Day 1:

My fiance and I got to the terminal and were checked in within 10 minutes. We waited from about 9:30am to 11:30am in the terminal. Boarding started shortly after 11:30 am. My fiance was on crutches for this trip which made boarding interesting since we were not in the group of guests requiring special assistance we had to fight our way through the hordes during Zone 1 boarding. Getting on the ship was quick and painless but once on the ship we did not find a party in the atrium like normal and there were very few staff members present to greet us and pass out ship maps. We headed up to deck 5 to get our bottomless bubbles from the coffee shop since we always preorder it, but the computers were still down. Following that we headed up to deck 9 (Lido) and into one of the most chaotic Lido decks that I have ever seen. The Lido deck on the Victory is very cramped and not well designed. Food stations are tucked into corners that do not allow passengers adequate space to move around. Thankfully the Pizza Pirate and an ice cream machine are hidden away at the back of the ship where passengers have plenty of room to congregate. I found it very odd that a ship as large as the Victory only has one major food station instead of two like the Dream and the Splendor.

After lunch we went back down to the Coral Seas Cafe and got our Bottomless Bubbles stickers. *The entire Promenade deck smells like cigarette smoke even when there is no one smoking.* After that we wandered up to our room and took a nap before muster. All muster stations are located outside on Deck 4 and the muster drill took so long that someone fainted at our muster station. We walked around the ship until dinner and had a wonderful time in the Atlantic Dining room. Read more