Carnival Victory Review- 11/6-11/10

This is my first review on here so I'll do my best! My husband, 8 year old daughter, FIL & MIL took this cruise last week. My husband and I were the only ones who had cruised before (we've gone with Carnival, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean before). We booked 2 balcony rooms a couple months back as we had some airline credits that were about to expire and we got a good deal on the rooms.

We flew in to Miami on Monday (the same day the ship left) morning and Uber'd straight to the port. The Uber was awesome and more convenient then waiting in line for a taxi. I had found a $15 off promo code online so that made it even cheaper. We got to the port about 30 minutes before our scheduled arrival time but were able to breeze right through the check in points. We waited in the boarding area for about 45 minutes and were boarded in boarding group 1 at about 11:45am. We got onboard and of course went straight to the Lido Deck for lunch. After lunch my daughter couldn't wait one more second so we let her jump in the pool while we watched with a frozen drink in hand. We went to our rooms when the announcement was made that they were ready (about 1:30) and we were happy to find our luggage had been delivered already. We were on the 6th floor. The rooms were nice- but a little dirty. I am not a "neat freak" or someone who is hard to please but there was layers of dust on the two small shelves on the wall and hair on the bathroom shelves. While I'm on the subject of the rooms I will share my thoughts for the week regarding it. We were so excited to book a balcony room as we spend a lot of time relaxing on the balcony throughout the day. We understand construction/repairs are inevitable and sometimes just have to happen now but there was constant drilling and welding on the area right below our balcony- ALL DAY EVERY DAY. The only time we could enjoy quiet on the balcony was at night. I was a little disappointed as I like to relax and read in the afternoons out there but not on this trip. Another pretty big issue we had was with the shower. It overflowed every single time any one of us showered. I don't mean a little water splashed out, I mean overflowed to the point that it was leaking on to the carpet in the room from the bathroom. When stepping out of the shower the water on the floor would almost full submerge our toes- that's how deep it was!! We talked to our room steward about it more than once but he just smiled and told us it's ok. It really wasn't ok though. It was gross to try and get ready in a bathroom that was at least 1-2 inches deep of cold leftover shower water. Another issue was the blow dryer. The first day I showered and was blow drying my hair when all of a sudden a chunk of my hair got sucked in to it. I had to rip it out. After inspecting the blow dryer (which I should have done before I used it) it was missing the back cover so it was just the spinning plastic blades on the back. Again, I spoke with our room steward about this numerous times and he said he would replace it and never did. Other than those issues, we were happy with the size of the room, our daughter LOVED her bunk and the balcony was a good size. We were lucky and saw dolphins quite a few times swimming in the wake during the week which was SO NEAT.

I digress back to day 1- after the muster drill we relaxed for awhile and went to dinner. The food was great, the waiters were so personable and friendly (they made my daughter a few animals out of napkins which she loved) but the service was a little slow. Every night we ended up leaving our table with dirty plates stacked up from dinner which was disappointing as the service has always been wonderful. We were always sat at a table for 7 and there were 5 of us and they would never remove the settings/chairs for the 3 extra people so we felt very crowded most of the time.

We didn't really go to many of the shows because my daughter wanted to attend the dance parties and such through Camp Carnival most evenings. So we would drop her off and go to the casino, go shopping, relax on deck... whatever sounded good that night. She had an absolute blast at Camp Carnival. She found something everyday that she wanted to do and got upset with us a few times because we had to say no so we could hang out with her too. ;)

Day 2 was Key West which we loved. We rented an electric car and wandered the island all morning. It was perfect and I'm so glad we did it that way. We took the whole loop around the island, stopped at the beach for a little while, did a little souvenir shopping, Southernmost Point..... we also (supposedly) saw Kenny Chesneys house on Caroline St. We got talking to a local who said he was in town and had stopped in to Hog's Breath the night before and he told us where he lived. He could have been pulling our leg but oh well. It was fun to think he might have been there. :) They were having some sort of Powerboat Racing competition in Key West last week so we got to watch their timed trials off our balcony before we set sail and that was an experience. Those boats can really fly!

Day 3 was Cozumel in the afternoon. We were bummed how much like an airport it looked when you got off the boat (I mean, you literally have to walk through a Hudson News store. Is there an airport in the world that doesn't have one of those?!) but then we took a cab to Paradise Beach and had a great afternoon. The food was AMAZING (we had fajitas, tacos, burritos, margaritas.. everything was delicious), the water trampoline park was fun and the pool was relaxing. I would highly recommend it for anyone stopping in Cozumel. We felt safe and comfortable and had a blast.

Day 4 was our at sea day and boy did our daughter keep us busy running her to her Camp Carnival activities. lol. We did some trivia which was fun, went to a comedy show, hit up the waterslide, spent some pool time, putt putt golf and multiple ice cream cones through out the day. A great fun day. The only complaint about this day was the arcade- oh the arcade. :rolleyes::rolleyes: The arcade on this boat is awful. Its long and narrow (like one person can walk down the hall at a time) and numerous games didn't work. Then when it was time to retreive her prizes with her points the machine broke, not once, not twice but three times. Each time we had to go to the casino to find someone to fix it. It was such an ordeal. I was so over it but our daughter was insistent she spend her tickets so we hung in there but I would recommend avoiding that room. If you can't avoid it, watch the fun times as there was one hour on the at sea day where games were half off so try to hold out until then to save yourself a little dough.

Overall, we had a great time. Our daughter cried when we had to disembark (which went very smoothly and quickly, by the way) and my FIL & MIL have already said they are ready to book their next cruise. Please let me know if you have any questions! Happy to answer. :)

Glad you had a great time! Thanks for the feedback.

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Thanks for the review! Do you know what time you were docked back in Miami or more specifically what time self assist started? Trying to decide if I can make an early flight.

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for the review! Boarding the Victory on Friday, and cannot wait!

Great job for your first time! Thanks for sharing your review!

Enjoyed your review.

Keith

Thanks for the review! Do you know what time you were docked back in Miami or more specifically what time self assist started? Trying to decide if I can make an early flight.

I believe we were cleared for self assist about 7:30? Not later than 8 I'm sure.

Thank you for taking the time to write a review. We board in 2 weeks! Super excited!!

Thanks for the review! I'm doing the same cruise with a similar situation (me, wife, kids will be 10 and 6, MIL, FIL) in two balcony rooms on the Lido deck, just inside from the pools. I'm sure it'll be a busy hallway, but super convenient.

Interesting review, thanks!