I recently had the pleasure of sailing aboard the Carnival Valor on a 7 night Western Caribbean cruise from Miami to Grand Cayman, Roatan, Belize and Cozumel. I originally had planned to fly to Miami for embarkation, but a combination of bad weather and a lack of hotel rooms for the night before embarkation convinced me to drive. A friend came along and used my car to tour south Florida while I sailed, which worked out great for both of us.

This was my second Carnival cruise as I had sailed aboard the Destiny 4 years ago on an Eastern Caribbean cruise. I was very worried about embarkation and debarkation as both had been nightmares aboard Destiny, but Carnival seems to have overcome these hurdles at their new port facilities in Miami. I arrived at noon, was dropped off by my friend and was on board slurping a Mojito within one half hour. Everything was smooth and well choreographed. The cabins didn't open until 1:30 p.m. so I had time to tour the upper decks and familiarize myself with the ship.

Valor's layout is very similar to the Destiny, but much larger. A constant stressor on Destiny had been the traffic jams on the Promenade deck, especially around the dinner hours. Valor's larger size seemed to relieve this problem and was probably assisted by moving the photo display area to a lower deck. Portraits were still being taken on the Promenade, but there seemed to be more room for it on this ship. Read more