TRIUMPH-ant June cruise review

[IPlayWithString]

We returned yesterday from our 5 day aboard the Triumph out of NOLA and I have a few thoughts.

 

1. Matey McAleavey--He is awesome CD.He is tiny and cute as all freaking get out with a smile that could light up an entire room. :) DS loved the way you always ended things with "Cheeeerio!" and has been imitating it all week. Also..when DH posted on his FB wall about leaving a beloved stuffed animal behind, he responded a LOT faster than we thought he would (given how busy he is , we doubted he would respond AT ALL but we figured we'd give it a shot). So thank you thank you THANK YOU for that.

 

2. IRISH BOB!!!! It was good to see an old buddy. :) We've sailed with him at least 4 times now and we absolutely love him. He's been promoted to comedy club manager so YAAAAAAAAAY!!!

 

3. If you're on deck 7 and your room steward is Ronald--God (or Allah or Shiva or whoever you believe in) help you. It was like pulling teeth to get anything we asked for (like a bucket of ice..which we were given but it was never refilled and I had to refill it MYSELF). Although we requested an afternoon turndown, it wasn't usually done until late in the evening (after 9 pm!) when we were about to go to bed.:eek: And (DH and DS were more disapponted by this than I was) we only got one towel animal all week. We had to call our room steward about the ladder for our pullman bed because the ladder didn't reach the floor (and yes, we tried every concievable way of attaching the ladder to the pullman bed). It wasn't until I think day 3 that the issue was resolved. :(

 

4. Miraslava and her asst Myo in the dining room were faaaaaaaaaaaaabulous! Mira got to know my son's preferences like on the first night (he's very picky and will only eat a handful of things at dinner) and always had them ready to go when we arrived. She would also bring out extra entrees that we hadn't ordered because she thought we would like them and we almost always did (wasn't so keen on the Cajun shrimp, but DH liked them). Cheers also go out to Aye Kay and Alena..you guys were amaze.

 

5. This was the first cruise where they offered an 'arts and crafts' session. You could pick from three sets of crafts that were prepackaged and ready to go--a beaded coaster, a beaded lanyard for your S&S card and a paracord bracelet. The beaded lanyard and paracord bracelet were easy to assemble and most appropriate for making onboard ship. The beaded coaster? Fuhgeddaboutit. You got a package with about 200 small beads, some thread, a needle and some not exactly clear directions. After about ten minutes of tryng to figure the directions out, I kind of gave up on that and decided to save the beads for another project at home. The beaded lanyard took about 5-10 min to assemble, as did the paracord bracelet. I kind of wish they'd done the arts and crafts in the library where there were large tables to lay out your supplies. Instead, we were stuck in the seating area across from the casino where the tables were barely big enough for a single drink, let alone large enough to spread out your supplies and instructions.

 

6. Cozumel--we chose to do the XPlor park excursion and if you're thinking of this one..it's a lot more active than you think. We started off with the ziplining which was fine for the first few runs. But then there are runs where you have to climb a giant stone spiral with no steps and no handholds (there are walls to keep you from falling over the side, but they're not easy to grip well) and those were really a lot more physical than I'd bargained for. As was the river rafting thing. I thought it would be kind of like a lazy river (like you'd see at a theme park) and you could just sort of..drift along. Oh heck to the no. You had to physically paddle with these flap things attached to your arms and it was HARD work. By the time we finished the shorter track (there were two..one was supposed to be about 15 min the other about 45 or so), my arms were really sore and starting to cramp. Plus I kept ending up getting stuck sideways because I didn't know how to make my raft go straight. :( The best part, I thought, was the ATVs that you drove through the jungle. That was kind of relaxing because DH was driving. :) I also really liked the food, although they could've had tongs for the hamburger and hot dog buns. They did have some delicious drinks..one was a strawberry concotion and there was also some kind of chia water that was really good too.

 

6. Progresso--it's been awhile since we've been to Progresso and HOLY COW I'd forgotten how agressive people are about getting you to buy things. We didn't have an excursion planned..we just took the bus over the bridge and walked around a bit before getting back on so we could go to the port area. I'd also forgotten how much they worship the man parts because there wasn't a single stall without something emblazoned with a penis on it. Or some kind of incense/candle holder that was penis shaped. Yikes. And we got chased down the street by a nun waving her can and rattling it at us. I think she was upset because we didn't have any change to donate to her.

 

There were a few little burps and hiccups, but overall it was a good cruise. Any day at sea is far better than a day on dry land, that's fo' sho. DH has said he NEVER wants to cruise out of NOLA again though because just geting into the port was such a freaking annoyance and then parking was a lot more difficult than he'd anticipated because of the way the parking garage is.

[Clarea]

Appreciate the feedback.

[Keith1010]

Thank you for your report.

 

Keith

[bluejay555]

Nice review. I like your writing style! I would have been having a talk with ol' Ronald about the room service. He won't last long if he's not catering to the wants/needs of the guests. Especially when you have a child who is looking forward to towel animals! Our guy on the dream, Ricardo, was awesome! We mentioned we have 6pm dining and would love our room to be done when we returned, and every single night it was.

[meatloafsfan]

Matey is a great guy! He was part of the fun squad on the Pride when we did the 21 night. When he came back from his vacation (he actually sailed the Disney Magic transatlantic for his vacation!) he was promoted to CD. It was well deserved.

[cindyanne]

I agree about Ronald....we had him on our last cruise. Our cabin was really dirty when we arrived and the first night we came back to our cabin he had literally just dumped everything on the bed....a scrunched up towel (I think it was supposed to be a towel animal) Robes that we didn't ask for--

Our Platinum gifts and no Fun times. We bribed him and he then became acceptable the rest of the week. Not great but acceptable. Going again in September and luckily not on deck 7

[IPlayWithString]

We never saw any robes, to be honest and I kind of wanted one because I like to wear them to the shows sometimes since they keep it ice cold in the Rome lounge.

 

The first night, he gave us his card...DH saved it because he's going to call Cust Svc and complain.

 

We've sailed on the Triumph 3 times previously (when it was still in Galveston) and NEVER had as much of an issue with a room steward as we did with Ronald. Urgh.

 

Also--beware of the plastic containers in the shower that hold the shampoo and shower gel. They are a lot more loosely attached than you'd think. One night, I was shaving my legs and stood up, jostling the shampoo container by accident. It fell off onto my foot and left a bruise as well as a dime-sized knot on one of my toes that is STILL pretty sore. It's not purple like it was the first 48 hrs or so but it's still sore.