Triumph review 3/26-3/31 out of Galveston

[airraider]

I will be posting pics later... but wanted to give the review now.

 

We sailed this same ship to the same ports, but out of New Orleans back in July.

 

First of all, we had a great time... even the "bad" things I am about to write about did not take away from the overall experience... We would/will travel on the same boat to the same place again.

 

The bad...

first off the fact that we sailed this ship only 8 or so months ago, really set us up for things to fall short of, or exceed our expectations.

 

Tex (cruise director) was very good on both trips... he did however use all (most) of the same jokes and stories on both trips... might be a good idea to change them up after a few months.. wouldnt really matter I guess if you were not a return cruiser.

 

The 2 lead dancers/singers in New Orleans were AMAZING!! The two on this trip were not... they were not horrible.. but both lacked that... for lack of a better term "sexiness".... and neither sang as well as the other two. I actually refrained from attending "The Big Easy" show just for the purpose of it not bringing down the memory of the first time I saw it.

 

Every show, activity was the same both times... not a big deal if you go on it just once... but it left us without any original things this time around.

 

We were part of a group of a high school danceline team who performed on the ship. During one of their practices one of the male dancers was very rude to the high school girls about trying to get into the Rome lounge for practice.

 

Later during the cruise myself and 2 other guys ventured down too low and ended up on a crew only deck and this same guy was kind of rude to us as well.

 

For the first 3 days our TV had no color contrast and we could only see very bright colors on the tv.... everything else was blacked out. So could not see anything. I assumed it was just a bad tv... called down to get someone to come look at it... and they finally came in and adjusted it with a special remote.

 

The room was pretty hot by our standards... around 70 degrees.

 

The windows looking out upon the sea was so dirty that I was too ashamed to actually take a picture of the view from the room.

 

Twice I could not get the hot water to work. I called our steward up and he too could not get it to work after running it for about 5 minutes. He sent for maintance to look at it, and when they arrived about an hour later it had started to warm up a bit. Later in the trip we had the same problem and had to wait around an hour before we could get hot water.

 

There was a slight sewer smell in the bathroom most of the time. Not sure why this was happening...

 

The last 2 days the window encasing was rattling and making a horrible squeeking noise. I finally just shoved on it real good and it stopped. Must have just been loose.

 

Had 2 different times where someone within our group got stuck in the elevator for a very short period of time (like 30 seconds)... not a big deal.. but could be scary. We saw them working on one at one point.

 

The ladies bathroom right outside of the Oxford Bar had the handle break and some girls were stuck inside until someone could come free them.

 

I logged in to the internet on my phone... but did not see anywhere to sign out after I was done. Later found out that you had to go to logout.com in order to actually log out. So I just turned off my wifi and went to the internet manager to see if I was signed out... He was at break... so I went to the purser desk. He told me how to logout... but I had been signed in that whole time and was charged about $12. (I was only on about 5 minutes)... well later I did find the guy and he agreed to take the 10 minutes off... the scary part is to think about how bad it would have been if I remained logged in for the next 2 days of the cruise and had a nice little $2000 internet bill.

 

My wife purchased some ticket (pulltab) type thing on the deck for $5... kid of like a lottery ticket. She won $5 on it.. there were no directions on the ticket as to how to claim the prize. We tried to cash it out as we settled up our bill this morning. They said that is had to be cashed in at the casino... which was now closed. Would have been no big deal if they would have just stated that somewhere on the ticket.

 

The bed are not very comfortable... kind of hard... but that is more of a preference thing than anything else.

 

I know that was a ton of negatives... but on to the good.

 

The Good..

The service was second to none! Our steward went above and beyond... filled up our cooler with ice... turned down our bed twice a day... nothing like napping and turning in for the night in a fresh bed.

 

Other than the 1 dancer... EVERYONE (even the internet manager) were beyond friendly...

 

The staff in the MDR was amazing! They were very attentive... remembered each of our little needs/wants.

 

The ability to go in and order 2 starters, 2 main courses, and extra ice cream with your warm chocolate melting cake was GREAT!

 

One thing new was they had an "everyday" section on the menu... the things that were on the "secrets" thread about how you can order a steak any night.. or mashed potatoes were no longer a secret... they have a bunch of safe stuff available every night just in case you do not like the nightly selections.

 

The Lido options were adequate... loved the Deli... the buffett was above decent... nothing GREAT... but good enough for sure.

 

Although I had seen it before, all of the shows/activities were GREAT! Had a really good time each day... never a dull moment.

 

The sing-a-long piano bar with Russell is a GREAT time.

 

One new thing I encountered was they now do something called super star live.. where karaoke is done with a live band... that is very nice!

 

Knowing about the front decks on 6, 7, 9, 10 are amazing!!! Very relaxing being away from the grind of the regular lido deck.

 

The ports were great! We we actually ported down town in Cozumel... and it was nice to just get off and be right in the mix of things... it rained the whole time in Cozumel and it ruined our day at Mr. Sancho's... but that was out of anyone's hands... and we still had a good time.

 

Although we look forward to trying out a newer ship this summer, the Triumph has a great big of charm to it... it is truly a beautiful ship!

 

We did self assist debarkation since we were on deck 1. We were at our cars by 8am... which was nice since we had a 6 hour drive a head of us!

 

VERY fast both boarding and debarking from the ship.

 

There are PLENTY of places on the ship to just get away... places to just go with that special someone and rarely see anyone else for hours... I really like that.

 

All in all we had a great time! There will always be things you can find fault in... and although some people will be like us and not really let these negatives bother them... some people would call the trip a fail if they experienced any of the "bad" items above... as well as some would think its silly to even mention them...

 

We had a great time, and I would HIGHLY suggest to anyone to book a trip on the Triumph as soon as possible!

[Cruise Cat]

Thanks for taking the time to write your review. I always say I will do this and never get around to it!

[karenh1127]

Thanks for the review! We board her Thursday! It will be our 2nd time on her but it has been about 2 years. We have cabins on deck 6 at the very front of the ship so I am guessing those "private" decks are right outside our cabins!!:) We have been on 8 other Carnival cruises with issues like missed ports, engine trouble, etc. and still have never had a bad cruise! We can take it all in stride like you. Do you know if the Triumph always docks in Cozumel downtown pier? I kinda like that because it is near good shopping but the other pier does have the Ron Jon shop.

[airraider]

Thanks for the review! We board her Thursday! It will be our 2nd time on her but it has been about 2 years. We have cabins on deck 6 at the very front of the ship so I am guessing those "private" decks are right outside our cabins!!:) We have been on 8 other Carnival cruises with issues like missed ports, engine trouble, etc. and still have never had a bad cruise! We can take it all in stride like you. Do you know if the Triumph always docks in Cozumel downtown pier? I kinda like that because it is near good shopping but the other pier does have the Ron Jon shop.

 

Right, the doors are right at the front end of the room halls.

 

This was said to be a situation where the captain "made special arrangements" to have us port there... I guess the Magic, and 2 other RCL ships did the same thing? ;)

 

Last time we ported on the other side of the island...

 

As far as the down town area this was great! Our cab to Mr. Sancho's was a little longer... but would much rather have the option to be right there in down town.