Valor 1/22-1/29 Western Part I

[wystiria]

Carnival Valor Review – 1/22/06 – 1/29/06

 

Ok here is my crazy review of the carnival Valor!! I am going to go into detail and will probably be very long winded so I will include an “itinerary” of my review so you can read the parts you are most interested in 

 

Over view of the group

Miami – South Beach (SOBE)

Embarkation

The Ship, specific rooms etc.

Dining

Scarlettes

Grand Cayman

***Diving with Neptune Divers

***Island, Stingrays, Rum tour w/Nativeway

Roatan

***Diving w/Subway Water Sports

***Kayaking & Lunch w/Subway Water Sports

***Dolphin Encounter

Belize

***Canopy Tour & Cave Tubing w/Nacho Thru Jaguar Paw Resort

*** Ruins tour w/Carnival

Costa Maya

***Diving w/Dreamtime Dive

***Beach Party & Snorkeling w/Dreamtime Resort

Disembarkation

 

 

Over View of the Group:

Our group consisted of 22 people between the ages of 20 & 63, with a huge contingency of late 20’s early 30 year olds. I am the ring leader and am 29 w/ my husband coming in at 25. Most of us have cruised before and most of us have a number of cruises w/carnival. We did have a few first time carnival cruisers in the group. We had people from the following states/country: CT, NY, NJ & Canada

 

As the Ring leader I can tell you that we had MANY types of personalities with us. We had people who drank – people who didn’t, some who gambled some who didn’t – we were all pretty active on this itinerary and so there are many tours and different accounts from the said tours. I will do my best to put them all together for you in a useable format!

 

We had the following rooms in our group: 7445 (mine!!!) 7440, 7322, 9227, 9223, 9235, 9226, 9210, 9222, 9219, 9231. I will review my room & Lido Forward in the ship portion of this review. If you have questions about any of the others just ask and I will try and get the answers to them!!

 

Hope you enjoy the review 

 

Miami – South Beach (SOBE)

For the most part the group all arrived in Miami Friday the 20th. The way we saw it – we didn’t have to take anymore vacation time so we might as well party in south beach before the cruise!! The entire group stayed at the Clay Hotel & Hostel in SOBE on Washington Ave. & Espanola way http://www.clayhotel.com We had 11 people stay in the hostel part and the rest in private rooms in the Hotel section.

 

Hostel: The Clay Hostel was by far one of the best deals we have found to date!!! For 22$ a night the group was able to book two rooms each with a private bathroom. The rooms were dormitory in style with bunk beds. We had a room for 8 and a room for 4, the room for 8 also had a small kitchenette with a refrigerator. The rooms were clean and towels and sheets were provided at no extra charge.

 

We had a BLAST at the hostel!! It is right in the middle of the action on Espanola Way surrounded by great restaurants and cool little shops. Also we met a number of people from around the world also staying at the hostel. If you have stayed at a European hostel I would say that the Clay hostel was cleaner and a bit quieter but other wise comparable. Also the security was great- we all had hotel style room card that allowed us in and out of our rooms as well as in and out of the hostel it’s self. There was also a full kitchen so if people wanted they could cook their own meals – we didn’t do this but did hang out late at night and drink beers with some of the other hostel guests.

 

Hotel: The clay hotel rooms are also a great bargain!!!! I believe the most expensive room they had was 100$ a night. And in SOBE this is nothing! The rooms were clean – and secure but there are no thrills. Some of them come with refrigerators. The only complaint in the gang was that some of them have beds that seemed a bit smaller than average.

 

SOBE: since we were all there for the weekend the gang did a number of things. We did some shopping on Lincoln drive (within walking distance of the hotel/hostel) played some beach volleyball, sun worshipped and ate at any number of great restaurants in the area. We only took taxi’s to and from the airport and Port. We could walk every where else. We also gorged ourselves on FL oranges that were so yummy and could be bought at the grocery store!

 

For people general info – we found a van driver to take our group from teh airport to SOBE and from SOBE to the port for 55$ one way. The van driver had a small trailer attached so there was room for our luggage. I arranged for him to pick the entire group up and bring us to the port Sunday the 29th. He showed up with a friend and we all got to the port for 110$ (22 people!) He also picked up 12 of us from teh port and brought us to the airport on the 29th. The service was Mega Services Inc. Ricardo Veas (786)285-7167 Megatours@hotmail.com

 

Embarkation:

So Ricardo Brought us from the Clay hotel to the port for 10:30 am. We were able to check in at the front desk, NOT the 20 or so desks further in that they normally use for check-in. this went very smoothly and soon we were in line to get on the ship. In the line we found most of the crazy characters we had been talking to on our roll call! Snoopy One, Beerme, SuttonTNT, all of us we there early and couldn’t wait to get on the ship.

 

After a brief time in line they started letting us board the ship. The Miami terminal is pretty large and it was a decent walk through the various halls before we were greeted by the famous carnival Paparazzi – had our pictures taken and proceeded to board the ship with a case of champagne in hand! So for all of those who were interested if they were enforcing the one bottle of wine or champagne per person – I can tell you they weren’t. In fact they never even looked int eh box!!!!! We brought on board a case of champagne and in between the bottles we had some sherry and other dessert wines. No problems.

 

We boarded the Valor at 11:45 and made our way to our rooms. Well I should say most of the group did. For everyone in our group on the lido – their rooms were ready. For those of us on empress deck we have to wait till 1pm. No problems we commandeered a large table in Rosie’s and stuffed ourselves on the great food till our rooms were ready!

 

The Ship:

The Valor is A gorgeous ship! When it comes to decor I think she is my favorite carnival ship of the ones I have been on. As everyone knows the theme is “heroes” mostly it is very American in nature and you see red white and blue everywhere. I liked this theme! And although there were a lot of eagles it wasn’t so overboard like the legend and its urns!!!!!

 

Rosie’s – the main buffet is decorated like an old diner – with green and stainless steep everywhere. I liked it – there were also tile mosaics of “Rosie” from the WWII advertisements asking women to join the work force. We never had a problem finding seats and the staff did a great job of keeping it clean. The only thing I noticed was that the purell dispensers were absent.

 

Upstairs in Rosie’s is the fish and chips venue – GREAT – make sure you check it out! Also there are almost always tables up here and it is much quieter!

 

Bronx Bar – the Bronx bar was great – personally I am not a Yankees fan but it was really a great motif! Definitely check it out.

 

The caboose: this was a reallllly cool arcade! I think it is also one of the largest I have seen. Nope we don’t have kids but we made sure to check it out. They also have some really fun swivel chairs in here in the back make sure to check them out.

 

Lincoln and Washington Dining rooms: WOW talk about CORAL! I had read the reviews about the “pink” in the dining rooms and they definitely were. There was neon coral lighting on the ceilings and pick walls and mauve and pick chairs. I know this sounds like and advertisement for Pepto – but believe it or not it wasn’t that bad. And with all the cream from the linens it was ok. Can’t say I would try and replicate this in my house though *wink*

 

Winston Cigar bar: so I was here a few times because of Tea – Yes they served Tea in the CIGAR BAR!!!! (more on the tea in the food section) the cigar bar definitely made me think – old England – dark woods, leather, dark colors and low lighting. It was a cool place – if you could get rid of the smokers  in regards to having tea here I thought that and odd choice – but it didn’t reek the way I though it would!

 

Ivanhoe theater – I didn’t spend much time here – mostly because I didn’t go to a single show. But it was nicely decorated and didn’t seem to have as many blocked view seats as I have seen on the other ships. Also in the top tier there are tables with swivel chairs that are quite comfy.

 

Shops – the shops are decorated like all the others but what I wanted to say was for the first time I was not tempted by a single thing in the shops!!!!!! I was blown away and the lack of jewelry on board! And there was also very little by way of alcohol choices. I thought this was really strange since it is in carnivals best interests to sell you everything it can. Oh well good for the budget.

 

Formal shop – of note it is worth it to add that the formal show has a nice variety of candy *yum* and it wasn’t expensive. So I got to get in a my gummy worm fix *laugh*

 

Spa – my self and husband both went to the spa, we had Wraps and full body massages Fabulous! We both paid the additional 15$ for the dry flotation bed. WELL WORTH IT! This is the greatest thing! You are wrapped in seaweed and then foil and then towels and then they envelope you in this butterfly shaped “blanket” that fills with water above you and the table drops out and you are cushioned from below with more water. It is fabulous you feel like you are weightless. Plus they can heat the water to any temperature so you will be nice and cozy. My only complaint was that they didn’t have ANY massage oil on board. Really I think the Valor missed a few shipments of goods for our sailing! Heh – just means I spent a little less on my drink or sink card 

 

Everywhere else you see the same themes – and for the most part I think the valor is pretty restrained in comparison to some of the other Carnival ships! Thumbs up for this décor!

 

State Rooms:

7445 – ok so FINALLY we booked ourselves a wrap around balcony! This room was AWESOME! The balcony fit the entire group and had room for a little more!!!! Plus we had both a windy side and a non-windy side and the same can be said for sun exposure. It was great because we could layout all our scuba gear and it would dry over night. Just got to remember to bring it in at night because early in the AM they turn on the sprinklers and wash the back of the ship. We also got to layout back here – and um so long as you stayed close to the ship wall people couldn’t look down and see you – if you catch my drift.

The room itself is nothing special, the orientation is a little different with the bed kitty corner to the door. The only thing that can be said is due to the position of the bed it is very easy to use the bed for a card table.

 

Also in our shower we had two dispensers (they were in all the rooms) one with Dove shampoo and the other with Dove cucumber green tea body wash – I love this soap so was very happy!

 

We had the complimentary basket of goodies – my favorite was the little packets of fizzy vitamin drink! I forgot our vitamins and this stuff had a lot of vitamin C and other essentials and I swear it kept my now head cold at bay for the few days I was still on the ship!!

 

Lido rooms – all of the lido rooms were standard balcony or inside rooms. But this is a great spot on the ship. Our group on the lido all booked guarantees and they were happy to get assigned these rooms! There are rooms above nad below them so it is quiet, they are on the lido so it’s a quick walk to the action, and they are foreward so that they don’t have a lot of traffic.

 

We had very little motion on the valor this trip – though both in our wrap around and the lido rooms you could feel it a bit more than in the center of the ship. But compared to my time spent on the Tahitian princess the Valor was a smooooooth ride!

 

more to follow!!

[salty dingo]

Wow, thanks so much for the very detailed review. Makes the anticipation of waiting to sail on Valor that much more intense.

 

Can't wait to read the rest!

[wystiria]

3 parts up and more to come!!

 

Hope you all enjoy reading :)

[loves2Travel68]

I'm going on this ship in 2.5 weeks!! Loving your review. Thanks for posting. :)

[jckvpa0]

Excellent review, very though! On to read part II!

[seattlejeff]

Thanks...Going with a Group of 40 or so ages late 20's to late 30's from all over the US. Anything you would change, keep the same, or not do in terms of group stuff? How did dining for your group work?

 

Thanks!

[dmdiver]

wystiria, do you have any pictures of cabin 9235? we have it in july.

[Chigirlcruzin]

wystiria, do you have any pictures of cabin 9235? we have it in july.

 

She hasn't posted since July of last year...