10/18 Valor review

[ramrax4]

Let me start by saying that we had a great time! The ship is beautiful and well maintained. We did encounter a few problems along the way but did not let this it interfere with our enjoyment.

Day 1 Embarkation:
We arrived at the airport on day of embarkation without any problems. We had purchased carnival transfers and easily located the staff. After arriving at port though, passengers were made to wait on the bus for another 20 or 30 min. before being allowed to exit.
Once the luggage was unloaded we were finally told to exit the bus and were directed towards the cruise terminal.
The lines seemed long but moved quickly, when we finally got to the front security told us that our roll on cooler was too big for the x-ray machines and we would have to leave it behind, mind you it was smaller than both of our carry ons, soft sided, collapsable kind and only contained extra clothing. So we quickly removed the articles and distributed them among the carry-ons and then collasped it. He still refused to allow us to carry it on. So my husband quickly went outside and luckily our luggage was still there so the porters tagged it and we had it delivered to our room instead, this made no sense to us at all.
While we were waiting for my husband to return the same person told us we had to move on we could not wait for him, I told the man that I had all of our docs and that my husband would not be able to get back in if we did not wait for him and that I did not want to get seperated from him (it was very crowded)so he allowed me to wait but told my son(20 yo) that he had to move forward so I gave him his docs and told him to wait for us at the top of the escalaters..........
...............to be cont'd

[ramrax4]

My dh reappeared about 15 min later and we found our son waiting at the top of the escalaters.
We filled out health application and got in line again, it was very crowded and seemed chaotic but was actually organized and again moved fairly quick. Once at the front we handed over docs, application and credit info for dh and myself, our son decided to put cash on his account which was seperate from ours and was only required to give $50. for s & s. We were then given a number and told to wait in the lobby, since we had #35 and they had just called 32 our wait was very short.
When our number was called we proceeded up the escalaters and yet another line, which again moved fairly steady.
1:30 pm: Finally, we are aboard. We left the airport at 11 am so the whole process took about 2 1/2 hours, not too bad!!
We went to see if our room was ready and it was so we deposited carry-ons and went to eat and explore the ship!! This was our sons first cruise and our second so it was very exciting to watch his face as he looked around in awe!

1st day and sail away next!

[kthy66]

Great so far!

[dbogusch]

Keep it coming!!!

[giftcard]

More please!

[Froufie]

Waiting to hear all about it - esp your excursions and ship board activities! What cabin/deck were you on?

[happycruiser1960]

Finally a Valor review!! Thank you and I look forward to reading the rest.

[Bajan Keith]

Count me among those who is anxiously awaiting more of your review.

[ramrax4]

Originally Posted by Froufie

Waiting to hear all about it - esp your excursions and ship board activities! What cabin/deck were you on?

Froufie,
we were on deck 1 Riviera/cabin 1379 aft starboard side, ov

[ramrax4]

After lunch we returned to our room to get our life jackets and proceeded to our muster station for the lifeboat drill. It did take some time for everyone to appear which is why it seems to take so long to get started but once the drill begins it goes by pretty fast.
When it was over we quickly returned to our room and put away jackets so we wouldn't miss the sail away. We found a good spot on the lido deck where we could see the band play, everyone was very excited and ready for some fun in the sun!!
It was a beautiful day and Miami is gorgeous! The ship makes a big u-turn at the end of the port and then heads out to sea. It was awesume to watch this massive ship manuever into position, people were parked along the water watching as we passed by, they would wave and honk, very exciting......lots of fanfare!!!
By now we were feeling somewhat jet lagged and decided to return to our room to see if any of our luggage had arrived yet. Our large suitcase was there and I noticed a collapsable cooler 2 doors down, sure enough it was ours, for some reason the porter had put a different ships tag on it, I'm surprised we even got it back!
Unfortunately my sons bag was mia, no worries tho we had late dinning and I had packed each of us something to wear to the fdr in our carry on just in case.
After unpacking I was too, excited to rest so I decided to explore some more and went to check out our table in the mdr, I had forgotten to request a table for three when we made our reservation( my dh prefers not to share a table he has a hard time initiating conversation) and thought this would be a good time to check it out.....the doors were closed and noone was there sooooo, I did the next best thing, found the ice cream on the lido deck, grabbed a lounge chair and decided we would see how it went, after all we could request a different table the next night if things didn't work out!

[trinty1]

We we on this cruise as well!Embarkation was a breeze!I really enjoyed the sail away and was amazed at the way we turned around and headed out!We even saw dolphins port side!My only complaint was my room 7428 had no air!After several complaints, I got a box fan!

[boaterette]

Thank you for posting. I love reading reviews.