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Victory Review Jan 1-8, 2012 - Lots of pics


excitedcruzr

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This was a honey moon cruise for us. This was my second cruise and DH's first cruise. He was in the US Navy, so he's familiar with life on a ship, but never got to vacation on a ship. We decided on this itinerary, because of all the stops. We got married in Key West, so that port was out of the picture (we can always go back later). I liked how there were so many ports in such a short amount of time on this ship. We left from San Juan, PR, and visited St. Thomas USVI, Barbados, St. Lucia, St Kitts, and St. Maarten with one sea day.

 

We flew out of Omaha on December 31, 2011. Had a stop in Atlanta and got to Puerto Rico around 9:30 PM. Everything is in Spanish with English subtitles! PC310017.jpg

The taxi fares are all regulated in PR, so it cost us 23 dollars to get to OSJ ($19 for us, and $2 per bag..backpack carry on was free, but they charged for our check luggage and my 20 inch carry on). Very easy to find a taxi at the airport..walk out and theres a taxi stand..tell them where you wanna go and they'll find a taxi. We headed to OSJ and stayed at Posada San Francisco. It isn't marked, but it's right above a cafe. The taxi driver hadn't ever heard of it, but I told him the address and he got me right where I needed to be. I also had printed off a few pictures of the building so I would recognize it too.

 

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Definitely would recommend this hostel for anyone who wants a non traditional experience. We had a queen deluxe room for 58 dollars for one night. There are community bathrooms, but everything was clean, and it was a very friendly place to stay. The elevator was kinda scary..but it got us up to where we had to go :)

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And right in the heart of OSJ. We unpacked, and decided to go walking around OSJ and look for a new years party. We didn't find much, except house parties, so we headed back, stopped at a convenience store across from our hostel, and bought some beer. We came back to our room, drank a bit, then around 11:45, we went to the balcony and watched fireworks. It was beautiful! I've never seen such a pretty new years.

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Community kitchen on 5th floor. Our room was on the 6th floor.

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Kind of a scary elevator..but it got us where we had to go, so I have no complaints.

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Our balcony

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Also, San Juan is VERY pretty. They had so many christmas lights everywhere. (not the best quality camera)

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Christmas display in OSJ

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It was so awesome to see. After hanging out for a bit, we headed back to our room, made some happy new years phone calls (even though everyone we talked to still had two hours to go!), then headed to bed.

 

The next morning, I woke up around 7, walked out to the balcony, and THE SHIP WAS HERE!!!!

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We dilly dattled around the hostel, got some breakfast at La Bombonera,

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which was down the street, walked around a bit, then came back to the hostel, dilly dattled around some more, then headed to the ship around 12:30. It was a perfect walk, all downhill, and not very far. Dropped bags off at the porters, then headed into the port :). We waited in line for about 20 min or so? and then we were on the ship!!! We used passports. My passport was in my maiden name, booked with my maiden name, had sign and sail card on my credit card which has my married name.. Was worried this would be a problem, but it wasn't. As long as my passport matched the name on my boarding docs, they were fine with it.

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(I apologize in advance..this review is not in perfect order.)

 

The food court below Posada San Francisco (earlier I said it was a cafe. Oops!) The cafe is next door to the hostel.

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Menu at La bombonera

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And the amazing freshly squeezed orange juice maker.

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If you like orange juice, you have got to try a glass of this stuff. It's delicious.

 

We got through embarkation, and headed to the ship. We were so close, we could smell it!

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The atrium that will welcome you when you walk onto the ship

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Everyone had ATD on the first night. We sat a table with three other couples. The food was pretty good. We departed San Juan at 10 PM. There was the sail away party, which was neat to watch as a first time Carnival passenger.

 

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The next morning we were in St. Thomas.

 

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We originally planned on going parasailing, but when we went to pick up our tickets, they told us parasailing was canceled due to the Coast Guard canceling it. They didn't tell us much more. So we walked around St. Thomas a bit, went to Pueblo grocery store, just to walk around, and use the bathroom. We ended up turning back around and just hung out on the ship for the day. It was very relaxing, since most of the passengers were on the island.

 

Shopping at St. Thomas

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When we got back to our room, our stewards, Vincent and Osmond (Ozzy), left us a towel animal! Btw- our room stewards were very friendly! Kept our pop and wine chilled, ice bucket was full all the time, catered to us with no complaints.

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Not a very exciting day for us, but it was definitely relaxing.

 

Photos of our supper meals:

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Dessert, tiramisu

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Mother and father in law got us a cake! We didn't get a picture of it before the servers cut it, but it was in a heart shape. It was so good!

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We didn't have table mates the first evening, so we had the cake to our selves. Brought it down to our room, and ended up bringing it back to dinner on the third night and shared with our table mates. Of all the gifts we received, I would definitely recommend the cake. For 7-8 dollars, this cake has about 10 servings..very worth it! (especially since it seems like everything else is very overpriced).

 

The next day was a sea day. I don't have many pictures or memories of this day. All I remember is omg- I wish I had a balcony for this day. We saved money by having an OV room, since we only had one sea day. Every chair on lido deck was taken by a person or a towel. So many crowds everywhere! We spent most of the day in the room. We may have had room service this day too. Don't totally remember. We did watch the Master Mixologist Competition and the Hairy Chest competition. Since we had to stand the whole time, the mixologist competition wasn't worth it to me. Hairy chest was entertaining, but probably would have been okay to skip, since again, we didn't have a stinkin chair. We did go to the love & marriage show as well. This was pretty fun. We would have tried to get on stage, but we got married 8 months before we cruised, so we were late to the party. We went to most of the comedy shows. They were hilarious. Our comedians were Happy Cole, Hank McGauley, and someone else (can't think of his name). If you're into comedy, DON'T youtube these guys, because they use the same stuff, but if its your first time watching them, they're funny.

 

We aren't casino people, but we did purchase pull tabs, which were losers, unfortunately.

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I think they were 10 bucks each.

 

I'm kind of scatter brained, so this review is all over the place (as you can already tell), but at the end, I'll write my overall views of this cruise. If anyone wants any of the capers/fun times, I have copies of all of them. And all the junk they stuff in (art sales, spa stuff, etc etc).

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The third day was Barbados. We booked a catamaran, Calabaza, which I would recommend to anyone whose looking for a good catamaran. There were only 12 people on here, and it cost us 105 per person. Gina and her crew treated us great. We had unlimited rum punch, beer, pop, vodka. They also served us lunch, and snacks through out the day. We went and saw sea turtles and snorkeled. The snorkeling wasn't very impressive, but it was sufficient. The sea turtles were so pretty!

 

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These pictures are from Calabaza. They emailed us all the recipes used and a copy of all the pictures they took. Very good customer service!!

 

After that, we headed back to the cruise terminal and went back on the ship, and hung out.

 

Other drink of the day

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Spotted this fella walking around the ship

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Thursday was St. Lucia. We booked zip lining through Carnival. It was Rainforest Adventures. SO MUCH FUN! The 20-30 drive up there wasn't much to write home about, but when we got there, it was great. They had lockers for all of our stuff for a 5 dollar deposit. The only thing they didn't require in the lockers were cameras. They had us tie the cameras to our harness. We were grouped with a family of 3. Our leader, Rosie, was so much fun. We had 7 or 8 lines. We also did a 'Tarzan' swing and a 'free fall' drop. The drop was so scary! The whole excursion was very thrilling and such an adrenaline rush. Our leader even held on to our camera and took pictures of us zipping.

 

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There were goats outside in residential areas.

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The tail from afar!

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St. Lucia

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Huge chess board on Lido deck

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Next day was St. Kitts. This was a really pretty island. We didn't have anything planned for this island. So just like St. Thomas, we just walked around for a bit, did some souvenir shopping, and went back to the ship. It was relaxing since there weren't many people on the ship.

 

This scene will welcome you to St. Kitts.

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BEWARE of these guys:

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They are holding mini monkeys and will bombard you to hold one. I asked for a picture and they said it would be 5 dollars. If you hold a monkey, it'll cost you. I tried hard to get a picture without the guy noticing, but I wasn't successful.

 

Here's St. Kitts from the ship:

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Supper pics:

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My lasagna was very good!!

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Saturday was St. Maarten. Taxi fares are regulated here. We spent 40 dollars to get to Maho Beach (airport beach) and to get back to the ship (20 each way). This beach was so much fun! Water was very clear. I read tons of information about traffic delays to and from this beach. It was about a 20-25 min drive, not much traffic. The bridge construction is completed, so there wasn't any hold ups. Also, there ARE taxi drivers at the beach waiting to bring you back to the ship. I had told the taxi driver that we'd need him back to the beach by 3 to bring us back, and he assured us he'd be there. Well low and behold, there were tons of taxi drivers waiting for people. Just to be safe though, I'd recommend to make sure your taxi driver will be there to bring you back to the ship.

 

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The surf board with all the incoming flights

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All of the waiters on the last night (I think).

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There was a pay phone in St. Maarten! Haven't seen one of these in a long time,

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Sunday morning was disembarkation. They started around 7:30 for self disembark, and that went on for an hour. We were the last group off the ship, and we didn't get off until 10:30. When you get off and go to find your luggage..make sure you get in the right (not left) line for customs. When we were going through customs, we noticed the left line was moving really slow, because there was only one person checking, where as the right line had two checkers, so this line went double the speed as the left line. Not sure if it is always this way, but make sure you check before you pick a line.

 

When we got off, we decided to lug our luggage around OSJ. We knew we could drop it off for a few dollars, but we opted to keep it with us, because we weren't spending that much time in OSJ before we went to the airport hotel. We would rather bring it up hill with us, rather than dropping it off, walking up hill, doing what we wanted to do, then coming back to get the luggage. After spending a couple of hours in OSJ, and stopping at La Bombonera for some danishes, we flagged down a taxi. They're everywhere in OSJ. We had reservations at the Best Western, airport hotel, in San Juan. I read a few negative reviews of this hotel, but I was satisfied. The room was indeed small, but there was room to walk around. There is no pool, but there are two hot tubs. There's continental breakfast, and there's a restaurant at the hotel. And the best part, we didn't have to get a taxi to get to the airport the next morning. The hotel is connected to the airport, so it was a super easy, quick walk. We were worried we would hear airplanes all night, but we actually didn't hear any.

 

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Pictures of the room at the airport hotel. We had a larger TV at the hostel then we had in this room!

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The restaurant, BJ's Bistro, had some beautiful artwork:

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The menu wasn't extensive, pretty much only had sushi and sandwiches. But it was enough for us.

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Pictures of clouds from the airplane!

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If you've never been to the Detroit airport, you're missin out.

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The first picture is a pic of the tram that brings you from end to end of terminal A. And the second picture is the tunnel that separates terminal A from terminals B & C. It plays music and changes colors. I thought it was so neat. I've read that there's another airport thats like this too. I've never saw anything like it, so I had to capture pictures.

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So that's about it for pictures.

 

Overall the cruise was AWESOME. As you have probably already picked up, I'm not a picky person..not easily irritated, except when there aren't any chairs available on the lido deck!

 

The food was very good. Definitely not spectacular, but it was pretty dang good. The staff were outstanding. Everyone was friendly (even the maintenance people). The other passengers were very nice, I had read some negative reviews of the other passengers, but I didn't notice any negativity. There were young people just having fun, but I didn't let it make me judge all Puerto Ricans as being young and rowdy. There are a high number of Puerto Ricans on this ship, since the ship leaves from their home. Didn't bother me one bit. The announcements were made in English and Spanish to accommodate. The ports were AMAZING. All were so beautiful. There were plenty of activities available. We were busy every evening. The shows were pretty good.

 

A few complaints: the prices of the photos! The amount of crowds everywhere around meal time. Chair hogs.

 

All in all, I don't really have many complaints. Sorry this review is pretty choppy..Didn't realize it was going to take so long. If you have any questions or want scans of the capers/fun times, let me know.

 

If you're scheduled to go on this ship, HAVE FUN! I'm jealous :p

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Love the review! Thanks! This cruise is on top of our list to do. My DH hates sea days and this port intensive itin is very appealing to us as well as the ports themselves being so awesome. I just worry about the San Juan airport and cruise terminal being chaotic and hard to navigate...did you find that? I also worry that the Victory is a big ship with a huge number of passengers. Was there lines for the buffet? Did you get seated in the MDR relatively quickly? Could you get a seat for the shows and comedians? Were there lines to get back on the ship at the ports? Thanks again and wedding congrats!

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