Carnival Valor trip report: Sept. 9-14, 2019 (Lots of images)

[wickky]

whats the name of the bbq joint?? I didnt know Valor had a place to get bbq!

[Buckimion]

It's pretty much just a stand marked 'BBQ.' 

 

 

[bigbro501]

How was Chichen Itza?  Doing it in Progreso for my upcoming cruise in November. I just wanna know if it is worth the long bus ride.

[Buckimion]

47 minutes ago, bigbro501 said:

How was Chichen Itza?  Doing it in Progreso for my upcoming cruise in November. I just wanna know if it is worth the long bus ride.

My wife said it was completely worth it. She enjoyed looking out the window while I used to drive so this was more of the same. She has a bit of a short attention span so she didn't feel rushed at the site either.

[Buckimion]

Headed home - Sea Day 2 (Day 😎

 

 

Having pretty much exhausted ourselves on this trip,  we mostly relaxed and enjoy the ride home. We started our day with a buffet breakfast as usual,  and then had the sea day brunch for lunch.

 

 

While my wife relaxed in our room, I roam the ship snapping more pictures.

 

 

 

We were really bummed out when the arcade duck machine went down on the second day. it remained down even though it has been refilled mid-trip.

 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Buckimion

[Buckimion]

Last sea day cont' & debarkation

 

Not the best shot in the world, but I had previously mentioned that the space on Valor between Guys and Blue Iguana and the main buffet was significantly wider than Triumph in comparison. There's easily a couple of extra feet here in comparison to the picture in my Triumph trip report.

 

Getting closer to Louisiana as we start to pass oil rigs.

 

For dinner, we decided to have Seafood Shack, something that we enjoy it on the Triumph. As is my habit, I had the mixed seafood platter while my wife had a bread bowl of chowder and crab cakes.

 

 

After an early bed time, we awoke and gathered our things for one last buffet breakfast. Not being in a huge hurry since we weren't due to be picked up for our airport shuttle until 1:30 at the Hilton Riverside, I selected middle-of-the-pack Zone 12 which seemed to work out reasonably well for us. it did seem to take a long time for them to get through the self-service luggage people. 

 

 

Eventually, we moved on from the buffet to the theater to wait out our turn which didn't take too long. when they did call our Zone along with several others it was a little bit more crowded than the last time on Triumph, but not the zoo that Elation was. I had purchased a rolling trolley for my soft sided duffel bags and had to unpack it to strap my bags on top of it. For some reason, I could never get the bags completely straight and they kept rolling off to one side or the other. we eventually strolled the back alley to Riverwalk were we had a bite and my wife did some last minute shopping.

 

Wife is not happy that vacation is almost over.

 

Getting close to 1pm, I told her it was time to move through the hotel to our pick up position, but with my bags constantly rolling one side or the other it took us longer than I expected. the shuttle pulled up about 30 seconds after we stepped out the door. The rest of the flight home was mostly issue free, although because we had a quick turnaround in Atlanta we didn't have time to stop for a bite and my wife started getting hangry. Added to that headache was a slightly delayed shuttle home, and I was lucky that my wife didn't start gnawing on my arm before I had a chance to order us a pizza.

 

What's next?

 

Back in February, we had a little windfall with our tax refund not long after Carnival Miracle's itineraries were released. Perusing the trips to Hawaii, I found I was not too late to grab a 4K fully handicapped room for Feb 2021 out of San Diego  so I locked it in. At the time, it was one of the best non-suite accessible rooms available and they have all since been sold out

 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Buckimion

[airlink diva]

I was on the same sailing and sat behind y'all during the morning show.

[Lottacruises]

Good pics

[Ideb]

Nice trip report. Thanks for sharing.

[Butterbean1000]

On 9/18/2019 at 1:26 PM, Buckimion said:

A few (more) words on handicap access...

 

Valor was a definite upgrade over Triumph, but it wasn't without its own issues. As previously mentioned, There were a LOT of wheelchairs and scooters on this trip and not a few ended up in the hallways or in stairwell alcoves. More interesting was that the ship apparently 'lent out' a few of its own wheelchairs for the cruise duration. People have long argued over such a thing being possible and now I've seen it actually done.

 

One of the issues I complained about the Triumph was steel plates over the seams of the ship which made crossing in a manual wheelchair difficult.  This problem may be even worse on the Valor and extend to some of the elevator entrances. My scooter balked more than once at some of these. 

 

One advantage that Valor did have was in the passageways between the buffet and Guys/Blue Iguana. There was definitely a couple of feet extra width on Valor which made it much easier to pass though. 

I was on a knee scooter while on the Magic last year.  These were an issue.   I almost did a header more than once.

[wickky]

How is security screening during embarkation with a scooter?

[Buckimion]

1 minute ago, wickky said:

How is security screening during embarkation with a scooter?

 

Zipped right though. A quick, light pat down not nearly as intrusive as the airport.

[Buckimion]

Dead horse diaries

 

Now that I've had a chance to stop and relax, the old brain has been reminding me of things I had forgotten to mention...

 

Muster drill

We heard over the PA that muster drill was about to start, but due to a backup at the elevators my wife decided to go ahead and take the stairs down while I headed to guest services to confirm where it was going to be. I was directed by a ship's officer to the theater and since I didn't see my wife anywhere in sight, I messaged her on my phone. I was the second to arrive and there were four or five other groups that came in after me. Before we knew it, Kevin was doing the presentation over the PA for everybody and there wasn't any crew in the auditorium checking in on us! We kind of looked at each other in disbelief confusion, but after the spiel, he gave the go-ahead for handicapped passengers to leave first. Since most of us had been through this before, we pretty much shrugged our shoulders and split, with one set of first-time cruisers heading to guest services to try to get a personalized run through. My wife says is she headed down the stairs they pretty much pushed her out the door into our area. She told them that I was attending the handicap presentation and they let it go at that, but kept her at their station.

 

Internet

The onboard internet on Valor is the worst I have ever seen. In short, it was unusable in any part of the ship forward of the main lobby. I did have acceptable service from the lobby back to Lido deck.

 

Handicapped cabin position

are handicap cabin was located in an odd corner of the ship,  right by the 'secret deck'. Being at a right angle to the hall was a pretty awkward turn on the scooter to aim for the door which at least did have a power assist on it. In addition, we also heard the door to the deck slam day and night.

 

Smoking areas

Although smoking is a habit I never acquired, thanks to my mom being a lifelong smoker, I don't get bothered by cigarette smoke as much as others. Still, the casino area and indeed all of the Promenade deck had a heavy cigarette smell, more noticeable than on past cruises. On Triumph, there was an additional smoking area outside of the main lobby on the port side. For Valor, when I tried to get to the barbecue stand I found I had to pass through an outdoor smoking area on 10. 

[debnbub]

Thanks for taking the time to do this trip report.  It has been great following along.  I was wondering about when you got your sail and sign card.  We last sailed out of New Orleans on the Dream in January 2018 and were issued our cards inside the terminal at check-in.  Are they still doing that or have they switched over to having the cards in the mail slot outside your cabin door?  We sail on the Valor on December 2nd and are counting down the days!!  

[Buckimion]

10 hours ago, debnbub said:

Thanks for taking the time to do this trip report.  It has been great following along.  I was wondering about when you got your sail and sign card.  We last sailed out of New Orleans on the Dream in January 2018 and were issued our cards inside the terminal at check-in.  Are they still doing that or have they switched over to having the cards in the mail slot outside your cabin door?  We sail on the Valor on December 2nd and are counting down the days!!  

They were outside of the door after the rooms were released.

 

I was worried a bit that my wife would want her first soda before we had the cards and didn't know if one of the bars would accept the receipt showing we'd paid for the Bubbles package.

 

As far as the check in and cards themselves, check in was significantly faster than in the past and the envelope containing the cards was well sealed against fraud so I had no worries there.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Buckimion