Carnival Valor ~ 2/10/13 ~ 3day Cruise Review with Pictures!!!

[pamp0227]

I'm really enjoying your review. My husband and I will be on the Valor May 5th and I can't wait. Thanks for taking the time to post your review.

[All4fun&fun4all]

Lovely review! Although, I feel like I have seen your pictures somewhere before. :p Oh yeah...now I know. ;)

 

That Sid sure is a looker!

[GRENLOCH]

We sail on the Valor 4/7/13, Enjoying your review. Where did you find the Cockroach? Love it. LOL Bill:D

[wrigley80]

I'm loving your review of the Valor. That was my first Carnival ship....I guess you could say that was the ship that got me hooked on Carnival

[kclvt]

Enjoying your review and looking forward to the rest!

[MegnJoe]

I'm glad to hear there's a band on lido! I'm back on the Valor in 6 days. :D Thanks for the review!

 

 

OP, thanks for the review. This will be my first cruise! GApearl, will you be writing a review? I would love to see a review of the whole 7 nights. If you get any Funtimes, that would be great!

[willow028]

Thanks for the report!

 

You're welcome - glad you're enjoying it!

 

I'm glad to hear there's a band on lido! I'm back on the Valor in 6 days. :D Thanks for the review!

 

You're welcome too! :) While they didn't play a ton of "Caribbean" type music - more 80's hits/covers and such that I heard - they were good and MUCH better than the DJ's I'd been reading about on here and was dreading!

[willow028]

Love your review so far! Hubby and I are on this cruise on 9/22...can't wait!!

 

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

 

Thanks for the review! We will be on the Valor in a little over a week :D

 

I'm jealous of both of you - I want to be back! :)

[willow028]

Lovely review! Although, I feel like I have seen your pictures somewhere before. :p Oh yeah...now I know. ;)

 

That Sid sure is a looker!

 

BAHAHAHAHA! I'm showing a bit more restraint with pictures over here at least! :D And Sid thanks you kindly ~ he knows he's the king of travelling cock-a-roaches!

 

We sail on the Valor 4/7/13, Enjoying your review. Where did you find the Cockroach? Love it. LOL Bill:D

 

Thanks! I'm jealous you'll be on so soon! And Sid... ah, he has quite a colorful past and has been my travelling companion since 2008 (okay so this is the third Sid as the first two got a bit wore out and now hang out at home while the "body double" gets all the adventures)!

 

~~I may have missed thanking a few people as this multi-quote thing isn't working like I thought it would - but I do appreciate all the feedback!

 

Okay...onwards!

[willow028]

So....fun day at sea - LOVE sea days. Lazy morning getting up and ready - we followed our cruising tradition as I'm a slow mover in the morning while my husband jumps out of bed like he's been attacked by the Energizer Bunny. He went and got me breakfast from the buffet (no mention of ever being attacked by the bacon police and I got an odd look when I just asked him about them to confirm so I guess they weren't out in force) and we ate on the balcony.

 

Did some meandering after that and I appear to have not taken my camera as no real ship picks, but the walking track was nice and did show what one lap equalled (not that I can remember mind you, but it was marked) as were the basketball court and mini-golf courses. As I'd of course forgot a hair tie yet again, we decided against playing mini-golf and stood and watched ice sculpting for a bit.

 

Then we decided though we weren't hungry we did want our free drinks so we grabbed our coupons and headed down to the MDR. At the outside stand a waiter promptly showed up to take our beer order and he was back in under a minute with our drinks - way faster service than I'd anticipated.

 

I had to attack the Fish N' Chips place again after we wandered some more and took care of some practical stuff (filled out forms for customs in Barbados where we were disembarking, cashed out of the casino "just in case" we didn't go back that night - HA, etc.). The only reason I'm glad we were off the ship after three days is the Fish N' Chips place - after seven days you'd have had to roll me off the boat I enjoyed it so much!

 

Then it was off to the aft pool bar where I stalked some blowfish for AllForFun!

 

 

This bar may have been my only complaint about the cruise - and it's a pretty minor one - but it seemed that even at super busy times they only had one bartender. Us beer drinkers that were hanging out found it frustrating to have to wait 20 minutes for a beer while the one guy ran himself ragged making all the DOD's and other concoctions. We thought perhaps a "beer only" bartender would make sense as there were several people waiting quite a while for a beer, which of course only takes about 20 seconds to procure, versus the complicated drinks.

 

But, we're nothing if not flexible and we ended up splitting buckets with another couple - "those people" to be precise - so there was never a wait time and we could enjoy chatting while watching others stand in line.

 

 

Who are "those people"? You know, the ones that aren't on your roll call and whom you've never seen before in your life, but who you run into everywhere and have fun with - yes, "those people"! We met this couple in the bar in Puerto Rico and ran into them constantly - tons of fun to hang out with and hope to cruise with them in the future.

 

After a bit at the bar, we wandered back to our room for some reason and once again ended up crashing SpoiledRotten's balcony party - although my husband doesn't look too impressed with the empty beer bucket!

 

 

After some back and forth everyone decided to head different directions - we were off to the waterslide finally! We somehow forgot that on our last cruise and I swore we were doing it this time.

 

But first...what to do with all those empty buckets/bottles?! Brilliant - scatter them up and down the hallway so we can claim "it wasn't me" who drank them all!

 

[willow028]

I will always love waterslides no matter how old I get - even if Sid did try to escape me - finally recovered him at the bottom - bad cockroach!!!

 

 

And tired cockroach - he took a "nap" on the balcony while we got changed for dinner.

 

 

As my husband only owns one pair of pants that aren't work pants and those are jeans and as I was rabid about carry on only, we decided in advance to skip formal night. Of course after two great MDR meals we were regretting that decision, but short of either renting pants or asking every guy we knew to borrow a pair (yeah, the idea crossed my mind but seemed a little weird so x-nayed it) we were stuck.

 

My husband said no more fish n' chips for him (BOO!) so we headed to the deli - he had a reuben and I had hot pastrami - yummy and grilled perfectly!

 

 

Errrrr and yes, we are those people who do carry around our bucket of beer while there are two cold ones in there - what else are you supposed to do with them?!?!

 

We had a little fun in the arcade and wore ourselves out playing air hockey, then it was off to the 10PM comedy show. Of course my copies of Fun Times didn't make it home so I don't remember the comedians name, but he was hysterical. We got there about 9:45 and seating was plentiful, although about five minutes before the show started it got quite crowded, which meant we had some interesting table companions - good times.

 

After that of course we were required to go contribute a bit more to the casino - it's mandatory!

 

We went up to our cabin for our last night "balcony time" around midnight but alas while listening to the people on the other side of us (not SpoiledRotten!!!) describe a drug deal was fascinating (NOT!) it was not conducive to romance, so inside we went.

 

I almost felt sorry for this poor towel elephant!

 

[willow028]

Next day...

 

 

And we had to get off the ship *sniff sniff sniff*!

 

We had to go to the Eagles Lounge on 5 between 7:45 and 8:45 for customs, then we could go back to our room until 9:30. Stumbled out of bed way too early for this princess, but I did get to watch us port in Barbados... even the warning signs here are friendly.

 

 

Husband went and got me breakfast again as I tried to remove the sleepies from my eyes and be a coherent person before we met with the customs people - I SO already miss my balcony "room service" breakfasts!

 

 

Customs went pretty quick, then we went back upstairs to get ready and packed up. We didn't realize we had to wait for them to clear immigration for us to get off (those just debarking for the day were allowed to leave by now) so headed downstairs, where we were told we had to wait. Back up to Lido we went. We had a beer, and then they called us a bit after 10AM to get off the ship - apparently they were waiting for luggage to be removed. We had wondered about that and while we didn't use the service (still carry on only!) they did pick up luggage between 7am and 9am and have it waiting in the customs area on the pier for those who didn't want to self disembark.

 

 

Bye bye Valor :(

 

[busybears2005]

Enjoyed the review and pics! Thanks for posting!

[willow028]

And, since this is a cruise review, I won't say a lot about our stay in Barbados (I know, why stop now since I babbled endlessly at the beginning!) but it was nice, but more expensive than we'd thought it would be. The only downside is we stayed in the Gap, which was gorgeous, but dodging drug dealers and hookers at night was a bit tedious, and where there also were not any ATMs and we ran out of cash fast.

 

Our hotel was adorable, inexpensive (relatively speaking) and across the street from the beach - it also did not have any elevator, let alone a Deliverance style one!

 

 

My husband was not impressed with the most popular local beer...

 

 

But our room was spacious, clean and comfy...

 

 

Dover beach was gorgeous at all times of the day (when it wasn't pouring rain!)...

 

 

And our Valentine's Day dinner at the restaurant in our hotel was awesome!

 

[willow028]

Enjoyed the review and pics! Thanks for posting!

 

Thank you! :)

[willow028]

And... that's all folks!

 

I greatly enjoyed this cruise and the company of everyone we met, both from CC and randomly.

 

The ship was very nice IMHO and offered plenty of things to do - more than we had time for in 3 days. I'm definitely jealous of those of you going on her soon and am looking forward to doing the entire 7 day itinerary in the very near future.

 

We enjoyed the food offerings... okay powdered eggs are powdered eggs, but anything tastes good with enough hot sauce! Our MDR meals were very good and did I mention anywhere I really liked the fish n' chips?

 

Our steward was good - never really saw him which was unusual, but he got the job done which is all that matters, even if on past cruises they normally came by and introduced themselves, etc. We didn't get a towel animal the first night which made me wonder if that was something new, but they appeared after that, along with our nightly chocolates so all was good.

 

My only "complaint" was as I said the small number of bar staff, but that's minor in the grand scheme of things.

 

Oh - one other thing just as an FYI - I went on this cruise planning to book a cruise for 1/14 that my sister put together - did my mock bookings, etc. and was ready to go. Found out that because this cruise goes out of Puerto Rico and the future cruise OBC offers and such are only valid for US citizens that they did away with the future cruise desk to not create problems on board. Not a big deal and I'll call my sister's PVP to see if they'll be nice to me because of that, but something I didn't know going in that I thought I'd share (could have cut down on all the paperwork I was hauling around if I'd known that!).

 

And...we didn't do Cheers - no option to with the 3day trip we were told (which of course was a GRRRR moment as we'd been debating it for the last few weeks as we got more and more info on it - all that debate time wasted!). BUT on this trip at least we were told several people were cut off off at 15 - no option to buy more - just cut off... another FYI from what we were told only.

 

Any questions?!

 

Thanks for reading!

[coder01]

How does dinner the day you board work? We are signed up for early seating. :confused:

[willow028]

How does dinner the day you board work? We are signed up for early seating. :confused:

 

It was "anytime" dining that night for everyone because of the late sailing and the fact that you aren't required to be on board until 8:30PM. They also didn't specify which dining room you were required to eat in, which was nice as we (who had YTD) could join our CC friends who had assigned dining the rest of time.

[PrettyHazardous]

Thanks we're on this cruise in Sept and can't wait!

[battchief1]

Thanks for the review

[Dymediva]

Another shot of the room ~ before we "moved in" and trashed it!

 

 

Loved the extra long balcony - room for two chairs, a table and a lounger - perfect!

 

 

Got unpacked a bit then headed up stairs to the aft bar for our M&G. ChicksFly2 and her DH did an amazing job!

 

 

M&G group shots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for the wonderful review and the pictures of the L shaped balcony cabin. We will be in an L shaped balcony cabin in January and I cannot wait:D

[ScottsSweetie]

I would like to know what time they started the muster drill on your first day - that way we'll know when to board and have dinner so as to be finished. :)

[Cruiser 4 Life 66]

The line to check in for us "normal" folk was a bit long...

 

 

But those Platinum friends of ours got right through ~ jealous!

 

 

And no, security wasn't coming to yank my camera out of my hand!

 

It did work out well though - once we got our S&S cards, we went through the security line. We had just enough time to stop in the lobby bar for our first beer on ship

 

 

then they called that our rooms were ready ~ LOVED the L shaped room! 6450 ~ I will book it again!

 

 

What time did you get there? I usually show up at cruise ports 11-12 and find no line. And glad to hear Security didn't grab your camera since they have that stupid rule no of no taking pictures in the terminal. Good luck stopping it when people can take pictures with their phones and even glasses now, and they won't even know you are taking a picture.

[DISNEY1975]

 

 

 

Muster was different than any I'd been through - we stood on deck, watched the crew put on life jackets while a recording played, then the recording continued to play while just about nobody paid attention to anything at all - I think the jist was if something happens to big boat, get in little boat escape pods...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woah...wait a minute!!!!!!!

 

First..Im thoroughly enjoying your review! Thank you so much for all of this hard work posting and uploading photos.

 

Now... PLEASE (please please) tell me I am misunderstanding this post. Call me crazy, but (I cant stop laughing) I think you are saying that if something happens to the ship, we have to get into those barrels?? That can not be right. (I am having images of being thrown into the ocean in a barrel!!!) They have real lifeboats, right??:confused:

[willow028]

Ack - never got notifications I had replies/questions - happened to log in and see this thread on the main page - I wasn't ignoring anyone and hope I remember all the questions!

 

LOL - NO - we don't have to hop into barrels! They have real life boats! It's my understanding those barrels contain inflatable rafts for crew members who aren't responsible for the life boats (be glad you aren't a crew member if that's the case!).

 

Muster... my phone was off so approximating on time - we met for dinner at 8 and were seated right away and then got called away during dessert... so 9:15ish? That seems about right.

 

Thanks for all the other feedback - we LOVED the "L" shaped cabin! I've been mock booking three other cruises right now and that's the first one I've looked for on all three ships - but even if the ship we want has them, they're taken. Those who got one - enjoy! I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

 

Did I miss anything?!