Carnival Valor Review
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This was our 5th cruise; all 5 were with Carnival so it would be impossible to compare it to any other cruise line. We have always loved cruising with Carnival and mostly stayed with them since we have a young son and their child program (Camp Carnival) is great.
We live in the Central Florida area so we are very luck to only have to travel a short while to get to our ports. The furthest of which is Miami where the Valor calls home, but after 3 trips out of the Port of Miami I still dont mind it. The port is very easy to find, and parking and is usually no problem. Just make sure you plan on spending $80 plus dollars. The embarkation process went very smooth, especially since this was the first cruise we have taken after signing up with the Carnival Vacation Club. With joining this club you get to take advantage of the VIP embarkation process. Which means they walk you through all of the lines, without waiting, and you dont even have to stop at the welcome aboard photo area if you dont want to. We were a little excited about this cruise since it had almost been a year since our last one, so we got to the port very early, (like 10 am). We got through all the lines, but still had to wait since they were still debarking all of the last week guest. Next time we will wait until maybe 11 am.
Once on board we immediately loved the look of the ship. We have been on the Valors sister ship the Glory so we were very familiar with the lay out, but this ship was still slightly more impressive. We booked our cruise somewhat early, and opted for an outside view cabin for the first time. Carnival Vacation Club quickly upgraded us to a higher room on the Spa deck (11th floor), and told us it was much bigger with floor to ceiling windows. They were telling us that we might still be upgraded to a balcony room, but we called them back and told them to keep us there since we were cruising with out 5 year old son. The thought of our 5 year old climbing on the balcony railing to look at all the water below was not all that fun.