Carnival Valor, 9/25/11: A "pink" review of the Eastern Caribbean.... PICTURES!!!

[gapearl]

Well I’m at it again!

I just stepped off the Carnival Valor at 8:30 this morning after another AWESOME cruise. In fact, this might be my best cruise ever. We’re flying home tomorrow and I’m sitting at my hotel now, tired with nothing to do and recovering from this past week’s craziness, so I thought I’d get started on my review. It will be written entirely in pink in honor of breast cancer awareness month.

 

Traveling were me, Kim, age 31, and my mom, Dorothy, age.... more than 31. (She's not a fan of the internet, so I won't be posting any pictures of her. She found out through some friends that I posted pictures on facebook from our last cruise and wasn't happy about it.) This was her 2nd Carnival cruise and my 6th. I had invited some of my cousins and my aunt to come along, but they all bailed when it was time to put down deposit money. You know how that goes. :rolleyes: Well the original plan was to do a 5 day cruise with them, but since they weren’t coming, I convinced my mom to do a 7 day and she told me to pick the itinerary I wanted. The Victory southern was out because it would be WAY too port intensive for her. The Legend and Liberty were out because they were western itineraries my vacation week, and my last 4 cruises were western. That left the Dream and the Valor for an eastern. The Dream had 3 ports and was considerably more expensive than the Valor’s 4 port itinerary, so the Valor won by default! Our stops included Half Moon Cay, St. Thomas, San Juan, and Grand Turk.

 

This was a long cruise and will be a LONG review. I didn't judge the hairy chest contest this time though. LOL (If you don't know what I'm talking about here go read my Inspiration review in my signature and skip to page 3.) Coming up: our very active roll call, my awesome 4J cabin, island tours through my eyes and camera, my nightly fashion show at dinner, and OMG lots of food porn. Fun Times will come later when I can get to my scanner. If you have any questions along the way, don't hesitate to ask.

Here are a few teasers to keep your attention.

That's me here. Hi!

 

 

 

 

 

Wanna find out how these got won? Too bad, I'm not telling yet!

 

 

 

Stay tuned.......

[rtfnl]

Can't wait for your review. Did you find the person to get your DOD?

Edited October 2, 2011 by rtfnl

[gapearl]

Can't wait for your review. Did you find the person to get your DOD?

 

LOL Nope! I didn't want to be silly and walk around the lido asking are you the cruise critic guy? :o

[hfweather]

I loved your review of the Inspiration and I can't wait to read this one!

[rtfnl]

He said that you were sitting a few chairs from you. You probably passed him numerous of times. Hopefully he will post where he was sitting. I see you won a medal and a ship on a stick. Congrats.

[gapearl]

THE DAY BEFORE

 

Don't you just love waking up and seeing this? Such an awesome feeling. :)

 

 

We flew into West Palm Beach and got a one way rental car from Alamo to Miami for $41, including tax. As soon as we got in the car, the heavens opened up and sent a monsoon-like rain down on us. It was about an hour drive, even in the pouring rain. We got a few spots of sunshine with no rain. It was very random. Typical south Florida weather I guess. Please God, don't let us have weather like this tomorrow.

 

 

I got us a room on priceline for $45 at the Sheraton Airport. We checked into the hotel, dropped off our bags, and headed to Winn Dixie to get some sodas and wine. We also grabbed some dinner from Burger King. Both were about 5 minutes from the hotel. The Sheraton has free internet, but you do have to pay for parking. Self parking was $14 and valet was $16, so we did valet. Mom was sleep by 8:30 pm. She’s an early bird and it had been a long day. I stayed up until 2 am on cruise critic reading reviews, too excited to go to sleep.

 

 

 

 

Up next: Day 1 of the cruise!

[CruisinFamily_3]

So excited to read your review! I love your reviews!!

[gelo7]

Well I’m at it again!

I just stepped off the Carnival Valor at 8:30 this morning after another AWESOME cruise. In fact, this might be my best cruise ever. We’re flying home tomorrow and I’m sitting at my hotel now, tired with nothing to do and recovering from this past week’s craziness, so I thought I’d get started on my review. It will be written entirely in pink in honor of breast cancer awareness month.

 

Traveling were me, Kim, age 31, and my mom, Dorothy, age.... more than 31. (She's not a fan of the internet, so I won't be posting any pictures of her. She found out through some friends that I posted pictures on facebook from our last cruise and wasn't happy about it.) This was her 2nd Carnival cruise and my 6th. I had invited some of my cousins and my aunt to come along, but they all bailed when it was time to put down deposit money. You know how that goes. :rolleyes: Well the original plan was to do a 5 day cruise with them, but since they weren’t coming, I convinced my mom to do a 7 day and she told me to pick the itinerary I wanted. The Victory southern was out because it would be WAY too port intensive for her. The Legend and Liberty were out because they were western itineraries my vacation week, and my last 4 cruises were western. That left the Dream and the Valor for an eastern. The Dream had 3 ports and was considerably more expensive than the Valor’s 4 port itinerary, so the Valor won by default! Our stops included Half Moon Cay, St. Thomas, San Juan, and Grand Turk.

 

This was a long cruise and will be a LONG review. I didn't judge the hairy chest contest this time though. LOL (If you don't know what I'm talking about here go read my Inspiration review in my signature and skip to page 3.) Coming up: our very active roll call, my awesome 4J cabin, island tours through my eyes and camera, my nightly fashion show at dinner, and OMG lots of food porn. Fun Times will come later when I can get to my scanner. If you have any questions along the way, don't hesitate to ask.

Here are a few teasers to keep your attention.

That's me here. Hi!

 

 

 

 

 

Wanna find out how these got won? Too bad, I'm not telling yet!

 

 

 

Stay tuned.......

That's funny, your mother sounds like my mother in law. She isn't down with doing alot of walking, and once we put her birthday pictures on facebook, she had a fit.

[gapearl]

I loved your review of the Inspiration and I can't wait to read this one!

 

Thanks so much! I hope you enjoy this one as well.

 

He said that you were sitting a few chairs from you. You probably passed him numerous of times. Hopefully he will post where he was sitting. I see you won a medal and a ship on a stick. Congrats.

 

Probably. There were a lot of CC members on this cruise that weren't on our roll call. I'm sure I walked right by some of them.

[gapearl]

So excited to read your review! I love your reviews!!

 

Thanks a lot! Someone should pay me to do this. ;)

 

That's funny, your mother sounds like my mother in law. She isn't down with doing alot of walking, and once we put her birthday pictures on facebook, she had a fit.

 

LOL She's definitely from an older generation and isn't into the new technology at all. She just got her first cell phone like 6 months ago!

[rksmom]

Yay, I love your reviews. Please keep it coming :):).

 

Sandi

[gapearl]

DAY 1- EMBARKATION

 

My alarm went off at 8 am, and I got out of bed at 8:36. That’s very typical of me. We got dressed, got our stuff together, and were out the door at 9:45. After filling up the gas tank and returning the rental car back to the airport, we were on the free Alamo shuttle headed to the port at 10:30. Last year, the driver didn’t check for an Alamo receipt. This year, he did. We gave the porters our bags and a $6 tip and headed inside the terminal. I stood there looking at my bags, like why in the world did I bring this much stuff? You would be nervous too if you couldn’t get a fly in any of these bags and you KNOW you have the tendency to buy way too much at duty free.

 

The pink bag had our drinks.

 

A letter was being passed out to all passengers about TS Ophelia and that they were keeping an eye on it. Well so were we all week and we all knew she was headed north, nowhere close to our ports. At least they were keeping us up to date. The security line line was short and they barely glanced at our sodas and wine. We used the self service kiosks to check in. They were very easy to use. You swipe your credit card, passport, and it prints you a receipt to go to another line to get your sail and sign card. You have the option of putting cash on your sail & sign and can do so at the kiosks. I figured my mom wouldn’t be spending any money (she didn’t last cruise with the exception of cash in the casino), so I just put $1 in there so we could go. It didn’t ask for any more than that.

 

 

We were given zone 10 boarding cards and boarding had not yet commenced after we were done checking in. While waiting I met Nancy and Donald (carnivaljunkie123) from the roll call. They had zone 1 boarding cards. LUCKY! They were nice enough to sneak us on the ship with them when zone 1 was called. I left my zone 10 card in my seat, put my poker face on, and we went right in with them. I’m such a bad girl. Thanks again for hooking us up y’all! :D

We were on the ship by noon. I headed to the shore excursion desk first before going up to the lido and met like 10 other people from the roll call. What an awesome group of people, but more on them later. Today’s lido theme was Italian. YUM!

 

 

The first of many DOD's. Where's the CC member that offered to buy me a drink? Sorry I never found you.

 

[gapearl]

Yay, I love your reviews. Please keep it coming :):).

 

Sandi

 

Yes indeed Sandi! Enjoy. :)

[snow52408]

im loving ur review! i just read ur last review like 2 weeks ago. seems like u have a lot of fun! =)

 

 

-Jamie

[Captain Carnival]

Great Start!! :p

[atinys]

yeahhh you are doing another review.... i can hardly wait......

 

 

btw...i have to thank you for inspiring me to do dressy dressy on my last cruise...seeing all your heels and nice dresses made me go all out for formal night. I had the 5 inch heels and a very nice red dress.....

 

Thanks for the inspiration.....:)

[gapearl]

I booked us early saver in a 4J cabin. Unfortunately, we got no price drops. These rooms are a well kept secret! I always book inside rooms and my PVP told me about these. The 4J cabins are the highest inside category on the Conquest class ships. They have a window with an obstructed view. Let me say the view is awesome! If you book OV rooms, consider one of these to save money. If you book inside rooms, pay a little extra for the window. It was only about $30 more TOTAL for the room to go from a 4B inside to a 4J. My cabin was 7206. All 4J cabins are handicapped accessible. The ones on the end have 2 beds that cannot be converted into a king.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gapearl]

 

I had an entire drawer full of nothing but makeup and jewelry! :eek:

 

 

The bathroom was huge! Lots of room in the shower too.

 

 

 

[Ositabear]

Great review so far! We are sailing on the Valor for the first time next year and am loving reading up on her. Love your heels! Can't wait to read more!

[cruisinfanatic]

I booked us early saver in a 4J cabin. My cabin was 7206. All 4J cabins are handicapped accessible.

 

 

why were you allowed to book a handicapped cabin?

That's a no no

[CapsR1]

Wonderful review so far . . . can't wait to read more!

[gapearl]

The best part about this room is the secret deck. No one really knows about them. I don’t think I spotted more than 10 people out there the whole cruise. It’s a great place to go if you want a little quiet time or want to watch sailaway with no crowds. If you just want to find the secret deck to say you’ve seen them, head to deck 6 or 7. Go ALLLLLLL the way forward until you come to a dead end. There will be 2 doors for you to go through. If you go down the hall with even cabin numbers, they’re on your left; the doors along the hall with odd cabin numbers are on the right. It’s very windy out there at night, so make sure you go during the day. It's very pleasant out there around 5-6 pm. SHHHH! Don’t tell everyone our secret. ;)

 

 

 

The windows are tinted on the outside. I looked through my window and could barely see anything.

 

 

Look at how huge that deck is! They should put a few lounge chairs out there.

 

 

The rooms on deck 7 are right under the bridge. Very quiet rooms.

 

 

Be sure to wave if you see any officers by the windows, and you will!

 

 

[CourtneyLovesCruising]

DAY 1- EMBARKATION

 

 

The first of many DOD's. Where's the CC member that offered to buy me a drink? Sorry I never found you.

 

 

Just have to say you are so beautiful!! Great pic :)

[gapearl]

im loving ur review! i just read ur last review like 2 weeks ago. seems like u have a lot of fun! =)

 

 

-Jamie

 

Thanks Jamie! Yes, I know how to have fun and lots of it. :)

 

Great Start!! :p

 

Thanks! Keep reading!

[gapearl]

yeahhh you are doing another review.... i can hardly wait......

 

 

btw...i have to thank you for inspiring me to do dressy dressy on my last cruise...seeing all your heels and nice dresses made me go all out for formal night. I had the 5 inch heels and a very nice red dress.....

 

Thanks for the inspiration.....:)

 

Hey there! Thanks for reading this one too! I'm glad you decided to dress up. I got lots of compliments on my outfits. I don't get out much at home so I love dressing up on vacation. Glad I inspired your cruise wardrobe! :p