Attn LIBERTY & VALOR cruisers: Detailed Review of Valors Last Cruise from Puerto Rico

[deladane]

Deldane, thank you for taking the time and effort to do this review. The information has been very helpful.

We are staying at El Convento but don't arrive until 130 on Sat afternoon. Going to eat some Tapas at the hotel and then a managers reception at 5. We were planning on going to Barrachinas that night for dinner and show, but the reviews have been spotty. So I am rethinking Sat evening.

My question is did you notice many food trucks around. Many travel channel thingys rave about the food truck fare so we might try that instead. Going to one of the forts early Sun afternoon before heading to the ship. Thanks for the recommendation of El Moro

 

Tom

 

Hi Tom,

Thanks for reading along :) I have read rave reviews about El Convento, and the location is fantastic, right in the middle of the action of Old San Juan (and very close to El Morro if you plan to go there!). That's a bummer that Barrachinas has gotten some negative reviews. We both enjoyed our food and drinks, and the show was very unique- I don't know of any other restaurant in OSJ that has a flamenco show (although, is flamenco actually native to PR? I always thought of it as a Spanish custom more than a Caribbean one haha) Anyway, I guess you could say that Barrachinas is a bit touristy, whereas the food trucks cater more to the locals. We noticed a few food trucks down near the water between La Princessa and where the CVS is. I believe they have more of them out at night, but I have only ever been down that way in the afternoon so there were only a handful of trucks at that time. Maybe you should have a backup plan in mind of a different restaurant to eat at in case you don't find a food truck that suits your needs? I do remember passing the Tripleta truck, and I have heard people say their food is pretty good :) Have a great trip and please come back to let us know how it went!!

[deladane]

Deladane looking forward to what you have to say about the Valor as we will be boarding her on April, 17th.

 

Just a few more weeks to go! Have a great cruise! I will post about embarkation day soon so you can see some ship photos :)

 

Woo hoo! I was on the same sailing as you! I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts, seeing your photos, and reliving my cruise!! Thanks for taking the time to do this review.

 

Maybe you'll spot yourself in the background of one of my photos!! hehe Everyday this week, J or I made a comment like "this time last week we were zip lining" or "this time last week we were eating dinner in the MDR"... I think we are going through cruise withdrawal ;) I hope you enjoy my review!

[deladane]

Great review, so far, of my favorite itinerary.

Wondering how Liberty compares to Victory-size,features?

 

Thanks mrpayroll. I guess larger means more features!

Looking forward to the OP's review of the ports.

 

Yes, I will agree that the Valor is a larger ship with slightly more features. I don't remember if the Victory had a steakhouse, but the Valor did. Since the Valor hasn't had the 2.0 upgrades yet, it is actually pretty similar to the Victory... I think the waterslide was the same, they both have a pretty large-sized comedy club in the aft of the ship, a dance club, piano bar, casino, etc on deck 5. I like that the Valor had Serenity deck (I don't remember that being on Victory), and the Valor also had an adults-only aft pool on Lido deck (but we never used it as we spent all our time on Serenity haha). I'm working on the review and will post more soon! Thanks for following along :)

[deladane]

Looking forward to this review continuing... Soon I hope!

 

More is on the way, I promise!! :)

 

That is funny

 

Thanks!

[deladane]

Thanks for the review! We sailed on the valor in sept 2013, and got engaged on her, overlooking St. Thomas. She's near and dear to my heart!

 

I had told the hubs that on our 5 yr anniversary, we need the exact same room on the valor...but now different itinerary, not sure...maybe that means two cruises ;)

 

Haha any excuse for another cruise sounds good to me ;) I see you are sailing on the Summit soon... I loved that cruise and Celebrity was fabulous. Have a great time!!!

[deladane]

Sunday, March 15 ~ The Tides of March

 

Nearly 8 months after booking our cruise, it was finally embarkation day!! We went to breakfast at Waffle-Era, a little restaurant 2 blocks from our hotel.

 

 

They had a huge menu with lots of regular or iced teas, and tons of sweet and savory waffles. The waitress spent a few minutes reviewing the menu with us and suggesting the most popular options. It was a bit overwhelming, but in a good way! They serve their waffles either as a half- or whole-portion, so we decided to get a whole Caneloide for me so I could give one quarter of it to J, and J ordered a half-portion of the Honey Almond Blues. We each had 3/4 of a waffle and it was the perfect amount (we wanted to avoid over-eating, knowing how much food we'd eat for the next week!).

 

 

 

 

After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and grabbed a taxi to the cruise port. We arrived at the terminal at 10am, and there were about 30 people already waiting to board. They were still debarking passengers from the previous cruise, but they opened the doors at 10:30am and we entered terminal by 10:40am. They directed us up the escalators where they first took our embarkation photos and then directed us to line up for check in. It took until 11:10am to get checked in because they only had 5 or 6 people working the counter. No worries though! We chatted with the couple standing on line in front of us, and before we knew it, it was our turn to check in. I was shocked that we got zone 1 since I thought that was usually reserved for Platinum/Diamond/FTTF, but I later realized that they just board those passengers separately before starting to call the zone numbers. The cruise terminal in San Juan has very limited seating, but since we were so early, we easily found seats.

 

 

Luckily, we didn't need to use our chairs for very long... They started boarding at 11:30am, called zone 1 at 11:40am, and we were on the ship at 11:45am!! Let the cruise begin!!!

 

[deladane]

We went right to our cabin and it was ready so we dropped off our luggage and went up to the Lido buffet for lunch. This was my first time cruising on a ship with Mongolian Wok so I knew I wanted to try it out today! It is set up with empty bowls at the end of the line and you get to take as much as you want of two types of noodles and about 10 different veggies. When you get to the front of the line, there are 3 protein options (chicken, beef or lamb, and a seafood option) and only the chef handles the raw ingredients. Finally, you choose a sauce: black bean is mild, Thai BBQ is a little spicy, and schezwan is very spicy. I always enjoy made-to-order food options because I am picky about ingredients, so this was my ideal meal! The steaming hot bowl of noodles was as delicious as I had hoped!

 

 

 

After lunch, we went back to the cabin to unpack. While the decor is a bit dated (the orange color scheme screams 70's to me!), and the furniture is a bit banged up and shows its age, the cabin was clean and well laid out. I liked that the bed was on the far end of the cabin and the living space was closer to the bathroom and closets. There was more than enough storage for the 2 of us (we didn't even need to use the big drawers under the couch), and we had enough floor space to walk around without tripping over each other.

 

 

As you can see in the photo, they did upgrade the tv set in our cabin. While I could care less what type of tv set they have since we rarely turned the tv on, I did like that the flat screen tv gave us access to a second electric outlet! We had to unplug the tv to access the outlet, but who cares? The flexibility of a second outlet was way more valuable than whatever sales pitch for shore excursions was airing on the tv haha

 

I already mentioned that we purchased a few bottles of liquor last night. Just like when I cruised on the Victory in 2012, it was very easy to smuggle our alcohol onboard. We put the Gasolinas and liquor in a separate small bag. When we went through the X-rays, they put an orange zip tie on the handle of the bag. After we walked away from the X-rays and were out of sight, I put the tagged liquor bag into a larger beach tote with the zip tie hidden on the bottom. Once we got through the tunnel and up onto the ship, we just carried the tote bag and the rest of our carry-ons past the guard as if everything was normal. They had a table set up to the left where I assume they were collecting contraband liquor bottles, but we had to walk to the right to get to the doors to enter the lobby, so we probably wouldn't have seen the table if we didn't know to look for it. No one questioned us at all and it was a very easy process. I know this is a very controversial topic on Cruise Critic, and I we did also purchase several drinks from the bars on board so it's not like we didn't pay for our fair share of drinks. We just wanted to have a few bottles to mix our own drinks in our cabin while we were getting changed for dinner or whatever. Here is our supplies for the week (not pictured: the 3 bottles of club soda and several cans of Rockstar energy drink since I don't drink coffee but need a caffeine source... they were part of our soda allowance though, so not technically contraband!)...

 

 

After unpacking, we spent the afternoon in a hammock on Serenity deck while sipping on our Funship Specials. That drink really does pack a punch! I was a bit disappointed that they no longer have the souvenir cups that say "Best Day Ever," especially considering they still charge the same price as when the drink did include the souvenir!

 

 

[deladane]

We also took some time to walk around the ship and take some silly photos...

 

 

 

 

We later left the ship to go back to the duty free shop to buy some fancy champagne for my birthday. They made us exit down to the ground floor before reentering the terminal to get to the duty free shop. While we were downstairs, we decided to leave the port to go take a quick photo with the ship in the background...

 

 

After we got back into the terminal and bought a nice bottle of champagne, we went through the same security point as before. This time, when we got to the guard at the end of the tunnel on the outer deck of the ship, he did search our shopping bag from the duty free store because we didn't have anywhere to hide it, but that was no big deal because everyone is allowed to bring 2 bottles of wine/champagne per cabin on board. This was our 3rd bottle of champagne for the cabin but no one was keeping track that we already brought 2 bottles on board haha

 

Tonight we had reservations for dinner at the steakhouse. The main dining room has open seating on the first night of cruises from San Juan because of the late all-aboard time and muster drill. I remember the service being sub-par on the first night of my 2012 cruise, so we wanted to avoid that experience tonight. I have never eaten at a steakhouse on a cruise before so I didn't have anything to compare this experience to, but was excited to try something new.

 

 

We purposely booked our dinner on the first night of the cruise to take advantage of the free bottle of wine. When we arrived, our waitress said we could either order a bottle of the house red or white wine, or we could have 50% off the purchase of a different bottle if we preferred. We opted to upgrade to a bottle of Kendall Jackson Vintner's Reserve Sauvignon Blanc since I had read reviews indicating that the free bottle of wine is not very good. Also, the dress code at the steakhouse is more relaxed on the first night... They would have allowed us to wear shorts, and I think it is considered 'cruise casual' like the regular dining room on the first night.

 

Here is our waitress showing us what each cut of meat looks like:

 

[deladane]

Ordering dinner at the steakhouse is different from in the main dining room- you are allowed to order one soup/salad and one appetizer, or two appetizers if you prefer, one entree, and one dessert. I ordered the escargots bourguignonne and beef carpaccio for my appetizers, the surf and turf for my entree, and the cheesecake for dessert. We could also order a side dish so I had the sautéed mushrooms. I thought the food was excellent, but I think I liked my dishes more than J did, as he said his filet mignon was bland.

 

First, they gave us a little something courtesy of the chef. I was given a tiny bowl of tomato soup but J was kind enough to trade with me because I don't like tomatoes. Here is my teeny tiny hamburger. It was yummy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I expected the food to be very good and I wanted to make sure I had enough space in my stomach to try everything, so I purposely ordered things that I knew came in smaller portions. I think that was a good decision because everything was delicious and I was able to enjoy it all without feeling overly stuffed! The downside to eating at the steakhouse was that the plague of very slow service struck again. It took 40 minutes to get bread on the table, let alone our appetizers. We had 6:30pm reservations and they had to rush us through dessert at 8:45pm because the muster drill was about to start.

 

After dinner, we ran back down to our cabin and waited for them to announce that it was time to go to our muster station. Our steward already got to our cabin for turn-down service and left this little guy on our bed...

 

 

While we were waiting for muster, we heard this strange clanging noise. We couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it sounded like it came from the closets or the bathroom. The noise sounded like pieces of metal banging together, and we heard a loud "clang" every 3-5 seconds. We didn't know what it was but decided to ignore it and hoped it would stop soon.

 

.

[deladane]

They called for everyone to go to their muster stations at around 9:40pm. Luckily it was a cool night so it was comfortable to stand out on deck 4. The drill lasted about 15 minutes total, then they released one side at a time (port side went first... of course we were on the starboard side). We went straight up to deck 10 forward to the secret deck to wait for sail away. I was greatly looking forward to this as I have sailed from Puerto Rico twice before, but I have yet to watch the sail away. On my Celebrity cruise, my dinner time was during sail away (they have fixed dining times on embarkation day and sail away was at 8pm), and it was raining during sail away for my Victory cruise so they moved the party inside to the disco. I had my fingers crossed that the weather would hold out for us this time around so I could see the city and the forts as we sailed away, and I was not disappointed! We were the only ones out there for a while, but 5 or so people joined us by the time the ship sailed away. This made for a pretty amazing place for a mostly private view as we sailed past OSJ and the forts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we got past El Morro, the view turned to total darkness as we sailed out into the ocean. We went back down to the Lido deck and joined the Cruise Critic meet and greet party for a few minutes, then went to guest services to let them know about the clanging noise. The girl at guest services came back to our cabin with us, but we didn't hear the noise so we figured it had fixed itself. We thanked her and she left so we could get ready for bed, looking forward to a day in St. Thomas tomorrow!

[cruiser fanatic]

Thanks for doing a review. I have a few questions. How bad was the ship showing its age? The funnel looks really dull and needs a fresh coat of paint. How were the shows (if you saw any). Who was the Cruise Director? I am doing a back to back on the Valor next month and I hope I picked a good ship to be on for 13 days!

Edited March 30, 2015 by cruiser fanatic

[deladane]

Thanks for doing a review. I have a few questions. How bad was the ship showing its age? The funnel looks really dull and needs a fresh coat of paint. How were the shows (if you saw any). Who was the Cruise Director? I am doing a back to back on the Valor next month and I hope I picked a good ship to be on for 13 days!

 

Clearly the ship isn't as new and shiny as some of the more current ships, but that stuff didn't really bother us. Some of the couches weren't firm enough, and there were some dings on the furniture, but nothing that would impact our enjoyment of the cruise. Everything on Serenity looked brand new, the bed was comfortable and all the linens were fresh and clean. The staff were all top notch. Our cruise director was Calvyn, but I imagine that will change before your cruise as he was just covering for Felipe while he was on vacation (and I assume Felipe will be on the Liberty for the sailings from San Juan). Don't let the little things bug you and you will have a great vacation. Overall, the Valor offered more positives than negatives :)

[Elaine2]

Can't wait to hear more about your cruise. My husband and I are booked for May 2016 to celebrate our 40th anniversary.. Same itinerary but on the ship fascination . Thanks for the great review so far [emoji173]️

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[deladane]

Can't wait to hear more about your cruise. My husband and I are booked for May 2016 to celebrate our 40th anniversary.. Same itinerary but on the ship fascination . Thanks for the great review so far [emoji173]️

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Oh wow, happy almost 40th anniversary! I hope my review offers you some helpful information for your planning :) Let me know if you have any questions!

[Cruisertommyboy]

Thanks for all the tips and ideas. The Waffle era looks very interesting. The idea of that place is interesting because my wife is not a big eater, matter of fact eats like a bird.

We too are doing the steak house on the first night. Since the main dining room will be helter skelter that first night it seems like the perfect time to go. We also have 630 reservations.

Since they give a discount on another type of wine, do you happen to know if it is further discounted if you have the Cheers package. Looking forward to the rest of your review

Tom

[Kim_KS]

I love the candy jar idea! What a great countdown idea! We are down to 55 days and I think I will work on these for my teenagers!

 

We go on the Liberty in May so I am looking forward to reading the rest of your review.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Kim_KS

[deladane]

Thanks for all the tips and ideas. The Waffle era looks very interesting. The idea of that place is interesting because my wife is not a big eater, matter of fact eats like a bird.

We too are doing the steak house on the first night. Since the main dining room will be helter skelter that first night it seems like the perfect time to go. We also have 630 reservations.

Since they give a discount on another type of wine, do you happen to know if it is further discounted if you have the Cheers package. Looking forward to the rest of your review

Tom

 

Oh wow, sounds like you have a similar plan as us for that first day! I don't know what they do for people with the Cheers package because we didn't opt for that. Maybe someone else reading along knows the answer??

[deladane]

I love the candy jar idea! What a great countdown idea! We are down to 55 days and I think I will work on these for my teenagers!

 

We go on the Liberty in May so I am looking forward to reading the rest of your review.

 

If you have a Dollar Tree near you, that is where I bought the jars for the candy countdown. But with only 55 days to go, you probably don't need jars that large. The time will fly by! Enjoy the planning phase... it's all part of the fun if you ask me :)

[biksgirl]

DH and I, along with our DS (10) and DD (8) were on this cruise along with you. We had a fantastic time, the itinerary was amazing. Kids loved Camp Carnival. Thanks for taking the time to post your review...enjoying re-living our great vacation!:D

[travelplus]

Attention LIBERTY & VALOR cruisers: Detailed Photo Review of Valor's Last Southern Caribbean Cruise from Puerto Rico

 

I think I am setting a new record! Somehow this is my 3rd Carnival cruise in the last 3 years, as well as the 3rd time my ship has changed itineraries shortly after my sailing! I sailed on the Victory in 2012 on the Southern Caribbean route from San Juan, but then it switched homeports with the Valor a few weeks later. Then I sailed on the Sunshine in September 2013 on a 12-night Mediterranean cruise which only had a few more sailings in Europe before she came over to the Caribbean. And now, once again, I sailed on the Valor on her very last sailing out of Puerto Rico before she switches homeports with the Liberty! I'm starting to think that Carnival looks at my cruise bookings to decide which ships should change home ports haha

 

Anyway, I always write a detailed photo-filled review after my cruise (see the links in my signature below if you would like to read them!), but I sometimes wonder if anyone benefits from it since most people only think to search for reviews of their ship, but when the ship changes itineraries and home ports, the old reviews become obsolete. I hope that some of you may find this review helpful, be it because you are sailing on the Valor and want to hear about the ship itself and see some current photos, or because you are sailing on the Liberty and want some ideas for planning what to do in each port on this very port-intensive itinerary. Worst case scenario: no one finds this review of any use, but I get to re-live my amazing vacation as I write it, and will end up with a travel log that I can look back on when I miss having sand between my toes. It's a win win! As I always do, I will make all of my posts in a larger purple font so it is easier to find the review posts in case you want to skip over the comments.

 

So let's start at the very beginning (It's a very good place to start...) Back in July, my boyfriend (he doesn't want me to use his name on Cruise Critic, so I'll just call him J) and I were drinking margaritas on my patio, and talking about how much fun we had on our July 4th weekend trip to Vegas. We agreed that we wanted to travel somewhere together again, maybe in March for my birthday, and I suggested that we should take a cruise. I loved every port on the Southern Caribbean itinerary I took on the Victory a few years ago, so I suggested that we take the Valor cruise. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so we are quite far from Puerto Rico. I was scared to think of what the flights would cost us, but it was worth a shot. If the flights were too pricey, we could always look into taking a different cruise from Florida or California. I checked the JetBlue website and was totally shocked! They had roundtrip flights from San Jose (our closest airport) to Puerto Rico for $464 each!! The flights were not direct (which I knew, because we can only fly directly to NYC or Boston from San Jose), so we would have to connect at JFK airport in NY. So basically that meant that we were paying $116 for each leg of our flight (CA to NY, NY to PR, and back)! Holy cow!! I usually pay close to $500 just to fly from CA to NY! This was such an amazing deal on flights that we knew we had to book them ASAP. Fingers crossed that there won't be a late-winter blizzard in NY to mess up our plans!

 

I haven't uploaded any photos yet, so I will come back and write more once I have some photos to share...

 

Hey deladane SJC is my home airport too. I live in the South Bay too. My Father and I are taking a last minute cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles via the Panama Canal on the Princess Coral but am interested to learn more about Carnival. We found our airfare for $423 literally 20 days before sailing on US Airways via Phoenix and a nonstop LAX-SJC on Delta.

 

Call me a cruise geek. We just got back in November from a Cunard Queen Elizabeth 2 Cruise around the Med. Last April we did a Royal Caribbean Sao Paulo-Barcelona Cruise before that New Orleans to Rome and before that San Juan-Barcelona.

 

I am not against Carnival but am just afraid its too party oriented. I'll have to do them on a 15 day cruise because I just can't take the younger drunk crowd or the loud hip hop music. Sorry that is not relaxing. But I can take the good food, Guys the Burrito place, Specialty Restaurants, Frog's Bar etc.

 

Looking forward to reading your review. The longer the review with more photos and food porn the better.

[deladane]

DH and I, along with our DS (10) and DD (8) were on this cruise along with you. We had a fantastic time, the itinerary was amazing. Kids loved Camp Carnival. Thanks for taking the time to post your review...enjoying re-living our great vacation!:D

 

I'm glad you're enjoying my review! And even more glad to hear you had such a fantastic cruise!!! It's been so hard getting back into the swing of things after returning home... I wish we were still on vacation haha

[deladane]

Hey deladane SJC is my home airport too. I live in the South Bay too. My Father and I are taking a last minute cruise from Fort Lauderdale to Los Angeles via the Panama Canal on the Princess Coral but am interested to learn more about Carnival. We found our airfare for $423 literally 20 days before sailing on US Airways via Phoenix and a nonstop LAX-SJC on Delta.

 

Call me a cruise geek. We just got back in November from a Cunard Queen Elizabeth 2 Cruise around the Med. Last April we did a Royal Caribbean Sao Paulo-Barcelona Cruise before that New Orleans to Rome and before that San Juan-Barcelona.

 

I am not against Carnival but am just afraid its too party oriented. I'll have to do them on a 15 day cruise because I just can't take the younger drunk crowd or the loud hip hop music. Sorry that is not relaxing. But I can take the good food, Guys the Burrito place, Specialty Restaurants, Frog's Bar etc.

 

Looking forward to reading your review. The longer the review with more photos and food porn the better.

 

It is possible that I have had a skewed view of Carnival because I have never sailed from the mainland US (except my first cruise when I was 14, but I don't really think that one counts!). I have never felt that Carnival had a drunk party crowd at all. While I enjoy the occasional drink, I am really not into the loud sloppy drunk party scene, and I have never noticed any of that to be an issue on my Carnival cruises. Sure they play loud music near the mid-ship pool, but it's all part of the fun Caribbean vibe. And if you prefer some more quiet, you can find that on Serenity, at the aft pool, or on several other non-Lido public spaces. I hope you give Carnival a try so they can change your views about them :) And don't worry, I have tons more photos and food porn to share!! J kept teasing me for taking photos of everything I ate (which I even did last night when we got Pho for dinner down the block from my apartment lol)

[deladane]

Monday, March 16 ~ Sapphire Beach in St. Thomas

 

When we woke up at 7:15am, we were already docked in St. Thomas and we could see people getting off the ship out our window. We got ready and went to breakfast at the Lido buffet. It was very hectic and crowded, and we waited 15 minutes for an omelet! I'm sorry to say that I didn't take any breakfast food porn photos over the entire cruise. Guess I was just too excited to eat and get off the ship haha

 

The port area in St. Thomas is so beautiful with all the little white boats contrasting against the deep blue water and bright green hills...

 

 

We left the ship and walked through the little shopping area to the taxi stand. A taxi to Sapphire Beach cost $10 per person each way, plus tip. We ended up in a minivan with 7 passengers instead of a big open air taxi like most people. It was really nice to have the air conditioning, but it was a long ride and we had to drop some people at Coki Beach on the way so that took extra time. It took 35 minutes total and we arrived at Sapphire Beach a little after 10am. There was already a lot of people there, although I wouldn't say it was crowded. We paid $9 each plus tip for lounge chairs, and the girl set them up where we requested under a tree for shade. Little did we know that it would be overcast and cloudy all day with occasional drizzle, so we didn't really need the tree's shade. There was a light breeze and it was slightly cool all day. I only took my cover-up off to take a few quick photos, and it was too cold and the water was too choppy to snorkel in the ocean.

 

 

 

We brought a few pouches of Gasolina to enjoy on the beach. I'm not sure if it was because they are only sold in Puerto Rico so the St. Thomas locals didn't know what we were drinking, or just because they didn't care, but no one said anything to us about drinking something we didn't buy directly from them. In fact, there was a big group of college-aged kids sitting next to us who were on spring break and staying on the island all week, and they had a huge cooler filled with beers that we watched them carry onto the beach and no one said anything to them either.

 

 

We took advantage and took some photos when the sun eventually came out...

 

 

 

A few other things about Sapphire Beach: I know they had some construction for the past few months. As of when we were there, the bathrooms were open, but there was still a section of the property under construction. There was one vendor set up on the beach selling jewelry and dresses, but she did not bother us or pressure us to buy anything. If people approached her to browse her products, then she answered their questions, but she did not walk up and down the beach asking us to buy stuff. There were 2 runners from the restaurant who came around with drink and food menus and could take your orders from the beach so you didn't have to get up if you were hungry. Other than that, it was a pleasant quiet day at the beach, even if it was too cold to do the water sports! I was able to snorkel here on my 2012 cruise, so if you are interested in that experience, please refer to that review.

[deladane]

There was a taxi waiting outside to bring us back to the ship when we were ready to leave at 1:45pm. It again cost $10 per person for a 30 minute ride, and the driver dropped us off near the stores outside the port. We got back on the ship by 2:30pm after a slow moving line at the gangway. First stop was to drop off our bags in the cabin (it came in handy that we could run up one flight of stairs to our cabin on deck 1 instead of waiting for the elevators), and then we went to the Lido buffet for lunch... another Mongolian Wok stir fry for me, and the burrito bar for J.

 

 

After lunch, we spent the afternoon relaxing on a sun bed on Serenity deck. I have seen photos of those sun beds having a clamshell to provide shade, but none of the sun beds on the Valor had that clamshell attachment. Today was a good day to use the sun beds because it was a bit overcast and cloudy, but I avoided the beds on bright sunny days for fear of getting a sunburn.

 

I got hungry again an hour later so I grabbed some cheese pizza (which involved a long walk all the way across the ship to the aft pizza station.) I really wanted to have the mushroom pizza but it would take them 20 minutes to cook it fresh for me and I didn't want to wait that long so I just took the plain cheese slices that were already available.

 

 

I went back to the cabin to shower at 5pm and the clanging noise came back. I called guest services and they said they would send someone up to check it out. The maintenance guy finally arrived nearly an hour later, and of course the sound stopped by then. He said he thought it was the anchor settling after sail away. I explained that it happened last night over an hour before sail away too so I doubted it was the anchor. He said to call guest services if the noise came back. I'll bet you can guess what happened next... 10 minutes after the maintenance guy left, the clanging noise started again. I called guest services again and the girl said she would come right away to hopefully arrive while the noise was still happening. She knocked on the door 5 minutes later and waited with us for about 5 minutes but sure enough, the noise remained quiet while she was there. And of course, a minute or two after she left, the clanging returned. By now, it was 6:45pm and we planned to go to dinner at 6:30pm so I didn't want to call and wait for them to come again (especially since the noise seemed to be scared of the ship staff and it always stopped when they were around!). Instead, I took out my iPhone and recorded a 1 minute voice memo of the sound. It worked great and really captured how consistent and annoying the banging was. We then headed down to dinner and agreed to forget about the banging for a few hours and we could deal with it after we ate.

 

This was my first experience with any time dining. We got to the 3rd floor mid-ship Lincoln dining room and there were maybe 5 parties ahead of us lined up to be seated. It took just a few minutes until we were brought to a table for 2 towards the back of the dining room. I had read enough Cruise Critic reviews that complain about how close together the tables are, so I wasn't surprised to see that our table had about a foot of space between our neighboring tables. No big deal! It was great to have the flexibility to eat when it was convenient for us, especially with all the clanging drama in our cabin.

 

I ordered the duck and the fried shrimp for my appetizers, the seafood newburg for my entree, and of course the warm chocolate melting cake for dessert. They brought everyone 2 ramekins of vanilla ice cream without having to request it. All of the food was served warm and it was delicious as always. I am not going to post the menus for each day since they were the same old menus that you can easily find in other reviews (plus all the ships will have new American Table menus soon anyway). I will post some food porn though!

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

We wore our green Mardi Gras beads in anticipation of St. Patrick's Day tomorrow...

 

Walking through the lobby...

 

After dinner, we went to guest services to play them the sound recording of the clanging noise. We spoke with a lovely lady named Sylvia, and she was extremely helpful. She listened to the recording and excused herself for a few minutes to speak to her supervisor. When she returned, she explained that there was one unoccupied cabin left on the ship and she offered to take us to see it. I had spent a great deal of time and energy picking out the perfect cabin for our needs, so I was worried that this new cabin would be in a bad location. Really, we were just hoping they would fix the problem, make the clanging stop, and we could stay put in our original cabin. As it turned out, the new cabin was a balcony cabin all the way forward on deck 7. As I mentioned at the start of my review, I am a huge fan of deck 7, and I have never been in a balcony cabin before. Maybe everything would work out well for us after all! Sylvia took us up to see cabin 7220. On the way up there, she explained that it was only available because another couple missed the cruise due to flight cancellations during a blizzard in their home city. We felt really sorry for whoever that was- it must be awful to miss out on your vacation so last minute due to weather problems!

 

The new cabin was lovely... Not a single clanging noise to be heard! We were thrilled at the idea of a silent peaceful remainder to our vacation, and Sylvia said the cabin was ready immediately if we wanted to change cabins tonight. While it was less than ideal to miss out on an evening of fun on the ship, I wanted to make the room change ASAP to avoid another night in the noisy cabin and so we could get on with enjoying the rest of our cruise. We took 30 minutes to repack all of our belongings (and by repack, I mean take every plastic grocery bag we had in or cabin, plus our beach bags and other luggage, and throw everything in so it was portable... no need to cram it all tightly which would have taken way more time!), and we called for a porter to help move our bags. By 10:45pm, everything was unloaded in the new cabin and we decided to head down to the 11:15pm adult comedy show so at least we could do one fun thing tonight!

 

Tonight's comedian was Lou Johnson and he did a whole set about cruising. I guess he really knows his audience! He didn't waste any time making fun of people in the front row like most comedians do... The whole 30 minute act was filled with hilarious content about his experiences working on cruise ships. If you have a chance to go, I would definitely recommend seeing Lou Johnson's act!

 

 

 

After that, we got back to the cabin at midnight, ordered some grilled cheese from room service, and spent an hour unpacking and getting settled in our new home for the rest of the week. Overall, the experience with the clanging noise was a hassle and it wasn't ideal to waste time on our vacation dealing with it, but we thought Carnival handled the situation fairly and took care of us.

 

Mr. Monkey was waiting to say goodnight

 

Up next: our only day at sea, spent mostly outside on our new balcony!!