Carnival Valor Review
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I am only about 6 months late writing this review, but better late than never, so here goes.
We had a large group on the Carnival Valor on the 10/24/09 sailing from Miami to the Western Carribean (Grand Cayman, Belize, Roatan Island and Cozumel). We were celebrating one member of our groups 30th birthday. In all, we had 17 people. Ages ranged from mid 20's to mid 40's. Some of our group had cruised many times and we also had several first timers. We also had people book various cabin types from an Interior to a Balcony. Our group was mostly from the Kentucky/Ohio area, with some joining us from Montana and California.
For me, this was my 11th Carnival cruise and first time on the Valor. I had previously been to all of the ports except for Roatan Island, Honduras. Many people in our group (including myself, previously) worked for a commercial airline. Many of us flew in the day before standby. For the first time since my 2nd cruise, I booked confirmed airfare. Me and three others from our group flew into Ft. Lauderdale the morning before our cruise. We flew Delta non-stop to FLL and arrived right on time. I had arranged sedan service to pick us up from FLL and take us to our hotel in downtown Miami. When researching different types of transportation, I found this to be the most bang for our buck. I got a taxi quote for about $60 not incl. tip. And we did not want to do a long shared shuttle service that stopped at multiple hotels. We were able to secure the sedan for approximately $65 incl. tip. A couple days before we left our group of three flying together went up to 4. So I called the company and they upgraded us to an SUV for no extra cost. While we were waiting for our luggage, I received a text from our driver and he said that he was at the airport and to call when we had our bags and he would drive around to baggage claim and pick us up. We had our bags a few minutes later, so I called him and he was curbside in about 3 minutes. It only took us about 20 minutes to get to our hotel. I would highly recommend this service instead of a taxi or shared ride. In 30 minutes from the time we stepped off the plane we were at our hotel. Totally worth it. Other members of our group, used the ride share and it took them 45 minutes to an hour to get from MIA to our hotel.