Detailed Photo Review of Southern Caribbean Valor Cruise from Puerto Rico 3/15/15

[deladane]

After tea time, we went back to the cabin to enjoy some more balcony time, then we got ready for formal night at dinner.

 

 

We got down to the lobby at 6:35pm and noticed a long line of people waiting to enter the dining room. We waited for 15 minutes to reach the front of the line, and they took our cabin number and gave us a pager so we would know when our table was ready. Unsure of how long the wait would take, we decided to get a few drinks at the lobby bar.

 

 

We got seated at 7:30pm, but they were doing the show where the waiters sing and dance, so we had to wait 15 minutes before we could order our food. After 35 minutes, we still had no food so we complained to a manager when he came over to check on us, and then our appetizers came out 5 minutes later. Like magic, the service was much faster after we complained. We planned to go to the 8:15pm show in the main theater but missed it because dinner took so long. We left dinner at 9pm, 2.5 hrs after we originally got on line. In theory, any time dining should be a great option, but unfortunately, in reality, the hour-long wait and the slow service meant we had to miss out on several things we planned to do around the ship at night.

 

We made the best of it and enjoyed our formal night dinner. I had the stuffed white mushrooms, kale and beets carpaccio (a new appetizer I had never tried before), two orders of the lobster and shrimp entree, and the fresh fruit for dessert. These photos all look very dark to me... I took all my food porn pictures both with and without the flash, but the ones with the flash totally washed out the food and looked waaaay too light, so I had to use the non-flash photos. I'm sorry if they aren't the best quality, but hopefully you get a good enough view!

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

We didn't have a ton of opportunities to acknowledge St. Patrick's Day today, and I didn't notice the corned beef and cabbage which was rumored to be on tonight's dinner menu (perhaps because they didn't want to alter the formal night dinner menu??), but J didn't want to ignore the holiday. Despite the limited space in his 3-1-1 bag for TSA on the plane, he managed to squeeze in a tiny bottle of green food coloring! He brought it to dinner and used it to turn all of our liquids green. Both of our cocktails were green (you can see them on the sides of this photo... people actually asked us what we ordered because they wanted green drinks too!!), our waters were green, even J's soup was green! Our waiters looked very confused when they walked passed our table because they knew they didn't serve us green water or soup haha

 

 

 

After dinner, we went to the 10:15pm production show called Nightclub Express. It was ok but would have been better if it had more songs that we knew. The show featured a unique narrator... a giant talking sofa! It reminded me of an after school special or something haha A few times during the show, between singing and dancing numbers, the couch rolled out on stage to tell us about the next set of songs. Very strange! We thought it was kind of odd that the dancers wore thongs for most of their costumes... that's not very family friendly!

 

After the show, we went to see the piano bar. There were maybe 20 people in there so it wasn't very lively. We stayed for a few songs, then went up to Lido to grab a snack before bedtime. I loved how pretty the aft pool looked at night...

 

 

 

There are very few options for food this late at night... sometimes the grill was open, but not every night. The only other option was pizza, but it always had a looooong line. It was nice that they make each pizza fresh when you order it, but it takes 20 minutes to cook each pizza, and that creates a long line of people waiting for their food. Maybe it would work better if they continuously made pizzas at this late hour considering there was clearly a demand for it, but I guess it would get cold quickly since it's such a thin crust. Here was the pizza place menu:

 

 

Up next: Boatyard Beach in Barbados

[ladygal4.4]

The "balcony virgins" made me laugh! I can't wait for my next cruise because it's our first balcony too! My husband loves to go off and find a quiet place to read....2 hours later I'm like "where in the world did he go?" He always finds the most obscure shaded place on the boat. :)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[TinkyPatz]

Oh, bless your heart for re-posting this review! I was looking at it a couple of weeks ago and was so disappointed that the pictures were not showing up. I'm from PR and can't get enough pictures of my island! :D

[deladane]

The "balcony virgins" made me laugh! I can't wait for my next cruise because it's our first balcony too! My husband loves to go off and find a quiet place to read....2 hours later I'm like "where in the world did he go?" He always finds the most obscure shaded place on the boat. :)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

OOOH you will love having a balcony! You know where you will always find your husband now! But be careful- they say once you get a balcony, you'll never want to go back to an inside/oceanview again haha We got super lucky when we booked our next cruise on Celebrity because the balcony and oceanview cabins were the same price! We were happy not to have to choose between the balcony vs. saving some money haha

 

 

Oh, bless your heart for re-posting this review! I was looking at it a couple of weeks ago and was so disappointed that the pictures were not showing up. I'm from PR and can't get enough pictures of my island! :D

 

Oh wow, you are so lucky to be from such a beautiful island! This was my 3rd cruise from San Juan, and it definitely won't be my last. I love PR and it has so much to offer that it's great when a cruise starts from there so we can spend a few days pre- and post-cruise to explore! Eventually I'll get around to re-posting my Victory review from 2012 so you can see a bunch more PR photos (including a full-day tour of El Yunque and kayaking in the biobay!!)

[deladane]

Wednesday, March 18 ~ Boatyard Beach in Barbados

 

We woke up at 7:15am, got omelets for breakfast at the Lido buffet at 8am, and left the ship at 9am to grab a taxi to the Boatyard Beach on Carlisle Bay.

 

 

The taxi costs $5 per person, and we shared the taxi with 13 other people. The whole time we were in the taxi, the driver tried to convince us to go to Harbor Lights, saying that there would be a long wait for taxis at the Boatyard when we wanted to leave (spoiler alert: we had no wait at all). Anyway, no one in our taxi fell for his tricks and we arrived at the Boatyard by 9:30am. The driver then proceeded to escort us to the check in spot so he could collect his commission! Go figure! We paid a $15 per person entrance fee which included lounge chairs, an umbrella, a cup of rum punch, use of the rope swing and water toys, and the bathrooms/changing rooms. There were already a lot of people there when we arrived, but we were able to get front row seats on the right side of the pier (red umbrellas). By 11am, I heard the staff say they ran out of chairs, so plan to get there early if you want a chair at the Boatyard (and we were the only ship in port that day- I'm sure they fill up faster on days with more ships docked).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Within minutes of putting our bags down, the local vendors were asking if we wanted to rent jet skis or go swimming with the turtles. If you plan to swim with the turtles, it is a good idea to head out early in the day because a) more boats filled with tourists show up as the day progresses so it will get very crowded, and b) the guides feed the turtles to entice them, but as the day goes on, they fill up and don't respond as well to the bait. There are many different vendors, and most charge $20 per person for the tour, which includes life vests, rum punch, and snorkel equipment if needed (the people on the lounge chairs next to us bargained it down to $15 per person!). We found it a bit annoying at how aggressive the vendors were. There are a bunch of guys on the beach soliciting tourists to take the tour, and they expect you to be loyal to them if they approach you first. Well, we noticed that some of our friends from Cruise Critic were going to snorkel at the same time so we joined up with them on their boat, and our original vendor got very upset and started harassing me about it. It was a stressful situation and I felt uncomfortable about it, but luckily the guy didn't bother us once we got back from the tour. It's just something to be aware of if you do go to the Boatyard- the water sports vendors are verrrry pushy!

[deladane]

Anyway, back to the story... We went out on a double-decker glass-bottom boat right away, and were gone for about an hour. We chose to bring our beach bags with us, but noticed many others leaving their bags on their lounge chairs later in the day. Here is the view looking back at the Boatyard as we sailed away...

 

 

First, we went snorkeling over a ship wreck. In my opinion, the snorkeling here was sub-par. There weren't that many fish, there was a bit of a current that we had to swim against, and the water was too cloudy. It was my first time snorkeling in 2.5 years, so it was nice to have some practice time to get the hang of it again, but it was kind of hard to see the fish in the cloudy water. Oh well, it was still fun!

 

 

 

 

We stayed there for about 20 minutes, then the guide signaled for us to swim back to the boat. Next, we went over to an area where there were already a bunch of boats anchored. The water was very crowded, but our guide said this was where we could snorkel with the sea turtles so we jumped in the water and made our own space. Notice all the heads bobbing in the water...

 

[deladane]

Sure enough, there were 5 beautiful sea turtles swimming amongst all the tourists. It was definitely very crowded with 40-50 people trying to get close to the turtles, and everyone was getting kicked and hit by neighboring swimmers, but it was all part of the excitement. I was very surprised to see so many swimmers out there since the last time I did this on my cruise in 2012, there were just the 4 people on my boat, but we also went on a lot earlier in the morning so I guess there is a big difference between going at 9am and 10am!!

 

 

 

Snorkel Selfie!

 

 

It was crowded!

 

 

We spent about 15 minutes snorkeling with the sea turtles, then got back on the boat. The guide gave us a cup of very strong rum punch to enjoy as he brought us back to the Boatyard. Overall, it was $20 well spent and I think everyone on our boat had fun, but I do think it was a bit too crowded to fully enjoy the experience. One thing to keep in mind is that many of the other boats near us were half- or full-day catamaran excursions that run up to $100 per person, yet we were all snorkeling at the same time, in the same water, with the same turtles! I am sure they had a great rest of their day on the boat whereas we only had 1 hour on the boat and spent the rest of our day on the beach, but I don't think it is worth the difference in price if you are only going for the snorkel experience and don't care about spending all day on their boat.

[deladane]

We spent the next few hours relaxing on our lounge chairs, drinking our free cup of rum punch, and chatting with the people on our neighboring lounge chairs. Everyone was so friendly and it is always fun to meet new people. J even met some people from his home town and their son went to J's high school! What are the chances?! Less shocking was when I met a couple who live in the same apartment building where my brother used to live in NYC (it's kind of an infamous building and once they mentioned the intersection, I knew the exact building they were talking about... they found it funny that they met someone in Barbados who could identify their apartment building by it's nickname lol)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At some point, we heard a siren go off to signal that they were pouring free shots at the bar. Tons of people ran up to have the bartender pour liquor from the bottle right into their mouths! It felt like we were on spring break! Haha

[deladane]

Later in the afternoon, we decided to try out the water toys. J loved the rope swing and went on it a few times. Sadly, I did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would, and it took me a while to recover from all that water that got in my ears upon landing haha oops! We also spent some time relaxing on the giant trampoline (btw, it is much harder to climb that ladder than it looks!! Haha), and J was able to climb to the top of the inflatable iceberg on his first attempt!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 3pm, we packed up our belongings and caught a taxi back to the cruise ship. As I already mentioned, there was no wait for a taxi and they run continuously from noon until 5pm (but don't wait until that last taxi or you will miss the 4:30 all aboard time!!)

 

Being silly tourists back at the port...

Edited August 4, 2015 by deladane

[deladane]

Once back on board, we spent a few hours relaxing in the cabin and getting ready for dinner. Luckily there was only a 5 minute wait for dinner tonight when we arrived at 7pm. I ordered the prosciutto with melon, the French onion soup, and the penne mariscos. I had the fig cinnamon cake for dessert.

 

 

I promise this soup tasted better than it looks in this photo!

 

 

 

After dinner, I suddenly became extremely tired. Tonight was the night of the Mexican buffet and the big deck party, but I literally couldn't keep my eyes open so we just went back to the cabin. I was in bed and asleep by 9pm and J read his book out on the balcony for a while. I guess the sun got the better of me today (and it left me with the lovely souvenir of a terrible sunburn on my back!). I am disappointed in myself for not staying awake to go to the deck party, but I guess this falls under the category of "you can't do EVERYTHING on a cruise" and "now I have an excuse to take another cruise!"

 

Good night Barbados!

 

 

Up next: zip lining in St. Lucia

[Jenny in TX]

Enjoying your review! You definitely must try Punto de Vista next time you are in Puerto Rico. It was delicious and eating out on the rooftop terrace at sunset is the BEST!!

[deladane]

Enjoying your review! You definitely must try Punto de Vista next time you are in Puerto Rico. It was delicious and eating out on the rooftop terrace at sunset is the BEST!!

 

Thanks Jenny! We were really bummed when our flight delays meant we had to miss eating dinner there, but it is definitely on our to-do list for the next time we sail out of Puerto Rico :) The funniest part is that I stayed at the Hotel Milano in 2012 but they didn't have a restaurant up there at the time (just a very small continental breakfast, I think?) Too bad Punto de Vista wasn't located there back then or I definitely would have tried it out :)

[deladane]

Thursday, March 19 ~ Zip lining across St. Lucia

 

Before we fell asleep last night, we left the breakfast room service door tag outside our room so we could eat breakfast while getting ready this morning. We had to meet our tour on the pier by 8:30am today and wanted to avoid spending an hour on Lido deck dealing with the buffet. It worked out perfectly! The room service lady knocked on our door at 7:20am, right in the middle of the 7:15-7:30am window we requested. We both ordered the bagel with lox and cream cheese, and we decided to eat it on our balcony and watch as the ship finished pulling into port. It made such a scenic place to enjoy our breakfast!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back when we booked the cruise, we knew we wanted to go zip lining at one of the ports. St. Lucia is the kind of port where you really need to plan a specific excursion because it's not like you can just get off the ship and go to a beach like on other islands. St. Lucia is a lush tropical rainforest and it offers tourists many options of active things to do. With that in mind, we decided to make this our zip lining day. I did a bit of research on Cruise Critic and found a company called Treetop Adventures which offered a half-day zip lining tour with round trip transportation to/from their facility. They have 12 zip lines of varied lengths and speeds (whereas most zip line places only offer 4-5 lines), and they got tons of positive reviews so we booked the tour online. The company was easy to deal with and answered all of my questions promptly via email.

[deladane]

Our instructions said to meet their guide on the pier at 8:30am. Sure enough, we walked off the gangway and literally 50ft away was a guide holding a Treetop Adventures sign! It could not have been any easier to find him! They had us sign a safety waiver, and then we walked together through the small port shops area to the parking lot where a big van picked us up. I think we had about 15 people on the van so it was a nice small group for the day. Our guide's name was Eagle, and he told us all about the history of St. Lucia and pointed out important landmarks as another man named Cornelius drove the van. I read a few reviews saying that it is a 25-30 minute drive from the port to the zip line facility... Wrong!! The drive took exactly one hour (plus a brief 5-minute stop to take photos at a scenic overlook). So basically our tour was 4 hours long, but 2 of those hours would be spent in the van getting to and from the facility haha oh well! At least it was air conditioned and Eagle kept us entertained.

 

 

When we arrived at the facility, Eagle explained that they had lockers to store our belongings, but that we needed to leave a $5 deposit which would be refunded when we returned our keys. They also had bathrooms and encouraged us to use them since there were no bathrooms on the course. Once we walked down to the entrance area, a man named Shetty (rhymes with machete, as he told us) approached us and explained that he would stay with us all day and take photos and videos for us on my camera. Each couple or family had their own guide to take photos, and I loved this aspect of it. Shetty held my camera the whole time and took fantastic photos of me and J on the zip lines and throughout the course, and that meant I had both hands free to control the zip line and I could focus on what I was doing and not on operating my camera.

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

 

 

 

 

There were 12 lines in total and we spent about an hour and a half on the course. When we got to the fastest and longest line, Shetty said he and I would go together in tandem and he would push me super fast and take a video at the same time so here is that video...

 

[YOUTUBE]rd817oYDWDc[/YOUTUBE]

 

Once we finished the course, we had some time to get changed out of our harnesses, use the restroom, and purchase a beer. Piton is the local brew and it was a light and refreshing way to finish the excursion ($2 each!).

 

[deladane]

On the hour-long ride back to the port, Eagle pointed out a bunch of local plants including banana trees, pepper trees, coconut trees, and a few others.

 

Bananas growing in the blue bags for protection from the sun

 

 

Teeny tiny bananas

 

Pepper trees

 

Papaya trees

 

We also stopped at another scenic overlook to see the Atlantic Ocean.

 

The roads in St Lucia are very windy and narrow, so this is probably not the best island to rent a car, and if you are prone to motion sickness, you might want to take a Dramamine before going on your tour. We got back to the pier at 12:45pm and went straight up to Lido for lunch. I had the Mongolian Wok for the 3rd time... I'm not sure why I was so addicted to it, but it made for a yummy lunch. The downside was that it always took a long time to get my lunch. J opted for a burrito and he finished his food before mine was even made! We also went upstairs to the fish and chips. There was no line for food, and only 2 or 3 tables had people sitting there, so even though the cruise was half over, it looked like people still hadn't found the fish and chips place. We shared a battered fish and it was pretty good, with a good ratio of dough to fish.

[deladane]

After lunch, we went in search of somewhere to sit in the shade. My souvenir from Barbados was a bad burn on my back, so I didn't want to be in the sun any more than necessary. Sadly, our options of outdoor places in the sun were very limited. I didn't want to sit in the section of Lido deck underneath deck 10 because it is behind the windows and I wanted a clear view of the ocean. Why don't they put any umbrellas out on the decks?? We wound up on serenity under the shade of the deck above and with a beautiful view over St Lucia and the ocean. We relaxed there for an hour or two as J read his book and I took notes for this review, then we got ready for formal night.

 

 

We definitely wanted to avoid the disaster from Tuesday's formal night with the hour long wait. We were both hungry by 4pm so we decided to hold off on snacking and we would go to dinner when the dining room opened at 5:45pm. We had no wait at all and were seated within minutes, so our plan worked but I did notice that it never got full for the whole time we were there. When we left at 7:30pm, there was still no wait to be seated so I guess fewer people go to the second formal night. That was fine though, we were happy to finish our meal by 7:30pm and have tons of time to enjoy the evening activities on the ship.

 

But let's not skip too far ahead... Dinner was delicious, as usual! I had the eggplant parm and my favorite appetizer, the escargot. I had the chateaubriand for my entree and the diet cheesecake for dessert.

 

 

 

 

 

After dinner, we took a few photos around the ship (not the paid professional ones)

 

[deladane]

We got to the theater at 8pm and found a seat in the front row.

 

Showtime Selfie!

 

Tonight's show was called Far From Over, and it was an 80s theme. We both LOVED it!! It helps that we are children of the 80s and love 80s music, but we spent the whole show playing name that tune/band and singing along with the songs. At one point, they brought out 2 beat boys to do some break dancing. At first we thought these guys were part of the normal dance group, but we soon realized these must be the guys brought on the ship for more entertainment in the lobby later tonight. They were a great addition to the show and they were extremely talented, but I was wondering if they come to the ship every week to join the show, or if this was a one-time thing. Does anyone know? For people who have done this itinerary before, did the break dancers perform for you too? Anyway, the show ended at 9:15, and everyone filtered out of the theater and into the lobby to watch another brief break dancing show.

 

 

[YOUTUBE]6vnYdxlDkfo[/YOUTUBE]

 

[YOUTUBE]7zMGLLnW-VA[/YOUTUBE]

 

After that, we went to Lido so J could get a sandwich from the deli, and then we went to the piano bar. We stayed for about an hour and had fun singing along with Milton, but like Tuesday night, there were only about 20 people in there and it seemed like it was the same people who go there every night.

 

 

We then went to karaoke in the Eagles Lounge next door and stayed until midnight when we called it a night to rest up for St Kitts.

 

[sewut]

I am enjoying your review. We will be doing some of these ports in January. I can't help wondering who is taking all your pictures, there's no selfie stick, I can see your hands. Do you ask passing strangers or use a timer?

[deladane]

I am enjoying your review. We will be doing some of these ports in January. I can't help wondering who is taking all your pictures, there's no selfie stick, I can see your hands. Do you ask passing strangers or use a timer?

 

For the photos of both of us on our balcony, we used a selfie stick (I was proud of myself for getting the one taken from behind us looking out towards the water because I was able to hold the stick over my left shoulder and angle the camera so you don't see the stick!) I didn't use the stick very often though- A few of the photos are just taken by me reaching out my arm and taking a selfie (the one of us in the theater before the show on Thursday and the one of us snorkeling in Barbados were taken like that).

 

For all the other photos of us around the ship and in port, if you see our full body and arms, then we gave the camera to someone walking by and asked them to take our photo. We tried to pick people who didn't look like it would be annoying to stop and take the photo (ie: if a mother walked by juggling her screaming infant in her arms, or if someone walked by carrying a full drink, we wouldn't ask them! haha) Most people were happy to take our photo. Another good strategy we used was that if we saw a couple where one person was taking a photo of the other person, I offered to take one of them together, and they usually offered to return the favor for us :)

[deladane]

Friday, March 20 ~ We found paradise in St. Kitts

 

Why do I keep waking up before my alarm?!? For the third day in a row, I woke up a bit before the alarm went off. No worries though... I was excited for a beautiful day in St. Kitts!

 

 

This would be my third time visiting St. Kitts and I had done something different every time. My first time in 2010, I took a half-day island tour through Liz Pereria. My second time in 2012, I went stand up paddle boarding. If you want to read more info about either of these experiences, please check out my other reviews (links listed below). This time around, we planned to go to the Palm Court Gardens. For $11 per person, we had access to a lounge chair, umbrella, free wifi, restrooms, and a beautiful infinity pool overlooking the harbor where the Valor was docked. With all the high-action things we had to do in the other ports, this would be our mellow day to relax. I emailed them a few months before the cruise to reserve our chairs, and they responded quickly with more details about their facilities.

 

After a big breakfast on Lido, we left the ship at 9am. They had given me pretty vague walking directions, but I thought we would be okay to figure it out. We left the port area and walked left along the water. I didn't feel unsafe, especially since I had J by my side, but I don't think I would feel comfortable to do that walk alone. We walked past some run down homes and lots of locals who looked like they were going to work. After about 10 minutes, we saw a tall monument which was our landmark to turn left up Wilkins Street and the Palm Court Gardens was about 200ft up the road on our left hand side.

 

This was our reference point on when to turn left... it was a World War II memorial

 

 

We both agreed this place was beautiful! The grounds were well kept, and the views of the water, the ship, and St. Kitts' sister island Nevis were perfect!

 

 

 

[deladane]

We spent the next few hours checking in on social media with the free wifi, and relaxing on our lounge chairs under our umbrellas (we had to keep moving them to hide from the sun as it moved across the sky... #firstworldproblems haha). We also went swimming for a little bit, but not as long as I would have expected. There was a hot tub but unfortunately, we never had a chance to use it because the entire time we were there, there were a bunch of children playing in it like it was a kiddie pool. Didn't anyone ever tell their parents that hot tubs aren't meant for children?!? Not ideal, but at least we were sitting fairly far form the "splash zone" haha

 

 

 

 

 

 

[deladane]

Who put the cruise ship in the swimming pool?

 

Another interesting aspect of Palm Court Gardens is, well, the gardens! The grounds are well maintained and there were lots of beautiful plants and flowers around the property.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a lovely time at Palm Court Gardens. We bought a few drinks from their bar... be forewarned that tax is not included in the drink prices and they charged like a 30% tax! Luckily we brought our remaining Gasolinas along to supplement the drinks we purchased (shhh! Don't tell them!) It never got very crowded... at most, I think half the lounge chairs were occupied. There were a few people who stopped by and took a look around, and then left within 10 minutes. They were not wearing bathing suits, so I think they may have been on a ship tour or something and just came to see the gardens and the views. Other than that, it was fairly empty. We asked the staff and they said it opened in 2010, about a year after the new cruise port opened. I think they need to do a bit more advertising or something because they could easily have more guests if more people knew what they had to offer (although I did love that it wasn't crowded!) It was our own piece of paradise for a day!

[deladane]

One last photo on our way out...

 

 

At about 2pm, we walked back to the ship and grabbed lunch on Lido. I got the Mongolian Wok again and this time I timed it... It took 15 minutes from the time I got in line to the time the guy handed me my food. I guess the wait wasn't such a big deal but it felt like a long time since J had no wait on the buffet line (they served Caribbean food today), and he was nearly done eating lunch when I got to the table (I told him to go ahead and eat and not to wait for me).

 

After lunch, we spent some time relaxing on the balcony and then got showered and ready for the past guest party. This was the first time I was eligible to attend the party since I turned Gold on this cruise, so I was very excited to get in on the fun! We got downstairs to the theater at about 4:45pm and people were starting to line up. At 4:55, they opened the doors to let us in (no one checked for invitations). We were greeted with waiters holding Mardi Gras beads and trays of rum punch (interesting fact: Apparently every time Carnival gives out Mardi Gras beads, they are referencing the original Carnival ship with the same name). We quickly found seats towards the back of the theater on the aisle based on advice I had read on Cruise Critic, but it turned out that we could have sat anywhere and been happy. There were so many waiters walking around with trays of snacks and drinks and it looked like everyone got as much as they wanted. Other reviews had mentioned that only people on the aisles get served because the waiters run out of food by the time they reach the middle of each row, but I didn't notice that to be true. In fact, many time the waiters approached us from the other end of our row, meaning we were the last people served in our row and they still had plenty of food for us. The waiters also brought around a few hors d'vours- tomato wrapped around mozzarella and pesto, cubes of raw salmon (yummmmy!), and some weird savory cheesecake thing that we didn't care for.

 

 

One slight disappointment was that the drinks were very weak. I know we could have asked for something other than the rum punch, but we didn't bother. We each ended up with 4 or 5 drinks and we were both still sober when we finished. Weird, but I guess we can't complain since they were free! Haha The waiters were really great about making sure everyone always had a drink in their hands. Once our cup was half empty, they brought us another drink!

 

 

 

After about 10 minutes, the Captain and all of the officers came out and spoke. No wonder they hold the party before all aboard time! If the Captain is down here entertaining us, who would drive the ship?? hehe

 

 

After that, they showed a little video promoting the Carnival brand. It was fun when they asked us to cheer for the ships we have been on. I think I was the only person in the room who cheered for sailing on the Holiday (that cruise was a LOOONG time ago!) I was so jealous of people who cheered when they showed the Vista (meaning they have a cruise booked on the not-yet-built ship). Hopefully someday I will get to be one of those people!