CruisingWalter

@cantgetin thanks for the updated report. We're on Valiant for Thanksgiving and might have to give that show a try.

You pay $300 onboard the ship for each MNVV. That $300 is put towards your 20% deposit when you convert your MNVV to a cruise. You can purchase up to 10 MNVVs per cruise per person. You get $300 off the cruise fare for your selected voyage. You must book a Sea Terrace or higher. You get $600 Sailor Loot for your selected voyage. That Sailor Loot can be combined with most current VV promos such as the current Bar Tab promo. You could have $600 Sailor Loot and $600 Bar Tab if you book a 7 night or longer cruise using an MNVV. If you book with a Gold Certified First Mate (TA) you would get $100 more Sailor Loot added. MNVVs are 100% transferrable and they make great holiday gifts (just sayin). But seriously you can buy extras if you think you might have some friends or family who would want to go with you on a future cruise. A TA or Sailor Support can easily change the names and book the new cruise for them. The only real downside is you have 2 years to book AND sail. Some future cruise certificates and credits must be booked within 2 years, but with VV you have to sail within 2 years.

If you book anything directly via VV's website you cannot select a cabin. You must work with a TA or call VV to have a cabin selected for you.

Well the good news you do have a lot of advance notice unlike those poor folks when Valiant Lady was first released. Nothing like having a TV show swipe your ship just weeks away from boarding. If you don't have to book immediately perhaps wait until Brilliant Lady's schedule is released and book one of the Southern Caribbean cruises for 2025? Yeah it does suck when you have multiple cruises rebooked and there are only 3 ships to choose from vs. 15 to 27 from other cruise lines. Good luck with you future cruise and I really do hope you get to sail on VV soon.

Ditto to what everyone else says. Start booking the moment you get WiFi. If you're two people, you can tag team by having one person book shows while the other books events and classes.

My favorite is the French Toast Burger for breakfast. French toast, scrambled eggs, bacon, burger, syrup. Totally filling and totally worth it. 🙂

Take a look at one of the port schedule websites to see how many ships will be in port that day. There always seems to be some room at the very top of the garage. But we've never come in that late. As mentioned above, show up about 3pm ish. But keep in mind the traffic inside the port area can be very bad as I've mentioned previously here. Arriving at 3pm could mean you're actually parking at 4. 🙂

For myself it's an Oaxaca Old Fashioned. 🙂

As long as you have not passed Final Payment date, they will transfer it. Super flexible and awesome cruise line for TAs.

VV allows you to transfer your cruise to a TA up until Final Payment date. After that you're locked in. As @cantgetin mentioned a TA can actually go into the booking engine to make your reservations. The app is notoriously horrible when the bookings open. Bring a LOT of patience. We've heard of people taking 2 to 3 hours to make reservations because the app keeps freezing up when everyone hits it to make the dining reservations. But the TA just goes into the booking engine and is typically done in 10 minutes or less.

$109/pp. It worked out cheaper to do the package vs. paying for all three restaurants.

No you cannot use the Bar Tab for any retail purchases. You may be able to purchase bottles of liquor from the bars.

I have used it to purchase some liquor in the Booty Free shop on the last night of the cruise, others have used it to purchase the hammocks when they have them in stock. You can put it towards any paid events on the ship which you can't book until you get on the WiFi. I did a Mezcal / Tequila tasting that was good, they have other paid events as well. And the most overlooked thing on the ships, Afternoon Tea. It's one of the best of the mainstream cruise lines in the U.S. Well worth the prices.

On our recent Mardi Gras cruise I had to pace myself with Shaq's Big Chicken. So freakin' good and I never had a single Guy's Burger. It was all Shaq's Chicken and Blue Iguana for me for the fast food. 🙂

I would completely disagree with that, at least in the case of our 3 night Asian Marketplace package. We had an awesome set of three meals from the Asian Kitchen as I showed in the food review. Nothing we ordered looked like a menu item from the MDR, not even close. Nor did it taste like anything from our 2 MDR dinners. We purchased that package onboard because we didn't like the pre-selected restaurants concept of the pre-cruise packages. But at least for us, those meals I showed in the food review were nothing like the MDR.

That's one of the big things I've told many folks about MSC and one of the points I made in that food review. You have to take them at face value because when you pay less, sometimes a lot less, you can't expect the same quality or product as Royal, NCL and the others. MSC is MSC and we give MSC a solid 8.5 for value. For what we paid for that cruise, we got a lot of value and we'll be on the Seashore in a month to meet the Seaside's bigger sister. If you start down that rabbit hole of "well NCL is this and Royal is that...." you'll be disappointed. But if you accept that for what you are paying, MSC is delivering a lovely cruise vacation, you'll have a great time.

My guess is "No" there is no feast of the seven menu, though they might add a seafood sauce. They do already have some nice clams and seafood dishes on the menu so you might be able to sort of create a 7 fishes meal. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving Night on Valiant. That would be cool if they did. That was my childhood growing up in the Hudson Valley, NY. I honestly didn't know there was any other way to celebrate Christmas until I went to college. 🙂 We carried on the tradition for quite a few years when we lived in Georgia, at one time having 24 folks to our home for Christmas Eve. Some of the recipes from my family and a few others are on my site. My mom's seafood sauce brings back so many memories each year I make it. And if you want something delectible, try Nonni's Bow Knots. I could never figure out how to actually make bows, so I just made strips of fried dough. And the Randall's Ordinary Scallops are THE best scallops, I have to make extra every time because they go so quickly, but they're so incredibly easy to make. Enjoy! https://www.whereswaltertravel.com/travelresourcelibrary/categories/recipes-feast-of-the-seven-fishes

Journeys is simply the name Carnival has placed on longer cruises. The actual cruise experience will be basically the same except usually with far fewer children. With any cruise that's longer than 7 days from the home port you'll find fewer families onboard and generally a more mature audience. Mainly because most families plan vacations in 1 week increments, especially when it comes to cruises. Other than having fewer children, and perhaps being a little more mellow onboard, it will be the same Carnival experience you've come to expect.

Ship Eats is some of the best room service at sea that we've experienced. It all comes packaged up brilliantly so cold stuff stays cold and hot stuff stays hot. I have found the coffee to be much better from room service than what is served in The Galley. Instead of paying the delivery fee I'll order a specialty coffee to get that waived. Food is basically the same quality as you would expect from The Galley. We've used it multiple times in the past and loved it. About to embark on an 8 day Valiant Lady cruise and we'll probably use it a few more times. I do wish they could deliver anywhere on the ship like Princess, that's actually really cool. No tipping required anywhere on the ship.

It does? I don't remember seeing cartons anywhere in that store when we've gone in there to buy spirits. Are they hidden from sight?

As Rebecca C says above, you have to be in the correct region of the world on the site to see March 2025. Not every home port has itineraries yet. So if you are searching a region of the world with no itineraries, you'll get that message.

The event would actually be better up on Deck 16 aft to be away from the lights. Yes they do turn down the lights on the Dock itself, but with so much light spilling from the ship itself, it does cut down on the enjoyment. If they were up on the top deck, and turned down the lighting up there, that would eliminate the light pollution. But The Dock is a lovely area to gather. We did a stargazing event once on Celebrity I believe and they brought us to an area of the top deck where they turned off all the lights. That was really effective and allowed to see both the stars and the laser pointer's beam.

As others have mentioned, with bookings available 60 days in advance for the Rockstar cabins, take advantage of that 15 day head start over the rest of the Sailors. And if you work with a TA, send them your wish list of restaurants and they can book them for you or you can work with your shoreside services contact and get them to book the restaurants for you.

In the future work with a TA and send them your wish list of restaurants, times and dates. The booking engine is far more stable than the app when the dining reservations open. They can get in there usually in about 10 minutes and have you all set.

Cruise Critic as a whole is a much better platform for getting useful and super helpful information. With VV being so new this board has not matured enough to have some of the 'shouters' that can be prevalent in the other boards. But throughout this entire site, this is still our 'go-to' for the best and most up to date cruising information of any platform out there. Sometimes you have to weed through to find the nuggets, but for the most part, the folks who post on these boards are good people happy to share information. Looks like I joined about the same time, 2006, 18 years ago. Hard to believe we've been sharing information that long, pretty much since our first cruise. Nice to meet some other 'old timers' here. 😄