Valor - May 11th Review!!!

[SparrowgirlCruzin]

Hello all! My family and I just returned from 7 nights on the Valor, so I thought I would take a few moments to write up my thoughts while they were still fresh on my mind. I have lots of pictures, (including food porn) but haven’t even unpacked yet, so those will have to come later. :)

 

About Us:

 

First, a little about us. This cruise was a family vacation/celebration that we booked about five months ago. I (Karen) just graduated college and my father was celebrating his retirement. With me was my DH, DS (3 years old), my father and my step-mother. DH and I are in our mid 30's, and my parents are both 60.

 

Pre-cruise Hotel:

 

We flew into San Juan on Thursday and spent 3 nights at the Marriott Stellaris. The hotel was beautiful and everything we could have hoped for. It wasn’t cheap…but it was worth the price. My DH, DS, and I had an Ocean View room on the 6th floor. It was an amazing view, and we also had a pretty good view of the pool (which was beautiful). My father and step-mother had a city view room down the hall, and their room was just as beautiful (but without the great view ;).

 

The one negative to the experience was that the hotel breakfast was insanely expensive for what you got, and the service wasn’t what it should have been. Our waitress was busy chatting with co-workers instead of waiting on her tables. Several of her customers complained. As we walked out, there were several people discussing their lack of service with the manager.

 

There was, however, an amazing Chinese restaurant in the Casino. We ate dinner there one night because my father is a Chinese food addict. I swear that man could live on Kung Pao Chicken.

 

Did I mention that the pool and beach were amazing? The service on the beach was spot on, and it was a beautiful day.

 

San Juan:

 

We explored Condando on Friday, eating breakfast at Pinky’s. It’s WORTH THE WAIT (and there will be one)! It’s very small and most of the seating is outdoors, but the food it definitely worth it. Our plan was to visit Old San Juan on Saturday, but some pretty heavy rain put a stop to that idea. After that, we just spent time wandering the hotel and areas that we could get to without getting my 3 year old soaked.

 

Embarkation:

 

Embarkation was a breeze. Our group arrived around noon and were whisked in right away. We all had Faster to the Fun because my step-mother has some mobility issues. We were the only ones in line for FTTF/Priority and were seated in no time. Shortly after we were seated they called “Priority access,” which included Diamond, Platinum, Suites, and FTTF. It seemed liked they let everyone go at once, with no differentiation for Diamond/Platinum and FTTF. It didn’t, however, seem like there was a big mad rush. It was very organized, and we were on the ship less than 5 minutes later.

 

Our rooms:

 

We were in a suite (7274), and my parents were in an inside (1291). The first snafu came here. We got to our room (FTTF) to put away our carry-ons and get a nap for the little one, but the room steward (Yehven – who was fabulous), told us we weren’t allowed in our room yet. We told him we had FTTF, and he was incredibly apologetic. Apparently, it hadn’t been communicated to him that we had FTTF. He quickly fixed it up for us (It was ready, except for vacuuming), and we were on our way.

 

Our room was amazing. It was big enough for all of us, and the bathtub really helped in getting DH ready for the day. The balcony was big enough for all five of us to stand around to watch sail away. It will be really hard to sail in anything other than a suite from now on. The one complaint I had was that were seemed to be a lot of noise at night. We could hear all the words to the music happening on the lobby stage (we were near the elevators), and at the deck parties on the Lido. Aside from the noise (which wasn’t a problem for anyone other than me. My boys sleep like the dead), it was a fabulous room.

 

My parents weren’t so lucky. Their room was the typical inside room, and it was plenty big enough for the two of them. They had an issue with a sewage smell in the bathroom for most of the cruise. Neither one of them are complainers, so they just dealt with it as best they could. They also had a problem with kids (or drunk adults?) yelling and knocking on random doors in the hallway. This happened several times, but the persons responsible were always gone before security could catch them.

 

The food:

 

This is the area that we were disappointed in the most. The food was just…meh. I mean, you won’t go hungry, but there wasn’t much that stood out as stellar.

 

We had some good dining experiences in the MDR, and our wait team (Kwanton and Gustavo – and I may have misspelled one of those names. :( I didn’t write them down) were phenomenal. They took care of our 3 year old like a champ, and by our second night with them had replaced his glasses with a plastic cup, thankfully averting any disasters.

 

The lido buffet was awful. You could always find something that was edible, but it never seemed to be consistent in quality.

 

The burritos were awesome. I had a couple over the course of the cruise.

 

The burgers were a hit with my dad and step-mom, but we all agreed that the chocolate buffet (the cakes mostly) were dry and all tasted the same.

DH liked the Fish and Chips, and the pizza was really good.

 

Java Café had good coffee, but the milkshakes were really, really thin. We even asked for a “thick” milkshake; it was thicker, but still pretty thin and watery (more milk than ice cream).

 

Our standout dining experience was Scarlett’s. DH and I went by ourselves one night, and it was amazing. Well worth the 35.00pp cover charge. He had the prime rib and I had the filet mignon. So, so delicious. The ambiance was ruined by a ******* that wanted to argue about the corkage fee for bringing his own wine. He forced one of the waitresses to go get a print out of where it stated there would be a corkage fee, and once he saw she was wrong told her, “It’s best you don’t talk to me for the rest of the night. Go away.”

Stay classy, my friend. Stay classy.

 

Entertainment:

 

The entertainment was fair to good most nights. I won’t say it was great, but there were a few stand-out moments. The “Far from Over,” show was great. I really enjoyed it. My DS fell in love with the “dancing girls,” and couldn’t wait to see them every night. I have a picture of him with all the dancers…it made his cruise. He still talks about his picture and the high fives they gave him.

 

There were some stellar performances in the Legends show, and then some that made me cringe. All in all, it was entertaining. (But hey, they all had more guts than I ever would. No way would I ever sing in public!)

The comedians (again, I didn’t write down names :( ) were always pretty funny. We went to the family friendly show at 7:30 and it was funnier than the adults-only.

 

We don’t gamble that much, so I can’t say anything about the casino other than it was always busy.

 

We played a couple rounds of trivia and won two of the coveted ships on a stick. DS has confiscated both of them.

 

The ports:

 

St Thomas – In St. Thomas, we took an island tour with Godfrey. It was good, but seemed to focus on dropping us off at all the shopping places around the island. We wanted to go to Coral World, but time got away from us. I believe it was 45.00 pp and lasted around 5-6 hours.

 

Barbados – The best stop of the cruise. We went to the Boatyard and loved every second of it. The water was amazingly blue. We spent the day here, so I can’t say much else about the island. It was 15.00 to get in, but that included chair/umbrella (or in our case sun bed), one free drink pp, use of the water toys/rope swing, and transport back to the ship. They also had food, which was really good. DH had the flying fish sandwich, and I had a burger. Both were delicious.

 

St. Lucia – We didn’t get off the boat in St. Lucia, so I can’t say much about the island. DS needed a day of calm, so we just hung out at the pool.

 

St. Kitts – We took a tour with Royston and it was amazing – easily the best tour of the cruise. St. Kitts is beautiful and one of my favorite islands. The people there are so nice, and even put up with my step-mother’s special brand of small talk. (She’s a talker…constantly. My favorite question of the day was when she asked the tour guide – “Do you guys have google here?” I rolled my eyes at that one, and my father tried to sink under the seat) The tour was 45pp and lasted 5 hours. It was well worth it, and our tour guide did a great job.

 

St. Maarten – We did the ship’s excursion where we did an island tour and a boat tour of the lagoon. It was really nice, and the price was 60.00pp. Our lagoon tour was aboard a boat called the Explorer. It had an open bar (rum punch, rum for mixers, beer, and soft drinks) and a musician onboard who sang to us. The bus tour was just so-so. They only stopped one place for us to take pictures, which was disappointing. The rest of our pictures are from a tinted window of a moving bus.

 

Debarkation:

 

Debarkation went smoothly. We were in Group 2, so we were some of the first ones off the ship. We got off around 8:00-8:15 and were at the airport by 9:00. Breakfast was in the MDR, which gave us another opportunity to say good-bye to our wait staff.

 

The hits:

 

- Pre- Cruise Hotel: I cannot say enough good things about the Marriott Stellaris. Amazing resort.

- Embarkation: Quick and efficient.

- Our room: Spacious and beautiful

- Our room steward Yehven. He was on top of everything and took very good care of us.

- Our dining staff Kwanton and Gustavo (Again, apologize if Kwanton’s name is misspelled – I should have names down.) They went out of their way to make us feel at home and pampered.

- Scarlett’s: Amazing food and ambience. (Wish the ambience hadn’t been ruined by the *******.)

- The Valor Dancers: For making my little boy’s night.

- Guest Services: They were so very helpful with a problem that wasn’t even theirs to deal with.

 

The just ok:

 

- MDR food: Some nights it was really good and others it was just okay.

- Entertainment: It was hit or miss, but there was some fairly good things to see/do. My one major complaint was there didn’t seem to be much to do if you didn’t go ashore aside from trivia or the pool.

 

The bad:

 

- Lido Buffet: It was just awful. There were a few exceptions, but not many. You could always find something to eat, but it didn’t always taste good. (In fact, more often than not, it DIDN’T taste good.)

- Customer Service in the Spa: We had a major problem with the spa. DH had booked a massage online for St. Lucia (when we knew we weren’t getting off the boat). The night before at 9:45, a representative from the spa called us to tell my DH that she wanted to talk to him about re-scheduling. We were told to call before 10pm – we were given 15 minutes to call them. Of course, we missed the call because we were out at a show. By the time we returned, it was too late to call. My DH called the next morning, only to be told since he didn’t call his massage was rescheduled for the next day at 11:15 (right in the middle of our St. Kitts tour).

 

I called back (DH was beyond furious at this point) and asked who I could speak to in order to get the situation resolved. The person on the other end said, “Do what?” Not what I’d really consider the appropriate way to address a customer. She sent us to guest services, who had no way of fixing it. (The spa is a contract area of the ship.)

 

Guest Services was extremely helpful, and told the girl over the phone that there had been multiple complaints about people’s appointments getting moved and not explaining why or giving them a chance to set up a new convenient time. Needless to say, my DH got his massage at the original time. We were told the Spa manager would contact us about our complaint, but we never heard a word from them. They also charged us for the massage (It had already been paid for online), and it took two calls to get the charge reversed.

 

TL; DR:

 

We had a nice, relaxing vacation, but there were some misses for us in the areas of food, entertainment, and customer service. Not just the spa either – we had a room steward yell down the hall at us to tell us we were on the wrong floor. We weren’t, by the way, we were going to my parents’ room on deck 1. She thought we were trying to get off the ship, but instead of waiting until we got closer to her, she yelled all the way down the hall that “you’re going the wrong way! Go back!” It was embarrassing for us, not to mention being disrupting to the cabins around her. (It was still very early in the morning.)

 

There were also some problems getting bar service at the shows. It seemed like there weren’t nearly enough bartenders for the crowd, and our drinks seemed to take a long time to get to us.

 

This was my family’s first cruise on Carnival (and their first cruise, period - I am platinum on Princess). While we did have a nice time, we don’t think that Carnival is for us. We’ll likely give Royal Caribbean a try or head back to Princess. It was a good vacation - and there were areas that were stellar – but there were also places we feel service lacked (and trust me, we aren’t hard to please at all).

 

If you have questions, just ask. I’ll try to get some pictures up asap

[erby2283]

Thanks for writing a review. This itinerary has been my favorite to date! Too bad you missed St Lucia as I think it has been one of my favorites so far! LOVE Royston - did you not have him personally as your guide? I had read some complaints about him recently on the St Kitts board and wondered if anyone had taken him recently. I had a great time with him! I'll have to remember your tip about Barbados. I had no clue what to do there and tried to "wing it" and ended up paying a taxi for an hour long island tour and really felt like I wasted a day there and that there was so much more to do or see!

[SparrowgirlCruzin]

Thanks for writing a review. This itinerary has been my favorite to date! Too bad you missed St Lucia as I think it has been one of my favorites so far! LOVE Royston - did you not have him personally as your guide? I had read some complaints about him recently on the St Kitts board and wondered if anyone had taken him recently. I had a great time with him! I'll have to remember your tip about Barbados. I had no clue what to do there and tried to "wing it" and ended up paying a taxi for an hour long island tour and really felt like I wasted a day there and that there was so much more to do or see!

 

I'd previously been to St. Lucia, and loved it. We knew we needed another day of just lounging around for the little one, so we took a vote. St. Lucia it was. The others really wanted to see St. Maarten and I wasn't giving up St. Kitts. ;)

 

We didn't have Royston. We had his cousin Ashton as our guide. He was really funny, and took the time to answer whatever questions we had. He was really knowledgeable as well. I met Royston while we were waiting for another family to show up. He was a nice guy, but we didn't spend much time with him. All in all, I felt it was really worth the price of the tour.

 

Do go to the Boatyard in Barbados. I can't say enough good things about that place. It was awesome.

[erby2283]

I'd previously been to St. Lucia, and loved it. We knew we needed another day of just lounging around for the little one, so we took a vote. St. Lucia it was. The others really wanted to see St. Maarten and I wasn't giving up St. Kitts. ;)

 

We didn't have Royston. We had his cousin Ashton as our guide. He was really funny, and took the time to answer whatever questions we had. He was really knowledgeable as well. I met Royston while we were waiting for another family to show up. He was a nice guy, but we didn't spend much time with him. All in all, I felt it was really worth the price of the tour.

 

Do go to the Boatyard in Barbados. I can't say enough good things about that place. It was awesome.

 

I can understand - VERY port intensive cruise and felt I needed a vacation from my vacation when I got back! I don't feel as bad knowing you had been there before.

[Honolulu Blue]

Thanks for sharing. I was on the Valor in March, and I'm doing it again in three weeks. I'm sorry you didn't have as great a time as I did. I don't do spas and I didn't pay any attention to the ship's entertainment. I did like the MDR and buffet food more; are they starting to cut costs here? Maybe I'll find out shortly.