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

[shwabob]

Day 2 - St. Thomas Paradise Point

 

We headed up to the Lido to grab some breakfast around 8 and the place was a zoo. Lines stretching out to the pool area for both the regular buffet and the omelet station. Just Epic madness and lots of very rude passengers (I'll get to that at the end of the review when I give my overall take on the ship and the cruise as a whole). Needless to say, we only did Lido breakfast one more time - when we had to eat quick in St. Lucia prior to our Cosol Tour. Aside from that, breakfast was either room service, the Pacific Dining Room, or a combination of both...

 

Since this was our first stop, we both just wanted to take it easy and work our way over to Magen's Bay to relax and lay out. I booked the Paradise Point skyride excursion through Carnival, and we planned to do that before heading to the beach. We walked through the mob of very pushy taxi drivers and tour operators to get to the skyride. They took our Carnival excursion tickets and gave us wristbands for the trip up. We were on a gondola and heading up within about 2-3 minutes.

 

Once you get up to the top there's a quaint little gazebo up some stairs, then you can go down and there's a bar selling expensive bushwackers ($9.50) and some little shops. We ended up splitting a bushwacker (expensive yes, but it's vacation) and putzing around for 20 minutes or so before going back down the skyride.

 

Headed up the skyride:

 

 

Talk about a view:

 

 

 

[shwabob]

Day 1 - St. Thomas - Magen's Bay

 

Once we got off the skyride, we started heading towards the bus stop, through we continued to get harassed by taxi drivers...one even grabbed Tara's arm and I had to get in between and deliver a very forceful "No...we're not interested!" to get him to back off. Down right annoying. While we were sitting at the bus stop, yet another cab driver told us $16 to go to Magen's Bay...I told her $12 and she took it. She got us there in about 10 minutes, a very twisty ride up and down lots of hills...though we thought of them as mountains being from FL.

 

There was a $4pp admission to Magen's Bay which we paid.

Magen's Bay was amazing. Beautiful water that was nice once you got used to it and a very laid back atmosphere that reminded me of many beaches we frequent back home. We thought about getting some food and drink, but the prices were ridiculous so we just stayed with drinking water and figured we would munch out on the Lido when we got back...

The sun drained us so we just ended up taking one of the taxi buses back to Havensight. Cost $16, but we were tired and didn't care. Another very crazy ride back to the port as well.

 

The vistor's center let us know about some sampling of local foods and juices in the air-conditioned building they had there. We took a few minutes to talk with the locals and sample some fresh passion fruit and tamarind juices, freshly made pastries, breads, and desserts. This was a pleasant surprise and a great way to wrap up our day in St. Thomas.

 

Cab ride to the beach:

 

 

Magen's Bay:

 

 

 

[shwabob]

More Pics from the Mall around the Port

 

Carnival Dancers:

 

Interesting stuff in one store:

 

 

 

$25.00 for Ice Cream!!! What!

 

Beer is cheaper than an Arizona Tea!

[shwabob]

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!

 

Thanks so much to not just you but everyone out there for the positive comments. I'm sure that all the pics are bringing people with slow internet connections to their knees, I wanted to put up a review that myself and everyone on CC could enjoy. I've got well over 1000 pictures from the trip on our cameras, so there's a lot to go through. Hopefully in the next week I'll have everything up on my blog so you can see all the stuff I didn't post up here along with the Fun Times (which I have to scan at work one day next week).

[smurfm69]

We were on the same cruise with you guys and stayed at the Marriott Stellaris Hotel just down the street. We really liked the Condado area. The day before the cruise, we did the 2 hour segway tour and I could be wrong but I think I saw y'all at the fort that day taking those pics by the cannon balls. lol We were at opposite ends of the ship though. We were in cabin 9203(category 4J cabin with quick access to the secret deck in front). We had one of those extended aft balconies on another cruise and loved that too. What was your favorite port? For us it was St. Lucia.

[shwabob]

We were on the same cruise with you guys and stayed at the Marriott Stellaris Hotel just down the street. We really liked the Condado area. The day before the cruise, we did the 2 hour segway tour and I could be wrong but I think I saw y'all at the fort that day taking those pics by the cannon balls. lol We were at opposite ends of the ship though. We were in cabin 9203(category 4J cabin with quick access to the secret deck in front). We had one of those extended aft balconies on another cruise and loved that too. What was your favorite port? For us it was St. Lucia.

 

Oh we loved our balcony even with the noises we encountered. On sea day, it was like having our own slice of Lido that Tara could lay out on. Our room steward kept bringing us buckets of ice that day to keep cool...

 

St. Lucia was our favorite as well...I think I remember seeing you guys in the big Cosol tours group coming off the ship. We had Cosol as our driver and it was an amazing experience. We're seriously thinking about doing a trip just out there in the coming years.

[shwabob]

Day 2 - Pics of the ship

 

After going to the Lido to take a quick dip in the pool and partake in our usual munching of Nachos, Chicken Fingers, Turkey Sandwich, and Ice Cream/FroYo, we headed back to the room where Tara snoozed off for a few hours.

 

I took the opportunity to walk around the ship and take pics:

Coral Seas Cafe (looking aft)...we found ourselves having to walk through this part of Deck 5 a lot:

 

Seven Seas Atrium:

 

Lido Main Pool Area:

 

Panorama deck looking aft:

 

Looking down from Panorama deck onto Lido Aft Pool:

[shwabob]

Day 2 - More Ship Pics

 

Jogging track up on Deck 11:

 

Another view of the main Lido pools:

 

Serenity Deck(s):

 

 

 

[shwabob]

Big screen by the main pool:

 

Smaller pool on Deck 10 forward:

 

Main Lido Pool:

 

 

Main Lido Pool Bar:

 

Lido Buffet during a rare period of non-chaos:

[shwabob]

Aft Lido Pool:

 

Aft Lido Pizza:

 

Aft Lido:

 

 

Atlantic Dining Room:

 

Aft Lido with Retractable Roof Closed:

[shwabob]

Day 2 - Wrap Up

 

We headed to the MDR around 8:45pm for dinner, were promptly seated and got dinner pretty quickly tonight. I finally got to have my WCMC I love so much and she fell in love with the Bitter N Blanc.

 

Heading to dinner:

 

First Towel Animal/Dude:

 

The infamous seahorses...we saw a few people get 'bit' rounding a corner too tightly. You can see the wear on the paint where many unfortunate victims have struck:

[smurfm69]

St. Lucia was our favorite as well...I think I remember seeing you guys in the big Cosol tours group coming off the ship. We had Cosol as our driver and it was an amazing experience. We're seriously thinking about doing a trip just out there in the coming years.

 

Yep, we had Cosol's brother, Yellowbird as our driver and it was one of the best excursions we have ever done! How about all that food huh? And that rum punch was soo good. We too have been saying that we need to get off the ship and spend some days in one of those ports. We love St. Thomas and this was our second time going there. But now I'm thinking I would rather spend some more time in St. Lucia instead. Wish y'all had been on the roll call so we could have met up around the ship. Great job so far with the review and pics.

[huxlemo]

Can't wait to see more pictures! This was our favorite cruise we have taken so far! :D

[shwabob]

Yep, we had Cosol's brother, Yellowbird as our driver and it was one of the best excursions we have ever done! How about all that food huh? And that rum punch was soo good. We too have been saying that we need to get off the ship and spend some days in one of those ports. We love St. Thomas and this was our second time going there. But now I'm thinking I would rather spend some more time in St. Lucia instead. Wish y'all had been on the roll call so we could have met up around the ship. Great job so far with the review and pics.

 

The rum punch was great and was one of the reasons why I was passed out on the 2nd Elegant night. :(

 

My dad frequents St. Martin several times a year (he has a condo in Grand Case and a King Air so he can go at his leisure) and I'm hoping he'll make a jaunt over to St. Lucia during our winter trip out there since it's well within the plane's range. There's also a couple Sandals resorts on the island that would probably be nice...though I'm going to have to book an all day private tour with Cosol regardless of what we end up doing on the island.

 

I honestly thought about doing the roll call - we had fun on the Legend last year with our roll call group, but we both agreed this cruise was much needed 'us' time after a hectic semester. We're both working full time (in my case, more than full time since I do a lot of sidejobs on the weekend and after work) and going to school full time. We were pretty much moving at lightspeed all the past 5 months and this was our big getaway from it all. While we didn't get all the R&R we wanted, we had a wonderful time and fortunately don't have class this summer session so hopefully I'll rack up some extra money with sidejobs and be able to take a November cruise. :D

[shwabob]

Day 3 - Sea Day

 

Since we didn't have a port today this was our day to sleep sleep sleep. We ended up going to the Percy Crews and Al Romero shows in the Adriatic Aft Lounge the night before, so by the time we were done there was peace and quiet in our room that night. We slept in until around 11am and then went up to the Lido to do some quick foraging while breakfast was still available. Just grabbed a few quick things and some bacon to get the day started.

 

Once we woke up, we decided to go roam around and see if we might be so lucky as to get a lounger on the Serenity Deck. Let me just say that chair hogs were in full effect on the sea day. Probably over half of the chairs on the open decks had towels, flip flops, t-shirts, or some other item covering them. It was a bit ridiculous. We kind of expected this from past reviews and prior experience...but we were able to find a lot of empty chairs on the deck right above the aft pool area. This was great for us because it was fairly quiet...but after an hour or so we just moved over to our own balcony since I was able to sit in the chair and she was able to lay out thanks to the extended space. This was perfect for us and was the best part of having the Extended Balcony.

Over the course of the day, we went to the lido and did our usual munching and hit the pools a few times to chill out. Snoozed out for a little nap that afternoon and got up around 6 to start getting ready for Elegant night.

 

We left our rooms around 8:00pm to make our way to the dining room...and the ship was a zoo. Lots of people everywhere, especially on Deck 5 casino area that you have to pass through. We took a few pictures and got the the Atlantic Dining Room around 8:15 and there was a wait list. Ivon was pretty rushed, but very accommodating as always and gave us a pager. This worked out pretty good for us as we walked down to the atrium bar and grabbed a few cocktails and got a few more pictures snapped in the 10 minutes or so before the pager went off. Once up there, we were promptly seated at our table for two with Adrian, who had been our waiter on the first day when we were nervous about the luggage. He laughed about our luggage debacle and even told us "the porters in San Juan, they suck...I hear about this all the time".

 

I had a few servings of very good prime rib that night, and Tara tried the duck and something else...both were delicious. She tried the cheese cake for dessert and we found it to be lousy...very spongy and you could tell it was pre-prepped frozen stuff. She ended up getting a WCMC along with the two I got that night.

 

We went to the Club Artic 'disco' (as Ivon and the crew call it) that night to watch the people trying to dance Merengue (this in and of itself was one of the more entertaining events in our cruise). Ivon and a few friends from the MDR came and we had a few drinks, also running into Srdjan, a fellow that was also on the Legend last year. Had a great time socializing and getting tipsy thanks to our flasks filled with BV liquor.

 

Went and caught the late Percy Crews show and it was a hit. After that, drunken munchies called us to the Aft Lido, where the pizza was available 24 hours and they served our burgers/nachos/chix fingers until 2am. Went to bed stuffed and satisfied.

 

Only pictures I took that day...I was lazy and just didn't take my camera anywhere:

 

Pre-Elegant Dinner:

 

Our Towel Animal for the night:

[shwabob]

Day 4 - Barbados

 

Leading up to this port, we knew that we wanted to go to Payne's Bay and swim with the turtles. I wasn't enthused about the prospect of forking over a good chunk of cash to do a catamaran cruise out there. We ended up booking with Kayak Jack as we both liked the idea of Kayaking out there and then having some downtime at the beach afterwards, plus his price was reasonable ($50pp). About 3 days before departure, we got an email from Kayak Jack refunding our deposit thru Paypal and saying circumstances out of his control cancelled our excursion.

 

Awoken by the thrusters yet again, this morning we headed down to the Pacific Dining Room to get a very satisfying breakfast. French Toast, Fruit, Bacon and Sausage for myself, and Eggs Benedict for Tara were absolutely delicious.

 

So, after reading some reviews and advise on the Barbados boards, we just figured we'd get our way down to Payne's Bay through the public buses that run. We had an idea of where we had to go, and we were lucky enough to find lots of information and maps in the port complex.

 

The Princess Alice bus terminal is about a 5-10 minute walk from the port, and from there Route 1 will take you to the Payne's Bay area (Sandy Lane Hotel stop). Once we left the port complex we were mobbed by Taxi and tour drivers much like coming into Nassau and St. Thomas. Ugh...we just kept on walking towards the buses, stopping at a quaint little bar to have a rum punch with local rum. Once at the Princess Alice terminal, there was security and a Transport Board information desk that confirmed which bus we would need to board. The lady was very helpful and even made sure we were on the right bus. The ride cost $2 USD for both of us (it's $2 BBD per person, but the exchange rate is 2:1 so it's $1 USD per person) and took probably 10-15 minutes. The buses were fairly modern European models, much cleaner and nicer than some of the buses I've ridden on in big cities like NYC and LA.

 

Once we were dropped off at Payne's Bay (we told the driver where we were headed and he made sure to stop), we immediately found a fellow named Derek that took us right to the beach, and got us two chairs with an umbrella for $10US and mask/snorkel to rent for the day for $5. Awesome. You could see the catamarans full of people coming and going, so we just swam out to where they were and got to swim with the turtles! This was awesome and ended up costing us hardly a thing! Couldn't have been any better of a day. On the beach, there were plenty of coconut trees...we threw one of Derek's buddies $5 and he plucked down probably half a dozen of them for us and cut them open so Tara could enjoy the fresh coconut water, one of her favorite things to do on our cruises.

 

 

Payne's Bay beach...the turtles are out where you see all the catamarans congregated:

 

 

 

 

On the bus:

 

 

[shwabob]

More pics from Barbados:

 

 

 

 

An actual steel drum band, playing as you walked to/from the port:

 

Some of the cruisers we ran into in San Juan were part of a big wedding group, and they had their dya in Barbados. Tara couldn't resist snapping a few pictures:

 

[beach410]

Enjoying your review and the picture, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule! You are a cute couple!!

[SassyCheryl]

Thanks for the great review...

 

Only a few short months till I sail the Victory. Can't wait!!!! :D

[alreadypacked]

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:

 

 

 

Awesome review!! Keep it coming. :) BTW, I feel Tara's pain--I have the same exact thing--plantar fasciitis, knee pain, the whole nine yards.:( Have tried everything including $550 prescription orthotics--never fully pain free. A shoe brand I recommend is "Finn Comfort". Not super-stylish, but the most pain relieving I have encountered in 13 years of dealing with this affliction. Not cheap--they run about $215 to $305 depending on style, but a lot cheaper than the orthotics. Top of the line leather--if you take care of them, they last many years!

[shwabob]

Awesome review!! Keep it coming. :) BTW, I feel Tara's pain--I have the same exact thing--plantar fasciitis, knee pain, the whole nine yards.:( Have tried everything including $550 prescription orthotics--never fully pain free. A shoe brand I recommend is "Finn Comfort". Not super-stylish, but the most pain relieving I have encountered in 13 years of dealing with this affliction. Not cheap--they run about $215 to $305 depending on style, but a lot cheaper than the orthotics. Top of the line leather--if you take care of them, they last many years!

 

Her pain comes and goes, but it was especially bad because we realized once we got to San Juan that all she brought was flip-flops and high heels...not her recently purchased New Balance runners that have orthotic inserts. So, that was something she was having to manage all week. She got a foot massage on the beach in St. Kitts that made it so much better for the next few days. She's on her feet all day in a CVS pharmacy, and good shoes are a must for her. My flat "log" feet could wear Reef sandals every day and be completely comfortable...except that time I decided it would be a good idea to walk 18 miles around Manhattan in my Reefs on a Saturday. I regretted that for the rest of the week. :rolleyes:

[cruisinsly]

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.

 

 

OMG! I had to laugh at this! You are so right about "Lack of Progress". We are in Clearwater, and would agree with you 100%. Great review so far. Cant wait for the rest!!

[shwabob]

The big fish that hangs in the 'mini-atrium' of decks 3/4/5 aft near the Pacific Dining Room/Adriatic aft lounge

 

The always-busy Sushi 'Bar'/Cart:

 

Lido Deck at Night

 

Aft Lido at Night:

 

 

Lido Restaurant at night from the skylight:

[shwabob]

Mini Golf on Deck 11:

 

Love me some whale tail:

 

Pre-dinner:

Sushi Appetizer

 

WCMC w/2 Ice Creams, Orange Sherbet, and a big glass of WHOLE milk (Tara makes me stick to the 2% at home) was always a wonderful ending to dinner:

 

Towel Animal for the night:

[shwabob]

We set our alarm for 7am this morning, and the thrusters shook up the room probably a minute or two before that. We woke up and hit the Lido by 7:30 for a quick breakfast (the lines were ridiculous again this morning) and were off the boat by 8:10. We also snagged 6 apples off the Lido buffet and threw them into our backpack for Cosol.

 

Good Morning St. Lucia: