Victory Review - May 8-15, 2011 - Long and Lots of Pictures

[shwabob]

Welcome to a review of quite possibly one of the most awesome vacations ever for us. We were absolutely blown away by all of the ports and how lucky we are to be able to take a trip like this.

 

For both myself and GF Tara, Victory is our second 7-night cruise together. Previous cruises include the Legend in May 2011, along with the Inspiration and Sensation on shorter voyages. Legend absolutely blew us away and after having some friends take the cruise for their honeymoon, we narrowed our choices down to the Victory or paying a lot of money to try Royal and do the Allure.

 

Starting the first of the year, I would regularly scout out the airlines to see what kind of deals I could get to San Juan. On Tuesday in the second week of February, I went onto AIrtran's site and was quoted $369 round trip for the both of us...direct TPA to SJU. Sold. Next call was to my PVP.

Initially, we booked a Balcony cabin midship on Deck 7, and were quite satisfied as we had cabins above and below us which usually means noise isn't as much an issue. About 6 weeks after we booked, my PVP called and let me know that an Aft Extended Balcony (Cabin 6436) had opened up and it was a no-cost upgrade. While it was on the upper deck above the aft lounge, I figured that the noise couldn't be that bad based upon posts read here and my PVP swearing up and down that 'they insulate the noise from the lounges'. I was certainly proven wrong about the noise issue, as we could make out what was going on downstairs crystal clear. I'll elaborate further towards the end...overall it was a lesson learned.

 

This makes the 2nd year in a row we have sailed out on Mother's day...not because we don't like our mothers, but because it's simply the best week for our schedules. Both of us are still in college, and that's the one week of break between the spring and summer semesters. Neither of us ended up taking classes, but it was something being considered when we booked. It's also a good time as kids are still in school and summer rate increases haven't kicked in too much.

 

Needless to say...we're both pretty busy. I'm usually rushed between travels for my full-time job as a project manager for a software company and keeping up with necessary coursework involved with taking class full-time. So hopefully I'll get to add a little more each day. Please bear with me as I've got so many pictures to sort through. I'll hopefully get all these pictures up on a blog and will provide a link later on in the review so you can get all of them. I have funtimes as well that I will be scanning one day at work...one of these days...

 

I used HHonors points to book the night pre-cruise at the Conrad Condado Plaza in San Juan. This was a top notch place to stay, and thanks to my HHonors Diamond status we were upgraded to an Oceanview Room, which was amazing.

 

We had been preparing mentally for weeks leading up to cruise time, even though both of us were crazed with final exams in the days leading up to departure. Finally, we started packing Friday evening around 8pm as we didn't have to head out until around noon on Saturday for the airport..we could even sleep in Saturday morning. About 30 minutes after pizza arrived and we began packing in earnest, all our lights went out and I heard a loud BOOM down the street. Being FL natives, both of us immediately recognized the sound as a transformer exploding down the street. Called "Lack of Progress" Energy and were told that it would be restored within 12-24 hours. 12-24 HOURS! You can imagine my GF's frustration as she still had a lot to pack. I have to admit I was royally upset as well.

 

So...we did the only thing we could do. Sleep. I set my phone to alarm at 7am...so much for sleeping in a little on my first day of Vacation in almost a year. Fortunately, the power came back up around 5am, waking me up in the process as all the lights and electronics around the house came to life. Sigh.

 

We managed to get all our stuff packed in time and headed over to my Dad's house where he took us to TPA airport...no sense in paying $14/day for economy parking when the old man can chauffeur you there and back himself. That's personalized service right there.

 

TPA Airport is probably the most wonderful airport I've ever had to go through in all my travels. Very well organized, easy to move around, quick walk through security, and free wi-fi. Paradise compared to a lot of other airports out there

 

Finally ready for takeoff:

 

Playing Angry Birds already:

 

Bye bye Tampa:

 

Only took about 45 minutes and we were over the east coast:

 

Out first view of Old San Juan:

 

Serenade of the Seas in Old San Juan

 

More to come...

[shwabob]

Day 0 - Pre-Cruise in San Juan Continued

 

Once we landed at SJU, we got our bags and headed toward the Taxi's. We already were warned about the Taxi drivers trying to rip people off, and they had uniformed police that made a very strong point of this and gave everyone a map of the taxi zones in San Juan. We told the officer our hotel and he informed us it would be $20 plus tip, and not to pay a penny more than $2 as tip. Taxi ride was about 15 minutes and it was quite a harrowing experience that reminded us of being in Cancun.

 

Got to the Conrad and got checked in quickly to our surprise Ocean View room. The view was spectacular and the service from the hotel was excellent.

 

Unfortunately, the only picture I got was with my Nexus One, which isn't a bad camera:

 

I had scoped out the area previously on Google Maps and sought the advise of my boss that is Puerto Rican and knows the area pretty well. We ended up walking up the beach a ways looking for something to eat that suited us both. She wanted real Puerto Rican food, I really just wanted a steak. We ended up finding this nice little restaurant called Orozco's. The food was excellent and the bartender was making his own Sangria which my GF was more than happy to drink lots of and try different variations. They had TV's playing the basketball game and Fox News from back home, so I was very happy with that and my steak.

 

We really liked the Condado area, even if there were some areas that were definitely in need of some major work. My boss called it "The Miami Beach of Puerto Rico", but we felt it was more in line with the Clearwater Beach that is 20 minutes away which we love so much. We felt totally safe even at night, there were police Tahoe SUV's always within a few hundred yards patrolling along with uniformed walking and bicycling officers everywhere. We walked down the strip and there were dozens of restaurants where they would have someone out handing out menus and talking about the specials. That was how we ran into Orozco's.

 

Someone very happy with the Sangria:

 

Here is the menu from Orozco's (I kept these original size, so just click the thumbnail for a bigger version):

 

 

 

 

[shwabob]

More pics from the Condado area of San Juan:

 

 

 

 

We watched the parking officer slap an $85 ticket on this guy's Ferrari:

 

This Chili's was huge...and it was packed. Besides, it was the last place we wanted to go:

[kclvt]

Can't wait to read the rest of your review....we are thinking about this cruise for March of 2013.....

[SweetpeaOne]

Very nice review. Love the pictures. Thanks for sharing. Waiting for more..

[Prairie_Gal]

Great start! I'm enjoying it.

[poffles]

Excited to read more. Just booked this cruise for Nov 6th sailing. Now I'm like a sponge wanting to learn everything I can. Love the pictures!

[pcvtmom]

Thanks for sharing details and pictures. We sail in 29 days!!

[wildcat221]

Great review so far, can't wait for more reading and more pictures also. Thanks for writing this review. Mark

[shwabob]

Day 1 - Embarkation

We woke up around 9am to lovely weather out on our balcony. Went down and got breakfast at the hotel and got checked out right before noon. Taxi's were waiting by the hotel and we were on our way to the Old San Juan Port. Cab ride was $18, gave him a $2 tip. This was yet another very chaotic cab ride. Found it very odd that the port doesn't have any real parking...cabs just pull up on to the sidewalk area.

 

Pics from our hotel:

I see Whale Tail!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Getting close to the Victory:

 

Coming up: Embarkation, OSJ/San Cristobal Fort, and the real adventure begins...

[MRVEGAS711]

So far, so good....lookinjg forward to the rest!

[jetsfan]

We love the ports of call on this cruise. Thinking of doing this again in January 2012. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the Victory.

[shwabob]

Day 1 - Embarkation Continued

 

Once we arrived at the port, we were pretty much dropped into a crowd of people trying to get into the port. Very disorganized and different from our experiences in Florida ports.

 

We decided to get away from the madness and head over to the CVS to grab a few things. CVS is a few blocks west of the Victory cruise terminal. She ran in while I guarded the bags out front. Ended up grabbing two 8-packs of soda (Sprite and Coke Zero) for miking with our Bon Voyage bottles we ordered, a Tide pen, and a few other essentials she required.

 

We worked our way back to the port and got through the first chaotic security line. Once we were through that, we had to walk all the way down the covered area to the actual terminal entrance. This is where things quickly got frustrating. There is no crowd control of any sort...just a herd of people pushing and shoving trying to make their way into the building. We looked to see if there was anyone in a Carnival shirt, and the one guy we found was walking for the exits. We simply asked where we should be taking our luggage and we got an answer of "Figure it out, stupid" and the guy walked away. I've NEVER encountered something like that before...except at the Delta counter in Newark Airport.

 

So, we worked our way through the herd of people until we got to the bag drop area. Once there, the 'porters' simply throw your bag onto the conveyor and it drops into the cart on the other side. We had two checked bags, and I tipped the guy $2. He looked at me and said "That's $4 for two bags". I was shocked. All you're doing is throwing it on the conveyor. I told him that $2 was plenty since he was simply throwing them onto a convyor. I watched both our bags go through the machine and onto the cage/cart and headed up to check in. We did sample some of the booze the merchants were hawking, but this really seemed tacky to have in the port. The merchants were telling everyone "you can bring this on your cruise, you bought it here at the port" and people seemed to be falling for it left and right. Not us. Check in line was about 15-20 minutes and we got our S&S cards pretty quickly. Then we went ahead to the security checkpoint to get on the ship. Pretty much the same as any airport TSA checkpoint. They gave us no hassles carrying on our soda, and we were on our way up the gangway after about a 10 minute line to get through security.

 

The gangway takes you onto Deck 3 and you enter through the atrium; but not before there is a Liquor Confiscation checkpoint where they took all the bottles people purchased at the pier. There were several guests that were very upset, and there were several people there explaining the policy to them with Security keeping a tight watch. We breezed past these people and onto the ship. Right away we made our way to our cabin, sneaking through the closed doors into the hallways. We found our cabin ready to go with our bottles already delivered.

 

The Victory viewed from the CVS

 

Tara just loves this place so much...

 

You have to be insane to drive this in OSJ:

 

Finally in our room with extended balcony:

 

 

[shwabob]

More Pics from our room on Embarkation Day:

 

 

 

 

[shwabob]

Day 1 - Old San Juan

 

Once we were all settled in and had grabbed some delicious Lido Chicken Tenders, Nachos, and a Turkey Sandwich we headed off the ship to go walk around OSJ. Originally, we intended to go to El Morro, but that seemed really far and it was hot/humid just like back home. Since it was already close to 3pm, we decided to just head up to San Cristobal instead of paying $ for a cab or waiting on the buses to show up.

 

Enchantment of the Seas pulled in on its first port stop coming from Baltimore. We ran into several people from the ship at the fort and they weren't very enchanted with RCCL after cruising 3 days straight to get down to San Juan.

 

Lido Deck on Victory:

 

 

Enchantment of the Seas pulling in:

 

 

Walking around Old San Juan...it was a very hectic city. I'm so glad I did not rent a car here.

 

 

 

 

[cowgirlamy]

I had a fantabulous vacation on the Victory last year. Imagine our cruise also did Dominica instead of a sea day so it was a port a day. So awesome and well worth the money!

 

Looking forward to your whole review! :)

[shwabob]

Day 1 - San Cristobal Fort

 

We trekked uphill until we got to the San Cristobal fort. Tara stopped along the way and got some coconut water and a soda. Fortunately there was a breeze going once we got up a ways and the walk was good aside from the uphill part (she has Plantar fasciitis and Chondromaiacia in her left knee/foot, so the walking uphill was killing her)

 

This is where we stopped for refreshments:

 

The traffic in OSJ was CrAzY!!!

 

 

 

 

Finally at the fort...

 

 

[shwabob]

Day 1 - San Cristobal Fort continued

 

Once we got into the fort, we paid the entrance fee and ended up walking around until the park closed at 6pm. Absolutely stunning and I could only imagine the stuff we would have seen at the much larger El Morro as my boss had suggested.

 

 

The people that built this place weren't very tall...

 

 

 

 

[shwabob]

Pics from San Cristobal Fort:

 

 

 

Massive Iguanas!!!

 

 

 

The view was breathtaking:

[shwabob]

Even more San Cristobal pics...being a history buff I took tons of pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shwabob]

We couldn't go past the cannon ball stack and not take funny pictures:

 

 

 

 

 

[shwabob]

Day 1 - Back to the Ship for Sailaway and the Luggage Debacle...

 

Once we left the fort, we worked our way down to a bar near the port where they had $1 Heineken and Corona specials. That was too good to pass up, so we sat with a bunch of our fellow cruisers and chatted while having a few cold ones.

 

We went back into the port whcih was still pretty hectic. Since we had our S&S cards, we went up the escalator like we were going to check in and were simply redirected to the security line. About a 10 minute wait there again and we were back on the ship.

 

Once we got back, we found my luggage placed on the bed but no sign of her luggage. Not bueno. ALL of her clothes with the exception of a t-shirt, shorts, and a bathing suit is in that bag. This is about 7:30pm. We decide to go get something to eat and meet up with Ivon the YTD hostess that was with us on Legend and we keep up with thru Facebook. She was so happy to see us and got us set up with a booth for two. Service was excellent, but the kitchen was a little slow this first night with open seating for all. Needless to say, Tara was very upset about her bag not being there and she didn't eat a lot, we skipped dessert.

 

We got back to our room at about 9pm and nothing was there. Our room steward assured us that bags get mixed up all the time and it probably got delivered to the wrong deck...if that was the case it would be at Guest Services. So we made our way there and found Danijel that was handling luggage issues...there were a large line of bags that had been mis-delivered but ours was not one of them. I politely but forcefully informed Danijel that if we didn't have the bag before we left port "There will be major problems that neither of us want to deal with". He took our room number and a description of her bag and promised us he would call before departure. We felt a little relief, but were still very nervous hoping our bag would arrive.

 

Right at 9:45pm, Danijel called..."I have bag...there was a slight problem...come to Guest Services and we will take care of it for you". OK...at least the bag is on the ship...BIG sigh of relief. We got down there and apparently 'the zipper was caught in a machine' yet there were several rips all across the bag. Fortunately, all her stuff was in there. According to Guest Services, the porters don't bring 'damaged' baggage onto the ship...a policy that blows my mind.

 

It turns out that Danijel actually got off the ship and brought in an entire rack full of damaged luggage...well over a dozen pieces. He himself admitted he would not have done that had I not pushed him in the way I did. I immediately slipped a $20 in his pocket (he tried to refuse, but I insisted and told him nobody had to know...but that guy deserved a drink!). We were informed that Carnival would reimburse us up to $200 for the bag if we brought them a receipt. Sweet. Turned what would have been a huge negative (had the bags been left behind) into a positive, as we had been looking to buy her a new suitcase anyways.

 

ONce we got back to our cabin, we noticed we were sailing away and we relaxed and enjoyed the view from our aft balcony.

 

Once at sea, we went and walked around the ship a little bit, had a drink with Ivon and her friends from the MDR then headed back to our room to hit the hay around 11:30. This was when we realized getting this room wasn't such a good idea. We could clearly make out a very intoxicated gentleman belting out "Sweet Caroline" at the Karaoke in the Aft Lounge below. WE ended up turning on the TV in an effort to block it out, but soon after that loud thumping techno music began playing below, and we were bumping along until about 2am. This didn't kill our vacation by any means...but it definitely made sleeping much more difficult and is a lesson learned - cabins above, cabins below from now on.

 

Pictures from the OSJ pier area:

 

 

 

This guy was selling lanyards 2 for $5 so we ended up getting two for ourselves...he called himself "Capt. P-I-M-P Daddy of Old San Juan". Cheezy, but funny.

[LBumb]

great start

[Isa65]

Can I just say that I absolutely LOVE your pictures? We'll be on this cruise in less than 2 months and your pictures gives me an excellent view of what to expect. Awesome!

[shwabob]

Day 2 - Good Morning, St. Thomas...

 

Around 6:35am we were both awoken to our cabin shaking like there was an earthquake or something. It took about 2 seconds for me to realize that not only were we going to get noise from the club until the 2am, but that we would be awoken every morning by the aft maneuvering thrusters and rudders. This 'upgrade' really is starting to feel like a 'downgrade'.

 

Now that we were up, figured I should at least go outside to enjoy the view and started taking pictures. Pulling into port was absolutely stunning...pictures can't begin to take you there again.

 

We also chatted with our balcony neighbors that had an aft wrap...they were husband and wife Baptist ministers from Alabama where there had just been a recent string of tornadoes - but they weren't about to let a few tornadoes ruin the vacation they had booked 2 years in advance. Turns out they knew a couple of my customers in the area. Small world after all. They were pretty well aware of the abrupt wake-up call from the thrusters, and had room service every morning at 6:30. This morning he was nice enough to pour me a cup of coffee, he said I looked like I needed it. That was an understatement with the lack of sleep I had that night.

 

Good morning, St. Thomas:

 

Seaplane taking off:

 

 

 

The view was amazing:

 

A few minutes after tying up, Enchantment of the Seas pulled in behind us.

 

Coming up...Paradise Point Skyride and Magen's Bay, as well as a good chunk of pictures from around the Victory...