This was my 6th cruise and my wife's 5th. All on carnival. It was our 1 year anniversary cruise + family cruise that we booked almost a year in advance so we were counting the days down from 340 down to the day it came! We live in Central Florida so we drove 3.5 hours down to Miami the morning of the cruise. No problems there.
We pull up and see the beautiful Valor. It is a giant ship. Parking was a little confusing because the signs say to go one way, but all of the lots were closed so we had to park in the parking garage and walk like a mile over to the boat. Thank goodness we dropped the luggage off first. We had 4 rooms booked on Deck 8 (Verandah) in the back of the ship that worked out pretty well because the wife and I would close out the casino almost every night and out dining room was the Lincoln which is always to the rear of the boat.
We arrive at our room and find that it seems a lot smaller than on Sensation, Imagination or Inspiration. Maybe when they built the Valor they found a way to make the rooms smaller? We aren't cheap by any means, but we always book interior rooms as we are only there to sleep, shower and change clothes. When we go to Alaska next year we will book a balcony for sure. Our room was always clean and the steward did a very good job making towel animals and keeping the bathroom nice and clean. No complaints there. I wish we would have met her on Day 1 or 2 though. We never saw her until the 6th night when I handed her some extra money. She barely spoke any English but was so grateful and appreciative of the extra money we gave her. I did not know her name though.