C. Victory Sept. 16 '12 Review with pics

[Karpkg]

At the bottom of the last pic to the right you can see the ship's whale tale.

 

Can you imagine what the soldiers back then would think if they saw their forts today? They'd be horrified by the deterioration. Yet we pay money to see them weather beaten! We look at this and just marvel at the magnificence and just ponder on how nature made these forts look....gorgeous.

 

 

 

 

I was leaning over the edge of the cliff to take pics of this

 

 

and this

 

 

and saw HIM close by me!

 

 

 

[Karpkg]

Alrighty, he's part of my fort pic now.

 

 

 

 

okay, till sometime tomorrow, gotta rest up for going into work tonite! :p

[jmecme]

Enjoying your review! We leave for San Juan on the 12th, staying 2 days before the cruise also. Subscribing to your review, can't wait to read more! Only thing we have booked is snorkeling with the turtles in Barbados. I have ideas for the other islands, but, we are just going to see what we can get in to! Love reading all the things other cruisers get in to! Keep it coming! Julie

[Chelleum]

I'm really enjoying your review and pics. Your pics brought back memories of my land vacation to San Juan 2 yrs ago. I stayed at Intercontinental Isla Verde. I loved that hotel and planning on going back next yr. When we booked our 2nd cruise leaving from San Juan.

 

I wanted to do the El Yunque Rainforest tour, but my BF had a torn meniscus at the time and he couldn't do too much walking without being in pain. Look forward to reading the rest of your review.

[Loving My Life]

I love your review and I can't wait to see what you did in each port. We have 97 days until we leave for this same cruise--yay, double digits!! :D

[navybaby1113]

Loving your review. San Juan is one of our stops on our next cruise and I'm so excited to see the forts.

[5waldos]

We leave next Saturday so this is a wonderful primer for us. The pictures are lovely and the descriptions great. Can't wait to see you finally onboard!

[beachbride91011]

Great review! I can't wait for the rest.

 

 

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[MrFunInTheSun]

Great review and pictures. Thank you for sharing your cruise adventures with us.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Please excuse typographical errors.

[Dirkgun]

Great review so far.... my favorite kind... lots of pictures. You have some great shots. Thanks for showing the Bio bay pictures. We are doing that excursion in December on our pre cruise visit for the Victory and are very excited to do it. Please keep tthe review coming..... even though i have done this cruise and have my own review I still like to read about it and see everyone elses points of view. Love it. thanks again.:D

[deladane]

Thanks so much for posting this amazing review! I just booked this itinerary last night for the Dec. 9 sailing, and reading your review is making me even more excited :) I also plan to do the kayaking/rainforest tourist on the Saturday before the cruise leaves, so it was great to see that you had such a memorable experience. Can't wait to read how the rest of your week went :)

[darcien007]

Looking forward to reading the rest. We met you at the meet and beat!! We had a wonderful cruise. We never did get back out to see Puerto Rico it was so hot that day we just stayed on the ship.

Your pictures are great.

[Herfnerd]

Looking forward to reading the rest. We met you at the meet and beat!! We had a wonderful cruise. We never did get back out to see Puerto Rico it was so hot that day we just stayed on the ship.

Your pictures are great.

 

LOL - Tamie and I did the same thing! Our flight into SJU got in a little after one and we were on the ship and in our room by 2:30 but it was so hot and we were so tired from our wedding, we just stayed on the ship and explored it.

 

Love the review so far, kar - pyro told us about the biobay excursion on the Cosol tour and it sounded cool. Nice to see pix of it!

[Karpkg]

A few more than I'll move along.

 

 

 

 

 

When I was in Charleston, I took pics of gardens and courtyards. When in Savannah, the ironwork. In Old San Juan, I regret this, but I should have taken pictures of doors. I found posters of just pics of Old San Juan doors while at the fort.

 

 

We started down the hill toward the ship. Along the way I stuck the camera between the bars of an open door which apparently opened onto a courtyard. I had my flash on. Hopefully I didn't spook/startle the occupants inside.

 

[Karpkg]

I've heard a lot of this place and was sad it closed down. I heard there were some really good tasting pastries, specifically mallorcas.

 

 

So, we found this and decided to have dinner here. Look straight down the plaza, it's called Cafeteria Mallorca.

 

 

 

Sis had the Mofongo again, but she says the Don Jose' restaurant had a better one.

 

 

Billy had the ham and cheese mallorca. He said it was good, but it reminded me of a ham and cheese croissant.

 

 

I had a chicken paella. It was different from what I'm used to, Mexican Paella but it was still delicious.

 

[darcien007]

You are making me hungry!! I wish I would have tried more things while in Puerto Rico. I would do this cruise again. My daughters not so much. While they loved the iterary the lack of singles on the ship was disappointing.

[Herfnerd]

I wanted to go to Cafe Mallorca but the lack of time made it tough - we did wind up at Punto de Vista and Barrachina's - of course, we had to have a "happy" pina colada at the latter!

 

Love the review so far!

[Dirkgun]

I had heard that "La Bombanera" had closed but that the same owners were at the "cafeteria Mallorca" I really wanted to try the Mallorcas. Hopefully we get to this time. Still lovin the review keep up the good work. :D

[Karpkg]

Thanks guys!

 

@Darcien007- I thought that Random Guy at the Meet and Beat was kinda cute! He was attempting conversation with one of your daughters. But I agree, I think at this off season time there were more Puerto Ricans and established couples on this trip. Of course the kids were few and far between with a majority of them under the age of 5.

 

@Dirkgun- I didn't know the owners at Mallorca may be the same ones at La Bombonera. When we came in at dinnertime they were putting the pastries away that were on the bakery display front window so I couldn't get a pic of those. I would have wanted to pick a couple up but we were running late and I was getting anxious to get back to the ship.

 

Well, I thought the pic of the mini courtyard where I stuck my camera between the bars of a person's residence guard door had picked up, let me try again:

 

 

So it's sunset we decide to head to the CVS that's across the street from the ship. If your back is to the ship it's located off to the left past Senor Frogs.

 

We picked up a 24 pack bottled water, 8 pack of Coke Zero, trail mix snacks and an 8 pack of regular Coke-last one on the shelf. Sis picked up a large spray of sunscreen lotion and a gallon sized bottled water and we were good to go.

 

CVS was packed. Apparently this is a Sunday night routine of ship tourists raiding CVS for bottled drinks. So if you're wanting drinks you may want to do this earlier than we did. We were there about 7:00 PM.

 

Pic of Carnival before we start boarding the ship. We didn't have any alcohol with us so we had no problems.

 

 

Pics of our balcony room 6408.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Room was fine, more spacious than the room we had on the C. Fascination. Sis had an interior room on deck 1 but she got it 1402; extremely close to the elevator so it was almost like she was just around the corner. We traded Billy from her room to ours and my daughter to my sis. Boy, that cut the shenanigans the kids would do in the room down to nil! No jumping off the bunk bed down to ours, the nitpicking, bickering...nice!

[Karpkg]

We went back on top and I took some night pics.

Pic looking at Old Sheraton from the ship. Senor Frogs next to it on the left. CVS to the left of that.

 

 

My night pics are not the best. If you check out Alpmac he has fantastic night pics of the Victory. Another reason I want a new camera.

 

 

 

The El Morro fort as we're sailing by.

 

 

 

Our first towel animal of the night!

 

[Karpkg]

I don't remember what we did that night. :rolleyes:

 

I know I was deadbeat tired. The adrenaline rush I woke up that morning anticipating getting on the ship that day, walking around in Old San Juan in extreme heat and humidity, herding a group of cats, er, 6 w/kids who had different views on what to see and where to go...took a toll. I think I hit the bed early and maybe the guys went around the ship, had a couple drinks then came back, I dunno. I was ...out.

 

Day One- St. Thomas

 

Good morning!

 

 

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a woman healthy, wealthy and wise!

 

In either case, early rising allows me to grab these shots off our balcony.

 

 

 

 

[3dashers]

Great review. We are looking at this cruise for feb break.. How many kids do you think were board? Tia

[5waldos]

Oh my- those last pictures of the ship at night- just a few more days. I really appreciate this review- it will help get me through the week. And make the 5am trip out to the airport on Saturday liveable.

[Karpkg]

Great review. We are looking at this cruise for feb break.. How many kids do you think were board? Tia

 

When we boarded I found out we were at 3500 passengers. But I probably saw 1% or even less for this trip. The most telling would be Camp Carnival on Sea Day. DS is in the 6-8 yr group, my DD is in the 9-11. The group was so small they were grouped together a lot, and probably around 10 that age group? Just guessing. I don't know how many were in the older group. I did see around 5-10 kids with their parents outside of Camp Carnival at both front and back pools.

 

Now you're going in Feb where there's more breaks. You may have more kids. In February we have Memorial Week off. In Disney World, that week is very packed. For our week in September when we would go to Disney, it was very low kid population. I use Disney as a reference when it comes to kids on breaks or on cruises.

[soccersharon]

Really enjoying your review. Would love to do this itinerary someday!