Carnival Triumph Review
Carnival Triumph-ed over my preconceived notions!!
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Let me first say that this was my 4th cruise in about a year and a half so they are all still pretty fresh in my mind. My first cruise was on Royal Caribbean (Explorer or the Seas - 5 days to Bermuda), 2nd was NCL (Spirit - 7 days Bermuda), 3rd was NCL (Gem - 7 days Bahamas) and this one was Carnival (Triumph - 4 days Canada). For some reason I always skipped over the Carnival cruises when booking because I had this preconceived notion Carnival would be full of rowdy, drunk young adults or full of a obnoxious kids. I was also under the impression that Carnival cut corners and would be a "lesser cruise experience" because their rates always seemed to be lower than Royal Caribbean and NCL when sailing out of NY or Baltimore. I couldn't have been more wrong!!!!! Not sure if it was the date we sailed but didn't run into 1 drunk, rowdy, young adult and very few kids on board. The kids were very well behaved until the last day. I saw a lot of them running around (especially in the buffet area).
My DH and I sailed on the Carnival Triumph out of New York (Sept 4-7, 2009). It was a much needed 4-day getaway. We arrived in New York (drove from PA) at about 12:45 pm. Since we only had 2 small bags we carried them on ourselves. We were through security in about 5 minutes and through check-in in about 10 minutes. This was the fastest embarkation we've ever experienced! I really like cruising out of New York because security makes everyone have their passports & documents ready before you can even enter the security line. Keeps the lines moving very smoothly.
Once on board it was very crowded in the Capitol bar area (where you enter the ship) because of the lines getting into the London dining room. Not sure if all of those people were waiting to eat or alter their dining preferences? We then proceeded to our cabin on deck 7 (Empress) to check out our cabin and drop off our bags. Cabin was nice and my favorite part was the balcony door. It was a regular door (not sliding). DH was very happy about this over the course of our cruise because the door didn't wake him once when I went out for my morning balcony fix.
Cabin Review
Balcony
Carnival Triumph Cabin 7349 was perfect! Up 2 floors to get to pool/ buffet & down 2 floors to get to casino & theater. The washer/ dryer were about 4 doors down the hall (across the hall) but we didn't hear any noise coming from that room.
I was a little concerned when we first arrived because the housekeeping door was across the hall from our door but we never heard them. We do sleep with white noise playing in our cabin at night. Only noise we heard was from a few kids running in hall on floor above us a few times and the occasional drawer/ closet door closing from other cabins above us.
Size of cabin was very adequate and I enjoyed having a balcony door that opened like a regular door (not sliding door). This made much less noise than the sliding doors do. I never wake my husband when I went out onto the balcony in the mornings (and he's a pretty light sleeper).