8 days on the Triumph (review)

[balcony bound]

Every cruise is a good cruise! This one started a little different for us, since we chose to drive to Miami instead of sailing out of our "home" port - Canaveral. I had paid attention to what others on this board had said about the Port of Miami and was prepared. However, most of the info I had read didn't play out. We had absolutely no trouble at the Port, and found it very easy. We took a picture of where we parked, in case we forgot :)

 

 

We parked in a garage just catty-corner to the ship, and by the way - did not have to pay in advance. Or in cash, for that matter. Yes, it is $20 a day to park.

 

There were four of us, my DH, SIL and BIL. We cruised together last year on the Glory and had a blast. Embarkation was effortless. We had a short wait after arriving in the terminal, then boarded (Zone 2). We made our way to Lido, but there were no bars open on the Lido so we made our way back to the Lobby Bar (nope, no one offered DOD on Lido, either) perhaps we were too early?

 

However, DH got happy at the Lobby bar! I made a trip to the purser's desk to have the balcony opened between our cabins. However, upon visiting our cabins we found that we did not have standard dividers - the divider between us was steel, and only opened enough to walk through sideways. Okay, I was a tad dissapointed at the time, but it worked out fine - we each had our privacy, but could still go between the rooms on the balcony. I didn't specifically take a picture of that opening, but you can see it here.

 

 

We had a great first day on board touring the spa and exploring the rest of the ship. Our Room Steward introduced himself early on, and he was fantastic the entire trip (Thanks for looking out after me Clynton!). Dinner was great, and we met our server, Gede. What a sweetheart! Our next day at sea was restful (and needed).

 

You could find a deck chair any time you wanted the entire cruise (and plenty of them) just about any location. We only encountered a handful of children on the whole cruise (and none in the hot tub!) and they were well-behaved and fun to talk to. The weather was perfect! Most mornings at port there was a light rain... but it was gone by the time we debarked for the day.

 

When we arrived in San Juan two days later, I was pleasantly surprised. I had read on these boards that San Juan was pretty much a dissapointment, but we had a GREAT time! We got in late afternoon, and the first thing we did was walk up to the fort - which was closing by the time we got there. It was beautiful, and even though we didn't get to tour it, it was wonderful to view. I laughed a lot on the walk up to the Fort - traffic was jam-packed, horns honking all over. Then, they started honking at DH who was carrying my very colorful bag -- and I could hear the girls calling to him - "hey honey, you with the purse" and some whistles... DH has a great sense of humor, and he got a kick out of the whole thing.

 

 

On our way back down the "hill" we found a terrific outdoor cafe. We spent a memorable evening there having home-made sangria and paella, along with some local favorites our waitress suggested. It was an evening none of us will ever forget - it was just perfect!

 

The view going back to the Triumph that evening was wonderful, too!

 

 

Tomorrow, I'll take you with us to St. Thomas, Antigua and Tortola - spectacular, all of them.

 

A few comments about the first few days. Yes, we smelled the sewer smell the first day going to muster drill - it was pretty awful. We did not smell it again the entire cruise. I posted earlier about our fuel credit not appearing, but the issue was resolved in a few days by giving my paperwork to the Purser to send ...somewhere...

 

The crew on this sailing was fantastic and friendly. Matt, the CD was friendly and approachable. The food - hit and miss for us. Some of it very good - some pretty awful. The first night we ordered the creme brule - and it wasn't cooked at all- runny egg mixture under a hard shell of sugar - pretty gross, actually. But other things were spectacular - the shrimp was wonderful, the beef tender and cooked as ordered. I did find chocolate melting cake on the buffet one night that we skipped dinner, that was a nice surprise!

 

More later!

[poptart]

I've enjoyed your review so far and am looking forward to the rest. Love the pictures.

[balcony bound]

Thanks, Poptart, I'll get it finished by the morning:)

[BettyPC]

Great review - thanks for sharing! Looking forward to the rest of our cruise;)

[Carolinamamasita]

will definately be staying posted for the ports

planning on doing them in 2009

Thanks

[balcony bound]

Carolina, I'll finish in the morning with some more pictures, but if you are going to the same ports, there is one excursion we did that was a "standout unforgettable" in Tortola.

 

If you are at all interested in snorkeling, we had a fabulous trip "cave snorkeling" in the Norman Islands - it was like swimming though the Discovery Channel. I've never seen such brilliant sea life - the colors were undescribable. We saw huge schools of brilliant blue fish, parrot fish, gorgeous coral - brilliant lavendars, purples, reds; gorgeous spiney urchins -- you name it, we experienced it. We've snorkeled a lot - never like this. We booked this excursion though Carnival. I would make a separate trip to Tortola just to do this. And, very well might do that soon:D

 

My only regret - we didn't bring an underwater camera. We talked about it (have used them before) but we had no expectations of this being such a fabulous trip.

 

My bad. It won't happen again!

[crystalblue0610]

Wasn't it a fabulous 8 days?;)

[Hurricane Girl]

Hey, we were on there with you and had a GREAT time!!!! We didn't want to leave!!! I am also planning on doing a review (hopefully by tomorrow) still trying to recover from the trip. :D

[neverpar]

What balcony cabins did you have?

[PINEVIEW01]

thanks for the review. So, the Triumph is doing the 6/8 day E/W now?

[KroozFoolz]

thanks for the review. So, the Triumph is doing the 6/8 day E/W now?

No, this was a "special" sailing to transition from Saturday departures to Sunday's.

http://www.porttime.com/cruise_itinerary.cfm?itinid=9144

[balcony bound]

Continuing on here

 

Our day at sea before we got to San Juan, we took advantage of the spa for massages/treatments. I will say that we experienced the hardest "sell" ever for products after our treatments. I think this will keep me from visiting the spa on future sailings, it pretty much ruins that relaxation that you are paying for. I’ve had wonderful experiences in the spa on other trips, but this pretty much soured me for a while.

 

On to St. Thomas! I had never been to St. Thomas before, and will surely go again. There was a gorgeous rainbow right in front of us that morning at the dock, and we took it as a sign for a gorgeous day. The snorkeling excursion we had booked through Carnival was cancelled and I didn’t bother booking another one.

 

Instead, we decided to take a cab to Coki Beach. (Cab fare was $9/each one way - more than I had read on the boards.) We got to the beach early and picked a nice spot, rented some chairs ($5) and an umbrella. The water was PERFECT and we really enjoyed relaxing in the water. I had taken some cheerios from the breakfast buffet, and we enjoyed feeding the gorgeous parrot fish. They followed us around looking for more! I can’t wait to visit this beach again.

 

 

Our taxi ride back to town took a while, traffic was pretty bad. While sitting in traffic, another family was headed the wrong way (walking) and asked our driver for directions. He told them they were headed in the wrong direction, so they asked if he could give them a ride to their destination - so they joined us. They had just come in on the Glory and we had a great time talking with them. DH was wearing his Auburn cap – and that got quite a debate going.

 

Once in town, we did some shopping (not too much) and we felt that the residents were friendly and welcoming. I’ll look forward to spending more time in this port in the future as there were other places I really wanted to visit that day. We had decided early on to make this more of a "relaxing" cruise, so we tried not to cram too many things into each day.

 

Antigua was our next port. I have to tell you, we had a blast on our beach day at SandRaven. What made this day was another visitor, Michael. He was from England, visiting his "mate" who owned the bar at the beach. This gentleman was quite a character, and he had us laughing all afternoon. He brought us drinks, got us involved with the local management, and generally left us with an experience that was more than just visiting the beach (which was gorgeous, by the way). I know if we ever visited there again, it wouldn’t be the same without Michael. Many thanks to him for his company and high spirits! Not to mention his perspective on life. He was a refreshing soul.

 

 

Tortola. This port left me feeling two ways. Breathless from the extraordinary snorkeling experience at the Norman Islands, which I mentioned above. As I said, this adventure was just like swimming through the Discovery channel, and I can’t wait to snorkel there again.

 

 

The other way – hmm. Let’s just call it very unwelcome. We felt that the locals were not happy to have us at all. We visited the temporary market set up (presumably for ship passengers) by the local sales people. Watch out if you touch anything, and don’t look too long! I did not purchase a thing at that market (I had intended to). I am pretty respectful, don’t touch, always please and thank you, mindful that I am a visitor. I’m not sure how to bring across the attitude we felt toward us, but it was not hospitable in the least.

 

We left wondering why they had set up all this shopping when it felt clear we were intruding. Several times I’ve gone back over this in my mind to see if it was something we imagined or had done wrong, but truly, there wasn’t. I guess another visit is in order to set my mind at ease:)

 

 

We left Tortola and had another relaxing day at sea. As I said earlier, deck chairs were easily available anywhere and everywhere. The only time we felt crowded were the lunch buffets - we tried to eat on off hours or get room service for lunch. We never did visit the dining room for lunch (never considered it at the right times) but we did visit the dining room for breakfast several days. Breakfast service in the dining room was always outstanding. The eggs benedict, hashbrowns, and belgium waffles were wonderful.

 

We arrived in Nassau the next afternoon. We weren’t going to be in port long enough to visit Atlantis (for us) or one of the beaches that we like, so we had planned some shopping and walk over to the Hilton to use their beach facilities. It was a good thing we didn’t book anything, because while we were in port at 1:00, it was close to 2:00 before we were off the ship. The only disappointment for me in Nassau was that the lady I like to buy soap from was sick, and her shop was not open. But, the store next to hers had a bit of her merchandise (not exactly what I was wanting, but I purchased some anyway).

 

The Hilton, by the way, has raised the price to $20 to use their facilities. That includes the beach, chairs, umbrellas, towels, pool, floats, etc. I had read on here that it was $15 - that could have been incorrect and the price hasn’t risen, I didn’t inquire. But they were very happy to have us visit! While I would have liked to go to a beach further from the port, the water was wonderful and we had a good time there for a few hours. We also "crashed" a wedding in progress that day, it was beautiful. I took some photos – DH told me we could make a new wedding crashers movie :eek:

 

 

I see many posts on this board that folks don’t like Nassau. I’ve not figured that out, we always have a wonderful time in Nassau, there is so much to do. I am imagining some people don’t see past the port activities? That is a shame. We still haven’t been able to see/visit all that we want to, but we will be there for two days in December and will take advantage of that time to spend a day at Atlantis.

 

It was sad to be on our way home that evening. We re-boarded from Nassau too late to make our dinner time, but were happy we had taken care of extra tips for our dining staff the evening before. The buffet that night wasn’t exactly wonderful, but it got us fed. Oh, well some pizza and burgers helped too!

 

We packed that night and put everything out. We don’t care much for self-debarkation (we pack too much). Debarkation went pretty smoothly in my experience. We were off the ship much earlier than we expected, and back in our car and on the road by 9 a.m.

 

We did see something very disturbing though. As we walked down our hall (Veranda Deck) forward to the Rome Lounge for our debarkation, we passed a stateroom with the door open — the room had been totally trashed. I’ve never seen such destruction in my life. Things were pulled off the wall, you couldn’t see the floor, everything was broken and torn. It was really disgusting - none of us could believe what we were seeing. There was another thread yesterday about a lady leaving the ship in handcuffs – my comment on that was that the destruction we saw could have surely resulted in someone being arrested.

 

We had heard a whole lot of noise the night before down the hall - the only night we heard anything at all. I didn’t pay much attention to it - not enough to determine if it was partying or something else. I tend to sit on the balcony, and not in my room.

 

All in all, our cruise was wonderful and we hated to return home. We would have hated it worse had we known what was in store for us (and the reason it took me a while to post this!). While we were gone, the back of our house flooded. We spent the whole first night back with our steam cleaner pulling up water... and have been removing carpet since. Not sure if we are going to have replace the drywall. Florida, you know - got to watch for mold. In addition to that, our dog had to have emergency surgery the day after we returned. So... from relaxation to life in a nanosecond!

 

We had decided to cruise twice a year, and I do have others booked (although now, DH says travel is out of the question if this is what we are going to come home to — I tell him, naw, that stuff would have happened if we had been home, also).

 

The Triumph gave us wonderful memories! I hope those of you booked on her in the future have as wonderful a time as we did.

[phinfan63]

Did you snorkel at Sandhaven? It sounds like a wonderful beach to spend the day but DH likes to snorkel too.

[balcony bound]

No we did not snorkel, but snorkeling was certainly available! The water was great. Take along some of those cheerios from breakfast : )

[phinfan63]

Thanks! Dh will have lots more fun if he can at least try to snorkel :) The rest of us will be happy with a beach and a good bar .

[balcony bound]

Neverpar,

 

we had side-by-side balcony cabins, 8372 and 8376. As I mentioned, steel partition between them with a small narrow opening, not the usual partitions. It turned out just fine:cool:

[balcony bound]

One thing I forgot to mention - if going to Tortola, don't light up a cigarette in port - it's a $250 fine. And they are serious about it:eek:

[Susie51]

Thanks for the great review. Next time I cruise to Tortola, I'm going to do the snorkel trip you described. Hope your dry wall will be all right.

[OceanGdss]

Thanks for the awesome review! DF and I just got back from the same Triumph sailing! We were on the other side of the ship, nearly across from you on Deck 8 :) (odd side-8409) Everything you mentioned is dead on..it was a great sailing! And we agree about Antigua...it was a strange feeling in port. We walked off the ship for about 10 minutes, got to the market..got that wierd vibe and just turned around and spent the day by the pool on the Lido. :)

 

Great cruise!!

[balcony bound]

Ocean! I'm sure we passed on the stairs up to the lido! It was a great cruise, that's for sure.

 

Thank you for validating my feelings about the locals in Tortola. It was weird. I'm grateful we did that snorkel trip first thing in the morning (7:30, and the water was perfect at 82 degrees) before realizing any weirdness.

 

I'll visit again, but I'll stick to the water activities.

[ccamp]

beautiful review, we leave in 6 days on the Miracle and I can't wait. We are going to Tortola also and I would like to do the cave snorkeling tour but I can't find in on the carnival shore excursions. Do you know what they called it exactly? Would like to try that excursion its sounds great!

 

I hope your dog is okay too

[balcony bound]

ccamp,

 

here it is -

Tortola Snorkeling Tour Here is your opportunity to snorkel in the waters surrounding the uninhabited and legendary Norman Island.

 

 

Full Details

 

You will love it. I belive it was $60/pp.

 

Please let me know when you get back, I would love to hear how much you enjoyed it!

[ccamp]

thank you so much I am going to book it now. My husband loves to see the fish and our last few snorkeling tours haven't had much to look at.

Was it Tortola or Antigua you felt uncomfortable?

[OceanGdss]

balcony~~

I'm sure we DID pass! lol I was always up and down the stairs between the 9th & 5th decks. (gotta go to those shopping talks for free stuff! lol)

 

I read your review wrong for some reason. We felt great in Tortola. We did a kayaking/snorkelling excursion over to one of the islands and then came back and had lunch in town at Captain's Table (awesome little restaurant!). We hit two shops in town, but none at the little tent-market. It just seemed wierd there. We just walked past it.

 

Antigua is where we felt extremely uncomfortable. It was very dirty and the locals were very unwelcoming. Thats where we just turned around and got back on the ship.

 

Other than that all of the ports were amazing!! St. Thomas & Tortola were our favorites. :) We're already planning a back-to-back for next summer!!

[balcony bound]

ccamp, it was the locals at the market set up in Tortola where we felt sort of unwelcome.

 

Our snorkel excursion there was fine!