Carnival Valor Review

Valor Yeah's and Nay's

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Valor
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sedlakaj
First Time Cruiser • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Jan 2010

Our first cruise was on the Carnival Miracle, just my husband and I (age 50) This cruise we were booked for the Valor flying into FL taking the ship out of Miami. This time we brought our daughter's and boyfriend (age 28-33)In retrospect should have taken a cruise ship out of FL. (We booked air after booking ship). In any case, a word of advice..hotels in FL w/ airport shuttle is going to cost you a bundle, since we had to get additional transportation to Miami and therefore did not need them to take us back to the airport,it really wasn't worth it. Take a taxi from the airport. We used SAS transportation based on reviews on this website for the transfers to the port of Miami. Thought we could save 16 bucks each way over carnivals prices. We were late getting picked up from the hotel but that didn't bother us too much. The disorganization on the ride back from our cruise was another matter, the first van said he would be back in 3 min to get us, not so. Three vans passed us before one finally pointed to a red bus on the side of the terminal. Why did it take 3 vans passing to tell us that? The bus doesn't even say SAS. It seems like a start up business for Steve and he hasn't taken the time to figure out how to communicate to customers the return trip details. A flyer would be helpful. The time delay had made us nervous, we had an 11:50 flight. We arrived at the airport and there was a huge line. Upon further inspection I think that some of them did not know that they were standing in the SkyCab line. The line inside was crazy too so be careful in booking a flight too early. Getting back to the ship reviews, the Valor was an decent ship. The room was very nice and spacious. The food in the buffet was OK. The grill for hamburgers/hotdogs/pizza were outstanding, as well as the dining room dinners. We also chose to get breakfast in the main dining room since I wasn't too crazy over the buffet food. Our groups biggest complaint was that the hot tub was luke warm the entire trip. The movie screen was supposed to play an ELO concert but had forgotten to change the audio so the first half hour we were listening to Barry White and REM while watching ELO. That stuff just shouldn't happen. With 1100 crew someone should be accountable for those kind of screw up's happening. Forget the slots, play craps (my first time, it was fun)or roulette. Lost tons the first few days on slots. Forget Bingo too, cost's you money and you play only a couple of hands. Try to make it to the adult comedy shows, they are so funny! Word of advice, get there early or you will be standing. Karaoke was also funny. I agree with another CC review. The "tex" messages were hokey. We didn't let these things take away form our trip but hopefully the Valor can read these reviews and take it up a notch.

Cabin Review

We were across from the elevator, upper deck loved the location.

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