRF with you as well. John, we crashed into you all over the place! We'll look you up the next time we are in Boston! Alan and Norma, we had fun seeing you two all over too. Nativeway did an awesome job, and I'm glad I listened to you! Jon and Maryjo, we crashed into you two a bunch too, as well as Lesley and Kevin. To everyone else, it was nice to meet you and we hope you had an awesome cruise! Anyway, here is a picture of our little group!

 

 

The people with early seating started leaving about 1630 or so, since tonight was elegant night and the Captain's Reception. After this, we headed back to our room. Our strawberries were delivered not too long after we got back from the m&g, so we snacked on a few of them before leaving. We decided to head out to the casino and try my birthday luck. Did I mention that today was my birthday? But first we decided to try and find the secret decks. Basically the front of the ship on decks 6, 7 and 9 have areas where you can go out on the bow of the ship and be blown half to death. It is wicked windy there. You can also see the crew area, but they all work so hard we hardly ever saw anyone out there. After checking these decks out, we headed to the casino. We played black jack at our lucky table and I ended up walking out with $100, meaning I had doubled my money. Bill had started with $60, and walked away with $75, meaning that he was now only into the casino for $5, having lost $20 last night. We were quite happy with that and headed back to the room again to get ready for dinner. We headed to the Captain's reception at about 1930, and it proved to be a bit boring. We met the officers (who's driving the boat!?!?) and headed into the lounge. We each had a rum and coke, which was wicked strong. We weren't hungry and didn't want to ruin dinner, so had no appetizers. We were sittin in the back of the room, so didn't have many offered anyway, but skipped the ones that were. There was some nice music playing, so we enjoyed that for a bit then went out to find some pictures. There are twice as many photo areas set up on elegant night as there are on casual nights, so it was very easy to find a few we liked. The lines weren't long, except for a few, so we had 4 different pictures taken. They all turned out nice, and we did end up getting three of them. We then headed down to the Atrium lounge, listened to the classical trio play for a bit, and headed into dinner. Since tonight was elegant night, there were some pretty fancy-schmancy dressers out there. Our table mates all showed up in suits and dresses, a bit fancier than us. Tonight was lobster night, but I am not a seafood person. Bill ate a lot of it growing up, since he had a few traps tohelp his family subsidize food, so he wasn't eating it either. We started off with stuffed mushrooms, then he had a ceasar salad and I had the strawberrybisque. It was so good, just like melted strawberry ice cream. Bill tasted it and said it was good too. The mushrooms were also yummy. For dinner, we both had prime rib. I wreally like my beef rare, almost screaming for mercy, so I found it to be too done for me. It was very tender, and Hengke came around with a boat of sour cream and horseradish. That was a nice touch, and made the meat taste that much better. I would prefer it more rare, but it was still good. Bill's was just perfect for him, he likes it a bit more cooked than me! Our table mates all had the lobster and said it was very good. They all cleaned their plates, so I guess it was fine! Bill also ordered the chili relenos. I told him I would eat some, but it was too psicy for me. He ended up eating the whole thing himself. He said it was very good, just spicy. For dessert I had the cherries jubilee, and he had the carmelized apples with puff pasrty. My cherries reminded me of canned pie filling, but they were OK. Bill said his apples were yummy. He never even offered me a taste. Brat. Here is a picture of the servers on the stairway. We had an awesome view of everything. I never thought about how people on the outside may not have been able to see, so I was very happy with our table after this night!

 

 

They sang a song, and it was so funny to hear this mish-mash of accents being sung. We had fun, said good night to our table-mates and servers, and headed off to our rooms to change. Did I mention today was my birthday? Well, I guess I didn't mention it to the right people, because I never got a song sang in the dining room. I was kind of bummed, but it was OK, certainly didn't ruin my cruise. I guess we'll have to cruise on my birthday next year to get it made up! When we got back to our room, we found our next towel animal, the dog!

 

 

 

 

The show was supposed to happen at 2230, and we got back to the room around 2145. Our intention was to change and leave, but the next thing I knew it was 2300 and we had missed the show! We decided to call it a night, since the next day was Cozumel. We didn't have to get up early, we had scheduled our excursion for 1230. I wanted to get up and see if I could catch us docking. I'll continue with tomorrow later, but at least I finished Day 2. Day 3 will have few more pictures. Sorry about that!

awsome love reading your review cruising on sunday on triumph .

[srbb03]

Great Review! Thank you for sharing.

[royal dog]

Great review I have to say best one I have ever read thanks,leaving on the 21st Dec on Triumph.:)

[Hockey Addict]

I just found your review today.... I'm so glad I did!! It's great!! Thanks a lot!! I know it takes a lot to type them up!!

[amcjeep4life]

Hello all! Thanks again for the kind words. I will try to answer some of the questions asked, so here goes.

 

The galley tour is advertised in the capers.

 

There were no flat screen TV's on the Triumph that I could see. Maybe in the suites, but not in any of the rooms I saw. Honestly, we didn't watch that much TV, so it didn't bother me. We don't have a flat screen at home, so I guess it doesn't really matter to me.

 

As far as the best things on the ship, I say simply being there was the best. It was our first cruise, so I don't have anything to compare it to. I really enjoyed it, although I did hear people complaining about the food, the staff, the ship, the weather...you name it! I guess it's all relative! I thought Ryan was a good CD, and the rest of the entertainment staff was pretty good too. We are hoping for another cruise next year to actually have a comparison.

 

Lesley, I can see why you don't want to try another Carribean cruise. And I would think it would be easier to cruise in the Med for you. We had fun, but I know with your fish-phobia you probably didn't have quite as much fun as we did. It was still nice meeting you!

 

Steph, I read your review when you came back from your first cruise and it really inspired me to write the best review I could. SO glad you liked mine! Cruising is truly addictive, isn't it?

[amcjeep4life]

Well, lets see if we can finish this day off. I have to admit, I did goof a bit. I obviously waited too long to type this up and now I'm having trouble deciphering my notes. I just realized that we did the casino after the galley tour, and did the On Deck for the Cure at 1400 hrs, before the galley tour! OOPS! Sorry! We were supposed to meet on the walking track to do the walk, but it was closed due to winds. So instead, the 12 people who were there to do the walk (*****?!?!?) ended up walking around the Lido deck. There were chairs everywhere, and people everywhere, and the group got split up pretty quickly. Bill and I ended up a bit more towards the back, and we got held up by a wheelchair. When we finished our last lap, we couldn't find anyone else, except the 3 ladies still behind us. We waited around a bit, but never did see anyone else. I was kind of bummed, firstly at the poor turnout, and secondly at the fact that the staff just disappeared. I had read some awesome stories about people telling their survival stories, and I really wanted to get a picture of our little group, but they all disappeared! I was irritated at this point, and we headed to the room to change for the galley tour.

 

(See previous post, just put the casino adventure after the galley tour!)

 

After the casino, we headed back to the room to clean up before dinner. We definitely wanted to go to the Legends show tonight, and we needed to have our luggage out, so we were re-arranging things to make sure we had clothes out for the next morning, since I wasn't plannng on buying a Carnival robe in order to leave the ship! They had said our alcohol would be in our rooms after dinner, so we left for London thinking it would be there when we got back. Little did we know....

 

Dinner that night was sad, but festive. It was our final dinner, so we were all bummed and had to say good bye, not only to our tablemates, but to our awesome servers! Tonight, Siwa took all our orders and Hengke acted as the assistant. I think he was giving her the chance to practice, maybe she's in line to become a head server. I think she did an awesome job, not quite as good as Hengke, but good in her own way.

 

Here is a picture of our table, starting with Bill and me, then Diana and Jim, then Luis and Christine. They were very nice people. I'm glad we got to meet, and we had some fun times. They definintely made the whole cruise experience better.

 

 

On the last night at dinner, all the servers get on the stairs and sing their own rendition of Leaving on a Jet PLane. I think it became Leaving from your FunShip, but with the gammut of accents there, I'm not quite sure what they said.

 

 

 

It was fun, and yet sad at the same time. It really hits home that this is it, our last dinner. I was suddenly very sad. The only positive thing I could think at this point was how much fun we had and how we would definitely be booking many more cruises in our future! It worked, and made me happy...happy enough to eat!

 

We had both started with a caesar salad tonight, and I had a starter of the pasta course, which had a small chicken breast sauteed in a mushroom sauce. It was very creamy, somewhat reminiscent of alfredo, but not that cheesy, with lots of mushrooms in it. It had perfect seasoning, just enough salt and pepper, and was very good. We had both chosen the Prime Rib for our entree, or I would have went with the pasta! It was awesome! The prime rib came with a baked potato, and Siwa came around with the horseradish and sour cream, which is such a nice touch. For dessert, I had my last WCMC! Oh how I miss those! We also decided to split the Grand Marnier souffle, and I was frankly disappointed with it. When they serve it to you , they ask you to poke a hole in it so they can pour in the sauce. All I can say is, the presentation was nice, but I think someone forgot to add the Grand Marnier to mine. It tasted like eggs, not oranges. Oh well, the WCMC was awesome as always! We had read on CC about tipping your servers extra, and I had even gone as far as making hand-stamped thank-you cards for them. We had brought them to dinner with us, and to our surprise no one else at our table tipped them extra, at least to our knowledge. They may have added extra to their automatic tips, but how many people actually do that? I was very glad that we chose to tip extra, and they both thanked us profusely. It was a wonderful time, and they certainly helped to make my cruise something special. I really enjoyed their company, and wish them both well. I did give them extra high marks and mentioned them both by name on our comment cards. Here they are, if you are lucky enough to get them on an upcoming cruise, enjoy! I'm jealous!

 

 

After dinner, we headed back to our room to put away our alcohol and get our bags into the hallway. We had no booze! We called the pursers desk, and they told us some was still being delivered. We decided to put our luggage out and carry the booze off. We planned on putting the booze in the luggage after we disembarked, and after what we saw the next morning, we were glad we had! More on that later! So, we finished packing completely and put our luggage out. We were tagged as number 15, if you're curious. We weren't in a hurry to get off, since our flight didn't leave until 1430. We headed down to deck 3 and the Rome Lounge for the Legends show.

 

Up until now, the lounge had been barely half full for any of the shows, but tonight it was jam-packed! We could barely find seats, and ended up sitting on the far left of the stage, almost all the way up! There were so many people in there, I kept wondering where they had all been hiding during the cruise, since I certainly didn't remember seeing that many people at any time! The show was awesome, and the girl who sang Gloria Estefan was unbelievably good! Unfortunately, the guy who sang Elvis was unbelievably bad! He sort of mumbled the words, and forgot half of them. One of the staff finally came out and helped him out, putting us out of our misery. Ryan came out as Dolly Parton, and Marcello and Gillian came out as Sonny and Cher, but in the opposite rolls. I really enjoyed most of the show. After this, it was near midnight, and we headed back to our room for our last night on the ship. Wow, was depression setting in. We found our final towel animal waiting for us, but something else was still missing!

 

 

So, at this point, we start looking around and realize that we still don't have our booze! Bill calls down to the purser's desk, and they tell him they have a few boxes there that they can't read, so he would have to come down and identify our stuff. OMG! Are you kidding!?!? Off he goes, while I got into bed. He came back about 30 minutes later, now pushing 0100, finally with our alcohol. I could clearly read the numbers written on the box by the staff member who checked us in. Perhaps they need to have some remedial writing classes for the staff checking in the booze. Perhaps some remedial reading lessons too. Now that our alcohol was here and our luggage was gone, we both turned in and conked out almost immediately. I do have to say that all the rough weather and the rocking of the ship made us both sleep like babies.

 

Only a bit more to go now. Final docking, and a wrap-up next time around! Good night everyone!

[kiraryker]

I'm loving all the pictures!! Thanks for the tv answer - now not sure if you mentioned it but did you go to any movies on their outdoor theatre? I heard that was an addition to the ship when she was in drydock.

 

Also yes I''m going to ask because I love their punch - did they still offer it free on the lido deck or just lemon aid?

 

Your review is awesome!

[Hockey Addict]

 

Steph, I read your review when you came back from your first cruise and it really inspired me to write the best review I could. SO glad you liked mine! Cruising is truly addictive, isn't it?

 

Awww thanks!! I loved writing it... photobucket was aggrivating though to post the pictures because it was so slow!! Yes.... we're hooked.... I was so glad DH liked it.... believe it or not, yesterday he said to me.... in 2010 why don't we go out of here again.... (jax port) :D YAYYYY!!!

[amcjeep4life]

Hey Kira! We never went to tsee any of the movies at the bigscreen. Either it was movies we had already seen, like deja vu, or stuff we had no desire to see, like Step Up 2 and College Road trip. We did see a few pieces of concerts, like the Eagles, but it just didn't do it for us. Nothing terribly exciting for us. I would rather sit on my balcony and read. Also, no, there was no fruit punch. I had read somewhere else that they were having supplier issues, which is why they didn't have it. They did have water, iced tea, lemonade, coffee all day, and some juices in the morning. We drank mostly water and iced tea, so it was good for us. We had brought a 12 pack of water on board, and gave 5 of them to the room steward. We were happy with the water on the ship. I had even brought some crystal light flavor packets with me, and never used a single one!

 

Steph, I'm glad your hubby got hooked himself. We are looking at booking our next cruise in October on board the Freedom. If I lived as close as you do, I think I'd be doing cruises 3 times a year! I'll have to limit myself to 1, since it seems like the cruises out of NY go to the Bahamas, and I have no desire to go there. Otherwise, we're stuck flying to the port, and that runs about half of the cruise fare! I'm quite jealous! I'd also be at the Aquarium all the time if I lived there!

 

One thing I did forget to mention, they sell raffle tickets for a free cruise during a few Bingo sessions, and at other times too, I'm sure. They were like $10 each or three for $20, somthing like that. Or was that Bingo? Don't remember, but they were pretty expensive. Anyway, they picked the winner just before the Legends Show, and you had to be present to win. Interestingly enough, the first name they called wasn't there! I couldn't believe it! After about 5 minutes of them checking to make sure, they pulled another ticket. Remember the group of 5 guys I mentioned earlier that beat me at the Scavenger Hunt? One of them won the free cruise! He was jumping up and down and yelling, and in general just very happy! I was psyched that it was a younger person who probably had to scrimp to afford going this time that won the freebie. Made me happy.

[amcjeep4life]

All right, this should be my final post finishing up possibly the most depressing day of my life... The Day The Cruise Ended And I Had To Go Home. Blah.

 

So, amazingly enough, we were up early today which ticked me right off. I wanted to sleep somewhat late and try to get off the ship late, since we had a late flight. When we looked off the balcony, we noticed that the Valor was already home.

 

 

Bill was amused by the cargo ships and just had to have a picture, so here it is.

 

 

Miami didn't look much differernt than when we left, except for less traffic! I was still depreessed that we were back, but we decided to head up for breakfast. Yes, I said up. We decided to try the buffet once. We went up, and Bill grabbed a seat while I went to get us some food. We had our backpack, and the box of booze, so didn't want to move it all thru the line, hence the splitting of duties. There were people dragging all their luggage with them, and I couldn't figure out why you would want to do that! I guess if you have really early flights you might want to get off early with your luggage, but they will give you lower tag numbers if you have early flights. Personlly, we were happy to stay on board! Anyway, the only thing I found on the buffet that I wish I had found earlier was peanut butter! That is one thing that was never offered at breakfast in the dining room, or even thru room service. Sure made that bagel taste awesome! They really should offer peanut butter thru room service. Although, now that I know they have it on the buffet, maybe I'll just grab a dish next time for my room service breakfast. Just seems like so much work. Yup, I definitely think they should offer it as a choice. We had scrambled eggs, ham, sausage, bacon, fruit, and bagels with peanut butter. I told Bill if he wanted something differnt he could get it himself! Since the ship was starting to empty out a bit, we wandered around and took some pictures of things we missed the first time around. For example, these are the pillars in the buffet.

 

 

I thought these were the doors to the Venezia lounge, but they might be to the Big Easy. I honestly don't remember, mostly because we didn't really spend any time in either place. I still thought they were pretty. The oyster shells were a nice touch.

 

 

 

This is the California Wine Bar.

 

[amcjeep4life]

it is sort of stuffed into a corner on Deck 5 next to the Hollywood Disco. Never a place we hung out, but it was very pretty. Each pillar had statues inside made of glass. Some were pretty neat looking

 

 

Some scared me. I know these pictures aren't the greatest, but check out the heads on these women!

 

 

Here is the fron of the bar. It's too bad it was so small, it seemed like it would have been a somewhat quiet place to hang out.

 

 

So, I think the theme of this ship is the World. It was definitely every where, but some of it was incorporated so well and nicely, it never seemed over the top. People whine about too much. Who wants a cruise ship to be boring and sedate anyway?

 

 

 

[amcjeep4life]

Here is a picture of the empty sushi stand, which is how it will be most of the time. It is only open from 1730 to 2030 daily. Bill did try a few things, I don't like much cooked seafood, so didn't want to eat any raw. We did try these rice patties with smoked salmon that were good, bu didn't see them on the menu for the rest of the week. You could get as much as you wanted, and it is free. They only charge for the sake. The stand is located on deck 5 just aft to the casino. Kind of a weird spot, but it worked pretty well for us. We had to walk by it everytime we went to dinner. Don't know why I never got a picture of it when someone was in it. Huh.

 

 

One last look at the casino. It treated us well, and I will remember it fondly!

 

 

At this point, things were starting to empty out a bit. We decided to take a final walk up to the secret deck and check it out. We also checked out the different rooms since they were open. We are debating taking our nieces and nephew on a cruise in the future, and were looking at the rooms set up for more than two people to get an idea of how crowded they would be. We've come to the decision that we will probably book two rooms, if only to have a place to escape ourselves when we need to! Well, here it is. The final photo of my review. We were hoping they wouldn't notice us hiding here and maybe we could stow away for the next week. Then we decided we didn't have any luggage, and might get a bit too funky. So, we decided to get off. It sucked.

 

 

We headed into the baggage carousel area to find our luggage. While we were there, we saw at least 3 leaking suitcases that smelled like they had been drinking all night. We saw some pretty ticked off people getting their wet luggage off the rack and griping about how much liquor they had lost. Made me really glad Carnival flubbed getting us our booze on time and we chose to carry it off. After we retrieved our stuff, we placed the alcohol in the duffle and went to get in line for customs. There were like 6 lines open for non-US citizens, and 2 or 3 for US citizens. Needless to say, we waited in line for about 20 minutes. While in line, we watched two people drop their booze onto the floor and break it. I honestly thought the one guy was going to beat his wife/girlfriend right there! He was soooo PO'ed because she dropped the huge bottle of Bacardi. BTW, he was carrying a tube of rum cakes. That's it. She was pulling a carry-on and trying to wrangle a group of older challenged people, and he was strolling along with his rum cakes. What a jerk! We got up to the Customs guy and he litterally grabbed our form and sent us out the door. He never even looked at ID's or the form! We just zipped out the door and went to our transfer bus. Now, we were well under the $800 per person spending allowance, but how would he have even noticed, because he never even glanced at the form to see what we had bought! What about the limit on cigarettes and alcohol? Guess they weren't enforcing any of those pesky rules that day! Of course, all our flights home ran perfectly and on time. Figures, right?

 

I guess this is it. THE END.

 

I will be happy to answer any questions anyone has. My parting thoughts on this are as follows:

 

We really had a good time. Was it perfect? No. Of course not. Is anything perfect, other than Mel Gibson's behind or LL Cool J's abs? Let me know if you find something! The food wasn't perfect, our fellow passengers ranged from outgoing and friendly to surly and rude. So do the people I deal with every day. Even Disney had it's fair share of surly and rude, I guess not everyone gets their dose of pixie dust. All I know is we enjoyed it, and will do it again. If you go expecting to have a great fun time, you will. You make of the cruise what you will. We are ready to book now! FWIW, we are thinking of booking next October on the Freedeom for an 8 day to Cozumel, Costa Rica and Panama. Any one want to join us?

[amcjeep4life]

Oh yea, I did want to post the link to my webshots album just in case anyone wants to see the whole thing. There are a few pictures that didn't make it to this review, surprisingly enough. I wish everyone fair winds and calm seas on their upcoming journeys!

 

I AM SO JEALOUS!

 

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2230238150104454228pIrsud?vhost=travel

[mr jailerman]

Oh yea, I did want to post the link to my webshots album just in case anyone wants to see the whole thing. There are a few pictures that didn't make it to this review, surprisingly enough. I wish everyone fair winds and calm seas on their upcoming journeys!

 

I AM SO JEALOUS!

 

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/2230238150104454228pIrsud?vhost=travel

I have said it before and I will say it once more, GREAT REVIEW !! Welcome to OUR world of Cruising !! :D