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

summerspirit

By summerspirit,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Bandstep

Bandstep

Posted
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So my husband's time-lapse photography video is FINALLY done and posted! Here is the link for those who were interested in checking it out:

 

 

Most Excellent with the time-lapse photography! Very talented! Thanks for sharing! It makes my wife and I want to go on another cruise!

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Blasian

Blasian

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I'm going to preface this 'review' by saying that I've never done a review on here before (not sure if this is the best place to leave it?) and I'm not much of a talker/writer, so this will be a mostly photo-only review. I enjoyed looking up photos on Cruise Critic as we were preparing for our cruise, so I thought others might enjoy seeing our photos as well.

 

My husband and I sailed on the Carnival Valor out of Miami from April 28 - May 6, 2012. We stopped in Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Maarten and St. Thomas. This was my fourth Carnival cruise, my husband's third... we were celebrating our five year anniversary (we were actually married on the Carnival Liberty - well technically it was on the beach in St. Thomas, but as part of the cruise.)

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Hi, Summerspirit!

This question has nothing to do with your review (which I am loving so far) but how was your wedding experience via Carnival and in particular in St. Thomas? I am thinking that since St. Thomas is a U.S. territory, you did not have to go through any extra "bells and whistles" to get married there?

 

I just wanted to get any information you would like to share about that experience as me and my fiancee are very interested in this.

 

Thanks in advance!

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Kelane

Kelane

Posted
Posted
So my husband's time-lapse photography video is FINALLY done and posted! Here is the link for those who were interested in checking it out:

 

 

THAT was awesome!!! I've not seen a time lapse of a cruise before.

Thanks so much for sharing!

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summerspirit

summerspirit

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I'm going to preface this 'review' by saying that I've never done a review on here before (not sure if this is the best place to leave it?) and I'm not much of a talker/writer, so this will be a mostly photo-only review. I enjoyed looking up photos on Cruise Critic as we were preparing for our cruise, so I thought others might enjoy seeing our photos as well.

 

My husband and I sailed on the Carnival Valor out of Miami from April 28 - May 6, 2012. We stopped in Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Maarten and St. Thomas. This was my fourth Carnival cruise, my husband's third... we were celebrating our five year anniversary (we were actually married on the Carnival Liberty - well technically it was on the beach in St. Thomas, but as part of the cruise.)

----

Hi, Summerspirit!

This question has nothing to do with your review (which I am loving so far) but how was your wedding experience via Carnival and in particular in St. Thomas? I am thinking that since St. Thomas is a U.S. territory, you did not have to go through any extra "bells and whistles" to get married there?

 

I just wanted to get any information you would like to share about that experience as me and my fiancee are very interested in this.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Our wedding experience was so-so, we didn't have to do anything 'extra' to get married in St. Thomas - when the bus picked us up at the pier, it first took us to the courthouse in town so we could sign our marriage license before we had the ceremony (we chose the Limetree Beach location.) Then after the ceremony was over, we chose two of our guests to be 'witnesses' and sign the license right there. Then I believe they just mailed the final marriage license to our home address after it was processed and everything (we didn't have to do anything with it after the ceremony, so I assume the officiant probably just took it back to the courthouse after the wedding or something...?)

 

My main 'issue' with the wedding was getting my hair done in the ship salon. Since I couldn't have a 'trial' run before the wedding, I brought about 4-5 photos of what I wanted my hair to look like and the lady totally screwed it up!! Not only did it not match the photos AT ALL but it looked generally stupid and I hated it. I was super bummed since I didn't have any time to fix it before the wedding and the lady in the salon tried to 'fix it' but it was totally wrong at that point. So I guess I'd maybe recommend trying to have a 'trial run' in the salon before your actual wedding day to make sure they do your hair to your liking (although that'd be a lot more money...) or just prepare to pay very careful attention as they start doing it so they don't do the complete opposite of what you want. Or just do it yourself! ;) I guess I could have just gotten the least experienced salon person out of bad luck or something...

 

Also I remember picking out the photos after the wedding felt very rushed, and the guy who was helping us with the photos didn't speak very good English at all so we didn't really understand what he was saying or what the answers to our questions were (we probably should have asked for a different person to help us but we're both very shy people and didn't want them to get 'upset'.) So basically we ended up buying all the photos AND getting a CD of all the photos (when we really just wanted the CD of images, but didn't know if we could buy just that after asking 3 times and not understanding the answer...) Anyways I'm just rambling on now!

 

Anyways, let me know if you have any other specific questions I can answer for you. Just a warning that I have a horrible memory but I'll try my best to answer whatever questions you have... if I remember :D haha

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Blasian

Blasian

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Our wedding experience was so-so, we didn't have to do anything 'extra' to get married in St. Thomas - when the bus picked us up at the pier, it first took us to the courthouse in town so we could sign our marriage license before we had the ceremony (we chose the Limetree Beach location.) Then after the ceremony was over, we chose two of our guests to be 'witnesses' and sign the license right there. Then I believe they just mailed the final marriage license to our home address after it was processed and everything (we didn't have to do anything with it after the ceremony, so I assume the officiant probably just took it back to the courthouse after the wedding or something...?)

 

My main 'issue' with the wedding was getting my hair done in the ship salon. Since I couldn't have a 'trial' run before the wedding, I brought about 4-5 photos of what I wanted my hair to look like and the lady totally screwed it up!! Not only did it not match the photos AT ALL but it looked generally stupid and I hated it. I was super bummed since I didn't have any time to fix it before the wedding and the lady in the salon tried to 'fix it' but it was totally wrong at that point. So I guess I'd maybe recommend trying to have a 'trial run' in the salon before your actual wedding day to make sure they do your hair to your liking (although that'd be a lot more money...) or just prepare to pay very careful attention as they start doing it so they don't do the complete opposite of what you want. Or just do it yourself! ;) I guess I could have just gotten the least experienced salon person out of bad luck or something...

 

Also I remember picking out the photos after the wedding felt very rushed, and the guy who was helping us with the photos didn't speak very good English at all so we didn't really understand what he was saying or what the answers to our questions were (we probably should have asked for a different person to help us but we're both very shy people and didn't want them to get 'upset'.) So basically we ended up buying all the photos AND getting a CD of all the photos (when we really just wanted the CD of images, but didn't know if we could buy just that after asking 3 times and not understanding the answer...) Anyways I'm just rambling on now!

 

Anyways, let me know if you have any other specific questions I can answer for you. Just a warning that I have a horrible memory but I'll try my best to answer whatever questions you have... if I remember :D haha

---

THANK YOU so much for sharing that. Did you actually marry on the beach itself or on a structure overlooking the beach? And was music and food included after the wedding?

 

I agree with you about the stylists in the salon. As far as photos, does Carnival frown upon you using your own photographer?

 

I am sure even with all the issues you experienced, you still had a beautiful wedding and were a beautiful bride.

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summerspirit

summerspirit

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---

THANK YOU so much for sharing that. Did you actually marry on the beach itself or on a structure overlooking the beach? And was music and food included after the wedding?

 

I agree with you about the stylists in the salon. As far as photos, does Carnival frown upon you using your own photographer?

 

I am sure even with all the issues you experienced, you still had a beautiful wedding and were a beautiful bride.

 

We actually married on the beach, but there was a shelter nearby as a backup that they said they do weddings under if it rains. We only got cake and champagne after the ceremony (we requested non-alcoholic since we don't drink) and we did the official 'cake-cutting' and feeding each other. There was no other food though, but I think you can arrange to have a 'reception' back on the ship in a private room, but it wasn't worth it to us since we don't really dance and we ate dinner in the MDR with all our family anyways.

 

I didn't ask about having our own photographer, so I'm not too sure what they'd think about it... my guess is they wouldn't really mind, but I'd double check with the wedding coordinator. Feel free to send me an email and I can answer any other questions and share our photos if you'd like to get a better idea of the location: summerspirit05 {at} gmail {dot} com. Are you looking at the beach location on St. Thomas or another area? Do they still offer Limetree beach?

 

 

By any chance was the band ocean flame still playing poolside on the valor? We first listened to them on the liberty and heard they switched to the valor. (we're going on the valor later this year)

 

I'm not sure, we didn't really hang out at the pool at all (except to do the one timelapse LOL) and there wasn't a band playing at that time. Sorry I'm not more help! :(

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Mommabear5

Mommabear5

Posted
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I just had to say that was one of the best, if not the best, review and photos I have ever seen or read.

I really enjoyed it. Mostly because you were just fast and too the point. no needless information and your positive additude is awesomeness at its finest. I love that no matter what, you were prepared and still managed to have a great time. Good for you.

Thanks so much for sharing with us.:D

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summerspirit

summerspirit

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I just had to say that was one of the best, if not the best, review and photos I have ever seen or read.

I really enjoyed it. Mostly because you were just fast and too the point. no needless information and your positive additude is awesomeness at its finest. I love that no matter what, you were prepared and still managed to have a great time. Good for you.

Thanks so much for sharing with us.:D

 

Aww thank you so much :) I'm glad you enjoyed it!

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summerspirit

summerspirit

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Loved your husband's video and your review. I am curious about your wedding too. Would you post one of your pictures?

 

Haha ok here's a few from our wedding in May 2007 on Limetree Beach in St. Thomas (while we were sailing on Carnival Liberty)...

 

sum_walk_down_aisle.jpg

They had me walk down the 'aisle' to the ceremony site.

 

ceremony_wide.jpg

This was were the ceremony was held, just up from the beach. Our guests were standing sort of where the photographer of this photo would have been standing (i.e. in front of us.)

 

ceremony_rings_laugh.jpg

Giving our vows.

 

cutting_cake.jpg

Doing the cake cutting at the table they had set up with our cake and 'champagne'.

 

group_toasting.jpg

My brother-in-law gave an impromptu toast.

 

group_cheer.jpg

All of our guests/family!

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summerspirit

summerspirit

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Here's some more photos that show the beach area better, we spent about 15-20 minutes taking photos along the beach after the ceremony as well. Of course it was overcast LOL! Hope this helps!

 

tree_frames.jpg

Walking off from the ceremony site onto the beach.

 

washing_flipflops_away.jpg

Getting soaked by the waves lol!!

 

flip_flops.jpg

Just put this one in here for fun!

 

lifted_up.jpg

Cheesy poses on the beach.

 

walking_on_beach.jpg

Facing the other way on the beach was some nice rocky cliffs that made a nice background.

 

iguana.jpg

There was an iguana sneaking into the ceremony site the whole time the ceremony was going on!

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Blasian

Blasian

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Haha ok here's a few from our wedding in May 2007 on Limetree Beach in St. Thomas (while we were sailing on Carnival Liberty)...

 

sum_walk_down_aisle.jpg

They had me walk down the 'aisle' to the ceremony site.

 

ceremony_wide.jpg

This was were the ceremony was held, just up from the beach. Our guests were standing sort of where the photographer of this photo would have been standing (i.e. in front of us.)

 

ceremony_rings_laugh.jpg

Giving our vows.

 

cutting_cake.jpg

Doing the cake cutting at the table they had set up with our cake and 'champagne'.

 

group_toasting.jpg

My brother-in-law gave an impromptu toast.

 

group_cheer.jpg

All of our guests/family!

----

 

BEAUTIFUL!! This is exactly what I envisioned for my own wedding!

 

Thanks for posting. :-)

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