Victory trip report with pictures and Fun Times

I know several people have been waiting anxiously for reviews of Victory since it moved to Port Canaveral so here you go!

We were on the 3-day March 24 cruise. I'll be glad to answer questions, if I can.

Carnival Victory Spring Break Cruise

Day 1 - Port Canaveral

Last weekend, Ron and I took a 3-day cruise on Carnival Victory. This was our second time on Victory, but since our last cruise in 2014 the ship had moved from Miami to Port Canaveral and had gotten a face lift during dry dock. I was looking forward to seeing what had been changed or added.

Since it was Spring Break season and Easter weekend, the traffic was heavy on the drive to Port Canaveral. I don’t remember ever seeing so many out-of-state cars! I started playing a game to see how many different state license plates I could spot - Kentucky, Georgia, Rhode Island, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina, Wisconsin, New York, New Jersey, Texas. North Dakota??? The lower gas prices must really be helping out our tourism.

Boarding had already started when we got to the port at 11:30 and we were on the ship by noon. First stop was the Lido deck for lunch. I remembered from last time that the lines at the Lido buffet on Victory were heinous. It was still early so we decided to take advantage of the relatively short lines and get our lunch from the Pizza Pirate and Chopsticks stations (pizza for Ron, Chinese for me). We ate at a table by the Sirens’ pool at the back of the ship where it was peaceful and quiet. Ron and I have discovered that to avoid the chaos at the buffet, you have to keep going back and back as far as you can go. Most people just stop at the first table they see. This works pretty well for the first day or two until everyone learns their way around. :)

Unfortunately, the Sirens’ Bar didn’t have any limes for my traditional “welcome aboard” mojito. The provisions for our cruise were still being loaded onto the ship and limes hadn’t made their way to the back yet. But they did have them at the Seven Seas Bar in the atrium so we enjoyed a drink there while we people-watched. Of the Carnival ships we’ve been on, I thought Victory had one of the prettier atriums. Yes, it was very green but I liked the Famous Bodies of Water theme and the seahorses on the staircases and bar stools.

The cabins were ready at 1:30 so we headed to our cabin around 1:45. Our suitcases were already sitting outside our door. Yay! We had booked a guarantee balcony cabin and been assigned cabin 8201, all the way forward on Verandah Deck. When I found out our assignment, I was a little worried about getting seasick since I still had a clogged ear leftover from the flu. But as it turned out, I didn’t need to worry. The seas were so light the entire cruise that I hardly felt the ship moving. Plus we had a pretty cool view of the bridge from our balcony.

Our cabin was large with plenty of storage space, but from what I could tell, nothing had been updated during the dry dock. The bathroom was still 1990’s mauve. They hadn’t even replaced the little tube TVs, which would have been a simple upgrade. I’m really not picky about TVs and rarely turn one on during vacation, but even I was starting to think that those tube TVs were looking a little silly. :)

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and watching the sail away from our balcony. There were a couple of dolphins fishing around the Disney Magic, docked next to us. As we made our way down the channel, people at Fishlips and Grills hooted and waved. I love sail aways.

Once we were out at sea, Ron and I went down to the Promenade Deck for a pre-dinner drink. One of the biggest changes made on Victory during the dry dock was the addition, or conversion I should say, of two bars. The Aegean bar had been turned into the SKYBOX Sports Bar and the Caspian Wine bar was now the Alchemy Bar. I had been looking forward to trying the Alchemy Bar, a cocktail and martini bar with a vintage-pharmacy theme. The drinks all looked interesting, and I hoped to try as many of them as possible during our cruise. I decided to start with “The Antioxidant” (grapefruit vodka, Aperol, tangerine, fresh lime juice and a dash of orange juice). After mixing my drink, the bartender, Ioana (pronounced “you wanna”), heated a slice of orange peel with a lighter to release the citrus oils and then squeezed the peel to produce a quick flame. Then she rubbed the peel around the rim of my glass for a little extra flavor. So good! Ron chose “The Perfect Storm”, which had rum, strawberry puree and a fresh rosemary sprig. Since the bar was small, it was easy to chat with the bartenders and the other guests, so there was a lot of “Ooo, that looks good! What did you order?” I could tell we were going to be spending some time at this bar. :)

Dinner was in the Atlantic Dining Room. We had Your Time Dining, which I was very happy about since I don’t like the traditional dining times. 6:00 is too early and 8:15 is too late! Plus it’s nice to be able to get a table for two. The food was good but service was slow between courses. I think the problem with Your Time Dining is that the cruise lines try to treat it the same as traditional dining. Even though people are arriving at all times, they still bring out all the food in large batches.

After dinner we went to the piano bar but the singer was playing more solos than sing-along music, so we didn’t stay long. To be fair, one of the reasons we left so soon was because we got trapped by a drunk young woman in the “I love you, man!” stage. Gotta love Spring Break cruises! After we escaped, we took a walk around the outside deck before heading off to bed.

A couple of random ship pictures before I move on to Day 2.

Nice photos; got to watch out for the biting seahorses :D

Nice photos; got to watch out for the biting seahorses :D

We never had a problem but I did see a guy run into one when he took the corner on the staircase too fast. :) Ouch!

Nassau

The ship didn’t get to Nassau until noon so we spent a leisurely morning having breakfast at the buffet, wandering the decks and watching the cruise director doing his Morning Show on the big screen by the main pool. Then we sat on our balcony to watch as we pulled into port. The enormous NCL Escape had arrived before us but was having trouble tying up to the dock due to the winds. Our smaller Victory was more nimble and we ended up docking first. :)

Since it was Good Friday, we knew that a lot of Nassau would either be closed or booked solid. So we’d signed up in advance for the “See Nassau the Fun Way on a Segway” tour. Our tour group met on the pier at 1:15. There were 10 of us in the group – two other couples and a family of four with teenage boys. We all climbed into a van for the short ride to the Segway home base where we were outfitted with helmets and knee and elbow pads. Then our tour guides, Mona and CL, showed us one by one how to get on and off our Segways, steer and stop. (Stopping is important!) Ron and I had ridden Segways before so we just played on the practice course until everyone was ready to go. Soon we were on our way, riding all the way down to the east end of Junkanoo Beach and then back to the Fish Fry, an area of colorful local restaurants and bars, where we took a break for liquid refreshments. After everyone had finished their Kalik and we were back at the home base, CL divided us into two teams for a skills test/relay race. All the men were on one team and the women and children were on the other. We had to navigate around a series of cones (there was a 5-second penalty for knocking over a cone) and then ride back to the starting point. The winning team was the team who finished fastest. The men won all three races but it was still a lot of fun. And I didn’t knock over any cones!

After the tour, Ron and I decided not to take the van back to port. Instead we walked across the street to the Fish Fry for some conch fritters and conch salad at Goldies. The conch fritters came out quickly but for some reason the conch salad took an hour! Why? I have no idea since conch salad isn’t even cooked; it’s just chopped conch and vegetables marinated in lime juice. Oh well, the ship didn’t leave Nassau until 8 o’clock and we weren’t in a hurry. It was a nice day, partly cloudy and not too hot, and we ended up walking back to port. All along the way, the beach was filled with families enjoying their day off together. That was nice to see.

That night was Elegant Night, which used to be known as “lobster night”. But Carnival recently changed their Elegant Night menu on the short cruises and eliminated the lobster. I was curious to try out the new replacement dishes. I ordered the sea scallops with truffled risotto, the blue crab ravioli and the grilled jumbo shrimp. The scallops were delicious and nicely presented. I gave them an A+. But the other dishes were not very impressive. The ravioli had too much sauce and an odd flavor. And the shrimp was OK but it came with a side of potato salad. What is elegant about potato salad?

But the bad part about dinner was the service. I don’t know what was going on, but my chair was facing the wait team’s stand and it was total chaos. The waiters would bring out huge trays of food but nothing was in order so they had to look under every cover to find the dishes that went together. Then they couldn’t clear anyone’s plates because there was no place to put the dirty dishes. We waited 20 minutes for our dessert and when we got it, they didn’t bring the sauce for Ron’s soufflé and neither of us had any utensils to eat with. We finally just walked out in frustration. Crazy!

So I had my dessert at the Alchemy Bar instead. This time I asked Ioana to make me a spicy version of “The Deal Closer”, which was kind of like a chocolate martini but Ioana added half an ounce of habanero vodka. It was awesome! I should have stopped there but I really wanted to try more of the menu so next I ordered the “Fiery Tropical Passion Martini”. I should have known better - I can’t drink two martinis! We went to the late night comedy show after that but when the show was over, I was still a little fuzzy and had a major craving for pizza. We went up to the Lido deck for some pepperoni pizza from the Pizza Pirate and it was absolutely delicious. Now I know why people eat pizza at 1 o’clock in the morning. :)

Enjoying this review.

Great review! DH and I were on the Victory out of Miami in January. We loved the ship and also spent a lot of time at Alchemy Bar :) We had similar issues with the Dining Room. I ended up walking out after waiting over an hour for my shrimp on formal night.

Thanks, all! I'll finish up tomorrow. Stay tuned for Day 3.

They really need to fix Your Time Dining on Victory. I put that in my survey. I don't fault the waiters, they just seemed really understaffed and overwhelmed. It did get a little better the next night.

Thanks, all! I'll finish up tomorrow. Stay tuned for Day 3.

 

They really need to fix Your Time Dining on Victory. I put that in my survey. I don't fault the waiters, they just seemed really understaffed and overwhelmed. It did get a little better the next night.

Thanks for the review! Looking forward to seeing the Fun Times since I leave on the Victory this Thursday!

Thanks for your report.

Excellent review! My family and I look forward to our Christmas cruise on the Victory.

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CruisinCrow - Thanks so much for your great review on Victory out of Canaveral! Three local friends cruised on the Mar 17 sailing and also enjoyed the ship.

I LOVED to learn about the Segway tour! I did not plan to disembark in Nassau, but I MUST DO THIS! I've been intrigued by the Segways since they were an ingenious "top secret" marketing campaign years ago. I promise to post my trip report afterward.

Thanks again and happy cruising!

CruisinCrow - Thanks so much for your great review on Victory out of Canaveral! Three local friends cruised on the Mar 17 sailing and also enjoyed the ship.

 

I LOVED to learn about the Segway tour! I did not plan to disembark in Nassau, but I MUST DO THIS! I've been intrigued by the Segways since they were an ingenious "top secret" marketing campaign years ago. I promise to post my trip report afterward.

 

Thanks again and happy cruising!

Thank you! You should definitely do the Segway tour. It was so much fun.

FANTASTIC review so far! Thanks for taking time to put this together. I am on this itinerary with my mother in July, and it will be her first cruise. I am hoping she likes it.

Quick question...from the pier, how do you get to the Fish Fry? I have heard so many good things about it and would love to go there. I believe there is a place called Frankie Gone Bananas there that someone told me had delicious conch fritters and conch salad.

Very nice photos, enjoying the review.

Enjoying the review.

Keith

Excellent review and marvelous pictures, I cannot wait to read the rest. Thank you for doing this wonderful review right now, I'm sailing on the Victory next Sunday, the 10th, and this really just put my excitement level at the maximum!! :D