Carnival Valor ~ 2/10/13 ~ 3day Cruise Review with Pictures!!!

[willow028]

Time for me attempt to write my first review here on CC ~ bear with me if it takes me a few days ~ my pics are on all on that social networking site that can not be named and I can't access it while at work to copy the links so this will be done as I can around working hours.

 

Carnival advertised this cruise as both a 3 day Southern and a 7 day Southern ~ alas I must have been having a blonde moment when I booked as I only saw the 3 day cruise and not the 7 ~ so that is what we booked. It was a wonderful time, if a bit short, and next time we'll do the full 7. If you're looking for a review of all ports on this itinerary, sorry!

 

Onwards! I'll start at the beginning - first, of course, we had to pack, and being as I procrastinate, we were doing this around noon on the 7th ~ and due to fly out at 11:55 that night. Our dog was watching my husband as he organized his belongings (for me to approve and then pack of course!) and she was not amused one bit.

 

 

Okay...all clothing and other necesarries have been approved and staged...

 

 

And as we're stuck flying American Airlines and I refuse to pay baggage fees, I'm out to prove we can do a nine day trip in carry on only luggage... watch me do my magick!

 

TADA!!!

 

 

This is why 11:55PM flights are generally called redeye flights... left Phoenix then and flew to Miami, and this is how cheerfully well rested and spunky we looked as our plane got ready to leave Miami for San Juan.

 

 

Got into Puerto Rico right on time and took a cab to our lovely 1* hotel.

 

[willow028]

We'd booked our hotel through one of those large online travel agency sites, and they said check in time was at 1PM... we were greatly looking forward to a shower and short nap, but alas, that site lied and check in was at 3PM, so off we headed to enjoy an authentic Puerto Rican meal.

 

 

Well, okay, at least my beer was authentic!

 

Hung out and wandered a bit, then got to check into our room... it was exactly as described in the reviews on that unmentionable site, which had us both laughing - well either it was the room or the lack of sleep that made us loopy, but it worked!

 

 

And, exactly as reviewed, the elevator indeed did look like it was from Deliverance!

 

 

But if you look REALLY hard, you can almost see the ocean!

 

 

I can't complain - we booked this trip in mid-December and for what we paid, we got a clean room with a remarkable comfy bed and we were close to the water and getting ready to cruise ~ life is good!

 

And we had a great view from both the patio bar and our room of Puerto Rico drivers - yes, watching traffic both driving and attempting parking kept us highly entertained throughout our trip.

 

[willow028]

As most of our trips involve sitting on the beach/in a bar and drinking beer, we thought the next day we'd do something slightly cultural and explore OSJ. After standing at the bus stop for 45 minutes chatting with a couple from Ohio, all four of us gave up and agreed to share a cab.

 

First stop... one of the forts.

 

 

This tunnel creeped me out ~ I can't imagine going through it at night without electricity...

 

 

Since there wasn't one of these signs over the sinks, I can only imagine there is a huge problem with tourists drinking out of the toilets?!

 

 

And as there have been 9billion OSJ pictures posted I'll spare you anymore ~ besides, we didn't last all that long being "good" tourists anyhow!

 

 

Loved this funky shop and regretted for about two minutes my carry on only rule - we had room for a few small gifts for folks back home and that was it - I could have gone crazy in here!

 

[willow028]

Headed back to our hotel after that, with another stop first at Made in Puerto Rico - an awesome bar/restaurant by our hotel. They even had this in the bathroom... I think every bar restroom should have one!

 

 

Then it was off to the beach ~ we had some fun then met up with two members of our role call ~ IslandDuo made it to Puerto Rico!

 

 

Had some drinks there, then followed them back to their very nice Embassy Suites hotel to take advantage of happy hour. They went to eat and we went to wander - wound up back at Made in Puerto Rico where we had the most amazing meal ever!

 

 

We called it a semi-early night but still overslept - woke up in time to be out of the hotel at noon and grab a cab. Swung by the Embassy Suites and picked up IslandDuo, then it was off to the ship.

 

Our first view through the taxi window:

 

[hutat]

Thank You very much for this review.Was looking forward to finding out how the Valor would fare with the new Puerto Rico itinerary.Looking forward to the pictures of the ship.

[willow028]

The line to check in for us "normal" folk was a bit long...

 

 

But those Platinum friends of ours got right through ~ jealous!

 

 

And no, security wasn't coming to yank my camera out of my hand!

 

It did work out well though - once we got our S&S cards, we went through the security line. We had just enough time to stop in the lobby bar for our first beer on ship

 

 

then they called that our rooms were ready ~ LOVED the L shaped room! 6450 ~ I will book it again!

 

[willow028]

Another shot of the room ~ before we "moved in" and trashed it!

 

 

Loved the extra long balcony - room for two chairs, a table and a lounger - perfect!

 

 

Got unpacked a bit then headed up stairs to the aft bar for our M&G. ChicksFly2 and her DH did an amazing job!

 

 

M&G group shots:

 

 

[willow028]

Thank You very much for this review.Was looking forward to finding out how the Valor would fare with the new Puerto Rico itinerary.Looking forward to the pictures of the ship.

 

The part we did was awesome and I've heard from others on our roll call that the entire cruise was excellent! *checks to see how many ship pictures I have versus people pictures* :)

[willow028]

More M&G shots:

 

 

 

 

Dinner that night was whenever whereever, so met up with our roll call buddies and headed to the Washington (I think!) MDR.

 

 

Dinner was super yummy (yes, I tried for food porn shots on this trip):

 

[SMSACE6]

Im enjoying your review and photos!

 

I cant wait to go back to San Juan some day.:)

[willow028]

But this was the part I was waiting for ~ love me some WCMC!

 

 

Alas, we got all of about two bites down before we had to leave for muster...should have smuggled it out with me!

 

 

Muster was different than any I'd been through - we stood on deck, watched the crew put on life jackets while a recording played, then the recording continued to play while just about nobody paid attention to anything at all - I think the jist was if something happens to big boat, get in little boat escape pods...

 

 

Sail away on lido was a wonderful time but have no idea why I have absolutely no pictures of it. Our CD did a great job and the place was jumping with fun and wobbling and such.

 

Night night ~ time to crash after that 10:30PM sailing and wake up early for St. Thomas tomorrow!

 

 

Woke up to this amazing view - but I could not convince my husband to jump overboard and swim out to the green boat to see if it really did indeed contain a pot of gold.

 

[willow028]

Im enjoying your review and photos!

 

I cant wait to go back to San Juan some day.:)

 

Thanks!!! We really enjoyed it there and are excited that Southwest starts flying that route in April - that's where all my miles are and since they don't charge for bags I'll be able to shop to my hearts content! :cool:

[Cruizinman]

Your doing just fine :)

[gelo7]

Nice review.

[willow028]

Your doing just fine :)

 

Thanks! I'll try and get a little bit more done tonight ~ appreciate the feedback! :D

[willow028]

The weather was a bit cloudy and overcast, and being as we're wimps from Arizona, we decided to skip the beach and just wander around town. Of course, being us, our first stop was the bar where we met the owner...

 

 

And put up the travelling cockroach (aka Sid) to photo bomb all the folks taking pictures with the giant shark - would love to see their faces when they get home and see their pics larger sized!

 

 

Obligatory view of the whale tail from shore...

 

 

And now we're being tourists...

 

 

Then, back to the ship...us "old folk" did a bit more walking (in bad shoes of course) in OSJ than we're used to and our bones were aching... did I really "smuggle" this on board?!

 

[willow028]

Feeling a bit hungry, so went in search of grub, and found my happy place on board!

 

 

I can not possibly say YUM enough!!!!

 

 

Headed to the aft pool bar - because of incoming rain, they closed the dome.

 

 

Also because of the rain, sail away on lido was pretty much non-existent - overheard the CD tell the band (yes, a BAND and they were quite good!) that because of the weather, no one would show up, but keep playing anyhow.

 

So, we headed back to our room and the funky entrance to both our room and the adjacent aft wrap.

 

 

There we hung out on our balcony and enjoyed the lovely view of the island in the rain/mist.

 

[willow028]

As we sat there relaxing, we hear this incredible ruckus coming from the aft balcony and wonder to ourselves who on earth those noisy party people could be ~ we hadn't heard them before.

 

My husband stuck his head around the divider and we started chatting.. as the conversation went on it, it turned into:

 

"Wait, are you on CC?"

"Yes, who are you?"

 

Turns out one 10 party member of our roll call got stuck in the snowstorm in the NE and had to be flown to St. Thomas to catch the ship - at least they finally made it! Yay for SpoiledRotten and crew!!!

 

(Okay, I said I was going to segue into on here that by complaining about our incredibly rude and noisy neighbors but I just couldn't do that - they were all amazing people!)

 

So we went over after they attended a late muster and hung out for a bit - loved the aft wrap!

 

 

I will NEVER learn to pack a hair tie!

 

 

They had early dining so we left them to get ready and got cleaned up ourselves a bit. Headed down to the casino bar where we ran into IslandDuo and her crew and had a pre-dinner drink.

 

 

They had assigned late dining, so we took ourselves to the Lincoln MDR for our YTD - first time I'd been assigned one of these.

 

 

The wait wasn't bad - we wandered back to the casino for a drink and smoke and got buzzed just as we were getting settled. We said we'd prefer to sit with others, but would take first available if that would be a much longer wait, and we ended up by ourselves. As we do enjoy socializing a bit of a bummer... but the excellent food more than made up for it ~ as of course did dessert, which we got to eat this time!

 

[willow028]

We spent the evening, as we'd done the night prior, making our obligatory contribution to the casino. Fun was had, and we actually came out sort of close to even so well worth it both nights.

 

We headed back to our room and our cockroach fell in love with our towel...um...um...something?!

 

 

The boat was rocking and rolling that night - one reason we'd done looked for a shorter cruise was my husband got a bit seasick on his first cruise (the last one we took to Mexico) but he did wonderfully. Amusing aside - as he went up to the bar to get more beer, the boat was really rolling - he stumbled like crazy out the door to the aft pool bar and the bartender was giving him the "are you drunk" look, just as two more people came bouncing out the door. Bartender must be used to all the motion as he started busting up laughing at everyone looking like weeble wobbles playing bumper cars!

 

So... then it was off to bed - no balcony time due to the weather (I did mention we're Arizona wimps right?!) but a nice night.

 

Next day...

 

 

And I've been told I'm out of time to "play" on CC tonight - more tomorrow - thanks for reading!

[Cruisefriends]

Great Review and Pic's :)

[willow028]

Nice review.

 

Great Review and Pic's :)

 

Thank you both! More tomorrow! :cool:

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the report!

[gapearl]

I'm glad to hear there's a band on lido! I'm back on the Valor in 6 days. :D Thanks for the review!

[ktinnc]

Love your review so far! Hubby and I are on this cruise on 9/22...can't wait!!

 

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

[tiffstulips]

Thanks for the review! We will be on the Valor in a little over a week :D