We sailed on the Triumph’s 5-day, 1/4/14 sailing. I celebrated my 50th birthday on this cruise. This was our 7th Carnival cruise, first on the Triumph. Previously we had sailed 3 times each on the Ecstasy and Conquest. Our last Carnival cruise was on the Conquest in Dec 2011. After that cruise we said we may not cruise at all anymore, and definitely not on Carnival. We did do an NCL cruise out of New Orleans last February. And even though we enjoyed that cruise very much we still said, meh, we may be cruised out. However, we wanted to take a quick trip for my birthday and the RCCL ship sailing out of Galveston is in dry dock this month. I really just wanted to be able to lie out in the sun and enjoy some drinks and relax on my birthday, so we went ahead and booked the Triumph. The day before we sailed Carnival called with an upsell offer to go from a lido balcony to an Ocean Suite on Empress. We took the deal. In hind sight we would have been happier on lido.

We did have fun on the trip, but mostly in spite of Carnival and not because of them. We typically find a way to have fun where ever we are and whatever we are doing, and that was the case on this trip. I think that since we have seven Carnival cruises since 2005, I am qualified to comment on the increasingly poor product that Carnival offers. We are not people who are difficult to please and we went into the cruise with lowered expectations, and even so we were disappointed.

Below are some random thoughts, opinions and comparisons on the cruise. I hope they don’t anger anyone too much. They are my honest opinions. Read more