Here comes my Victory review!

I will see if the DW wants to throw in her two cents on this cruise, as well. I am not much of a critic, so this will work well in Carnivals favor...ha ha ha.

I am still loading my 800 pictures into Photobucket so it will be a little bit before I can get some pics thrown up. Please stick with me, I am trying to work and get this started at the same time.

We picked this cruise because it has been on the DW's list of places. I liked the ports of call, since I had not been to some of the islands. We went with our favorite cruising partners, my step-brother and his wife.

We left the house at 3:30 a.m. on Friday, the 2nd and got to the airport for our 6 a.m. departure. We had a layover in Fort Lauderdale and then boarded for San Juan. When we got to San Juan, we headed to our hotel and we hung out in that area for the night. We stayed in the Comfort Suites Condado. I was not crazy about the hotel, but I did like the location. I do not know if it was all hotels there, but ours was very damp smelling and feeling. Our door was swollen so much it would not close without being slammed and even then, it would not lock, you just had to give it a good push to open it. They fixed that problem on our 2nd night, after we realized it would not lock.

We walked the area near our hotel and got something to eat and drink at a restaurant called The Greenhouse. The burgers are good, the pina coladas are strong! After checking out the casino for an hour, we headed back to the hotel for the night...it was 7 p.m. and we were drained! It was funny, my SIL was asleep by 7:30. I was a trooper and stayed up until about 10.

Saturday, the 3rd, was hang in Old San Juan day for us. I will stop here so I can get some pictures loaded as soon as they are ready and I can break away from work.

Here are some pics to get this started. This is the beach near our hotel.

Looking forward to your review and pix!! Cruising out of San Juan is on my bucket list :D

Here are some from the streets of Old San Juan.

This is called Pigeon Park. Wonder why?

After wandering the streets some, we made our way to El Morro. We walked some of the old walls of the fort/city and really enjoyed the history part of it.

Still walking the walls....lol

View from inside.

Great start, looking forward to the rest :)

Barry

We finally make it to El Morro. This place was my favorite part of Puerto Rico. I love history, so for me, it was well worth the $3 pp it cost to get in. Don't tell them, but they could charge more!

I have A LOT of pictures from here, but I will only put up some so you can get the idea of the place.

So the location was good for your hotel? I think the hotel next to yours (the one with the restaurant) on the water is where we are staying in Feb. LaConcha.

So the location was good for your hotel? I think the hotel next to yours (the one with the restaurant) on the water is where we are staying in Feb. LaConcha.

Yes, I did like the location. La Concha looked like a good hotel. The water there, as you could see in the photos, was rough all 3 days we were near the water. I do not know if it is always like that, I am assuming so, so we did not venture into the water at that beach.

We ate at a few restaurants, The Greenhouse, Mike's Pizza and Ropa Viejo. Ropa Viejo has the best pork chops I have ever had. Mike makes a pretty good pizza and the Greenhouse had a good burger. We also hung out at a place called Prime Time. It is a bar with good wings and fries. They have the NFL Ticket, so on Sundays, thats where people go to watch football.

Yes! another victory review:) We leave next Thursday night for San Juan and board the Victory on Sunday the 25th! We are staying 2 nights pre-cruise at the El Conquistador, I am getting so excited!

After hanging in the fort for a while, we decided it was time to eat and drink. We went to find Barrachinas, the restaurant that created the Pina Colada. The DW and I shared the Puerto Rican platter for 2, and boy was it good. The Pina Colada was good, too. Different than the others I have tasted, but different in a good way. Try one and you will see what I am talking about. I can't describe it, I can just suggest it.

After lunch, we took the free bus/trolley around town to see some more stuff and get off our feet. Then, we headed back to the hotel and got cleaned up for dinner.

Ropa Viejo was suggested by the man at the desk in the hotel and it did not disappoint. I had the pork chops, my wife got chicken mufongo, my step-brother got fish and my SIL got the breaded chicken. The pork chops and the chicken were amazing. I tried the mufongo, but like it better at Barrachina's. My step-brother ate his fish too fast for me to get a bite of it, so I am assuming it was good...lol.

Sunday morning, we woke up and ate breakfast. We took our time getting to the pier, and got there about 11:15. There was maybe 30 people in front of us and we were allowed to head to check in at 11:30. After getting our S&S cards, we left the pier and picked up some odds and ends in Old San Juan.

About 2:30 or so we headed onto the ship and got a sandwich. We then went back to the pier to pick up some water and wine. The water was expensive in the duty free shop, but not as bad as the Diet Coke my step-brother picked up for their Bon Voyage Jim Beam! I think I paid $5.95 for the 12 pack of water and I believe it was $8.95 for the 12 pack of Diet Coke.

Got some stuff settled in in the cabin and waited for dinner.

Here are some cabin pics. I did not take many, if you have seen one, you have seen them all, right?

Oh...before I forget. We had an oceanview, my step-brother had an aft balcony. We ended up with A LOT more space than them. We had twice the counter space, twice the storage and almost twice the couch. I was happy with our selection.

Need to take a break from posting for now. I will get back at it later today or tonight.

If anyone has questions, please pop in and ask.

Thanks for writing this! I just subscribed, since I am going on this itinerary in May!

Thanks for writing this! I just subscribed, since I am going on this itinerary in May!

Lovin the review and pics so far.... San Juan is a great place. Subscribed and looking forward to more. :D

Since I never have photos of much of the inside of the ships, usually the Lido only, I decided to take the liberty of snapping up a few pics inside.

I apologize now, some are not that good, but you will know what it is when you see it...lol.

Now, for the Serenity Deck. We first used it in St. Thomas, then a few more times after that. One night, there were some kids hanging out in the hammocks that were under 21, but we did not care since they were pretty quiet. It was around 10:30 p.m. and we just got finished looking at the stars from the "secret deck" and wanted to relax in the spa for a little while.

Now, for some review of the ship/staff. We were on the ship, ate lunch and did a little looking around by about 5. I still did not get my luggage, the DW had hers by about 4. I thought we would have received it by now, since we were the first pieces of luggage on the ship, but my bag did not show up until 7:45.

We went to dinner in the MDR and the service was slow....I know, it usually is off on the first night. My wife sat with her soup bowl in front of her for about 5 minutes before they added the soup the the garnish that was delivered with the bowl. We would get a plate of something here and there. Carlos was either a very bad waiter or this was going to be a very long cruise! We did YTD, so we had hopes of it getting better.

The next morning, we were in St. Thomas. We spent a week there for our honeymoon, so we told our traveling buddies we would take them some places to see. We found a nice lady, Marie, to drive us around St. Thomas for $25.00 pp. The reason we did this, is because she was willing to drive us to the places we wanted to go and we were looking at getting dropped off in Red Hook, which she said she would do.

First stop was Mountain Top...home of the Banana Daiquiri.

I should probably tell you, I forgot my camera on the ship, so these photos are taken with my phone. Somehow, I was able to take 800 pictures, even when I forgot the camera at one of the ports...ha ha.

My mother-in-law joined us in St. Thomas!