Victory 10/3/2010-10/10/10

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

Dominica

 

I have to start by saying how happy I am that we got to visit Dominica before Carnival stops going there. All the islands are very unique & we loved getting to see them all (except St. Maarten).

Dominica was one of the islands we were the most excited to visit. It is considered the Nature Island & I had the hardest time narrowing down what to do there because there were so many interesting excursions. Our day turned out to be a series of unfortunate events but we still had a great time & I would love to go back to Dominica.

We decided on the Emerald Pool & River Tubing with Antours. It costs $45 each & included tranportation to & from the pier & drinks at the end of the tour.

We woke up to rain, rain & more rain but we were going river tubing so what difference did it make?

We had breakfast in the dining room. At least we had that figured out now!

The Antours guide was waiting for us at the end of the pier.

We got on the bus & were excited to see quite a few of our CC group. They were all wonderful. Of all days we were glad to be around such positive, upbeat, non-complaining people & we had a blast together!

We started up the mountain when our guide received a call from her boss saying there had been a mudslide up the mountain (imagine that with all the rain!) & we would not be able to go river tubing because the river we planned on tubing on was quickly turning muddy. We were all disappointed but nobody complained . Life happens!

Our guide was very interesting & knowledgeable about her island. She said Dominica has 365 rivers, one for every day of the year.

We were almost to Mr. Nice's Fruitstand when our bus started smoking. The mountains are very steep & the roads have hairpin curves. Our bus stalled while going around one of the curves & the driver could not get it started. We were in a blindspot in the road so our driver started backing down the mountain with no motor. It was a little scary but luckily he was a good driver & probably knows those roads like the back of his hand. You could not pay me to drive there though!

The bus started again & we drove the short distance to Mr. Nice's Fruitstand & they sent another bus for us.

Mr. Nice is really NICE! We sampled a lot of fruit that we had never had before & it was all wonderful. I can't remember all the things we sampled but we tried grapefruit, starfruit, bananas, coconut, avocado, papaya & he made some delicious warm coconut candy (I don't even like coconut but it was really good). When you took a bite of a cocoa bean & then the coconut candy it tasted like an Almond Joy candy bar.

Mr. Nice doesn't charge for any of this, he just has a tip jar. You can tell he really loves interacting with people & showing off his island & fruits.

We left there (in our new bus) & went to the Emerald Pool & Waterfalls where we swam out under the falls. It was cold but felt soooo good. Unfortunately my water camera was having issues that day so my pics are not very good. The trails to the falls were well laid out & it was beautiful. There is a restaraunt at the top & some of our group ate there. We tried the Kubuli beer. It was $2.

We went to some little resort kind of place that had spectacular views but while we were there our guide received another call from her boss telling her to get us back to the ship because the Victory might leave port early due to the bad weather!

We had a great time on our tour but I would love to go back & actually get to go tubing & see the island more clearly without all the rain.

I am so appreciative of the group we were with as they were a bunch that makes lemonaid when life gives you lemons! Thanks guys! We enjoyed our day in Dominica!

 

 

 

Mr. Nice's fruitstand (Sorry about the fuzzy pic)

 

 

Emerald Pool & Waterfalls

 

 

Kubili Beer & the spectacular but very overcast view

 

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

The first Elegant Night was on Tuesday following our day in Dominica. Of course we had a lot of pictures made.

We had the late seating & were at a table for four but the other couple that was supposed to be at our table had requested to change to the 6:00 so we were by ourself at dinner. My DH loved the lobster.

We skipped the show with the Victory dancers & the Captains Celebration that night because we were hanging out in the Piano Bar but we did go to the late night comedy act.

 

 

 

 

 

Our towel animal found a new home!

 

 

The Piano Bar

 

 

Lots of fun!

 

[divers2]

Fantastic review and pics. Can't wait for more. Thanks!

[bttrflyprncss84]

loving your review! my fiance and i are going on this cruise for our honeymoon in April and can not wait. Your review is getting us even more excited!

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

Thanks for the replies. Writing a review helps me scrapbook our cruise later. The only pics I take always have us in them. I like to remember we were there!

My father fell & is in the hospital but I will try & post Barbados later today. By the way, it was our favorite day!

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

loving your review! my fiance and i are going on this cruise for our honeymoon in April and can not wait. Your review is getting us even more excited!

 

 

Congrats! When is your wedding? My daughter is getting married April 9 & has checked on the Victory for their honeymoon. A couple that we ran around with on the Victory was on their honeymoon & they had a blast. There is so much to do on each island.

[Smallbore]

Come on, hurry up already. You've been home over a week.There sure was a handsome devil with a hot redhead in some of those pictures. I know last Monday I sure was ready for the afternoon naptime.

 

Hope your dad's okay.

[butterflyfish]

Thanks for the review and photos. This cruise has been on my to-do list forever! Maybe next year if I'm lucky!

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

Come on, hurry up already. You've been home over a week.There sure was a handsome devil with a hot redhead in some of those pictures. I know last Monday I sure was ready for the afternoon naptime.

 

 

 

Hope your dad's okay.

 

Thanks. You are right. Y'all are a gorgeous couple! I hope you don't mind having your face plastered on CC. Promise I want put anything indecent or anything. No pillow fights! lol!

Chime in there if you have anything to add. You can tell about the snorkeling at Coki.

Hard to believe we have already been home a week. Good friends! Good times!

Juli

[Cinderose]

Ok, I missed something who is John Ripka??? Anyone have a photo???

[HappySailing3]

Congrats! When is your wedding? My daughter is getting married April 9 & has checked on the Victory for their honeymoon. A couple that we ran around with on the Victory was on their honeymoon & they had a blast. There is so much to do on each island.

 

My husband and I were married on the Victory last year. We had a beautiful wedding & reception (Carnival did a lovely job) on embarkation day with 33 friends/family, and then a great, action packed honeymoon - 8 of us total cruised. I highly recommend it for adventurous travelers. Dominica was our favorite as well, we went with Levi Bumpiing Tours and had a fabulous tour with Gary. We went with Sonny Liston in St. Thomas, what a hoot he is. Shasa Catamaran was enjoyed in Barbados and we all hung out at the Hawksbill Resort for the day in Antigua. St. Lucia we did the zipline and beach and by the time we got to St. Kitts we were port beat - so we just stayed in the little area around the port and headed back to the ship early. To finally relax, we stayed at the Condado Hotel in San Juan for 2 nights post before flying home to Phoenix. What a great property.

Thanks for the review - anxious to read the rest!:p

[smurfm69]

I have read several posts about John Ripka on here. He has some kind of disease that makes him look like he has been beat up. He tells some tale of him and his father being jumped and beaten by some local thugs and he needs money to go to the hospital and get back home to the U.S. Most good hearted Americans comply and give him money but hopefully the word is spreading on here about him so less people will fall for his scam. Wife and I are cruising on the Victory in May and I am hoping to get a picture or two of this shady dude to post on CC to help make sure people don't waste their money on him.

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

Ok, I missed something who is John Ripka??? Anyone have a photo???

 

Go to the search forums & enter John Ripka or scam artist. He preys on cruise ship passengers & one CC member posted a pic of him but it is from kind of far off.

It sounds like he has a couple of different sob stories he uses & I reacted to quickly & didn't get to hear one! Seems like he likes the one about he & his father geting beaten up. Somebody posted that he is a known drug addict.

I was just so shocked that he uses his actual name or at least uses the same name over & over!

[bttrflyprncss84]

Our wedding is March 26, but are actually doing this in Missouri because alot of people want to come. We are very excited but also very busy. I love the fact that we get to go to so many places and it is good to hear so many other honeymooners enjoyed themselves. Sorry to hear about your father...I hope he is doing ok.

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

Thanks for the well wishes for my father. He is 81 & was still riding a Harley 4 years ago so he is feisty but it was a bad fall & his balance is horrible. It is hard to watch you parents go down.

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

Barbados

 

Probably our favorite day. Barbados is gorgeous & we actually had great weather so after all the rain in Dominica it was like being in Paradise! Oh wait a minute, we were in paradise!

We went back & forth pre-cruise between going to Rockley Beach (which is supposed to be gorgeous) or going to the Boatyard or Lobster Alive & we chose the latter because we wanted more activity & fun. At the time we thought we were going to Orient Beach in St. Maarten so we thought we would go for gorgeous there.

We caught a cab to the Boatyard & Lobster Alive & decided we would decide between them when we got there. The cab fare was not much. I can't remember exactly but I think it was $3 or $4 each.

We walked over to the Boatyard at about 10:45 & they had plenty of chairs but all the umbrellas were already taken. Check with them before you pay because they don't tell you that. We walked in from the back & asked the attendant & he told us they were all taken & since we did not want to sit in the Caribbean sun all day with no umbrella we walked next door to Lobster Alive & we were really glad we did. Also the Boatyard has gone up from $10 to $12 each.

We went back to Lobster Alive & paid $15 for 2 chairs & a wonderful HUGE umbrella (much nicer than those at the Boatyard, they even had a hook at the top to hold your bag so your things didn't get all sandy) & three DELICICIOUS rum punches. You get an armband. They had nice clean restrooms & a good restaurant. Right choice for us!

We settled down at the beach with some friends & had the best day.

We walked over to the Boatyard to visit with some friends there & we thought about paying the $12 each at the Boatyard so we could use the swing & water trampoline & they provide transportation back to the ship but we were having such a good time at Lobster Alive that we didn't. You can not even buy a drink at the bar at the Boatyard if you don't have their armband.

The rum punch at Lobster Alive was the best we had all week. It had nutmeg in it & didn't taste that strong but it was. They were $4 each & with the 3 free ones we only bought 3 all day. So we only spent $12 on drinks & that was ALL we needed! Some friends ate lunch there & said it was delicious. We had eaten a huge breakfast so we just snacked on some fries.

Our favorite thing we did there was a sailboat ride with Captain Pete. It was so much fun! He pulled up to the shore at Lobster Alive & we paid $30 for at least 45 minutes. He was very interesting & the sailboat was amazing.

Jetskis were available & were very reasonable & banana boats were $20 each for 30 minutes.

We talked to a really cool cab driver when we were there & made arrangements for him to take six of us back to the ship. He hung out with us for the rest of the afternoon & finally had to almost pull us out of the ocean to get us back to the ship on time. We wanted to STAY but luckily he played the grownup & made us leave! lol!

 

Barbados

 

 

 

 

'Our ship"! Look at that gorgeous water!

 

 

 

Paradise!

 

 

 

Nice umbrellas! Sorry this is the best pic I have of them.

 

The water was great!

 

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

More Barbados Pics!

 

Delicious Rum Punch!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Captain Pete & "our little sailboat'

 

 

 

View from 'our sailboat'

 

 

Great Fun! Great New Friends!

 

 

Our cab driver that made us leave Paradise!

 

 

 

 

 

[Dirkgun]

First off I hope your Dad is doing ok. This is a great review. Thanks for all the time you are putting into it. We did this cruise back in Feb 2010 over super bowl and fell in love with it. In fact if you read my review (link in my Signature) it is quite similair to yours.... great minds think alike right? You are making me relive our cruise in memories.... Thanks keep it coming.:D

[kenrod]

Cool Breeze Cruiser,

Thanks for taking the time to review your Carnival Victory cruise. As with Dirkgun, we took this itinerary back in May and your pictorial is helping me relive our voyage.

 

Looking forward to more!

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

I read so many reviews before our cruise that helped me so much so thanks to all of you that posted reviews. I have NEVER researched a cruise as much as I did this one! But It paid off. I knew what to expect & had backup plans for the backup plans which you always need during hurricane season & I definitely needed them!

There were a few things about this cruise on the Victory I might have been disappointed about had I not known what to expect in advance.

We loved the ship even though it is going into drydock at the end of October & I am sure it will be even more incredible then.

Hope I am not going into to much detail but I loved the detailed reviews & I like the ones that you can see the posters personality so you get an insight into the way they see things.

So at this point you should be able to see that I just turned 50 but have a hard time remembering I am not 30 & am still absolutely crazy about my hubby of 26 years & we always have fun together no matter what we do! lol!

Again, thanks for the well wishes for my father. His fall was a bad one but he seems more like himself today. I am very thankful that this did not happen during our cruise as I always worry about that.

Juli

[Smallbore]

Barbados was one of the longest piers I have ever been to. It was quite the walk. There was a little open air bar outside the terminal mall that had a really good hamburger. It had some kind of cheese that kinda resembled thick relish in texture (but not taste).

[Smallbore]

We did the Coki beach in St. Thomas since we had been to Magens before. The snorkeling was better then any we have done before when we paid for a snorkeling excursion. This was just a beach stop. The snorkeling was at the end of the beach and just had to swim about 20 feet from the shore around the rocks you were snorkeling. A place sold fish food so the fish knew to come around. There was plenty of people doing it so we didn't need to. We just sat in about 2 feet of water and had fish everywhere. Papa Bear kept telling us the facilities weren't nice at all. We never needed the facilities, but we were only there 1.5 hours. They did get a big sum of money to do a bunch of work on the whole area including the restrooms. Papa Bear was good about trying to keep the vendors from hounding you, at least until he left.

[Amosmoses33]

We bought three bottles when we got off the ship & went back into San Juan & checked two. It was very lax going through security.

We had a backpack full of bottles of water that we had taken out of the package so they would fit in the backpack & they never even opened it or questioned us. They really were all water though.

BTW, the water on the ship was good. We could have filled our bottles with the ships water.

 

3 bottles of liquor or 3 bottles of wine?

Thanks!

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

St. Lucia

 

I am going to be one of the very few ever to have negative comments about the Spencer Ambrose Tour but it was very mixed up from the start.

St. Lucia was one of the islands we looked forward to visiting the most & I researched for months before choosing Spencer Ambrose. I e-mailed back & forth with Spencer & was impressed with his replies.

Spencer 's brother Small & his cousin John met us at the pier & said Spencer was unavailable that day. They told us that fees to the National Forest had gone up so we had to pay an additional $3 each. Not a big deal but we already had an agreed on price for the tour.

We left in an air conditioned van promptly at 8:30 as we were supposed to. My DH & I sat in the back & could not hear everything John said especially when we were going over bumpy roads. I asked him once to speak up but we caught most of what he said.

We felt rushed throughout the whole tour. John kept saying we are going to make a quick stop here & he meant QUICK! John is a very nice guy but also very intense & he seemed stressed that day. He seems very intelligent & knowledgeable though.

We had a banana (very sweet) at the banana plantation. The banana plantation was interesting. It is hard to believe that a banana plant takes 10 months to mature & only yields one bunch of bananas. The banana farmer has to really manage his bananas.

We had Johnny cakes at one of the stops that were delicious. We had access to cokes, water or beer in the van but the rum punch was in a bottle that we took to the beach with us & we had one bottle of rum punch for eight people.

Our lunches were not ready when he went to pick them up & he was upset.

My DH & I & another couple had E-mailed Spencer earlier & said that we wanted to take the water taxi back to give us more time at Jalousie Beach & not have the 90 minute van ride back. My understanding was that we would go to the falls & the Botanical Gardens before we went to the beach but we stopped to catch a water taxi to the beach before we went to the falls so I asked John & he said nobody told him we wanted to take the water taxi back & again he was very upset.

The four of us that wanted to take the water taxi back were disappointed but decided to just make the best of it. John did offer to load everybody up & go to the falls first but that would have taken up more of our time since we were already at the water taxi to go to the beach & we were getting hungry.

John told us to take whatever we wanted to drink to the beach as we would not be taking the cooler. He went to get our lunches in Styrofoam boxes & we all got in the water taxi.

Jalouise Beach is very beautiful but when we got there the few chairs that are available for public use were all taken (most of the beach area is for the resort although you have access to the whole beach just not the resorts facilities).

John & Small pulled out some chairs & we sat 2 & 3 to a lounge chair with no tables & tried to eat our lunches. The food was pretty good but we were crammed in a very small area. It was frustrating trying to eat lunch like that & was definitely not what I had envisioned.

We had less 30 minutes at the beach after lunch before we headed back. We stopped at the falls for a few minutes & I went in the pool & under the waterfalls which was wonderful (definitely get in the water if you have a tour that stops there).

It seemed like we were in a race to get back. John was flying down the winding roads.

John stopped at one place to get bread that was good but we were not given the option of peanut butter or cheese with it that I had read about. He also gave us a piece of coconut cake to split.

We saw friends that went on Cosol's tour at the beach (they were already there when we got there) & they raved about it! They could not believe we were eating lunch in our little hovel & they took pictures.

I went with Spencer because it seemed like a smaller operation than Cosol but we were disappointed with our day. It definitely did not live up to our expectations.

We loved St. Lucia & the scenery was beautiful There is no way to describe seeing the Pitons until you actually see them for yourself & Jalouisie Beach is incredible. The water was to stirred up that day to allow good snorkeling (I don't snorkel anyway) but we were really not there long enough to snorkel anyway.

The drive-in volcano was amazing to see & our guide there was interesting & informative. There is a pretty strenuous walk up to the volcano. Not long just straight up. I can see why our guide had really muscled legs!

I would love to go back to St. Lucia . I would just choose a different tour company. Maybe we just caught Spencer's tour on a bad day or maybe the fact that he was not there that day but it was so rushed & unorganized. I just read another bad review on the ports of call board about his tour so I don't know what is going on. Everything I had read prior to our tour gave glowing reports.

We still had a good day though. St.Lucia is incredibly beautiful & we had a great group in our tour & we actually had beautiful weather!

[Cool Breeze Cruiser]

St. Lucia

 

 

 

John at the Banana Plantation

 

 

Johnny cakes (yummy)

 

 

Our first view of the Pitons

 

 

 

The Drive -in volcano (luckily when we were there the sulphur smell was not to bad)