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Carnival Valor Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,524 reviews

Family Cruise on Carnival Valor 8/28/11

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Valor
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mommyof3girls
10+ Cruises • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Aug 2011
Cabin: Balcony
Traveled with children

A little background: I'm 37, mother of 3 little girls ages 5,4 and 2. The 2 y.o. stayed with my parents and did not come on this trip. I spent a year and half working for Cunard Line on the QE 2 and one contract on the Royal Viking Sun. I worked on the Cruise Staff (entertainment staff) and was Social Secretary on the World Cruise, QE 2, 1998. I also did the kids activities, etc. So, I have never been a guest on a Cunard Cruise but now exactly what goes on. Cunard and Carnival could not be more different but each has special qualities for their guests and it's a "To each his own" type of thing, in my opinion. The 2 lines cannot really be compared but I think both have lots to offer. Anyway, back to this trip.....Thanks to Hurricane Irene, we left Philadelphia a day earlier than planned, which made our vacation 10 days long and that was OK with me! We arrived in Fort Lauderdale on 8/26 and stayed at the Comfort Suites FLL airport hotel. It was your basic budget hotel. I had booked it using reward points on my CC so it was free. Cute little pool, the kids enjoyed it. We could walk to CVS, Pizza shop, and Outback Steakhouse for dinner. The next morning we met some members our party and took our pre-arranged shuttle through Sunshine Tours to the Embassy Suites, Miami Airport, where we met the rest of our party, 19 in all. We enjoyed this hotel a lot. The free cocktail hour, free, hot made to order breakfast, the comfy suites, etc. It was great for a pre-cruise stay!Next we arrived at POM. We all checked in and since we wanted to get a group pic together, the staff said we could all board under one person's zone number, of course we chose the person with the lowest number, which was 12. Boarding was quick and easy. We went directly to Lido, with the rest of the guests and were eating lunch by 1pm, we left the hotel at 11Am..not bad! At 1:30pm, our staterooms were ready. We had an 8B balcony stateroom on deck 6, midship. I LOVED it!! The girls enjoyed the bunk beds very much, my husband and I had a comfy king and our balcony was fabulous. Plenty of storage space in the cabin as well. We met our group for our first meal in the Washington dining room. Early seating 6pm. Every meal in the dining room was FABULOUS! Our waiters were also GREAT! Service was great, a little slow a few of the nights but we were not in a rush, so it didn't matter. We went to the Camp Carnival meeting and got all of the info. for the next day. We were supposed to go to Half Moon Cay but because of Irene, we went to Nassau instead. I'm not a huge Nassau fan, so hubby and I stayed onboard. Kids all went to Camp. Here was our first mistake. The kids all said that they wanted to stay for lunch at camp so when we picked them up at 1:30pm, a few of them were in tears. They said it was too long and they started to miss us. My 5 y.o. never really got over it and was not a big fan of camp, but the 4 y.o. and most of the others loved it. The 4 y.o. even went to the late night party until 12AM and really had fun, the 5 y.o. just wanted to go to bed. We didn't mind, we like doing things as a family so she went to a few more activities but we also enjoyed lots of quality time together. That night, we took the girls swimming after dinner and watched Scooby Doo on the big screen. They LOVED this and had a great time. Our next day was a sea day, husband and I enjoyed some time on the decks, played mini golf with the girls and everyone had a relaxing and fun day.Our next port was St. Thomas. We LOVE St. Thomas and always will. We all went to Saphire Beach. It was great. If you walk down a little past the restrooms, the beach is pretty empty. We swam, we had a few drinks, it was heaven. My DH took the girls back to the ship and the adult girls and I went shopping. I LOVED this day!San Juan: I'm not a huge San Juan fan either, so DH and I stayed onboard and enjoyed the Serenity Deck, since you can't get a seat there on sea days. It was nice, girls did a few camp activities. Some from our group, walked to the forts and said that was fun. Grand Turk: WOW! Loved it here! You walk right out into the beautiful shopping area, and then right onto the beach, Gorgeous beach. Chairs are free and there are plenty. Plenty of shade as well. We arrived at 11AM and the beach was crowded until 1pm, and then it was fairly empty. There is Margaritaville with a pool as well, but we just stayed on the beach and I did some more shopping.Our last sea day was another day to pack and relax. More of the same.Entertainment: In the evenings we always went to the comedy shows, which I thought were great and VERY funny! Then we would go to the main show in the Ivanhoe Theater. We loved them all. The singers, dancers, guest performers were great. Although, the one magician was just OK, but still entertaining. The kids loved the main shows. Fellow Guests: There did seem to be a lot of people who forgot their manners, normal etiquette, etc. One guy wore a t shirt around the ship on 2 days that read "Do I look like a XXXXX people person" (as you probably guessed, the F word was spelled out on his shirt). He even wore it to camp carnival and to the past guest party.......REALLY? I thought that someone, in authority, an officer or security, should have told him he must take it off..but he got away with wearing it 2 different days. There were lots of other rude people in the restaurants too who spoke to the staff as if they were dogs. I didn't like it and made it a point to be extra nice and polite to try and compensate for these people. However, they did not ruin our time, we were rarely bothered by them, and simply let most of it go. You are going to find rude people everywhere and I saw plenty of them when I worked on QE 2. It's a fact of life, I just felt like there were so many on this trip and it was weird. Overall, we enjoyed our cruise very much, will cruise carnival again in the future and my kids are still talking about how great the cruise was! I wish we were back there right now! Happy Cruising!

Cabin Review

Balcony

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