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Carnival Valor PHOTO Review, April 28 - May 6, 2012


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I'm going to preface this 'review' by saying that I've never done a review on here before (not sure if this is the best place to leave it?) and I'm not much of a talker/writer, so this will be a mostly photo-only review. I enjoyed looking up photos on Cruise Critic as we were preparing for our cruise, so I thought others might enjoy seeing our photos as well.

 

My husband and I sailed on the Carnival Valor out of Miami from April 28 - May 6, 2012. We stopped in Grand Turk, San Juan, St. Maarten and St. Thomas. This was my fourth Carnival cruise, my husband's third... we were celebrating our five year anniversary (we were actually married on the Carnival Liberty - well technically it was on the beach in St. Thomas, but as part of the cruise.)

 

So without further ado, here are some photos of Day 1 - Embarkation...

 

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My husband preparing to do a time-lapse of sail-away out of Miami. A Carnival staff member actually came up half way through to tell us to leave that particular deck, but we pleaded with him to let us stay until we made it out to the open sea. Luckily for us, he said it'd be ok.

 

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We stayed in a balcony room, 9233, on Lido deck. I forgot to take photos before throwing all our stuff down - oops! Excuse the mess...

 

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I had been planning to have Fish n' Chips for lunch on embarkation day for WEEKS before the cruise, so we had to go there first. Not too bad, a little greasy but still delicious!

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For dinner I had a chicken and pasta dish in the main dining room, forgot the name of it, but it was delicious as well! (We had 'your time dining' on the lower level of the Lincoln Dining Room.)

 

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For Carnival Cruise fans, this dessert needs no introduction...

 

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I had the 'diet' Orange Cake, it was very good and light.

 

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Our very first towel animal and Fun Times, woo-hoo!!!

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My husband enjoying his morning coffee... errrr, I mean hot chocolate (hey, it's vacation right??) on our balcony.

 

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We won a 24k gold plastic ship-on-a-stick playing Win, Lose or Draw - woohoo!

 

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The deli made one mean ham and cheese panini! We had to have eaten a dozen of these between the two of us on this cruise. My only complaint is, where's the chips???

 

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It was a rainy, dreary first sea day. Odd to see Lido deck so abandoned on a sea day...

 

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Hey, for once you wouldn't have to fight someone for a chair on the Serenity deck... that's a plus, right??

 

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Our first port of call was Grand Turk. We chose the Clear Kayaking and Eco Tour, and I would DEFINITELY recommend it!! We had a lot of fun kayaking, the water was absolutely gorgeous and pristine, and we learned a lot about the island from our guide. I couldn't chose which photos to post, so I hope you enjoy them all! :)

 

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Beautiful sunrise while pulling in to Grand Turk.

 

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The sky started to clear throughout the morning, and my husband captured this beautiful rainbow out on our balcony.

 

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After meeting with the rest of our tour group, we had a 15 minute bus ride before making it to the area where the canoes launch.

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There was an awesome conch shell-lined walkway near where the canoes launched.

 

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We all boarded our canoes and headed out! I'm a little scared of open/deep water so I was a little nervous going in to this excursion, but the water is actually very shallow for most of the trip. I could almost always see the bottom, and at some points, we were in only a few inches of water so that we could pick up conch right from the ocean floor!

 

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At one point, we all pulled our canoes up to the mangroves to talk about the different types of mangrove trees. Those are the roots of the tree growing up out of the water, pretty cool.

 

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Next we paddled out to an old, abandoned US Navy ship that had been left there to rust. Didn't catch the full story or how long it's been there, but pretty odd to see...

 

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Our guide showing us one of Grand Turk's native jellyfish.

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Everyone then began searching for conch to see who could find the most...

 

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Finally found one, woot-woot! My husband claimed it bit him when he picked it up out of the water, but I'm not sure that's possible hmmm....

Didn't find anymore though, one guy found four I think, he was the winner.

 

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Proudly displaying our one lone conch.

 

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Now it was time to put our conch back in their homes and paddle over to the beach area.

 

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We all got out of our canoes to explore the beach area and walk up a little hill to check out the view. Photos won't due it justice, simply gorgeous.

 

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After the short walk, our guide had an area set aside to show us some different sea urchins that live in the area. My husband is nervously holding one, and even more nervously eyeing the next one coming towards him...

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After kayaking, we headed back to the ship to change and then went out to explore the beach. On Grand Turk, there is a beautiful beach right at the end of the pier, so you can walk to it if you like laying out, swimming, etc. The water was so ridiculously blue, I couldn't even capture it in photos, but it was the bluest water I'd ever seen.

 

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Palm trees on the beach.

 

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Doesn't get much better than this...

 

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My husband doing another time-lapse while I enjoy relaxing in the shade.

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Finally about that time to pull away. I'd definitely recommend checking out Grand Turk, it was a beautiful little (and I mean 'little', I think it's only 7 miles wide?!) island. See ya' next time!

 

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Not before long, we were back on the ship enjoying some delicious desserts after dinner. We made sure to try at least one of everything, every night.

 

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Loved the decor in the Ivanhoe Theater - the stage was made like a castle, the curtain had all different coat of arms adorning it and there were knights lining the walls (I'll have many more ship photos to post later, we were waiting until the last sea days to get a lot of photos of the ship. So stay tuned!)

 

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Enjoying my non-alcohol pina-colada - deeeee-licious!!

 

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Towel friend!!!

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If a picture is worth a thousand words, then your review speaks volumes! Great review so far. Love the photos. DH and I are on the Valor sailing June 9th. This is making me even more excited, if that is possible. Can't wait to see the rest of your pictures.

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Wow! These are some of the most beautiful pics I have seen on this site! I am interested in the kayaking tour. Would you say it was exhausting? Or did you go at a leisurely pace? How much did it cost? How long did it last? (jeesh! All these questions. :p:o)

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I'm interested in the Kayak tour as well. Were you afraid of getting your camera wet? I use a DSLR and we were thinking of doing the Kayak but I think I would only bring out maybe my waterproof camera....

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