Carnival Victory March 3 - 8, 2014 Review

[alliet10]

Carnival Victory March 3 - 8, 2014

 

Background: This was our fifth Carnival cruise and second time on the Victory. We traveled as a group of three couples plus two extras.

 

We did our pre-cruise stay at the La Quinta, which offered a free shuttle from MIA and to the cruise port in the morning, a really good deal. It was surprisingly nice and comfortable, wouldn't hesitate to stay there again. We had our dinner at the "Buffalo Wings" (not the better known Buffalo Wild Wings) restaurant in front of the hotel, which was an old Bennigans, complete with old Bennigans decorations. Food was okay.

 

We caught the hotel shuttle the next morning, which was actually a full size tour bus. Arrived at the port around noon and after the usual check in procedure, we walked right on board and on up to Lido for lunch. We ate in the "secret spot" in the upper level of the Mediterranean restaurant area. The food was wonderful! After lunch, we headed to our room, balcony room 7390, which was ready by 1:30 p.m. Room was overall wonderful, with a few complaints. On our trip last year, we had an oceanview room, which I have to admit was in better condition. Nothing huge, but there was grout missing in the bathroom and a few tiles were peeling up, which was disappointing. This was also our first balcony, which was unfortunately in need of some sort of power washing on the floor. They put a letter under our door twice stating they would be cleaning balconies and we dutifully cleared the balcony for them, but no cleaning was apparent. Elsewhere on the ship, there was also paint chipped in the elevators and other random places, these should be easy fixes and were disappointing. However, I do understand this ship is going to be renovated next year, which it needs. Overall, the ship was still in great condition and beautiful.

 

I attempted to go downstairs to the dining room to inquire on where our table was. It was my goal to finally get a coveted window table for our 6pm assigned dining. When I questioned Carnival about getting this table, they told me to follow up with the Maitre'd once on board. Figuring this was our fifth time on Carnival, it shouldn't have been a problem. However, Maitre'd was nowhere to be found. We attempted several times before dinner to find him, including the phone, no dice. When we showed up for dinner, I waited in an infuriating line to see if it could be changed, he tells me I should have asked Carnival over the phone. I was mad, but decided to make the best of it. We had an eight person table in the middle of the lower level. Our waitstaff team was very slow on the first night, to the point of us sitting around the table with empty appetizer plates staring at each other. The service improved greatly the next evening, perhaps it was just the hectic first night that caused the slow service? We did notice that we did not have that extra relationship with the waitstaff that we've come to expect, they seemed stressed out and there was a much bigger language barrier, really out of the ordinary, to the point we couldn't guess what they were saying. I had the lasagna, it was delicious.

 

Day 1 - At Sea. Really kind of odd to have the first day at sea, but we made the best of it, relaxed, snacked. We went to seaday brunch, which was very good, kind of a combination of the old breakfast menu and a lunch menu. We also attended "teatime", which was fun. We had some tea and a waiter came around with a little cart of goodies to pick from. This was elegant night, we got dressed up, went to the taste bar, had a really spicy meatball and took some pictures. Taste bar seems like a bit of a waste, the hours were really awkward, 5:30 - 8? So if the 6pm diners wanted a taste, you had to go before dinner. We had the requisite fancy photos done and enjoyed a delicious dinner with much better service, went to karaoke and called it a night.

 

Day 2 - Grand Turk. One word describes this port, AMAZING! We had booked a general tour of the island that ended at the Bohio Dive Resort. We were in port from 7am-2pm, this could have been much longer, we didn't want to leave. The water was amazing blue. The tour was interesting, but overall, not much to see. I had emailed the Bohio prior to our trip to find out more about it, they emailed me back quickly with a helpful message. The beach was free, they offered rental gear and a snorkeling excursion from the beach hut. Also had drinks available. Beach loungers were $10, however, I did not see anyone collecting money for them or enforcing this rule. The three of us who took a tour ended the tour at Bohio and the others took an $8/person taxi ride from the port. This was completely worth it, we sat on the uncrowded beach and snorkeled. The snorkeling was AMAZING! Right off the beach there are several small reefs to look at and we saw plenty of amazing fish, we would definitely do this again. Two others in our party had booked a private excursion called "Lobster Lunch" at Bohio, which included wine, appetizers, two HUGE lobster tails and dessert. I peeked in on them periodically and it looked awesome, a private table with table cloth and fresh flowers on their restaurant patio. They had a blast, I would consider doing this next time too. We snorkeled until the last minute, then took a cab back to the port where we, sadly, got back on the boat. They should definitely provide more time at this stop, it was an awesome port and we all agreed our favorite.

 

This evening, we again had an amazing dinner, food was excellent, I love this old menu! I tried the "Bitter and Blanc" for the first time, I could do without, but it wasn't terrible. We went to Quest, which we actually WON, no idea how that happened, but we got some ships on a stick and champagne. We also saw the Love and Marriage show with Goose, the cruise director, and this was HILARIOUS, we were crying it was so funny. Goose himself seems nice enough, but his way of speaking over the loud speaker is really obnoxious after awhile, his voice is very nasally.

 

Day 3 - Half Moon Cay. We got up this morning to the beautiful blue waters of HMC. We waited until about 11am to go catch a tender, and still had to wait for half an hour, which I found really obnoxious, the waits must have been hours earlier in the morning, surely they can get more tenders to improve this process? Are there any plans for a pier?

 

The island itself is small, but the water is just crystal clear and gorgeous, it looks like it's glowing around you when you swim in it. No rocks anywhere to be seen, did they artificially sand this beach? We walked down past the last cabana, and the beach was still crowded, although we had little trouble finding a lounge chair. We walked along the path in back of the beach, which winds and twists for no reason. When we went to lunch, we were met with the confusing lunch set up, which includes several picnic shelters woven into what I can only describe as a "maze" of paths. We walked through this maze to find the actual food station, which was well done. I have no idea why they make the actual seating so difficult to navigate, but we enjoyed and made our way back to the beach on the twisty path behind the beach.

 

We caught a tender at around 4pm and walked right on, got back to the boat, cleaned off and again attended a lovely dinner.

 

Day 4 - Nassau. There were four ships in port this day, including some very large ones, a Disney ship and the Getaway, so the port was packed. We selected a private island tour that we pre-booked. I had been here before, but others hadn't. We saw the Queen's staircase, Fort Fincastle, Fort Charlotte (we didn't stop here, although I thought we were going to) and finally ended at Atlantis, which was a bit of a let down. Our tour gave us some time here before returning to port. We entered what I can only describe as a mall with expensive stores, absolutely nothing to see for free. We saw the casino and got a glimpse of some sea turtles, but that was it. Disappointed, we left on the tour bus and returned to port where we did some shopping. I was looking for my Valentine's day gift, but couldn't find any jewelry that I didn't feel I was getting ripped off buying. We visited the usual straw market stalls briefly, but left quickly, they are getting really pushy.

 

We re-boarded the ship in time to catch the chocolate buffet and chocolate sushi! My favorite! Took a nap and then had our last great dinner. This night there was barely anything to do on the schedule, kind of odd. We ended up at Karaoke.

 

Debarkation was very easy and quick, we walked off with our bags and used MJS transportation to FLL, it was affordable and the vehicle was very nice. Pick up was prompt.

 

Overall, this was probably our favorite cruise, the itinerary was amazing and we absolutely loved Grand Turk and the Bohio. I am a bit concerned with the noticeable language barrier in the dining room and the waitstaff seeming less than thrilled to be there, which is a change from the last time we cruised. We had no relationship with our steward, although he did a good job. I would probably skip an itinerary with HMC again, unless it was going somewhere else I really wanted to see, just because of the tender situation.

 

Any questions, just ask!

[apkpcruisers]

Nice review. I will be sailing her in 20 days. Thanks for sharing.

[woodey]

Thanks for the review

[KatieCharlotte]

Thanks for the review. We'll be on the Victory on a different itinerary in a few weeks.

Was there any entertainment on the ship that you especially recommend or don't recommend? Did you attend any evening shows? Do you remember what movies were playing?

[RWA Cruisers]

Thanks for posting! We're going to be sailing on the Victory in May and are looking forward to it. I am curious though, what is the "secret spot" in the upper level of the Mediterranean restaurant area.

[Pellaz]

Thanks for the concise review! I did this sailing back in October. I agree with you, a lot of Victory's paint is peeling and she needs some drydock TLC. Overall, not a bad ship, but also not my favorite. (So far, Liberty is.)

 

For future reference, you can email the maitre'd for any Carnival ship a few weeks before your sailing with any special table requests. For Victory, the email address is vimaitred@carnival.com -- you substitute the two-letter ship code at the beginning for other Carnival ships. I've done this twice before and, while I never got a response, both times the requests were completed before we boarded.

 

Thanks for posting! We're going to be sailing on the Victory in May and are looking forward to it. I am curious though, what is the "secret spot" in the upper level of the Mediterranean restaurant area.

 

The OP is probably referring to the upstairs seating area for the Lido buffet. It's not as crowded as the area downstairs and many people don't know it exists.

On (some? all?) Conquest-class ships this is where the Fish'n'Chips is located. It took us two days on Liberty before we finally noticed the Fish'n'Chips there. :)

[RWA Cruisers]

The OP is probably referring to the upstairs seating area for the Lido buffet. It's not as crowded as the area downstairs and many people don't know it exists.

On (some? all?) Conquest-class ships this is where the Fish'n'Chips is located. It took us two days on Liberty before we finally noticed the Fish'n'Chips there. :)

 

Thanks for the reply. This is our first time on this class of ship, so we're looking forward to exploring it as much as we can!

[Aftastic]

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[trumbull archer]

Cool review My wife and I are sailing on the Victory 4/14, for our 1st cruise.

[momonthego17]

Thanks for the concise review! I did this sailing back in October. I agree with you, a lot of Victory's paint is peeling and she needs some drydock TLC. Overall, not a bad ship, but also not my favorite. (So far, Liberty is.)

 

For future reference, you can email the maitre'd for any Carnival ship a few weeks before your sailing with any special table requests. For Victory, the email address is vimaitred@carnival.com -- you substitute the two-letter ship code at the beginning for other Carnival ships. I've done this twice before and, while I never got a response, both times the requests were completed before we boarded.

 

 

 

The OP is probably referring to the upstairs seating area for the Lido buffet. It's not as crowded as the area downstairs and many people don't know it exists.

On (some? all?) Conquest-class ships this is where the Fish'n'Chips is located. It took us two days on Liberty before we finally noticed the Fish'n'Chips there. :)

 

Thanks Pellaz! I just sent a request to the Victory maitre d for a table for two. We are sailing Sept 1, so I hope this gives enough time to find that table for us. Thanks for the info!

[beagle_mom]

This might be a dumb question, but I am a newbie here so I'm sorry.

 

How do you contact the maitre d on a certain ship? We are sailing on the Victory and would like a table for 2.

 

Thanks!