**triumph 1/3-1/8, 2011 -- first time reviewer**

[deltahog]

Very good time had by all (me + wife + son 10 + daughter 8). I figure the easiest way is to break this up by topic rather than by day. That way the reader can go to what is most interesting for them.

 

Embark/Debark

 

We got to the ship on Day 1 later than I wanted to, a victim of DW's desire for landside shopping. We parked in Fulton St. and were helped immediately and politely by a porter there. $5 to him and a couple to the driver more than offset the $50 savings for the week ($10/day versus $17 at the port, over 5 days). We still arrived by 12:30 and were ready to go.

 

Approaching the crowd gathered to show their boarding passes and get into the facility, porters to the left called if anyone needed help. I declined as our crew of 4 could handle our rolling armada of suitcases, and we stood in line for about 10 minutes to get into the facility. Once inside, it was upstairs for a long snaky line to go through metal detectors and baggage check. This line only took about 1/2 hour even though it was out the door. As I approached the front, the Carnival person was shouting have your forms out, laptops, etc. I asked him, uh, I have never taken my big bags through a bag check....will they fit? He eyed them and said yes, but said they should have stopped you downstairs to check them. I had never seen ANYWHERE to check bags (was it where the porters were yelling?? I still don't know) so we had all bags with us still. The benefit: we didn't have to wait to unpack. Downside: lugging everything around!

 

Once through the metal detectors, another Carnival employee waved our bedraggled-looking family of four into a shorter line to reach the check-in counters (check in for the rooms and keys, not bags). Once there, it took FOREVER as the passports did not register with the automatic scanning system. Instead of employing some alternate route, the elderly check-in lady opted to try them again...and again...and again....incessantly, over and over again, for 15 minutes. Finally she gave up and said "it appears your numbers are in here anyway." So......why were we trying for 15 minutes again? Oh well. I asked whether we could put some up-front cash on our sign and sail card, and she said check at Guest Services on the boat. So away we went...a quick stop at the photo set up (they would not take "we don't want to" as an answer), and onto the boat. Only about a 5-minute line to get on the boat.

 

It was 1:25 when we boarded on Deck 3 (lobby). An employee was not letting anyone go DOWN the elevators as 1 and 2 were not open until 1:30. We bumped all our stuff down the stairs and arrived at our room about 1:30. Then unpacked. All in all, a pretty painless experience except for our involuntary participation in the "self-embarkation program."

 

The night before debarkation, I could swear the educational video on TV said, "self-debarkation will be called starting about an hour after the zones are called." The next morning at 7 am sharp, cruise director comes on the intercom saying "we will start with self-debarkation....Deck 1 first." As I was on Deck 1, I could have gotten off as early as 7. However, with Zone 19, it ended up being about 9:45. A three-hour difference, but we weren't ready at 7 am anyway. Just note that self-debarkation could occur at any time. They went through all decks self-debarkation before starting zones.

 

We spent our time playing cards and eating breakfast on Lido. Pretty painless. Once we got off, more lines lines lines. We did employ the tip of using a porter to get around the customs line. There is a special door marked "Porters only" that he took us through and we did avoid the long line and got the next customs official, in exchange for our $20 tip. Well worth it. Completely in car and on the road by 10:30a. Again, the Fulton folks were very helpful.

 

Accomodations/Ship Layout

 

We had the least expensive room, Riviera interior with 2 upper bunks. The room was already made with the 2 lower bunks made into a king. This suited as well and surprisingly the room did not seem claustrophic during the trip. The only MAJOR downside to the room, if you wanted to shower at a "peak" time (between 8 and 9 am, or in the hour when everyone is returning from a port) there was no hot water. Zero, zilch, nada. Showers at off-peak times were fine.

 

I am a map freak and so the deck layout brochure was in my back pocket at all times. Still, there were times when I went to the wrong elevator bank...I would emerge thinking I was good to go and be trapped by being at the back of the dining room or something. By the end of the week, I had it all down, but I took any set-backs during the week in stride and as an opportunity to explore more of the ship.

 

Food -- Buffet

 

As this review will undoubtedly be long anyway, I will simply say the buffet food was...buffet food. Equivalent to Home Town Buffet, not quite Ryan's. It will get you where you need to go. We ate it for lunch 4 days and breakfast 4 days. It is best for breakfast -- mostly because the dining room breakfast was pretty bad. (More on dining room lunch and breakfast below).

 

Food - Dining Room

 

We ate London Dining Room early dining every night. I was impressed with the quality of the dinners (except for dessert -- see below). My meals: first night Indian vegetarian; second night (formal night) shrimp and lobster; third night flatiron steak; fourth night chateaubriand; fifth night basa fillet. The Indian food was fantastic and a flavorful start to the cruise. My daughter had ribs and I took one, it was really good too -- not as good as Kansas City or Memphis ribs, but far better than I expected. The shrimp and lobster were good (lobster was sweet and tasty though not the "Maine lobster" on the $18 menu, which I never utilized), and when I wanted a second tail they brought me a whole second plate. The flatiron steak was better than I expected based on the reviews on here -- admittedly not as good as the ribeyes I throw on the grill, but tender and flavorful nevertheless. A good steak if you really want a steak. The chateaubriand was the same, flavorful and perfectly cooked, even if not the best quality. The fish on the last night was actually a bit undercooked, but better that than overcooked. Overall, I give entrees an A.

 

The appetizers were maybe a B. Some of the appetizers I had were escargots; caesar salad; shrimp cocktail; sushi plate; cheeses; and different cold soups (orange, strawberry, and cherry). DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THE SHRIMP COCKTAIL. I got it the first night and was eagerly expecting a good start....what I got was 4 shrimp that are the same as those on the puny rings you pick up at Wal Mart or wherever. Little, puny, watery and flavorless. Not like a shrimp cocktail you would actually get at a restaurant somewhere. The escargot, on the other hand, were fabulous. I sopped up every bit of the buttery sauce with the extra bread (which was good all week). The cold fruit soups were a hit with DD, and were pretty tasty.

 

Desserts.......F. Maybe an F minus. The only dessert I liked all week was the ice cream. Hard to mess up ice cream you scoop out of a package, I guess. Cakes and pies were either flavorless or had some weird flavor that one would not normally associate with dessert. This counts both the dining room and the buffet. The texture was weird, too. Didn't see the "bitter and blanc" on the menu all week.

 

And the chocolate melting cake....don't get me started. I ordered it, expecting great things after all the raves on here. I am a lover of good chocolate. When it came, I took a bite.....it was like hot Hershey's syrup, but a little thicker, with poor-quality cake surrounding the top and sides. Truly horrid, it was the only bite I took all week.

 

Dining room breakfast. I got the lox and bagels and there was barely enough salmon to do 1/2 of the bagel. AND (I counted) 7 capers. Seven!! lol. It was tasty, but oddly proportioned. DW had the eggs benedict and they were really bad. Served dried up and room temperature. Son declined belgian waffle as it came cold and soggy on his plate. Bacon was weird and served in flat strips, like tape -- bacon has to be crinkly and crisp alternated with fat!! After Day 1, breakfast was on Lido, and sticking with "continental breakfast" type items, was fine.

 

On the other hand, we didn't do lunch in dining room until the last day, and we should have done it earlier. My burger was really good, better than the ones on Lido deck, and the seafood salad was really good too. Would recommend the sit-down order lunch if you have time.

 

Food -- Other

 

The pizza was far better than I expected. Good crust, good taste. Real anchovies! My kids loved the pepperoni. A. The burgers, pretty good, but you had to make sure the chef gave enough time for the cheese to melt on your patty. We had it both ways -- melted, really good, cold cheese, not so much. B. The chicken fingers were almost always overcooked, too brown and dry. It's kind of an art to pull them out of the oil at just the right time. Fries, good.

 

Sushi on Deck 5 always had a line. I braved it just once and didn't have to again. It was all rolls, too heavy on the rice and not particularly tasty.

 

My kids tried to count how many little ice cream cones they had during the week......they lost count, and I did too. Good feature.

 

Port - Progreso

 

A late start meant no Merida. My biggest regret of the trip. I really wanted to see it, but we just stayed in Progreso. Like others, I would highly recommend the double-decker bus trip. Educational, you get to see the town (like any other second-world town I've ever been in, but still kind of interesting to see people living). The markets, could completely skip them, but I'm a guy. How many different ways do you need to see the same bracelets and necklaces and scarves and blankets presented? Over and over and over again. No, gracias.

 

So then we just went to the beach. Until you got quite aways from the pier, the beach looked horrid. An upper half of nice-looking sand, but a wide swath (20 yards or more) of brown-looking sludge blocking your access to the water. We walked down aways and got water access. The water was ok, but it just would not be somewhere I would ever pick for a beach vacation.

 

Overall, I didn't mind Progreso, but don't exactly understand why it is a cruise stop. Maybe if I had visited Merida or ruins, I would understand.

 

Port - Cozumel

 

Cozumel was better than I remembered. TIP: VISIT THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE ISLAND. My god, it is beautiful over there. And wayyyyyyyyy more deserted. Miles and miles of beautiful rock formations going to the sea, with the occasional pretty beach. On the land side...scrub, just scrub, MILES of scrub, with no development at all. WILD. I never knew part of Cozumel was wild. It was so pretty.

 

So the first thing we did was rent a car and drive the entire circle. We stopped and looked at the west side resorts, then saw the east side. I wanted to just stay on the east side after lunch, but kids wanted to visit Paradise Beach with the bouncy toys in the water. Mistake...more later. We lunched in San Miguel (Americanized Mexican at some nameless place, but my fish tacos were very good). Then on to Paradise Beach.

 

God what a mass-marketed pos Paradise Beach is. Absolutely no snorkeling in the area (though they say snorkeling on their website). Literally thousands of people. Paid $20 for a bottle of sunscreen (stupid me forgot ours) and $12 for each of my kids' wristband to climb on the toys. By and large, though, the toys are designed for athletic teenagers to get on...smaller kids or fatter old people have about as much shot at winning the lottery as climbing their "ice mountain". We all hated it and left in less than an hour.

 

And went to the east side, where we found an actual beach, with ACTUAL SURF (lovvvvvvvvved it, me & DS spent an hour body-surfing) and we. Were. Completely. Alone. ALONE. On a beautiful beach. On a hot day. It was amazing.

 

Please do not waste your money on the resorts. Go to the east side, there are plenty of beautiful deserted beaches.

 

Back to the ship barely in time for the 4:30 deadline.

 

Ship Activities

 

Trivia, sports, we did a lot of things to keep ourselves busy. I won sports trivia and got one of those plastic Triumph trophies. Shuffleboard, I believe I could become a pro with enough practice. Is there a pro shuffleboard circuit? :D Basketball, on the last day they cancelled the free-throw contest because it was too windy. Mini golf, a nice little 9-hole course.

 

The first day was very cold but after that was warm enough for pool each day. Plenty of poolage to go around, but each is very small. The waterslide usually had about a 10-minute line, too much for me to do it more than a couple of times, but it was good and fast. (Not so for my son, he seemed to get stuck and have to scooch every time....not sure what the difference was. Oddly, the hot tubs only seemed about 10-20 degrees warmer than the pools. They weren't "hot" tubs, they were mild tubs.

 

Went to both past guest party and final night party. FREE DRINKS. Tip for those with early dinner: Grabbed a glass of wine at the party at 6 and headed for dinner...hey look, free wine with dinner! The final night party absolutely was not advertised, but it was in the ship list of things going on that day.

 

The casino was hopping most of the time, but the "free Texas Hold Em" demonstration the first day was actually just a tutorial on how to use the electronic Texas Hold Em table.

 

The staff was friendly and professional, though most had an air of tolerance for "another week, another cruise....yawn." The cruise director, I swear the first day he was "Kevin Noonan," but for the rest of the cruise he was simply "Noonan", even his name tag and photo in the lobby said simply "Noonan". Like Elvis, I guess, Noonan needs only one name.

 

They put the Sugar Bowl on the big screen outside, but had technical difficulties for most of the first half. Then for the Cotton Bowl on Friday night, not only did it have the big screen, they put it in the rooms too!!! (The rooms did not normally have ESPN). Both were also in the sports bar on 5th level. The Cotton Bowl was in the rooms because it had LSU (ship is out of New Orleans).

 

Camp Carnival

 

Son hated it from the beginning, so he never went again. I mostly ascribe it to his attitude. But 8 year old daughter LOVED it and spent much of each day in Camp Carnival. The attendants, I would only describe as "Eastern European efficient" for those of you who remember the Cold War days. Not all of them were from Eastern Europe, but they all seemed....utilitarian and stern. Still, my daughter didn't mind that but loved the company. She took part in the talent show the last day and loved that, too, being on stage in the BIG ROOM.

 

Shows

 

I saw most of The Big Easy; the magic show; and both comedians (kid-friendly version). The comedians had big personalities, they would probably do well with professional writers. They are the kind of people who would be the funniest people you know in real life, but on stage they just need....material. They are obviously just writing their own, but need more. The magicians I thought were very good, they said they had a show for years in Reno then Vegas. I thought it was the other way around....I thought you were on a cruise ship so you could get to Vegas. Oh well, I enjoyed it. The Big Easy was a professional-level music review, even if it needed something of a plot (as far as I could tell it had none, it was just songs).

 

I also saw the guest talent show. The first guy was obviously some kind of professional performer, in fact he said on land he had some kind of traveling troupe that would be performing all over the U.S. Very good singer and dancer. The rest....somewhere between cute because they were so old, cute because they were so young, and not-cute because they were my age. Ha.

 

Would I do it again

 

You betcha!

[Cruisin Christi]

Awesome review. Looks like a fun time. I am on Ecstasy in Oct. same ports. I hope the weather lets us port.

[Fabulouskristen]

We have the same itinerary and leave on the 31st! It will be our first cruise. I really enjoyed your review. Thanks for posting! :)

[brilliantseas]

Just off the same sailing, though a little bit behind on writing my review.

 

Was it just me, or was Noonan almost invisible on the ship? I saw Ben the Bingo host/Comedy Club host about three times more often than I saw Noonan and I didn't play Bingo! To me, Noonan was just the stupid intercom voice on the ship - far different than Skippy on my last cruise.

[deltahog]

Just off the same sailing, though a little bit behind on writing my review.

 

Was it just me, or was Noonan almost invisible on the ship? I saw Ben the Bingo host/Comedy Club host about three times more often than I saw Noonan and I didn't play Bingo! To me, Noonan was just the stupid intercom voice on the ship - far different than Skippy on my last cruise.

 

I thought I saw Noonan plenty, but as a rare cruiser, I really don't have anything to compare it to.

[deeluvs2cruise]

I enjoyed your review, thanks for posting.

[deltahog]

Thanks!

[thepeach]

I was on this cruise also. I agree with you on the food-it was hit and miss. I loved the cherry soup also. I missed the bitter and blanc and cappuchino pie for dessert. I agree with the grade on the desserts-very disappointed in them. The lido had better desserts in the evening. My sister had her 50th birthday on the cruise, and the chocolate cake I ordered was excellent, however. If you go to this port again, go to Merida. We didn't the first time, so was glad we took the excursion to the rum factory-great tour! Easiest debarkation ever (OK, I'm Platinum, but everything worked as it should have-we've had some nightmares on other ships).

[dane225]

Great review!!! Thanks for posting! We will be on the Triumph in March for spring break!! Can't wait!!!!:)

[Mary Ellen]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

[LBumb]

great job

[Shery]

Thanks for the review. We will be on this ship in Feb.....5 more weeks!!!! :)