Triumph 05/10/09 Review With LOTS of PICS!!!

[karenh1127]

Thanks for the pics! We are thinking of sailing her out of New Orleans next March and I wanted to see what the ship looked like. Cant wait for more!

[CC Help Michell]

Thanks for taking the time to do this! I'm enjoying this review immensely -- I'm sailing the Triumph out of NY on b2bs this June and this is great. :) Congrats on graduation and I'm looking forward to the next installments.

[PaulMedik]

...................

We booked this trip about a month ago. It was a surprise from my DH... I just graduated nursing school so this was a little reward for me and a chance for us to reconnect because I've been so busy the last couple years.

 

...............

 

 

Erin,

 

Great review. Thank you for taking the time to share with us.

 

Congrats on graduation too. Also give Charlie a pat on the back from all of us for choosing the appropriate reward / vacation for finishing nursing school! ;)

[ERTHDOG]

this review rocks

 

keep up the great work,love all the detail & pics, semi patiently awaiting the rest

 

dave

[RedbirdFL]

Erin, thanks so much for posting the great pics and review. I've already added a couple of the things you posted to my notes for our Oct 3 Triumph cruise.

 

More, please! :)

[TnMama]

Thanks for the pics! We are thinking of sailing her out of New Orleans next March and I wanted to see what the ship looked like. Cant wait for more!

 

Ya'll can go with us! Our Roll Call is empty.

 

Erin, Forgot to say congrats on graduation!!!!! You cracked me up on the tanning thing! and THANKS for the tip on where to sit at the Buffet! Its a neat shot looking down!:D

[ManyMore]

You guys sound like us lol I especially laughed about the people and the sign telling them where to go. I made a t-shirt that says... there are no stupid questions... just stupid people lol I can't wait to read more.

[jks336]

hopefully you are putting these all in a nice online album as well. thanks so much, this is what i want to do too. have all my pics for ppl to see :) im less than a month away whooohhoo.. love the comentary too.. my daughter and her husband are the same, she burns and he doesnt need too.. too dang dark as it is lol.. waiting on the continueing.

 

and yep.. im at work so im part of that % playing online here lmao

[queenanneitis]

First of all congratulations on graduating from nursing school! I'm a registered nurse and have been for a decade and my husband says to congratulate you husband as well for surviving nursing school......lol. Isn't that the truth!!

 

Next, thanks for the great review and pictures so far! We've cruised lots before but this will be our first cruise on the Triumph IN 11 DAYS!!!!!! We're taking our little grandson on his first cruise so we're super excited as usual! I look forward to reading the rest of your review!

[ebandive]

I'm glad you all are enjoying the review! Thanks for all the nice comments!

 

Queenanneitis- Your screen name cracks me up. And it is SO true that Charlie feels like he is the one graduating. He has been so great picking up all the slack at home. I told him just a few more weeks of it... I take the boards on June 12th. :eek::eek::eek:

[ebandive]

The next few pics are from my absolute favorite spot on the ship... the "secret" door on deck 9 (Lido) all the way forward.

 

 

This goes out to the front deck above the bridge. It was fabulous! There was barely anyone else out there, and if there was it was usually staff members. Since it's above the bridge, the deck juts out the sides of the sick so you get a great near 360 degree view. It was the perfect place to take pictures as you sail into port.

 

 

 

Then we started exploring the rest of the ship on the way down.

 

The Olympic bar (sports bar) is just off the atrium next to the casino. The seats were kind of cool, they were each a "ball".

 

 

[ebandive]

Here's the casino. I'm proud to say that I managed to avoid this area the entire cruise! My only gambling consisted of bingo on the last day.

 

 

 

 

There is a casino bar that I'm not sure that I have a picture of, and all along the casino is the Promenade. This is all on deck 5.

 

Then there are other rooms along the promenade as you walk aft. There is the Underground Tokyo game room (I have to find the picture),

 

Then the Hollywood Disco. Maybe I wasn't up late enough for this really to get jammin, but during the day it was mostly used as a kids play room and at night whenever I walked by there would be people hanging out but nobody dancing.

 

 

Next comes the Big Easy piano bar.

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure that the cruise critic members had a meet & greet here the second day. I lurked on the thread pre-cruise and read that they reserved a bar for an hour for unlimited drinks. DH didn't feel like meeting anybody though so I didin't join in. On the second day (Monday) it seemed like there was quite the party going on in there! Even throughout the week, I overheard people talking about how great the party was.

[ebandive]

Then at the very back is the Aft lounge: Club Rio. Here there was usually karaoke or a comedian at night. One night there was a burlesque show-- more on that later!

 

 

 

I loved that every room of the ship was modeled after a city of the world.

 

Outside Club Rio is the smaller aft atrium. Below it is the two level Paris dining room. (London dining room is midship)

 

 

Between the two dining rooms on deck 4 is the cigar bar. This is also where they had afternoon tea.

 

[ebandive]

3:45 is the mandatory muster drill. At about 3:00 when we were touring the ship, we ran into a couple who was freaking out about the muster. They were just sure they were going to miss it and had no idea where to get their life jackets or where to go. We briefly explained the process and told them not to worry, that when the time came there would be plenty of announcements. That still didn't seem to calm them down so they ran off to find their life jackets and get ready. :D First time cruisers!

 

The muster itself was painless. I didn't take any pics of it this trip. We managed to get in front for the first time. We were actually on deck 4 ABOVE the outdoor promenade. At all other times during the cruise this area is locked off. It was shaded though and there was a nice breeze.

 

After muster we went to our secret spot on Lido to watch sail away. There were a handfull of others out there.

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE sailing past South Beach!

 

 

 

Nothing but blue sea ahead! I was a bit jealous of the crew deck (the bottom deck)

 

Leaving Miami behind:

 

We headed to the aft pool to get one last pic, and people were already enjoying the water:

 

[teahoney]

I'm loving this review. More More More!!!!! LOL

[ebandive]

We enjoy taking pictures of ourselves together. Charlie's trying to talk me into doing a whole photo series on our wall at home of these type of pics!

 

 

We had the main seating time at 6:00 pm, which was what we requested. We've tried doing the late seeing once before, and I was miserable. It was just too late for me to eat, so that when dinner was over I was so exhausted I went straight to bed.

 

The thing Charlie likes least about cruising is having to eat dinner with other people and at a set time, AND having to get dressed up. So basically he doesn't like the entire dining room experience. But I'm not a big fan of buffets. I promised him before we left that if he absolutely didn't want to eat in the dining room, we wouldn't have to and I didn't mind finding something in the buffet. We didn't bring ANY formal clothes, so formal nights were not an option (so we thought...) But being the first night, I talked him into just TRYING it out and meeting our table mates. If it was awful, we woudn't go back. Besides, the next two nights were out of the question because Monday was formal night and Tuesday night we would be in San Juan.

 

We wore nice jeans and nice shirts and felt completely comfortable and we fit right in. We were sat in the lower level of the Paris dining room at a round table with 3 other young couples, all of us in our twenties. It was still a bit awkward at first... they were all very nice... but it just felt awkward for us. Once we got talking though we had quite a bit in common. We would next see them on Wednesday.

 

Dinner was usually always good. And you can't beat the warm chocolate melting cake!! Sunday was mother's day, so we ladies each got a carnation and little chocolate heart cake-- that we were all way too stuffed to eat!!

 

After dinner we went back to our room. A towel animal!!

 

We then walked around up on Lido to watch the sunset. I snapped a pic of the whale tail funnel.

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

The pool deck is very pretty at dusk.

 

 

At this point I must have walked past the library because here is a pic. I don't remember what floor it is on but it's right off the atrium.

 

Another pool shot:

 

Karaoke started at 8:30 in club rio so we went and watched that for awhile because the welcome aboard show wasn't until 10:30.

 

 

I don't really understand sober karaoke. I love drunken karaoke, but when people are sober and really truly trying to sing it's just not as much fun to laugh at them. :D

[cmecruise1962]

Congrats on your graduation...and thanks for all the pics! I love this review! You and your husband are a beautiful couple! I am going Eastern for the first time in August, so I can't WAIT until you get to the ports!

[ebandive]

We then made our way over to get seats for the Welcome Aboard show. We figured it would be packed since there was only one showing tonight, so we went early. They entertained us by playing a game of bingo before the show started.

 

 

Meet Natanya from South Africa, the assistant cruise director.

 

Then came the show! Jorge Solano was the cruise director, which just happened to be the same director we had on the Imagination 2 years ago, our first cruise which simply addicted me! He is really great and SO funny!

 

 

After the show we made a quick stop outside to watch the water go by in the darkness before heading to our room. What a GREAT first day!! :)

[ebandive]

OK, so this is a little embarassing, but I coudn't figure out how to set a wake up call on the phone. I called the number I was supposed to, but just heard a dial tone. So when Monday morning came I was super paranoid that I had slept the whole day away. The good thing about an inside cabin is that you sleep really well because it's so dark. THe bad thing is that you can easily sleep all day because you have no sunshine to wake you. However it was only 9:00 when my bladder alarm clock went off, so we decided to get ready for the day and head up to Lido for breakfast.

 

 

We met up at our usual spot.

 

 

Charlie had bought the books "For Women Only" and "For Men Only" so we could read through them on our trip and help us reconnect. We spent a lot of time reading outside on deck 3.

 

I think my leanse had fogged up for these pictures. I was bummed when I looked at them later.

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

I know this is cheesy but I just had to do it!

 

 

Then a nice gentlemen came walking by and asked if we wanted our picture together. Wasn't that nice of him? See my pony tail flying in the wind? ha ha.

 

 

We headed up to Lido for lunch but the lines were SOOOOO long. After a couple minutes we gave up and went to the dining room for lunch. This was the only time we went to the dining room for lunch. We were brought to 4 different tables by the host until he finally found one that actually had 2 free chairs. It's so strange to eat a meal with strangers. At least at night the people become friends by the end of the week, but when you are always seated with random people it is just WIERD for those of us who are pretty shy at first.

 

At 3:00 it was time for tea. This is when Charlie and I discussed what we had been reading in our books. And OMG they had the BEST dessert of the entire cruise: this rich chocolate fudge thing COVERED in fresh fruit. It was SOOOO Delish!!

 

 

Here's a pic of the books we were reading. We each read the book about our own gender before the trip and underlined what we really wanted the other to know. So then during the cruise we learned quite a bit about eachother. They were an easy read and I'd recommend them.

 

THen for my favorite activity: More watching the water.

 

 

Isn't the view from the secret deck amazing??

[ebandive]

I'm wearing Charlie's sunglasses in this pic. I was SOOO mad at this one lady in the bathroom. 3 minutes after I used the bathroom on deck 3 I realized I left my sunglasses in the stall. I ran back in there and flung open the door to the stall I was in, just to fling the door right into some lady's knees. OOPS!! "SORRY!" I said, "But are there sunglasses in there!?!?" She said No. I knew this coudn't be true so I waited and waited outside the bathroom for her to leave so I could check myself. After a L O N G time she finally came out, (AND DIDN'T WASH HER HANDS!!! EWWW!!!) and my glasses were gone. Errr. They were cheap old navy sunglasses but still.

 

This kind of shows the space over the bridge. THere's a lot of room to walk around up there.

 

 

 

 

We tried to take the stairs as much as possible to avoid too much of a weight gain. Each floor had a picture of a city somewhere int he world so Charlie and I would walk by and try to figure out which city it was.

 

We came across this city of Copenhagen, Denmark. I took a picture because this is the city where Charlie and I met and fell in love. It's obviously Copenhagen because of the little mermaid statue.

 

[ebandive]

Here's a random pic of the Atrium/Lobby bar:

 

 

More relaxing on deck 3. I LOVE sea days!!:

 

 

 

And more of the Atrium:

 

[ebandive]

I've never heard of people compain for too many pictures, so here's some more:

 

 

Lido buffet decor (South Beach Restaurant). We ate dinner at Lido because it was formal night and we didn't want to go in jeans.

 

 

 

A night shot of the atrium:

 

 

 

We missed the captain's reception as well because we weren't dressed up. We were bummed about missing the free drinks! The main show that night was "Wonderful World" but I'm pretty sure we didn't go. We did however go to the early seating of the Adult Comedy in club rip. Roman was the guest comedian and he was pretty funny.

 

Also that day we watched two in-cabin movies: The Day the Earth Stood Still and Australia. It was nice just realxing on our super nice Carnival Comfort Bed watching movies. Baby Mama was also on but we didn't watch that. Each of the rotated showing every 3 hours, so every hour there was one movie starting. At 9:30 they played Wall-E at the Carnival Seaside Theatre. I didn't even realize that until now when I was looking over the capers. For anyone who really wants to watch the seaside movie, look on the very back of the capers.

 

So that's the end of Day 2!! I'll have to let everyone catch up!! :D