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Carnival Valor- 10-13-16 Review Suite and Cheers

paper1122

By paper1122,
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paper1122

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DW and I are just back from the Carnival Valor. I will do a review, but unfortunately I did not take many pictures so there won’t be any with this review. My goal of this vacation was to really enjoy it.

 

 

Background: DW and I are in our mid 30’s. We have 2 young boys who stayed with their grandparents. This cruise was our first vacation (and cruise) by ourselves since the boys were born. We’ve been on 4 other cruises together, mostly Carnival.

 

 

We made the decision to book a cruise after I was told by my boss that I’d be working out of town for the next few years so we wanted to have a vacation before that really started. We booked it over July 4th weekend.

This cruise fit the bill perfectly.

 

 

 

My requirements were simple: 4-5 day cruise, over a weekend, out of either PC or Tampa, and most importantly NO FANTASY CLASS SHIPS. As soon as I found this itinerary which left on a Thursday, returned on a Monday, went to Nassau and HALF MOON CAY, I was sold. We confirmed with the grandparents that the date would work for them to watch the boys and we went about deciding on which cabin to book.

 

 

 

DW really likes balcony cabins and in general I don’t care, I’d be happy with an interior room. We settled on an OV cabin. While booking the cruise I started looking at the other room options. On a whim I booked an Ocean Suite. I did this for a few reasons. Mainly because I knew this was DW and I’s time away together and we might spend more time in the cabin than usual. The price was not, in my opinion, ridiculous either. Yes, it added the cost of an interior to the price of the cruise, but I felt it was worth it, but more on that later. I decided, however, that I would keep the suite a secret from DW. So after booking when she asked what room we got I said that I did an OV guarantee, hoping that that answer would keep the issue at bay. Fortunately it did and she never asked again.

 

 

Fast forward to the week before the cruise. HURRICANE MATTHEW! Ok, so originally I didn’t think that it was going to make US landfall so I didn’t worry too much. Exactly 1 week before the cruise I was boarding up the windows of my house. We live inland, but better safe than sorry. Fortunately for central Florida we were spared. Unfortunately a lot of others were not so lucky. I was seriously concerned that we weren’t going to stop at any of our scheduled stops. I was almost 100% certain that there was no way that we were going to HMC. Much to my surprise John Heald announced, I believe it was Monday, that our cruise would be the first one back to HMC. I was overjoyed as HMC is one of my favorite places.

 

 

 

Fast forward again to the actual cruise. I worked the morning of the cruise, though truthfully it was far from my most productive day at work. DW and I left for the port around 11:30 and we were paying for parking right about 12:30. It was my first time at PC since Terminal 6 was completed and Terminal 5 was renovated. They did a really nice job with the facility and traffic flowed nicely. We purposely get to the ship a little later so that the mad rush is over and so that hopefully the rooms are ready by the time we board.

 

 

We parked the truck and a few steps later we were in the terminal. On the drive over and conjured up some reason why we were going to have priority check-in which nearly fell apart once we got into the terminal. At one point I just told DW, maybe they made a mistake, but our paper says priority so we are going to go through the line unless they tell us no.

 

Priority check-in was SO nice. We walked in and went directly to security where there was no line. We then proceed to the check-in desk where we were escorted to the next available agent, again no line or waiting. Then we were escorted to the embarkation picture stand and onto the ship. The longest we stopped was to take our S&S card picture. It was fantastic. I can very much understand why people pay for FTTF, if nothing else, to not have to wait in ANY lines.

 

 

 

Once we boarded the ship, which was 12:36 as evidenced by an email I sent (At most we were 10 min from paying for parking to being on the ship), we went directly to the lobby bar to take advantage of the cheers program. We were then able to head directly to the room. I let DW open the door so that I could see her reaction. She noticed, immediately.

At this point I won’t do a play by play partly because we are kind of boring people and partly because I didn’t write anything down and my memory got fuzzy a few times (like when I came back to the room the first night and put a movie in the DVD player and watched part of it, which I had zero recollection of the next morning, thank you Alchemy bar).

 

 

Let’s talk about the suite first. When I first booked it I didn’t have any idea what the suite perks (however limited they may be) were. As I described above, priority embarkation was one of them and was fantastic. Another awesome perk was priority tender service for HMC. We were on the first tender over with the crew and enjoyed a nearly deserted island for quite a while. We each received an additional large bottle of water in addition to our gold status bottles.

 

 

 

We were never asked when we wanted our room serviced, we received twice a day service along with Ice twice a day (again without asking). Our room steward was very nice and she always addressed us by name. She didn’t do anything that stood out but our room was always in good condition. DW and I always try and clean up after ourselves as I would be embarrassed to have a room steward come into my room if it was very messy.

 

 

 

The room itself was VERY nice. It is about 50% larger than a standard balcony room. Having the dressing room area was very nice. I will say that since this was a short cruise we didn’t take advantage of everything the suite had to offer such as the huge amount of storage areas (We pack light and each only brought on one carryon). The room had a much more upscale feel than our previous standard rooms. I especially liked the nicer lighting options. It also had a DVD player which I had anticipated and brought a few movies to watch. This turned out to be a good idea since we did spend a good bit of time in the room. The balcony was also very nice and I spent a good bit of time out there as well.

 

 

 

I also liked the location. It was on the 7th deck located between two other cabin decks so the only noise we heard was from people in the hall and door slamming. It was almost all the way forward. What I liked about being that far forward is that nearly everything that we wanted to do on the ship was in the AFT. So this combined with the fact that we decided not to use elevators meant we got extra exercise to burn off the time we spent at the Alchemy bar. We did use the elevators 4 times, embarkation, debarkation, coming back from HMC, and once just to ride the glass elevators all the way up.

 

 

 

Suite Conclusion: Would I book a suite again? Absolutely, but it would have to be the right price and I would probably only do it in the similar situation where I knew we’d be in the room a lot. I have not had a suite on any other line so I cannot compare amenities or otherwise. I booked it solely for the room and nothing else.

 

 

 

CHEERS! DW and I talked at length about whether or not was wanted to get the package and whether or not we thought we’d get our monies worth out of it. Ultimately we booked it because it was our “blow off some steam” trip and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t limit ourselves once on the boat due to cost. Did we get our monies worth? Yes, I calculated that had we paid for each drink we would have spent $100 more than we did on the package. That being said, we indulged in things we normally wouldn’t such as bottled N/A drinks from the coffee shop and lots of bottled water. I also tipped additional on every drink that required someone to prepare it. We tried a number of drinks, but I tend to find something I like and stick with it. In general there were much fewer drink servers, at least in the area’s that I frequented, however, they had plenty of bar tenders. I spent a majority of my drinking time at the Alchemy bar, where I tipped well, I was served very well.

 

 

 

CHEERS Conclusion: Would I do it again? Maybe, but definitely not on any longer of a cruise. My liver hurts… It was definitely nice not worrying about ordering what I wanted, however, I was a little concerned with wanting to make sure I broke even, so in that respect I probably over indulged a little bit. I don’t regret getting it though.

 

 

Food: My biggest complaint is that there were too many selections. I wasn’t able to try everything that I wanted to because I was always so full.

 

 

Breakfast: We had Blue Iguana two mornings, steak and eggs in the dining room, and regular lido fare once. Everything was good. The only real complaint was service in the dining room for breakfast. It was apparent that our servers did not want to be there. The food was still very good.

 

 

Lunch: The Guys burgers were great. The Tacos were great. The fish and chips were good. The sandwiches were just OK. DW had the Mongolian Wok which she said was very good, but the line was very long. In general I think I saw more people eating Guy’s than anything else. I barely ate any deserts other than ice cream, what I did have, however, were very mediocre.

 

 

 

Dinner: We skipped the MDR the first night. DW was very sick due to the motion of the boat. I ate on the Lido, it was not memorable. The other 3 nights we ate in the dining room. Service was fine, dinner usually took 1.5hrs, mostly because we were late one night and our table mates were late the other 2 nights. We were in no hurry and had no complaints about how long it took. Our wait staff was forgettable but did a fine job. One of our tablemates wore a hat to dinner every night, he was a bluecard. It had ZERO effect on my dining experience. I could really care less what someone wears. Did I miss the table cloths? Nope. I am not sure the big deal about the American Table menu. It seemed almost exactly like the old menu. There were a few new items. Some were better than others.

 

 

Entertainment: I cannot comment on any of it, because I didn’t participate in any of it. There was a LOT of it around the ship. If you were bored on the boat it would have been your own fault. DW and I decided to let the other passengers be our entertainment and spent a lot of time talking with people at the bar.

 

 

Bars: We used a number of the bars around the ship. I was a little disappointed with the Red Frog Pub, mostly because I didn’t find the bartender very personable. By an overwhelming majority the Alchemy bar was our favorite. Milos, Priscilla, and Frescina were outstanding. Milos was our favorite bartender by far. He customized drinks for us. We met a lot of people at that bar and ended up hanging out with another couple there each night. The first night I had every intention on checking out the entertainment around the ship but ended up staying at the Alchemy bar because it was so much fun. From there on out that’s what we did each night. Milos’s contract is up very shortly but he goes back to the Valor mid-March. I am seriously considering booking the Valor again just because of Milos and his drinks.

 

 

 

The Alchemy bar menu is available online. They have a lot of interesting drinks. Between DW and I we probably tried most of them. But I stuck mainly to one that wasn’t on the menu.

 

 

The People: We met a lot of great people on the ship and a few not so great. The best part about it being a big ship. If there was a group we didn’t want to be around…. We just moved to another area, that simple. The people watching was fantastic and for the most part people were friendly and courteous. As always there were those who overindulged to the point of being obnoxious.

 

 

 

The Ship: We loved the ship. It was clean and in good repair. The style was much more subdued than some of the other ships we’ve been on. I found the ship relatively easy to get around. Being on the 7th floor was very convenient since most of what we wanted was either 2 floors up or down. We only used the stairs as mentioned above, so our legs were pretty sore. The only thing that I did not like was the lido deck layout. I spent zero time on the actual lido pool deck, but getting across from back to front was not easy since you had to navigate the pool deck stadium seating. Overall it was a minor gripe. The lido deck eating area seemed very crowded due to the layout, we always sat at the back or went up to the fish and chips area to get away from the crowd. I would gladly sail this ship or one of its sisters again.

 

 

Service: In general the service seemed good. The dining room service seemed about what we’ve experienced in the past, though our servers were not very memorable. I do not know if this is a result of cutbacks or just their personality, or just the fact that this was only a 4 day cruise. There were plenty of bar staff and you typically only had to wait a minute or two at even the busiest of bars. You were always met with a hello from any staff you saw. The lido restaurant staff were very attentive as well.

 

 

 

Nassau: In general I don’t really care for Nassau so I was looking for something unique to do, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ship. We did the Brews Bar Hop Tour. This tour was fantastic. It was not a “get drunk off your butt” tour. You essentially drank 3 beers. It was a nice walking tour with 3 stops. You got to try some local food and drink all of the local beers. It was also a Nassau and Pirate history tour which was a lot of fun. Sure it was expensive for a walking tour, but I thought it was worth every penny.

 

 

 

HMC: This was where the suite was another advantage since we got off the ship on the first tender. DW and I put our stuff on chairs by the last cabana. We then walked the entire length of the beach. I looked it up when we got home and it looks like the beach is about 1.3 miles long. It felt longer than that, but walking in soft sand definitely makes it harder. We then spent a couple of hours swimming and lounging before heading back to the ship. We chose to eat back at the ship because I find the island BBQ to be mediocre and I wanted to try more of the food options on the ship. The weather got very overcast in the afternoon and it was raining when we sailed.

 

 

The weather and motion: Obviously this is something Carnival has zero control over, but the seas were very rough. It was probably the most rocking of any cruise I’ve been on and it was constant throughout the whole trip. It was that slow rolling waves which really exaggerated the movement. It didn’t bother me but it did bother DW. It was rainy and cloudy most of our sea day. DW and I ended up spending extra time in the cabin.

 

 

SPA: DW went to the spa on the sea day. She enjoyed it very much, she did some package with a massage and a facial.

 

 

 

Casino: I made my donations… That fishing Bob game sure is addicting.

 

 

Debarkation: Had we checked luggage we would have had zone 3. We chose to do self-assist and we were in the truck shortly after 7am.

 

 

 

Trip conclusions: We had a FANTASTIC time. Before we left I had read some negative things and I was a little concerned. We hadn’t cruised in 4 years and I was wondering if the cutbacks were going to be noticeable. Let me tell you. THEY WERE NOT. I decided that I was going with a “the trip will be what I make of it” attitude. I do not know how much my conclusion would have changed had we not had the suite or cheers. In general we met a lot of great people, we ate WAY too much good food, had plenty of good drinks, and had great service.

 

 

 

I am hopeful that we’ll be able to cruise again soon. Ideally it’ll be a longer cruise but I’ll settle for another short one if that’s what we have to do. I very much want to try one of the mega ships just to say I did it and get the t shirt to prove it.

 

 

I realize this was a long rambling review but I will happily answer any questions you might have.

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paper1122

paper1122

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What a nice review. Organized, easy to follow, and hit almost all of the areas I want to read about.

 

I am so glad you enjoyed most aspects of your cruise.

 

Thanks for reading. The engineer in me dictates that I have write mostly in bullet points. I suspect I wouldn't make a good novelist.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

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paper1122

paper1122

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Thanks for taking the time to post your review! I enjoyed reading it ! We sail on the Valor on the 30th..

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

I think Milos will probably be gone one leave at that point but make sure to see Priscilla at Alchemy. Enjoy your cruise! If you have any questions be sure to let me know.

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paper1122

paper1122

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Thanks for your review. It sounds like you had a great cruise. Suites are the way to go and longer cruises are nice when you can do it.

 

Happy cruising wherever you go next.

 

Thanks for reading! I am already thinking about the next one!

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paper1122

paper1122

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Thanks for the review.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Something else that I remembered.

 

On this cruise it seemed like there were a LOT of private events, there was a wedding every day and many of the venues around the ship were closed during the day. I am guessing that being a shorter cruise there was probably a lot of groups and thus the events. This certainly didn't bother me, just an observation.

 

Today is back to work.. I'd much rather be back on the ship.

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meatloafsfan

meatloafsfan

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Thanks for the review.

 

I also don't see what the big deal is about tablecloths and the American Table menus. The menus are quite similar to the previous ones (with the removal of the comfort food menu items which many people had a fit over anyways) with the addition of some stuff like the Port of Call items (which have consistently been good) and some new desserts.

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paper1122

paper1122

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So now how am I going to tell your aunt that I only got her an ocean view for our anniversary in March after you surprise your wife with a suite. Very unfair but very nice for you guys. BTW wonderful review.

 

:D:D:D:D:D:D

 

In all fairness you guys cruise more than we do so I think she'll probably be OK with it.

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paper1122

paper1122

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Thanks for the review.

 

I also don't see what the big deal is about tablecloths and the American Table menus. The menus are quite similar to the previous ones (with the removal of the comfort food menu items which many people had a fit over anyways) with the addition of some stuff like the Port of Call items (which have consistently been good) and some new desserts.

 

I think the only thing I had off the POC menu was the chicken wings, they were good, just not spicy enough, but I understand they have to appeal to everyone so it was expected.

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Thanks for the great review, I'm so excited cruising this weekend in a suite I had started another thread on boards awhile ago asking people about suite perks, did you get FTTF?

 

We did not get FTTF, since we weren't boarding early we didn't need it. The room was ready when we got on the ship. We never had to use Guest services but the line was typically long.

 

John never replied that I saw, about the suite perks but there was no chocolate on the pillow at night or any other perks that I could see. The priority tender at HMC was awesome though.

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We were cruising with you! Didn't you enjoy the Tampa pirate Krewe and their costumes? My 26th cruise on Carnival!

 

Yes! They were great. I spoke with them on a number of occasions. They looked like they were having a great time.

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