Carnival Valor Review

[RN1986]

We cruised with 2, 20year olds, a 17 year old and a 13 year old. We are a family that is not new to cruising. We have cruised on the Glory and the Ruby Princess recently.

Embarkment—fast and no problem. Have your fun pass ready beforehand and you are good to go.

The ship itself was a lot of fun with lots of entertainment. Cruise director was “Big Tex”. He was great, very funny. The comedians were all very good with a good balance of family vs adult shows. Percy Cruise was a riot and I would really recommend you do not miss his shows. The other Carnival shows were also worth seeing. Casino was always hopping.

Cabin: We had a balcony and a inside on the forward Lido deck. Yes you feel more motion up there but it is convenient to everything. Not sure that I would choose this location again. I wasn’t sick, but the motion did disturb my sleep. We had some pretty big waves a couple of nights! Our cabin stewart was wonderful to us and the kids.

Food: I would have to say that the food wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t great either. I really noticed the service in the dining room has declined. Those poor waiters are running. I’m sure they now have more tables and less help. It’s probably the same for the kitchen staff. Everybody seemed rushed. Our waiters were not at all personable. I can’t even remember his name. My kids still remember the waiters name from our Glory cruise. The only time our waiter tried to make any conversation with us was the night before we were to evaluate him. Most nights we were not even asked if we or the kids wanted a beverage with dinner. The dining room experience didn’t spoil my cruise but I sure won’t be bragging about it!

Kids Program:

Club 02—ages 15-17. My daughter was 17 and had such a great time with the kids on board. The facilities for this age group is fantastic. Big, big room with a bar for “drinks”, couches and a big dance floor that they used almost every night. My daughter said their director was great and funny and had lots of fun activities planned. He knew how to get everybody involved. For this I give Carnival a 10/10.

Circle C—ages 12-14. My daughter was 13. The facilities for this age group are pathetic. Very small room with a few computers and a small floor space for kids to sit. Very limited activities. The director actually kept telling the kids to get out and go find something to do. There were 200 kids of this age group on board for this sailing. They were able to use the adult disco every night from 8-9 which was only suitable for the early dining people. My daughter did make friends but spent her time wondering the boat because there was no space for them to just hang out. For this I give Carnival 1/10. They really need to improve this program.

18-20 year olds---really hard for this age group to hook up with others this age group on the boat. Its is so hard to tell how old people are by just looking at them. There are some 15 year old girls that look 20. Carnival should have a meet and greet for this age group so they would be able to identify their age group.

Ports:

Grand Cayman: We did stingray city with Moby Dick. Great organization. I would highly recommend these guys. They spend a lot of time with you ensuring that you get good photo opportunities. The water was rough the day we were there and they encouraged everyone to wear life jackets which they had a lot of. We then went to 7 mile beach and just took the local bus back to the port for 2.50 pp.

Roatan: We hired a driver through Victor Bodden for the day for 25 pp. Her name was Laura and she gave us a great tour of the island. We went to see the spider monkeys and were able to play and interact with them. We also spent some time at the beach at Bananaram where my kids said the snorkeling was fantastic! However, Bananarama was not prepared for the amout of people in port that day and ran out of beer!!!!! Great day! Roatan was my favourite port.

Belize: Did a snorkel and beach day at Bannister with Echo tours. Not sure I would use them again. They did not have proper snorkelling life jackets and just told the kids to hang onto the reg life jacket if they needed one. To me, Bannister is not as beautiful as some people made it sound. Sand is very shelly.

Cozumel: We spent the day at Chankanaab National Park. We have been to Cozumel three times before and have never been to this park. It is beautiful with great snorkling right off the shore. I would defeniatlyu go back there.

New Years Eve on the boat was a lot of fun. Great band playing. Watched the ball drop on the big screen. I had a issue with Carnival not getting to everybody with Champagne for midnight. You would think that with the premium you pay for a New Years cruise they would make sure that everybody had a glass of bubbly. Again, I think it had to do with service and the waiters/servers being run off their feet.

I also need to comment on the use of the Seaside theatre (or mostly the non-use of the theatre) We were used to the theatre on Princess, where they would have different movies under the stars every night. Usually a early family movie and a later R rated movie. The movies on that ship would go to 1 am. On Carnival they hardly used the screen other than to have concerts or foot ball games or CNN.

Overall we had a terrific time. None of the negatives would prevent me from cruising Carnival again. I just think they really could improve their Circle C, their Seaside theatre experience and give their employees a little break. These people work so hard and it is hard to provide great service when you are stretched so thin.

[TamLaiSang]

Thanks for your review.

[joydisney]

Thanks for taking the time to write.

[shipty2]

Thank you for posting your review. We were on the same cruise as you.

 

We did go to the seaside theater on two nights the first time we watched "Madea Goes to Jail". Good thing because there is no way DH would have sat through that movie any other way. As we lay on our loungers under the stars we wished out loud that they had popcorn . Just then a girl on a lounger in front of us sat up and we saw she did have popcorn so we went to get some . It was avaible freshly popped at the bar on the starboard side of lido under the screen.

 

Another night we watched "Escape to Witch Mountain". For that one we skipped the popcorn and had pizza instead.

 

Too bad you had such bad service in the dining room. That happened to us on our last cruise but this time it was really good-like the old days for us. In fact it was better than what we got in Scarlett's.We were in the Lincoln dining room early seating.Which dining room were you in?

[RN1986]

We were also in the same dining room bu for the late dining. I did see those movies in the Capers, but they were really not appealing to the teen crowd--the ones that are not dumping money into the bars and casino.

Like I said none of the negatives would prevent me from choosing Carnival again, I just noticed some decreas in service.

[cruisingbajan]

Thank you for taking the time to post.

[uirishtoo]

We were on the same cruise as you but our dining experience was outstanding--all 11 of us never missed one evening for dinner, but we had the late seating in the lower level of the Washington Room. We are thinking of booking this ship again for next New Year's Eve!!!

 

Did not do the Sea Side Theater--so I cannot offer an opinion.

[nbsjcruiser]

Was there a specific place you went to in Chankanaab? We will be going there I think for some snorkeling. Was there a place to grab water, lock up valuables and so on?

[RN1986]

The snorkeling is right there. I am not sure about the locking of valuables. The equip is expensive to rent so it would be better if you had your own. We really enjoyed our day there and the snorkeling was great.