Carnival Valor PHOTO Review, April 28 - May 6, 2012

[summerspirit]

Dinner time!!! Finally made it back to the ship (thanks to my hubby for piggy-back riding me over some big puddles on the walkway back (no photos of that unfortunately haha)) We ate at the buffet this night, I had turkey, stuffing, cranberries, mashed potatoes mmmm just like Thanksgiving!

 

We made it a point to try one of every dessert every night!

 

Rosie's Restaurant

 

Lincoln Dining Room

 

Not the best photo, but I wanted to show the cool 'coat of arms' curtain I was writing about earlier. I also love how they make the stage look like a castle on the sides. One of my favorite things to do on the cruises is to check out all the different decorations ALL over the ship. Make sure to look up, look down, and look all around!

[summerspirit]

After show time, they had a special Mexican buffet set up in Rosie's Restaurant. We actually didn't try the food (too stuffed!!), just took some photos of the sculptures.

 

 

 

So peaceful at night...

 

Well, I guess except for the thunder and lightning... It was pretty cool watching the lightning over the ocean late at night. We didn't get too many good photos, but it was quite a show for a while!

[erby2283]

Thank you for posting. Will be on the 6-day sailing on 11-4 and can't wait!

 

Love love love the picture your husband took of the rainbow! One of the most beautiful I have ever seen!

[wafflestoo]

very cool pictures

[summerspirit]

Thank you for posting. Will be on the 6-day sailing on 11-4 and can't wait!

 

Love love love the picture your husband took of the rainbow! One of the most beautiful I have ever seen!

 

Aww thank you! I think I came out of the bathroom with just enough time to catch a glimpse of it before it went away, but then he showed me the photos he took of it and it's been our laptop background image ever since ;)

 

Have fun on your cruise!! Where will you be sailing to? Any of these ports?

 

very cool pictures

 

Thanks so much! :)

[Crusin Karen]

I am LOVING this. Valor is one of the ships I always "wanted to try" but never did and probably won't, so thanks for sharing your cruise with me. LOVE your pictures! And I LOVE Grand Turk!! Give you a lot of credit for doing a HIKE on your VACATION. No wonder you are so SKINNY even with all the desserts! :p Sorry about the rain but you have such a great attitude about it. Can't wait for more and do hope you got a FCC and can do another cruise in the not too distance future! ;)

[2 cruzen]

Wonderful pictures! Thank you so much for sharing. I've been to St. T and St. M, but after our catamaran excursion with all you can drink rum punches, I wasn't able to walk around Philipsburg. Bad me! Fun time though. Looking forward to GT in February and OSJ sometime. Thanks for posting memories and things to look forward to.

[seacat66]

your photo's are so beautiful. i'm enjoying your review.

[summerspirit]

I am LOVING this. Valor is one of the ships I always "wanted to try" but never did and probably won't, so thanks for sharing your cruise with me. LOVE your pictures! And I LOVE Grand Turk!! Give you a lot of credit for doing a HIKE on your VACATION. No wonder you are so SKINNY even with all the desserts! :p Sorry about the rain but you have such a great attitude about it. Can't wait for more and do hope you got a FCC and can do another cruise in the not too distance future! ;)

 

I'm so glad you're enjoying it! (and everyone else too :) Most likely no future cruises for us at least for a few years :( We have a very high maintenance 'special needs' dog that needs caring for and we hate to bug family to watch her while we're gone for so long, but we'll see! We'll definitely look at booking during a month with the least average rainfall next time LOL :D

 

Wonderful pictures! Thank you so much for sharing. I've been to St. T and St. M, but after our catamaran excursion with all you can drink rum punches, I wasn't able to walk around Philipsburg. Bad me! Fun time though. Looking forward to GT in February and OSJ sometime. Thanks for posting memories and things to look forward to.

 

I loved Grand Turk, it was so beautiful! I'd recommend checking out the kayaking tour when you're there too ;) Have fun!

[Lessum]

Love your review!!! We were on this same trip 4-14, so 2 wks before you. We loved it! Unfortunately we missed Grand Turk due to extremely high winds. However, we did not have a drop of rain until dinner on the last night!

 

 

Looks like you had an amazing time!

[b4cruze]

Heading on the Valor for the 3rd time in 38 days! Your pictures really show her beauty! Did you head to the piano bar at all?

[Eeyoregon]

More please!!!

[Bandstep]

Nice Pics! Thanks for Sharing!

[k2excursion]

Excellent review! Love the pictures!!! Brings back great memories of the Valor. And it's nice to see a different side of St. Maarten plus 2 ports I haven't been to.

[Banditswife]

Excellant review, thanks for sharing. Love your pics, especailly the fun ones. Glad you had a great time in spite of the rain.

[summerspirit]

So the next two days were sea days, so mostly just ship photos left to share.

 

Starting out with a typical breakfast...

 

Followed by a typical lunch... another delicious deli creation, I believe this was the turkey wrap.

 

 

Then some relaxation time on our balcony.

 

And I just had to share this one, I'm a bit of a germaphob, so I loved all the hand sanitizer stations set up throughout the ship. I also loved that when I went into one of the public bathrooms, I found this awesome item on the back of the door! (It's one of my pet peeves when public bathrooms have door handles that you're supposed to touch AFTER washing your hands, ugh.)

 

Since we had very dreary weather for the first 6 nights of our cruise, we were excited to finally have a decent sunset to watch! We went to the very front of the ship on deck 6 and had that secret little deck all to ourselves! (Note my husband doing his time-lapse thang in the corner...)

[summerspirit]

More sunset photos...

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful color on the other side of the sky as well...

 

[summerspirit]

And it finally dipped below the horizon, now off to get ready for our second elegant night!

 

Cleaned up and ready to eat!

 

Another delicious drink for show time, this one was a raspberry peach smoothie (non-alcoholic.) Soooo good!

 

On a hot chocolate run for my husband... seriously. addicted.

[summerspirit]

I'll have a bunch of ship photos to post hopefully later today. My husband went around the ship on the last sea day and took photos of almost all the rooms, so I'll be sharing those later (have to go through them all and edit!) :eek:

[erby2283]

 

Have fun on your cruise!! Where will you be sailing to? Any of these ports?

 

 

 

Thanks so much! :)

 

We sail to Key West, Montego Bay and Grand Cayman.

 

But last Nov, I sailed the Victory out of San Juan and St Maarten was one of our stops...I wasn't a big fan - probably bc I choose a bad tour operator. My own fault.

 

I didn't find the hot chocolate machine until the very last morning - probably a good thing!

[jrmende63]

We sail on the Carnival Valor in October. I can't wait to sail on her! We sail on the Liberty to most of the same ports so I am excited to see the pics of the ports! Thanks for taking the time to write and post the pictures.:)

[crusinpsychRN]

Great pics and review! Thank you!

[cawagner]

Awesome Awesome review and LOVED the pictures! Thanks for a great review, looks like you had a blast! Now I am even more excited, only 22 more days to go and we will be on the Valor :D

[spacepotatoes]

Gorgeous pictures! Thanks for sharing :)

[steelersfan0001]

I'll have a bunch of ship photos to post hopefully later today. My husband went around the ship on the last sea day and took photos of almost all the rooms, so I'll be sharing those later (have to go through them all and edit!) :eek:

 

We are really enjoying your review, it is great! We sailed on the Valor last year on 9/11/11, we liked it so much we are sailing her again in Oct. Grand Turk is great! We were just going to beach Grand Turk this year, however since your post we may try the Kayaks.We are looking forward to Aruba on the one coming up. Keep up the great work!

 

Mike and Tina