Our cruise was booked by a company we travel with as a group. We do not get to choose the cruise, but I feel I have the right to voice my opinion since we pay our way.
This is our 3rd cruise with Carnival. The other two cruises were enjoyable, but not what I had always expected a cruise to be like. The food on Carnival ships is my main complaint. Valor had bad food. If it hadn't been for room service, which was decent, the pizza place, and the ice cream machines, I would've just chosen not to eat at all. I thought the desserts were suppose to be just delicious on a cruise ship. The best dessert I had was the Snickers bar I bought in the gift shop! I am not kidding, I am not a picky eater when it comes to dessert, but although they looked good, let's just say looks can be very deceiving. I heard tons of people complaining about the food. By about the third day even a McDonald's Happy Meal would taste pretty good!!
Embarkation was very smooth. We even got our luggage fairly soon after we arrived in our stateroom. However our room was not clean. The bed was made but the carpet was dirty and the bathroom smelled like urine. Someone finally came and cleaned the room, but the bathroom still never smelled clean. Our room steward was not very friendly at all...at least not like what we experienced on past cruises.