This was my third cruise, my husbands second and my sons first. We flew to Miami the day before. We stayed at The holiday Inn near the port. This hotel was nice and very convenient to Bayside Market. I would definitely stay there again. We got to the port at 11:00, we were on the ship at 11:45. it was so easy. We went to lido and had lunch. I had a rueben from the deli which are fantastic. Then we got our drinks, checked out the room and explored the ship. Muster went by quickly and we were on our way. We had 5:45 seating in the washington dinning room. Our waiters Elmer and Ariel were great. We had dinner there 5 of the nights. The food was good. Our last night we ate at the supper club Scarlettes. It was fantastic. If we had gone there earlier in the week we would have done it twice. It was defiantly worth the money. Our first stop was Nassau. We were only there 7-2 so not a lot of time. We went to Blackbeards beach it was very nice nothing exciting. Our second stop was St. Thomas. We shopped in the morning. We got some great deals on jewelry, We took the sky ride up to paradise point. It was such a beautiful view.Then we took a boat over to St. John to Trunk bay. We snorkeled, but the water was a little cloudy. The beach was beautiful, the sand was so soft. we just hung out and swam. It was a nice day.

Our third stop was St. Maarten. We had set up a tour with a man from the island via email, but i messed up the time because ship time was an hour ahead of island time so we were a hour late and he had left. We were not the only ones who made this mistake, there were 4 others as well. A nice lady named Ationettte took us. She drove us around the island and then took us to Orient Beach. The beach was wonderful. I definitely want to go there again. Our days at sea were fun. We just hung out on lido deck. The weather was great, we did not have one bad day. I spent a lot of time in the casino. I won some i lost some. It was fun. Most of the shows were good. The comedians were funny. My son is 12 so he signed up for the 12-14 camp carnival.There were 4 other kids in that group. He had fun with them but there was a lot of time when the club lacked activity. I think carnival need to work on this age group and have more activities for them. My son still had a wonderful time. Debarkation went smoothly. We stayed an extra day in miami. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency near the port. Never again. The Holiday inn was much better. WE had a wonderful vacation.The valor was great. We cant wait to go again.