We just returned from our 7 day cruise on the Valor, which left Miami on April 1st. We had 8 rooms and 18 people on ship for a family reunion. Some came from as far as Hawaii and the west coast. Some of us live in Florida. Most of us arrived the night before and spent the evening in South Beach so as not to worry about last minute delays. This worked out well.

First and foremost, cruising during spring break was a Big mistake. We were told by staff that there were more than 3400 passengers on board. Carnival's web site indicates capacity for Valor to be 2974. We knew that the ship would be packed, but we didn't know that Carnival would not make any effort to alleviate some of the problems that occurred. Embarkation took about an hour and a half. Carnival had about 15 staff members in the initial room checking passengers in and checking IDs, getting credit card info. This went very quickly. Unfortunately, there were only 2 staff members on the gangway to distribute the sail and sign cards and then a few more to take the picture that went with the sail and sign. That is where the line slowed down. I took a Hawaii cruise with NCL during Christmas break and they have embarkation down to a science. We did not have a single piece of paperwork. We just showed our IDs and Credit cards at the first desk, and boarded the ship, Maybe a total of 15 minutes. It was frustrating to start off our reunion in such a long line, knowing that it could be done better.

The major disappointment and frustration occurred in the ports, especially Belize and Cayman. In those two ports the ship used local tenders. The night before, our Carnival news indicated that we should get a tender sticker at 9:00 and then relax and enjoy the ship until our number was called. Our group was in line by 8:30 and received #5 stickers. This was very important because we had arranged our own excursion with "Cave-tubing.com" Butts UP! (more on that later). We started down to the exit right after 1-3 were called. A disaster awaited. No one on the Carnival staff cared what sticker anyone had. We were on a tender with people who proudly wore #41. By the time we reached the 2nd tender port, people understood the stickers were really meaningless, although it appeared that most did bother to get one. My sister and I had a Carnival excursion, so we did not have to wait, but other members of my family picked up sticker #25 (at 9 am!!!) and at 12:30 gave up on getting off the ship. How was Carnival at fault? 1st We watched other cruise lines DROP THEIR OWN TENDERS as well as using the locals. NONE of Carnival's ships did this. So passengers waited on tenders shared with other ships. With the exception of Roatan, we were with a minimum of 5 other ships. 2nd, The staff did nothing. From the looks of the chaos, you'd have thought this was the 1st time they tendered into a port. Staff stood around, watching, but not saying a thing. I was amazed no one was hurt. Read more