Triumph 05/10/09 Review With LOTS of PICS!!!

[we3k9]

can't wait to sail her. :)

[travlgirl9]

Erin, what a great review, and your pictures are awesome! I'll be on the Triumph in June out of New York with my best friend to celebrate my 50th birthday. I also had a great time reliving my memories of San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Maarten by reading your review. We went to St. John the last time we were in St. Thomas, and it is absolutely stunning. Looking forward to reading the remainder of your review. Congrats on graduating from nursing school and the new job! ;)

[JaniceB]

Erin, what a great review, and your pictures are awesome! I'll be on the Triumph in June out of New York with my best friend to celebrate my 50th birthday. I also had a great time reliving my memories of San Juan, St. Thomas and St. Maarten by reading your review. We went to St. John the last time we were in St. Thomas, and it is absolutely stunning. Looking forward to reading the remainder of your review. Congrats on graduating from nursing school and the new job! ;)

 

I am sailing on the Triumph in June to celebrate my 50th with 2 of my friends. We are sailing on 6/25, what is your sailing date.

 

Janice

[jakoblovesships]

Your review is wonderful! My husband and I went on the Triumph back in early 2000! We had a fabulous time! It's been great taking "your" trip down memory lane! We now have two children that LOVE to cruise as much as we do! We can't wait to go on the Dream!

 

Misty!:)

[jensing317]

Erin,

 

I'm loving your review!! We were looking at the Triumph for next spring out of New Orleans. I was looking through my pictures from last year's cruise and I have a really good picture of the Triumph while anchored off shore in Grand Cayman. Nice to see the inside and hear what a great ship it is.

 

Congrats on school and the new job too!!

Jennifer

[falconfan]

Great review I love all the pictures. My wife is like you, she loves to take pictures. I know that she has taken enough to fill 5GB of card space, and that was with her first digital a Canon Digital Rebel 6.2 Mega-pixel camera. This time she will have her new 12.2 Canon Digital Rebel XSi.

 

We also loved shopping in St Maarten. By far they had the best deals. We spent the afternoon at the little beach near the shopping and loved it. I really liked getting 2 beers and a cuban cigar for $2.

[ebandive]

falconfan, I used to have the film rebel and really loved it. However as you know film gets very expensive and I always took so many pictures. And a lot of times I would just leave it behind because I didn't want to carry it with me or I was worried about something happening to it. About a year ago I sold it on ebay and bought the point and shoot I have now. I've always wanted a digital rebel though!! :D

 

Jennifer, whenever I see ships in port I always wonder if *someday* I'll get to go on that ship! It's kind of fun to wonder what it's like on different ships.

 

Misty, OK if you see us around town be sure to say hi!! ;)

 

Janice and travlgirl, have fun on your cruises! It would be such a coincidence if you were on the same trip!

 

we3k9 and weeziblu, I'm glad your enjoying it.

[ebandive]

Let me start off the last leg of my review by saying that I really apprecciated having 2 sea days at the end of the trip. It's a great chance to recover from port days and to just soak up that vacation experience.

I wanted to sleep in, but also didn't want to miss breakfast. Breakfast is served on Lido from 7:30-10:30 on sea days, so I set the wake up call for 9:45. It was so nice to sleep in!

We made it up to Lido a little after 10:00, and we were suprirsed that there wasn't much of a line. We went to our upstairs Lido and sat overlooking the buffet lines below. We took our time eating breakfast, and it was fun watching people who it was obvious just rolled out of bed and came up to the buffet.

At about 10:40 they start to shut one of the lines down by taking away all the utensils and putting trays in front of the food until they can get it cleared. Meanwhile they leave the other line open. We watched in amazement as this couple kept trying to jump in front of the guy trying to clear it. We didn't understand why the worker didn't just tell them to go to the other side. OR why the couple didn't figure it out!! My jaw dropped when I saw the guy move over a tray, and reach with his bare hands to get some waffles. :eek::eek::eek: People, come on!!

I will point out though that they do have hand sanitizer stations at the beginning of the buffet lines which was nice to see. I used it every time, but rarely did I notice anyone else take advantage.

After breakfast we enjoyed just a relaxing day lounging around. We watched Bride Wars on TV and did a lot of reading.

3:00 was tea time, which we enjoyed. I must say though that the dessert was never as good as the first day. But it is so relaxing just to sit and drink tea and talk.

After tea I showered and got ready for the evening. Earlier in the week we recieved our Carnival Triumph pins and invitations to the Welcome Back something or another. Royal's welcome back party was very casual, but Carnival had it on elegant night, and right on the invitation it said that attire should be elegant. This disappointed me because we already missed out on the captain's reception because we didn't bring anything elegant. We talked about this with our tablemates the night before, and offered our cards to one of them. They thought we were crazy and told us to go anyways because everyone's definition of "elegant" is different, and all the capers say are "no baseball caps or tank tops".

But I know how upset people here on cruise critic get about this whole elegant thing. :rolleyes: But then I thought, the worst they will do is turn us away, and if they do oh well. But at this point we really enjoyed our tablemates and didn't want to miss dinner with them either.

I had cute white capris with me, so I wore those with a nicer top, and Charlie just had jeans (GASP!!) and a nice button down shirt. And you know what, they let us in to both the reception AND the dining room with not a word spoken. Actually it seemed that very few people were actually dressed as formally as I expected. I felt a little worried about it at first, scared that some CCer will come out of nowhere and flame me, but after a couple of drinks that fear was gone! :D

[ebandive]

dbl post

[ebandive]

It was Mardi Gras night so we were all given beads. The appetizers were so-so but the drinks were great! I ended up having 3 because they just kept coming around with trays and they were so yummy. Because they were so sweet I didn’t realize how strong they really were. Then all of a sudden—WHAM! It hit me.

 

 

Our tablemates. I miss them!

 

 

At the beginning of the cruise I got kind of irritated with the servers doing the whole sing and dance thing. And they would always announce it like, "Tonight ladies and gentlemen, we have a special surprise for you!" But if they do it every night, is it really a surprise??

 

Anyway, by this time it was kind of cute and funny. Or maybe it was just because I had been drinking.

 

 

Our waiter, Reynauldo:

 

 

After dinner we got into a great conversation with two of our tablemates from South Carolina. We planned to go to the 8:30 Main Show but were talking so long that we completely missed it! Charlie felt like he found a long lost friend, there were so many similarities it was amazing!

 

Finally at 12:00 we went down to Club Rio to go to the R-rated comedy with Phat Kat. We figured that he recovered the night before so maybe he’ll be good tonight. Now, if you remember, the only thing that he talked about that was actually funny was the whole “scooch” pants. He was totally making fun of these people. So we met the remainder of our tablemates in one of the round booths in the club, and guess who takes the seat in front of us?

 

 

 

We laughed and laughed and laughed and the poor guy didn't even notice and just kept standing there so I took a picture. Now, if this is you, I'm SOOO sorry and under different circumstances I would have never taken a picture of your behind, but this is what the comedian was ragging on and here you are as a perfect example!!

[ebandive]

Oh boy, those eyes say they've been drinking!!

 

 

However the drinks did not help Phat Kat's comedy. The poor guy just didn't have any good jokes left.

 

We went to bed after that. We had a towel money hanging from our room but I accidently knocked it off before I could get a picture of it.

 

That's actually all the pictures I took that day. I was slacking big time. But I made up for it Saturday, don't worry. ;)

[ebandive]

Saturday was our final day at Sea. We got up about 10:00 again and pretty much repeated our routine from the day before. We did a little bit of window shopping and amused ourselves at all the people taking 10 boxes of $20 watches. It was like these people were starving and digging for food. We did buy some Rum on board though, that Cruzan rum is 4 for $30 so we got 4 different flavors.

It was rainy all day. So mostly I walked around the ship taking pictures.

I kept trying to get that perfect atrium shot, but I found it challenging to find an angle I was really happy with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

The Promenade:

 

 

They had karaoke here a lot during the afternoon

 

 

The coffee bar.

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

Underground Tokyo Arcade:

 

 

 

California Wine bar at the end of the Promenade:

 

 

Wall deco throughout the ship:

 

 

[ebandive]

Wine bar counter decorations: swans with boobies:

 

 

With the wine bar at my back, Hollywood disco is on the left, massage chairs on your right.

 

 

Hallway next to Big Easy leading to aft atrium/club rio

 

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

I forgot what this room is called but it's kind of a jazz club. We never went in here other than to take these pics:

 

 

 

 

At the beginning of the week this map was all red and turned green as we went along our way. I said the first day that this map was going to make me very sad. And sure enough, here it is all green.

 

[ebandive]

At 3:15 was the Galley tour. It was in the capers so open to everyone, and TONS of people showed up.

 

After hearing about how many thousand of eggs and pounds of bacon they ordered each week, we waited around to have our section called to walk through the galley. The total process took about an hour. It was a bit boring because Charlie didn't come with me and I've worked in many resetaurants so it was not much I havn't seen before.

 

But still, I'm glad I went. It started in London dining room and ended in Paris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

I took all these pictures of the tables while I was waiting in line to go into the galley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

Inside the galley:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

More galley tour:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cruisernewbie1]

I've read some great reviews on these boards and that is what has inspired me! I hope to read your review when you return, and is it you that is getting married? (I see your cruise is called "Wedding Cruise") If so, Congrats to you as well!!

 

 

Hey, Erin....I will be very sorry to see your review end - it is fun to read, I feel like I was there!! I laughed my head off over that one picture!!! :p

 

Thanks for the congrats! Yes, I'm getting married in Key West on June 1st which is coming so fast - I can't wait!! Everyone at work will be glad when its here as well because I'm sure they're sick of hearing about it!! :rolleyes:

 

Good luck with "nesting" - you will have a wonderful time someday sharing the whole cruising experience with your little one!

[ebandive]

All the little decorations were pretty cute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sheri18]

as i said earlier...what a great review...love all the pics....

we usally go on a family cruise with our 3 DS and wifes, gf ect....

 

but the baby bug hit us too....lol...

 

had to cancel our feb 09 cruise on the truimph because DS#1 and wife had a beautiful baby girl Kaila, and she was only 2 months...

we were all set to book the dream for feb 2010 ..when DS#2 and wife told us that she was expecting their first in Jan...so another missed year of cruising...but we dont mind (much).....as its for agreat reason......

 

so looks like 2011 for us......a little sad...as for me cruising is my favorite vacations....so for now i will live through the next 2 years reading all the wonderful reiviews by other curisers....

thanks again....

[ebandive]

And yet more:

 

 

 

 

 

[ebandive]

Ever wonder how the servers bring all that food to the second floor of the dining room?

 

 

 

And then we ended in Paris:

 

 

Aft atrium:

 

And then I went back to the room to find Charlie.

 

 

And I took a picture of my cute new purse because I never did in St. Maarten