Just off the Triumph any questions?? ( My review inside)

Hello Everyone,

My husband and I just sailed the Triumph June 19- 24, 2017.

To start I will tell you a little bit about myself. I am a 32 year old stay at home mom of two lovely children. My husband and I went on this cruise to celebrate our wedding anniversary.. This is our third cruise with Carnival. We have sailed on the Fantasy in 2008 and the Fascination in 2014.

I will break this review down to the following categories and I will be happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have..

CATEGORIES:

1. Embark: New Orleans Port

2. Room and Stewart

3. Food

4. Chief's Table ( Not included in your cruise price)

5. Entertainment

6. Disembark

Then I will give my overall rating of the cruise. This is my first review so here goes nothing!!!

;p;p;p;p;p

Embark Day: Port of New Orleans

My husband and I stayed at the Comfort in Suites in Kenner, LA which was about 7 mins from the New Orleans Airport and about 30 mins without traffic to the port. We arrived to the port in an Uber car from the hotel. Our check in time was 11 am to 11:30 am we arrived about 11:15 am. The port was a mess. There were no organization at all. Cars were in a jam because their were people still leaving the port and people arriving at the same time. There were no signs to help guide you to where to take your bags for check in or where to go to start your boarding process.. Finally I found a women walking by that had a carnival shirt on and I asked her where do we check our bags. She said something into her walkie talkie and the next thing I know there was a man there saying welcome to New Orleans.. He asked did we have the cruise tags for our bags which we did all ready to go.. He pulled out a stapler and pointed us in the direction to which we could start the boarding process..

Once inside there was a long line to get to the security metal detector. We waited in that line for about 20-30 mins before being scanned through and our passports checked. Once out of that line then we had to enter the next line which was the line that you get your sail & go cards in. This line was moving quickly so no problems there, but at this point we were also informed that due to the tropical storm in the area of New Orleans our ports have been flipped flopped and that our first port will now be Progreso and then Cozumel after receiving our sail cards we were instructed to set in the waiting to board area and we were in boarding zone 6. We waited another 30 or so minutes and then they began to call the zones. By the time we finally got on the ship it was about 12:30 pm. Once aboard the ship everything was going well.. Lunch food was up and ready to go bars were in full swing..

SIDE NOTE:

Because of the tropical storm the first two days of the cruise were very very rocky almost everyone had sea sickness.. It was horrible..

Also on our first sea day there was a medical emergency around 10am.. This medical emergency caused the Captain to put the boat in full speed to get to the first port so the women could get urgent medical attention.. Between the rough seas and the speed of the boat it was a rough ride.

ROOM AND STEWARD:

We stayed in room 2380 which is in the aft of the ship. Our steward for the cruise was Reynaldo. He was polite and always called us by name. He said hi when ever he would see us in the hall. On our first night before dinner he came to our room and knocked on the door and asked us to fill out the room cleaning card which asks you would like morning or evening cleaning. There is an option for both but we decided that we wanted evening cleaning. I also asked him could he make sure that we had ice in the evening because we brought our own soda cans. Some people like morning coffee, I like morning can of coke! I also asked if he could make sure to do the towel animals in the evening because I heard sometimes they do not do them anymore and my kids always look forward to all the towel pics. The room was as expected small with a sitting sofa and an ocean view window. Nothing special but we are never in our room much just to shower and sleep. The down side to the room is the bathrooms the floor to the shower was very worn out, there where tiles missing from the floor. Second down side was that they kept spare comforters and sheets under the bed which is where we normally store our luggage so this was a bummer. Lastly, room 2380 is right below the Paris dining room so in the morning we could here the banging of the plates and the pushing of carts across the floor. To a normal sleeper it would probably never wake them, but I am a very light sleeper and this would wake me every morning some morning I would fall back to sleep. So if you are a light sleep this might not be the right room for you!?!?!?!

My only compliant for Reynaldo was that every night I would have to ask for my bucket of ice for our soda no big deal there could be worse things. Other then that he was great!!

Will be following.

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Thanks for the review.

ROOM AND STEWARD:

 

We stayed in room 2380 which is in the aft of the ship. Our steward for the cruise was Reynaldo. He was polite and always called us by name. He said hi when ever he would see us in the hall. On our first night before dinner he came to our room and knocked on the door and asked us to fill out the room cleaning card which asks you would like morning or evening cleaning. There is an option for both but we decided that we wanted evening cleaning. I also asked him could he make sure that we had ice in the evening because we brought our own soda cans. Some people like morning coffee, I like morning can of coke! I also asked if he could make sure to do the towel animals in the evening because I heard sometimes they do not do them anymore and my kids always look forward to all the towel pics. The room was as expected small with a sitting sofa and an ocean view window. Nothing special but we are never in our room much just to shower and sleep. The down side to the room is the bathrooms the floor to the shower was very worn out, there where tiles missing from the floor. Second down side was that they kept spare comforters and sheets under the bed which is where we normally store our luggage so this was a bummer. Lastly, room 2380 is right below the Paris dining room so in the morning we could here the banging of the plates and the pushing of carts across the floor. To a normal sleeper it would probably never wake them, but I am a very light sleeper and this would wake me every morning some morning I would fall back to sleep. So if you are a light sleep this might not be the right room for you!?!?!?!

 

My only compliant for Reynaldo was that every night I would have to ask for my bucket of ice for our soda no big deal there could be worse things. Other then that he was great!!

That is the growing trend these days, seems their wanting you to order ice from room service.

I am booked on the triumph in Oct and I have heard the port can be a mess! Following your review from Augusta GA!

Following, cruising in August

We were on this cruise and you are not joking about the rough seas! I was very sick and my kids were so disappointed that the slide and mini golf were closed.

Also following this thread. We are cruising on the Triumph in October.

Great start sorry you had such a rough ride.

Food:

We ate in the MDR every night except one, That was the night that we ate at the Chief's table( later in the review). Our main server was Arzeno he was great, nice, friendly and full of energy. He was a delight to see every night. We had a table of 10 in the Upper Paris Dinning Room which consisted of 5 couples. She was beautiful and nicely decorated every night. The down fall with me was the food was just your ordinary food. Nothing out of the box or over the top. This was very disappointing for my husband and I. We look forward to trying new things when on a cruise because its the one time you can try something new and if you don't like then you can order something else for no additional charge.. The only thing out of the box was on our last sea night they offered a Rabbit appetizer. Which to my husbands surprise was very delicious and was just the type of thing we look for in a cruise. As far as dessert there are not many good options. We found ourselves ordering the old faithful Chocolate Molten Cake many nights. Now I will say they did have a great White Chocolate Rum Breading Pudding the last night of the cruise that was excellent. I couldn't get enough of it. Service in the MDR was on the slow side most night especially the first night it took 2 1/2 hours for our table of 10. I also found that service was also very slow the two times we ate in the MDR for Sea day breakfast. Sea Day can use some new choice when it comes to breakfast its been the same for at least the last 5 years..

We did eat at Guy Burger 4 or 5 times the whole cruise it was great. No real complaints just that the lines for a burger went on for days every day.. It seemed like there was never a time when there was no line.

My only compliant that goes across the board no matter where we ate except for the Pizza Pirate. The food was never hot. No matter what, the food would just come out room temp or just slightly warm..

We did eat at the Taste Bar on Both of the Sea Days. The tasting bar is a small bar open by the casino (Deck 5) on sea days that lets you sample appetizers from the different specialty restaurants that Carnival has. On this cruise we got to sample from the Fahrenheit 555 Steakhouse and from Cucina Del Capitano. These samples were very taste and I liked the fact that we could try food from the specialty restaurants for no charge.

The Steakhouses sample was a short rib croquet and a spiced pumpkin soup. The croquet was very good with a hint of spiciness. The pumpkin soup was very thick so I had just a sip just to say well I tried it. We are not pumpkin people at all.

The Cucina Del Capitano offered a spiced meatball with fresh Mozzarella cheese on top and a Bruschetta french bread item both were very good. So much so we went back and got a second sample.

We also ordered room service two nights after coming in late around 2am both times when calling to room service there was a 15-20min hold before you could even place your order and then there was another 20 min wait to get your food.. The free items on room service have declined but they do offer some pretty good options for the food with a service charge.

The Chief's Table:

The chief's table is an on boat excursion costing $75 per person Maxing out at 12 people per session because of this there are multiple chief's table in one sailing. We were informed in person by the Maitre D' that we would be in the second group of chief's table which was on Wednesday at 6pm after our Progerso port. The experience consist of a tour of the kitchen gallery from the head chief himself and then it is followed by a 12 course meal that is complete with champagne, white wine, red wine and bottled water if you like. The entire experience takes about 3 hours. The dinner setting was so elegant and private it was great. They make sure you feel like you are VIP!!! You could tell that the chief took his time in preparing every course, every item on the dish to make sure his creation was complete. As you go through the courses the chief goes into great detail about how each item was prepared. The experience was the perfect anniversary gift to ourselves. We enjoyed the company of the 4 different chiefs and the other cruisers who went on this excursion. No words can describe how delicious each and every item was. **Word of advice which my husband did not take. Do not try to eat everything on your plate every course you will be stuffed by the 4 course instead take 3 or 4 bites of each plate so that you can make it through to the last and final 12 course. ***

As a keepsake the chief provides you with a group picture with him and the secret recipe of how to make the world famous Carnival chocolate molten cake.

In my opinion this was well worth the money and the food that you eat during this time is one of a kind and you won't be able to find it anywhere else on the ship. I do have pictures of each course if anyone would like to see them please just let me know.

I am going to keep Entertainment and Disembark short and sweet and to the point.

Entertainment:

Wish there were more Vegas style shows in the evening or maybe just one during the day on sea days. It was very difficult to make it to the Vegas style shows because we had late dinner seating time so we would either have to go to the 7pm and hope it was over before 8 pm so you could still make it to dinner on time. (This is the option we did ) or you could rush your server through dinner so you could make it to the 9pm show. My favorite Vegas show was THE BIG EASY which was performed the last night of the cruise. It was filled with great songs, lots of New Orleans culture and it was just all around fun and exciting to watch. The other shows where good as well but not as fun as the big easy.

There were two comedians aboard this ship JR Brow and Ronnie Bullard. We did not miss one show with these guys both are extremely funny and packed the house every night.. I personally enjoyed Ronnie more then JR but JR is still very funny.. If these guys are on your ship you should make sure you make your way to see them and don't forget to order a drink because things are always funnier with cocktails. LOL

The Hollywood dance club was hit or miss. Some nights it was great and we would closed the club down with our friends from our dinner table and then on some nights the songs weren't as good and the club would be completely empty.

JESS from the US if you are reading this please please arrange more Vegas Style shows on the sailings and maybe could there be a little more fun on sea days to me sea days seemed a little dry. LOL.. I just thought there would be more dancing and more games and contest on the lido deck on those days.

DISEMBARK:

Disembark was supposed to start at 8 am sharp well it did not start until 930 am. Our section was supposed to disembark at 10:15 am roughly we were not called to disembark until 11:30 am and then by the time we made it to customs it was 12:30 pm.. People were going crazy trying to find a porter to help them with there bags. Disembark was just as crazy as embark sadly.

Overall I would have to give this cruise a 7 out of 10. The cold food and the lack of variety really had a big impact on my rating along with not much fun on sea days. With that being said a day on a cruise with a cocktail is better then a day at work or without spending time with my husband. Cruises are what you make of them so if you let every little thing bother you then you will most definitely will not have fun.. Luckily my husband and I are roll with the punches type of people and still enjoyed ourselves.. I hope this was helpful to everyone and if you would like the funtimes or the chief's table pictures please let me know..

Happy Sailing Everyone!!!!

Yes, I would like to know what you were fed during the chef's table, so the pictures would be nice.

FANTASTIC REVIEW!!! I'll be boarding the Triumph on July 17th. I'm hoping for better weather :-( Any chance you still have your Funtimes that you could post? Or I could send you my email if possible. Thank you again for such a fantastic review...FROM RENO NV!!

and of course, I'd like to see the food from the Chef's Table as well...I'm still considering "to do, or not to do" :-) Thanks again

Hello Everyone,

 

My husband and I just sailed the Triumph June 19- 24, 2017.

 

To start I will tell you a little bit about myself. I am a 32 year old stay at home mom of two lovely children. My husband and I went on this cruise to celebrate our wedding anniversary.. This is our third cruise with Carnival. We have sailed on the Fantasy in 2008 and the Fascination in 2014.

 

I will break this review down to the following categories and I will be happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have..

 

CATEGORIES:

1. Embark: New Orleans Port

2. Room and Stewart

3. Food

4. Chief's Table ( Not included in your cruise price)

5. Entertainment

6. Disembark

 

Then I will give my overall rating of the cruise. This is my first review so here goes nothing!!!

;p;p;p;p;p

Do you recall how much your uber was? The question comes up a lot on the New Orleans board.

Were there any theme nights (white night, 80s night, etc) during the cruise?

We just got off the Triumph on the 22nd...and we did not have any theme nights.

Does Carnival still leave beach towels in the cabins for our use?

Does Carnival still leave beach towels in the cabins for our use?

Yes they do. They also have dive-in blankets and popcorn by the pool during the movies that are very nice to cuddle in ;)

Yes they do. They also have dive-in blankets and popcorn by the pool during the movies that are very nice to cuddle in ;)

Thank you! :)

Thanks so much for posting this; my husband and I are sailing on Triumph on September 2. I do have two questions. We have the first embarkation time slot and I am wondering which food outlets will be open as soon as we board? Second question is about the slide by the pool - is it open, and does it let out into shallow water or do you need to be a swimmer to use it? I can't swim but I want to try it. Thanks!

No surprise about the port. We've come to expect an intimidating, confusing, and frustrating experience at ports. We are trying to figure out were we're going to park in town because I refuse to drive to, or park at, the port!

Leaving in 19 days on the Triumph! Do you have a copy of the Fun Times you can post? Also, what did you do when you were in Cozumel and Progreso? Any excursions you recommend?

Wondering why there was a delay disembarkation.....is this the norm or was there a reason?