Valor - 6/30/13 - REVIEW!!!

[jlk806]

Loving the review and pictures!!! Thank you :) your friend might just have been a bit seasick, if it would have been food poisoning i am sure a lot more people would have been sick.

 

 

It was definitely not just seasickness, she was violently ill all night long. Definitely either food poisoning or norovirus. We went back through what we had all eaten, and she said the jerked chicken she ate at lunch she only took a few bites of it tasted funny. No one else from our group ate it. She definitely could have caught noro, but how fast does that come on once exposed, we boarded the ship Sunday afternoon, and by Monday evening she was sick... We were scared it was gonna go through the room and we'd all be fighting over the bathroom (:eek:) but it spared the rest of us thankfully!

[jlk806]

On to the craziest night of the whole cruise, Formal Night # 2. I went to the spa and got my hair styled again. My hair is a pain to style, so figured Id pay someone to do it for me.

 

 

This woman we are with here was on our last cruise last year too (not planned). She is a dance teacher also, what a coincidence! And we are wearing the same dress, just with different belts. :)

 

 

Basa for dinner! Love all the seafood choices. 3 of the girls then went to the dance show (which they said was great tonight) and I hit the casino:D for a bit then we met at the breakdancing show. One of the girls got picked to go up and participate. It was a great time. After that one of the girls (the one who doesnt drink much) had a sore throat so she went to bed, took all but one of our room keys with her,, and the other 3 of us preceded to have a scene-out-of a movie night of partying, too much alcohol, mostly at the dance club, but I think we were all over at one point or another. Theres really no other way to describe it, but it was a fun time. I think it was 5AM when we were all reunited with the one room key we had on us and hit the beds.

[Biere]

Love the review and pix!

 

And a big thanks on the excursion tips, especially the Mystic Man one :)

I have a group of 22, so that makes the decisions easier! Lol

 

Thx

[inlinesick]

this flight stuff could has been a show stopper:eek: im glad to hear its end up great! I had the best cruise when i wents with the dude than with my girlfriend!!! really enjoying your review!

[hockeyluver]

Yes, in St Kitts the sky safari ziplining they have a contract with Carnival (and probably the other cruise lines) that you must book through Carnival. It was awesome and we felt very safe the whole time.

 

We did the ziplining in St. Lucia also with Safari and booked through carnival, loved it, checked it off my bucket list...... wont do it again :p LOL

[willydoit]

One of the woman (Deb off my cruise roll call, who became an email friend in December, and a real friend as soon as we boarded the ship!) organized this excursion there was a good 30-40 of us on it, through Mystic Man Tours.

 

It was AWESOME! They picked us up at the dock at 9AM, returned us about 3PM, and in the meantime it was a party boat, we got to see tons of whales and dolphins along the way, the alcoholic beverages were flowing from the time we boarded, one must pace themselves if lightweights like my group , and there was a delicious buffet lunch included, and we stopped at 2 snorkeling sites in the Pitons to snorkel or swim. It was AWESOME! The crew was great too, they knew what they were doing and were a lot of fun! And it was an all-day excursion for only $70 per person! If we had booked a similar ecursion through Carnival it would have been double that in price. It was the best day of our trip and only $70 per person. I 100% recommend Mystic Man tours for catamaran excursions in St Lucia.

 

Do you know if your friend booked through the Mystic Man website or via a phone call?? I'm interested in the excursion for our cruise in November, but have not gotten a response from their website. It does seem like the best excursion available in St. Lucia.

 

Great review,,,really enjoying it.

[smplyblessed619]

I am loving this review and pictures!!! It looks like you guys had a great time :)

[megrsmom]

Thanks, just booked my ziplining!

[MagneticMags]

Great review so far! DH and I did the Valor the week before (June 23-30) and had a great time. Who did you fly with? We flew in the same day that the ship was to depart and we vowed never to do that again! We were flying in from Toronto, Canada and had a connecting flight from Philly to San Juan. When it came time to board, 24 of us were bumped off the flight with the explanation that since the flight wasn't full, US Airways decided to downsize the plane. This is BS since when I was choosing our seats a month before the flight, it was impossible to get two seats together and the flight was nearly full! The flight attendants asked if non-cruise passengers would kindly give up their seats so that the cruise people could make it to the ship on time. 6 people gave up their seats and they scrambled to get people on. They started putting people on in order of them being bumped off. Luckily we were the 3rd and 4th people so we made it! We didn't sit next to each other but at this point we didnt care. At least we got seats!!!! Flying back home was a disaster as we had to catch the connecting flight from Charlotte to Toronto... Flight was delayed almost 3 hours due to "weather conditions". Landed in Toronto just after 2am.... Got home to find 3 messages from the airline that were left on Saturday to say the flight was changed. How they could predict this a day before is beyond me. Lesson learned: avoid flying with US Airways!!!!

 

 

Did they change the 2nd formal night? On our cruise it was on Day 4 (thursday) when we were in St. Lucia....

[Coolcruise02]

Love your review!!

[jlk806]

Great review so far! DH and I did the Valor the week before (June 23-30) and had a great time. Who did you fly with? We flew in the same day that the ship was to depart and we vowed never to do that again! We were flying in from Toronto, Canada and had a connecting flight from Philly to San Juan. When it came time to board, 24 of us were bumped off the flight with the explanation that since the flight wasn't full, US Airways decided to downsize the plane. This is BS since when I was choosing our seats a month before the flight, it was impossible to get two seats together and the flight was nearly full! The flight attendants asked if non-cruise passengers would kindly give up their seats so that the cruise people could make it to the ship on time. 6 people gave up their seats and they scrambled to get people on. They started putting people on in order of them being bumped off. Luckily we were the 3rd and 4th people so we made it! We didn't sit next to each other but at this point we didnt care. At least we got seats!!!! Flying back home was a disaster as we had to catch the connecting flight from Charlotte to Toronto... Flight was delayed almost 3 hours due to "weather conditions". Landed in Toronto just after 2am.... Got home to find 3 messages from the airline that were left on Saturday to say the flight was changed. How they could predict this a day before is beyond me. Lesson learned: avoid flying with US Airways!!!!

 

 

Did they change the 2nd formal night? On our cruise it was on Day 4 (thursday) when we were in St. Lucia....

 

It was UsAirways on the way down.:eek: And through Philly. What a mess. We flew Southwest on the way home which is our preferred airline but SW didnt have a flight arriving early enough that day. Never again!!! Lesson learned. The 3 other girls at our dining table were from Toronto and we also made friends with a young couple from Toronto who did the catamaran with us.

[jlk806]

Do you know if your friend booked through the Mystic Man website or via a phone call?? I'm interested in the excursion for our cruise in November, but have not gotten a response from their website. It does seem like the best excursion available in St. Lucia.

 

Great review,,,really enjoying it.

 

Email Wendell directly wendell@mysticmantours.com she emailed him and he always answered quickly, I emailed with one question too and he responded quickly. It definitely was the best excursion ever, we saw several other boats out on the water and ours seemed to be having the most fun of any!

[Hawaii697]

Great review and thank you for sharing. We sail on the Valor in about 35 days. Can't wait to sail.

 

Two questions, do remember if there is an all-white party onboard and if so, which night. Also I see everyone mentioning a Brunch during the sea day. Does the brunch cost extra or is something that is done later in the morning for free. Looking forward to your response and glad to see your friend was able to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

[jlk806]

 

Did they change the 2nd formal night? On our cruise it was on Day 4 (thursday) when we were in St. Lucia....

 

 

Yes, for that week they did change it to Friday because Thursday was the 4th of July :)

[jlk806]

Great review and thank you for sharing. We sail on the Valor in about 35 days. Can't wait to sail.

 

Two questions, do remember if there is an all-white party onboard and if so, which night. Also I see everyone mentioning a Brunch during the sea day. Does the brunch cost extra or is something that is done later in the morning for free. Looking forward to your response and glad to see your friend was able to enjoy the rest of the cruise.

 

Brunch is included free and it was great:)

 

There was no all-white party but since we were 4th of July week there was a red-white & blue deck party on the 4th. Not sure what they do other weeks though!

[jlk806]

Saturday, St Maarten.

 

Im sorry to disappoint everyone but I have absolutely nothing to say about St Maarten because I was not in good shape from my scene-out-of-a-movie night of partying and I did not end up setting foot off the boat. I forced down some breakfast and told the other girls to go to Orient without me and I went back to sleep for 2 hours or so and got up and went to lay out by the pool and relax. I ended up having a relaxing day on the ship but kind of sad I missed Orient beach but I do have some pics to share from them:

 

 

With our friends Debbie & her husband Kevin

 

They said Orient was beautiful and there was of course lots of toplessness, though nothing to be excited to see.... LOL.

 

Back onboard I had already thrown all of my stuff in a suitcase so Id be able to enjoy the last night. The last dinner was kind of sad that it went by so fast.

 

But we went out well, we drank a ton once again, and maybe our night wasnt quite as crazy fun as the night before, we danced till the disco closed, went up for a last slice of pizza at 3am and returned to the room and passed out.

 

Since we were FTTF we chose to get off a little later, and we did self-assist luggage, mainly because 2 of the girls didnt have their stuff ready to go out at midnite. We had our last breakfast, went back got our stuff and went to disembark. We ended up crowded into the hallway with the elevators on deck 1 forward, with hundreds of others and elevator loads kept coming, and apparently there was a problem with customs so they werent currently letting anyone off. We waited there like a half hour before finally slowly getting to proceed. Once off, the line was 1/2 hour to reach the customs desk. Annoying, as we didnt want to disembark anyhow and were kind of hungover.

 

We had the best time ever and I cant wait to do another cruise as soon as I can! Would definitely recommend the Valor, and cruising from San Juan was awesome! Thanks for reading!

[BenjiRodney]

Thanks for sharing doing this trip in November, it will be our third time doing this trip.

[jlk806]

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mystic-Man-Tours/301651229933455

 

Mystic Man tours put my 3 friends photo as their cover photo! They loved our group!

[jlk806]

Heres a few more random pics I found on my friends fb.

 

St Lucia

 

 

 

4th of July Deck Party

[maddea20]

That's a nice cover photo.

[PathfinderEss]

Nice review, good pictures.:)

[Cruizinman]

Wow , the Valor still looks great ,after all these years ;)

[jlk806]

Thanks for sharing doing this trip in November, it will be our third time doing this trip.

 

 

Lucky! Yes, I remember reading your review, was it in the winter sometime? I hope to do this one again but I wanna try others too.

[BenjiRodney]

Lucky! Yes, I remember reading your review, was it in the winter sometime? I hope to do this one again but I wanna try others too.

 

Yes we always do one of our cruises the first week of November. We joke that this is our 4th annual let's go to Puerto Rico trip. 2010 we were there on the Glory, 2011 and 2012 on the Victory and this year on the Valor.

[inlinesick]

Valor always had a special in our heart, wait to see if it will change after the liberty cruise!

 

Orient beach was one of our favourite stop ever ! It's very unfortunate that you missed it.