Cruising On Carnival Victory

By alantvuong on February 18, 2020

Excluding my river cruise in Egypt, I have cruised 6 times and have always chosen Carnival cruise lines because of it’s fun atmosphere. Prices have always seemed reasonable and I have always enjoyed the food and the ship itself. Last month, I was ready to go on another cruise since my last time cruising was in May 2018. I saw a really great deal on a 4 day cruise on the Carnival Victory from Miami with 2 stops in Miami.

top deck fun

The Ship

Carnival Victory was originally launched in 2000 and can carry 2,764 passengers and 1,000 crew members. It is a mid size ship and recently underwent a multi million dollar renovations in 2018 to update and refresh the ship to include new additions including Guy Fieri’s Burger Joint and more. The ship has an underwater theme like a giant octopus leading into the Virtual Sea Video Arcade. There are seahorse seats along with mermaid on the walls. The names of the rooms also have water themed names like Atlantic and Pacific dining rooms, Black & Red Seas lounges and more.

glass elevators in the middle of the ship

Cabin Room

Having an inside cabin is always the cheapest option since there is no balcony or window. Being on 5 previous inside cabins on previous Carnival ships, I was really shocked to see how big our room was on this ship. I never had this much space to move around before and there was even an extra couch in this room.

nice spacious room

The 2 small beds were fine and comfortable and the room even had a push button to open the electronic door to get out of the room. This button however was really hard to reach because it is way in the back beside the closet and required getting really close to it and angling the wheelchair just right.

the white wheelchair button to the right of the bathroom door was a little hard to reach

Like every other accessible Carnival cabin I been in on my cruises, the bathroom here was spacious enough for my commode bathroom wheelchair. The roll in shower had the usual grab bars and a hand held shower head.

nice accessible roll in shower

Accessibility

Similar to previous ships that I have been on, the Carnival Victory is pretty wheelchair accessible except a few little areas like the running track on the very very top floor. There are elevators everywhere but during peak times like dinner or port stops it can take a while to get one. The bad thing is that not every floor connects straight through from the front to the back of the ship. Luckily there is a map showing accessibility routes. There are designated tables for wheelchair users throughout the ship at buffet and dining room areas and accessible private bathrooms or wider accessible stalls located all around.

there are a few accessible private bathrooms located throughout the ship

Port Stops

Our 4 day itinerary on the Carnival had 2 stops in the Bahamas: the first one was at Half Moon Cay and the other was at Nassau. The stop at Half Moon Cay required a tender boat to bring passengers to the port and I wrote about my experience on my previous post. The stop at Nassau was just a hop off using a gangway and I also wrote about that here too. Each port offers many excursion options and do have a few and limited wheelchair accessible ones. I have done excursions on past cruises but not on this one.

on our tender boat leaving the Carnival Victory

Food and Drink

Cruises are known to serve good food and the Carnival Victory does not disappoint. There are so many FREE options that are included with every stay from Guy Fieri’s Burger Joint which is so tasty, Lido Buffet, Pizza Pirate, the amazing Dining Room dinners and more. There are also optional places that require a surcharge like Bonsai Sushi, Seafood Shack and Steakhouse Selections. I always find that the included food was delicious on cruises that I never bother with the upgrades.

in the main dining room

Since alcohol and soda are not included, Carnival has special packages for alcohol or sodas. The FREE included lemonade, iced tea, milk and basic coffee was what I have always chosen. I would occasionally buy an alcoholic drink or a soda but never needed to pay for alcohol package since it won’t be worth it.

loved the prime rib in the main dining room

Entertainment

The great thing about cruises are what you make of it. It could be all about just relaxing in the sun or pool and doing nothing else or join in on some of the entertainment. Every night, we are given a newsletter of the next days entertainment schedule. There is bingo, trivia, dance lessons, comedy shows, lounge singers, karaoke, night club, casino, library, nightly dance or music shows and many more. I really like the nightly shows in the main theater and the comedy club the best.

lots of laughs at the Punchliner comedy club

Cruises are very wheelchair accessible and very fun. With it being almost all inclusive, great food, great entertainment and exotic destinations, a cruise is a great vacation option for anyone disabled or not.