SAILING DATE: JULY 12, 2009
My last sailing on a Carnival vessel was in June, 1990, so this voyage on the Valor was quite new to me. Carnival has changed a lot over the past 19 years (has it really been that long?!?), and of course, so have I. The ship itself is quite large, especially in comparison to the Carnival ship I last sailed on, and, unfortunately, you really do feel the crowds. The décor of the ship was actually pretty nice, and the staterooms were decently appointed, but I found the theme of the ship quite confusing.
The ship’s name is the Valor, and I thought it was supposed to celebrate our nation’s heroes. The American pride showed through in the red, white, and blue marble tiles on the atrium floor in the shape of the American flag, and faces of presidents molded into tiles along the ceiling lines. However, different areas of the ship that had nothing to do with America or our history confused me. Paris Hot Lounge… Shogun Casino… hello? Whatever. I didn’t get that, but that was the least of my concerns.
CROWDS, CROWDS, AND MORE CROWDS!
The ship’s passenger capacity is almost 3,000, and as I mentioned before, you really do feel the large crowds on this ship. I have been on other ships that accommodated almost the same number of passengers and in the same size range as the Valor, but those ships did a much better job of dispersing people throughout the ship. The biggest problem was that the Promenade deck, deck 5, which was where the most happening areas of the ship were located (show lounge, main theater, casino, nightclubs), was designed with one relatively narrow walkway that went from one end of the ship to the other. In the evenings, it could take a long time to go from the Ivanhoe Theatre, which was all the way forward, to the Eagles Lounge, which was all the way aft, simply because of the sheer number of slow-walking people congesting that one walkway. Making matters worse were an array of small portrait areas set up along that walkway, probably about every 25 feet or so, which caused small crowds to form and block the already too narrow walkway. The only shortcut available, which was to cut through the Shogun casino, afforded little relief as most of the congestion occurred as you tried to make your way forward enough to even get to the casino.
Another problem area was the inadequate seating in both the Ivanhoe Theater and the Eagles Lounge. We had the early seating for dinner and arrived at the Ivanhoe Theater 20 minutes before the first nights’ show was to begin, and there was not one seat left in the entire house. Once the show began, people were standing in the aisle at the back of the theatre at least 20 deep. The other nights if we wanted to see a show, we got to the theatre way early, usually during Bingo, which inevitably seemed to be going on, so that we could get decent seats for the performance. If you wanted to get a good seat for a show in the Eagles Lounge, it seemed you probably had to get there at least 45 minutes early. I’m just guesstimating, of course, because I never did get there that early. We usually arrived 15 or 20 minutes early and took the few seats that were left over. Arrive 5 minutes before the show starts? Forget about getting a seat. Even the late-night adults only comedy shows were incredibly crowded.
SO HOW ABOUT THE FOOD?
The food overall was much better than I expected. I don’t remember too much about the food on my last Carnival voyage, other than the fact that it wasn’t very good.
I thought the buffet had a pretty good selection of food and most of it was quite tasty. The buffet was divided into several different areas, two of which were the typical buffet setups, and then there was a dedicated deli, which offered very good sandwiches; and a dedicated Oriental (I prefer the term Asian) area. You could also head up the stairs to the Fish & Chips place and get some awesome fried calamari and other items from the sea. My kids, of course, loved the self-serve ice cream that seemed to be available almost all the time.
While we appreciated the self-serve drink stations in the buffet area, which featured juices, iced tea, fruit punch, and lemonade, you could not go to a bar on the ship and get iced tea or lemonade. If you wanted either of these items, you had to go to the buffet and get it yourself. I had thought about bringing some insulated mugs with us, but left them at home, which is too bad, because they could have been useful. Fill them up in the buffet with iced tea or lemonade, and then we’d bet set for a while. Oh, well, we’ll know that for next time.
In the main dining room, dinners were quite good. Presentation was okay, nothing special, but the food always arrived at the right temperature and the selection was very good. There was always a good selection of appetizers, with at least a couple of different soup choices, including some cold ones which were quite good (the chilled melon soup was delicious). Entrees usually included some type of meat or two, a pasta dish, and a vegetarian dish. I enjoyed most of the entrees, with the sole exception being the risotto that I ordered one night. My kids got to order from their own kids’ menu every night, which included the standard kid fare: spaghetti, pizza, chicken nuggets, etc. but they could order off the adult menu as they wished. My daughter asked for a shrimp cocktail with her dinner the first two nights, and she loved it so much that our waiter automatically brought her one each night after that. Desserts were very good, and the molten chocolate cake was to die for! Served hot, with a small dish of vanilla ice cream, it was the best dessert I had had in a long time. I couldn’t have it every night (even though it was always on the menu) because it was so rich, but thinking about it now, I can still smell that wonderful chocolate. Of everything I had to eat in the main dining room, that was a true standout.
Room service consisted of cold items like salads and sandwiches with potato chips, but the chicken tortilla wrap thing that they had was really good. My kids loved ordering room service for those late night food cravings, and my husband and I ordered it often for breakfast. I was disappointed that the breakfast menu was limited to continental breakfast items (coffe, tea, juice, pastries) but I guess every cruise line can’t offer hot breakfast items on their room service menus. Room service breakfast always arrived at the requested time, but ordering in the late evening often meant a wait of about 45 minutes.
HOME, SWEET STATEROOM
For our family of five, we booked two staterooms: a balcony for my husband and I, and an inside across the hall for our 3 kids. The kids’ room was small, but seemed about typical size for an inside stateroom, and consisted of two twin beds with a nightstand in between, and then one upper bunk with a ladder. There was a desk area with a little bit of storage and decent-sized closet space. Amazingly, my kids kept their room pretty neat in the small space that they had, and most of the fighting seemed to stem from which one of them got to sleep in the top bunk.
Our balcony stateroom was almost all the way aft on deck 6, so we had a room that was configured a little differently from a typical balcony stateroom. As you entered the room, the closets lined the wall to your right in a narrow “hallway”. As the hallway opened up into the room itself, there was a small round table with a chair on either side against that wall to the right. Next to that was the desk area. The rest of the room was taken up by the bed with a nightstand on either side, and you had to walk around the bed to get to the very small bathroom and to access the balcony through an outward-swinging heavy door. Since our room was much wider than a typical balcony stateroom, our balcony was about twice as long as a typical one, but it was the same depth; therefore, the lounge chair that was placed there did little good because you had to sit sideways on it to see the ocean. With the unusual configuration of our stateroom, we also had two large windows, but it would have been a real plus if they were centered in front of the bed instead of being off to each side.
As I mentioned, the bathroom was very small and had barely enough room to turn around, with the sink and counter on the wall to the left and tiny round shower and toilet on the right. The shower had good water pressure but the shower curtain was always fun as it tried to stick to your body and consequently spilled water onto the floor.
I always sleep like a baby on cruise ships, and this voyage was no exception, as the bed was very comfortable. I was a little concerned because I had read on the internet complaints about noise in this stateroom coming from the Eagles Lounge immediately below, but it really wasn’t bad at all. We heard some bass pumping at times but it wasn’t so bad that it prevented us from sleeping.
WHERE WE VISITED
On this cruise we hit Grand Cayman and Cozumel, which we had been to several times before; as well as Roatan, Honduras and Belize City, Belize. On Grand Cayman we went to Sea Grape Beach, part of Seven Mile Beach, for a while. The water there was clear but the sand felt rough, and we didn’t feel like staying too long, so we left to do some shopping and have lunch. Since we had been there before, we just didn’t feel like doing too much and spent most of the afternoon on the ship.
In Cozumel, we went to Paradise Beach. This is a nice beach with free access (you are expected to buy drinks and/or food if you take up the chairs on the beach) with some water-related activities (water trampoline, climbing “glacier”, snorkeling gear (although there aren’t any fish to see!), floats, etc.) for a $10 per person fee. The drinks were pretty good, but the food was disappointing. We ordered a Mexican platter which had a whole variety of foods, and it really wasn’t very good at all. I’ve had much better Mexican food at local restaurants than I had at Paradise Beach, so that was really a shame! There were stands nearby for hair braiding, temporary tattoos, parasailing, and jet ski rental so there were a lot of things to do if you wanted to do more than just lay around.
Belize was disappointing for us because of the excursion we took; it was a boat trip out to some tiny private island, of which I cannot recall the name, and then a guided snorkeling tour. We bought this excursion from one of the many vendors waiting at the dock and were promised excellent snorkeling, but this turned out to be one of the worst snorkeling experiences I’d ever had. They took us out to some spot in the water than had several other boats anchored there, each with many snorkelers in the water. With so many people in the water, there were hardly any fish to see, and the coral really wasn’t all that interesting. The private island had little more than a few chairs and some over-priced barbeque food to offer, and we had to wait around for about 45 minutes after our snorkeling trip before they would take us back to the dock so we could then tender back to our ship. We paid almost $50US per person for this excursion and we would never do that again. Next time we go back to Belize, we are going to go to Ambergris Caye where the really great snorkeling is!
Our best port day was Roatan, where we hired ourselves a van and “tour guide” to take us to West Bay Beach, where we stayed all day and had a great time. The beach were we were had free access because there were no facilities, so we just lay our towels out on the sand and enjoyed the wonderfully clear water. Our “tour guide” stayed there all day and set us up near a few vendors who offered the usual services: hair braiding, tattoos, snorkeling gear, etc. We rented some snorkel gear and swam way out where there was a nice coral reef. We saw some fish, but not as many as we had hoped, but we still enjoyed it because there was hardly anyone else in the water. After a while we walked down to the Thirsty Turtle Bar and Grill and had some fish and chips for lunch. The food was very greasy and the service was very slow, but there were a couple of guys playing some pretty good music so it was a nice atmosphere – very laid back. When we got back into the van and headed back to the dock, our “tour guide” offered to take us to the driver’s house, where we could get some fresh mangos right off the tree. We didn’t think we could take them on the ship with us, so we ate them right there, and they were delicious! The only bad part of the day was when we arrived back at the dock and our “tour guide” demanded more of a tip than we gave him. We almost got into an argument with him (we felt the 15% tip we gave him was sufficient) but finally gave him another $20 and left.
CAMP CARNIVAL NOT MUCH OF A CAMP
One of the reasons that we took this cruise is because we thought our two youngest children (9 and 10) could spend the days in Camp Carnival so that my husband and I could have a vacation as well. Not so fast, though! It turns out that the program for kids that age consists of scheduled activities; if you don’t want to participate in that activity, you can’t just hang around in the kids’ area and have supervised free play. Our kids weren’t really interested in most of the activities that they offered during the sea days, so they were with us all day on those days. During port days, our kids participated in Camp Carnival because they had more “free play” time, but it still wasn’t really what we expected.
There were also several parties offered during the cruise, but they all were at an additional cost. Overall, we were not impressed with the kids’ program for our kids, but the facilities are nice and for younger kids the program is less scheduled and leaves time for lots of supervised play.
OVERALL IMPRESSIONS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
Carnival has changed a lot for the better over the past 19 years, that’s for sure. The ships are nicer, the food better, and the entertainment MUCH better (although we still weren’t very impressed with the singers and dancers). There is still somewhat of a party atmosphere, but the line is definitely more geared towards families now.
There is the typical amount of nickel-and-diming going on throughout the ship, as far as the Contemporary lines are concerned. There is a Java Café on board but the “gourmet” cakes, cookies, and pastries available there were at additional cost; seems ridiculous considering those items are all baked in the same place where all the other food is made, so why should they be at an additional charge? Every performance was preceded by the Cruise Director’s staff selling “instant win” tickets. The Camp Carnival program had “party nights” that carried additional charges, some as high as about $25 per child! Bingo was offered several times per day, and the jackpots were several hundred dollars each time, getting higher each day.
There were several fun games and contests in which we participated, but overall we were not really impressed with the Cruise Director’s staff; however, the Cruise Director was one of the funniest I’ve seen in a long time. He was great!
Overall, this was a pretty good cruise; we enjoyed the entertainment, and the food was pretty good, and it gave us a chance to relax and spend time together as a family. But, the large crowds from which it was difficult to escape, and the overall clientele on the ship, left much to be desired, unfortunately. The truth is, we picked this cruise because of our kids, and while my husband and I would have preferred more luxury, this cruise served its purpose well enough.
In early April, 2010, I sailed on the Norwegian Star for 7 nights to the Mexican Riviera. I have done this itinerary many times and I always enjoy it because there is so much to do and see. My previous trips to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas have primarily focused on shopping, but this time I decided to do something different: I wanted to see dolphins.
nd we ended up seeing quite a few. Some even leaped and flipped in the water like the trained dolphins do in the tanks, but this was better because it was spontaneous and the dolphins were doing it because they wanted to, not because they were commanded to do so. At one point our marine biologist got in the water to play with the dolphins, but they wouldn't stay near her and play so there was no point in us getting in the water. 
