We sailed Carnival Victory on 8/18 - the five-day cruise from NYC to Saint John and Halifax. This was our eighth Carnival cruise and fourth on Victory; all of the Victory cruises have been Canada cruises. Since we live just two hours from NYC, this cruise gives us a chance to cruise without having to deal with flying and hotels. We sailed with our three sons, ages 17, 12 and 8. Even though we had done this cruise previously and knew the weather can be "iffy," I was a bit worried that we would have lousy weather for most of the cruise; this summer here in Upstate NY has been very wet, as it has been in the Canadian Maritimes as well. We lucked out; the weather was virtually perfect. The only exception was a squall we sailed through on our first sea day - but that was a doozy! We did not plan any excursions in advance for either Saint John or Halifax and decided to play it by ear, depending on the weather.

Embarkation day - We arrived at the port around 11:15 and were aboard by 11:40. No lines for security, pictures, or registration; we just had to wait a few minutes to board. We went up to the Lido deck for lunch and a Fun Ship Special. The two younger boys discovered the large plastic chess set on the Lido deck aft and played a quick round of chess before lunch. Good thing they played then - I never saw the chess set without players during the rest of the cruise. At 1:30 we went down to our cabins - 8428 and 8424, Verandah deck aft. We entered our cabin and right away went to see ... THE AWESOME AFT WRAP BALCONY. We booked this cabin to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, and we're definitely spoiled now. The balcony wraps around three sides, and we had five chairs and two tables. We made ourselves at home on the balcony for a while, then went up one deck to meet the folks from our roll call. Boat drill was at 4:30 and we were finished about 10 minutes before we sailed. We stayed on our balcony for sailaway and had beautiful views of lower Manhattan since we were on the port side. I didn't think we'd be able to see the waterfalls "art," but we had a good view of the falls on Governor's Island and could see two of the other falls in the distance. We also had a great view of the Statue of Liberty from the aft side of the balcony. Since we had 6:00 dinner, we couldn't be on deck for sailing under the bridge - but we've done that before. If you haven't done it and have the time, go up to one of the highest decks - it looks like the funnel is going to touch the bridge.

We had dinner in the Pacific Dining Room (aft) - on our other three Victory cruises, we always had the Atlantic Dining Room (midships). The dEcor in both is about the same - I'm not a fan of the mermaids. For the first time on any of our cruises, we were seated at a table with another family. (On past cruises we've always had a four-top with an extra chair.) I've always read about people being matched very well with their tablemates, and our experience was no exception. Both husbands are engineers; both families had a teenage son who does Drama Club; and the other family was from the Philadelphia area (I grew up in a South Jersey suburb of Philly and went to college in Philly). We had wonderful servers, Amos and Edi. We also finished dinner much faster than we did on any past cruise, they were so prompt in bringing our courses. After dinner, we registered the youngest with Camp Carnival, the middle son with Circle C, and the oldest disappeared to Club O2. We then went to listen to the jazz trio in the Ionian Lounge and met Migda, a wonderful server. We went back every night. Read more