Carnival Victory Review
Carnival Victory: First time cruising family with disability and allergies
Rating by category
Additional details
After a really bad year prior, I wanted to get my family out on a genuine vacation, not one spent constantly visiting family members in the hospital (it had been one of THOSE years). We were going to spend some time near Orlando, so decided to check out a cruise for a number of reasons:
* My husband is disabled and has mobility issues, so he spent a lot of time in a wheelchair during this trip. I was a bit concerned about how easily we were going to be able to get onto the ship and how we would navigate crowds, but they had an area for handicapped embarkement, which made the process simple. We didn't have terribly long lines for elevators and people in general and crew were very helpful, which was awesome, though there's always that one twit who can't figure out that it's HARD to stop a 175# man in a wheelchair when going up and down the ramps. He was able to navigate his own way around the ship to a certain extent, which is something he's often leery of attempting. This experience really built his confidence.
* This means he also doesn't drive much, so I was handling most of the driving. The appeal of a cruise was that we could visit different locations without having to switch hotels, repack everything or have long drives in between destinations. We could sit back and enjoy ourselves instead. Because of this, I'm now looking at cruising for most of our vacations, because it takes a lot of strain off of me, his primary caregiver.
Cabin Review
Interior with Picture Window (obstructed views)
Plenty of space to move around either in a wheelchair or with a cane. One of my husband's issues is that he doesn't deal well with narrow doorways when using a cane, so this was perfect. There was an automatic door option that was activated with the keycard. The switches over the bed DO NOT TURN ON LAMPS! They actually call emergency services (how embarrassing!) The picture window is deep enough to hold a few items, the shelves in the bathroom were so helpful for organizaing, and plenty of hooks/pegs for hanging things between the bathroom and bedroom.
Port Reviews
Miami
Pretty much just drove straight to parking, took a shuttle over and then headed back out again afterwards.
Key West
Very friendly, easy-to-navigate port - we checked out a bunch of different areas around the city and didn't have to spend a lot to have a lot of fun!
Cozumel
Cozumel was a lot of fun, the people there were very friendly. My husband speaks Spanish, so we went off on our own with a taxi and checked out several areas. The only issue we ran into was the sidewalks and curb cuts for wheelchairs - often non-existent, poles or posts in the middle of the sidewalk and similar issues. This made maneuvering a bit of a challenge, but we managed all right between the three of us. Shop keepers were always happy to help you get around, though they often wanted a tip for their trouble ;)