Jamman, where did you see the initial reviews? Are they on the 'net?

Scotto - I'll foward the emails to you also if you would like them.

After having "cut my teeth" on Royal Caribbean's Nordic Prince ten years ago, then following up with a cruise on the Crown Princess in '93, I expected that, based upon the horror stories I've heard in the past about Carnival, I would be boarding a tacky, gaudy, "in-your-face" manner of vessel where the food would not be up to snuff and any number of niceties would be in short supply.

I am happy to report that, with a few exceptions, I was terribly disappointed. It began when Carnival released pictures of the interior of the Triumph on their web site. Clearly, this was not the ship I thought it could be, and thus my interest was piqued. But those pictures could do only little justice to the reality of what I found within the hull of this magnificent behemoth. Yes, there was neon to be found, but it was used tastefully, in a manner which highlighted the architecture of the ship, rather than drowned it out like so many of the Tropicale- and Fantasy-class ships. The flooring is magnificent, as it is with the Destiny (based on pictures I've seen).

The best public rooms on the ship are The Capitol atrium, followed closely by the London and Paris Dining Rooms; warm, richly decorated rooms with lots of wood and faux-wood paneling which evoked, well, the "good old days" of the classic liners. These are followed by the Rome Lounge, where copious amounts of Italian marble adorn the walls and cocktail tabletops. Just beautiful. Other honorable-mentions go to the California Wine Bar (lots more marble), the Club Monaco Casino (not that I gamble, but it was rather nicely done for a shipboard casino), the Washington Library (magnificent and opulent use of wood), the Oxford Lounge and even the South Beach Club room.

In all fairness, though, there were times when I felt like I was at Caesar's in Atlantic City. For example, over the lintels on the Promenade Deck between World's Way, The Capitol and the Rome Lounge, are signs in ever-changing colored lights. These are also to be found at the entrances to all of the public rooms. Also, the small white "Christmas lights" can be found everywhere, from the stairs of The Capitol to the "collars" surrounding the globes which descend from the ceiling along World's Way. If anyone has been to Caesar's recently, they can understand what I'm getting at.

The ugliest rooms on the ship are placed, perhaps appropriately, at the stern of the ship on the Promenade Deck, and these are unquestionably The Big Easy piano bar - with its blue-mortared walls covered in old oyster shells, interior-side out, with a carpet bearing a matching pattern(!) - and the Club Rio Lounge, where the couches have the most terrifying array of red, gold, green and black. However, the tables and chairs in this room are quite nice.

Now on to more important issues. The dining room staff was spectacular. They were undoubtedly the best bunch I've seen yet - friendly, prompt, courteous, always smiling, hilarious and otherwise entertaining. And they brought us food to match. It was much better than I had expected.

Our steward was likewise attentive, and did not fail us in the Carnival tradition of leaving towel animals on the bed when we returned from dinner.

There were, however, certain things that occurred which did not disappoint me from the horror stories. One of the stories I've heard is that the average Carnival clientele is a lower-scale clientele, usually (unfortunately) possessed of some rather unsavory behavior ranging from simply refusing to take direction to outright rudeness. An example here was that the photo staff was conducting a session on the grand staircase and had placed signs up to that extent, asking that people do not interfere. I cannot tell you how many people simply chose to ignore the sign and went traipsing down the staircase just as the photographer was taking his shot. On one occasion, a roving band of youths came charging up the stairs and continued, unchallenged into the London Dining Room, being loud and boisterous the entire time. I heard one of them say that they were in the wrong dining room, but they all continued to march right through the dining room as the wait staff were setting up for our late sitting.

Another example of bad behavior came when I overheard two ladies upon disembarkation remarking about how there was an altercation between two other women in the Hollywood Dance Club the night previous. Apparently, these two women were drunk, and one of them didn't like the way the other was dancing or dressed, or some such other nonsense. Allegedly, it took ship security some time to stop the fracas. All I can say to these issues is, I would most likely not experience this on a Princess ship.

Some other things Carnival needs to work on:

There seems to be a dearth of amenities in the bathrooms. All we found was a bar of soap along with the towels and two terribly small water glasses. The shore excursions, at least for these Halifax runs, need to be better timed. My wife and I wanted to see Peggy's Cove, to which there were two tours departing at 8:30, but we also wanted to see the Maritime Museum, being great Titanic buffs, which also departed at 8:30. Suffice it to say, we saw little of Nova Scotia other than a museum.

All in all, the ship is unquestionably a beauty. My Carnival cruise, at a first glance, was better than expected, but not as good as I would have it be. As a result my favorite line continues to be Princess.

8/14/99
A couple of things I neglected to mention, both good and bad:

One really nice touch was the string trio which provided classical music during dinner (in fact, quite a bit of classical music could be heard aboard ship at various times, which might drive some people crazy, but I loved it). They also performed some more current pieces, one of which, ironically, was the theme song from the movie "Titanic." They also performed in The Capitol atrium from time to time. Aside from this group, for the most part, the entertainment was very good.

Another welcome treat was the fact that all of the exposed deck area was wooden, the likes of which haven't been seen on any ship in years. This means there was no green astro turf to be found. This appears to be a feature common to the entire Destiny class. I'm not sure what, if any, other ships have this feature. In fact, there was a lot of wood used throughout the ship. Kudos to Mr. Farcus and Fincantieri for that small trip back through time.

The only other really bad point I would share is that Carnival neglected to inform us that Halifax is one hour ahead of New York time. We discovered this when the good folk at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic announced this over the loudspeaker to the tune of "Your cruise ship has apparently not informed you that we are one hour ahead of New York." A bit embarrassing to those of us sitting in the "3D Titanic Experience" theater who had to bear the chuckles of the locals and the people from Premier's SeaBreeze I, which was also in port.

Aside from that glaring error, there were just a couple of things which we felt were a bit odd or could be better done. When one would use the elevator system, there would be a voice telling which floor the elevator had reached. This voice sounded as though it came over a telephone, and as a result, was not always clear. In this age of advanced sampling and digital storage technologies, couldn't a "live" voice be sampled instead?

The other thing was that the bridge was never open for visitors. My wife would have loved to see the bridge. Maybe this was because it was a short voyage, maybe not. Or maybe this is a practice that has ceased to exist due to security concerns. At any rate, I was a bit disappointed that I could not take my wife to see the bridge.

That all said, I will reiterate that the ship is a masterpiece with few exceptions, and that Carnival performed much better than expected, but still left me with some things to be desired.

We're going to try to put together a small group of our friends and go Princess in the Caribbean next spring. Of course, if the general consensus runs around Princess being too expensive, there's always the Triumph.

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