Carnival Valor March 19-26, 2016 Western Caribbean with Funtimes

[Jsmomma]

I can't believe we've already been back for 5 days!

 

Before departing, we scoured the internet in search of information on the Valor. We didn't find much that was recent and much of what we did find said the ship was run down and in dire need of a refurbishment.

 

I'm going to post a multi part review that isn't particularly long or detailed. No pictures, no food reviews, nothing fancy. My hope is that this is as helpful to other cruisers as the reviews of others have been to me.

 

Background:

I'm an obsessive vacation planner, middle school teacher, mom, cat caretaker, wife, and hobby collector. Most likely I lost you at middle school. It takes the right kind of extra "special" personality to work with students aged 11-14, and I have it in spades! I often refer to my students as my kids, all 137 of them. Our large, suburban school district has the week before Easter off for Spring Break which made this cruise work out perfectly.

 

My husband, myself, and our son, aged 11.5 made the trip together, but we did leave our two bad cats at home. We have not yet been forgiven for abandoning them for a week.

[Jsmomma]

Carnival Valor, March 19th-26th, 2016

 

Travel to the Port and Embarkation

 

We drove to Florida on Friday and stayed overnight outside of Daytona. Saturday we had about an hour drive down to Port Canaveral. Arrived around 11:30. Parking was well marked, just read the signs. We opted to park at the port because the last time we used an off site parking lot here it was a huge fiasco. You pay as you enter the garage for your terminal. We did not drop off our bags and opted to just roll them over as we walked into the terminal. We had FTTF, so our bags were tagged with the orange tags. We walked into the priority area, up the escalator and right to the check in desk. From there we walked right onto the ship.

 

Unfortunately, our room wasn’t ready (not even close) so we ate lunch. Checked again, room not ready. We went down to guest services and they had a long list of FTTF rooms that were not ready yet. We were told that they’d be in touch during the week to resolve the issue. They weren’t. We followed up with Sunshine at the front desk on Monday and before we even asked about compensation, she quickly refunded our money. We were not expecting a full refund, maybe a small $20 credit because we still experienced the other benefits of FTTF.

[Clarea]

Looking forward to this, thank-you.:)

[Keith1010]

Enjoying this.

 

Keith

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report.

[Jsmomma]

Disclaimer I'm not only an obsessive planner, I'm a geek (or a nerd, or a dork, but never a hipster) that enjoys researching information and shares it with everyone.

 

Ports

 

The itinerary was the typical Western Caribbean: Cozumel, Belize, Roatan, and Costa Maya. We did nothing in Cozumel or Costa Maya on this trip. This is the 2nd time we’ve done this itinerary and we didn’t feel the need to do something in all 4 ports. Additionally, our time in Costa Maya was odd, from 7 to 1:30, I think. This worked out in our favor because Cozumel weather was super windy and both sunny and overcast. Costa Maya was HOT and we nearly melted just walking off the pier into port.

 

In Belize, we took a tour to Lamanai. Amazing ruins, good lunch, pleasant boat ride up the river. Despite having to wait for the other party to show up to begin our excursion, we still got to Lamanai before other groups and before it got too hot. We were able to see some Howler monkeys hanging out in the trees and we visited a Spider monkey named Pepito before lunch. This is a very long excursion with a large amount of travel. Our guide was conscious of the time and kept moving us along so that we would be back before the last tender departed- which we were. I wish we had had more time at the ruins.

I did my best to find information in travel guides, but it wasn’t in-depth enough to satisfy my curiosity. If you would like to read about the archeology at Lamanai, you may want to visit http://www.lamanai.org.uk/index.html In particular, I enjoyed reading http://www.lamanai.org.uk/uploads/3/2/0/7/3207254/aimers_2007_antiapocalypse.pdf , which includes a map of Maya sites in the Yucatan.

 

In Roatan, we took the Maya Key excursion through Carnival. This is the only excursion we do through Carnival because it is not available any other way. Maya Key is a great beach day, with lunch, amazing snorkeling, and a host of rescued animals. I hate seeing animals in cages, but I feel that Maya Key does an excellent job of maintaining the habitats. The only downside to this excursion is that Carnival only has it for 5 hours and they flew by. I did receive 5 or 6 bites from something, despite being sprayed down with 25% Deet (Off Deep woods VII). Most likely they occurred after I had been snorkeling because I didn’t reapply. They were round and pink with a bright red dot in the middle, most likely sandfleas. The bites weren’t itchy until a day or two later, however I also take a daily allergy medication so that probably reduced my reaction. They were raking the sand constantly, which is the best way to rid a beach of sandfleas. Lunch was provided and my son and husband really enjoyed the fish. I ate the chicken, but it was not as good as I remembered it being from a previous visit. We bring our own snorkel equipment, so I cannot tell you about the quality of the gear provided.

 

Begin Soap Box: I do not feel that public forums are the right place for me to voice my beliefs about most things. Please research the effects of chemical sunscreens on coral before you swim in the ocean. Before we left, I researched whether or not “reef safe” sunscreens existed, were real, or were worth the money. I thought it was all a money making tactic promoted by tourist areas. I’m a skeptic and require proof in the form of studies that have been published in peer reviewed journals. I ended up purchasing sunscreen that was free of oxybenzone, butylparaben, and octinoxate to use while swimming in the ocean. Don’t take my word as the truth. Please research the effects of chemical sunscreens on the coral reefs. My family does own sunscreen that contain those chemicals, however we will refrain from wearing them at the beach or in the ocean from now on. We personally like Wegman’s brand mineral sunscreen in the tube and in stick form. It’s ugly, pasty, and makes you glow like Casper the ghost, but it works and it’s one of the cheapest per ounce out there. End Soap Box.

[Jsmomma]

Dining

Our wait team on the Valor was phenomenal! From the Maitre D’, Roland, to our wait team, everything went smoothly. We changed our seating for dinner as soon as we got on board. We had been placed in late dining, and stuck with the time but requested a table for just our small family group. On day 2, a notecard was sent to our room with our new table number. We were assigned to be served by Argentia, Roy, and Dedy. They were fast and efficient, but we were never rushed and always felt welcome. We were usually finished with dinner by 9:10-9:15, about an hour. Roland was an excellent host and this was the best overall dining experience we have had in our four cruises.

 

I spoke with Argentina about the upcoming drydock and what she had heard about the American Table menu. She said the dining room should be fancy and that American Table is not fancy enough for the guests. Before this cruise, I did not really care one way or the other about American Table. We experienced it on the Breeze and traditional service on the Valor. I preferred our experience on the Valor, hands down. I can’t pinpoint though, how much it had to do with the menu, the ship, or the wait staff. Dining room service on the Breeze was abysmal, but was that due to an inexperienced team? The size of the ship and dining room? Our table companions that showed up anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour late for dinner?

[Jsmomma]

Cabin

Our cabin was 7410, balcony for 3. The room itself was quiet. There were some college kids on spring break that were a bit obnoxious, but they were seldom in the hallway so it was okay. We did notice what we felt was a fair amount of movement and rocking. I don’t know if it’s the size of the ship, the age, the seas, or what but I had to take Bonine every night to avoid seasickness. Our room steward was nothing to write home about- not bad or negligent, just not awesome. This is the first cruise where we’ve found the previous occupants belongings in our room- socks, earplugs and toothpicks. Ew.

[Jsmomma]

Reflection, Thoughts, and Overall Experience

While the Valor is showing its age in spots, I had to look to find the rust and other worn areas. The coffee machine by the aft pool did not work and were not in service all week. We avoided the main pool area because we like it to be quiet. We saw several comedians, all of whom were fine. The only real downside to late dining (aside from us falling asleep at dinner) was that it conflicted with more of the comedy shows than it should have. The first two comedians for the week had family friendly shows at 8 and 8:45, two nights in a row. On previous cruises, they’ve alternated times so that you could see each of the comedians. On this ship, we never had a chance to see the first two and anyone with early dining probably didn’t get to see the last two. We did not stay up for any of the 18+ comedy shows. I think I stayed up after 11 p.m. only one night.

Jackson Rayne, an illusionist, performed and he was pretty good. We saw an illusionist on the Breeze (Bobby Borgia) and Jackson Rayne was a million times better. I don’t spa, we didn’t gym, we didn’t gamble, and I’m not a big shopper so I can’t tell you about any of those activities. Our son, 11.5 years old, only went to the kids club once, usually because we were doing other activities. The only time he’s ever loved the kids club was on the Breeze last summer.

We really loved playing trivia, and I regret that we have not done so before this cruise. We thought that the hostess, Lea (Leah, Leia) from Austin was warm and friendly. We now proudly display our Ships on Sticks in our home.

The week prior to the cruise was my birthday (6 days before we sailed). The room steward gave me 3 “giftcards” on day 2 to be used on the Valor: $50/spa, 1 free 6x9 photo, and $25 off a bottle of wine. I believe the spa card had to be used by the 24th, the photo by the 25th, and we used the wine one so I can’t tell you the date on it. We were able to find a $30/bottle of wine in the dining room, so it only came to $6 something (Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc). For price comparison, the bottle retails at Wegman’s for $10.49 plus tax. We were pleasantly surprised by it- fruity and almost effervescent but fairly dry, reminiscent of a decent bottle of halb trocken Riesling. We are not wine snobs, but we know what we like and that is usually a bottle with the Kirkland Signature label on it.

 

My phone and computer could not directly find the login for Carnival Wifi. I tried going to Carnival.com which eventually redirected me. For subsequent retrievals of the Funtimes, I revisited the page listed in my history:

internet.cclfunhub.com:9090/carnival/PlanSelection.aspx

At the bottom of that page, listed after the various internet options you have the ability to go to free web pages or download the Funtimes. The only Funtimes available are the ones for THAT DAY. You cannot preload for the next day or retrieve the previous day’s. The hub app wasn’t available for the Valor.

 

 

Funtimes

I scanned the Fun Times for the week and included additional papers that you may find worthwhile to read if you’re an obsessive planner. Any documents that have only one name, i.e. Cozumel Monday were downloaded directly from Carnival’s website while onboard the ship, via wi*fi, for free.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxlIWx4efYwTQ0s4azA5NWNSWms

[mbrownferrier]

Thank you for taking the time to post your review.

[Practical_One]

Jsmomma, thank you for the reminder about the sunscreen. :)

[noelbows]

Thank you very much for your review! I can't wait for my turn.

[aislin_raina]

Thank you for your review, and especially for the info about the sunscreen. Where do you buy it, Amazon?