Come Join The Valor Voyagers 6/12/05 Western Caribbean

[cruiserkathi]

Hi: Anyone interested in Mayan Ruins in Belize? The teens and I are going cave tubing, but hubbie doesn't swim and would prefer the ruins. Looks like there are several to choose from. I've checked [url]www.belizecruiseexcursions.com[/url]. We haven't gotten airfare or hotel yet in Miami. I've never sailed out of Miami. Do you recommend hotels downtown, by the airport, Miami Beach? How far are the these areas from the pier?

[Snowball]

I've been checking airfare prices and they are still a big higher than I want to pay, but they did drop from $305 to $223 - I'm hoping to pay around $150 or so. I probably won't decide on a hotel until after I secure my airfare. My plan is if I get an early flight I'll stay in Miami Beach or South Beach the night before so we can spend the day at the beach. If we get a later flight I'll just stay in the downtown area which is closer to the pier.

Kathy - my hubby is planning to see the ruins in Belize, since he isn't doing the cave tubing either. I haven't really looked into any excursions for him yet though.


[font=Comic Sans MS][size=3][color=red]***Don't forget that the rest of our deposits are due on December 13th, so make sure you call Kevin and have them paid in time. ***[/color][/size][/font]

[cruiserkathi]

Thanks for the hotel information. I found information on 3 Mayan ruins in Belize. Ren has decided to go to the Lamanae Ruins. I've contacted Belize Cruise Excursions letting them know what ship we're on, arrival/departure times, etc. The cost is $75.00/person for a 6 - 7.5 tour (depends on how long the ships are in port). The cost includes lunch. They pick you up at the pier. You travel in an air-conditioned van. Groups are limited to 10. There's an hour van ride, a boat ride upriver and then, the ruins. You have a guided tour and can explore the ruins for about 1.5 hours. When I contacted the company, I let them know that there might be others from our group who would be interested. They request a 20% down payment. Check it out. Sounds interesting.

[Snowball]

Hmmmmm If the excursion is 6-7.5 hours it still might be a little tight because the ship is in port from 9-6, but I think it is a long tender ride into Belize (although I could be wrong about that :rolleyes: ). I just wonder if maybe this might be a case where it is worth it to pay more for a ship excursion rather than booking one on your own that way you are sure to get back to the ship on time. I'll talk to my hubby and see what he wants to do, then let you know what we decide. I'm also going to see what I can find on the ports of call board, since I haven't really been doing too much research on the ruins tour so far.


Are any of you finished Christmas shopping yet? I finished yesterday!!! :D

[Marcys]

Snowball, like you, my first thought was that the ruins tour sounded like it was cutting it close time-wise. We had a close call with Coral Breeze last year in Belize and it haas now made me gun shy about return trip times. Ding the ruins might be a time when I'd consider taking a ship tour.

We tendered in Belize last year and I can't remember the exact time it took, but it was definately longer than Grand Cayman where you're right there, maybe 1/4 or 1/2 mile from the shore. Maybe a 20 minute ride compared with under 10 in GC.

Except for picking up the Stars Wars X-box game which hit the stores yesterday, I'm all done. Have to be...Chanukah starts tonight!:)

Keep checking "our" web page hoping to see more bio's and pictures!:(

[Snowball]

Marcy - I hope you and your family have a wonderful Chanukah!!! :)

I've been checking our home page too and must admit that I am really disappointed that more people haven't participated in our website bio's and pics. :(

On a more positive note - has anyone noticed that we are almost down to the six month mark? I booked this cruise back in June, so for me it will mean I'm halfway there!!! :D

[lhall85917]

I just added my son, Greg, to the web page - he has decided to go with us. Now I hope we can add him to the tubing trip - AND I still need to call Kevin and add him to our cabin and pay the final deposit! I hope to do that tomorrow.
Everyone is WAY ahead of me with Xmas shopping - I've just started, still have lots to do!!!

[Snowball]

That's so great that your son will be joining us too!!! I'm headed over to our group page now to check out his bio!!! :D

[Snowball]

I am so excited!!! I just found this link on another thread with interior pictures of the Valor. She looked great to me!!! [url="http://www.cruisenewsdaily.com/s-cvalor.html"]Here's the link [/url]- enjoy!!!!

[lhall85917]

Great pics - get you in the mood to see more! It shouldn't be long until we start seeing some reviews and more pictures - can't wait!

[Snowball]

I love the way the dining room looks, but must admit that the jazz club is kind of "out there". I can't wait to see what the rest of her looks like!!! :D

[lhall85917]

Debbie, the link in your signature to info about our cruise isn't taking us to the page with all of our cruise info. Now its a generic page about different kinds of cruises. Any idea where it went?

[cruiserkathi]

I contacted Marvin from Wet N' Wild to see about adding Greg to the cave tubing tour. He said they have a 20-passenger bus. I've e-mailed him again to make sure we can't fit 15 into the 14-passenger van. But, if Greg joins us, it shouldn't be that difficult to find another 5 interested in cave tubing. Let me know who else might be interested. Re: the ruins in Belize. Belize Excursions caters to cruise ship passengers. They cut the tour down to 6 hours or whatever it takes to accommodate arrival/departure times. I'll get on the boards too to see who else might have booked with them. Maybe I'm just too trusting. Not anywhere near finished with holiday shopping, but I sure am looking forward to a few days off and time with family and friends.

[Snowball]

Kathy - I can see if my SIL's friends want to do the cave tubing. I'll get back to you after she talks to them.


Sharon - I'm not sure why my link to our group info isn't working. I can't seem to find where they put the info on any of the cruise critic groups. Maybe they are working on that part of the website. I'll wait a few days then e-mail Laura if it isn't fixed by then. Thanks for letting me know.

[lhall85917]

Thanks so much Kathy, I really appreciate your extra efforts for us. Won't it be nice to finally meet everyone? We're closing in on the 6 month mark! I'm trying to think of little xmas presents to give the kids to go along with the cruise - maybe water shoes, etc. Fun!

[Marcys]

Good news! I was excused from jury duty!! :) I have mixed feelings about that, because I do at some point want to be part of a jury, just not Christmas vacation with the family all home! (And, definately NOT the week of June 12!!).

If I got the family any cruise-related gifts I'd get disowned! While they absolutely LOVE cruising, they don't want to keep hearing about it all the time! They roll their eyes and make fun of me!

The pics of Valor were great...a little glitsy...but nice!

[Snowball]

Marcy - I get the same reaction from my family when I talk about cruising. Don't get me wrong - they love to cruise, but they are not addicted like I am. That's why I love coming here on cruise critic so I can do all of my cruise chatting here among others that understand my addiciton. :D

I'm happy to hear that you were able to postpone your jury duty. Hopefully they'll give you a better date next time.

[cruiserkathi]

Hello: Just heard back from Marvin (Wet 'N Wild). He's always so prompt. With 15, we'll need to take the 20 passenger bus. I told him that I didn't think finding 5 more interested cave-tubers would be a problem. Let me know if you're out there and interested in joining us. I also asked Marvin about the Lamanai Mayan Ruins and told him of the concern about getting back in time. I asked if they offered this excursion (I really haven't checked that out) or if there was a company he would recommend. I also heard from Brad (Children's Sponsorship International -- the orphanage). He gave me the names of the two drivers, told me how to handle customs if they questioned our boxes and suitcases (head of customs is very supportive of CSI). I e-mailed him again to make sure that we could hire the drivers for the day to take us to the canopy tour after the orphanage (asked for details about that) and to the beach before returning to the pier. I'll let you know. Love the Valor pictures. I made the full down payment today. We're still "guarantee." What do you recommend? Should we book specific cabins? Love these boards. My family too gets tired of my planning and obsession.

[lhall85917]

Kathi, you seem to have everything under control - can you come over to my house and organize my home life too?! lol Thanks so much for checking into all of this.
I've been playing phone tag with Kevin to get our deposit paid for the last 2 days, will try again tomorrow. We are going to stick with the guarantee and see how it goes. We've only done guarantee once before, this summer with NCL, and were upgraded a couple of decks with a balcony guarantee- not great, but not bad either. This is our first time having more than one cabin and we debated going with specific rooms, but have decided to take our chance with the guarantee. Hopefully, linking them for dining will keep them fairly close together, but if not, thats ok too. Its not like it will be terribly far to find anyone!
I love the boards too, it has made our cruises so much easier to plan. We have been able to find better prices for trips, make good choices with shore excursions and have each stop planned before we go. My family leaves it up to me to investigate and give them choices, then we all decide what we think we want to do - having all these opinions and information makes it easy to do.

[Marcys]

HI!

I booked specific cabins because I wanted my kids across the hall. Besides, if I booked a guarantee, I'd obsess for the next 6 months.

Kathi, do you know how many people the drivers can take? Are you looking into this for just your group or all of us who are interested? I've been posting all over the place...both on CC and "the competition" and so far no one has really answered the canopy tour question for me. The only cruise line that seems to offer the tour right now is NCL but no one can answer whether you can do the tour on your own if the ship doesn't offer it. I've even e-mailed directly to the canopy tours and haven't gotten answers. It's so frustrating! I even e-mailed Carnival and got a non-answer from them.

Do you have a list of needed items yet? My daughter just cleaned her closet and we have tons of preteen girl's books (in English) such as the Princess Diaries series that are in perfect condition that we were wondering what to do with. If you let us know, we can start collecting and saving.

[Snowball]

Good morning and TGIF everyone!!! We are down to 26 weeks until our cruise now!!! Only 6 more months to go!!! :D

Marcy - if you post your e-mail here or send me an e-mail ([email="debwinters@comcast.net"]debwinters@comcast.net[/email]), tonight when I get home I will forward the list of needed items to you. Kathy sent it to me, but she probably didn't have your e-mail address.

I never book a guarantee - I always pick our cabin numbers. I am just too much of a control freak to leave my cabin location up to chance. Plus my group has 4 cabins booked, and we picked cabins all in a row so we can get the balcony dividers opened and share one big balcony. :D

I heard back from Soto's about the stingray excursion [url="http://www.sotoscruises.com/"]http://www.sotoscruises.com/[/url]. They said they take 30 people at a time, so I doubt that we'll end up with enough people to get our own excursion. They again confirmed that their price was going up to $30 per person, but their website hasn't been updated yet. She said we can all make our own reservation on their website, and just pick the same excursion time if we want to be together. You must give a credit card to hold your reservation, but nothing will be charged to your card. You have the option of charging it the day of the excursion or paying by cash. I am going to pick the early excursion and will be making my reservation as soon as I hear back from my SIL's friends as to whether they want to go too. Hopefully within the next week or so.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[Marcys]

Thanks Debby, I found the e-mail with the list for the orphanage. I forgot we had it.

[cruiserkathi]

Hello: I hear back from Marvin at Wet 'N Wild in Belize. For those who may be interested, they have an excursion to the Lamanai Ruins. They need a minimum of 6. They'll accommodate our ship's arrival and departure times. They just need that "minimum." Cost: $75.00/person (includes lunch and bottled water) The tour is approximately 6 1/2 hours. Let me know who's interested. Re: the cave-tubing -- right now it looks like we have the 20-passenger bus. We need 5 more passengers. I'm waiting for Brad (Roatan) to get back with me. I've asked him specifically about hiring drivers and the canopy tour. I guess we'll stick with the "guarantee" for now. We ended up with an fantastic room last summer. We have two rooms too, but as large as the ship seems to be, it's easy to stay in touch. Do you want to go cave-tubing in Belize or join the Mayan ruins tour in Belize? Let me know and I'll contact Marvin. Thanks for the sting ray info. We'll book our own tour.

[Marcys]

Kathi, for cave tubing, must we fill the van? Or, do we need to fill it to keep it just to our group?

When is everyone booking with Soto's? Now or are you going to wait a bit to book?

I'm on Christmas break now. Just have a few meetings next week and then I'm off until January 18. Still have work to do over the break, but I can sleep past 6 a.m.!!

It's a cold, rainy, snowy day here! Can't wait to cruise!

[lhall85917]

One more week for me before xmas break - then we have 2 weeks off! I was wondering about the chocolate buffet and the grand buffet. We have been on NCL and been to the chocolate buffet - love it!!! What is the grand buffet?
We are very excited about the cave tubing and looking forward to the Roatan info - we'll start gathering supplies for the orphanage soon. I guess we're leaning toward Paradise Beach in Cozumel - we need to do something inexpensive and this sounds like a great deal. I wonder if there is a way to get a van or some kind of easier way to get a group of us over there instead of individual taxis or would it all work out the same?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone,...