Carnival Triumph Review

3.5 / 5.0
0 reviews

Same Jokes, Same programs but great Service!

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Triumph
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Redamazon
First Time Cruiser • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Dec 2008
Cabin: Ocean View

Embarkation was very stress free and easy, only headache was that they had mixed up who was staying in what room and this continued to plague us the whole week even after we had changed everything at the Guest Services Counter. Yes the lines are long as everyone says everywhere you go and you just have to bare with it. You will need to be patient with things like getting your breakfast and lunch, getting an elevator etc. Big suggestion is to have dinner in the dining room each night...the food is wonderful compared to the buffet given the shrimp, steak, ribs, pasta, and salads offered. The service is fantastic and it's a nice atmosphere to spend time with your family or friends for dinner conversation rather then a cafeteria style buffet restaurant. The spa is a hoax...they over charged us time and time again and it took my husband 3 fulls days to make sure they got their accounting straight, it was very stressful and did not make for a relaxing vacation given the errors in billing the manager at the spa made. The body wrap was very good but it's not worth the hassles and even the discounted price is too much, when I can get the same thing for cheaper at a spa on land. Defiantly do use the exercise facilities though, very nice and clean and lots of equipment to keep you fit. The Lido deck is great for sunning and taking a dip in the pool or hot tubs. Tip: take a half day excursion on a port day and then spend the other half on the Lido deck swimming and in the hot tub etc without all the hundreds of kids splashing in the pool and all the people saving all the deck chairs...it's so relaxing on the port days! The 'World' theme of the ship was pretty much NOT what it was made out to be when reading about the ship on the Carnival website. The Paris and London dining rooms looked nothing like Paris or London..they were fancy nice dining rooms but there was no theme in them, nor was there on most of the ship. The best theme was Tokyo Underground with the caves..that was really well done, and the Vienna Cafe was quite nice, otherwise it wasn't that highly themed. I guess the Carnival Designer got a little more creative with the newer ships like the Valor, which I was on in 2007. The Cruise Director Ryan was a good guy..although the jokes he told must be out of the cruise directors manual because they told the same jokes on the Valor the year before. The Shows were different from the previous year, the comedian was so so, the dancer shows were out of this World and the magic guys were good but it was easy to figure out their tricks. Overall the staff was excellent as usual, as Carnival prides itself on service, the rooms were great except for the fact my parents oceanview was reeking of smoke from day one and those ionizer machines didn't help too much, it sort of ruined their experience in their room. Although their room stewards David and Allen made up for the poor cabin experience given their friendliness and care. I would sail with the Triumph again if I got a great deal as the staff made the experience a good one. As people say..the experience is what you make it!

Ports of Call Reviews:

Jamaica: Suggest you do the Mystic Mountain Tour; you take a chair lift up this gorgeous mountain, and you have options to do the bobsledding (SO FUN!) or zip lining, which is so so...it's kinda small. You don't have to pay for bobsled or zip line on your ship, you can just choose the Mystic Mountain tour for I think $20 each? or close to that and then decide once you get up there if you want to do the bobsledding or zip line, it's the same price if you wait till you go up as you would pay if included in your shore excursion tour. Anyway it's the greatest view of Jamaica from the lookout and just the chair lift up the mountain is amazing to be surrounding in the lush green forest. Dunn's River Falls is nice but I've seen more beautiful sites, and the harassment you get to buy wooden carvings etc is not worth going there! I would suggest if you are looking for a hassle free experience without having to worry about people begging you to buy stuff and begging for tips left right and center that you go to Mystic Mountain instead because there is absolutely NO harassment up there!

Cabin Review

Ocean View

A 6A room...Great balcony, great location on the spa deck, the washroom was very spacious considering your on a ship. Lots of closet space for your belongings. Super clean given the room stewards clean it 2 times a day!

I would suggest given Carnival is making millions that they upgrade to flat panel TV's in each room as this would give you more space and a better picture, and I'm sure they could get a deal on them!

I would suggest Carnival go smoke free in their cabins, my retired parents got stuck with a smoke infested room that required an ionizer treatment once a day for 4 days until it was a little bearable. They should of done something about it sooner so my parents didn't have to breath in those toxic smoke fumes!

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