Back from 4 Day Victory - Key West and Cozumel October 2017

Sorry Beachbum, I did not take photos of the menus other than the linked copy of the new breakfast menu. The SeaDay Brunch menu is fleetwide standard.

This is something Carnival deserves criticism for: Announcements. There are too many of them, and they start early and go late. There were announcements after 9PM at max blast volume throughout the ship and cabin corridors. That was flat out obnoxious and put it on my survey. Nothing was said in these announcements that was not in the FunTimes already. I get that they are pushing sales, and I give a pass to the night there was inclement weather so they moved the deck party to the nightclub so an announcement was fair. But regular announcements after 9PM selling stuff gets a big thumbs down from me.

Key West is a stop I always enjoy; I have vacationed throughout the keys before; campgrounds, fishing, trips to Key West by car, have been a few times by ship. I always steer clear of tourist trap bars/restaurants. There are a lot of great local shops to try out. I enjoy browsing the art galleries and getting some local food. From that perspective, this stop did not disappoint. Some galleries were open along Duval Street. The NOAA Eco Discovery Center (FREE - 10 minute walk from ship) was open. Some of the local sweets shops were open and we got our Key Lime pie. Garbos Grill (an airstream parked behind a bar, #1 rated food in KW) had just opened and we got a quick bite here.

But there was little to no hotel tourists, no land visitors, and many shops were still boarded up and closed. Saw a LOT of debris on side streets and there was heavy duty construction equipment being used to clear roads. In a way I am glad KW was open and we were able to help support the economy, but in another way it was pretty clear KW was not really back up to speed. We did see a lot of construction materials stacked on the cruise ship pier, many sunken docks and destroyed boats. Most excursions seemed to be running. I don't know how others felt about being in KW; it just felt a little odd. I was prepared for the ship to skip KW so was somewhat pleasantly surprised when it was on the itinerary.

I feel like KW is going to push hard to be open for holiday/snowbird season.

Cozumel we had planned to take a cab to Chakanaab Park, but our kids schedule was "off" so we roamed the Puerta Maya port area, saw some shows, did photos around there, checked out various shops. We went outside the port area for a bit but the local sellers were beyond high pressure to the point of outright harassment to get you to buy their goods; I have never been approached by so many vendors so aggressively before.

This is the one day there were no lines on the ship for anything so we went back, went swimming, got to try out the Chopsticks and Deli section of the buffet (Black Bean Calamari excellent, Corned Beef on Rye grilled, also great). They were carving fresh leg of lamb at the buffet. It's a lot more bearable with 80% of the people off the ship! We then all napped for almost four hours, so it is a good thing we skipped the park.

Cozumel Day has open seating in the dining room; we missed not having our regular staff and table, but still had a spacious booth and service still great, so all was good. My son enjoyed watching Valor and Allure of the Seas leave Cozumel and we enjoyed the ultra relaxed vibe of the ship that day.

Enjoyed reading your review of the Victory. We are less than 3 weeks away and this helped with some of our planning. Thanks!

To follow

Thank you for your review/report and additional posts.

Keith