Carnival Triumph Review
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Additional details
It feels odd to write a review for a ship that is about to pass into cruising history. While the ship will remain, I don't know if reviews of the Triumph will work to inform passengers booked on the ship in it's new name (it will be the Carnival Sunrise starting later this year). Still, much about the ship will be the same and many Cruise Critic members are savvy researchers - I'll put this out there and hope it helps a few folks.
This was my first Carnival cruise and I had pretty low expectations based on the things I'd heard from others cruisers. In some ways, Carnival and the Triumph exceeded my expectations. In others, they sadly failed. Many things that bothered me can easily be linked to Carnival's choices about how they sail (it's a FUN ship) and the prices they charge (as in, you get what you pay for). Other issues were just odd and hard to explain. Overall, I enjoyed the cruise, more for the excursions than the ship.
The biggest plus was the staff. We had almost uniformly good service on the Triumph, even though it seemed the staff were asked to do more than I've seen workers on other ships do. The ship was very clean, public areas were well maintained, and the staff in the dining room were very responsive. The ship was partly done in what will be the colors of the Sunrise and partly done in an older color scheme. The "theme" was a bit muddled but overall it was a pleasant ship to be on.
Cabin Review
Ocean View
Our cabin was surprisingly spacious and the beds and bath were fine. There was almost no storage space - we kept most of our things in the suitcases because there was only one drawer - and it was partly filled by the hairdryer. There were several cupboards in the room which seemed designed to hold nothing - odd shapes that were unsuitable for clothes or anything really that a cruise passenger would bring. The biggest problem we had in the cabin was noise from the bar at the bottom of the atrium. Due to the design of the ship that bar was open to the staircase near our room. Nearly every night we had to suffer through the last set before we could sleep. I also never figured out why we had a toilet bowl cleaner in our bathroom. An odd extra I haven't seen on other cruises.