Triumph June 15-20 Progeso/Cozumel Review - FTTF Worth Every Penny!!!

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Galveston - Pleasure Pier - so much fun!!

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[nyctravel]

I really enjoyed reading your review. I did this same itinerary on the Magic this past February. I love Progresso! Next time I will definitely do FTTF!

[nursemish]

Progreso – Wednesday, June 17

We docked on the 4.5 mile long pier – it was a bit strange not to be able to see the shore and town when getting off of the ship. We discovered we were the only ship in port today – that was good news – much less crowded!!! We had booked the Dzibilchaltun Ruins & Cenote swim excursion through Carnival. As we exited the gangway and rounded the corner we immediately saw the familiar white signs with all of the excursions on them and located ours. We were given a bright orange sticker to wear and were directed to a shady area. We departed the pier a bit late (8:50 instead of 8:30) and headed to our air-conditioned Greyhound type bus for our 25 minute drive to Dzibilchaltun. They gave us each an ice cold bottle of water when we exited the bus. There were two guides for our group of about 30 so they split us up upon arrival. The ruins were fantastic! Amazing actually that these could be built without modern day equipment. We were allowed to climb to our hearts content and take pictures from atop the ruins. It was very warm but breezy and there were areas of shade all along the way that our tour guide gently guided us to while he told us some of the history and interesting facts of whichever monument we were looking at or climbing on. I would recommend bringing an extra bottle of water, wearing a hat and some sunscreen and you will do just fine. I am in medium shape and climbed the structures with no problems – just a bit winded by the time we reached the top. Then, as we were getting a bit sweaty and warm we were directed to the Cenote. It is about 75 X 150 feet across and half of it was covered in giant lily pads. People were pealing off down to their bathing suits and jumping right in. We followed suit to find cool, crystal clear, fresh water with little fishies along the bottom. My daughter brought her GoPro and captured some fantastic underwater sites. The bottom is covered in pebble like rocks, large giant stones and some slimy areas but we did not need water shoes. Maybe shin guards as I struck the large rocks a few times going too fast. One end was about 4 feet deep and descended to over 30 feet at the other end. We swam for about 40 minutes and then got out to dry off and headed to the museum at the park. After a quick look around (it is a small museum) we went back to the entrance and up to the second story to try the famous burritos we had been hearing about. It was the best Mexican food we had eaten in a very long time!!! Delicious – wish I had one right now!! Then we headed back to the bus. Victor, our tour guide, told stories all the way back – it was really nice! We had the option to be dropped in town by the beach to shop and swim or go back down the 4.5 mile pier and we elected to be dropped. After we tipped the driver and our guides we started out on our adventure in Progreso. With all of the bad publicity Progreso gets my expectations were kind of low. It turns out Progreso was our favorite city we had ever visited in Mexico. Very authentic and genuine culture. The people were just so happy you were there contributing to their economy. We went to the beach and got a massage (30 minutes for each of us for only $15.00 each – with the tip $40.00 for everything )– amazing massage with the sound of the ocean as your background music!!! Then we took a short swim on the beach (right next to the road to the cruise pier) to wash off all of the oils. We sat in the chairs by the massage tents to dry off and were approached by about 7 peddlers in 20 minutes. A gentle “No thank you” was all it took and they walked on. They were not over-pushy or rude in any way. Then we made our way to the open-air market (this is also where the free shuttles run constantly to take cruise ship folks back down the pier). We bought quite a few things there as they were giving good deals toward the end of the day. It was a lot of fun finding bargains and buying local products. When we were finished we jumped on a waiting bus and they took us back down the 4.5 mile pier – quite an amazing thing really!!! – shopped some more at the stores and vendors at that end of the pier and then boarded the ship. We were exhausted from a long day of fun so we showered and enjoyed the sail-away from our balcony. Dinner was amazing (Carnival trumps Royal Caribbean on food!) and we went out to watch the Dive In Movie (Hunger Games latest movie). They check out blankets from the towel hut (the wind gets a bit breezy and cool) and they serve free popcorn from one of the bars by the pool. It is not the best popcorn but gave us our fix – it was a super fun day!!!

Thanks for all the great info. I'm glad to hear you had a good experience. I was a little nervous!

[nursemish]

Just off the Triumph - June 15-20 5-day Cozumel/Progreso for a fun Mother/Daughter cruise. I hope the review will be helpful to those going on the Triumph! I’ve tried to include all of the things I learned during the short voyage.

Pre-Cruise – My 19 year old daughter and I wanted to steal away for a short trip together – we live in Oklahoma so Galveston was an easy port to access. We drove down on Sunday, June 14th and stayed at the Tremont Hotel – it was amazing and I highly recommend it to anyone cruising!!! The room was huge with a 20 foot ceiling and beautifully decorated! It’s location was perfect to explore the strand and then when we were ready to head to the seawall to ride the ferris wheel at Pleasure Pier (something on our “not to be missed list”) you can park at the hotel’s sister property – Hotel Galvez if you took advantage of the Valet Parking for $17.00 – this was $17.00 for your stay – not per night – a fantastic deal!!! Hotel Galvez is located right on the sea wall about 2 blocks away from Pleasure Pier. We pulled up, showed them our ticket for valet and explained we were staying at the Tremont and they pulled our car into valet for free and we were on our way. After exploring Pleasure Pier – riding the ferris wheel and eating at Bubba Gumps we headed back to Hotel Galvez to claim our car so we could get back to the Tremont and begin preparing for our cruise the next morning! When we arrived back at the Tremont we were pleasantly surprised to find that Jennifer, the hotel assistant manager, sent us a fruit/cheese platter for us to enjoy with a card that said, “Enjoy your mother/daughter cruise”! How much fun is that!!?! The beds were comfy and we slept really well!

The next morning we woke up, packed our stuff and headed down to valet to get our car. This is the best part about the Tremont….if you are cruising you get to park at the Hotel Galvez for free for the entire week you are on the cruise if you valet parked ($17.00!!) at the Tremont. So, for $17.00 we parked at Hotel Galvez in their covered, multi-tiered parking (Tropical Storm Bill hit while we were cruising so this perk was awesome!!!). The Hotel Galvez shuttle took us right to the cruise terminal entrance and we were off.

We arrived a the terminal at 10:15 a.m. Since we purchased Faster to the Fun (FTTF) we were told to place our luggage in the FTTF area so that it could be delivered to our room ASAP then we proceeded to the FTTF line (there was no one in line – we walked straight to an agent to check in) and received our Seapass cards. I already felt we had gotten our money's worth with FTTF - but there was so many more advantages to come!!! Then we were directed to the seating area. Around 11:15 they called those with special travel needs, diamond, platinum and then FTTF! We were on the ship, dropped our stuff in our room and eating at Guys by 11:30 a.m. It was a seamless embarkation process!!

After we ate lunch we explored the ship and found our bearings pretty easily! I love this class of ship for this reason – it took us only a few hours to learn where everything was located. Our luggage arrived around 2:00 to our room so we unpacked, enjoyed our balcony and relaxed until the muster drill at 4:00 p.m. This was a bit challenging – it was about 90 degrees and no wind on deck 4. We stood there for about 20 minutes waiting for everyone to arrive. Steve (our cruise director) did a speedy job of going through the drill and then we were released. He did do the “commercial” for the BINGO and other onboard activities, however, it was while we were walking back to our rooms. We were stinky and sweaty so we changed and got ready for our My Time Dining. You can go to MTD anytime between 5:45 and 9:00 p.m. We chose to go right at 5:45 each evening so we could still make it to any of the evening activities.

We were greeted at the MTD door (London Dining Room deck 3) by Jalena – she wrote our information down and we were escorted to an amazing table with a view of the ocean – we were so excited! Florence and her dining team took such good care of us that we requested to be placed in her zone each evening. (Skipping ahead here – but they actually gave us the same table each evening with that spectacular view!!!)

The boat was rocking away pretty good at this point due to Tropical Storm Bill but we did not feel queasy or sea sick yet. We ate a couple of green apples and felt good enough to go to the show.

We went to the “Welcome Aboard Show” (7:30 p.m. – only one showing for all guests) to meet Steve the Cruise Director and his staff. It was actually well done and we enjoyed our first show of the week. We explored the ship a bit more and then turned – it had been a long day. Our cabin steward Apollo had already turned down our beds and created our first towel animal (towel animals each night!!). Apollo did a fantastic job all week keeping our room made up with fresh towels and a full ice bucket! The boat was rocking quite a bit – the waves were huge – but we slept well (we asked for twin beds instead of a king) and woke up to our first sea day refreshed and ready to go and excited to see the sunshine and small waves – we had made it to the other side of the storm!!

 

Sea Day #1 – June 16

We woke up about 7:30 a.m., gathered all of our towels, flip flops and sunscreen and headed up to the deck to secure our chairs. The only chairs that were not stacked up for the storm were the ones on deck 9 by the pool and then the tiers behind the pool so we selected an out-of-the-way tier and placed our towels (beach towels from home) on two chairs. We went down in to eat breakfast (the buffet is on deck 9 as well). They served pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, oatmeal, cereal, danishes/bagels and other typical buffet items. We thought it was a great selection and delicious. They also had apple juice, orange juice, coffee and the best hot chocolate we had ever had on a boat!!! After breakfast we headed back out to our chairs to read and enjoy the sunshine. Around 9:00 a.m. most chairs were claimed (there were just so few with most stacked up on deck 10). By 10:30 there were families just roaming around looking for chairs. Some people went on up to deck 10 and laid their towels on the deck and sat down to wait for someone to come out and unhook all of the chairs and place them back out. By 11:00 they began to place chairs around deck 10 and most people found seats. By noon everyone seemed to have found chairs. We popped in for lunch (we sampled Guys and the buffet again) and then back out to our chairs to people watch and wait for the “Hairy Chest” contest. It became so crowded and noisy that we decided to give our chairs up and go and find a quieter place to spend the afternoon. We found exactly that place on deck 3 just outside of the guest services desk. One side is for smokers and the other is not so we snagged a couple of chairs on the non-smoking side and read, slept and watched the ocean (you could actually hear the waves from this spot) until about 4:00 – we went in to rest, shower and enjoy our balcony until dinner. We had gotten several gift cards for various holidays and birthdays and we needed to go to Guest Services to put them on our account When we arrive at Guest Services on our way to dinner we found a line about 10 people deep. We went up to the Diamond/Platinum/FTTF Guest Services line and were helped immediately. I will be honest that we so enjoyed getting to use our FTTF pass and save 20 minutes of waiting in that line. We were assisted and on our way in 3 minutes time! We felt that the FTTF was worth it again!!! Dinner was delicious with lobster and shrimp (formal night – some dressed up, some did not – no big deal!). We went to the magic show – it was okay. The magician begged for applause a lot! After the show we turned in to get ready for our day in Progeso!!

 

I will post more tomorrow – turning in for now.

Did you get to pick your seat for MTD dinner the first time or did you just get lucky to sit by the window?

[lovermonkey]

Any pictures of Guy's burgers? Would love to see what it looks like.

[mcroadman]

So great to read reviews! I have cruised on Disney and realize that Carnival does things differently.

 

So how does the dining work?

You can pick a time..( we picked late, so we do not have to be rushed in the evening. Room service for afternoon snacks worked for us on Disney.

But are you still waiting a lot. If we select late - might it be 9pm before food comes?

 

Do you have to make a reservation each night? I guess families might go to the other eateries..

 

Caan you select which dining room you want?

And ask for a specific section

or server?

 

If we are a party of two-- me and dd of 16, will they seat us with a big group or by ourselves?

Looking forward to June 11th out of NOLA.

Mary :D

[mzloolue]

So great to read reviews! I have cruised on Disney and realize that Carnival does things differently.

 

So how does the dining work?

You can pick a time..( we picked late, so we do not have to be rushed in the evening. Room service for afternoon snacks worked for us on Disney.

But are you still waiting a lot. If we select late - might it be 9pm before food comes?

 

Do you have to make a reservation each night? I guess families might go to the other eateries..

 

Caan you select which dining room you want?

And ask for a specific section

or server?

 

If we are a party of two-- me and dd of 16, will they seat us with a big group or by ourselves?

Looking forward to June 11th out of NOLA.

Mary :D

 

You ave asked for fixed time dining and will have an assigned table.

In the past we have been assigned seats at a large table and they seem to put together people of similar ages.

Your table number will be on your sign and sail card.

If you don't like your tablemates you can go talk to the maitre 'd and ask to be moved.

 

You will not need to make reservations.

 

And now a question!

Op, what did you order from the "new menu" that was notable, either good or not so good?

Edited February 3, 2016 by mzloolue

[cincicruisers]

Thanks for taking the time to post your review. Looks like you had a fun time.