Fresh off of the Valor ( Western Caribbean)

Hi all. Just got back last night from a wonderful cruise on the beautiful Valor. We had a wonderful time, the only thing that wasn't perfect was the very first night, SUperbowl SUnday, the ship couldn't get the game until right before kickoff and the last five minutes. My husband was so mad, I thought the cruise was doomed, but as long as you are not sailing during an important sporting event, you shouldn't be experiencing that.

The ship was beautiful! Very "American" in it's theme. I thought the Pride was beautiful, and this ship was just as great. All of the lounges were great as well. I have heard people describe the decor as gaudy, but I thought it was tasteful. Maybe some people think fun = gaudy, and for those, I have no idea why they would sail on Carnival in the first place.

The food was very good and plentiful ( I gained 3 pounds! yikes, I will have to kill myself in the gym for the next couple weeks to get rid of that!)

We did the Canopy tour in Belize, horseback riding in Roatan, the Stingray City, Hell, and Turtle farm in Grand Cayman, and dolphin swim in Cozumel. We did our own tour in Roatan, and for anyone who is interested, I can recommend a great 2 hour horseback ride, and beach break afterwards including all transportation, beach facilities, and free drink for $60. Just let me know, and I will give you the website info.

Anyone else with any questions, ask away!!!! I will be happy to give you any info or answer any questions about the ship, or any of the ports of call.

I would love to write a detailed review, but I have to unpack and get settled in after such a wonderful week.

Another thing....be sure to check your roll-call boards for your cruise. I met some wonderful people on these boards who were on the same cruise!!!!!

I just booked my wife and I for this same itinerary next year - January 22 to be exact.

This is a great route for us due to the fact that every port is known to be a great place to scuba dive.

Do you recall if the port calls were more or less as advertised, time wise?

And do you know if the "stem-to-stern" wirless internet functioned well?

Glad you had a great time - looking forward to mine!

Eagerly awaiting photos!!!!

You will have a great time!!! All of the times at port were correctly advertised. There were some choppy waters because of the wind at Cozumel, and a lot of the ship's tours were cancelled, but I booked an independent dolphin swim, and the husband snorkeled at Chaankanaab, so we were able to have a good day in port.

Other than that, the weather was great everywhere. Rained in Belize, but it added to the atmosphere of being in the rainforest, and it sprinkled in Roatan a little in the morning - no big deal.

I don't scuba yet, so I can't really opine on that, but I heard Belize and Roatan are great places for that. There was a group that did beginning Scuba through "Salt and Peppers" in Roatan...you can probably find info on them through google.

I would love to do this same cruise again, but since we're going to do the 12-day European cruise in October, we will have to wait awhile to do another Caribbean cruise.

We LOVED Roatan so much that we want to buy property there and build a place. Such a great little island.

"All of the times at port were correctly advertised."

Valor's schedule has us in Belize from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Did you have to adjust for Belize's time?

Hey.. Sounds like you had a wonderful time. I'd love to hear more about Belize and Roatan because I've asked a bit about what to do there and if there were any known beautiful beaches that may be not touristy but not private for a group as well. Please let me know what you think I should do with a big group at those two ports... Now at least I'm excited about Roatan.. I was getting a little worried.... :) Thanks for sharing..

cdm,

We were in Belize on the Miracle last month. Belize operates on CST whereas the ship's times are all EST. So you must adjust accordingly if booking a private tour. We did cave tubing with XStream. It was the highlight of our trip. The meeting time was 7:50 AM Belize time, so it was 8:50 on the ship. We had no problem getting on the early tender.

I belize, actually am pretty certain, that they change the ship time on Valor to be the same as local time. I'll know for sure in about a month.

No....always stay on ship's time, Valor leaves out of Miami, time will always be on EST. So, the ship will leave at 6pm EST, which is 5pm Belize time. Always remember this so you don't get left behind, which in Belize City would not be too fun. Also, you will be tendering to Belize City, and although the ship leaves at 6pm, the last tender from the pier back to the ship is 5:30 ( 4:30 Belize local time).

I will be happy to give some more info on Roatan, but I need to get ready to get up early and back to work tomorrow ( the worst part of the end of vacation!) so I will post more about Roatan and Belize tomorrow. Both great ports, actually liked them better than Grand Cayman and Cozumel- and don't get me wrong, I liked those places a lot too!

Post your questions and I will answer them when I have a chance tomorrow.

No....always stay on ship's time, Valor leaves out of Miami, time will always be on EST. So, the ship will leave at 6pm EST, which is 5pm Belize time. Always remember this so you don't get left behind, which in Belize City would not be too fun. Also, you will be tendering to Belize City, and although the ship leaves at 6pm, the last tender from the pier back to the ship is 5:30 ( 4:30 Belize local time).

Are you sure that the ship did not change its clocks to match island time for Belize? I have a copy of the capers from the western cruise before yours, and it clearly says on the capers to move your clocks the night before you get to Belize, and to change them back the night you are leaving Belize. Can you please check your capers (if you kept them) to make sure?

I recall on past cruises including on Carnival ships our clocks had to be adjusted the hour.....they do mention this the night before during dinner time.

Do you have copies of the dinner menus?

How was the tendering when you didn't go on the cruises tour?

Please elaborate on Roatan and Belize more.

Thanks for the review, sounds like fun, we go in a month!

Jenn

I have to second the cave tubing in Belize!

We had a group of 17 on the Miracle in November, and we had a great time every day, but no one could stop talking about the cave tubing.

We used Marvin Deras' Wet 'N Wild operation and loved them.

Go to the Belize forum on these boards and you'll see a lot of discussion about this excursion.

No....always stay on ship's time, Valor leaves out of Miami, time will always be on EST. So, the ship will leave at 6pm EST, which is 5pm Belize time. Always remember this so you don't get left behind, which in Belize City would not be too fun. .

you may be speaking from past cruises, but I was on the eastern route of this cruise two weeks ago and we changed ship time twice...it was very clear what time was boat time as we were reminded before it changed and again after...I guess we were on Atlantic time because we actually lost an hour on the first night and got it back the 2nd to last...please don't say ALWAYS when you don't know for sure...

This is actully something to keep in mind for the eastern leg...since we turned back, my wife and I were actaully 2 hours behind our 'normal' cental time, so our 8:30 seating was like 6:30 at home which is about the time we eat anyway...early seating would of had us eating at 4:00 in our minds...

Augie, 20 of us on the CC group cruise sailing on Valor June 12 have booked with Wet and Wild. Since we have filled a van of 20, Marvin is sending a van just for us so we can leave as soon as we get off the ship. We want to leave as early as possible to get back earlier since some of us (me) are concerned about making the last tender. Our big concern is getting an early tender off the ship. Any tips on getting off the ship quickly? We're scheduled from 9 to 6 in port, which I think we have figured out is local time.

Hmmm.. that's new to me, maybe it was mentioned, however, I don't recall seeing it in the capers. I just know that last time, everything was to stay on ship's time, and it was the same for Roatan and Cozumel, so I don't know why they would have changed it for Belize. To me, it just makes sense to keep one's watch on ship's time, and just be aware that most of the places in the Western Caribbean are an hour behind. That has always worked for us.

Anyway, when tendering into port when one does not have a tour booked through Carnival, you can go to a specified area, stand in line, and get numbered stickers which allow you to tender in if you need to get to the pier early. At least this was the case for the Valor - I cannot be sure it is the same for all ships. Usually, after a couple of hours, it's "free for all".

On the Western Caribbean cruise, you tender into Belize - and it's about a 20-30 minute tender ride - was kind of rocky, so if you are prone to sea-sickness, be prepared.

You also tender into Grand Cayman, which is a very short tender ride, maybe 5-10 minutes.

Roatan and Cozumel you don't have to worry about Tendering in.

If you really want to take in Roatan, the ship docks at 7am ( 6am Roatan time). We booked a horseback riding tour ( not through the cruiseline) and somebody picked us up right outside of the gates, and took us to the ranch. It was my husband and I, as well as another couple (we didn't know before hand) who we ended up hanging out with for the rest of the cruise. Anyway, we were each given a horse, very nice horses, small, but well mannered, gentle, well-taken care of horses, and took a very very nice 2 hour or so ride through West End Village ( I think that's what it was called) which was awesome, especially early in the morning, along the beach, where you are allowed to run as fast as you wanted to, along lava formations, and along a resort road, and then our ride ended at Foster's Resort where you get a free drink, and have access to the beach, and use of the facilities ( showers, restrooms, towels, etc.) Since we took such an early horseback ride, we had a few hours to spend at the beach, which is a really nice beach, and the little restaurant there at Foster's was nice as well. It was $60 a person for the ride, transportation, and use of facilities at Foster's. VERY worth the money. I would have to say Roatan was the highlight of the whole cruise for us. I love horseback riding, especially if they let you gallop, which the ranch we used did. The island was gorgeous, and we fell in love with it. We will definately be going back in the future.

I also found the people to be very friendly there.

Belize - Belize City may seem kind of scary at first, and I would not recommend walking around outside the gates of the tourism village, but once you get outside of the city, it is a beautiful country. Definately take a tour - they are so many things to do there. If you don't want to take a ship excursion, there are many people at the dock trying to get people to take their excursions. ANything having to do with tourism in Belize is very highly regulated because it's their major source of income in that country, so even though I would recommend spending the little extra money to take a Carnival tour, the private tours are probably safe, and I haven't heard any horror stories from people who have gone with the non- Carnival tours. Although if something happened and the private tour company couldn't get you back to the pier in time to catch the last tender, you will be SOL. That's pretty much the main reason we take Carnival tours when we go to Belize, and also that you get to catch the first tenders if you have one of the earlier tours through Carnival.

Does anyone have any specific questions about any of the ports or the ship that I can help with, other than the disputed time question? I will be happy to help.

Marcy's -

Just have a couple of people from your group get to the designated area where they pass out the numbered stickers for tenders. On the Valor, it was a desk right outside of the casino, close to the Ivanhoe theater. I think they allow 4 stickers to every person in line, so it you have 20 people, have 5 stand in line for the stickers. If you are early enough, you should get a decent group number, I believe they ran from 1 - 26 depending upon the demand. At least on Grand Cayman, it ran up to 26, groups 1 and 2 boarded pretty early, and group #26 departed around 11am...... don't know how many stickers for each group are handed out, so best to have a designated person stand in line early, to be on the safe side.

You guys will really enjoy the cave tubing, I'm sure, because we sure did, although we liked the Lost World Canopy tour ( zip-lining through the rain-forest) even more. I have heard from several people who have done the cave-tubing through a private company, and they did not run into any problems at all, and it was quite a bit cheaper. As long as you give yourself a good amount of time to get back to the pier, you should be fine. I think it's about an hour and a half to 2 hours to get from Belize City to the cave-tubing sight, then about a 45 minute trek through the rain forest to get to the river.

Also, a good piece of advice would be to wear an old pair of tennis shoes that you wouldn't mind throwing out at the end of the cruise because they will be times when you need to walk in the river, and there are a lot of rocks, and also bring one of those disposable water cameras, and wear bug-spray!

Augie, 20 of us on the CC group cruise sailing on Valor June 12 have booked with Wet and Wild. Since we have filled a van of 20, Marvin is sending a van just for us so we can leave as soon as we get off the ship. We want to leave as early as possible to get back earlier since some of us (me) are concerned about making the last tender. Our big concern is getting an early tender off the ship. Any tips on getting off the ship quickly? We're scheduled from 9 to 6 in port, which I think we have figured out is local time.

I understand how much of a source of concern this can be, but here's my advice;

Have your group ready to get off as soon as the ship allows, whether this be by getting tender tickets, or just waiting in a common area near the gangway.

There will be someone to greet you, as Marvin describes, as soon as you are off of the tender, and the little building where their office is, in the tourist village is only a few steps away.

Marvin is very experienced, and they will not let you miss the last tender - there are a number of things they can do to make sure you'll get back in time.

There were people in our group stressing over this, but we were in good hands.

Enjoy your tour - you will never forget it!

I just wanted to add something about the cruise ship time. On our other cruises the ship did actually adjust to the island times, however, that was not the case with the Valor. The morning that we docked they would make an announcement telling us what the ship's time was, and what time we needed to be back by. This may change from cruise to cruise, but that was how it worked with the 2/6 sailing. It wasn't that big of a deal to adjust to. The only port that was the same as ship's time was Grand Cayman. I know we ran into a couple from Carnival's Conquest and they had changed times onboard. My only suggestion would be to book excursions giving yourself plenty of time either way. We had a GREAT time! Hi Holly!!

Going on the Valor next week. I just called 1-888-CARNIVAL now and they said that the Valor remains on Miami time throughout the cruise.

Marvin is very experienced, and they will not let you miss the last tender - there are a number of things they can do to make sure you'll get back in time.

 

There were people in our group stressing over this, but we were in good hands.

 

Augie, I am the designated worrier in our group. What are those things they can do to make sure you get back on time?:cool:

That's what I thought.......... I know I wasn't that drunk, that I didn't hear any announcements of changing the time! To me, that would just be more confusing. Just keep your watch on Miami time ( unless you leave from Galveston or somewhere not on EST) and do not change it, but be aware that some ports will be an hour behind, just look at your own watch, and stick to it. It really isn't that hard, plan on getting to the pier at least an hour before the ship is scheduled to leave ( unless you like living on the edge). If you would like to shop in Belize after a tour, my advice would be to wait til your tour gets back, plan on getting back to the pier 2 hours early, so you are there in case something happens along the way back....worst thing that can happen ( aside from missing the ship completely) is you run out of time to shop, but you may at least still make it back in time to get back on the ship!

There are some cool things to buy in Belize, but I thought there were cooler handicrafts in Roatan, and there is a little vendors market set up right across from where the ship docks in Roatan.....wish I had a little more time to shop there, but didn't want to miss the ship. However, I do plan on going back. Our next Caribbean cruise will have to include Roatan again.

Augie, I am the designated worrier in our group. What are those things they can do to make sure you get back on time?:cool:

IF you are running behind due to late arrival from the ship they can not have you walk as far up the river before getting in for the ride down (as a matter of fact when we went that's what the ships's excursions were doing anyway).

We took our sweet time dawdling over lunch at Amigo's on the way back - they could certainly make that portion shorter, or if they had to could get the meals to go.

The guides we had (Junior and Carlos) were often in touch with Marvin on the cell phone.

Could there be some catastrophe that would prevent you from getting back to the ship on time? Sure, I suppose, but your odds are pretty good - these guys get a reputation for stranding passengers and they wouldn't be in business long.

I hope this helps...

Hello Littlegoo75,

Sounds like you had a great cruise and that the Valor was a great ship. Me and my family will be cruising the Valor on 4-03-05. Could you tell me about the ship itself. I would like to here the details about the cabins, lounges, dining halls, and the ships help meaning the cabin stewards and dining waiters, etc. Also how was the food ? Were you able to bring any adult beverages with you either in your carry-on or etc.

Thankyou in advance for all your info and Welcome back,

Charlie

Hi Charlie,

I think you will have a great time on the Valor. There is a lot to do on this ship, and we were never bored. We found the food to be very good, the lounges and bars to be great places to hang out in, the casino fun, even though we lost some money, the comedians were hilarious, and there are so many cool people to meet on board, and the ports of call are great! I couldn't imagine a better cruise.

Some people think the lay-out of the ship is prety confusing, but it's really not that bad. You can't walk all the way from one end to the other on some of the floors, but just remember that Deck 5 ( Promenade ) will take you the length of the ship. Just wander around a lot the first day you board the ship, and you should get your bearings. The gym was a little hard to find, just walk towards the front of the ship and get to deck 11. The tricky thing is that you have to walk through the locker rooms to get to the gym itself. I like that it's kind of confusing to find the gym...keeps it less crowded that way.

There is something for everyone on this ship. For those that like to lounge by the pool and tan, they can do that, for those that like bingo, there are a bunch of bingo games, for those that like to gamble, the casino is open, as long as the ship is in International waters, for those that like art auctions, it seems like there was one everyday, there are in room movies on TV all day, the gym has long hours, there are trivia contests, hairy chest contests, ship board Survivor contests, etc.

There is always good available 24 hrs a day....the pizza is available 24 hours a day, and it is really really good, room service is also available 24 hours a day, there are frozen yogurt stations available 24 hrs a day, if you want a burger and fries, there is a grill available for lunch and dinner hours, a sushi bar open from around 5pm- 8pm, a deli, oriental food station, and a fish and chips station open for lunch.

As far as the dining rooms, I thought that the choices were good. I had seafood twice (lobster, and salmon) and beef twice ( prime rib, and steak) for my main courses, All were good. If you want, you can always order two entrees. I thought the service was really good too.

We did opt for the Supper Club ( Scarlett's) one night ( $25 extra per person) and it was worth every penny. I highly recommend it. I had surf and turf as my main course and it was SO good. We left so full.

The formal nights are on Monday, and Thursday. Lobster is on Monday, as is the Captians cocktail party - free drinks! Take advantage of that.

I can't really give too much advice about sneaking liquor on board, but I know a lot of people do it, I am sure that you can find a thread about it somewhere on these boards, they pop up every couple of days or so. When you buy liquor in port, you are supposed to check it, and they deliver it to your room on the last night. I found the best deals in Grand Cayman. I bought a bottle of Hypnotiq ( $25 at Costco) for $16 in Grand Cayman. There is also a great passion fruit liquer called "Passoa" that was about $9, and you cannot find it here in the U.S. I bought the Kalhua in Cozumel for $12 a bottle.

Between Grand Cayman and Cozumel you will gind some great deals on "adult beverages".

What else can I tell you about the ship? Besides that I really thought it was great. There is nothing like a brand new ship- I have only been on new ships, but it's so nice to know that you are one of the first to sail on her.

If there is something I forgot to tell you, let me know. I am working on a nice, long, detailed review, but I am still writing it. I should be done with it tomorrow.