First Time Cruising on a Budget! Valor Review: Southern Caribbean Itinerary Feb 15-22

[Cruisegirl6]

Thank you to both of you for telling me about the lunch buffet, I have to be gluten and dairy free so I count on the carving, veggies and salad bar :)

 

OP what room did you have, was it cool or warm, I will hate hate if my room was warm, I going through my changes and need it at least 71 or cooler.

[Crusin Karen]

Friends of ours went to St. Thomas last week and returning today on a "land cruise." Wish I had known about the Green House before and could have told them! :(

[justme_85]

I live in Mississauga and understand about leaving our frigid Canadian temperatures for the Caribbean. We will be on the Liberty in May out of San Juan and am looking forward to the rest of your review. My layover is in Philadelphia as well but nearly as long as your is!! Great review so far!!

[sjn911]

I am enjoying your review sooo much..this is cruise I really want to do with some more "hitch in my giddy-up"..because I want to go go go..this is so fun because i am so excited to do it and it is motivational in the diet part of this health thing...thanks so much....Sarah

[Mrs.C05]

For this being your first cruise, and review, you sure sound pretty experienced! Great review! *Subscribed* Can't wait for more.....

[PathfinderEss]

Excellent review, looking forward to more.

[Crusin Karen]

For this being your first cruise, and review, you sure sound pretty experienced! Great review! *Subscribed* Can't wait for more.....

I have to agree and you have the "go with the flow" mentality of a seasoned cruiser too! I give you a lot of credit for handling the travel to the ship. We live 20 minutes from the Port of NY and cruise almost exclusively from here and I go nuts if I hit a bit of traffic going in. I would be NUTS with your travel arrangements! :confused::eek::o

[Dirkgun]

Great job on your review so far. We also did this cruise...Jan 18th and I just started posting my review as well. We however have done this itinerary now 3 times and still love it. IT is great to see it through your eyes. Subscribed and following.

[xowendyxo]

Loving your review!!

[nutocruzing]

I don’t remember exactly all the things that we did that afternoon back on the ship. I’m fairly certain we had a nap before heading up to the Lido to find some more food (we had shared the appetizer at Green House and were still a little hungry). I think we had planned before we left our cabin to go swimming and were already in swim gear (with cover-ups). At Rosie’s we decided to go for the Fish & Chips. I wasn’t quite sure where it was located though I now realize it should have been more obvious (see the picture of Rosie’s above and you might notice a logo on her arm pointing up the stairs!). At any rate, I got the fish and chips, DBF got some fritters and some seafood bouillabaisse. It was really quite good!

 

My fish and chips

 

A quick note on drinks in the Lido: the guava punch is amazing but only offered at breakfast (the apple and orange are also only offered at breakfast). DBF and I would often fill up a water bottle of it to bring back to the cabin for later. The lemonade was also pretty good but strong (both sweet and sour somehow) so we would always water it down about half and half. Neither one of us care in particular for American Iced Tea so we never bothered trying it on board. I’m sure most of you are aware that there are a relatively limited number of drinks included free of charge with the expectation being that you can purchase a soft drink package (Bubbles) or a Cheers package for alcohol. Once again, attempting to save money, we did not opt for either of these packages and it’s a good thing. Although we did spend some money on drinks on board, it wasn’t enough to justify even $10 per day each on such a package, let alone $50. Although, as you will hear more about later, I did make the mistake of purchasing a souvenir cup at one point; more on that later!

 

After eating we grabbed our reading material and headed off in search of the pool. We weren’t yet quite used to the lay out of the ship yet and although I had been aware of the adults only pool, we hadn’t spotted it yet. Luckily for us, I made a wrong turn leaving Rosie’s and headed for the aft where the Prometheus pool is located. Probably due to the weather it was covered for the moment so that made it the perfect spot.

 

It was pretty empty (we soon found out why) so we grabbed a couple of chairs and headed for the… nope! The hot tubs were closed for cleaning (this seemed to happen a LOT given that most of them weren’t accessible after 10pm). So, we decided to try the pool instead. There was just one older woman in the pool and as we jumped in we found out why. It was freezing! I’m not sure whether they had just filled it up or what but it was almost intolerably cold. This was kind of ironic to me because when we did eventually manage to get into a hot tub it was luke-warm at best. I know others who have complained that the pools are too warm and I can’t really comment on the other pools as this was the only day we got in one but it was definitely far from warm. We swam for a while anyways and then read by the pool, and I managed to send off a couple of last minute messages to friends and family as I had purchased an American text package that was not going to be any good once we hit international waters. DBF did note that after we got out of the pool a child of probably age 10 did sneak into the adults only pool. Since it wasn't really in much use anyways I don't think it really matters, but the bottom line is they didn't really seem to be policing the adult's only rule and I guess that could either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you are!

 

Eventually we decided to head back to the room and get on some clothes to go and watch sail away. When we came out on the deck we were disappointed to note that it had started to rain again. We took a few pictures of the port (the filter makes it look like the weather was better than it was). It was interesting to watch the two other ships which were behind us leave first as getting out of the port required backing up sort of into the port to get headed in the right direction. Sometimes the ship was backed into the port and this wasn’t necessary. We watched as we sailed away and waited almost until we were out at sea but it had started to rain a little harder to we decided to head back to the cabin and relax while we waited for our late dining time. I will note that as the evening went on I did feel a little off... not terribly nauseous but a bit unsettled so I was very relieved to have the bracelets as I found they worked wonders for me!

 

 

We were looking forward to dinning in the Washington Dining Room for the first time and weren’t quite sure how to dress. I had somehow been left with the impression that shorts weren’t allowed so we opted for DBF wearing a blazer and jeans, and me wearing a cocktail dress. This was major overkill. I honestly felt ridiculous once we got there. Many if not most people were wearing t-shirts and shorts. At any rate, worried about being late and annoying our table mates we headed up a few minutes early and found a rather long line (one of few). It didn’t last long as people were rapidly seated as soon as the dining room was opened for the late seating. We were extremely disappointed to be seated at a table of four, worried about what would happen if we didn’t like our table mates and afraid it would make it more awkward. After waiting for quite some time it seemed apparent that they weren’t going to show anyways. We ordered our food and had eaten our appetizers (duck, a thai soup which was spicy and delicious and shrimp cocktail) when a couple showed up with one of the wait staff. This was one of the more mortifying moments of the cruise as we watched the man whisper something to the hostess and then head off in another direction. It was obvious that they were supposed to be seated with us as the hostess had brought them there. I don’t know whether we were over dressed, or whether they didn’t want to bother us half way through our meal, or whether they just really wanted a table for two but I thought this was beyond rude. The least they could have done was sit with us for one meal, see how it was, and request alternate seating the next night!

 

DBF was extremely disappointed as he had hoped to meet some new people so it wouldn’t just be the two of us conversing all week long (I tried not to take too great of offence at this!). I feel like this is really something worth noting. Maybe on a ship that was filled to capacity we would have been seated at a full table for 8 and have met plenty of people but I found that people weren’t really willing to add new people to their groups and lots of people seemed to travel as families or groups of couples. If I were to cruise again I would want to bring some friends or family along with me to avoid this feeling.

 

At any rate, flustered though we were by the interaction we managed to finish the rest of our meal (lamb for DBF and pork chop for me, I’ll post pictures of the food below). I was particularly excited to try the warm chocolate melting cake everyone raves about because it sounded really similar to my favourite desert at one of my favourite restaurants (the molten chocolate lava cake at Joey for any Canadians wondering). It was really good, but it wasn’t as good as my favourite! Later in the week I would learn to request it with the butter pecan ice cream (awesome combination!).

 

After dinner, we decided to head for the Punchliner comedy club and we managed to snag a table for two near (but not too near) the front. We splurged on a couple of drinks here. DBF had never really been to a live comedy show so it was a first for him. We opted for the adult only versions, knowing that comics aren’t usually at their best with PG-13 jokes. The first comic. Kelly Terranova was pretty good. We laughed about our uncertainty over whether it would be a man or a woman (made funnier by the fact that this was his opening joke) but that was mostly because my father’s name is Kelly so I know better than to make assumptions about gender & assignment of names! The second comic, Jim Brick, was amazing! His entire set was based on picking on the people sitting in the front row. His timing was hilarious and DBF loved it! I really appreciate improv ability in a comedian as well as the ability to string along some sort of continuing narrative throughout the set and he did both. We enjoyed it so much that we came back the second night! (The comedy club has two different sets of two performers, the first are on the ship from St. Thomas until Barbados and the next two from St. Kitts until San Juan so there are two nights in the middle with no comedians).

 

 

 

After the show we headed back to our room to review the Fun Times for the Fun Day at Sea and were surprised to be reminded that the next day was Mardi Gras! I had completely forgotten and it was nice to know that there would be a theme for our sea day. We were also greated by what turned out to be my favourite towel animal of the trip, an adorable elephant!

 

 

Next: Mardi Gras at Sea!

[nutocruzing]

DBF's thai soup, we both realy enjoyed it and were disappointed that it didn't pop up on the menu again. Grab it while you can!

 

The duck. The didja evers really got me on this trip trying everything from alligator to frog's legs but I had also never had duck before! It was the best of the three I can tell you that much!

 

It was good. You can't really screw up shrimp cocktail, but it did leave me wondering about the etiquette around eating shrimp. Fork or hands? I very awkwardly went with the knife and fork in the end.

 

DBF's lamb. He actually said he was pretty disappointed with it

 

Warm chocolate melting cake! DBF got the tiramisu but it wasn't nearly as good as the tiramisu we had later in the week... more on that later!

[Crusin Karen]

What nice pictures of the 2 of you! FYI, shorts on men are NOT "supposed" to be allowed in the MDR. I noticed on our Liberty B2B last month that this rule was not enforced. I will tell you: I dress up EVERY NIGHT for dinner. A pretty outfit, sparkly (fake! :p) jewelry...do NOT be embarrassed by looking nice. As far as the table mates, who knows what their problem was. Maybe it was even the wrong table? And NEXT TIME try strawberry ice cream with your WCMC. Strawberries and chocolate are supposed to be together! ;) I am thorougly enjoying this!!! :)

[Surrealistic]

Loving your review. We so enjoyed our Valor cruise last year. So sorry about the rain.........one thing you can't change about a vacation. As far as feeling embarrassed about the way you were dressed......why? The both of you look absolutely lovely. My dh & I dress for each other, not our cruise mates. Your table mates that left probably would have been annoying if they stayed, so don't take it personal. Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[Crusin Karen]

I started this review last night and got to this point this morning. We'll be on the Valor in April so your review has perfect timing. I'm really enjoying it!

OT but have to say I LOVE your cruise countdowns! WAY TO GO!!! :D;):D;)

[mrpayroll]

Enjoying your review. Looking forward to more.:)

[Confuzzled]

I am reliving our cruise from last summer through your review! Can't wait to read more!

[lovebirdy2015]

Love reading our review! Can't wait to hear more

[gizmo911]

For about 8 cruises I have been solo. I don't mind traveling alone but I hate eating alone. So far I have had really nice table mates but on a couple of occasions have gotten a few that were not very friendly or you felt like the 3rd wheel. On those few occasions, I would as for a table change if I was uncomfortable. As far as dressing up, I always wear nice casual clothes and on formal nights I bump it up a bit because I don't get to dress up much. Enjoying your review.

Edited March 3, 2015 by gizmo911

[nutocruzing]

I live in Mississauga and understand about leaving our frigid Canadian temperatures for the Caribbean. We will be on the Liberty in May out of San Juan and am looking forward to the rest of your review. My layover is in Philadelphia as well but nearly as long as your is!! Great review so far!!

 

A fellow GTAer! I certainly hope, and expect, you will enjoy your time on this itinerary and I imagine the ships are fairly similar too (although I think you get some of the extra 2.0 upgrades!). If you have time in the airport you should check out the restaurant I mentioned, it was really good! Enjoy your vacation!

[nutocruzing]

What nice pictures of the 2 of you! FYI, shorts on men are NOT "supposed" to be allowed in the MDR. I noticed on our Liberty B2B last month that this rule was not enforced. I will tell you: I dress up EVERY NIGHT for dinner. A pretty outfit, sparkly (fake! :p) jewelry...do NOT be embarrassed by looking nice. As far as the table mates, who knows what their problem was. Maybe it was even the wrong table? And NEXT TIME try strawberry ice cream with your WCMC. Strawberries and chocolate are supposed to be together! ;) I am thorougly enjoying this!!! :)

 

Thank you so much for your kind words and for following along! I may have been a bit over-dramatic in describing how embarrassed we were. I certainly dress for myself I had just been hoping that others would have done the same! I will have to keep that in mind for the WCMC. My favourite lava cake involves raspberry coulis and fresh raspberries and it's always delicious!

[nutocruzing]

I just wanted to start by saying thank you so much for the kind words, I'm really glad that you are enjoying the review, and I hope that for those of you soon to be on the ship or the itinerary that it might give you a few tips or ideas!

 

As anyone familiar with this itinerary will know, this was the only sea day on the entire itinerary. I understand that there are mixed views on packed itineraries like this (some people really prefer to spend their vacations simply basking in the sun on the decks), DBF and I were very satisfied with having only one sea day because it meant having the ability to explore more new places, and also since I was a bit worried about sea sickness. Although I had been doing alright so far, I could definitely feel the motion of the ship when it was at sea and so far most of that time had been while I was asleep.

 

Looking over the Fun Times the night before, DBF and I had highlighted all of the activities we wanted to hit up for the day. We knew we definitely wanted to get to the Sea Day Brunch as I had heard great things about it here on cruisecritic. I can’t remember exactly what the hours of the brunch were but it was open seating and we knew we wanted to be in and out before the Mardi Gras Mask Making started at 11:30. We planned to let ourselves sleep in but… the cleaning staff started at it around 8:00 AM and it was simply impossible for us to sleep with a vacuum running. This was pretty disappointing to us. Although we were on a port intensive itinerary, we had planned to let ourselves sleep in as long as our bodies wanted on days that we didn’t have explicit plans. Every morning without fail the cleaning started to early for this to really be a possibility. It wasn’t the end of the world, but had we been on a cruise with more sea days I think this would have been much more frustrating. I’m not sure whether it was because we were on deck 1 or what but I had wished they would wait until at least 9 to get started.

 

Anyways, despite being awake, we lazed around getting ready that morning, watching a little bit of TV (we really enjoyed watching the channels that showed our GPS location and gave information about speed etc. No sunken ship locations were pointed out on these maps though!). We got to breakfast with enough time, we thought, to ensure that we could be out of there by 11:30. Be prepared for the service in the MDR during brunch to proceed at about the same pace that the dinner service proceeds, it was pretty slow. Below I will attach the menu from the sea day brunch since it was the one time I thought to take such a photo.

 

 

 

I opted for the huevos rancheros and DBF went with the eggs benedict and the steak option too.

 

 

By the time we got through our main courses (they didn’t serve the steak until the eggs benny were done which meant we had to wait a lot longer – they also screwed up DBF’s egg order but it wasn’t that big of a deal) it was almost 11:30 so we decided to skip the desert and head to the Capital Room for the activity. It seems a bit childish to want to do arts and crafts but it actually ended up being a lot of fun and there were plenty of other adults there (Ok, Ok, so they were mostly parents, don't judge us!). DBF was very determined to win the mask competition that was going to be held later that evening so he took his mask preparation pretty seriously. DBF commented toward the end that it was the most fun he had had doing arts and crafts since elementary school! Success!

 

My mask

 

DBF's sun and moon themed mask

 

I don’t have many photos from this afternoon. I know that we took our masks back to the room and got dressed for sun bathing. After grabbing our reading material and sunscreen we headed up to the Lido to see what was going on. The deck was pretty crowded because… no rain! The weather was beautiful on the sea day all day long! Although there were lots of people out there it actually wasn’t very difficult to find a chair, the only challenging thing was finding one where the wind wasn’t blowing insanely strongly. It gets windy 10 decks up from sea level even if the ship is only moving at about 11 knots. I was glad that I hadn’t bothered to bring my beach hat with me because it surely would have been blown off the ship.

 

Before picking a set of chairs we opted to try out the hot tubs on the serenity deck. For once they weren’t full. Well we found out why! The wind was blowing so hard it blew the water into your face all the time and the water was barely warm at all. To make matters worse, DBF, who is 6’4, couldn’t even get his chest close to covered by the water because the seats weren’t very deep. It wasn’t a very relaxing experience so after only a few minutes we moved on with our day.

[biksgirl]

My cruise leaves on the 15th and sitting at home in Oakville, watching it snow right now, I just can't wait!! I'm enjoying your review and I'm glad I found it...I'm not bringing any of my cocktail dresses. I think it'll be a more casual, maxi dress kinda cruise!! My DH will be happy not to bring a shirt and tie...I think he'll be ok with just polo shirts!

 

We're flying from Toronto to Philadelphia too...with the 12 hour layover before flying on to San Juan. After reading your experience, and since we have 2 kids (8 and 10), I think we should get a hotel.

 

Looking forward to the rest of your review!

[nutocruzing]

After making sure we put on lots of sunscreen, we basked in the sun while getting some reading in. After a while, I decided to go get us some drinks. We were hoping that if we purchased some souvenir glasses that we could bring our own drinks up from our room without many questions (turns out this would have been easy enough just using the glasses provided in our room). Knowing that DBF had commented on how cool he thought the blow fish cups were I decided to ask for the drink of the day (hurricanes for Mardi Gras! Only $6.95) in a couple of those cups. Well, let me tell you not to make that mistake. I figured the cups would be a few dollars but I was pretty shocked when they had me sign the receipt for $38.99. :confused: I knew DBF wouldn’t be happy about it (and the cups had barely any room for drinks in them either due to their awkward shape). It was a stupid thing to have done because we didn’t even have enough space in our carry on to take them home with us. Oh well, live and learn! :rolleyes:

 

I was in a bit of a grumpy mood over my mistake and DBF realized that some food might cheer me up so he headed off to grab us a couple of sandwiches while I lay in the sun for a bit longer. After eating the sandwiches we both decided it was time to reapply sunscreen. Eventually I fell asleep out there in the sun, it was very relaxing! DBF finished his book and was ready to head back to our room for a bit. By this time, I was actually starting to feel a bit sea sick and decided it would be best for me too. As soon as we were back in the room, I knew DBF was in trouble. His arms and legs were very, very red. We had applied sunscreen twice in a 2.5 hour period but apparently it wasn’t enough. Beware the Caribbean sun my fair skinned friends! I, on the other hand, don’t burn, but I don’t tan either and I was still looking pretty pasty.

 

After a quick nap we decided that we wanted to give the mini golf a try. We carefully re-applied sunscreen and we headed up to the highest deck (you have to go through the caged in sports area to get there and it took us a while to figure this out) to find that although there were only two families playing, and there were plenty of clubs available there was not a single ball left. Accordingly, we had to wait for one of the groups to finish before we could start. It’s only 9 holes so it wasn’t that long of a wait. Once we got a couple of balls we started to question whose brilliant idea having golf on the highest (most windy) deck it was anyway?! It was extremely difficult to play. We went for it anyways, playing with accommodated rules since the balls wouldn’t stay where they were put) and actually had a good time. In the end I won by a few points though who knows what role the wind played in that.

 

 

 

DBF got a hole in one but this was the closest I came... pretty darn close though don't you think!

 

By this point in time it was probably close to five. Knowing I would need a while to ready myself for our first elegant night, and realizing we should have DBF out of the sun, we headed back to our cabin. I did some studying, we watched some tv and each had showers in preparation for dinner. It wasn’t until around 7:00 that DBF pulled out his white shirt for ironing only to discover a stain I had missed when I packed it for him. We managed to wash the stain out (to the best of our ability) in our bathroom sink using some detergent in bar form I had brought with me, and he managed to get the shirt ironed in time.

 

here we are, all ready for our first elegant night

 

Although I had said above that we were embarrassed by our dress the first night, and although that was true, we didn’t let it stop us from going all out this evening. We figured the mardi gras occasion might make us stand out a little less. It didn’t, but I think we looked pretty good anyways, so who cares right? For dinner tonight we opted for stuffed mushrooms and the alligator fritters for starters and prime rib for the main course. The mushrooms were ok, but so tiny there wasn’t much to stuff. The alligator was mostly fried breading so it couldn’t have been less offensive if it tried. The prime rib was… well DBF who prefers medium rare found his to be very overdone. Mine was ok, but nothing particularly special. A note re the baked potato, they come around after with the toppings (I was very confused and had already started putting butter in mine by the time they got to me, oops!).

[nutocruzing]

My mushrooms

 

My prime rib... forgive me, I forgot to take a picture until after I started in on it!

 

Looking at the clock and seeing it was already almost 9:30 and that the mardi gras parade started then we decided to skip dessert (blasphemy I know) and head down a floor to the festivities. We ultimately arrived as the parade was ending, but in time for the mask contest. Although DBF was selected to compete, this was one of the few occasions where the room was crowded and he simply didn’t make it to the stage on time. He considered it to be close enough to a win though!

 

Here’s a pic of us from after the mardi gras party… we left as soon as the dancing started because it was too crowded and we didn’t know all the moves and had no ability to see the Cruise Director

 

After the (brief) mardi gras party we went back to the room to mix some drinks to take with us to the comedy club. This meant that we were not early enough to the comedy club to get a seat. It was worth standing to see Jim Brick again though, he even tied in jokes from the night before! In the time between the first and second set we were able to find seats to enjoy the second show even though we headed back to our room to change into less formal clothing. After the comedy club we attempted to check out both the piano bar and the one small step (the night club) and they were both totally empty. We were greeted back in our room by a new towel animal (I think it was a lobster, see my room review above for the picture) and the Fun Times for… Barbados!

 

Up next: A beach day... in the shade?

[crazycatlady82]

Loving your review!!! We would have definitely ate supper with you! :)

 

We got engaged in the valor, sept 2014, overlooking St Thomas, room 1051. (A/c also didn't really work) the Valor holds a special place for us :)

 

Thank you for your review!