Review- Carnival Valor May 15-May 20, 2017 just a LITTLE late ;)

Hello hello!! As you can see this review is coming in a little bit late. I had a case of the cruise blues when I got home. I'm now gearing up for our next adventure on the Carnival Dream in 17 days, so I need to get a move on this one!!!

For this cruise my husband (Brandon), 5 year old daughter (Roo), and I (Amy) cruised with our best friends(Beth & Jon). This was the second cruise for our friends and our daughter, my husbands 7th, and my 8th. We had not cruised on The Valor before but she was an easy selection for us. We loved the Liberty and Freedom, plus we knew Frankie was the CD. More on that later!

We are from Central Arkansas so Galveston isn't a terrible drive for us. New Orleans is a bit closer, but when Roo is traveling with us, we opt for Galveston as its a bit more family friendly. We headed down to Galveston on May 14th and checked into my favorite hotel in Galveston. Harbor House. We have stayed here twice now and I don't think I'll be able to stay anywhere else in Galveston. The view is amazing, I love the vibe of that area of Galveston, and nothing beats watching your ship pull in early in the morning!

This was the view from our room the day we pulled in. The Breeze was in port that day. I could have just sat there staring at her all day!!

It was Mother's day so we knew there may be an additional wait at any restaurant in town. We headed to the seawall and all chose to eat at Joe's Crab Shack. The wait wasn't bad at all and it was absolutely delicious.

After dinner we walked down to the water. As we all know Galveston isn't the most beautiful beach, but hey I'll take it! We got there just as the sun was starting to set and were able to snag some beautiful pictures! Here is one of me, Brandon, and Roo.

We met a nice lady down at the beach with lots of dogs. We played and chatted for awhile before calling it a night. Beth and Jon had reserved a different hotel as he was able to snag it for free with his points. So we split ways for the evening. We weren't quite ready to go to bed. Who am I kidding? I KNEW I wouldn't be able to sleep! We decided to stop in at the restaurant attached to Harbor House and have dessert! The sun was down but it was such a great atmosphere.

Up next will be embarkation!!! Let the fun begin!

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post! I had so much fun planning our road trip for Roo this go around. She is 5 years old so keeping her busy and happy in the car can be quite a chore! It's about an 8 hour drive.

I wanted to keep snacks handy for her without dealing with trash and having a huge mess. I grabbed this little box at walmart and filled it with her favorite snacks. This was so helpful and cut down on buying snacks at every stop. There were plenty of options, and mom and dad got to enjoy it too :)

Another thing I did for her (that I didn't get pictures of) was surprises to open along the way. I made a little goody bag for bigger cities we drove through. Each bag had fun stuff for the rest of the trip or things she would need on the cruise. I had lip gloss, stickers, sunglasses, activity books and so on. Her first bag was given to her when we left home and that had headphones in it for her iPad. We are working on counting and telling time so this was a great activity to help her look forward to the next stop.

I also made her a travel journal. The front was decorated with an anchor and her full name, which I've omitted for obvious reasons. Inside I had maps of exactly where we were driving so she could follow along, as well as maps of where we would be in Mexico. I filled it with coloring pages, scavenger hunts, simple journal prompts for kids, seek and find books, colored pencils, and stickers. She LOVED this and it really kept time moving and was fun to use on the ship as well! Please let me know if you would like any info on building your own travel journal. I found most resources on Pinterest for FREE! Target also carries a ton of Dr. Seuss stuff in the dollar spot. I loaded up on those items for her as well, which had her SO excited to meet the characters!

My last big thing I did for her prior to leaving was probably my most favorite find!! As most 5 year old girls do, Roo LOVES stuffed animals. I found this small stuffed animal that looks JUST like the whale tail. But wait it gets even better! It was named VALOR! I found this at our local cracker barrel. It was just meant to be. I grabbed one for Raeleigh and picked up an extra for our CD, Frankie. I'll get to that soon!

Okay, I'm ready to finish up our first evening in Galveston. After we had dessert it was back to our room at Harbor House to try and sleep! We had ran into a few new friends from the roll call group and had planned to meet up early to see the ship come in and grab some breakfast! My daughter and husband were asleep instantly, but its never that easy for me! It's like Christmas Eve for me. I just get too anxious to sleep! I watched some tv, read, and finally drifted off to sleep! It was a pretty restless sleep.

Roo and I woke up probably around 6 AM. Of course the Valor wasn't in yet but we were excited to see her come in. We went downstairs and some friends from our roll call were down there waiting as well. We were able to grab some breakfast and brought that out to the dock. Breakfast would be my only complaint about Harbor House. It leaves a lot to be desired. That being said, I can overlook it easily because I love the setup of the hotel as well as the location.

I didn't get any photos of the ship coming in because I did a live video instead. It was amazing to see her pull in! We watched her dock, said goodbye to some friends, and headed back to the room to get ready. We had FTTF so we didn't have to wait that long before we could head over to the port.

We had already arranged parking online through the port of Galveston. My husband drove over and dropped my daughter and I off with our luggage. He met our friends at the gate to park the cars and then they all rode the shuttle back over to the port. Raleigh and I had to wait on them probably about 15-20 minutes. Nothing too bad. By this time the excitement is building up SO much. I get so excited to see familiar faces from the roll call and just meeting new people in general! Roo and I had a little fun with snapchat while waiting on everyone else to arrive.

She carried Valor with her everywhere that day.

They arrived and it was time to get going. Both parties had been fortunate to book FTTF. I know this is a hot topic and not everyone thinks it is worth it, but for us it always is. With a 5 year old its nice to have a place to drop bags immediately and to cut down on the wait time before boarding.

We showed our FTTF to the workers outside and were let in immediately. The check in process was a breeze and moved quickly. I failed to mention this before but this was actually our first time sailing as a guest of the premier cruise. We were able to stop by and grab some cookies and punch. We did not stay in the designated lounge as we bought FTTF, so we would be boarding before the premier guests.

We were on board by 11:40. We headed straight to our room on deck 10. We enjoy staying high up and forward as its close to the Camp Ocean. We dropped off the carryons that we had and headed straight for lunch! Any guesses where we went? Even this little girl couldn't wait to get one!!!

After lunch we started exploring the ship! I must stop the review for now, but will get back to it soon!

Enjoying your review and the nice pbotos! Following.

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Can't wait to read all about your trip!

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post! I had so much fun planning our road trip for Roo this go around. She is 5 years old so keeping her busy and happy in the car can be quite a chore! It's about an 8 hour drive.

 

 

 

I wanted to keep snacks handy for her without dealing with trash and having a huge mess. I grabbed this little box at walmart and filled it with her favorite snacks. This was so helpful and cut down on buying snacks at every stop. There were plenty of options, and mom and dad got to enjoy it too :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is brilliant! [emoji2][emoji1476] I need to make one of these for my husband! He will be in snack heaven! [emoji1488]

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Woo Pig Sooie!!! Can't wait to see more!

Great review and pictures! I can't wait to read the rest!

Yikes!! I apologize for the delay (AGAIN)! Ready to knock it out today!!! So here we go!

Embarkation Day continued....

We felt very familiar with the Valor as he had previously cruised Liberty and Freedom. I was so excited to have the red frog pub available as we did miss that on the Liberty last year!

After lunch at Guy's Burgers we took Raeleigh up to Camp Ocean to get registered. She couldn't wait to go. She thoroughly enjoyed it while on the Liberty and had been talking about it non stop. She explored Camp Ocean a bit and we received the Penguins schedule for the week. We had a great experience last year with camp ocean but this year was even BETTER! The staff on the valor came up with silly names for each counselor, such as Ms. elephant, ms polar bear... and the kids loved it. I felt like the interactions were genuine. Each night we picked her up the staff sent a little note about fun things they did, talked about, and just how much they loved Raeleigh. It seemed like they went above and beyond.

We stopped by the arcade, we didn't play much this time around. Roo does love collecting the rubber duckies though!

This was my our first premier cruise, and we were pretty excited about that. We had the premier party at 5:00 so we went back to the room to change before sail away! Sail away was Raeleigh's first spotting of her buddy Frankie! She was SO excited to see him again. We didnt get to talk to him yet, but she was just happy to lay eyes on him! LOL

Holly one of the ships dancers grabbed Roo and asked her to dance with her. They chatted and danced for quite a while! As we were leaving to head to the premier party Holly stopped me and asked for our cabin number. That night she had a stuffed animal and note delivered to our room special for Raeleigh. Little things like this create the magic for kids. I appreciate so much the things staff members do!

We headed to the premier party where we were served snacks and drinks for about an hour. Drinks were very strong and snacks were plentiful. They had AMAZING sushi!! I had been concerned about bringing Roo with us, but it was great. The party was held in the comedy lounge and there were other kids there. They did a few give aways, we weren't winners.

After the premier party we met up with our friends Beth and Jon for dinner. We had anytime dining, but always went as soon as it opened. We never had a wait which was wonderful. Roo attended with us the first night. We had great waiters. Mortal and Bianca. Bianca was beautiful and such a great glow about her. We often saw her on lido and she would take time to chat with Raeleigh. The magician came around this night and wowed our daughter for sure.

After dinner Raeleigh went to camp ocean for a little bit while the adults checked out the casino and played bingo!! My husband went to pick her up from camp ocean so we could check out the welcome aboard show. Roo was hoping to get a chance to say hi to Frankie. I had tried to prepare her that he meets LOTS of great families and might not remember her. She of course thought that was the craziest thing she had ever heard. Well....she proved me wrong!

We were sitting on the left side of the lounge for the welcome aboard show, probably about 4 rows back. Frankie came out and was about half way through his show when he looked our way. He stopped mid sentence and said "Hey I know you, come here"! (A little back story... on our last cruise Raeleigh met Frankie at the morning show and he brought her on stage to talk about her halloween costume plans, it was right before halloween. He interviewed her for the cat and the hat campaign they were doing at the time.)

He told the audience he needed to stop the show for a second to say hello to a friend. So Raeleigh walked up onto the stage. She is normally very outgoing, but she was a little in awe I think and just kept smiling at Frankie. He asked her how she had been and introduced her to the audience. He asked her to wait there as he had a special surprise for her. He brought out a certificate for a free build a bear at the build a bear party later in the week.

This mama was about in tears, just so thankful for his generosity and seeing my daughters face light up!

Roo was pretty tired after her big day so we went back to the room to watch a movie (after grabbing ice cream of course) while the other adults checked out the comedy club!

Sea Day-

I don't think I mentioned this before but we had an inside cabin. We have cruised with all sorts of rooms, balconies included. We just don't spend enough time in there to make it worth the money for us. Roo is an early riser, so we were up super early ready to go! The big thing on her list this trip was the waterslide. Last October she was an inch too short to ride, but she knew she had hit the mark this time. When we looked over the list of activities she decided to wait on the pool a bit because she wanted to go see the morning show. Duh mom... she HAD to tell Frankie good morning.

We went for breakfast. My husband always has blue iguana for breakfast. It's one of his favorite parts of the trip! I usually go for a bagel with deli meat and Roo had cereal. Not super adventurous for breakfast.

We headed to the morning show to see Frankie. Raeleigh had brought him a gift from home. We had gotten him a matching valor dog like I posted above, some red white and blue striped taffy, and she colored him a picture of Cat and the hat, Thing1 & Thing2. I somehow didn't get a picture of this. But Frankie asked Roo to come up on stage with him and she gave him his gift.

After the morning show we grabbed some ice cream and hung out by the pool for a bit before going to camp ocean.

I'll be honest.... I got lazy on taking pictures. I just wanted to enjoy the trip!

While Roo was at camp ocean we played quite a bit of trivia. I know trivia isn't for everyone but I really do love it! We were so excited to see Henry leading trivia on this cruise. We had met him on the Liberty, so it was a nice surprise to see another familiar face!

We play a lot of cards with our friends Beth and Jon who cruised with us. We found the red frog pub to be the PERFECT card playing place. Good music, fantastic drinks, and the best memories!

We picked Roo up and checked out the Dr seuss palooza. She loved the parade and story time.

Raeleigh opted to have dinner with camp ocean tonight! Camp Ocean offers kids the opportunity to eat with their friends. They met in the upstairs dining portion above lido. This was a great relaxed atmosphere where dining was done quickly. I love the MDR but the process can be a little long for a hungry 5 year old. So she enjoyed her friends while mommy and daddy got to enjoy an adult dinner! YAY!

We paid for the late night owls option this evening. They keep kids for free until 10 PM, after that there is a small fee until 1:00 am when they must be picked up. We checked in with her around 9:30 to see what she wanted to do, and she wanted to stay for the late night party.

We spent time in the casino and checked out the comedian. We went to pick her up about midnight. They said right as the party started she was very tired and wanted to sleep, so they made her a palette and moved her to an adjoining room with a staff member so she wasnt disturbed by the party. They didnt charge us the full amount because she had been asleep. I felt TERRIBLE and apologized. They assured me that it was no problem and they enjoyed how sweet she was.

Next up COZUMEL!

Beautiful photos, thanks!

Great review!

Thanks for the review.

Time for Cozumel! Of course like most of you we have been to Cozumel tons of times. I STILL love it. It's one of my favorite ports. I always feel very comfortable there and feel like there are a lot of options on great excursions. That being said, we have our favorite and we pretty much stick to it. We love Mr. Sanchos. We had been before and booked it again for this trip. I was a little hesitant as we had our 5 year old with us. I know playa mia is said to be more kid friendly, but we chose Mr. Sanchos and planned to make the best of it. I'm so glad we stuck with our plan!

Once docked we hopped off the ship fairly quickly. We had a party of 5 and bumped into another couple going to Mr. Sanchos so we all split a cab over there. We had booked online through raccoon tours i believe? It was a quick process of getting in. They originally took us to a table down on the beach, which was great. However, my husband and I are more pool people than beach people so we moved our stuff up to lounge areas by the pool.

We did hang out on the beach for a bit. The water was a great temperature and the beach looked nicer than the previous time we had been there. After about 30 minutes we headed for the pool. It was pretty crowded this day and there was one group in particular that was a little wild. We still had lots of fun. There were a few kids that my daughter enjoyed playing with in the pool. I'm happy to report my favorite drink is STILL their mango madness! The chili lime seasoning that they salt the rim with is to die for!

My daughter got her hair braided while there. I believe it was $30. After a fun filled day we took a taxi back to port. We did some shopping before getting back on the ship. My daughter had been wanting a guitar since our last cruise so she picked one out. Here is a picture of her playing it on her bunk bed after face painting done at Camp Ocean! She STILL plays with it all the time!

Snapped a quick picture right before hopping back on board!

This evening my daughter and I went to bed fairly early while my husband was racking up points in the casino!

Progreso was the following morning. We have been there many times as well and its not my favorite place. Especially with my daughter. We elected to stay on the ship. Our friends ventured out and did some shopping but this was the day we finally used the slide! She must have gone down the slide 50 times!

We met up with our friends for dinner. Roo spent the evening at Camp Ocean and elected to do the late night owls again. This time she stayed awake! HAHA! This evening ended up being one of my favorites of the whole trip!

We started off playing Bingo (we weren't winners, but still had fun). The bingo lady was a blast. I can't recall her name but she was hilarious and had an amazing voice! After Bingo we stuck around for the gender show down. Now y'all have to know this about me, I'm SUPER competitive as is my best friend who was cruising with us. Our hubbies moved on over to the other side of the lounge to compete with the guys. I am proud to say that a few of the questions asked... my best friend and I were the only ones who knew the answers! We were doing well on the question round, then it was time for paper airplane making... the boys stole the show for that round, there were also rounds of balloon popping and dropping medals into cups using your butt cheeks! It was quite the scene to watch! In the end the girls took home the win! My husband later told me he was pretty proud that his wife knew the answers to the sports related questions.

After the gender showdown was the Love & Marriage show. I've seen it a few times, but this was probably the best yet. The couples were hilarious and Frankie did an amazing job of hosting. I don't think I laughed that hard all week long! It was a great ending to a fun filled day!!

Up next...the last sea day and a special surprise from Frankie!

Our final day!

Our last day was spent soaking up all the fun we could! We stopped by the morning show again as this is only held on sea days. Raeleigh was already starting to feel bummed about getting off the ship and leaving Frankie.

Roo spent quite a bit of time in the morning at camp ocean. She loved spending time there all week and her most favorite teacher was Miss Pineapple. She was always so welcoming and friendly. The adults spent the day attending trivia (and winning), my husbands name was finally drawn for a premier winning! ($200 hey we will take it), and playing cards in the red frog pub.

Mid afternoon it was time for the build a bear party. Raeleigh was so excited to use her certificate from Frankie. They had it organized fairly well! As families arrived for the party we gave our names. They allowed 5 families to start working on their animals and choosing accessories. They had pictures for coloring and refreshments while you waited. Frankie hosted the event with the other fun squad members.

Raeleigh opted to get a bunny. Her certificate covered the cost of the bunny, mommy and daddy let her choose a fun outfit and shoes to go with it!

After this we went to dinner. The last dinner is always so sad for me! I know its cheesy but I get so choked up during their goodbye song. We loved our waitstaff so much this cruise.

After dinner we hung out for a bit before the 80s trivia party started. I don't know if this is something done on all of the ships but they have done it all 3 times we sailed with Frankie. Earlier in the week they had a 70s party and the final night was an 80s party. This is one of the most fun events of the whole week! This was held in the lobby. Frankie will play a few seconds of songs from the 80s and you write down the name of the song. What is so great about this one is the floor gets packed and people up on the next levels are watching as well! After he goes through a snippet of each song he reveals the answers during a dance party to each song! One of his sidekicks hands out medals to great dancers! Frankie has a pretty awesome 80s out fit as well!

At the end of the party Frankie came up to me and asked if we were coming to the show in the lounge after the party. I told him we would be there and he just wanted to make sure we would because he had one last surprise for Raeleigh.

It was late but of course we had to go! I'm so glad we did. I can't remember the name of the show, but it was fabulous! They did dance sequences to top songs from madonna, michael jackson and so on. Absolutely LOVED it!

After the show Frankie came down to where we were sitting and had a big gift bag for Raeleigh. He knew we had a drive back to Arkansas so he got her a carnival backpack and filled it with goodies for her! He put some dr seuss items, candy, coloring books, carnival stuffed bear, and a picture frame in there! I can't say enough about the things Frankie did for Raeleigh. He truly is the best CD we have been with and we look forward to cruising with him again. He has touched our families hearts and made cruising an even more magical event for our daughter! Saying goodbye was hard!

We headed to the room after and went to bed. The next morning debarking was SUPER easy we were off the ship and on the road well before 9 AM!

Thank you all for following this review! I know it wasn't heavy on details or pictures, but I hope it was enjoyable.

This was one of the best cruises we have taken. We had top notch staff in all areas!

We had no issues with food in the dining room. The prime rib wasn't great, but that was the only thing food wise I could really complain about all week.

One thing I wish i had been better about was writing down names of entertainment staff. There were a few singers on this cruise that performed in the lobby. They were good but one was exceptional! I think maybe his name was Jesse? I could have listened to him all day!

This dance troupe was one of the better ones I have seen on the fleet.

The female lead was on the liberty with us last year and I was SO happy to have her on Valor as well. She was amazing!

No complaints with cleanliness or facilities.

I did mention before that this was our first premier cruise. We had free drinks in the casino because of this, but it was hard to find a waiter and the waits were LONG. I wasnt the biggest fan of Allen our premier host. We didn't see a whole lot of him. Our gifts included coozies, cookies, strawberries, champagne, steak house dinner, and the beach towel.

The final night they did give us a bounce back offer for a free interior room on a future cruise. We already had one booked for July that was fully paid for. I checked the dates and that cruise was eligible for the bb offer! We were able to cancel and rebook it. We took a penalty, but still came out WAY ahead in the long run, that was such a surprise!

My husband did earn an ultra offer from the premier, but due to schedules we weren't able to make any of the dates.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the ship or cruise in general!!

Happy Cruising!