This was our 6th cruise, but first on a Carnival cruise. I had heard a lot of good and bad about Carnival, but I found out Carnival was great! We arrived early, 10:30 a.m. to the port of Miami after taking the red eye from LA to Ft Lauderdale (less money to fly to Ft Lauderdale then to Miami). We got checked in very quickly and waited while they got the last people off the previous cruise. We were rushed thru the boarding welcome picture and they didn't care if others were in the picture when they took it, so it wasn't a good one to purchase. After that we went to our room, it wasn't quite ready, so we then had time to find our way about the BIG ship. The Triumph is a nice looking well laid out ship. We finally got the hang of finding our way after about 2 days.

Food was FABULOUS! Lobster BIG, most desserts delightful!! Very good selections nightly. They didn't mind if you ordered 2 entrees, but our waiter kinda made you eat most of your first one before he brought your other one. So I started saying I want both at the same time. I like my steak and lobster at the same time! Only bad thing was, I could never get a RARE steak, it was always over cooked! Waiter was ok, he thought he was all that, and he liked to read the dessert menu to us and not let me read exactly what the dessert was all about, like sauces on it etc. I don't like liquor sauces and the cake had rum sauce which if I had the menu to read it, I would know NOT to order that! We had a table for 4, with my brother and his wife, upstairs in the Paris dining room. Every other night the waiters would sing and dance, it was nicely done. The maitre 'd was very nice and talked to us nightly. Plenty of choices to eat 24 hrs a day. We tried them all. The NY deli was delightful (pastrami, roast beef, turkey or tuna sandwiches were always tasty) and the Chinese Noodle Factory had great selections daily! The best was the Grill, especially after the late show. You could dash back there and have a steak sandwich, burger or hot dog, and the French fries were always hot and good!

We never really ate a thing off the buffet, nothing called our names off it. It had the normal array of salads and pasta things and carved meat, I preferred the other speciality area food places. We had room service bring coffee a few mornings as a wake up call, and then we tried to hit the dining room for a nice breakfast. The eggs Benedict were yummy and it was always nice to sit with new people to talk about the cruise with. The brownies and cookies from room service were excellent! Read more