Carnival Triumph Western Caribbean Review

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Finally done! :) With two video links at the end.

 

Carnival Triumph Review

 

 

Our family of 5 cruised the Western Caribbean on board the Carnival Triumph, July 7-14, 2007. The ports of call included Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios. The captain was Angelo Los from Italy and the cruise director was Paul Santley from England.

 

We flew to Miami from Toronto on the day of our cruise. Due to wind shear, our 12:40pm landing was delayed about 25 minutes, but we still had plenty of time to make it to the ship. We arrived at the pier at approx. 2:15 p.m. We had no difficulties getting a minivan taxi at the airport. The fare was a flat rate of $24. The Triumph was scheduled to depart at 4:00 p.m. but it was 5:30 before we set sail. We were not sure why the ship was delayed.

 

Embarkation:

After a 6 mile (15 minute ride) from the airport, our taxi driver stopped in a parking lot area outside the terminal building where we unloaded our bags on the asphalt. We then made our way into the terminal building with our carry-on luggage. Our 4 pieces of checked luggage showed up outside our cabin, piece by piece with the last one arriving around 6:00 pm.

 

Before entering into the terminal building, we needed to show our passports and Cruise documents. Once inside the terminal we had to pass through the security scanner and have our bags x-rayed before joining another line-up at a counter area inside. Once again, we needed to show our passports and Cruise Documents to a Carnival representative, who also took our credit card information for our sign and sail cards. After that, we took an escalator up one level to join another line where we received our sign and sail cards. We were now all ready to board!

 

We went up one more level where we had our Embarkation photo taken by a ships photographer. We were now able to walk on board the third deck of the Triumph, where we again had to show our passports and sign and sail cards. This sounds like a long process, but the embarkation process only took us about 25 minutes to complete.

 

The Ship:

We entered the ship on the main deck (Deck #3) and had our photo taken by security. This linked our photo to our sign & sail cards. We finally had our first view of the inside of the ship--the atrium/lobby area with the curved marble staircases and glass elevators that span all of the way up to deck 11! The lobby/atrium was a smaller area than we imagined it to be, but was still very impressive! The first thing we did was go directly to the Maitre’D in the London dining room. There we requested to have our seating changed from 8:30 pm to 8:00 pm. The Maitre’D was covering both dining rooms and was very accommodating.

 

The Triumph is a large ship--almost 3 football fields long. It has two dining rooms, the Paris (aft) and London (forward), 3 salt-water swimming pools, 5 hot tubs and a spiral waterslide. The water slide was open every day of our cruise except the day of embarkation. It was open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on sea days and from noon to 5:00 pm on port days. The water temperature in the swimming pools was maintained at 82°F and the pools on board ranged in depth from 3’8” in the Continent and New World Pool to 4’6” in the Universe Pool.

 

We could see some signs of wear on the ship, for example rust stains by the pool, but nothing major, especially considering the masses of people on the ship. The deck chairs were stacked up each night and the pool deck was soaped and scrubbed by a maintenance crew wearing coveralls and rubber boots. The pools were also drained and cleaned every evening. A net was secured over the empty pools. Overall, we felt that the ship was kept very clean and was well maintained. Empty glasses left by the poolside were quickly picked up. At one of the ports, we noticed a large black scuff mark on the side of the ship, however when we disembarked from the ship in Miami, this scuff mark was already being painted over.

 

We never had any problems finding chairs on the Lido deck, even in the late afternoon, nor did we have any problems with people taking our towels. And contrary to the countless chair hog stories that we have read on CC, we never noticed anyone hogging chairs.

 

Our Stateroom:

We booked a guaranteed ocean view stateroom on the Riviera Deck and got cabin 1282 (port side, mid-forward of the ship). Upon entering our cabin the king bed was made up, the upper bunk was down, the sofa was transformed into a bed and a rollaway cot was in position. The dozen red roses that DH ordered on the Carnival website before the cruise were waiting in the cabin with a “Happy Anniversary” note. Even by the end of the cruise the roses still looked good!

 

We found the bed and pillows to be nice and comfortable. Our three boys found the sofa bed and upper bunk to be slightly harder than the rollaway cot. The rollaway cot was basically a mattress placed on a lounger. The rollaway cot was significantly shorter than the other beds, so it is definitely designed for a younger child. During the day, the cot was pushed under the king bed. The boys found the cot to be the most comfortable of the three beds and our 8 and 12 year olds took turns sleeping on it. Our 15 year old was too tall to sleep on the rollaway.

 

We found there was plenty of storage space in our stateroom. The medicine cabinet in the bathroom opened up to store a lot of toiletries. Carnival provided a low-powered hairdryer, some disposable shavers, toothpaste, lotions, and shampoo in the bathroom. The bathroom was equipped with plenty of bath towels. In the closet were 2 bathrobes and 5 beach towels for our use. We never used the bathrobes during our cruise, but the beach towels sure came in handy. You can ask your room stewart for clean beach towels or trade them in for clean ones on the Lido deck. You can also purchase a beach towel for $22.00 which we did at the end of our cruise.

 

Each night we found a towel animal on the bed with 5 chocolates and one night there were even two “happy face” chocolate chip cookies waiting to be devoured! Our cabin stewart, Anca from Romania, did an excellent job keeping our room clean. We never met her until about the third day into our cruise. When we did finally meet her, she was very friendly and told us about how she missed her daughter back home in Romania and that she and her husband (also working on the ship) were saving to buy a small house back home. At the end of the cruise, we wrote her a nice thank-you note and gave it to her along with a cash tip over and above our auto-tip. Since we couldn’t take the roses with us, we gave them to Anca and she was very happy to receive them.

 

Muster Drill

Shortly before 4:00 pm, before we set sail, everyone was required to put on a lifejacket found in your stateroom and head up to the Atlantic Deck. There were enough lifejackets for all 5 of us in our stateroom. We were assigned to Muster Station “D”, and the “D” printed on each of our lifejackets, helped the crew to direct us to the right location on deck. We lined up with masses of other people row by row. They did not appear to take attendance at the Muster Station. The drill did not take long. Fortunately, it was a bit overcast during the drill, so the heat was not too unbearable.

 

The Food:

We found all the food to be very good. There is certainly no shortage of food on a Carnival Cruise ship! The South Beach Café on the Lido deck is air-conditioned and offers buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as a late night snack. The outside grills are also opened for breakfast, serving cereal, toast, pancakes, omelets, french toast, pastries, yogurt, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, sausage, ham, hash browns and fresh fruit. Breakfast buffet is available from 7:30-noon or you can head to the Paris dining room for open seating breakfast from 8:00-10:00 a.m. We never did make it to the dining room for breakfast or lunch, as we found plenty of food on the Lido deck, plus we tended to hang out by the pools especially on sea days, so grabbing something to eat here was very handy for our family.

 

Our 8-year and 12-year old sons loved the Pizzeria. They could eat Pizza around the clock and loved the fact that they could grab a pizza whenever they wanted for “free”. The pizza’s were always made fresh and sometimes you had to wait a minute or two to get a hot one straight from the oven.

 

At the outdoor grill, you can get french fries, hamburgers, steak burgers and sausage on a bun. DH found the steak burger to be a bit fatty and tasteless, so he stuck to other things for the rest of the week. There was always a line up at the New York deli. DH waited 15 minutes in line one day to try the grilled Rueben and a grilled ham & cheese – both were very tasty and worth the 15 minute wait!

 

DW observed that all the servers handling food at the grills, pizza and in the South Beach Café wore gloves.

 

There are numerous self-serve soft ice cream and low fat frozen yogurt stations on the Lido deck. You can make your own cone or eat it out of a dish. They offer vanilla, chocolate and a vanilla/chocolate swirl combo. The 24-hour “free” soft serve ice cream was a huge hit with our entire family. There are also several self-serve juice and coffee stations where you can help yourself to a drink. We purchased three Soda Cards for our boys (approximately $96 total) at the Continent Pool Bar on the first day. The boys enjoyed going to the pool bars to get a Mr. Pibb soda whenever they wanted! The bartenders offered prompt and cordial service to the kids all week. The bar tender does write the sailing date on the back of the card, and gave DH a marker to write the kids name on the cards. Only once during the cruise did a bartender ever check the date. In fact, we normally just showed the three cards and they got us the sodas, no questions asked, even if Mom or Dad picked up the sodas for the kids. The sodas are not “fountain” drinks. The bartenders use canned sodas. Also, you got a lot of ice with your soda – about two cans of soda per three glasses.

 

Of course, everyone enjoyed eating dinner in the Paris dining room. We had the 8:00 seating at a private table for our family on the upper level. We had an awesome waiter, Lama from Nepal, and his helper Marlon from Peru. Lama went out of his way to make the kids feel special. He encouraged our 8 year old son to order his own meals (like a little adult) and our son really liked the extra attention. Our drink server was Clinton from South Africa. On the first night, the bar service at our table was especially slow. Our drinks did not arrive until we were eating dessert! We found out that Clinton had been assigned too many tables, so the following night they divided up his section into three and the drink service the following nights was much better. The next night, the boys had cans of Mr. Pibb soda’s already waiting at the table for them along with some Cokes and Sprites! The boys were convinced that Lama had something to do with this!

 

The Paris dining room is at the back of the boat and on some nights, you could really feel the boat swaying and vibrating. On one evening, our 8 year old son started to feel a bit sea sick, so DH rushed him off to the public men’s room where there were numerous other men “heaving” in the toilets and basins – it was pretty nasty! DH took him back the cabin and gave him a child’s sea band to wear and he immediately started feeling better. They were both able to return to the dining room in time for dessert.

 

The warm chocolate melting cake really is delicious and was one of numerous desserts that we ordered every night! They serve it a little bowl with a tiny scoop of ice cream. We always ordered an extra side of ice cream with our chocolate melting cakes. The consistency of the chocolate melting cake ranged from soupy in the middle on the first night to a pudding like consistency on some nights to a firm brownie like consistency on other nights. It didn’t matter to us--we enjoyed it every single night! Our oldest son (15 yrs) and DH often ordered two main dishes. Our server, Lama never even batted an eye. As a word of caution a “medium well” steak on the Triumph is equivalent to what we would consider “well done” in a land restaurant. It is best to order your beef a bit “rarer” than you normally would on land. By the middle of the cruise, Lama was bringing our 8 year old son the “Lama Special” for dessert each night--a couple of cookies and brownies. Our boys were very impressed with Lama and refer to him as the “ultimate waiter!”

 

DH also enjoyed sampling many different dishes and often ordered the pasta dish as an entree – thanks to the tips on CC. One night DH surprised DW by arranging to get a special anniversary cake—a belated celebration of our 20th wedding anniversary. Lama, Marlon and another waiter sang Happy Anniversary to us. They were not the greatest singers and with their accents, they had difficulty pronouncing the word “anniversary” and someone was even singing “happy birthday” instead, but it still was great having them acknowledge us in this way and left DW with a fond memory of this moment. The cake was chocolate and was very moist and tasty.

 

DH tried lobster and escargot for the first time. The lobster tail arrived at the table shelled, so there was no work to get it out. DH finished the lobster tail, but found it to have not much taste – even with the dipping sauce. It was like white, slightly rubbery, tasteless meat. We are not sure if that is how all lobsters taste, but DH said that he certainly wouldn’t order it in a land restaurant if we were “paying” for it. DH also thought the escargot was nasty--slimy and chewy with very little taste. He managed to finish off two of them and left the rest. Our oldest son was brave and tried one, but soon spit it out! The lamb was OK as were the steaks on the alternative menu. We found all of the beef dishes on the main menu to be exceptionally good. The grilled chicken on the alternative menu was good too. The creamed soups were awesome!

 

The Gala Buffet on Thursday night was very creative. From 11:15 pm-12:15 am you can walk through the buffet to take pictures and if you are still hungry, you can eat it from 12:30 am-1:00 am. The Gala Buffet featured a large ice sculpture of a dragon, that took 18 hours to carve from two 300 pound blocks of ice. It was very impressive! Needless to say, we were way too full from our late seating to eat anything, so we only took photos.

 

We did order room service for continental breakfast the morning we were in Cozumel. We thought that this would save us time, since we had an early start that day. Three out of the six cartons of milk they delivered to our room were curdled, so that was a bit disappointing. DH and our two oldest sons ended up running up to Lido deck to grab some hot food instead. Since it was early (7:00 am), there were virtually no line-ups. Ordering room service for breakfast on port days, ended up not being a time saving advantage at all, so after that, we simply went to the Lido deck for breakfast instead.

 

 

The Entertainment

Every day a Calypso band called “Caribbean Ecstasy” provided live music and dancing on the deck overlooking the Continent pool. They were good, but very loud. There was also piano music in the atrium as well as party music with Tony Ray by the World Bar and Casino. Music was provided in the other numerous bars also. Each night there was entertainment in the Rome Lounge. We had plenty of time after dinner to make it to the lounge for the 10:30 show. We found the dancing shows to be average. The best show hands down was The Wave Magic show by Kevin and Caruso--these guys kept us spellbound for the entire performance! The comedy juggling show by Dana Tison was also very entertaining and interesting.

 

Each night, except for the first night and the open seating dinner when we were in Cozumel, the waiters performed a song and dance. This started around 9:15 p.m. The lights would dim and begin to flash as a signal for the waiters to get ready. The waiters on the first level of the dining room would stand up on tables wearing Congo shirts and dance to music. Our waiter Lama, tried to get us our dessert before this would start, but there were some nights when things went slower and we would get our dessert afterwards. The entertainment was not long--about 3-5 minutes in length and we found it to be entertaining.

 

Carnival divided up the passengers into two teams, the “Carnival” and the “Mardi Gras”. The Carnival group consisted of those who were assigned to an even numbered dining table and the Mardi Gras group were those who had an odd number table. Since our table was numbered 555 we were part of the Mardi Gras team. Participation was not mandatory. Carnival held some contests by the pool, (i.e.: stuffing fruit into your bathing suit, ice-cream eating contest, limbo dancing, pool Olympics…) and the winning team would get points. I’m not even sure who the winning team ended up being in the end! We watched a few, but didn’t participate in any of these activities.

 

Photo Gallery

Each night Carnival’s professional photographers were available to take your photo—formal photos on formal nights and casual photos on the other nights. There were numerous background scenes set up between decks 3-5 so you can walk around and see which background you like. The background scenes are different each night too. One night they had an old-fashioned/western photo set-up. We dressed up in saloon/cowboy clothes and held rifles and guns. Although our three boys didn’t like waiting in line for 15 minutes to get their photo taken, they though holding a rifle was great! The photos were very good, so we ended up purchasing quite a few of them. Those that we did not wish to purchase, we dropped into a wooden disposal box, set up for this purpose.

 

A 5X7 photo cost $7.99, a 6X9 photo cost $8.99 and an 8X10 photo costs $21.99. There is no tax while at sea. While on board, we developed the film in one of our disposable cameras. The cost was $.29 for each 4x6 print and we got a second set of prints for free. We left the film in a processing envelope in the photo gallery. By the next day, the film was developed and we were able to pick it up.

 

The Ports:

The Triumph was the only ship in port at all of our stops. This was great. The beaches were relatively empty.

 

For all ports you exit and enter the ship from Deck 0. You need to insert your sign and sail card into a machine when leaving and entering the ship. When you insert your card, your photo appears on a computer monitor, so security can make sure that no one but you is using your card. Photo identification was not required to get back on the ship in Mexico, but it was required for Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios. We got a photocopy of our passports taken at the Pursers Desk and this worked as acceptable photo I.D. We kept our passports on the ship in our cabin safe. In Grand Cayman, our documents got soaked on the Pirate Encounter. If you do plan to take your passports with you, it might be a good idea to get a waterproof case. Also, once entering the ship you had to pass through a scanner and pass your carry-on bags through an x-ray machine. Security to get back on board did not seem as tight as it was at the airport. You do not have to remove your shoes when you walk through the scanner.

 

Cozumel

We left the ship at 8:00 am and hopped onto the Ultra Mar ferry (chartered by Carnival) to get to Playa Del Carmen (approx. 30 minute ride). We took the Carnival sponsored excursion to Xcaret. Once on the mainland, our tour guide led us through the streets of Playa Del Carmen to meet the Xcaret Bus. Xcaret is a beautiful place, and we only had 4 ½ hours to visit here. We felt very rushed and barely had enough time to see it all. The first thing that we did was swim through the underground river--a definite must. We put our belongings in a big duffle bag at the entrance to the river and put on life jackets. The staff at Xcaret zipped up the duffle bag, locked it, and gave us the key on a lanyard. The water was cool but also nice and refreshing. When we exited the river, our duffle bag was waiting for us. Our belongings were safe. I noticed that they do handle the duffle bags kind of roughly, so it would be wise to wrap up anything that is delicate in your towels. DH did not tighten down his life jacket properly and got major chaffing under the armpits which was sensitive to salt water two days after that. If he was to do it again, he would wear a shirt under the life jacket.

 

The exit to the underground river is right by the ocean, so we floated around in some tubes on the beach for awhile and watched people swimming with the dolphins. Straddling across Manatee Lagoon are a couple of climbing ropes that take you to the other side. DH an our 3 sons walked and swayed across the rope. The ropes were a bit wobbly, and they almost fell in, but that made it more challenging and they thought that it was a lot of fun.

 

We also entered a very hot and humid bat cave and saw some Mayan ruins. The kids enjoyed climbing them for pictures, but is was blistering hot. We appreciated cooling off in the air-conditioned aquarium. After the aquarium, we went for a dip in the snorkeling inlet and could see many fish in the water. We picked up a burger with “chips” and a Pepsi at the beach grill for a late lunch. Lunch cost us 485 pesos for our family, which is equivalent to $44.00 US. You could get a buffet lunch for about 250 pesos/person--$23.00 US, but we did not have enough time to do that. As it was, we had to rush back to catch the tour bus at 2:40 to head back to the ferry terminal.

 

Xcaret is a beautiful park and we wished we could have had more time there We asked at the Triumph excursion desk why this excursion is so short and we were told that they do this because they would like to bring all the Triumph passengers back at the same time on a single chartered ferry. Carnival has tried later return times in the past but had problems getting people back on time. Although the public ferry runs until 11:00 pm, they sometimes have union/labor problems, making the public ferries not as reliable as the chartered ones.

 

By 4:00 pm we were back on the mainland and were enjoying the turquoise waters of Paradise Beach. We grabbed a taxi (easy to get) at a taxi line-up that was very close to the pier. The cost of the taxi was $15.00 US/car each way for the 15 minute ride. Admission to Paradise Beach is free, but it cost $9.00/person to get a wristband for use of the water toys for the day. This includes sea kayaks, floats, water trampolines and the inflatable climbing iceberg. We tried to negotiate a discounted price for arriving late in the day, but they would not budge, so we only bought wristbands for the three boys. The 14 foot high floating iceberg was a huge hit! The boys could climb to the top and then slide down into the ocean. There was a guy on a kayak floating around the iceberg and trampolines to ensure that you had wristbands on.

 

Paradise Beach was not crowded. We only saw a few people from the Triumph when we were there. We all had a great time at Paradise Beach. They collected the kayaks and floats at 5:00 pm (closing time), but the boys could still climb the iceberg. We stayed until 6:00 pm and there were plenty of taxis waiting there to take us back to town.

 

After a quick shopping stop in Cozumel, we arrived back on the ship around 7:00 pm to get ready for supper. There was open seating dinner tonight from 7:00-9:00 pm. We really missed Lama and Marlon during open seating--dinner was not the same without them! The ship set sail at 10:00 pm. There was a Mexican Buffet that night with Limbo dancing from 11:30 pm-1:00 am. Although this would have been interesting to see, we were all too tired to attend, and went to bed instead.

 

Grand Cayman

We left the ship at 8:30 am and took the tender to shore. We then waited for our Cayman Pirate Encounter to begin at 9:00. We followed a pirate to the next pier where we hopped onto another tender boat that took us to the pirate ship. There was a pirate on board dressed like Jack Sparrow—what a hit that was for our 8 year old! After watching “Jack” shoot a cannon at the Triumph and shout at the people on the Triumph to “stop eating”, the kids had to “swab the deck” and repeat a pirate oath. Later, we could jump from the ship’s upper deck (about 15’ above water level) or walk the plank into the warm, crystal clear water of the Caribbean Sea. All jumpers had to wear an inflatable flotation vest. Free sodas and rum punch were served on board.

 

We headed back to shore at 11:00 am and then took an air-conditioned mini-van taxi to Royal Palms Beach. The taxi fare was $4.00/person each way for a short 5-minute ride. The taxi drivers hold up a sign offering tours of the island. We found out that the taxi driver that took us to the beach has a son that had received a scholarship to attend a College in our city—what a small world!

 

There is a grill at Royal Palms Beach where you can buy food and drinks. We ordered two pizzas, a platter of fries and 5 Cokes and the bill came to $41 US. As there is not much shade on the beach, you can rent a beach umbrella for $10.00 and a chair for $5.00. The beach was pretty empty and they had plenty of beach chairs and umbrella’s sitting vacant. You could see the “fin” of the Triumph just over the trees in the distance. We were hoping to collect some sea shells on the beach, but all we could find was coral. There were jet skis, floats and kayaks for rental here too.

 

Taxis at the Royal Palms beach were plentiful for the return trip and by 3:35 pm we were back at the pier where we waited in the blistering hot sun in a really long line to pass through security and get on the tender. It was almost 4:25 by the time we were back on the ship and the ship was scheduled to sail at 4:30! The process to get everyone back on the ship caused the ship to leave approx. 10 minutes late.

 

Ocho Rios

We took a private tour with Island Marketing to climb Dunns River Falls and then went River Tubing down the White River. Our driver Mr. Denton Pendergast was expecting us at 8:00 am Jamaican time, however, we got off the ship at 8:00 am ship time (which is 7:00 am in Jamaica). Someone paged him and he arrived about 20 minutes later to pick up our family of 5 and well as another family of 4 also from the ship. Once we got out of the taxi compound, he switched drivers and we got “Paul” as our tour guide for the rest of the trip. Paul was very knowledgeable and explained things about the island as he drove.

 

We were the third group to arrive at Dunns River Falls that morning. The guides were taking groups of 20-30 people up the Falls at a time. We asked for our own guide to take our small group of 9 up the Falls and we got Norman. Norman has been guiding at the Falls for 19 years! We told Norman that we wanted to pass by the large groups and he whisked us up past the crowds quickly. We tipped Norman $10 for our family at the top of the Falls. He didn’t look to see how much we gave him, just stuffed the money into his pocket and said, “thank you.”

 

The water was cool and refreshing. The falls is fed by spring water coming from the mountains surrounding Ocho Rios. Our 8 year old son found the water to be cold and was soon shivering--but the rest of us found it very comfortable! Norman was quick to point out which rocks to step on. If you went off the “beaten path”, the rocks were quite slippery. There were a few steep areas but overall the climb up the Falls was not too difficult. No one in our group slipped or fell or got hurt. There was also a ship photographer from the Triumph as well as a Dunn’s River photographer taking photos in the water.

 

At the top of the Falls, we walked through the Craft Market and bargained with the vendors there. We found the vendors to be very friendly. They asked us to look at their wares but we did not find them to be rude or too pushy. We started the bargaining at ½ of their asking price. If they would not come down to our price, we just told them that we would keep looking and we start walking away – the price amazingly dropped. Alternatively, we got them to throw in a couple of other items, so that the value of the sale would not decrease as much. The vendors were happy to carve the boys names into the wooden items that we bought.

 

When we got to the parking lot, Paul was waiting for us. Our next stop was River Tubing on the White River. Our tubing guide was Jack. He was very friendly and helpful. He floated along with us, pushed us out of a spots when we got stuck and generally tried to keep our group together. We had a blast! With the exception of our 8 year old son, we did not find the water to be too cold. It was the same temperature as the Falls—cool but very refreshing! The tubes are quite large with a fiberglass bottom tied in, so you don’t scrape your bottom. At no point did anyone fall out of the tubes--the water was not that rough. At one point on the trip we all stopped and got out. There were photographers at this location and they had some really good photos of our family tubing, so we bought some photos at $5.00 each.

 

At this location, we were able to jump off a 15’ high embankment into the river. The water is very deep at this spot. They point to where you should jump in and you do hit the bottom with your feet, but not very hard. Once you surface, the river current takes you down stream a bit where you can climb up the embankment holding onto some roots and jump in again. DH and all three DS’s jumped into the river here at least 4-5 times. This was definitely a highlight of this excursion! At this location there was also a rope swing that you could use in the middle of the river. After jumping, we got back in the tubes and continued down the river for about another 10 minutes to the end. If you looked off to the right, you could see the river running out into the ocean! The total trip down the river, including jumping, was about 1 hour. We tipped our guide $10 and he was very grateful for the tip. Where we got out, there was a lady with a small booth, selling souvenirs. We purchased a really neat musical instrument here made out of a coconut shell for $7.00. They delivered our photos to this location and we paid for them here.

 

After tubing, we asked Paul to drive us up Fern Gully. He had to pick up some other people, so we had limited time, but he did manage to drive us up part way—to keep us happy--where we could take a few photos before he dropped us off at Island Village. We tipped him $20 and took a photo of him with our family.

 

Island Village is a shopping area where Margaritaville is located. We ate lunch here. A pizza lunch with fries and sodas cost $2,850 Jamaican dollars ($44 USD). We “hung out” in Margaritaville with many other cruise ship passengers. You can always tell who is from the ship by their blue Carnival Beach towels. There is a beach at Margaritaville with a water trampoline but we were told that it costs $3.00/person to utilize the beach. There is also a huge inflatable slide on the beach which you could use for $3.00 US/slide. The pool with swim up bar and waterslide in Margaritaville, was free if you were eating there or buying drinks. We enjoyed our time at Margaritaville. It was only a short 5 minute walk to the pier from Island Village. No one hassled us during the walk. You could see the entire ship from the beach at Margaritaville! The ship set sail promptly at 3:30 pm.

 

Disembarkation

Before we knew it, our vacation was at an end—boy does a week ever go by fast when you are having fun! The Disembarkation process on board the Triumph was well organized. Self-disembarkation began at 8:00 a.m. They called two decks at a time with the last self-disembarkation call at 9:30. We choose to self-disembark and even though our deck was called at 8:00, we didn’t leave until the final call at 9:30. Our return flight was 1:40 pm, so we had lots of time to get to the Miami airport. This afforded us the time to have a leisurely breakfast up on the Lido deck. Those who chose not to self-disembark where instructed to wait on the Lido or Promenade deck until their “color” tag was called. We joined the self disembark line-up on the third deck and for the last time had to punch in our sign and sail card before exiting the ship. It took us about 20 minutes to get off the ship.

 

The biggest wait for us was getting through customs and immigration in the Carnival Terminal. This took about 45 minutes. There were only two lines for “international” passengers (we are from Canada) and many more lines for US citizens, so it was very slow going for us. When exiting the terminal, we passed the luggage waiting to be picked up from the non self-disembarking passengers. We noticed the luggage was organized by decks, divided into forward and aft sections. There were easily 20+ taxis waiting outside the pier and we had no problems finding a mini van taxi to take all five of us to the Miami airport.

 

Overall we found everyone on board the Triumph to be very friendly. It was also interesting to meet people from all over the world. There were a lot of families cruising with us but we did not notice the kids being unruly or out of hand. A sewer smell that was mentioned in some posts on CC was not an issue. The hot tubs, pools and waterslide were all functioning. The food was great, and the ports of call were a lot of fun. We had perfect weather the entire week too! The only disadvantage was the short time we were able to spend in port—especially in Grand Cayman and Jamaica. It would be nice if the ship would leave later so that we could have more time on shore to visit these beautiful places without feeling rushed.

 

 

 

Click on the following links for some video footage of the Carnival Triumph:

 

Part 1: The Ship

 

 

Part 2: The Ports—Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios

 

[beachgal58]

wow! what a review! thank-you for sharing your vacation with us! and the videos! glad u had a great time. we r sailing her in 3 weeks on the eastern. what time did u get to the port sat am? i hear carnival is changing their embarkation time to 11:30 from 1:30?? we r always onboard b4 noon anyway. dont want to miss that first buffet! thanks again, cindy

[fwg1959]

Great reveiw and videos. The western itinerary on Triumph is on our short list next June. Looks like your family had the time of thier lives. Thanks for the hard work of putting the videos together.

[Seydlitz]

:) Great review and Great videos. Makes me sad that I have to wait untill Dec. 08 untill my next cruise, But seeing great videos like yours puts a smile on my face.

[RobertGT]

Terrific review, Thank you for sharing with us.

[BlueJacketsFan1]

The Triumph Western Caribbean was our first cruise and we loved it so much we have had to start cruising everyother year since.

[teanbean16]

Thank you so much for the great review. I especially loved the videos. We go next March and are counting down the days. Again, great review!!!:) :)

[HookedOnCruisin'2]

Thank you for the great review and terrific videos. It looks like you guys had a wonderful time. We'll be doing the Eastern itinerary in a few days and it was great to see the Triumph since we'd not sailed her... I hope you don't mind if I copy this link to our roll call so others can check it out....

 

I think the worst thing about a cruise s having to get off the ship!

[Hawaii697]

Great review. I sailed on the Triumph a few years back and really enjoyed her. Loved the videos as well.

[Froufie]

Great review - really looking forward to my upcoming Triumph cruise even more now!

[beansatw]

Thanks for the review and video. Your video was great! :)

[i'llbesea-ingyou]

What an excellent and informative review! I think you touched on pretty much every single subject. Thank you for taking the time out to do the review and post the videos. They are incredible! We are sailing her in a few months and just watching your video made me all that much more excited for the upcoming cruise. Thanks again!!:)

[dz63]

wow! what a review! thank-you for sharing your vacation with us! and the videos! glad u had a great time. we r sailing her in 3 weeks on the eastern. what time did u get to the port sat am? i hear carnival is changing their embarkation time to 11:30 from 1:30?? we r always onboard b4 noon anyway. dont want to miss that first buffet! thanks again, cindy

 

 

We arrived at the pier at approx. 2:15 pm.

[jimw]

"Our cabin stewart, Anca from Romania, did an excellent job keeping our room clean."

 

 

Thanks again for the wonderful review, we are going on the Eastern trip in September.

 

But please, a pet cc peeve--She's NOT a stewart.....................

[Ellanora]

Awesome review, thanks for posting!

[PirateGal]

Great review! Well organized and very detailed!

[MzOhioLady]

Thanks so much for the detailed and informative review!

[jeanne_stein]

I really enjoyed seeing your videos! I was on the Triumph 3 years ago with my 16 year old son and it was the best cruise I had ever taken. Thanks for letting me relive that time on a boring Thursday afternoon at work.

 

Jeanne

[dz63]

"

But please, a pet cc peeve--She's NOT a stewart.....................

 

Is it possible to edit a post? There are a few typos that we noticed after we submitted our review. Seems like we can edit it immediately after we post, but not after someone has opened it?