Carnival Valor - Maiden 7 day Caribbean Voyage - December 19, 2004 from Port of Miami. Cruised to Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Maarten.
Overall: The ship gets high marks for pulling off a very good first cruise in terms of good looking ship, good food, good entertainment, competent staff and generally good service.
Embarkation and Debarkation: Unfortunately one of Carnival's weak points on many of its ships is the confusion and slowness associated with getting on and off the ship. This ship's first embarkation was chaotic, confusing and indeed too long. We got to the terminal early after staying at the local Holiday Inn Marina -- good overnight stay choice. Carnival's agents tried to force the enormous gathering of people to go on the "pick up your documents line" (as soon as you entered the building), which was serviced by only two agents. This was clearly for people that had not received any documents at all prior to leaving their homes ... not for the masses who already received documents from Carnival or travel agents. After waiting on this line for over 45 minutes, another agent overruled the first agent and moved us all to a general line and things started to move whereby we could go through security and get to the more than dozen agents waiting inside to check us in.