My husband and I along with another couple of 20-somethings chose Carnival Valor Western Caribbean itinerary as our first cruise experience. We thought the ports sounded very interesting, and were glad that there was 4 ports since most 7 day cruises only have 3 ports. We flew in quite late Saturday night (midnight) so booked an airport hotel through Hotwire which turned out to be the La Quinta Airport North. This turned out to be just fine for what we needed, and the pickup at the airport by their free shuttle was quite prompt. On Sunday we got to the Port of Miami by 11:30 and embarkation was very fast since we had filled out our Funpasses in advance.

The Ship: The ship is beautiful, very clean and in very good shape. It had every amenity a person could need and more. We loved the adults only pool area at the aft part of the Lido deck and spent a good amount of time there during sea days. The only thing to remember is that some decks dead end and you can't get through to either the front or back of the ship, so we always just went to deck 5 which goes all the way from bow to aft and then up or down from there.

The Food: Loved it!!! We only had a few lunches on the ship, but the buffet food was excellent according to my husband, and the food I had from the Oriental window and Mongolian buffet was also really good. We ate supper in the Washington Dining room every evening at the 8:00 sitting which was perfect timing, as that meant we could grab a quick bite from the grill or pizzeria around 4pm after our excursions and that would get us through till dinner. I think our favorite was the 24 hour access to the ice cream machines. Breakfast was room service for us. There isn't any hot options for room service breakfast, but it was so convenient to leave the order out on the door and just have it come in the morning before those early excursions. Overall the food was better than I expected, especially in the dining room. Our servers were fantastic!! Read more