Almost every September since 2001 my wife and I have taken a vacation to celebrate our Wedding anniversary. This year instead of taking a land based vacation we decided to take a cruse. Our choices were to either sail from Baltimore on the Carnival Pride to The Bahamas or to travel to San Juan and take the Victory to the southern Caribbean.

After much discussion it was decided that we would take the cruse on the victory and after a quick call to Carnival were booked on out first cruse. For our shore excursions were chose and booked them in June. On a sunny Sunday we arrived from Philadelphia in San Juan at 1:30 PM and after using the rest room and retrieving our luggage we were able to find the Carnival rep for our transfer to the Port of San Juan to board the Victory. Before boarding the coach for the short ride the the port our checked luggage was placed on a van for direct transfer to the ship. Once the coach was loaded we were off to the port. We arrived at the terminal at 2:30 PM just a boarding was underway. Check in was very quick and after receiving our sail & sign cards,getting our boarding picture and a quick security check were we on board the ship entry was through the mail lobby atrium located on deck three. We boarded the elevator and made our way to cabin 7310 our home for the next week the room was prepared and well stocked for the voyage. The only criticism I had was with the lay out of the bed it was placed against a wall which made it difficult for the person sleeping against the wall to get into bed. The close and drawer space was more than adequate. There was a selection of samples in the bathroom. Since out luggage had not arrived and we had not have had lunch yet we made our way to the Mediterranean Restaurant located on the Lido deck. After lunch we stopped a the shore excursion desk on deck three to pick up our shore excursion tickets our snocker excursion for the next day in St. Thomas was cancelled but we were able to move to anther snorkeling excursion. After getting our excursion tickets we made our way to deck 14 to get some pictures with Old San Juan in the background. My wife and I then attended a talk hosted by Matt our cruse director which was very entertaining and informative in the Caribbean lounge. By that time we decided to return to our cabin where our baggage was waiting out side our door. We then unpacked and made out was to the Atlantic dining room for a nice leisurely dinner we found the meals throuout the ship more than met our expectations the only restaurant we were disappointed with was the 24 hour pizza bar on deck 9. We visited the fun shops and bought some souvenirs. At 9:30 PM we had the required us Coast Guard safety briefing once that was over it was off to deck 9 for the Sail Away Party after the party and a late night snack it was off to bed.

I awoke and got dressed and got a cup of coffee on the Lido deck as the ship was arriving in St. Thomas after breakfast we left for our fist of two excursions in St.Thomas since we were early we got some pictures in the port and did some shopping for souvenirs before going Parasailing which was a good excursions and very enjoyable. After parasailing we returned to the ship for lunch and it was off to go snorkeling the snorkeling was on board the Bimini Breeze and featured two stops to go snorkeling including one where you were able to view sea turtles. The water was clear and warm. The excursion crew returned to the ship in time to board bfred out departure form St.Thomas and out long sail to Barbados. After getting cleaned up my wife had some sushi, we had dinner and took in a comedy show that was ok and attended the welcome aboard show and took part in the late night buffet. Read more