Our background: we are a family of 5 from the midwest.  We are 44 DH, 42 myself, 16 DD, 14 DS, 12 DD and my 38 year old sister.  I am a high school Spanish teacher, my husband works in the distilled spirts industry and my sister is a flight attendant.  Our daughter will be a senior this fall, our son entering 9th grade and our youngest entering 7th grade. We travel alot.  My husband and I have been on several cruises as has my sister and our eldest daughter has been on one other cruise.  We have traveled with Celebrity, Princess and Royal Caribbean lines.  This was our first Carnival Cruise and to be totally honest, I picked Carnival for the savings over Royal Caribbean (a total of almost $3000 for the 6 of us) and the ports were of interest to us.  I look at the ship as a mode of transportation/floating hotel.My husband and I were in a cat. 11 suite, I think cabin 7329, the girls across the hall in 7331 and my sister and son next to them inside 7327.  Not sure about the numbers, I know those three were ours, just not sure if we were 27 or 29, sorry.Please remember these are our honest opinions of the Carnival line, the Valor ship and it's staff.  Before we left I read everything I could find on the Valor so I would like to return the favor to someone else looking to sail this line and this ship.  This is the first review I have ever written so I hope to provide you with interesting and informative material.We left Cincinnati Saturday, July 4 at 9:00 am traveling on Delta.  No problems leaving Cincinnati and our direct flight to Miami landed on time at 11:30 am.  No problemo!  We stayed at the Hyatt in Coral Gables as I found it on the Priceline for $70 each room (we had 2).  Cab from the airport was about $30.  Very nice hotel, very nice area.  Restaurants within walking distance from the hotel.  Nice pool, nice bar, beautiful, huge rooms.  We took a cab to Bayside in hopes of watching the fireworks.  HUGE mistake!  OMG so many people.  We ate at the Hooters (love a good chicken wing) but could not see the fireworks because of the trees.  Leaving there was a nightmare, but we walked a little way and found a cab back to Coral Gables.  Saw tons of fireworks on the way back the hotel.  Cab ride was about $30 each way.  Lesson: if you want to go to Bayside, stay at the Holiday Inn across the street.  Next morning my husband and sister walked to the supermarket about 5 blocks away and purchased cigars and water.  We left for the port about 10:30 am.  We arrived at the Port just before 11:00 am and met a porter who we handed $20 to and 8 pieces of luggage plus the case of water.  He told us he could not take the case of water like that, so we opened it and all the bags and loaded it in.  No problemo!  We were off the the VIP check in.  A note on the VIP check in: do yourself a favor and spring for the suite if for no other reason than the VIP check in and disembarkation.  We were on the ship and having lunch by 11:30 am!  I could not believe how EASY the check in was.  The whole family was VIP because we had one suite cabin.  We walked into the lounge, showed our paperwork, picked up our tickets and then they took the whole group of us onto the ship.  Wonderful experience!As soon as we walked on the ship my sister and I stopped at the guest services to change our Sign and Sail accounts around and my husband took the kids to Rosies for lunch.  We took care of our accounts (my son had been registered on my sisters account when we registered on line) and we were off to lunch.  I stopped by and purchased drink cards and cups for the kids (i think about $42 per person) and met the family at Rosies. Rosies: this is a basic cafeteria style restaurant with a few exceptions.  The deli is not to be missed.  It is located on the right side about mid way in the restaurant.  Wonderful fresh deli sandwiches you can have grilled or not.  Hint: if you want mayo on your deli sandwich, you must go to the outside hamburger station and get it.  They don't have little cups there so I had to use an icecream cone (located right next to the hamburger station). They also have an Asian cafe on the opposite side from the deli, but the hours were strange and it was never open when we were there.  The best part of Rosies had to be the fresh stir fry station.  You choose your veggies and meats and they stir fry it up right in front of you.  Best thing in the restaurant.   My husband and the kids ate breakfast here daily, stated it was just like eating at the Golden Corral.  I ate there once for breakfast, omelet station was fine.  Hint: when you enter, go straight back, there is another serving line and tons of seating.  Everyone wants to crowd in the front, but we always found tables in the back open.  Rooms were ready and halls were open around 1:30 pm.  Our suite was not a nice as I expected.  We had mini suites on Princess and Royal Caribbean and this one was no comparison.  It seemed smaller, darker and the furniture was worn.  Balcony was small, long but not wide.  You couldn't sit on a chair facing forward without you knees touching the glass.  The bathroom was really big and nice.  It had a dressing room/vanity that made getting ready really nice.  The bed itself was very comfortable, but the bed skirt was torn in several places.  Looked ugly when the bed was made so nice.  Our cabin attendant was Eric from Peru and was wonderful.  We gave him $20 right off the bat and asked for two things: #1 fresh ice at all times and #2 to be made aware if our childrens cabins were too messy to clean!  He did a great job and my daughter and I enjoyed practicing our Spanish with him.  He spoke only Spanish with her and they just chatted up a storm.  The kids and my sister had inside cabins and they were really small.  In both cabins (ours and theirs) there was tons of storage space.  Seems like the kids spent a lot of time in our room, especially of one was getting ready or we were getting to head out somewhere together.  Overall I would say the rooms were fine.  Nothing fancy, just fine.  Note:  the tv's in all our rooms were really dated and had picture trouble on some channels (lines).  We spent the rest of the day checking out the ship, swimming and soaking up the sun and rum.  Sailed away after the muster drill and headed out to sea.  Beautiful.  We had dinner in the Lincoln dining room.  We were at a table for 6 with Albertus from Indonisia and Igor from Serbia.  They were AWESOME!  The dining room was very LOUD.  Too loud.  There was a Quince party group in our dining room and it seemed that every night they had something special to broadcast.  Loud birthday/anniversary singing, tables too close together, very cramped.  There was music playing, but you couldnt hear it until very late, when about half the crowd was gone.  We had the late seating and we enjoy that over the early one as I don't like to rush back from shore.  The food was fine.  I would say if a night out on the town for you is Applebee's then you will love it.  Nothing spectacular, but good.  The kids tried different items each night.  They are great eaters, not problems finding something they liked.  After the second night, Albertus and Igor did everything possible to get the kids their dinner pronto so they could be off the the kid zones.  Seems like all kid activities started about 9 so they would leave the table about 9:20 or so.  Several times Igor would get their desserts to go and they would drop them at their cabins and then head out on the town.  My husband, sister and I would then enjoy the rest of our meal and just relax.  We enjoyed chatting with Albertus and Igor when the crowd died down.  The kids and my sister ate in the dining room every night.  DH and I ate everynight but one, and we ate at the supper club.  OMG to die for!  Just like eating at a Ruth's Chris or if you are from Cincinnati, Jeff Ruby.  The steaks were perfect, soup, crab cake, all yummy!  Totally worth the $30 extra per person.  Hint: make your supper club reservations asap.  They fill up quickly ( basically because they only take like 6 tables per night and the rest of the restaurant was filled with staff and their families).   While I am on the food subject, my sister and I ate at the Fish and Chips,  Yuck!  Way too much grease.  Once was enough and I just picked the fish out of the batter.  The kids enjoyed the Pizza station and it was tasty.  The hamburger/hotdog station was fine also.  The kids and my sister enjoyed the fresh Sushi almost every night.  We found all the food (except the supper club) to be of the Applebees or Bob Evans quality.  Nothing spectacular, but no one went hungry.  Room Service; slow.  Dining room breakfast: I was so excited to order the eggs benidict but when they came, yuck.  Way over cooked (amost hard).  I didn't return.  Sea days we always found loung chairs.  Never right at the pools, usually a deck up.  The kids are huge swimmers but found the crowds too much.  They spent sea days playing basketball, mini golf, volleyball, trivia or hanging in the Circle C.  Seemed hard to get bar service on Sea days, the bars just were not staffed to take on a full ship.  I waited way almost 15 minutes in line on the last sea day for a Kiss on the Lips (frozen fuzzy navel).  Too long.  The adult pool was crowded but no kids in sight.  That was nice.  The big screen TV was a joke.  During the day is just showed beach views or infomercials on port shopping.  I loved the one on the Caribbean Princess as it showed family movies during the day.  At night it had a couple of movies and a couple of concerts.  With late dinner, we didn't see much.  Kid activites: our eldest spent everynight in the teen lounge.  It was fine she said, but must not have been too great, she was back in her cabin by midnight every night.  The other two were together in the Circle C and had a super time.  They really liked Christina the counselor and enjoyed the activities.  My son was the Guitar Hero of the cruise and enjoyed his 15 minutes of fame!  I did hear another couple complain about the younger children program.  Just a big babysitting room, no scheduled or planned activities.  I think this must be true because as the week went on I saw more and more small kids running around the ship.  And there was the group of boys about 8-10 year olds who were throwing icecream at each other in the stairwell.  It was all over the walls, floor etc.  Parents should really know where their kids are!Entertainment:  We went to a couple of shows.  The 80's night was ok.  My son wanted to see the magician/jugglar that was ok.  We saw two adult comics, again, just ok.  Nothing special.  Casino was nice.  Smoking/non smoking sections.  Alway a table open, tons of empty slots.  I did hear a worker say they were tired of just standing around.  Not enough people playing to keep them busy.  We played almost every night and ended the week about $100 up.  To us, thats winning!  Note: I did not like the open Casino.  Children were running in and out all the time, It was just a roped off area on the the deck, very open, just a bar between the casino and the teen lounge.    I told my kids I did not want to see them any where near the Casino.  I would have liked to been hidden away somewhere, would have felt more grown up.  I also love to play the slot machines.  I didn't care for the fact that you don't win any quarters now.  Everything is electronic.  You use your sign and sail card and your winnings are added to a seperate account on your card.  You must use the card to get money off and to put money on.  I will admit, I like hearing the sound of the quarters falling out when you win!  The Piano bar was fun.  The male player was an awesome piano player, but his accent was so thick you could hardly understand the words to the songs.  Still, we had a couple of nights with him, fun.  Art auction was dull.  Library- I only mention this because of the comment my son made.  He and I went on a walk one day and we ended up at the Illiad, the library.  He immediatly goes to the H section and is looking and looking.  He goes to the attendant and says "Sir, I find it ironic that your library is called the Illiad, yet you don't seem to have any books by Homer".  The attendant just looks at him, I am not sure he undersood what he was talking about.  My son was so puzzled about that, it was the topic of conversation at dinner.  I belive he also put that on his comment card.  My son, the geek!Our family participated in the On Deck for a Cure walk on the the last sea day.  I was disappointed in the fact that there was NO Carnival representation in the walk.  We (along with 30 others) donated our $10, received our t'shirts and reported to the track at 4:00.  We waited almost a half an hour and when no Carnival Crew member came to kick us off, we just started walking.  One lady had participated on another Carnival ship and she said it was a huge deal.  Kind of sad. I would like to have had more activities on the ship especially during sea days.  If you were into trivia, good lord, there was a game it seemed every hour.  I would have liked to see: pottery painting, history of the ports, dance lessons.  Something.  Ship:  We were on deck 7 by the mid ship elevators.  Very nice location.  We found the ship easy to navigate, mainly because we can all read maps.  Use the map the first couple of days and then there is no problemo.  The decor was dark in my opinion.  Not very open.  Really no open spaces inside.  Very clean,  Seems like we saw cleaning people all the time.   Bar: I found the bar prices to be on track with bars on land.  I think the Cosmos were about $7 or $8 which is what I pay at home.  Frozen drinks about $6 or $7.  Makers Mark was about $7 I think my husband said.  He is a huge bourbon drinker and unfortunatly Makers Mark was the best they had on the ship.  We actually packed about 40 miniture bottles in our suitcases (remember he is in the distilled spirits industry and when I booked the ship I started saving the bottles he received at golf outings, fund raisers etc.)  I just put them in large zip lock bags and threw them in all the suitcases.  No big deal.  Our cabin attendent  was happy because when we left because we left about 10 for him.  Yes, we broke the law and brought our own on board, but we still spent about $200 on the bar with wine and all.  Photo Shop:  This is where I really had issues.  OMG that is the most unorganized, unfriendly place I have ever seen.  Unless you are an employee of CCL they will not hold your photos for you in a folder.  (All other lines we have travel on, no problemo!) If you try to group them on the big boards, they will remove them and put them back into the daily groupings.  We only found half of the photos taken, by the end of the week there were boxes of photos for you to hunt your out, but good lord the WASTE!  Literally thousands of photos were thrown away by the end of the week.  They take a million photos, but the display area is so small, there is no way you can see them all.  They move them daily, it was very stressful.  I made several suggestions on my comment card.  They are very expensive and ther are no package deals.  I offered to take all the photos I could find of our family (about 25) for $300.  They guy looked at me like I was nuts.  He said no way.  The big ones were $22 each and the 5x7 were $12 each.  I said but I will take all of them for $300.  He said no, so I bought 2 8x10 and 2 5x7 and the rest went in the trash.  Sorry this is so long, I am trying to think of everything I wanted to know before we left.  This trip was nice.  I don't think we will cruise Carnival again.  It met our needs this trip but just wasn't anything out of this world.  I really like the Celebrity and the Princess lines.  They weren't traveling to the Caribbean this summer so between RCI and Carnival we choose Carnival because of the price savings.  This is a very family oriented cruise line.  Very relaxed atmosphere.  Even on elegant cruise nights in the dining room, there were men in shorts.  We were way over dressed every night!Disembarkation was a breeze.  Again with the VIP we were the first off the ship.  Left the ship, collected our luggage, grabbed a cab and checked into the Doral Golf Resort and Spa by 8:30 am.  Rooms were ready and we all took a short nap before hitting the pool to relax.  We left Miami for Cincinnati Monday morning.  Our kids enjoyed themselves and that's what was important to us.  Our suggestion is:  if you are a couple interested in an upscale vacation, choose another line.  If you are a large family concerned about price, Carnival is a great line.  Port reviews to follow