Valor - 6/30/13 - REVIEW!!!

Me & 3 girlfriends sailed the Valor from San Juan Puerto Rico on June 30!

Here is our picture taken the 1st night before dinner:

Im going to start with my very first tip, regarding embarkation day: DO NOT PLAN TO FLY TO PUERTO RICO ON EMBARKATION DAY! Fly in a day early. We had a situation the evening before, when our 1st flight out of NY was going to be delayed 2 hours which would cause us to miss our 2nd flight from Philly to San Juan, and they were trying to tell me all they could do was put us on a flight that would arrive in San Juan at 9PM. We all had major heart attacks, cried some, were trying to figure out how we could drive to Philly overnight, and I spent an hour on the phone and finally she found us a flight going through Charlotte that would arrive in San Juan at 1:30PM. PHEW. We even got upgraded to first class on the flight from Charlotte to San Juan, which was an AWESOME experience, since it was a 4 hour flight, we got a full meal, alcoholic drinks included, and plenty of space, making for an awesome start to the vacation! We all agreed then and there we would NEVER fly in on same day again.

Anyhow, arriving in San Juan was simple, got our luggage right away and were outside waiting for a taxi within 20 minutes of landing. Got a taxi right away, $26 including the $1 per bag fee for the 4 of us (plus we added a tip). We got a great driver who told us some about San Juan on the drive over. It was a quick drive to the port. We had purchased FTTF, but since we didnt arrive in San Juan at 11am as planned originally, there was no value in boarding early. We did buy some wine & 2 cases of water in the port. We did get to skip a line to get our S&S cards, very quick and painless. Our room was ready as soon as we boarded, but we did not get our luggage any faster than anyone else, but it was not a big deal at all we didnt care we were excited.

All 4 of us were sharing one room, 7389 a balcony room. It was a GREAT location. Last years cruise (on the Ecstacy) we were on Deck 1 so way up to everything. This time it was basically a couple decks up or down to get to everything. Would definitely book that location again.

THE SHIP: was in great shape. It was a beautiful ship, and the theme of heroes, and America, red, white & blue everywhere we said was PERFECT as it was 4th of July week. The whole ship was in great shape and very clean. Never noticed anything dirty or old looking anywhere. It was great.

We explored some, headed to Lido & I beelined for the Mongolian Wok, which I love! The mongolian wok never had too long of a line on this cruise. Everyone sampled a little of this & that.

Lido Selections for Lunch: were great - My favorites were the Mongolian Wok & Burrito Bar - the pizzeria was decent, though Im from Buffalo NY and really know very good pizza. I dont eat fried food, but the other girls tried stuff from the grill throughout the week which everyone said was good. I think after lunch we ordered our first round of funships and explored some more.

To Cheers or Not to Cheers: Early in the planning, I went back and forth on purchasing Cheers. We ended up not, and were glad for the following reasons:

- One of the 4 girls does not drink much she would never have drank her moneys worth

- One of the girls got food poisoning the 2nd evening and was up all night sick (interesting night in our cabin), and though she felt a bit better the next day and better yet the day after she wasnt fully back for a couple days.

- We added up our S&S bar charges, and with gratuities was $817 for the week, Cheers would have been $1600 for the 4 of us. We were way better off!

We got changed for dinner, looked at our watches and raced up to the spa raffle, got our tickets in just in time, and pictured below is one of our girls who won the $200 prize!

Then went to order a round of drinks I had a mai tai which was SUPER strong. We then headed to the MDR, since we were doing late dining in Washington, and tonight was open seating, we decided to check out Lincoln tonight, and they gave us a table for the 4 of us. Our waiter was nice and got what we asked for but he didnt really say much, so we were kind of glad he wasnt going to be our server the whole time, we like funny interactive wait staff!

I know I had the tomato soup as an app and the Tilapia as an entree - both very good. I love trying all the different seafood dishes. We were too full for dessert because we had had a late lunch.

After dinner it was almost time for the wonderful muster, which was long because yes they repeat everything in English and Spanish.

By the way, the other passengers on the ship were AWESOME. I had read posts about rude passengers on cruises from San Juan, large groups who cut in line at buffet, elevators, loud, etc. We noticed NONE of that the whole week. Everyone regardless of nationality or race, was great. We made a TON of new friends, some from all over the world we are already keeping in touch with. We notice no rudeness whatsoever, no unruly children, none. Everyone was great!

After the muster it was time for the Cruise Critic meet & greet. The other 3 girls pretty much had no clue what was going on because none of them are on here, but I had made several friends on CC before cruising, so it was neat to meet them all. We are all dancers/dance teachers and one of the CC members had a daughter the same age as the girls in my group who had also just graduated college and was a dancer so she became friends with all of us right away, and the girls also made friends with some of my other CC friends, so they were happy I was such a social butterfly.

After the meet & greet, they went to check out the deck party, but I headed to the casino. While exploring earlier I saw the casino had MY GAME - the goldfish slot, which is my ALL TIME favorite so I headed to the casino ordered a drink and settled in on my machine, only to be joined instantly on the other 2 goldfish machines by other avid fans of the machine. We had to wait about 20 minutes for the machines to be turned on, but we chatted the whole time and it was fun. I ended up winning quite a bit on the fish machine throughout the cruise, I have very good luck on that machine. I ended up being the last one in the cabin that night, the others got tired before me.

Will continue with more pics and all in a bit! Thanks for reading:) -Jamie

Yea! Another Valor review!!! :) Great start!

Monday - St Thomas. The day before we had all booked the "tip to toe special" or something like that in the spa we all got appointments at 8AM - it included a full body massage, scalp massage, mini facial, eye collagen treatment it was about 1 hour 15 minutes. We basically all rolled out of bed and headed up there at 8. 3 of the girls showered in the spa after, and I went back to shower in the room. Tip for any groups of girls sharing a room (or anyone really): You can use the spa showers at any time, and they are pretty awesome. With 4 of us in one room, we made use of the spa showers a few times throughout the week, esp when all were getting ready before dinner. We all left there feeling relaxed, got some food on Lido.

Lido Breakfast: expect to wait a long time for the omelette station. The eggs on the regular buffet line are like powdered eggs, not good, but slap them on a bagel with some ketchup and they didnt taste too bad. The food was decent, they had some different selections throughout the week, and we never left hungry.

We headed off into St Thomas, which was sooo mountainous and beautiful. I will add it was ALL of our 1st trip to all of the islands we visited. We went back and forth throughout planning between Sapphire and Magens, and since we got a late start because of our spa treatments we decided Magens we would get to quicker so we headed to the taxi station and got a great friendly driver named Mr Potter who told us all kinds of stuff even stopped at the top of the skyline overlook so we could snap some pics. He was very nice. The ride was $8 per person, and it was $4 to get into Magens (all of which I already knew from research). We didnt rent chairs, we were fine with laying on towels in the soft sand. The weather was the least nice of the whole week, it was kind of overcast, though we did have bits of sun and it was very warm. The beach was very pretty, and the water was calm, but after the week was over, we decided this was the least appealing of the beaches we visited (though it doesnt speak that this beach was NOT pretty, the others were just breathtaking). We didnt eat anything at the beach as we ate on the ship, and only got bottled water, decided to get drinks in the port area on the way back so we just relaxed and enjoyed the beach. We were the only ship in port, and as you can see from the pics, the beach was very uncrowded.

We were at the beach about 3 hours then headed back, got on an open air taxi that was getting ready to leave we got seats in the back row and that was a great experience. We drove through some impoverished areas of the island, and seeing all of that really made us feel sad and appreciate how much we have. We really enjoyed hearing about the island and the culture.

We shopped around the port for a bit and then went back to the ship. The line to get back on the ship was a good 30 minutes and it was about 3:45PM. We were starving by now so grabbed some food on Lido, ate and then got a round of drinks and headed up to the aft area of Deck 10 found 4 loungers together and laid back to enjoy our drinks as the ship sailed away.

We went got ready for dinner, and headed to Washington to meet our tablemates, which we were excited to have! Last year there were 6 of us cruising together, and they gave us our own table. But we like meeting new people so we had staked out our table the night before and saw that it was an 8 seater. We wound up lucky! As soon as we sat, another group of 3 girls on a girlfriends cruise came up and sat with us, who were similar in age to us. We ended up making great friends with them, and hung out a lot throughout the week and we had a great time at dinner every night. We thought the 8th seat was going to be unoccupied until a few minutes later a gentleman (about 40 Id say) my group was ages 22-30 and the other group of girls were about 30-32. he walked up and said "How could I be so lucky to be seated at a table full of such beautiful ladies". He was great also, and ended up hanging out with both our group and the other group of girls a few times on the cruise, he was travelling solo to get a break from his work and even though he was the only guy, he fit in great at our table and we all had a blast. I might be mixing the menus up, but I believe I got the Salmon this night with the Potato Soup & Shrimp cocktail as apps and I definitely got the bitter & blanc for dessert, which was great and I am not a dessert person.

After dinner, the one girl who I mentioned earlier with the food poisoning who hadnt been feeling well during dinner and barely touched her food, went back to the room to lay down (and ended up sick all night) 2 of us attempted to watch the dance show, but got there late so we went to the comedy show instead, which was funny, had a couple drinks and settled in for a loonnng night in our room. We did chalk it up to food poisoning, not norovirus, because no one else in our room got sick, which we were pretty sure would have happened since we were all sharing close quarters, had all shared sips of drinks, etc.

Tuesday - Sea Day & 1st formal night.

We got up after somewhat of a less-than restful night due to the situation in the room, though the poor girl was finally feeling a little better and had slept a few hours without throwing up. (Sorry tmi:rolleyes:). The 3 of us who were feeling well got dressed grabbed our drink coupons and headed to Brunch. We ordered mimosas as our free drinks, and 2 of us ordered omelettes, the other eggs benedict, and we all shared a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. The food was GREAT! We enjoyed it and were seated right at the aft of the ship and had a great view out the windows while we ate. Happy we went to this.

Went back to put bathing suits on and the other girl was finally feeling well enough to go lay out with us, we headed to our spot at the aft of Deck 10, just above the adults only pool. This area was much quieter than the midship pool area which always has blasting music and so much activity. If you prefer quieter, choose the aft pool area. There was still music I believe but it wasnt nearly as loud. Regarding loungers: Despite all the reports on chair hogs, we never had a hard time finding 4 loungers together throughout the trip, nor did we notice any chair hogs;). We relaxed and hung out for a couple hours, participated in some of the activities, went to the newlywed show (a great time!) then played bingo (didnt win:() and played a couple of other game show type things, I hit the casino for awhile (surprise surprise), it was an anything goes type of day.

Playing Bingo

I had an appointment at the spa to get my hair done for formal night so I showered and headed up there while the others were getting ready.

Expect Loonnnng lines around Promenade on formal night before dinner for pictures. There were long lines at most of the backgrounds so after my hair appointment, we were only able to get 2 pictures done before dinner. Here are a couple of our shots:

I had the greek salad which was good, and was naughty and ordered 2 entrees: the lobster & the redfish. I wanted to try the redfish and who turns down lobster? LOL. I did skip dessert tonight though because I was full.

The other 3 girls wanted to go to the dance show (we are all dancers, but I just dont enjoy the dance shows really on the ship). I will say the dancers were better than the ones on the Ecstacy last year, but I just wasnt into it. So I instead went to the comedy show with 2 of the 3 girls from the other group at our table, we got seats right up front (as we wanted to) and got picked on. I think its fun to be part of the act. We all have great senses of humor though. After the 1st comedy show the other 3 girls said the dance show was ok, but they were going to the room to get ready for bed. Me being a night owl met up with the other girls again for the 2nd comedy show and then hit the disco to dance for a bit before I went to bed.

Yay! Another Valor review! We are sailing on her in September, so I'm excite to read your review. Loving it so far and looking forward to more!

Wednesday - Barbados. Well I am just rocking this thing along, going in between to determine which pictures are from what. LOL.

We did our usual, get up dressed and head to Lido for a quick breakfast and then out. This morning our exit from the ship was delayed though we were standing down on Deck 0 (about 10Am) in line with hundreds of others not moving and wondering what the holdup was, then we discovered it was a computer glitch and the poor crew was handwriting the numbers of those leaving the ship. Oh geez. We got off an got a taxi right away to the Boatyard. He drove us through the town, talking to us along the way. Very friendly and nice.

I will add for anyone who is considering the options between booking a Carnival excursion to a beach in port, and just hauling your own taxi: Last year we did the Carnival Excursion thing, but this year we got smart. We only did a Carnival excursion in St Kitts (coming up!) and the others just got our own taxi. The taxi system in the port areas are very organized you just tell them where you want to go and they direct you. There were numerous taxis available in all the ports.

The taxi to the Boatyard was $4 per person, and the admission charge was $12 pp includes a chair, an umbrella for every 2 people, a cocktail, and a shuttle back to the ship. The shuttles run on the 1/2 hour beginning at noon I believe they said? I think we arrived at about 10:30AM and caught the 2:30PM shuttle back.

Now this was a breathtakingly beautiful beach! The water was soooo blue, the sand was so soft. We got chairs right to the right of the bridge (where you go for the rope swing and such) which was less crowded side when we arrived. We had told our tablemates about this beach and ran into them here as well. The ONLY less than great thing about this beach was the vendors. There were a TON of them and some were pretty relentless. We were offered numerous turtle snorkeling trips (which apparently the others from our dining table told us they took and enjoyed), jet ski rides, jewelry, aloe vera massages, coconut animals, to take a picture with a live monkey, you name it. It was kind of annoying. They were never aggressive, but it was apparent they were there for a reason to do their work, and if they saw you sitting up looking at the water, for instance they would come try to sell you something. If you were laying back with eyes closed, they seemed to leave us alone. The free cocktails were decent, I think it was a rum punch of some sort. The water was great too. Here's our beach pics:

2 of us walked all the way to the rocks

All of us by the Barbados sign, before we reboarded:

We went back on, grabbed some quick food, and then laid out some more. There was a salsa dance class these dancers wanted to partake in on Lido, but 10 minutes into it it started pouring so we headed to the room, stopping for a drink on the way.

We decided to rest for half hour or so, then started getting ready for dinner. I really love late seating. We get the same tablemates/wait staff every night, yet dont have to start getting ready too early.

Dinner: Penne Mariscos is quite good! And the chicken quesadilla as an app. And if there is cheescake on the menu, Im getting it!

Tonight we were all feeling good, so while 3 girls went to the show, I hit the casino for a bit then we hit up Salsa dancing night in the disco for a few drinks and some salsa dancing! Great fun! Tomorrow is St Lucia (the 4th of July) and the best day of the whole trip!

Would just like to address a few things quickly in between days that everyone seems to mention in their review but I cant really fit into a day/time:

Room Steward - was Hendrick, he stopped by the second day to introduce himself. We left him a few dollar tip each morning and evening along with a note that said "Thank you Hendrick" and requested anything we wanted/needed-ice, extra towels, etc. (We of course paid the required gratuities as well this was extra). We always got everything we needed and he left us towel creations every night. He was very friendly and pleasant, along with his helpers.

The Staff In General - were AMAZING. We were always greeted by every staff member with a smile and a hello. Which must be difficult, because some passengers can be rude and difficult Im sure. We always smiled and said hello to everyone, and tried to not be pains. We NEVER encountered a staff member anywhere on the ship who wasnt pleasant, friendly, and willing to help.. The staff live in box-size rooms, etc yet they are always friendly and willing to help.

Cruise Director- Felipe- he loves his job and you can tell. He is friendly and fun. His announcements got kind of annoying by the end of the cruise but he was a great cruise director, and very involved with the happenings around the ship.

I can't wait to see the rest of this! We are planning on the Boatyard ourselves, and it looks beautiful!

Loving your review, leaving on the Valor in 3 weeks!

Thursday - July 4th (St Lucia)

The best excursion of the trip!!!!

One of the woman (Deb off my cruise roll call, who became an email friend in December, and a real friend as soon as we boarded the ship!) organized this excursion there was a good 30-40 of us on it, through Mystic Man Tours.

It was AWESOME! They picked us up at the dock at 9AM, returned us about 3PM, and in the meantime it was a party boat, we got to see tons of whales and dolphins along the way, the alcoholic beverages were flowing from the time we boarded, one must pace themselves if lightweights like my group :D, and there was a delicious buffet lunch included, and we stopped at 2 snorkeling sites in the Pitons to snorkel or swim. It was AWESOME! The crew was great too, they knew what they were doing and were a lot of fun! And it was an all-day excursion for only $70 per person! If we had booked a similar ecursion through Carnival it would have been double that in price. It was the best day of our trip and only $70 per person. I 100% recommend Mystic Man tours for catamaran excursions in St Lucia.

When we got back 2 of us reboarded right away, the other 2 shopped some. Grabbed a snack of pizza or something then went to relax for a bit

Us & our dinner table girls at the 4th of July deck party: (they were from Canada so the 4th of July not a holiday to them, but they were still partying with us!)

We had a great time, though the deck party was a bit cheesy. The good music ended about 11PM and then it was the ships singers, so I didnt feel up to dancing and went to the casino instead. I think I was once again the last person to the room.....

Love reading Valor reviews. We were on tge Valor at the end of April and can't wait to go back. Best itineray CCL has. Great review so far. I can't wait to re-ljve all my memories of the islands.

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

Maria

Monday - St Thomas. The day before we had all booked the "tip to toe special" or something like that in the spa we all got appointments at 8AM - it included a full body massage, scalp massage, mini facial, eye collagen treatment it was about 1 hour 15 minutes. We basically all rolled out of bed and headed up there at 8. 3 of the girls showered in the spa after, and I went back to shower in the room. Tip for any groups of girls sharing a room (or anyone really): You can use the spa showers at any time, and they are pretty awesome. With 4 of us in one room, we made use of the spa showers a few times throughout the week, esp when all were getting ready before dinner. We all left there feeling relaxed, got some food on Lido.

 

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Great review! Thanks!

Do you remember the price of the 'Tip to Toe' Spa Special? Sounds amazing..

You ladies were rocking those July 4th bikinis. So cute. Reminded me of my figure....40 years ago! :eek: :D I can just imagine that 1 guy at your dinner table thought he had died and gone to heaven. :D If you all took a picture with him, he will forever be bragging about his cruise with the 8 pretty women at his table.

Enjoying your review, and looking for more. I like how your picture at the Barbados sign has the Valor in the background. I am going to look to take a picture there. Thanks for posting your review.

Monday - St Thomas. The day before we had all booked the "tip to toe special" or something like that in the spa we all got appointments at 8AM - it included a full body massage, scalp massage, mini facial, eye collagen treatment it was about 1 hour 15 minutes. We basically all rolled out of bed and headed up there at 8. 3 of the girls showered in the spa after, and I went back to shower in the room. Tip for any groups of girls sharing a room (or anyone really): You can use the spa showers at any time, and they are pretty awesome. With 4 of us in one room, we made use of the spa showers a few times throughout the week, esp when all were getting ready before dinner. We all left there feeling relaxed, got some food on Lido.

 

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Great review! Thanks!

Do you remember the price of the 'Tip to Toe' Spa Special? Sounds amazing..

 

It was only $139! It was being offered the first day and could only be used the 1st or 2nd day.

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Loving your review so far, we go on the same cruise in October, and I get more and more excited with each review I read!! Can not wait to see what you girls did next!

Me & 3 girlfriends sailed the Valor from San Juan Puerto Rico on June 30!

 

Here is our picture taken the 1st night before dinner:

 

 

Im going to start with my very first tip, regarding embarkation day: DO NOT PLAN TO FLY TO PUERTO RICO ON EMBARKATION DAY! Fly in a day early. We had a situation the evening before, when our 1st flight out of NY was going to be delayed 2 hours which would cause us to miss our 2nd flight from Philly to San Juan, and they were trying to tell me all they could do was put us on a flight that would arrive in San Juan at 9PM. We all had major heart attacks, cried some, were trying to figure out how we could drive to Philly overnight, and I spent an hour on the phone and finally she found us a flight going through Charlotte that would arrive in San Juan at 1:30PM. PHEW. We even got upgraded to first class on the flight from Charlotte to San Juan, which was an AWESOME experience, since it was a 4 hour flight, we got a full meal, alcoholic drinks included, and plenty of space, making for an awesome start to the vacation! We all agreed then and there we would NEVER fly in on same day again.

 

Anyhow, arriving in San Juan was simple, got our luggage right away and were outside waiting for a taxi within 20 minutes of landing. Got a taxi right away, $26 including the $1 per bag fee for the 4 of us (plus we added a tip). We got a great driver who told us some about San Juan on the drive over. It was a quick drive to the port. We had purchased FTTF, but since we didnt arrive in San Juan at 11am as planned originally, there was no value in boarding early. We did buy some wine & 2 cases of water in the port. We did get to skip a line to get our S&S cards, very quick and painless. Our room was ready as soon as we boarded, but we did not get our luggage any faster than anyone else, but it was not a big deal at all we didnt care we were excited.

 

All 4 of us were sharing one room, 7389 a balcony room. It was a GREAT location. Last years cruise (on the Ecstacy) we were on Deck 1 so way up to everything. This time it was basically a couple decks up or down to get to everything. Would definitely book that location again.

 

THE SHIP: was in great shape. It was a beautiful ship, and the theme of heroes, and America, red, white & blue everywhere we said was PERFECT as it was 4th of July week. The whole ship was in great shape and very clean. Never noticed anything dirty or old looking anywhere. It was great.

 

We explored some, headed to Lido & I beelined for the Mongolian Wok, which I love! The mongolian wok never had too long of a line on this cruise. Everyone sampled a little of this & that.

Lido Selections for Lunch: were great - My favorites were the Mongolian Wok & Burrito Bar - the pizzeria was decent, though Im from Buffalo NY and really know very good pizza. I dont eat fried food, but the other girls tried stuff from the grill throughout the week which everyone said was good. I think after lunch we ordered our first round of funships and explored some more.

 

To Cheers or Not to Cheers: Early in the planning, I went back and forth on purchasing Cheers. We ended up not, and were glad for the following reasons:

- One of the 4 girls does not drink much she would never have drank her moneys worth

- One of the girls got food poisoning the 2nd evening and was up all night sick (interesting night in our cabin), and though she felt a bit better the next day and better yet the day after she wasnt fully back for a couple days.

- We added up our S&S bar charges, and with gratuities was $817 for the week, Cheers would have been $1600 for the 4 of us. We were way better off!

 

We got changed for dinner, looked at our watches and raced up to the spa raffle, got our tickets in just in time, and pictured below is one of our girls who won the $200 prize!

 

 

Then went to order a round of drinks I had a mai tai which was SUPER strong. We then headed to the MDR, since we were doing late dining in Washington, and tonight was open seating, we decided to check out Lincoln tonight, and they gave us a table for the 4 of us. Our waiter was nice and got what we asked for but he didnt really say much, so we were kind of glad he wasnt going to be our server the whole time, we like funny interactive wait staff!

I know I had the tomato soup as an app and the Tilapia as an entree - both very good. I love trying all the different seafood dishes. We were too full for dessert because we had had a late lunch.

 

After dinner it was almost time for the wonderful muster, which was long because yes they repeat everything in English and Spanish.

 

By the way, the other passengers on the ship were AWESOME. I had read posts about rude passengers on cruises from San Juan, large groups who cut in line at buffet, elevators, loud, etc. We noticed NONE of that the whole week. Everyone regardless of nationality or race, was great. We made a TON of new friends, some from all over the world we are already keeping in touch with. We notice no rudeness whatsoever, no unruly children, none. Everyone was great!

 

After the muster it was time for the Cruise Critic meet & greet. The other 3 girls pretty much had no clue what was going on because none of them are on here, but I had made several friends on CC before cruising, so it was neat to meet them all. We are all dancers/dance teachers and one of the CC members had a daughter the same age as the girls in my group who had also just graduated college and was a dancer so she became friends with all of us right away, and the girls also made friends with some of my other CC friends, so they were happy I was such a social butterfly.

 

After the meet & greet, they went to check out the deck party, but I headed to the casino. While exploring earlier I saw the casino had MY GAME - the goldfish slot, which is my ALL TIME favorite so I headed to the casino ordered a drink and settled in on my machine, only to be joined instantly on the other 2 goldfish machines by other avid fans of the machine. We had to wait about 20 minutes for the machines to be turned on, but we chatted the whole time and it was fun. I ended up winning quite a bit on the fish machine throughout the cruise, I have very good luck on that machine. I ended up being the last one in the cabin that night, the others got tired before me.

 

Will continue with more pics and all in a bit! Thanks for reading:) -Jamie

Glad the flights worked out for you. You could have easily done the drive to Philly though. We are frome the Rochester area and my son used to be stationed there. It took us 5-6 hours to drive down.

Friday - St Kitts & 2nd formal night

We slept in till 9:30 or so today, our ziplining was at 11AM. Had breakfast got ready and went out to the loading area where we had to fill out a waiver or something and they weighed us. LOL no one wants to get weighed on Day 5 of a cruise! haha. The ride over to the ziplining place was nice, but drove through such a horribly impoverished area it was very devastating to see all the blocks and blocks of run down shacks that people call home. :(

We arrived at the ziplining facility and were showed where we could store our things. We then met our guides, who were AWESOME! They were funny, joked with everyone, and had a great time along with us. Dont remember their names but they were great. We were showed how to put on our harnesses and helmets, then we did the first run which is the "training run" or baby run, maybe 10 feet off ground and short, just to give you the hang of it. Then you get in the jungle safari truck which takes you up to the top of the run way up that mountain! The first run was the longest and highest, I was scared at first but it was so breathtaking and fun.

The last run was the double run so we went 2 at a time.

We were given a bottled water after the runs and then boarded the shuttle back to the ship. It was probably close to 2PM when we got back to port, and one girl had her hair appointment to use her spa gift cert at 4PM so she decided to go back on the ship, and the other 3 of us grabbed a taxi to South Friars Beach. $5 per person, and it was about a 10 minute drive. Super glad we chose this beach, it was breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful. No vendors hounding us, the sand was soft and the water was so warm instead of just laying out, I pretty much swam and floated around in the water the whole time, it was so nice. Our taxi driver even came back for us at 4PM. (On St Kitts day you dont have to be back on board until 5:30PM)

The other 2 decided to shop some but I knew I had another hair appointment to get my hair styled for formal night so I figured Id better shower and get ready for that.

Monday - St Thomas. The day before we had all booked the "tip to toe special" or something like that in the spa we all got appointments at 8AM - it included a full body massage, scalp massage, mini facial, eye collagen treatment it was about 1 hour 15 minutes. We basically all rolled out of bed and headed up there at 8. 3 of the girls showered in the spa after, and I went back to shower in the room. Tip for any groups of girls sharing a room (or anyone really): You can use the spa showers at any time, and they are pretty awesome. With 4 of us in one room, we made use of the spa showers a few times throughout the week, esp when all were getting ready before dinner. We all left there feeling relaxed, got some food on Lido.

 

Lido Breakfast: expect to wait a long time for the omelette station. The eggs on the regular buffet line are like powdered eggs, not good, but slap them on a bagel with some ketchup and they didnt taste too bad. The food was decent, they had some different selections throughout the week, and we never left hungry.

 

We headed off into St Thomas, which was sooo mountainous and beautiful. I will add it was ALL of our 1st trip to all of the islands we visited. We went back and forth throughout planning between Sapphire and Magens, and since we got a late start because of our spa treatments we decided Magens we would get to quicker so we headed to the taxi station and got a great friendly driver named Mr Potter who told us all kinds of stuff even stopped at the top of the skyline overlook so we could snap some pics. He was very nice. The ride was $8 per person, and it was $4 to get into Magens (all of which I already knew from research). We didnt rent chairs, we were fine with laying on towels in the soft sand. The weather was the least nice of the whole week, it was kind of overcast, though we did have bits of sun and it was very warm. The beach was very pretty, and the water was calm, but after the week was over, we decided this was the least appealing of the beaches we visited (though it doesnt speak that this beach was NOT pretty, the others were just breathtaking). We didnt eat anything at the beach as we ate on the ship, and only got bottled water, decided to get drinks in the port area on the way back so we just relaxed and enjoyed the beach. We were the only ship in port, and as you can see from the pics, the beach was very uncrowded.

 

We were at the beach about 3 hours then headed back, got on an open air taxi that was getting ready to leave we got seats in the back row and that was a great experience. We drove through some impoverished areas of the island, and seeing all of that really made us feel sad and appreciate how much we have. We really enjoyed hearing about the island and the culture.

 

We shopped around the port for a bit and then went back to the ship. The line to get back on the ship was a good 30 minutes and it was about 3:45PM. We were starving by now so grabbed some food on Lido, ate and then got a round of drinks and headed up to the aft area of Deck 10 found 4 loungers together and laid back to enjoy our drinks as the ship sailed away.

 

We went got ready for dinner, and headed to Washington to meet our tablemates, which we were excited to have! Last year there were 6 of us cruising together, and they gave us our own table. But we like meeting new people so we had staked out our table the night before and saw that it was an 8 seater. We wound up lucky! As soon as we sat, another group of 3 girls on a girlfriends cruise came up and sat with us, who were similar in age to us. We ended up making great friends with them, and hung out a lot throughout the week and we had a great time at dinner every night. We thought the 8th seat was going to be unoccupied until a few minutes later a gentleman (about 40 Id say) my group was ages 22-30 and the other group of girls were about 30-32. he walked up and said "How could I be so lucky to be seated at a table full of such beautiful ladies". He was great also, and ended up hanging out with both our group and the other group of girls a few times on the cruise, he was travelling solo to get a break from his work and even though he was the only guy, he fit in great at our table and we all had a blast. I might be mixing the menus up, but I believe I got the Salmon this night with the Potato Soup & Shrimp cocktail as apps and I definitely got the bitter & blanc for dessert, which was great and I am not a dessert person.

 

After dinner, the one girl who I mentioned earlier with the food poisoning who hadnt been feeling well during dinner and barely touched her food, went back to the room to lay down (and ended up sick all night) 2 of us attempted to watch the dance show, but got there late so we went to the comedy show instead, which was funny, had a couple drinks and settled in for a loonnng night in our room. We did chalk it up to food poisoning, not norovirus, because no one else in our room got sick, which we were pretty sure would have happened since we were all sharing close quarters, had all shared sips of drinks, etc.

I got norovirus on the Dream and my husband and all of our traveling companions stayed healthy so it could have been.

Loving the review and pictures!!! Thank you :) your friend might just have been a bit seasick, if it would have been food poisoning i am sure a lot more people would have been sick.

Zip lining looks awesome! Did you book this thru Carnival?

Zip lining looks awesome! Did you book this thru Carnival?

Yes, in St Kitts the sky safari ziplining they have a contract with Carnival (and probably the other cruise lines) that you must book through Carnival. It was awesome and we felt very safe the whole time.

Ziplining is on my Bucket List of things to do. I love the pictures, because it really shows just how high up you were. Can you slow them up, or are you at the mercy of gravity?

Ziplining is on my Bucket List of things to do. I love the pictures, because it really shows just how high up you were. Can you slow them up, or are you at the mercy of gravity?

I dont think you have a lot of control. The longest run was also the slowest, then there was one they called "the fastest" and the last one was the double run where you can race against someone else, but in our case it seemed the lighter flew faster (though we arent off by more than a few pounds of each other so not the best example).