My fiance and I have cruised many times before and were joined on this cruise with 12 of our family members. We started our vacation with a pre cruise stay at Homewood Suites Blue Lagoon Miami. We arrived on Christmas eve. There were 9 of us staying at this hotel over Christmas prior to our cruise aboard Valor. We picked this hotel for the amenities and best value. Every room had full kitchens, free hot and cold breakfast every morning, free parking for the week we were cruising, outdoor grills we were free to use to cook our Christmas dinner, 2 bedroom suites, and many other amenities that made our stay there terrific! We prepaid all of our rooms and got a great rate by doing so. The hotel was clean, had a good size swimming pool and large hot tub. The morning of departure I had made reservations with a local Limo Service to pick us up at 11am. The driver was 15 minutes late but got us to the port by 11:45. Embarkation was very easy. We were through the lines and on board within 45 minutes. First stop was excursion desk for our behind the Fun tickets.. 2nd stop was fish and chips for that wonderful Ahi Tuna and watermelon that I heard so much about and I must say it did not disappoint! Muster drill was hassle free with no life jackets required. It took a little bit longer than I would have liked as they ran through all the folderol about decks being slippery when wet, how to dispose of cigarettes etc .etc. etc... All the common sense stuff that we all know but many people ignore. We were on the forward Lido Deck above the bridge for Sail away and it was awesome. Our cabin was # 2473. This cabin is an irregular cabin with two portholes and is huge! It is as big as a suite! I was stunned by how large the cabin was. It was awesome. The only drawback was pulling into ports early morning we did have some noise and vibration from the stern thruster. Otherwise the cabin was great! The Valor is a beautiful ship and even though some may say she is gaudy; I think she is vibrant and true to Carnival's propensity to make some very big statements with their interior design. (yet I find myself still questioning who's bright idea it was to mix pink and orange in the staterooms) eww.. One more thing about the Valor... She is the most confusing ship to navigate! I found myself constantly hitting the Lincoln Dining room road block! By the end of the cruise every time I entered the elevator my default was to hit deck 5 button.. since that was the only deck that you could actually navigate from one end to the other unless you were on decks 1 or 2 walking down the cabin rows.

Day 1 at sea we spent pretty much just roaming the ship. The lido deck was crazy insane with people so we spent most of our time exploring the ship and sitting at the adults pool aft. This was the first elegant night. Food was delicious and our servers Wanda from Thailand and Dono from Indonesia were awesome! (We gave them extra $$ on the last day) Day 2 Grand Cayman - we arrived in Grand Cayman bright and early. I ordered room service and a wake up call for 6 am. We had reserved a two tank dive with Neptune's divers for this day. Unfortunately the water was so rough we did not sleep all night and felt it wouldn't be very safe for us to dive that day. I emailed Neptune's from our stateroom ($3.99 connection fee and .75 per minute) and advised them of our plight. (I knew the terms stated non-refundable within 24hours but I was hoping for some sympathy) No luck. They charged us anyway. Oh well. We caught up on some sleep then later on took a tender ashore and did a little exploring and shopping.

Day 3 Roatan - Today we reserved the two tank dive thru Carnival to Anthony's key. We were instructed to meet in the Eagles Lounge where we were greeted by our guide and led down to the gangway on Deck 0. We hauled our gear to the bus (no AC,, UGH) it's hot! We arrived at Anthony's Key with 30 minutes. There were a lot of us on the boat. I know the tour was sold out because some in our group were unable to reserve the dive. Positive - Great Dive boat (48 footer) with a friendly captain. Beautiful location and spectacular reefs. Negative - Very unorganized. The dive master during the dive briefing gave us some really bizarre instructions and hand signals. There was no line put out when the divers returned to the boat and the swells were huge! It was almost impossible to get to the boat. The dive itself was very unorganized and chaotic. I got slammed in the head with the swim deck of the boat and pushed under because I had nothing to hang onto but the swim deck when 2 divers were hanging onto the ladder but not moving. I don't think we will ever book again with Carnival for a dive. The dive boat was more like a cattle boat. Read more