Carnival Valor Review

Great Cruise - would highly recommend!

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Valor
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OntCruise
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Mar 2008
Cabin: Balcony
Traveled with children

In total we were a group of 15 family members from Ontario. There were 7 in my party (3 cabins). We left the afternoon of March 8th in a horrible snow storm on our way to Detroit. Luckily we made it on time and no delays with the planes. We had a great flight to Miami - smooth and clear. I had booked the Sheraton Miami Mart for one night. We arrived late, and with the time change, it was almost 3:00 am before we got to bed. We arrived at port at 12:25 pm and were on the ship by 1:00 pm. It was very easy and quick and everyone was very friendly. We explored the ship and were in our staterooms by just after 2:00 pm. All our luggage arrived quickly, except one bag that lost a luggage tag - we recovered it later that night. My husband and I had balcony cabin 6443 and our kids had inside staterooms 6451 and 6455. I was very impressed with the size of the balcony cabin and it felt bigger than the Monarch of the Seas (Royal) cruise we went on 12 years ago. Our room steward was Mong from Thailand (I think) and he was fantastic. We introduced ourselves briefly and he called us by our first names each and every time he saw us. I thought that was pretty impressive! The rooms were clean and towels were plentiful. The kids really liked the towel animals. We loved having the balcony and this would be a must for any future cruising we do. The convenience of our cabin to the elevators was wonderful but I must warn you if you are a light sleeper or if noise bothers you .. do not book cabin 6443. The location is great but you are right smack at the hall where everyone gets off the elevators. People warned us that we might hear noise from above or noise from below but the real noise was from the hallway. You could hear every "ding" of the elevators, which did not bother me but the problem was that everyone who got off the elevators stood outside our cabin door and discussed their morning plans or said goodbye to their friends before retiring for the night. We really only heard noise from the piano bar below the final night -- I think people were partying it up!! The noise was not enough to spoil our vacation but next time I would request being a little further up the hall. My kids were just down the hall and they did not hear the noise at all. It was very windy when we left Miami and the next day so the ship was moving around quite a bit. I found I felt the movement much less at the back of the ship then I did at the front. We went up to the Spa to check it out and I couldn't believe how much movement you could feel up there.

Overall the ship was very nice... much larger than the previous ship we were on. The decor was... well... kinda tacky in my opinion, but then again I'm Canadian so the whole Americana theme doesn't do much for me. Decor aside, more importantly the ship was VERY CLEAN, which means more to us than the decor. There was lots to do and the activities were really fun. I thought the entertainment was very good -- except for the last night when the passengers did impersonations. That was brutal and painful to listen to. Surprising with a ship of 3000 passengers they couldn't find anyone who could sing (except for the Frank Sinatra guy, he was really good). We loved Chris the cruise director. I thought he was very funny -- although I heard lots of people say they found him very annoying. We loved Matt the bingo guy - YA BABY!!!

Food was very good. We cruised 12 years ago on Royal as did some others in our party and we all agreed that Royal has better food and better presentation overall. The Valor food was still very, very good don't get me wrong. The deli was awesome and the turkey sandwiches and wraps were so good! The kids loved the pizza and ice cream. Food at Rosie's was good although other than breakfast, we didn't eat there a whole lot. The food waste is incredible and I wish people would only take what they are going to eat. It bothers me to see plates loaded with food and see the waiters throw it all away. We had the 8:00 pm seating in the Washington dining room. "Park" was our head waiter, a very nice man from Korea. He was kinda forgetful and mixed up a whole bunch of things throughout the week, but hey it's vacation so you gotta let the little things slide. The assistant waiter Kadek was wonderful as was our beverage waitress who was very good at remembering our drink orders each night. We loved the singing and dancing each night in the dining room and the kids loved swinging the napkins around in the air!

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin 8A
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