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25th Anniversary Edition - Valor Review


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So here are my experiences and opinions from our June 5, 2011 cruise on the Carnival Valor. I will try to include as much detail as I can remember, but I didn’t take a journal, so I’m sure I will miss some things you may like to know about (and I’m pretty sure I’ll include stuff that really doesn’t matter to you at all, just as a bonus). If there is anything I can answer I will be happy to give it a try. I love reading reviews on CruiseCritic, so that is why I am contributing mine this time.

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My wife, Amy, and I chose this ship based around the date this time. We usually have just looked for the best deal, but we wanted to be on the ship on our 25th wedding anniversary on June 5th, and we also did not want to do the Western Carribean again, since we had done that several times before. So Carnival Valor Eastern itinerary it was. This was our eighth cruise and fifth Carnival ship. We are 46 and 45 and left our five kids at home. (Don’t worry, we left a pallet of Cheerios and a cow for them)

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I will start with embarkation, since we did not fly or stay in a hotel before the cruise. Instead we drove from SC, where we live now, to West Palm Beach and stayed with a friend there before and after the cruise, since that is where we are originally from. We arrived at the Port of Miami around 10:20, stopped at the curb, where an unusually friendly porter was happy to remove our bags from the car, and put them on a cart, take our tip and direct us to the entrance of the terminal. We did not go right in though, because we were waiting to meet up with my sister and her husband who were a couple of minutes behind us coming from their stay with friends in Ft Lauderdale. That is one of the most exciting times of the week, when you pull up to the terminal and look at the immense size of your new home for a week. So Sam & Jeanine arrived a few minutes later, and we went inside the terminal right to the security check without waiting in a line. Our bags went right through and we went right up the escalator, however Sam was not with us. I looked back and saw them waving the wand all over him, and my first thought was “Oh, no, Sam tried to smuggle” However when we were reunited we found out it was just his hip replacement setting off the alarms.

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Someone at the top of the escalator handed us a Zone 5 card and we were directed to a queue with only about five people waiting for a Self Assist Kiosk to check in. That only involved swiping our credit card, then our passports, get a receipt to go pick up our Sail and Sign cards and then we were done and ready to find a seat and wait for our zone to be called. The seats quickly filled up after we sat down, as did the queues to check in, so while we had to wait a while for our zone to be called, I’m glad we got there early to get a seat. To be honest with you once we had our cards, I lost track of time because we were just having fun in the excitement of being with our fellow passengers, and talking to them and each other about the week ahead. I think it was about 10:40 when we sat down to wait, (about 15 minutes from curb to check in complete taking out the time we waited for my sister) I think it was about 11:30 when we were called to board the ship, because I remember thinking we had two hours for lunch, and a look around the ship before our rooms would be ready.

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I may be off and on with this because I had planned on getting started earlier today (my day off) but half of the pictures got deleted from the camera before they were saved to hard drive. Yea Amy and Sony for figuring out how to recover them.

 

@Cyndi, it was really nice meeting you and Roy. I think you are in pictures on our St Thomas tour. Or at least your hat is.:)

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Some of the ships crew and staff were waiting to welcome us on board. Then you get closer to the door of the Lobby and start to hear the “ding” when they put your S&S card in the security scanners and take your picture. Each step the excitement was building and building.

Sam & Jeanine waiting to enter the American Lobby.

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Finally we entered the American Lobby which soared up 9 decks. There was live music playing there the whole time of embarkation. A guitar player named Alex. He was good, and I would have liked to have found time to sit and listen to him, but didn’t get around to it until the very last evening. We wandered around the lobby for a little while meeting some more of the staff who were there to answer questions, give directions and just meet people. We came across the sommelier, who helped us pick a wine package, which we purchased for dinner. I did find out later, we could have just done this in the MDR, since that is where we were given our tickets anyway. We also talked to the Steakhouse hostess there and confirmed our Chefs Table reservations, and were told it would be Wednesday night which we were happy with because that was not one of the elegant nights.

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We made our way up to the Lido deck for lunch. I was very surprised when we got there, how many tables were full already, since I thought we were on the ship early, but no problem. We kept going towards the back and found a nice quiet spot near a window on the aft pool deck with plenty of room to put down our carry-ons and wait for each other to take turns getting lunch and then waiting for our room to be ready. That part of the ship always had empty tables available somewhere during the week, and I liked it there because it was warmer than inside Rosie’s. I had heard about the Fish & Chips, so headed upstairs to find it. I tried the BBQ Octopus Salad and the Fish & Chips. Both were good. The Octopus tasted similar to beef and the fish was good, but did not compare to the fish in my favorite pub in our hometown.

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I just have to interject here. I have the same red bag with the same photos(they came with the bag). Everyone kept telling us how cute our kids and dogs are(I'm deathly allergic to dogs, by the way) - I got tired of explaining that the photos came with the bag - I just started saying "Thank you".

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@Travelmom, too funny, that's my brother-in-law Sam. I gave them a hard time about the bag for the same reasons. They hadn't put their own pictures in yet. Someone gave them the bag and I thought it was pictures of their friends kids and pets.

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Finally 1:30 came so we headed down to look at our cabins and put away our carry-ons. Now, we booked this cabin about 10 months in advance because I wanted an aft-wrap. We had never had one or been in one, but after reading many passionate reviews here on CruiseCritic we decided that it would be a wonderful place to celebrate our anniversary.

 

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This is a little side story about why we booked an aft-wrap, so you can skip it if you’re not interested.

For our 20th anniversary we sailed on the Sapphire Princess, Vancouver to Whittier 7days. We had four mini suites together, so it was a fabulous experience to spend so much time together out on our balconies gazing at the awesome sights of nature that Alaska has to offer. We arrived in Skagway the morning of our anniversary under grey skies and a light mist. We took the White-Pass Railroad up in to the mountains, which was wonderful, but on the way back down the clouds broke up, and the sun started to glisten on the water, where we would occasionally catch a glimpse of our ship sparkling like a Sapphire, parked next to the little town of Skagway. We had plans to meet up in our cabin before dinner that afternoon to celebrate our anniversary together with Champagne, which we did. It was one of the most memorable moments of my life, being with the ones I love in that beautiful setting, and the warm sun shining down on our balcony. Anyway, I had hoped to recreate something like this again, so we invited several other couples to join us on the Valor, and thought an aft-wrap balcony looking over St. Thomas would be another “moment”. Only one other couple ended up joining us, and we were happy they did, but at times, we felt overwhelmed with the size of the balcony, so we may not book that again unless we have several others sailing with us.

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Where was I? Oh, seeing the cabin. It was fantastic. The cabin really feels roomier because of the way it is laid out. All the floor space is in the middle. Plenty of room to play Twister. I had sent my wife a dozen yellow roses and ordered a bottle of Absolut, which were both there when we got there. We stayed out on the balcony until safety briefing which went very smoothly and quickly, and then back to our cabin to unpack when some of our luggage started to arrive. There was more than enough room to unpack all of our suitcases and carry-ons and put everything away, then store all the empty suitcases under the beds to collect dirty laundry.

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Our Cruise Critic roll call had arranged a meet and greet at 5ish in the American Lobby. We had said we would wear Mardi Gras beads to be identified, and I’m glad we did. The first couple came up to us and identified us by that and my avatar picture, and from there it just all worked out for everyone to find us I guess. It was fun to finally meet a few of the people I had been talking to and sharing the excitement together of getting ready for a cruise.

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We had intended to go to the MDR after boarding to check on our table assignment, but they had not put the table numbers on them yet, so we didn’t get to see our table until dinner time. We had early seating at 6:00. We were on the main floor of the Washington Dining Room in a booth for four right at the edge of the balcony overhang towards the aft, so we had a view of the aft windows and the main floor. Couldn’t have picked a better table myself if I had tried. Waiting at the table for us were Edy and Artha our waiter and his partner. Edy was very good at what he does. He told us he has been with Carnival 20 years and it showed.

 

Here’s where I think Carnival could improve. It seemed to me that we didn’t see much of Artha all week. Once we got our orders in I think Edy had to send him to the galley to make sure we didn’t have to wait on our entrees. You see, when we went on the Chefs Table tour of the galley, it was during dinner, with everything in full swing. But something that surprised me was the long line of waiters back there waiting to fill their trays to bring out to the dining room. I think Edy took all the pre entrée service,(the wine, the appetizers, filling water glasses etc.), upon himself, because he was experienced and knew he could keep up, and sent Artha to the galley to be one of the first ones out. I may be wrong and some may disagree with me here, but that is my opinion. It will not keep me from going back to Carnival again, and it certainly does not reflect on Edy and Artha. They did a fantastic job.

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