I recently had the chance to board the Carnival Victory in Miami.
While I was touring the vessel, I took the opportunity to photograph the ship for a comprehensive tour. This review will cover the public areas and staterooms.
All Carnival ships have a theme and some are more subtle than others. The Victory’s theme is the Seas. It’s predominantly green and shades of turquoise. Really any color a sea would be.
The ship is a Destiny-class vessel. It was delivered from Italy’s Fincantieri in 2000. Her latest refurb was this year when she had the latest FunShip 2.0 amenities added to her.
The Carnival Destiny was a ground breaking ship when launched in 1996 as she was the first passenger vessel over 100,000gt. When their sister, Carnival Triumph, was delivered in 1999 there were some subtle changes to her including an additional half deck in the forward, top superstructure. This created sort of a sub-class of the Destiny-class and this is what the Victory falls under.
Let’s start the tour with our noted obligatory photos.
Obligatory hallway photo
Obligatory elevator lobby photo
Obligatory random carpet photo
The bottom-most deck normally accessed by the public contains only cabins. There’s both inside and outside cabins with windows and portholes on this deck.
Deck 02 also contains only cabins. The panoramic lifts extend to this deck and there’s a small art gallery here.
Deck 03 is where the public areas start. It’s also where you enter the ship when first boarding. There’s a promenade on either side of the deck, but it’s not connected in the bow or stern. It’s usually pretty quiet out here during sea days.
At the very front of the deck is the ship’s main theater, the Caribbean Lounge.
Past that is the shore excursion desk on port and the guest services desk on starboard.
After those, you’re at the bottom floor of the main atrium, The Seven Seas.
The lobby bar is also here. (The DJ is pointing at me)
At the back of the atrium is the entrance to the midships restaurant Atlantic Dining Room.
At the very aft end of deck 03 is the second dining room. Deck 03 is one of those split decks that Carnival ship’s have. That means you can’t walk all the way from the front to back, as the galley sits in between the two dining rooms. Once you get to the aft elevator lobby there’s the Odyssey lobby which is a mini atrium.
You’re then at the aft restaurant called the Pacific Dining Room.
At the very back the tables have quite amazing views.
Deck 04 is slightly narrower as this is where the lifeboats are. On this class of ship, they are recessed inboard and adjacent to it is the boarding area. During normal ops, this area is only used during the muster drill.
At the very front of Deck 04 is the start of the second level of the main theater.
After you exit the main theater,
The Pixels photo studio runs on either side of the ship back to the atrium and around the atrium on the port side.
Opposite Pixels is the Indian Library.
Past the atrium is the second floor of the Atlantic Dining Room.
Walking aft you can exit into the midships stairwell. If you walk around that, there’s a narrow hallway that leads to the Ionian Room.
Walking through that room you’re at the middle level of the Odyssey. There’s a giant fish sculpture maybe. Hard to describe what this is.
Through that you enter the second floor of the Pacific Dining Room.
At the very front of deck 05 is the top level of the main theater. You mainly access the top level though the stairs on Deck 04. Just past this is the start of the Fun Shops. These are the duty free boutiques onboard.
Aft of the shops is the top floor of the main atrium. Although it continues to the very top of the vessel, this is the highest floor where you can walk around it.
At the back of the atrium there is the Cherry on Top candy store.
On the port side is the Skybox sports bar.
This opens up to the South China Sea Club Casino.
The casino extends all the way back to the next stairwell down the ships port side. On the starboard side is Neptune’s Way promenade.
In between the promenade and the casino is the Trident bar.
Past that is a smaller version of Bonsai Sushi.
A little bit further is the Coral Sea Cafe.
Just beyond that is the Virtual Sea arcade.
As we near the end of the promenade there’s the entrance to the ships night club, Club Arctic.
At the very end of the promenade is the Alchemy Bar.
Past the promenade and off of the Alchemy bar is the Irish Sea piano bar on starboard.
On port is the Black & Red Seas lounge.
At the very end of the deck is the top floor of Odyssey. Walking around that you’re at the aft lounge, Adriatic.
Deck 6 is entirely surrounded by cabins. Inside, outside and balcony cabins are here.
Deck 7 is also entirely surrounded by cabins. Inside, outside and balcony cabins are here as well as most of the ships suites.
Deck 8 also has all cabins. The bridge and officer cabins are at the very front.