Quick trip report from Carnival Victory

[srm2141]

I sailed on the June 26 sailing of the Carnival Victory with my husband and 4 children ages 16, 14, 10 and 6. Here is a quick trip report.

 

We spent 3 days in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Intercontinental San Juan prior to the ship’s departure. I am very glad we arrived a few days early as the night before our flight out, we received a series of automated phone calls from US Air stating alternately that our connecting flight from Philadelphia to San Juan had been cancelled, then that it had been reinstated. When we arrived at the airport in the morning for our flight to Philadelphia, the connecting flight status was fine, but when we arrived in Philadelphia, the boards showed that our flight to San Juan was cancelled. When we visited the desk to reschedule, we were told that there must be a computer error as our flight to San Juan was scheduled to depart on time? Ultimately, we did depart on time as scheduled, but I was reminded of the importance of arriving early for a cruise vacation.

 

We spent 3 nights at the Intercontinental. I found the service at the Intercontinental to be very good, not the level one might find at a Ritz or Four Seasons, but the staff members were friendly and helpful. The pool and beach at the hotel were great. The beach was quite large and clean, there were chairs and umbrellas provided by the hotel for our use. There were no hawkers bothering us selling goods on the Intercontinental beach. Jet skiing, para sailing and numerous beach hawkers were available just a short 2 minute walk down the beach to the area in front of the ESJ Towers.

 

The Intercontinental always had security personnel stationed at the entry way from the beach to the pool to check for hotel wristbands. There was also a pleasant restaurant located right on the beach to enjoy a bite to eat or a drink and have the convenience of being able to charge it to the room.

 

The rooms themselves were just satisfactory. The beds were comfortable, but the rooms were small and the bathrooms were surprisingly small and outdated for an Intercontinental hotel. I was surprised that neither of our hotel rooms contained a directory of services for the hotel including what restaurants were on site, the hours for the fitness room or the spa menu. When I inquired at the front desk, I was told that they intentionally do not provide that information in the rooms so that the guests will deal directly with the Concierge. I found this to be a strange policy as the concierge desk was often empty and the concierge was not easily reachable by phone.

 

Despite these little inconveniences, we had a very enjoyable stay at the Intercontinental and it was a definite plus that the hotel contained an Avis rental car counter right in the lobby.

 

On Sunday, we left the Intercontinental around noon and took a taxi to the ship. When we arrived at the pier, we were immediately greeted by a porter who took our bags to the ship and we were able to proceed directly to the terminal for check in. We had less than a 3 minute wait to check in and receive our Sail and Sign cards then headed onto the ship with just an additional minute or two to have our photo taken as we boarded the ship. We were on board by 1pm and were told that our cabins would not be open until 2:30. That left us plenty of time to explore the ship and eat lunch. At 2:30 promptly, the cabin hallways were opened, we dropped off our carry-on items and by 2:45 most of our bags had been delivered to our cabins. We had 2 balcony staterooms on deck 9 that contained plenty of storage for all of our items.

 

At around 3pm we headed off of the ship to explore Old San Juan. At that time, the lines for checking in and boarding the ship were rather long.

 

Thoughts from the cruise:

I liked the layout of the Victory it was fairly easy to get around. We had sailed on the Splendor a year earlier and the two ships are quite similar. Even though the Victory is 10 years older than the Splendor, it didn’t show signs of its age at all.

 

We enjoyed having a new port almost every day, but tried not to over schedule ourselves in port so that the vacation would still feel relaxing.

 

The only ship shore excursion we booked was the 5 Star Catamaran snorkel sail in Barbados. There were about 50 guests on the catamaran when we arrived, which seemed a bit crowed, however, while I would have preferred a smaller group, as everyone settled in, it didn’t feel overly crowded. Despite intermittent rain showers the sailing was enjoyable and the snorkeling with turtles was a highlight. Note that my 14 year old son did get randomly bit on the back by one of the turtles while he was adjusting his snorkel equipment. No major damage was done, but it left a pretty big mark (for several days) it would have been a much bigger problem if it had been my 6 year old daughter who was bit.

 

The service and the food on the Victory were great. We ate most of our breakfasts and all of our dinners in the dining room. Our teenagers enjoyed having so many other kids on the ship and our younger children enjoyed the time they spent in Camp Carnival. They preferred to stay on the ship in Camp Carnival rather than go on shore and sightsee with us in the ports.

 

Overall, it was a great cruise; I have no complaints about the ship. As this was our second Carnival cruise, I wouldn’t hesitate to travel with the kids on Carnival again.

[johnsmommy]

We were on that sailing and stayed at the Intercontinental for 3 nights prior! Did you go out into the ocean at midnight thursday night? It was something to see!