We sailed on the Valor a few years ago and had a great time. It seems that this time around, seeing as it's due for dry dock to upgrade, Carnival was definitely not on top of things being in top shape.The majority of the coffee machines weren't working and no attempt was made to repair any of them. Frustrating for those of us who aren't morning people and would like a cup of joe to get going, but having to search the ship to find a machine that works.
The staff was absolutely top notch from room stewards, to waiters, to those in the fun shops. All in all, a great cruise just the same. Just hoping that some care will be put into the ship since it shows that it affects the morale of the staff. The fun shops were lacking in merchandise and most things were "sold out" right from the start of our cruise. This is not something I really care about, but our son loves to have a model ship from each of the cruises he's on, and was unable to buy one from Day 1. It just felt that between the Fun shops, lack of working coffee machines and a few other things (a proper toilet being one of them), Carnival was not too interested in the satisfaction of their clientele.
We were surprised at the lack of shows this time around, but not too upset by it since we were getting up early most days for our excursions. We did find that the shows we went to were the same as the ones as the last 2-3 cruises we've been on with Carnival.
Our cabin was fine for the most part, but our bathroom was an ongoing issue all week long and we seemed to see and awful lot of maintenance crew coming in to fix our flooding bathroom. And when I say flooding, I mean we could have got out a boat and floated around in the bathroom. This happened at least 3 times during the week. Plenty of room for 3 people, and easily could have fit a 4th. The balcony was nice and private. Have always loved Carnival for the amount of storage space!