Carnival Triumph Good for Kids?

[quadman]

We had planned a 10-person family Alaska cruise for August '08 but will likely have to cancel due to serious illness of our matriarch. My side of the family is looking at a late booking on Triumph (Eastern Caribbean, Aug. 3). We have two daughters, ages 7 and 4, and want to ensure that Triumph has a great Camp Carnival program and that the water slide and pools are adequate to handle the 2,700+ passengers. We cruised on RCI's Jewel of the Seas two years ago, and the ship was gorgeous, spotless, and had a great, friendly crew - a fantastic Eastern Caribbean cruise (and our first ever cruise experience). We are thinking of a suite (cat. 11) which looks very roomy for four. If anyone with kids has done Triumph in the past couple of years. I'd love to hear your take. Our alternatives are either a Mexican Riviera Cruise on Carnival Pride or a San Diego trip to all of the family places (Legoland, Sea World, Wild Animal Park, Zoo; we live in L.A.). Thanks!

[Catrin]

It has been a few years since we went on the Triumph with our kids..... two years in a row!

 

As we recall, they had a great kids program... and the slide was certainly a highlight for our then 4 and 8 / 5 and 9 year olds!

 

I do not think you can go wrong with any of the Destiny/Conquest class ships.

Catrin

[Dolfinsfan]

We are booked on that cruise (our first cruise) and we have an 8 year old daughter. While she is not one who will go off and do things on her own, with all the programs that they have onboard for the younger kids, we are not at all worried about her meeting kids her own age and being entertained that week while on board. Based on everything that we have seen and read about, she is about to have the time of her life aboard that week (as are we).

[gazingm42]

We cruised this last may with our 8 and 10 year old. They really enjoyed it

as one of their best cruises. I would highly recommend this ship for family

fun.

[angelboysmom]

We cruised the Triumph in June with our 3 boys (ages 8, 14 and 17). All had a great time! As for Camp Carnival, the staff was great and the activities were diverse. My 7yo was sad to say goodbye to all of his new friends.

[Carnival Game]

I've never seen the CD mentioned on the Triumph...name, good, bad, nothing.

 

Who is it?

[JenniGail]

We were on the Triumph this April with our three kids, 12, 8 and 2. I will start by saying that I am not one to complain about most things, especially when it comes to cruising. DH and I like to have our kids with us for the most part and don't rely heavily on the CC program. However, I have to be honest and say that of all of our cruises, we felt that this CC staff was our least favorite.

 

Our biggest complaint was around the Circle C group for our 12 year old, which based on your post your children wouldn't be in that group. They had a lot of unsupervised activities for those ages, so it was harder for my daughter to meet anyone (she's a bit shy) and there was no camp counselor to facilitate everyone getting to know one another. They did an initial meet and greet the first night, but it was during our dinner seating.

 

For the 8 and 2 year olds, the counselors were good, although I didn't feel that they got to know my children as well as some have on our previous Carnival cruises. I did not take them to CC a lot, but when I did take them, it seemed that they would confuse my son with other boys his age. One evening we went to pick him up and they told me what a big dinner he had eaten~ I questioned them on that because we took him up after our dinner, they then realized that it was not our son, but another 2 year old boy, that had gone to dinner with them. Another time they told me he had taken a long nap, but my 8 year old told me he never slept at all (she was in the same room the whole time.)

 

The other thing that we didn't like was that they seemed to close at odd hours (middle of the afternoon, etc.) and it made it difficult to plan things for just my DH and I.

 

Overall, we ended up not taking the kids to CC after the 3rd or 4th day. Again, the counselors were not bad and were always very nice to the kids, I just felt that things were less organized than they should be (or had been in the past.)

 

I posted a review about the cruise and mentioned some of this in my review.

 

All-in-all, it was still a fun cruise and the kids had a GREAT time, we just ended up doing more together, which was fine by us!

 

Enjoy your trip!

 

Jen