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Carnival Valor Review-part I

jenny368

By jenny368,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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jenny368

jenny368

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My Review of the Carnival Valor Cruise 12/19-12/26/04

 

Part I:

 

Pre-Cruise Stay:

 

We stayed one night at the Doubletree on Biscayne Bay. Very nice hotel. Got it for $50.00 on Priceline. The only downside is that we were about the furthest room from the elevator but we needed the exercise due to the amount of food we ate the following week. Also, bring an extension cord with you because it was hard to reach the blowdryer from the outlet to the mirror. Other than that it was great. We even got warm chocolate chip cookies upon checking in. Yum, yum! Another warning. The Metromover (free tram) to different parts of the City is only about 1 block away. This was fine during the day but don’t get on it after dark. We took it to Bayside to eat dinner at Bubba Gumps. Coming back was very scarey. Also Bubba Gumps cost us $84.00 for 2 adults and 2 kids to eat. My husband and I only had 1 drink each. We thought it was kind of pricey for the type of restaurant that is was.

 

Embarkation:

 

We took a taxi (van) from the Doubletree at Biscayne Bay to the port. The cost was $24.00 plus tip. We then tipped a porter to take care of our bags for us at the port ($1.00 per bag). We made sure our cruise tags were on all of our bags before we left them. We went inside the terminal to check in about 11:00 a.m. We were on board at 11:50 a.m. right before the crowd hit. We toured around the ship and found our cabins and then went to lunch on the Lido deck. We all got pizza. It was pretty good. We are not huge pizza fans but by the time we went to eat lunch the lines were pretty long for the buffet.

 

Food in General:

 

IMO you never lack for a variety. They have a sandwich bar that has great turkey sandwiches on huge country rolls and anything else you might want. They will either serve them cold or grill them for you. We were happy to have this lower in fat option since we pretty much overindulged the whole week. There is also a sushi bar. We are not sushi eaters but I did hear people say that it was basically “budget sushi”. I could not tell you first hand. There was the buffet lines on the Lido bar that had a different variety ever day. They had a Mongolian barbeque line (did not ever eat here). They had a hamburger and hotdog line (came with fries). They also had an Asian food line. I ate here several times. It was very good. Then of course you can choose to sit down in the dining room for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. We ate dinner in the dining room every night. We were very pleased with this. The food was excellent. Especially the beef dishes. The deserts were also very good. We only ate breakfast in the dining room one morning. It was the same food you could get for yourself on the Lido deck-it just took longer to get in the dining room. But if you like to be served for breakfast this is the way to go. We love the dining experience for dinner. We just seem to be in a hurry to get to the pool in the mornings. Also, for all you late risers, they do serve breakfast on the Lido deck in the line next to the pool until 12:00 p.m. We thought this was great!

 

 

Service/Dining Room Staff:

 

In general the service is great. Our room stewart was good and earned his tip (nothing more but nothing less). We always had what we needed and had nothing much to complain about. Our waiters in the dining room were excellent. Virgil was our head waiter and he was excellent. He was a good dancer too. His assistant was also excellent. I am sorry to say that I do not know his name. The funny thing is that he is from Tunasia. He told us a story on the first night about where Tunasia was located. He said they are a part of the Roman Empire and that people from Tunasia were considered “Barbarians” so from that night on we jokingly called him “The Barbarian”. Our bar waiter went above and beyond the call of duty. His name was Daniel. He did earn an extra tip. He knew us by name. Even called us by name when he saw us elsewhere throughout the ship. He knew what we drank and always had the biggest smile on his face. I will definately miss him. This is the first cruise we have ever taken that we had a singing Matre’ D (sp?) He was awesome and sang for us every night. He also had the waiters dance for us every night. This was absolutely fabulous. Our kids also enjoyed this very much. The cruise director was “Josh”. Some people talked badly about him. Our whole family enjoyed him very much. He was very witty and seemed to work the crowd well. He was very entertaining. The social hosts/hostesses were also very good. The whole cruise seemed very well organized in the activity department.

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CCLgoddess

CCLgoddess

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sounds awesome! i'm leaving for miami in 4 days to go on the VALOR! nice review, you made me even more excited...hehe. oh i have some questions: was the ship decorated for xmas? what dining room were you in? how was the band on the lido deck? and i don't know if you went to this but was the past guest party for people that cruised on carnival before still in the afternoon? THANKS!

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jenny368

jenny368

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I posted Part 2 already so that will answer most of your questions. I can't post Capers (don't know how and don't have a scanner). I can mail copies to you if you email me your address cwvw@cox.net I will try to post pictures next week. I have lots of digital pictures but I haven't even looked at them yet because we got in late last night and I am at work today.

 

The past guest party is covered in part 2. They had two parties. One before early seating and one before late seating. The Caribbean band on Lido Deck was Cool Runnings. They were awesome. We ate late seating in the Washington Dining room.

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mikdia

mikdia

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sounds awesome! i'm leaving for miami in 4 days to go on the VALOR!

We just confirmed our first cruise and this is the one. We had a chance at a last minute vacation and got the last cabin on the ship.

This is our first crise and we can't wait to get it started!

 

Thanks for the review

:D

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Littlegoo75

Littlegoo75

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Jenny,

Did Daniel the Bartender happen to be from Lithuania? I remember when we sailed the Pride that there were a lot of Eastern Europeans / Baltic Europeans. There were quite a few Lithuanians ( my husband's family hailed from there), so we had fun with them saying a few phrases that we learned from his cousins. Daniel served as some drinks, and we looked at him and said

"Geras Shudas" ( probably not spelled right) and he looked at us amazed. We said to him in Lithuanian, "Good sh--." I bet he didn't hear that one everyday!

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Littlegoo75

Littlegoo75

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Oh yeah, Thanks for the review. We will be sailing on the Valor on Feb. 6th. Can't wait! Were there a lot of Eastern European crew on this ship as well? I hope there are some more Lithuanians to "converse" with. I am sure they don't get to hear goofy phrases in their native language all that often.

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dromMOM

dromMOM

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Littlegoo: That is so funny! Our Daniel was a bar waiter not a bartender and he was from Slovokia. Great guy. I emailed him a picture last night that we took of him. He asked me if I would and gave me his email address.

 

Daniel was a NEWBIE from what he said..

 

He was very sweet.. but tended to disappear.. and our poor waiter and assistant would have to help hunt him down...

 

My poor son would have to wait a long time for a second soda...

 

Sweet but not the most efficient.. actually he was funny... he thought he remembered what we wanted and then would bring the wrong drink to the wrong person...

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