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Just off Valor (11/1-8)....

Sdallnct

By Sdallnct,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Sdallnct

Sdallnct

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Had a great time. Is a great ship!

 

Full day by day review coming soon.

 

In the mean time ask questions or ask about things your interested in and I'll make sure and include (if I know the answer/topic).

 

Woot....

 

<------still on cruise time!

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Sdallnct

Sdallnct

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Damn...good questions,

 

No, you do not need to take your life jacket to the muster. It was rather funny as one couple did and the guy very casually went and stood next to a crew member and demonstrated how to put it on, just as she did. As if he was part of the crew, rather funny!

 

We did self assist to debark and it did require a bit of muscle (of course we took to much stuff). But it was quick, and once cleared we were off the boat in less than 15 minutes. If you pack light, I highly recommend it. We got up early had breakfast while we docked, then immediately went and got our stuff and when to the theater to wait. However, if you have large pieces, a large family, lots to keep track of, then I'd go regular.

 

We got to port to board the ship early as we had stayed on South Beach the night before. It was a little slow moving. We go there about 11:00am and took up the better part of 45 minutes to get on board. However, a quick self tour to get our bearings and it was time for a wonderful lunch on deck!

 

Yes, the storm did effect us. From about Wednesday on we had little sun. And yesterday (Saturday) swells go big and we did the rock on rolling. It is in my review I'm working on, but it was significant enough to close the main pool and also got us into Grand Cayman late. As we debarked, I "heard" they were changing the itinerary for next week. But I did not hear in what way. Swimming with the stingrays and snorkeling was at least an adventure if not challenging.

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Sdallnct

Sdallnct

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Damn...good questions,

 

No, you do not need to take your life jacket to the muster. It was rather funny as one couple did and the guy very casually went and stood next to a crew member and demonstrated how to put it on, just as she did. As if he was part of the crew, rather funny!

 

We did self assist to debark and it did require a bit of muscle (of course we took to much stuff). But it was quick, and once cleared we were off the boat in less than 15 minutes. If you pack light, I highly recommend it. We got up early had breakfast while we docked, then immediately went and got our stuff and when to the theater to wait. However, if you have large pieces, a large family, lots to keep track of, then I'd go regular.

 

We got to port to board the ship early as we had stayed on South Beach the night before. It was a little slow moving. We go there about 11:00am and took up the better part of 45 minutes to get on board. However, a quick self tour to get our bearings and it was time for a wonderful lunch on deck!

 

Yes, the storm did effect us. From about Wednesday on we had little sun. And yesterday (Saturday) swells got big and we did rock and roll. Early in the day the captain announced 10-12 foot swells, but by the end of the day they were at times much bigger. It is in my review I'm working on, but it was significant enough to close the main pool and also got us into Grand Cayman late. As we debarked, I "heard" they were changing the itinerary for next week. But I did not hear in what way. Swimming with the stingrays and snorkeling was at least an adventure if not challenging.

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Sdallnct

Sdallnct

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Ok, I was going to spend some time cleaning up, fixing spelling and grammar. But I'm terrible at all that stuff anyway, so I thought I go ahead and post and correct once posted.

 

I also want to add some more stuff such as a summary on such things as the ship, trying to stay in shape on the cruise, packing etc. But again, I thought I'd post what I got in hopes it would benefit those traveling soon.

 

I'm a decent business writer, but not great for "creative" writing. So excuse my lack of style and correctness....I have never written a review/blog like this before. Which brings me to my next point, I have never blogged before. But I wanted to make notes and write while on the cruise. So I used an off line blog writer, threw on some pictures as I went and posted when I got home. Let me know if this does not work. At this point, I see no reason not to keep this "public". If that changes I'll let you know.

 

Ok enough...here is the link to the blog. I used Wordpress which appears to be a popular blog spot and hopefully will work for this.

 

http://sdallnct.wordpress.com/

 

If there are issues with doing the review this way, let me know and I'll post here in this thread. Again, I have never done anything like this.

 

Oh finally, I stated many of things I did, wish I did, or would do next time. Please understand almost all of these are NOT my original ideas and I'm not trying to steal or take credit for them. Most things I read about on these boards and credit goes to those that posted them before me (such as the bungee cords)

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janie315

janie315

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Great review! Thanks!! ....We are planning on taking our luggage off the ship. The Valor arrives back into Miami at 8:00 am. Did the ship arrive earlier than 8:00? What time were you finally able to get off the ship? Thanks...we have an early flight!

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Sdallnct

Sdallnct

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Great review! Thanks!! ....We are planning on taking our luggage off the ship. The Valor arrives back into Miami at 8:00 am. Did the ship arrive earlier than 8:00? What time were you finally able to get off the ship? Thanks...we have an early flight!

 

Our flight was 12:20 which the cruise said was was plenty of time for normal check out and probably was. But my wife is a bit if a worry wart at airports so we did carry off. I'll make a separate blog page or post about luggage and packing, but we had a lot of stuff. And as you can imagine elevators were very full and hard to carry. And to carry heavy bags down even a couple of flights of stairs would be tough.

 

We did arrive early thinks to the storm that had a current. We arrived about 7:00ish if I remember and we were. As we did final docking we ate breakfast and then went back for our luggage and waited in the theater. Once cleared we got off the ship in about 15 minutes. Customs was very quick and they basically waived us through.

 

They had a ton of taxi's but we got sucked in to a shuttle and it was fine. The absolute worse part was the Miami airport. I travel a lot for work and the Miami airport is the worse I have experienced for check in. The are building another terminal and much of it will be open soon, so hopefully that will take care of it somewhat.

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cruisingbajan

cruisingbajan

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Ok, I was going to spend some time cleaning up, fixing spelling and grammar. But I'm terrible at all that stuff anyway, so I thought I go ahead and post and correct once posted.

 

I also want to add some more stuff such as a summary on such things as the ship, trying to stay in shape on the cruise, packing etc. But again, I thought I'd post what I got in hopes it would benefit those traveling soon.

 

I'm a decent business writer, but not great for "creative" writing. So excuse my lack of style and correctness....I have never written a review/blog like this before. Which brings me to my next point, I have never blogged before. But I wanted to make notes and write while on the cruise. So I used an off line blog writer, threw on some pictures as I went and posted when I got home. Let me know if this does not work. At this point, I see no reason not to keep this "public". If that changes I'll let you know.

 

Ok enough...here is the link to the blog. I used Wordpress which appears to be a popular blog spot and hopefully will work for this.

 

http://sdallnct.wordpress.com/

 

If there are issues with doing the review this way, let me know and I'll post here in this thread. Again, I have never done anything like this.

 

Oh finally, I stated many of things I did, wish I did, or would do next time. Please understand almost all of these are NOT my original ideas and I'm not trying to steal or take credit for them. Most things I read about on these boards and credit goes to those that posted them before me (such as the bungee cords)

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to post. I am loving your review. I am seriously considering self debarkation. How long did it take?

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Sdallnct

Sdallnct

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Thank you so much for taking the time to post. I am loving your review. I am seriously considering self debarkation. How long did it take?

 

If you travel light, don't have a lot of people to keep track of (several kids and their stuff) and you are willing to get up early, I think it works well. Once they gave the clearance from customs, we were off the ship in less then 15 minutes, but we were waiting in the theater for 15-20 minutes for that clearance. Customs for us was a breeze and we were at curb side in minutes.

 

But I'm sure you can imagine several hundred people trying to move about with their luggage. And it gets packed in the hall way leading to the exit area. In fact this is where I experienced the only person who was truly rude to me on the entire cruise. We were packed in the hallway, it was tight and there was no where you could move. A women came up to me and bumped into me. She did it again and said "excuse me". I asked her where she thought I should go and she literally said; "I don't know, but out of my way:". My reply? I said "Very nice. Hope you had a nice cruise". My wife was like, wow the only rude person and it was just as we got of the boat. She then smiled and said "I'm glad she said that to you and not me, I wouldn't have been so nice".

 

But if you have a lot of luggage, it is heavy, you have kids to keep track of who have their own stuff, I would recommend the "regular" debark.

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astropilot

astropilot

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Damn...good questions,

 

No, you do not need to take your life jacket to the muster. It was rather funny as one couple did and the guy very casually went and stood next to a crew member and demonstrated how to put it on, just as she did. As if he was part of the crew, rather funny!

 

Glad to hear that. A couple of weeks ago, when we were on Valor we still had to take them to the drill.

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cruisingbajan

cruisingbajan

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If you travel light, don't have a lot of people to keep track of (several kids and their stuff) and you are willing to get up early, I think it works well. Once they gave the clearance from customs, we were off the ship in less then 15 minutes, but we were waiting in the theater for 15-20 minutes for that clearance. Customs for us was a breeze and we were at curb side in minutes.

 

But I'm sure you can imagine several hundred people trying to move about with their luggage. And it gets packed in the hall way leading to the exit area. In fact this is where I experienced the only person who was truly rude to me on the entire cruise. We were packed in the hallway, it was tight and there was no where you could move. A women came up to me and bumped into me. She did it again and said "excuse me". I asked her where she thought I should go and she literally said; "I don't know, but out of my way:". My reply? I said "Very nice. Hope you had a nice cruise". My wife was like, wow the only rude person and it was just as we got of the boat. She then smiled and said "I'm glad she said that to you and not me, I wouldn't have been so nice".

 

But if you have a lot of luggage, it is heavy, you have kids to keep track of who have their own stuff, I would recommend the "regular" debark.

 

Thanks for the insight. It will actually only be my wife and myself so we should only have about 4 bags between the 2 of us, 1 for me the other 3 for her.:D

 

Great response to the rude lady...that always disarms those types and make them feel sorry for the way they acted, good job there as well.;)

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Froufie

Froufie

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Excellent blog/review and sounds like you had a wonderful cruise.

 

Just a couple of 'amendments' to your tips for some inexperienced cruisers:

 

1) Cheapest place to get your rain poncho is the dollar store! I usually carry one in my 'beach bag' and have had to use it only once (and to heck with trying to refold it - just left it behind cuz it only cost a buck or two!)

 

2) I don't think you are ALLOWED to take anything but prepackaged sealed food off the ship as most countries have laws against this - of course this does not stop people from doing so - but in some ports they do check bags and make you discard any 'perishables' you are bringing off the ship. You are able to take things like 'prepackaged cheese & crackers', small cereal boxes (grab a few from the breakfast buffet), granola bars, chips, packaged nuts/trail mix, etc. There are many threads about this on cruise critic which you can locate by doing a 'search'.

 

3) No need to bring your own hangers - if you need more just ask the room steward (one of the 1st things I ask for when boarding) - he will bring you as many as you need! (even those left over by Scott! :D)

 

4) Pictures - I believe if there are any pictures you find during the week and that you are considering purchasing you can take them to the 'counter' and ask them to keep them 'separate' for you. This way they are not mixed in with all the other photos - and they are ready for you at the end of the cruise when you can pick and choose those you like!

 

Thanks for the excellent info on the shows - I usually attend all of them but it is good to know which 'comedians' are not worth staying up for (and I thought the talking couch was awfully cute! :D)

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BigRed93

BigRed93

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I have read the supper club requires jackets for men on elegant nights, but what about on the casual dining nights? Would slacks and a button down shirt be enough for in there, without a coat? DH wants to wear his tux for elegant nights so was not planning on any other dressy wear this trip.

 

Glad you had a good time. Less than a month until we board! :D

 

Cheers,

 

Michelle

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