Carnival triumph spring break trip report

Got back yesterday from a 5 day sailing on the triumph. There were 8 of us traveling in 3 cabins. 4 kids ages 17, 16, 11, and 6.

Just wanted to share details of our trip since I found the reports so useful as I planned our trip.

I saved the dailies including the kids schedules if anyone has any questions.

Night before/New Orleans:

Drove from the Houston area, took about 6 hours. Lots of traffic, lots of rain once we got to LA. Would've preferred to sail out of Galveston but New Orleans was significantly cheaper.

Stayed 1 night at the holiday inn by superdome. Used the park and cruise rate in 2 rooms which was more expensive than the regular rate (about 189 vs 120). In hindsight, we probably should've just booked the regular rate at a hotel we liked better and parked at the port.

We arrived around 1 pm and only 1 room was ready. The hotel was ok, the room itself was fine. Water pressure in the bathrooms was not very good and you had to flush several times. Location was good, walking distance to canal and the French quarter. It was perhaps a 10 minute walk at a very leisurely pace.

Day 1:

We did the hotel breakfast at $10 per adult and the 2 kids under 12 were free if they ordered off the menu. The rest of us did the buffet. It was adequate, certainly worth the convenience.

We had a lot of luggage so we decided to have 2 drivers drop off passengers and luggage at the port and take uber or lyft after parking at the hotel. With the lyft (lyft was significantly faster) costs and the hassle of the passengers waiting for us at the port at both arrival and departure, we should've just parked at the port. We didn't save that much money, although 1 advantage was that the line for the parking garage was much longer. We wanted to take the group picture together so our passengers waited for us to arrive back at the port and there was no convenient place for them to wait.

Left the hotel around 1030, dropped off passengers and luggage around 1045 (if you're doing this, stay to the left lane as the right lane are for those going to the parking garage). Back at the hotel parking garage by around 11. Uber was around $9 and lyft was $18, but uber was going to take 35 minutes to arrive and only 3 minutes for lyft. Back at the port around 1125 and was checked in by 1135. They were already letting FTTF passengers on so we went right to the ship as soon as we were done with check in.

We received our sail and sign cards at check in, and our oldest son and I received gold cards for the first time. This 5 night sailing brought us to 27 nights so that was kind of cool. My husband and middle son got their red cards, and our youngest son, in laws, and our nephew had blue cards as this was their first carnival cruise.

The consensus in our group that FTTF was worth it - just on the first day, we liked skipping the long line to check in, having the rooms ready immediately, getting our luggage early (not sure what time but they were at the rooms by 230-3 when we checked), and the shorter guest services line.

The cabins were satisfactory, the bathrooms weren't in great shape (nothing terrible but pretty bad wear and tear) but everything was clean. We had 2 porthole cabins and 1 ocean view. The deck plans didn't show that our rooms would be connecting but 2 of them were (1214 and 1218). I wonder if there are other ships that have this configuration and are also not on the deck plans, we really liked the porthole-ocean view connecting rooms. There were 2 power outlets in each cabin, I was expecting only 1 so this was good.

We went and explored the ship, checked out the kids clubs (we had signed up the younger ones online but make sure a parent is with 15-17 year olds to sign them up), put limits on the kids charging privileges, figured out the prepaid internet, activated bottomless bubbles (prepaid but was able to get the discounted price of 5.50 on the mugs when we activated).

Had lunch at the buffet, some of us had guy's burgers (2 thumbs up). Mango cake at the buffet was amazing, it's too bad they didn't have it again the rest of the week. We wanted to check out the fitness center but was told it was closed until 430 or after the safety briefing.

Went back to the room and unpacked until the safety briefing. The cases of water we had ordered were in the room. I brought a soft sided cooler (12x12x12 as carnival requires) with a hard inner case, and our steward kept it filled with fresh ice for our water bottles all week. The cooler was 9.99 at Walmart.

Hadn't been on carnival for a few years and this was the first time we had our cards scanned during the drill. We stood on the deck about 35 minutes (my 11 year old timed it) for the drill.

Had a snack on lido as we sailed away and then I went to do a quick work out at the fitness center. The fitness center was similar to the other carnival ships I had been on. It was on deck 11 behind the spa. They had many treadmills and elliptical machines, a couple of rowing machines and stationary bicycles. Free weights and standard weight machines, glass area/room in the center with mats and steps for floor work. There were towels but the drinking fountains were kind of grimy so bring your own water. Showers at the locker room looked in much better shape than our cabin shower.

We had anytime dining, went to the dining room around 630. We were seated immediately. Service and food were satisfactory. I ordered a bottle of wine that they kept for me every night (I don't drink much!) through the 4th night. Our 6 year old opted for a kids meal (chicken nuggets and fries). Most of the rest of our party had flat iron steak, I had the beef brisket. Everything was good, not great. Definitely a step down quality wise since our last carnival cruise in 2011 but this wouldn't keep us from sailing again. Melting cake was amazing, as always.

We went to the arcade after dinner. Our 6 year old really liked the game where it released a superhero/villain card each time and you could scan it to play that character for the next game ($1.25 each game). Air hockey was fun - you could have 4 players and play the option where multiple little pucks were released intermittently ($3 each game).

My in laws went to the casino and they said it was ok (my husband and I never made it to the casino all week!)

Our 16 year old went to the teen club and really enjoyed it. He spent quite a bit of time with the kids he met there. We really just saw him at dinner every night and on port days.

That's it for the first day, will report on the other days tomorrow. I have lots and lots of laundry I'm trying to do today!

waiting for the rest of the story.

Great start, I’m following

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Thanks for the report.

Enjoyed your start and look forward to the rest.

Just an FYI for seeing if rooms are connecting, go to cruisedeckplans dot com. They show the connecting cabins very nicely. :)

Very nice. We sail on the Triumph in one week. I can't wait.

We've sailed from New Orleans a few times now and we always stay outside of NOLA proper, in a smallish (I guess?) town called Meterie at the Hampton Inn. They have a free breakfast (which, it's continental breakfast, so not like some lavish spread) and it's only about a 20 min or so drive to the port PLUS you don't have to deal with staying in NOLA proper, which I've heard can be quite a freaking nightmare.

I forgot to mention that the night before, we received large bottles of water (2 in our cabin although there were 3 of us who were past cruisers), as well as a pin and a coupon for a free drink up to $9 good on the last evening of the cruise. Our 16 year old also received these in his cabin next door.

Day 2/Sea Day:

Slept in!! Daylight saving time had started 2 days prior, the day we drove to New Orleans, so we slept in more than we normally would. We woke up after 9, so we were too late for the 9 am arts and crafts activity our 6 year old wanted to attend.

By the way, I really liked the schedules being available on the hub app, it was very convenient checking food availability and activities right on our phones.

We went to brunch in the Paris dining room. Food was excellent. While we noticed that dinner quality wasn't as good as in the past, breakfast/brunch in the dining room was still quite impressive. I had the steak and eggs and I was quite pleased that filet mignon was free at brunch. I wasn't tempted to order it at dinner with the extra fee. The brownie dessert was also very good, they gave my son a very generous serving (3 brownies) so we took most of it back to the room and I had a few bites everyday, it stayed fresh throughout the week. It was THAT good, just don't ask me to pick between the brunch brownie and the melting cake!

While we were at brunch, there was an accident with some trays of glasses and the revolving door. It took a while for the servers to turn off the revolving door so the broken glass kept breaking more and more. Everyone was fine, thankfully.

Bottomless bubbles observation - my husband and kids had the plan and the very first time they ordered sodas, they were charged 0.24 each. After that, they weren't charged.

We went to the Cozumel/Caribbean shopping talk by Ryan and Jessica but we didn't stay the whole time. After about 45 minutes we got pretty bored. They were selling coupon books for $25, we didn't buy it. We planned to go to mr sanchos so we weren't sure how much time we'd have to try to use the shopping coupons. If you plan to shop and want some free souvenirs though, it seemed like it was an okay deal for some free stuff with no purchase required.

Kids sort of wanted to use the water slide but decided against it. It was cooler the previous day, and it had warmed up on this day but still not warm considering it was spring break. Played a little mini golf, it was pretty busy.

I'm not sure why, probably just from the rocking on the ship, but I was really sleepy so we didn't really do much this afternoon. I took a nap before going to the gym. Fitness center was quite busy around 4 pm.

Got ready for formal night and I'm really glad I brought a hair dryer. The hair dryers in the bathrooms were really bad. My mother in law thought she would be able to use it as her hair is quite thin but even she found it almost worthless.

Sometime during the day my iMessage stopped working. I ended up having to re-activate iMessage when we were in port the next day. I had the value plan and my husband had the premium plan but I don't know that he got better connection. We all had iPhones and iMessage worked about 75% of the time.

Headed to the London dining room around 630 but we stopped for pictures. We should have put our names on the list for anytime dining rooms before pictures but we didn't know how timing would go. The line for the pictures at the stairs was pretty slow but the photographer did a good job and the pictures turned out well.

By the time we put our names down for dinner, it was about 720. I'm sure it took longer because we had a party of 8 but we waited over an hour. My husband shopped for a watch, the rest of us waited in the area off to the side but within listening distance of the capitol bar. They had a name that tune type of activity, it was quite entertaining.

Dinner was okay, service was great. We had a different serving team every night. That's the only thing I miss about set dining, having the same servers and getting to know them better. Last time we tried anytime dining in 2011, we had the same servers every night. I'm not sure how they seat people but on later nights, there were open tables in areas we had sat before so it doesn't appear that they try to seat you with the same serving team.

After dinner, our 16 year old went to "prom" and we went to the arcade again.

Day 3/Cozumel:

The line to leave the ship was very long at 8 am, it wrapped around from the stairs to the corridor right outside our cabin (deck 1 forward).

Went to Paris dining room for breakfast (we try to avoid the buffet for breakfast/brunch as it always seems so chaotic). Breakfast was great, we ordered various items and I think everyone was happy with their food. I had the eggs Benedict and it was very good.

When we left the ship around 845, there was no line. We took only our sail and sign cards and drivers licenses, left the passports in the safe.

Walked through the shopping area to get to the taxi stand, lots of stores but we didn't stop as we planned to try to shop after if we had time.

We had made reservations for mr Sanchos all inclusive on shoreexcursioneer. It saved us $5 each for the adults, we paid a deposit of $5 each person online and paid the balance with a credit card when we arrived. Took a large taxi van to mr sanchos for $34 (standard prices are listed. Car for $17 or van for $34) so paid $40 with tip. Trip was about 15-20 minutes.

Arrived at mr sanchos around 920-930 and there were already a lot of people there. They didn't check ids when we checked in. We each got wrist bands based on age. Our 17 year old nephew turns 18 in a few weeks and we could've listed him as an adult on the reservation but he wasn't interested in drinking anyway. They assigned us a table right behind the loungers. Armando was our server, he was very courteous. Service was a little slow, especially as it got busier throughout the day (45 minutes or more to get food orders). Food was okay, nothing great. The buffet had less menu items than the menu but was obviously much faster. Drinks were included, at the table and the bars.

The water (ocean water and pool water) was cold! Weather started out in the 70s but it warmed up so the cold water was bearable by mid-day. Paid $12 each for the kids to use the inflatables (cash only). They had life vests, the one for our 6 year old was a little big for him but it worked. Our 2 older sons went on a jet ski, pretty pricey at $72 for 30 minutes but they enjoyed it. Jet skis were a few minutes walk from the table, it was by the beach volleyball area. The credit card machine at the jet ski stand wasn't working at first, we had to wait for them to try to get it connected.

My husband took our middle son snorkeling. I can't remember how much he paid but he said it was kind of a b grade operation. They had fun but he wasn't sure it was really safe. Sign ups were around the jet ski stand but there were guys walking around with pictures trying to get people to sign up. Snorkeling took an hour.

There were people walking around with iguanas and parrots and they would take your picture and buying the picture was optional. You could decide after they printed it - $15 for just the print or $20 with a frame. We saw a family paying to take pictures with their own camera, I'm not sure how much they paid for that.

There were also hair braiders, name bracelets, mariachi band, and masseuses walking around to drum up business. We checked out some of the stands right outside and the kids bought some souvenirs. They did their own bargaining and did a pretty good job.

We weren't sure how much to tip, and Armando was nowhere to be found for the last 30 minutes when we wanted to leave. We went up to the covered area by the buffet since we really wanted to wash off the sand already and hunted him down via other servers. Tipped $40 and he was very thankful that we went out of our way to find him.

Overall we had fun at mr sanchos but the all inclusive really wasn't worth it for our families. We knew that going into it but it seemed like the best place to go anyway. The youngest 2 didn't eat anything and none of us drank much. The adults each had either 1 or 2 alcoholic beverages each.

Took a taxi van back to the port, they tried to put us in a smaller minivan that seats 7 including the driver for the same $34 price but we refused to squeeze in. Left around 3 and there was a little more traffic congestion, got back to the port around 330. Did a little shopping and headed back to the ship a little after 4. There were about 5 cruise ships.

Nobody asked to see our drivers licenses, they just looked at the pictures from check in day that appear on their machines when scanning the sail and sign cards. They took the wooden toy sword souvenir our 11 year old bought and instructed us to claim it on debarkation morning (along with other people claiming alcoholic beverages purchased in Mexico).

Went to dinner around 6, did our nightly arcade play, and went to see the magic/illusionist show at 9. As always, it was cold in the theater so we brought sweatshirts/jackets. The show was okay, entertaining enough but definitely not high quality performance.

We never quite made it to the dive in movies as we were always doing something else but we did check it out as we got some late night pizza. Our 16 year old also went a few times with the kids from the club. It looked fun, they had popcorn and blankets and lots of open lounge chairs. Some watched from the hot tub.

More later on the last couple of days!

I am enjoying your review. Thanks for taking the time to write and post.

Enjoying your LIVE report! Keep them coming! :D

Hoping to hear about the Dive In movies.

Enjoying your report and comments.

Keith

Great review so far. I am leaving on the Triumph Thursday with my 19 year old son.

Day 4/progreso:

I knew I wanted to go on an excursion to see the ruins so did research and read many reviews (mostly on cruisecritic!) about the different options. Decided to do the Uxmal (pronounced Ush-mawl) and hacienda ochil excursion with carnival. Considered chitchen itza but decided on Uxmal because it was a slightly shorter bus ride and I read that we wouldn't be able to climb chitchen Itza.

Our tickets were delivered to the cabins on day 2. Meeting time was 9 am at Rome lounge, departure at 930.

We ate breakfast at Paris dining room at 8 am, great meal just as the previous day. Grabbed our stuff from the cabins before heading to Rome lounge. Recommendation was to bring a hat and a bottle of water. If you are the type to sweat, I would also suggest bringing a hand towel. Would've come in handy for all of us!

We brought a bottle of water each but they gave us each a bottle upon arriving at the location. I did bring our water bottles in a small insulated pack (my son's school lunchbox) and those stayed nice and cold. Very refreshing after walking around in that heat. The water they gave us upon arrival was pretty warm by the time we left.

We arrived at Rome lounge at 9 and apparently most had arrived earlier because we saw only 2 other parties there. We waited a few minutes until the employee showed up and told us to go downstairs and find our excursion. Instructions weren't very clear but we figured it out. Essentially head off the ship and look for signs.

There were 2 uxmal + hacienda ochill groups and 2 uxmal only groups. It wasn't very organized - basically Randomly get in whichever line and follow the group (leader had a number) when they start walking. Headed to the buses and boarded, it was a fairly large bus, capacity for about 50-60 people. They said seatbelts were mandatory but I know not everyone's seatbelts worked.

Luis and Rafael were our tour guides. Luis was the one who talked while on the bus, and Rafael provided the tour at Uxmal. Both provided very interesting information, but Rafael had the more difficult job.

We left around 940 ship time (840 local time) and arrived at uxmal around 1015 local time, so the drive took around 1 hour 35 minutes. Bring your portable chargers if you're going to play on your phones/tablets on the bus. Our Verizon plan allows us to use our domestic unlimited data in Mexico so we were able to catch up a lot of stuff on the bus ride (I resisted doing work though!)

We were instructed that we had 2 hours and we would need to be at the bus by 1215. They gave us little stickers with our numbers before we left the bus, and handed us water bottles as we arrived. There were a few shops but we didn't have time to look. Bathroom stop for all and headed in for the ruins tour. You could stay with the group or explore by yourselves.

Seeing the ruins was an unforgettable experience, amazing sight. We stayed with the group for a large part but one of our kids ended up with a nosebleed so we stopped for a bit and then explored on our own the last 45 minutes or so. I'm not great with heights but I loved climbing everything and seeing everything from up high. I really wish we had done the uxmal only tour. It would've been great to spend extra time exploring and doing a little shopping. There was a restaurant there as well.

The drive to hacienda ochil took about 30 minutes. I had chosen the excursion with the hacienda because there were many good reviews. We thought it was a waste of time, there really wasn't much to see. The snack they provided was just okay, pretty dry. There was a mini BBQ bun (kind of like a sloppy joe), a slice of watermelon, and 3 or 4 mini breaded things that tasted sort of like taquitos. You could opt for the buffet but that was an extra charge, it sounded like $40 but we didn't verify as we weren't interested. Drinks (bottled water or soda cans) were $3. We were at the hacienda for 1 hour.

The drive back to port was about an hour 10 minutes, we arrived around 310 local time (410 ship time). On the bus, Luis instructed us to tip the driver separately, and he and Rafael would split tips. We were again unsure how much to tip, we did $25 for the guides and $5 for the driver.

There were a few shops as you walked back to the ports, a little pricier than Cozumel but we bought a couple of souvenirs anyway.

Went to dinner around 630, bingo at 815 (nope we didn't win!), arcade, candy store and that was it for this day.