Back from VaLor 6/20

We just came back from Valor on 6/20 Exotic Caribbean. It was a very nice cruise with ups and downs. We sailed last time on Liberty with RC and Carnival in the past. We loved RC but it was really a lot more money this year. We figured we would give Carnival a shot. In all it was a great time, but we are going to stick with RC from now on.

We arrived at the port about 11:00 or so and had VIP check in. We walked right into the center line and taken right upstairs within a minute or so. I think regular check in would have taken about 10 minutes in that area. When you go upstairs they have other lines that you get your Sail and Sign cards. I have no clue how long those take. We went into a side room with no one in front. We had been given our cards and been on the ship within another 10 minutes. It was very quick. (Last time on RC it took hours to get on board. They had a terrible system and made you sit on the floor forever waiting to check in...this was a wonderful change)

We went up to the Lido deck and had a nice and quiet buffet. There wasn't a crowd at all. I think the key here was to go to the back of the buffet area not the pool area. There are tons of table back there.

After eating we walked around the upper decks and about 1:00 we went to our room. It says to wait till 1:30 but I saw so many others going back, we went ahead and followed them. Our room was on deck 6, interior. We had two side by side. One for us and one for our kids.

The rooms are smaller then the Balcony rooms...but they are perfect for what you need. 2 people fit fine. The kids had 2 twins and 2 bunks. They had no issues at all. I did bring a soft shoe holder for over the door for the kids to use in the bathroom for organization but they have so many shelves that you don't need it.

I was given a few tips for the cabin that had been helpful. Febreeze (they have small travel cans in Target with the travel items) Perfect for fresh smelling rooms.) We also brought Lysol wipes to wipe down the room and everything in it. Clothes Pins to hang suits in the shower. Your own soap would have been good. The soap on board was bad. I think it just made bubbles...Not sure if it was cleaning :D They do have shampoo but I didnt see conditioner. They have tons of razors around if you forget one. Just ask. A Nightlight. It is dark and you cant tell day from night at all!! An extension cord would be good for those of you that need more plugs. Yes...there is only one. They have tons of hangers. I brought a folder to keep track of papers. That was useful. I gave the kids Flashlights. Those small ones from Home depot worked perfect. I think the cabin was freezing. I asked for an extra blanket. I would suggest socks if you are a cold person. :p

The dining room was very pretty. We had a large table by the window and it was very nice. The food was good and the service was pretty good as well. It wasn't the best service but it was still good. We had been with our 5 and 3 other families. They told us they couldn't accommodate a large group for one table...so we just took turns eating. I didn't really mind...I don't think the waiters liked when we switched tables. They really lowered the service each night we swapped...only 2 times. Oh well. ;) We are easy going and didn't demand much of them...so I'm not sure what they had a problem with.

They always had lots to choose from and you could order as many meals as you like. My son had 3 dinners one night and they kept bringing more to him. Desserts had been pretty simple. I never had a super fancy dessert. I am a desserts woman...I love my sweets....but everything was good. I know one of the boys didnt like anything on the table next to us...so they brought him other food not on the menu. That was nice.

The shows had all been nice. We never made the shows on RC. Our schedule was crazy and full and we always had something to do. I have no clue what we did...on Carnival Valor, our friends went after dinner to the Ivanhoe theater and saved seats for all of us. We pretty much went to every show this trip. It was nice. Some of the shows seemed pretty simple...but they ended up being really entertaining. The dancing was great. They had some funny comedians on board as well.

The Casino...well...I have never been on a ship that we never won anything in the casino. I never saw anyone winning. My husband did okay one night on Blackjack...but everything else stunk. Usually you can do good the first and last night...but we didnt see anyone winning. :mad: We love Roulette but one night we even saw the wheel hit 18 7 times in a row. That doesn't make sense. Oh well. That's why it is gambling.

If you order a classic drink in the bar...you can take your receipt to the casino and they will give you $5 match play.

The kids club was ok. I seem to remember being able to leave my kids longer in the RC kids club. They have the day all broken up into sessions on Carnival. You can drop them off 9-11:45, 2-4:45 and 6-10 They are nice but not overly friendly. I found RC to be much better. Now...this is my opinion. My kids enjoyed themselves a lot. So...that was still good. I didnt like 2-5 year olds are together. If you have a 5 year old...I imagine they would be board with a 2 year old. The 6-8 group was fine. We had them in 6-8 and 9-11. The kids had a lot of fun. It was just little things. One time they took them on the sports deck in the sun. The kids ran around while the counselors had water bottles and had been drinking the kids had no access to drinks. That doesnt seem right to me. They took them back to the kids club for drinks after 40 minutes...but there is no reason they cant offer small cups of water while on that deck seeing as the counselors had it. Just a small observation. In all...It was fine. I know my kids had a good experience. I remember RC had shows for adults with the kids...they marched the ship in costumes...much more involvement. You could also have a teen sign your kids in but they dont allow that on carnival. Carnival offered no parent/child involvement except one game day...but all you do is go in the room to play video games with your kids. No counselor involvement. Oh well. The talent show was canceled because only 3 signed up at the 9am sign ups. We tried to sign up at 10:30 since we had slept in and had breakfast...but it was already canceled. I think they could work on that. :)

Our room was clean. I didn't have any issues with the cleaning. I think the bathroom had some smell in it...I think it is the plumbing...but I have a sensitive nose. I just kept spraying Febreeze. Thank God for that.

Our room was interior 6th floor mid ship. Our steward was okay but very hard to find. On RC we always had a steward that we could find. This one was around for small periods of time then gone.

The drawers on this ship are terrible. They open if the ship rocks. You would think a ship would take into account motion and have special drawers that would remain closed. If you had a little child in front of them during any rocking motion...they would slam out and knock your child down. Ugh. That needs work for sure. We had a smooth sailing until the turns at Belize to get into port. The ship started turning sharp and all the drawers slammed open at 5 am or so. I had to put the chair in front and go do the same in my kids room. I imagine it only happens in interior rooms or rooms with drawers facing the sides of the ship. Not drawers facing front/back.

The ship didn't rock much at all until Belize. Then we hit the outskirts of that storm, Alex. It started rocking a bit more...but nothing to make you sick.

This trip was the first time I decided NOT to take dramimine or any motion sickness meds. I tried the Ginger Root 550 as recommended here. That was PERFECT!! I highly recommend that. I took one if I felt too much rocking or any stomach upset. Very good stuff. I purchased a cheap bottle at Walmart. They seas had been a bit rougher after Belize and through 1/2 the day back from Mexico. But it wasn't really too much and no one was affected.

I was told you could get free meds on board in the medical center. RC did have this. They kept them in a bin when you walked in and you could grab what you wanted. I stopped in after mexico but I was told you have to buy them now. They are $3.75 for a little envelope. I have no clue how many are in there...but I was shocked they no longer offer free ones. Oh well. Something else they took out.

We did take photos on the first formal night. (there was 2-one the second night and one toward the end of the week) The photo was beautiful. Best we have ever taken with our family. They offered it for 20% off the Canvas with a free photo on Fri.

Did you get off in any of the ports and how was the weather.

Do you have pictures to post. We are going this Sunday, can't wait.

The pool was salt water. The pool on RC was fresh water. We loved the RC pool areas. They had so much fun. The Carnival pool area was really packed and my kids hated the Salt Water. They only went twice. The pool was not busy at ports. It was the only time you could go on the slide without a wait. I had no problem with the pools being salt. My only issue was I cut my knee on the edge of the pool and the staff really showed no concern or care to fix the sharp edge!

The whirlpools in front had been lukewarm and fine for the kids. The back pool is adults only. We never got in that since it was soooo crowded. Everyone was rubbing backs. :eek: We stuck with the front pools. The 2 whirlpools in the mid pool had been fine. The pool also has some shade which is nice.

I do agree that many people have breakfast and grab lounge chairs. We saw signs that said you could ask to move towels on chairs with no people for 30 minutes. We just grabbed those blue chairs the times we attended the pool without much work. We stayed up on deck 12 by the family water wars area another day and that was pretty easy to find a chair.

Ports...

In Grand Cayman we took a tour with Nativeway Tours for the Stingray, Starfish tour. We booked online after recommendations here on the board. In all...the staff was very nice. I think they could have offered a bit more in terms of drinks for guests...that was the biggest complaint I heard on the boat...but not a big deal at all.

We went to see the stingrays. We had our own underwater camera and tried to take photos. I was annoyed that they kept stepping in front to block me from taking my own photos. I was very annoyed with this. Especially when they told us their camera had a malfunction and they lost all their photos. :mad:

I think they booked more people then we had been told..but the boats had not been crowded at all. Perfect amount of people.

Afterwards, we just walked around and had patties at the Rum Store and took the tender back to the ship.

I was told tons of teens attended margaritaville by another mom as they allow drinking at a younger age. They said it was CRAZY there! Teens lined up for shots all over the place.

In Isla Roatan we booked with Victor Bodden. We walked out but didnt realize that there was a second hill past the security gates you had to walk up. I thought the hill was the first port area. So...I recommend...you walk out all the way past all the shops...then when you see taxis ...you walk out the security gate and up the hill and down the other side. Watch for traffic...they dont watch for you!

We met our driver who drove us all over. We first went to see the monkeys. At first...I thought it was sweet. You go in Victor's yard. It is very pretty. He has a deer walking around you can pet and they take you to pay the $5 per person. No one ever asked me to purchase anything else. We had been given a guide to walk us through the monkeys. He was very nice to talk with. The baby monkeys are so cute. They just cuddle up on you. Then we saw several other animals and last we went to the older monkeys. They bite. The guy said they bite if you act scared or try to push them off and told us to just let them come to us and relax. The first pen we went in...my husband, 14 yo and 7 yo went in. The monkey immediately jumped on my 7 yo and tried to bite through her jeans. ughh. I was trying to get my husbands attention as my daughter was standing there as the guide told her trying not to panic. The guy really didnt move to get it off to fast.

She came out quickly and he said the other pen was nicer. I went in with my son this time and the monkeys jumped all over me. They seemed nicer. I ended up getting out really quickly and my husband showed me a photo he took of the monkey jumping on my shoulder trying to bite my shoulder. Omgoodness. Thank God we didn't get bit. Now..I wouldnt go there again after I saw that photo. It was fun. I would go see the babies...but not the two adult pens.

After this, he took us to Barrios Horse Ranch. We had been told to meet one hour after the ship docked but we missed it some how. The ship was supposed to dock at 11 but it changed to 12. Anyways, we missed the first group but they didnt mind and took us for our own tour just the 5 of us. We met on the side of the road and they gave us each a horse. We rode down the little town on the West side. There was no tourists that we could see besides a few that seemed to be staying on this side of the island. We rode up and down the beach then came back. It was about 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Plenty for us.

The driver took us to a restaurant down on the water...I wish I could remember the name. It was a 2 story place and there was only one other couple. The food was yummy. My husband and son had 2 lobsters and I had smoked Pork. (24 hours later we all got sick...cant tell if it was the food, something we touched or a bug we picked up. We wont eat there again!!:o)

We finished our drive around the island and came back to the ship. It was a great day...but I wish we didnt get sick.

In Belize...my son took a tour with the teen club. They went Sea Kayaking. It was great. I didn't take any tubing tours since I knew I would be carrying my kids tubes. So...we swam all day and relaxed. It was very nice.

That night my husband and I got sick. Guess it was the food on Isla Rotan? We have no clue. It was an early night. We both ended up in bed after the show.

In Cozumel ...I was in bed all day! Horrible. :( My kids went to kids club and then we finally decided to try and get off the ship. We made it through the port for about an hour and came back on board. It was raining all day from Alex!! We had planned to visit paradise beach. I heard it was $12 per person for the day...but we heard later tons of kids got stung by jellyfish. I imagine it was due to the storm pushing them inshore. It isnt really the time for them! Im just thankful we didnt get stung.

The last day was just a sea day. We relaxed and had a great trip home.

The last night at dinner we had crab cakes. We realized halfway through them that they had shrimp in them. My husband had an allergic reaction and we told the staff...but no one seemed bothered. We complained to the quest services and they stated it was handled wrong in the dining room and we should have been at least offered medical attention and had not been. They didnt list shrimp on the menu. Thank God his allergy is not as bad as some people. I found out later...a few others had the same reaction...I dont know if it was the shrimp or possibly something else. Oh well. Thank God for Benedryl.

In all....We had a great time. I do see a lot of little things that make RC stand out from Carnival. We will pay the money to cruise Royal Caribbean next time...but Carnival was fun. We really did have a great vacation.

Inside Stateroom

Kids room 6 floor inside mid

potty room

Grand Cayman:

huge stingray

Leaving Port of Miami

Family Water wars.

Golf On Board

Swimming in Mid Pool

Riding with Barrios Ranch in Roatan...the monkeys and the restaurant we ate in..

More GrandCaymen

Dinner last night on board table 320

glad that the majority of your trip was fun, and as always, each person is different on their likes and dislikes. your family looked great, i liked the pics . did that monkey really bite you? lol. thanks for sharing your review and hope your next cruise on whichever cruiseline you choose is a good one too :)

We were loyal Royals, too until we just couldn't justify the price and switched last year. The kids said it was their favorite cruise ever, so we are going again...next week! We can't wait to go on the Valor. It sounds like a lot of the problems you encountered were from things going wrong on the excursions (bites and getting sick), that's too bad.

I guess we experienced it differently last year. We thought the food was better, the kids had more fun in the kids' clubs, our cabin was bigger than on RCL and service was just as good. We saw our cabin steward all the time. Our servers were the best we ever had on any cruise line (including Disney and NCL). I do miss the ships being not so glitzy, but I can deal with that. I did notice more smokers on board Carnival. Otherwise, it was just about the same. In fact, I was just reading Fodor's Caribbean Cruise book and Carnival came up as one of the best in way more categories than RCL. I was surprised.

Have a great time on your next cruise. Oh, and I loved your pictures!

 

In all....We had a great time. I do see a lot of little things that make RC stand out from Carnival. We will pay the money to cruise Royal Caribbean next time...but Carnival was fun. We really did have a great vacation.

What stands out for you with RCI?

You are the first I have heard mention the family water thingy. Where is it located and did your pic show most of it. Thanks for the review. We will be on Valor July 11.

We're also going on the Valor and appreciate your review. Glad to hear the inside cabins were fine. We've only had OV in the past, but have a balcony for DH and me with the kids across the hall in interiors this time. Appreciate the cabin pictures. And that picture of you with the monkey really is alarming! Glad to know it didn't actually bite you. Thanks for taking the time to post.:)

What dining room were you in on the Valor??

We had been in the Washington on the 3rd floor table 320. It was very nice.

Yes...for the most part...the cruise was great. We all did notice little things that made a big difference in our experience and that is why we enjoyed RC better. We felt the staff was more helpful on Royal. They all went out of their way to assist you. We enjoyed the kids club much better on Royal and the little perks that Carnival didnt include. Now...do you pay for that? Of course. I believe that is the difference.

I found I had to ask several people the same question to get answers on the Carnival ship. Many of the staff did not understand very good English...so it was hard some times to get an answer. Several times I received a bad attitude from staff in the buffet area (rosies area) when I asked where I could find food. I have no idea why. I felt like I was a bother to those staff members in that area for some reason. I guess it was just a lot of little things that turned us off...but like I said. It was still a great trip. It was nothing less then we expected. We really had the same experience last time we cruised Carnival...I was just hoping it was a bit different...but each cruise line has its ups and downs.

(Our friends came back from a cruise on NCL the week prior to ours...and it didnt sound very good!! They explained how the freestyle dining charges 20-30 per person per day for dinner in about 10 different restaurants...or you have a small dining room to choose from with only 2-3 choices for meals for free. Carnival fed us as much as we wanted and everything tasted wonderful!!)

Our dining staff was good. I think they do have too many tables...but ...what can you say about that. Our 2 guys spent a lot of time working our table with a smile the entire time. It was good.

The staff that handled the games and entertainment...all had been very nice...There was a lot going on. We always had something to do if we wanted. It might not be something we wanted to do...but there always was a choice.

If you go to the spa the first day...they have free hot stone massages as well. They also have a spa giveaway!! That is worth sitting through!! (but you have to be present to win)

We didnt do excursions with carnival...so I cant comment on that area. Our son did do one with the teen group...and they had a wonderful time. I recommend that! He had a ball.

Now...If I could only stop rocking!!! LOL...:D

We're also going on the Valor and appreciate your review. Glad to hear the inside cabins were fine. We've only had OV in the past, but have a balcony for DH and me with the kids across the hall in interiors this time. Appreciate the cabin pictures. And that picture of you with the monkey really is alarming! Glad to know it didn't actually bite you. Thanks for taking the time to post.:)

We had a balcony our first time with Carnival...and it was great. This time I was worried...but they are great. The best inside cabins are the ones that are in the complete center...like on deck 6 you would get off the elevators in the center and they had rooms in the center hall. They are sideways rooms and seem very large. They look smaller on the deckplan...but they had been very nice.

Ours was perfect for 2 and the kids fit fine in their room!

You are the first I have heard mention the family water thingy. Where is it located and did your pic show most of it. Thanks for the review. We will be on Valor July 11.

It was pretty quick. They have it almost everyday. The teen group did it on their own which was nice as well. You get 4 balloons each side and slingshot them across to hit the other team. It goes fast...but you can do it as many times as fits in the hour.

It was on deck 12.

It sounds like a lot of the problems you encountered were from things going wrong on the excursions (bites and getting sick), that's too bad.

 

Thank God they actually didnt get to bite us...just looks like they almost did.

Sick...yes...that is a downside. I imagine it is a bug since I cant shake it still. But...what can you do about that. I didnt see many folks using the sanitizing gel.