Triumph Review 8/31-9/7/08 with pics

Background: This was our 4th cruise (all on Carnival) celebrating our 20th Anniversary, our kids 3rd and our Nieces 1st. We have always traveled the week of Labor Day. Ages are 49, 42, 17, 15, and 13.

We live in Central Florida and chose to drive down to Miami on Saturday. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Miami-Doral.

The Hotel itself was a place to stay for the night. The rooms were clean and the staff was very friendly and helpful. The lobby did have a slight funky odor, but nothing too bad. The best thing about the hotel was it offers free parking during your stay and it also offers to cruise passenger’s free parking for the duration of your cruise with shuttle service to the port.

Right next to the hotel was a Carnival Cruise lines mega office complex/headquarters. Complete with a smoke stack out front.

We spent Saturday afternoon sightseeing the South Beach Area. It was a very windy and overcast (thanks to Gustav), which was great because we never felt hot. The girls did put their feet in the water but they said the water was cold.

You can see how windy it was from this picture

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As we drove over the causeway we saw the Liberty and the Imagination

And of couse we had to see the famous Miami Ink

Debarkation:

We left the hotel around 10:45 in the morning, we got to the port around 11:05 in the morning. Once we parked the car in garage "C", we took the free shuttle over to terminal D. As soon as we arrived we were notified that Half Moon Cay was canelled due to weather in the Atlantic.

We walked into the terminal and immediatley walked to the next customer service agent and got out sail and sign cards. We received boarding pass number 2 and we were on the ship by noon eating lunch.

waiting in the terminal

I do have to say that Carnival's boarding process has gotten better over the years and I think they finally got it right. The wait was very little and painless.

Eating on the lido deck......

After eating we decided to drop our carryons off in the rooms.

We had 2 cabins on the Panorama Deck #1032 and 1052.

1032 is a normal room which was to be set up as a king bed, and 1052 was a quad, but only using 1 bunk. When we dropped the carryons off we did notice 2 problems with the rooms. We saw the room stewards and told them of the problems. 1 being our room was not set up as a king, and that the kids room had our anniversary decorations in them. By the time we arrived back to the rooms around 1 pm both items were corrected.

Our Room Staff Nonthakan and Suchart did an exceptional job. They were probably the 2 of the friendliest room stewards we encountered thus far in our Carnival Cruise experience. Any request that we made, was taken care of within minutes.

Room 1032

Room 1052

Our luggage did arrive very quickly (around 3 pm). We decided to unpack immediatley and the kids decided to roam around the ship and see the sites from the sail away.

After unpacking we went to meet our fellow cruises from Cruise Critic. It was wonderful being able to meet all the people that we have been talking to for months about our upcoming cruise.

I know not everybody made it, but I was happy to meet the people that did. I hope everyone had a wonderful cruise despite the weather and missed ports.

Next was the muster drill. I agree with Boo810, I have never seen Carnival employees yelling at the guests before. They were telling people to be quite and and at one couple that had showed up late and refused to put on their life vests,they were being yelled at to do so. They were complaining that it was dirty and refused. Like another post that is going on I agree that if it is going to save my life I do not care on how dirty it is. All and all it was relativly short and painless.

After we decided to get ready for dinner. We had the 6 pm seating in the Paris Dining room. We sat at table 341, which was on the lower level in the rear. It had a beautiful view from the windows directly behind us. This is the first time we had a window seat and absolutly loved it. The views were unbeleivable.

Our waiters, Arzu and Subagia did an unbelievable job. After the 1st night they had our appetizers there waiting for us within seconds of arriving. (we always had the black tiger shrimp). I also want to give kudos to the chefs for the wonderful food. It was always top notch and we could not get enough of it. With the exception of one meal being (steak) being a little to cooked for our taste, everything we tried was wonderful.

Here are some pictures from the view and the food.....

some more food shots

Thanks a lot, now I am starving!!!!

Great review so far. It's been a while since I was on the Triumph. Cant wait for more of the review.

wonderful review so far! would love to know if the kids went to Club O2 and if they enjoyed it.

You are doing a great review. Looking forward to the rest of the review. We did have a good time even with missing the ports. I never saw or heard any of the things that the other poster was talking about did you?? We were able to sightsee with no problem in St. Thomas. Any how looking forward to more review and your pics

Karen

Keep up the great review Christine. We really enjoyed the cruise too.

wonderful review so far! would love to know if the kids went to Club O2 and if they enjoyed it.

Yes all three went to club 02 and loved it......they only time we saw them was furing dinner, if that gives you an idea of how much fun they had.

We did have a good time even with missing the ports. I never saw or heard any of the things that the other poster was talking about did you?? We were able to sightsee with no problem in St. Thomas.

Karen

Karen, I guess they were on the other side of the ship....because I did not see alot of what they are saying either. But I quess it is what you make of it, and we were on vacation and nothing was going to ruin it.

Christine

Keep up the great review Christine. We really enjoyed the cruise too.

Glad to see others on the same ship also liked the cruise....but I think we are in the minority on this one.....oh well....christine

Monday Sept 1st - First Sea day.......this was to be our stop on Half Moon Cay, but as stated earlier, due to the weather we did have to miss this port.

We have been here before and absolutly loved it for a beach day, but under the circumstances we understood completly. We were disappointed, but we were not going to allow it to ruin our vacation.

Today we choose to just hang around. I did a little shopping on board, explored the ship to get our bearings of where everything was, played the slots a little. My DH went back to the room and took a nap for a couple of hours and I just hunged out on the Lido deck watching the Hairy Chest Contest.

The kids did miss the orientation for Club O2 the night before and I brought my son up there, while the girls sunbathed. We met the Director Lonny. I explained to him that I had 3 children, ages 17,15 1/2, and 13 1/2. I asked him if my daughter could join the other 2 in the activities. He said normally they are not allowed, but since it was a slow week, and as long as she stated she was 15 when anyone asked it would be ok with him.

The kids loved going to Club O2, we rarley saw them. A big change from our last cuirses, where they clung to us nearly the whole time, except when we were able to ditch them....hahaha

Tonight was the first formal night.......we did go to the Captains Reception. The Captain was not able to make it due to his duties on the bridge and the current weather. But this was one of the better receptions that we have been to. In the past we have had to hunt/chase down the wait staff for drinks, but this time we were offered drinks what seemed like every minute.....

After the Captains Reception, we went to dinner and enjoyed many, many, many black tiger shrimp and even more lobster tails.

That night we also saw the Adult Comdey show. We did allow the kids to come with us. The Comedian's name was Mike Panzeca. He show was pretty funny and we definetly enjoyed it. :)

Tuesday Sept 2nd - 2nd Sea Day

We decided to sleep in a little later than normal. For us that is about 8 am. We ate breakfast in our usual spot in the New World Bar area, in the back near the large windows overlooking the sea. It was so peaceful and quiet back there.

The kids probably slept until around noon, but who cares they are on vacation too, and this is how they choose to spend it.

Unfortunatley we choose to go to the Shopping talk with Tamara......this was probably the low point of our vacation.....(but of course we went for the free prizes and raffle)(but she had a problem with people sitting on her left, cause nothing ever came our way)

The only thing she spoke about, was diamonds, diamonds, and more diamonds....and to purchase the largest diamond you can afford and what makes you feel good....blah blah blah. blah blah.... :rolleyes:

To make matters worse we feel for it again and went back at 4 pm for the Diamond and Gemstone Seminar....again only for the free drawing, that we did not win anyway. And of course it was at the end of the talk and Tamara just repeated everything that she said in the first shopping tour talk and her famous montra......blah blah blah blah..... :eek:

After all this we finally made it to dinner. Once again the food was great and loved eating there every night. This night out fellow cruise critic members Kim, Scott and "Hurricane" Eli joined us for dinner. The waiters put on a show that night for our enjoyment.

The only complaint I had in regards to the dining room was our drink waiter would bring our first round of drinks almost immediatley after arriving, but we never saw her again throughout the meal. Thank goodness to our table staff, who always had our water glasses full to the rim.

That night we did see the Comedy Juggling of Thein Fu. He was an absolute riot. We thought he was even funnier than the other 2 comedians on board. My DH loved his show so much, that after I went to bed early, he went back and saw the show for a late seating.

This night while walking around after the first show, we noticed that most of the public areas (night club, casino, karaoke, etc...) were pretty empty. For being a full day at sea we thought more people would be out and about. When I decided to head up to the room, I did notice that near all the elevators and stairwells, there was airline barf bags everywhere for the taking. And most were already gone.....I guess this solves the mistery of the ghost ship....everyone in their room sick.

Wed. Sept 3rd - St Thomas (our 20th anniversary)

LAND HOOOOOOO.....now I know how the early spanish explorers felt when they finally saw land in the Caribbean.

We woke up early to see the the boat pulling into shore...

This was the Royal Caribbean from Port Canaveral that followed us into St Thomas.

We got planned to start getting off the ship at 8am, since we had a 9am tour planned. In the past there has always been a line to get out, but it took us a whole 2 minutes to get off the ship.

Once we got off the girls realized we were on US grounds and immediatley had to start texting their friends.....

We walked around the small shopping area for a few minutes, before the skies decided to open up and down pour on us. It lasted for about 45 minutes, and the rest of the day while on land was beautiful.

We booked a tour with Sunny Liston for the Shopping, Island Tour and Beach Break. The cost was $25.00 per person and was the best money I have every spent.

He was there right at 9 am, and took us down to the main shopping area. He explaine dto us that we had up until 11:45 am and to meet him back where he dropped us off. We did the normal touristy stores, got a few items, and around 10:45 am it did start raining again for about 30 minutes, but we were under cover and also came across the Harley shop and had to buy a souviner for our friends. Once it stopped we made our way back to Sunny for the rest of the tour.

When we got back on board the open air bus, we were a little disappointed that there were not enough seats in the same row for all of us to sit together....so we had to split up the family. Once we made the first stop we were able to get all together again. Sunny had 2 open air buses running at the same time. One was driven by his wife and he drove our bus. We had such a great time on his bus singing along with the music, laughing and embarrising our kids, that the other bus was diappointed that they were not on our bus.

Sunny took us to several stops throughout St Thomas....taking us to see spectacular views from the mountain side. We went all the way to the Mountain Top, and had one of the famous Banana Daiquiri's. We saw Sir Francis Drake Seat, overlloked Magens Bay Beach, and a few Castles.

After sightseeing we had a choice to go to 3 different beaches, we all chose to go to Sapphire Beach. We arrived there at 1:30 and we were able to stay until 4 pm.

The beach itself was absolutly beautiful. It had a beachy area to just lay down and relax. They did have chair rentals if you needed them. We just laid out our towels and went swimming. This is the first time we tried to snorkel and fell in love with it. One of the other guests told us about a reef to our right, and we were amazed at the fish that we saw. We saw tangs, wrases, damsels, and the big silver fish that were nibbiling on us and chases us around.

The biggest diappointment at the beach was the bathrooms. They only had 2 stalls in the ladies room and both of them were disgusting. But that is the conclusion that we came to on all the public bathrooms in St Thomas. The cleanist were on the Mountain Top, and they still were not the best.

All and all I would highly recommend Sunny Liston Tours to anyone. We had a blast and would not hesitate to use him again. It was well worth every penny.

Great review. Nice to see pics of the Triumph again.

Pictures from St Thomas and Sunny Liston Tours.....

Sapphire Beach:

Great review!!! I also loved the SL Tour. We had a large group of 25 and we had a blast!!!!!:D

We finally got back on the boat about 4:45 pm, just enough time to shower and change for dinner. This was our 20th anniversary and the kids had the wait staff sing to us.

Had to have the warm melting cake.......

Good bye St Thomas.....till next time

It did start to rain again once we were on board, but we really did not care since we had such a wonderful day in St Thomas.

That night we saw the New Wave Magic starring Kevin and Caruso.

The show was very entertaining and some of the tricks were amazing....my husband did not complain about looking at the girls either.

We also saw the midnight adult show, which the reason it was adult rated, was the girls were wearing g strings. Again both shows were very good and entertaining.

We did try to go to the 70/80's dance Party at 10:30 in the Hollywood Dico, but came to find out they closed it off for a private function. Now do not get me wrong, I have no problem with "gay" people, and knew well before cruizing that they had a group on this ship.....but it irritated me that they closed the disco off to them alone, when plenty of other people also like to dance to older music and did not get the chance. It does not bother me at all if we were able to mingle with them....oh well.....maybe next time.

Love your review and your pics

thank you for posting them :)

Thurs 9/4 San Juan, PR

We knew that this was going to be our last port of call. Grand Turk was cancelled due to Hanna taking out 80% of the houses on this Island. We were once again disappointed about not going, since we wanted another beach day and snorkeling, but under the circumstances fully understood, and after looking on the internet was kinda glad, since we would only be about 12 - 15 hours or so ahead of Ike once we left San Juan..

One thing I would like to comment is what a great idea Carnival has come up with for Grand Turk, once the port reopens. They are offering shore excursions where guests and crew members can help rebuild the island for the day that they are there. I almost wish I had a cruise booked going there so I can help. KUDOS to Carnival for this generous offer to try to help the locals.....

Ok back to San Juan....

Here are some pictures of us pulling into port in Old san Juan....

Here is a picture of the local dock crew.......you decide....working hard or hardly working????

From the beginning we knew that this was going to be mostly walking, sightseeing day.

DH and I got off the boat at 8 am to see what outside tour operators were offering. The only thing that was available was a city tour for $20.00 a person, which could have dropped us off at a beach (not sure which one), but we would have had to find our own way back....another $20.00 per person cab ride back ....we decided we did not need the beach that bad.

We decided to just go back and get the kids.....once off we decided to do a little touristy shopping and went to the local supermarket to find our friends some home grown coffee. While walking we realized we were pretty close to the El Morro Fort and decided to continue to walk and see them.

Prior to getting there we did pass the church that J-Lo and Mark Anthony got married in....