The last ever Carnival Victory review, with photos.

CoasterGuy · August 4, 2020

CoasterGuy · August 4, 2020

CoasterGuy · August 4, 2020

Toy Story 4 on the dive in movies. Forkie likes the trash!

nybumpkin · August 5, 2020

I'm enjoying your review. Victory was our first cruise in 2004 and we sailed on her three additional times. We were supposed to be on Radiance next week, also going to HMC, but of course that's not happening. Nice to think of what might have been....

john91498 · August 5, 2020

14 minutes ago, nybumpkin said:

I'm enjoying your review. Victory was our first cruise in 2004 and we sailed on her three additional times. We were supposed to be on Radiance next week, also going to HMC, but of course that's not happening. Nice to think of what might have been....

uh, I don't think Radiance is out of dry dock.

nybumpkin · August 5, 2020

4 minutes ago, john91498 said:

uh, I don't think Radiance is out of dry dock.

Her AIS signal still says Carnival Victory at the shipyard in Cadiz.

oakridger · August 5, 2020

I'm really enjoying your review and pictures!! I just love Half Moon Cay.....ahhhhhhhh.......I'm supposed to be there next April on Holland America Line Nieuw Amsterdam. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for posting CoasterGuy!

Frank12 · August 5, 2020

Great idea! Thanks for the delayed review. We've sailed Victory 3 times.

Can't wait to cruise again.

sprint180 · August 5, 2020

Perfect timing, i'm really missing cruising.

CoasterGuy · August 5, 2020

1 hour ago, nybumpkin said:

I'm enjoying your review. Victory was our first cruise in 2004 and we sailed on her three additional times. We were supposed to be on Radiance next week, also going to HMC, but of course that's not happening. Nice to think of what might have been....

Yeah. At this point I just hope the refurbishment into radiance is completed.

45 minutes ago, Frank12 said:

Great idea! Thanks for the delayed review. We've sailed Victory 3 times.

Can't wait to cruise again.

You're quite welcome.

1 hour ago, oakridger said:

I'm really enjoying your review and pictures!! I just love Half Moon Cay.....ahhhhhhhh.......I'm supposed to be there next April on Holland America Line Nieuw Amsterdam. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for posting CoasterGuy!

I'm also supposed to be going back to HMC in April. Nicky and I are booked on the Carnival Magic. Covid 19 permitting of course 🙁.

14 minutes ago, sprint180 said:

Perfect timing, i'm really missing cruising.

I think we all are.

Glad you all are enjoying the review.

john91498 · August 5, 2020

Just read that the refurb has been pushed back to the end of November on the Radiance.

CoasterGuy · August 5, 2020

Day #4: Nassau and farewell.

I’ll take this moment to mention on my previous two carnival cruises, I never tried the breakfast omelettes. This time around I had them a couple times and they were so good. And as I’ve heard others say if you want good eggs for breakfast you have to get an omelette. The scrambled eggs you get at the regular breakfast line are runny and not very good.

At around 12 noon we were ready to get off the ship for our day in Nassau. I’d heard all the things to beware of: don’t let anyone touch you, just say no, don’t touch anything unless you intend to buy, don’t take pictures (or let someone else take your picture) unless you know it’s someone from the ship, and so on. I was hesitant about going to the straw market but Nicky wanted to go. She’s a sucker for cheap souvenirs. Like Half Moon Cay we had no booked excursion planned but I researched the port ahead of time and had some ideas for a fun self-guided visit.

One problem, as I went to get our money and passports out of the safe, the pin code we used all cruise did not work. Nicky was just in the safe ten minutes ago. Apparently she messed up the pin code and locked us out!! 🤦‍♂️ I had to call guest services and we waited a bit for someone from the maintenance staff to come to the room and unlock the safe. We still had plenty of time left and what we wanted to do on the island would not take all day so no worries. While waiting for the maintenance staff we watched one of the Carnival TV channels show us fun things to do in St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

Once the safe situation was corrected we made our way down. First stop in Nassau, straw market. Nicky bought some cheap Bahamas themed goods including a shirt. The straw market wasn’t terrible. Each vendor would talk at you while walking by but I didn’t find them terribly pushy. None of them tried to touch us and I appreciated that. Our next stop was the Pirates of Nassau museum. This is half themed attraction, half museum, and I’d recommend just about anyone visiting Nassau check this out once. Lots of neat items, exhibits, and historical info. Fun fact: “walking the plank” was not a common tactic used by pirates when executing someone, but is more a thing made up by stories and later used for TV and movies. There are very few known instances of that happening in real life.

Following our pirate education, we walked down to the graycliff hotel, with two shops I wanted to visit, a chocolate and cigar shop. I bought two cigars, one cheap tobacco and one chocolate (ha). I’m not much of a smoker but will smoke a stogie once in a blue moon. We were getting hungry and planned to eat at Senor Frogs. I visited the Senor Frogs in San Juan, Nicky had never been to one.

I’ve heard people from Europe who visited America and talk about how anytime you enter a store or restaurant in the US, there’s always someone who walks up and immediately asks “Hi, can I help you?” with a smile on their face. They find this strange. Well, in America they at least wait until you are inside the dang store first. When walking to senor frogs, a stranger approached who I knew was going to either sell us something, or tell us to visit some place. We didn’t need anything so when he asked “Sir may I have a moment of your time?”, I simply said “No thanks.” and kept on walking. He huffed and said “Well, you don’t like black people huh!!”. Umm no, I didn’t say that. He followed us from a distance for a few moments and looked at his friends, pointing at me saying “this guy doesn’t like black people!”. I refused to turn around and waste even one more breath.

We survived the walk to Senor Frogs despite the allegations. I had wings and some sort of green mixed drink. Nicky had slider burgers. We liked our food, and I liked the view of the water with our ship and another ship docked. On the way back to the ship we stopped at a small grocery store to get some more Coke and a couple other things for the room. I paid with cash (USD) and when making change the cashier gave me a bamahian dime, which I kept as a souvenir. Walking back to the ship, someone tried the bracelet scam on me. Nope, shoo away, not interested, keep walking.

I’m glad we visited Nassau and checked it off the list. We also liked the Pirates Museum and Nicky of course liked the straw market. However I don’t think I’ll be visiting again. There just isn’t anything else that holds my interest. Atlantis looks nice but is far too expensive for the measly six or so hours you could spend there while on a Carnival cruise. And I’d rather do an all inclusive resort that includes food over Atlantis. Also not a fan of the overall vibe of the port.

Back on the ship I stopped by the pixels gallery. Browsing their merchandise for sale I saw a photobook that looked nice and holds 200 4x6 prints. With an insert stating “Ten free 4x6 prints with purchase”. Well, as it turns out these “free prints” are actually random pics of the ship, NOT your pixels photos. And they also gave me 5x7 prints, and when I asked for 4x6 because they fit the book, the assistant manager looked at me like I was crazy. But I guess I shouldn’t complain about the pics being bigger than 4x6 and I simply gave them to Nicky.

Let’s be real. Ten 4x6 prints, I can buy that for $2 at walmart or CVS. So that part doesn’t really bother me. What rubbed me the wrong way a bit is how it’s intentionally misleading. If I’m in a shop that sells custom photo prints, and I see a thing that states “ten free prints with purchase”, it’s only human for me to assume that includes the photos you’ve had taken of you that the shop sells. Not crying about it, but I didn’t like how it’s deliberately misleading. Maybe this is one of those classic “gotchas” that all the veteran carnival cruisers know about and some of the blue cards fall for. Future cruises I know to leave nothing open to interpretation regarding special offers. Assume nothing, question everything. I don’t regret buying the book though.

Our last meal was in the main dining room. Nicky and I had no complaints about the dining room all cruise, we received good service and decent to good food every meal. For appetizer we had ox tounge. I had it on a previous cruise. Nicky tried it and we both like it. Nicky had the southern chicken for her main course. This girl loves chicken and seems to get it at every restaurant we go to. Don’t remember what I had. I should seriously take pictures of all our meals.

For evening entertainment we again listened to the casino band, Music Boardwalk. Several people were dancing near the bar. Nicky isn’t much of a dancer but I got her on the floor to slow dance with me once or twice. Tonight I did a better job babysitting my drink. One more R rated comedy show. This time the comedian was Percy Crews 2. He was very good but I think we liked Jaylyn a little better. We ended the night with a final relaxing dip in the aft hot tubs, and drinks from the aft bar. We may have had pizza as well.

As the evening goes on I’m wondering if it’s possible to have a bad day on a cruise. Even if things aren’t always perfect I’ve enjoyed every single day I’ve been at sea so far. And Nicky has more than caught the cruising fever.