REVIEW: Carnival Valor to Southern Caribbean Oct 6-13, 2013 OUR FIRST CRUISE!

[kshawks]

For anyone wondering, we had our bottles of wine in our carry on suitcase. It went through the scanner and they put an orange zip tie on the handle to indicate bottles were seen. We had to walk through a screening, but there was no physical pat down. The screening picks up any metals but does not pick up plastic or glass items. Once through security, we had to walk a few feet and check in at the alcohol table. They opened the carry on, confirmed we had just 2 bottles of wine and sent us on our way. I heard that many people were able to walk right by the alcohol table by simply covering the orange zip tie on their bag handle...

 

Did you see anyone cover theirs up and walk by? Is there time to snip it off with clippers or would a person get caught? Not saying I would...just curious of course :)

[Rainberry]

Great review, thanks for sharing I can't wait to read more!

 

You are a real trooper to travel with that tooth pain. I have terrible teeth myself and had to get a root canal a couple of years ago and the pain is pretty terrible!

[BarJen]

Great review so far. We were on this sailing also, can't believe it came and went so fast!

[USTraveler17]

Come on guys, give these folk a break. It might be the "bad" part of town but mainly because it's a low income/welfare community nestled just outside the magic of the old city. It is not accurate that the police won't even enter. A lot of times you can even see municipal or state policemen talking to residents by the entrance to the community. While it's not a "hey let's go down there and mingle" part of town, if you look it up you'll see that even La Perla has an amazing history on it's own.

 

It must not be that bad because Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake filmed some of their scenes from their movie "Runner, Runner" there :)

I watched it last week and they said they were in Costa Rica but as soon as I saw the overhead of the cemetery, I knew it was La Perla. They even filmed a basketball game on the court down there.

[BenjiRodney]

Thanks for sharing, we leave a week from Saturday to fly to San Juan, doing this trip for the 3rd time.

[valentinebaby1]

Loving the review.... sorry you couldn't find the Luquillo beach ''balneario'' but you were just 10 mins walking to the left of it... you were exactly behind the kiosks of Luquillo were mostly people ride the jet skies and the ones that don't want to pay for the utilities such as bathrooms and showers....but I'm happy you had fun at the beach!!!! I can't wait for more pics!!!! :D

I knew I had read there were bathrooms somewhere! Ah well, we had a blast regardless lol

 

 

We noticed that too and couldn't believe we were already passing St. Thomas when we went out on the balcony around midnight. We checked the TV channel and sure enough, Valor was just south of Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, and we could not believe we were already that far. Apparently that was the roughest night for us too, but I had already fallen asleep. DH told me that ship was a rockin' and we heard the same from others the next morning. I was up at 5:30AM the morning we were scheduled to arrive in San Juan hoping to get up to deck 10 for pictures passing the fort as we came back in, but we already made the turn in toward the dock and were docked shortly after 5:30AM. My guess it has something to do with port arrival time but I'm not sure on that. Still loving your review and pictures. From your helicopter ride pictures (great pics, btw) I could see the room we stayed in at the Courtyard.

I never even thought about getting up early enough to see the forts on our way back into San Juan, but we stayed up pretty late that night, we just didn't want to go to sleep because we knew then the cruise would be over when we woke up.

[valentinebaby1]

I found it. Thanks! :)

 

Glad to help! Hope you have as much fun as we did, if you decide to book! you never know, you might find a Gustazo for a deal like we did!

 

:D Great review and your photos are wonderful!! The Valor will be ours in 33 days, we're heading out during Thanksgiving week. Thanks for taking the time to write the review,,,and wet my appetite even more for our upcoming cruise!!:D

 

Thank you! I suppose I'll let you claim the Valor as yours...I guess we can't claim it as ours anymore! maybe again someday...

[valentinebaby1]

No worries I have a cruise in April on the Celebrity Reflection to help pass the time along ;)

 

Hope you have a great time!

 

Come on guys, give these folk a break. It might be the "bad" part of town but mainly because it's a low income/welfare community nestled just outside the magic of the old city. It is not accurate that the police won't even enter. A lot of times you can even see municipal or state policemen talking to residents by the entrance to the community. While it's not a "hey let's go down there and mingle" part of town, if you look it up you'll see that even La Perla has an amazing history on it's own.

 

Well, if you want to hang out there, don't let my opinion stop you... I did say it was pretty :/

[valentinebaby1]

To me, that is the best way to experience a new place! As long as you are careful and aware of your surroundings, hanging with the locals is fun! I did a week in Jamaica with my best friend like that, 20 years ago. One of the best experiences of my life!

 

It happened by accident, but ended up being one of our favorite moments of our whole trip!

 

I really love your spirit about life and in how you shared with us your cruise adventures and the great pictures...thank you for that....now that you have your first cruise under your belt...in spite of life's challenges, you will find a way to go on another sooner then you think and it will be alot easier the second time around

 

Remember your cabin number and when you have a $1.00 play the daily Pick 4...this is a fun way to bring back positive memories from your cruise every time you play...if you clip coupons when you shop, write yourself a check with your savings and place it in your cruise fund cookie jar...any spare change put in there also...you will be surprised how quickly and quietly it adds up....12-15 months between cruises might seem like a long time, but it moves quickly

 

The best part about cruising is spending unfettered time with your spouse...we can tell by your pictures you did

 

We've just got to figure out a way to make another trip happen! It will happen some day...hopefully it won't take us another 25 years! Thanks for your kind words and encouragement!

[valentinebaby1]

Thank you for taking the time to post your review & pictures! The pictures are fantastic & your review is well written. We'll be on the Valor in July---so excited!

 

Thank you! It's kind of intimidating to do after reading so many other really great reviews, glad you're enjoying it!

 

Did you see anyone cover theirs up and walk by? Is there time to snip it off with clippers or would a person get caught? Not saying I would...just curious of course :)

 

Not saying we had any experience...but we did hear of people who were able to cover it up and walk by...

 

We ended up buying about 9 or 10 bottles of alcohol to take home with us, by the way. We read a tip beforehand about how to pack them to bring home...we made a trip to the dollar store and bought several packs of little kids blow up arm bands/floaties for swimming. We slipped the bottles inside the armbands, and then blew them up around it. Some bottles took 2 armbands, but we did get all of our bottles home without any breaking!

[boaterette]

I am totally loving your review. Sailing from San Juan is on my dream list. I am sorry you had such bad tooth pain. I can relate. On my seven day cruise my tooth abcessed on day two. My face was so swollen my eye was shut. I could only put a level teaspoon of very soft food in my mouth. I was miserable until I got home and could go to the dentist. Happy Anniversary. I am one of those people too. Met my husband on April 1st we got married May 29 and were married 35 years till he passed last year. I was 16 and he was 21. And we didn't have to get married either. lol

[valentinebaby1]

Great review, thanks for sharing I can't wait to read more!

 

You are a real trooper to travel with that tooth pain. I have terrible teeth myself and had to get a root canal a couple of years ago and the pain is pretty terrible!

 

It was my own fault for not taking care of it before it became a bigger issue. After getting the Anbesol, I was fine the rest of the week...still fine. But I'm not looking forward to "Root Canal Wednesday" this week :(

 

Great review so far. We were on this sailing also, can't believe it came and went so fast!

 

Thanks! I can't believe it's over after almost a year of planning!

[valentinebaby1]

It must not be that bad because Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake filmed some of their scenes from their movie "Runner, Runner" there :)

I watched it last week and they said they were in Costa Rica but as soon as I saw the overhead of the cemetery, I knew it was La Perla. They even filmed a basketball game on the court down there.

 

Now I want to see Runner, Runner!

 

Thanks for sharing, we leave a week from Saturday to fly to San Juan, doing this trip for the 3rd time.

 

You're welcome! Hope you have a great trip!

[valentinebaby1]

I am totally loving your review. Sailing from San Juan is on my dream list. I am sorry you had such bad tooth pain. I can relate. On my seven day cruise my tooth abcessed on day two. My face was so swollen my eye was shut. I could only put a level teaspoon of very soft food in my mouth. I was miserable until I got home and could go to the dentist. Happy Anniversary. I am one of those people too. Met my husband on April 1st we got married May 29 and were married 35 years till he passed last year. I was 16 and he was 21. And we didn't have to get married either. lol

 

Hope you get to fulfill your dream some day! I couldn't imagine cruising with the pain I had the first day, before finding the Anbesol. Funny thing is that since I've been home, for a week now, I haven't had any pain. I think it had been infected and the antibiotics made that better because the pain stopped. Root canal is this wednesday...yippee. I love hearing sweet stories of young love that makes it. 35 years is something to be proud of...I'm so sorry for your loss. I couldn't even imagine going through a loss like that.

[valentinebaby1]

OCT 7, 2013- Day 5

Monday morning we woke up before we had docked in St Thomas. We got some beautiful photos coming into port, and were excited for our excursion to Trunk Bay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

More pics from early morning in St Thomas:

 

 

This is the Marriott Frenchman's Reef and Morningstar Resort. It looked so pretty, I'd love to go back and stay here some day...

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

Hubby headed to the bathroom while I was still out on the deck and I heard him quite upset. At some point they slipped a note under our door to tell us that our excursion to St John was canceled (no reason given). So we tried frantically to search through the excursion options and see what else we wanted to do. It was last minute and some options were now sold out. We couldn't order through the TV at this point for the same day and we weren't even sure which options were still available. I was not presentable to leave the cabin so we discussed a few options and hubby went down to guest services to see what else we could book. He really wanted to snorkel. We ended up booking Captain Nautica's Snorkel to Buck Island tour. It was a little more expensive than the Trunk Bay option but we didn't have much other choice with the short time frame to get ready and be off the ship. Our original excursion didn't leave until 10am, and these others left at 9 so we were barely going to make it.

 

 

 

 

Captain Nautica's excursion took us to 2 different snorkel spots. There was no land time at all, and they provided some soda and water, and a piece of shrimp and a piece of canteloupe. The boat was covered and motorized but wasn't a fancy one. I am a fluffy person, so I had been studying all of our excursion options very carefully to be sure I wouldn't have any issues getting on and off boats or put myself in a position where I couldn't do something because of my size. With this being so very last minute, I spent a good portion of the boat ride out to the first snorkel spot worried about getting on and off the boat, as it only had a small ladder over one side. The first spot was where the turtles like to hang out. We were the only boat there and there were only 12-15 of us on the boat, so it wasn't crowded at all. Within a few minutes there were a couple turtles swimming nearby.

 

 

 

They gave us a good 45 min or so and let us "wander" around on our own so we were pretty spread out. We saw sting rays, a few different fish and the turtles. A few others in our group saw quite a few more turtles than we did, and only a few of us saw the sting rays so it was a little hit or miss, but everyone seemed happy with what they saw.

 

 

I headed back to the boat a few minutes before everyone else because I wanted to give myself time to get up without everyone being behind me...but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. The ladder extended far enough into the water that it wasn't much different than getting out of a pool. So I felt much more at ease after that. I was also not very comfortable with snorkeling yet. It took me the first half of the time in the water just to learn how to calm myself and breathe through the tube without panicking. And of course, being "fluffY" I wasn't really sure about my swimming skills. We were required to wear a vest (required by Carnival on all of their booked excursions) but they didn't require it be blown up, and I left mine deflated. I did better with the swimming than I thought I would. Hubby took off on his own, and I was OK with that because I didn't want to hold him back from seeing what he wanted to see. Not too long after I got back on the boat, others started boarding again and soon we were off to spot number 2. It was just around the corner.

[valentinebaby1]

Buck Island is a protected island and no one is allowed on it so we weren't able to leave the water and go to shore. The 2nd spot had a lot more fish and right away we saw a very large barracuda with big teeth! He made me a little nervous, but they said he was always there and left people alone.

 

 

Again we were the only ones in this spot and we were pretty spread out so it was very peaceful. We had about the same amount of time and I felt a lot more comfortable this time and ventured a little further away from the boat this time. There were a lot of silver and yellow snappers, some of which were pretty large! It was funny because as you swam along and weren't seeing much, if you stopped and turned around there would be a whole school of these snapper following you! It was like you became their leader and if you turned around they would just swarm around you, it was pretty amazing! One of the guys on our boat was bit by one, nothing serious but he was bleeding on his finger. We didn't see any turtles in this area, but lots of different fish and another sting ray.

 

 

 

After a bit I was pretty tired from swimming. It was very very hot too! I headed back to the boat to catch my breath and get a drink. Soon after it was time for everyone to come back to the boat and we were on our way back to St Thomas. The whole excursion was about 3 hours and was $75 per person I believe. Hubby really loved it, he felt it was worth the price and he ended up being happy with the change of plans. I felt it was fun, but there was still a bit of disappointment about not seeing Trunk Bay. The snorkeling was good and the crew was really friendly so I don't really have any complaints. I had just mentally prepared myself for a "beach" day, and our plans in going to Trunk Bay would have allowed him to snorkel all he wanted and allowed me to be lazy all I wanted.

 

We found out that our original excursion was canceled because not enough people signed up, not because of the gov't shutdown issue. Friends of ours went to Trunk Bay on their own, but they said the snorkeling was not great, that the snorkel trails were pretty beat up. So maybe it was for the best after all, but I will admit that we were disappointed to have our excursion canceled last minute and to have to scramble to find another after months of studying, reading reviews, seeing photos etc. It was the only excursion we booked through Carnival directly and the only issue we had.

 

After getting back to the ship we boarded and had lunch and rested for a little bit, and headed back off the ship around 2pm to shop near the port. Here you can see how close the shopping is to the port:

 

 

I had read about hook bracelets and wanted one so I was hoping to find one that was affordable. I found one with a Larimar stone that I really liked and hubby bought it for me :) we bought a little Cruzan Rum and a few other little items. It was unbearably hot, I believe the temp was near 100 with 80-85% humidity. We were very quickly exhausted and overheated so we headed back to the ship by 4. I believe 4:30 was the all aboard time. We were back in our room and I was sitting on the balcony to see if there were any pier runners. Didn't see any, although we did see someone dropped off in a police car, very close to 4:30. I would have loved to hear that story!

 

The ship left on time, and we took showers and a short nap before heading to dinner. We were at dinner around 6 or 6:30 pm and just beat the crowd. We had our time dining, by the way. We were seated at a table just the 2 of us again. I tried my best to remember what we ate each night, but we didn't take any food photos so I might have some of the nights mixed up. I'm pretty sure we had the shark Didja menu items that night, and I had the peach soup, the assorted seafood, and dessert was bitter and blanc (my FAVORITE of the cruise!). Hubby had the shark also, we shared the smoked duck appetizer, and he thinks he had the grilled flat iron steak from the everyday menu. He had tiramisu for dessert and said it was amazing. Our shot of the evening was called Love Potion.

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

After dinner, we headed to the Ivanhoe Theater for the show.

 

 

I don't remember the name, but I think it was called the Welcome Show or something like that.

 

 

We enjoyed the performance quite a bit. After the show, I'm not sure what we did, but I think we just ended up going to bed.

 

 

[Lovefuninthesun]

"Fluffy person"!

Hahaha -- love that!:D I am a fluffy person, too!

 

BTW -- where did you end up getting your hook bracelet?

[Yankees2012]

Really enjoying your review!! Whenever we go on a cruise to St. Thomas we always just take a taxi to Marriott's Morningstar Resort...one of our favorites! Looking forward to more of the review :)

[mela921]

We are really enjoying your review. We are scheduled on the Valor on 12/8/13 and can't wait. Thanks so much for taking the time to write this review. Anxiously awaiting the rest!:)

[kshawks]

..enjoying the review so far :) can't wait to get all of your tips before Sunday :)

[valentinebaby1]

"Fluffy person"!

Hahaha -- love that!:D I am a fluffy person, too!

 

BTW -- where did you end up getting your hook bracelet?

 

I lost about 75 pounds in preparation for the cruise, but I still have a lot of fluff to lose! lol

 

I have no idea what the name of the store was. We didn't go into any of the "expensive" jewelry stores, this was one that was more of a trinket shop, that had a jewelry counter in the middle. I also have big wrists so I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find one to fit, but once I did I bought it. Then we found numerous other stores with them and might have found it cheaper, but we didn't really have much time to bargain shop at that point. I paid around $50.

 

Really enjoying your review!! Whenever we go on a cruise to St. Thomas we always just take a taxi to Marriott's Morningstar Resort...one of our favorites! Looking forward to more of the review :)

 

Thanks! I'd love to stay at the Morningstar someday

[valentinebaby1]

We are really enjoying your review. We are scheduled on the Valor on 12/8/13 and can't wait. Thanks so much for taking the time to write this review. Anxiously awaiting the rest!:)

 

 

..enjoying the review so far :) can't wait to get all of your tips before Sunday :)

 

Thank you! I'm not sure how much I'll get done in the next couple days...since tomorrow is Root Canal Wednesday, I'm not sure how I'll be feeling; but I'll try!