Carnival Victory Review
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We arrived at the Miami airport about 12:45 on Sunday and caught a taxi to the port ($21.00 per cab w/o tip). In the future I think we'll try to fly in a day early, but we already had our flight reservations made this time before we thought about doing that. Traffic was heavy near the port and as we got close to the Victory and Valor we could not see any activity on the Lido decks (not a good sign). The cab driver dropped us off and we checked our bags with a porter (giving him about a $2 tip per bag).
Embarkation: There was a long snaking line (that wasn't moving) into the parking lot that got much, much longer shortly after we got in it at about 1:15. The saving grace here was that it was overcast out so we didn't have the hot sun beating down on us. I guess you could stand there and complain, but I didn't figure that would move the line any faster, so we talked with those close to us while standing there. I also wandered around a bit and talked with a group that was there on a family reunion and had t-shirts made up for the occasion (pretty cool, I thought). Apparently the delay was due to immigration (not Carnival's fault) and about an hour later the line started moving (around 2:15). I thought at this point it would take a couple of hours to get on the ship, but by 3:15 we had dropped our stuff off in our room and were headed to the Lido deck for some food. Once the line started moving I thought Carnival did an excellent job of moving us through quickly. We did receive gold S&S cards because we had both sailed on Carnival before. Not really any perks in having a gold card, but I liked the idea anyway!
With all of the people in front of us I didn't think we'd find too much to eat on the Lido because of the lines, but we walked right up to the East River Deli and got a couple of very tasty sandwiches and later I went out back to the Mississippi BBQ and got a steak sandwich and fries (also quite tasty). The muster drill was about 30-45 minutes late starting because of the boarding delay, but it went OK. It's not my favorite activity, but not something you should miss either.