MY VALOR ADVENTURE!!! (TAKE 2, had issues with photobucket) With a lot of pictures..

Sadly I couldn't get my pictures back up on my previous thread, so I am starting a new thread and reposting with all of the pictures. I will have everything caught up tonight and hopefully get Barbados posted tonight as well! Thanks for bearing with me and following along......

BACKGROUND:

Just got off the Carnival Valor on Sunday and since I love reading reviews of everyone's trips on this site, I thought i'd pay it forward. Hope you all enjoy!

First of all, I'm 34 and fairly well traveled. I've only been on two previous cruises, but this was my first time on Carnival. My other two were on Princess and Royal Caribbean. I have, however, traveled most of the US and been to 7 different countries in Europe and enjoy all different places and different kinds of travel, but definitely love crusing. This trip came about because one of my closest friends for the past 17 years, Emily, called me back in January and basically said, "I'm stressed, I know you are too. I'm planning a cruise and your either coming with me....or i'm going by myself", now who am I to argue with that! We have travelled together before and we always have a great time, within a week...we were booked on the Valor! Since im sure most of you don't want to hear about packing and all that boring crap, ill spare you the headache and get right to the trip....

Next up Pre-Cruise in San Juan!!!

PRECRUISE IN SAN JUAN:

I live in Pittsburgh but Emily lives in Allentown, and since it was over $200 cheaper to fly out of Newark and it gave me a chance to visit my mom, I found myself driving to Allentown on Friday night for an early morning flight out of Newark. We got to the airport, made it through security and saw the flight was on time, only thing left….get a bloody mary to officially start my vacation! Sat down at a breakfast place in the terminal, ordered a bloody mary and was told it was too early! I firmly believe that a bloody mary should be considered a breakfast food and Newark airport should rethink their rule of not serving alcohol before 9AM in this case! We flew JetBlue and each plane has it’s own name, ours was…. “Big Blue People Seater”….thought it was cute.

Once on board…I finally got my bloody mary…VACATION IS ON!!! J

Flight was smooth, got to San Juan on time and let me tell you…it’s like they rush you to relaxation. We landed at 1:15, got off the plane by 1:25, we were checked into our hotel (Marriot Resort and Stellaris Casino) and had a mojito in our hand at the pool bar by 2PM…..less than 45 min from touchdown!!

Look how white we are…yikes…need some sun! Luckily…we got plenty of it!

As I said before, we stayed at the Marriot Resort and Stellaris Casino in the Condado area. We got the hotel for $130/night through the priceline bidding feature. The hotel itself was nice, however the beach pool area was BEAUTIFUL! Here are some pics from around the pool and beach area.

PRE-CRUISE CONT…..

They have beach attendants that will set you up with chairs and umbrellas free of charge…tip them of course.

Bar and seating area right along the beach..

One of the best things about this beach…there were waves!! I was like a kid in a candy store body surfing them in…however after a few mojitos I don’t recommend… lol One thing I discovered about myself on this cruise is that I have a slight problem with selfies, ill spare you most of them but some came out pretty good. Here is a wave crashing over my head.

Had a great afternoon at the beach and pool, we were only there for 2-3 hours we both already felt more relaxed than we have in a very long time. Time to get go get ready to head into Old San Juan for dinner, took one more pic of the pool before we went to get changed.

Speaking of dinner....it’s time to make it! Damn I miss being served all my meals. Next cruise, screw the souvenirs, I’m bring back one of carnivals awesome chefs and waiters! …post more a little later…

PRE-CRUISE CONT…..

Got changed and took a cab into Old San Juan. Let me just say, it’s a damn good thing we didn’t rent a car! I may still be stuck in traffic! Our cabbie was driving on sidewalks and took a detour through a building’s turn-around road and said…here’s our capital building. Who knew you got a tour with your cab fare. Cab was $15 to Old San Juan from the Condado area. Finally got there, time to walk around and find something to eat. Old San Juan is beautiful, it has a very European feel to it with the outdoor eateries and restaurants. We ended up eating at Raices, which was recommended by our hotel. I am not going to go through every meal because honestly…I don’t remember all that I ate and when I ate it all. Sorry for those of you who are into the “food porn”, but I’d rather eat it than take pictures of it. J I will just say that the food was ok. I wasn’t disappointed in the food, but I wouldn’t write home about it either. This pic is from outside the restaurant, very cool street…loved the vibe in Old San Juan.

After dinner, we walked around and just enjoyed the night. Here is the Sheraton right by the cruise port. Looked like a fun place at night, they had a band outside and a bar right along the sidewalk in front of the hotel. People were even standing on the sidewalk enjoying the band.

We were getting extremely tired from a long day of travel, beach and Old San Juan so we took a cab back to the hotel. Before we went to sleep, we took a late night walk on the beach. It was almost a full moon and I saw a photo op so I used the night feature on my camera for the first time…love this pic.

Next up…Embarkation day!!!

EMBARKATION DAY!!

Woke up early and saw it was a beautiful day out so we called the front desk for a late checkout. Took a morning walk up to the La Concha area to get breakfast at this place called Waffler Avenue. Fought away a few pigeons, they weren’t getting any of this guys waffle, and went back to get ready to enjoy a few hours on the beach before we head to the ship. Some pics from up by the La Concha hotel.

The La Concha does have a beach….this is a block up from the hotel.

Got back to the hotel, changed and thought we’d enjoy another awesome morning at the Marriot beach and pool. Yes, I am a 5 year old at heart…had to try the slide. Wasn’t too excited, only knocked one or two kids out of my way. (joking)

We were done fooling around in the pool and it was time to check out and finally start our first Carnival Cruise! Only one problem, we were locked out of our room and it was only 20 min before we had to check out. Emily looks at me and is like, “you called for a late checkout right?!?”, I’m like “I think so, I hope so, I was half asleep!” At this point, I thought to myself that it was very possible that the housekeeping people knew we were checking out late, but not the front desk. Haha. Luckily there was a phone in the hallway, called security and they let us in. Quick changed, repacked and got on our way to the cruise port at around 1pm.

EMBARKATION DAY CONT….

Cab ride to Old San Juan was much better this time of day, only took about 15 min from the hotel to the cruise terminal. My first look at my home for the next 7 nights, I was getting pretty excited!

We dropped off our checked bags and walked down to the CVS to get our wine and some other things. As we were walking in, this older couple was walking out with a duffle bag that seemed to be pretty heavy. As we got closer all we heard was…clank, clank, clank. They had to have 10-15 bottles of something in that bag. I looked at them and was like, “you actually going to try and get that on the boat?!?” They shook their head yes and went on their way. Now let me just say, Emily and I can drink with the best of them, but there was no possible way we would have been able to drink the amount of alcohol they had in that bag in 7 days! Especially since we were going to be in port almost every day. (we ended up running into them during the sail away party, and they confirmed that they got it all on board.) Now I don’t judge and I don’t want to start an argument over this. But if this couple got THAT bag on the ship, the problem doesn’t lie with the people trying to smuggle. It lies with the way the security is screening people. I mean,come on, they didn’t even try to hide it!

ANYWAY…moving on…

We got back to the terminal and the boarding process was a breeze. Went through security at the front of the terminal, got our sign and sail card, went through the x-ray machines and were on the boat in a matter of 15-20 min. Since we didn’t get there till about 2pm, our room was ready. We dropped our bags off took a tour of the ship and left to go back into Old San Juan for a few hours before we had to get back on the boat.

My first impression, I liked it. Very nice, clean and easy to navigate (those of you who haven’t been on this class ship, you cannot walk from front to back on decks 3 and 4 as the dining rooms get in the way. Go to the promenade deck on 5 to walk the length of the ship.)

Got my first Drink of the day, or daily special or whatever they call it now. It had a message for me....I would have to agree....

Promenade

I will most definitely be taking a ride on you later this week! J

EMBARKATION CONT…..

Im baaaaack....

After we toured the ship, we went back out into Old San Juan to explore, this is my second time here and I am starting to love Old San Juan. We walked around this area that had tents with all kinds of handmade items, and food vendors. it was nicely shaded which was good because it was getting hot!

Ok, so Emily is a shopper…me…not so much. She has this thing where she buys a magnet from every country that she has been too. Store after store….she couldn’t find a magnet she liked. At one point, I swear the store said something to the effect of, “every magnet you could possibly want here” yet somehow we left empty handed. So when we were leaving like the 15th magnet store and I heard a voice yell, “free Pina colada samples!” Emily didn’t have a choice in this one, we were there!

We sat down and realized that we were at Barrachina’s, the birthplace of the original Pina Colada. Now let me tell you, I don’t usually like them but this was unlike any I’ve ever had. If you like Pina Colada’s, you owe it to yourself to go there!

About 2 hours and $80 later we were ready to go haha. We asked how to get back to the ship and the manager told us to go out to the road, make a right, tuck and roll. He was joking of course, but it was all downhill from there, so it might have worked. On the way back to the ship, Emily finally saw a Magnet she liked but was like, “I don’t have any cash left and left my credit card on the ship”, so I went to buy it for her, but only had $3 cash left (damn Barrachina’s), the magnet was $3.99 and it was a minimum purchase of $10 on a card…so we left magnetless. Ugh.

Time to get back on the ship and get ready for Dinner, the muster drill and sail away!

Took this before we got back on…

SAIL AWAY…..

This will be a short post because, well, after a long but awesome morning on the beach, then touring the ship, then Old San Juan, then Pina Colada’s we were beat!

Well, we had to stay up for the muster drill and sail away so went to dinner and we were seated at a table for 10. After talking to the couple next to us, we found out that he was on the Carnival Triumph when it broke down, better known as the “poop cruise”. I made the comment that we should be ok, “because lightning doesn’t strike twice right?”. Regardless, we covered our bases and found out what room he was in so we could come get him if our ship broke down! Kidding aside, it was good to see him back on a cruise, and especially back on a cruise with Carnival.

After dinner we went to the Muster Drill. I know it’s necessary, but still a pain in the you know what. We made the mistake of getting there a few min early and the entire process took about 15 min or so once it got started. We were standing there for about 15 min before they started. We did meet a couple standing next to us that, let’s just say, they kept us entertained throughout.

Once we were released…it was time for SAIL AWAY!

We went up to the Lido deck to enjoy the sail away. The DJ was thumpin', people were dancin' and everyone seemed to be excited to get their cruise underway. I have to say, I LOVE sailing out of San Juan at night, the lit up forts are beautiful.

We didn’t stay up long after sail away, had a beer and called it a night because we were getting up early for St. Thomas tomorrow!!!

ST. THOMAS!

I woke up early and went out to the secret deck on deck 7 and snapped some pictures while we were pulling into port. Was beautiful morning but clouded up quickly.

We didn’t have anything planned, except take a cab and relax on a beach somewhere. Last time in St. Thomas we didn’t make it to Magen’s bay, so we decided to give it a try this time.

Emily happened to get sunburn BEFORE the cruise even started in San Juan, apparently the Caribbean sun doesn’t like the Irish. So we went shopping for a long sleeve rash guard (which saved her from more sunburn the rest of the cruise) then walked up to the Kmart and bought some snorkeling equipment. After that, we took a cab to Magen’s bay. Initially we were worried about the weather on this day, although it ended up cloudy most of the day, it never rained. Emily was ecstatic that it was cloudy for obvious reasons.

The morning was relaxing, just did some snorkeling and enjoyed the beach. We did see a sea turtle, we were told he hangs out in the grassy area towards the middle of the beach and sure enough, he was there. My underwater pictures didn’t come out to well, but I got him poking his head out of the water…

After we did some snorkeling, we made friends with the people sitting next to us who ended up 2 of the many I plan on keeping in touch with following this trip. First thing up, a drink at the bar called Pain killer or something like that. The prices here aren’t horrible, $7.50 for a specialty drink, $6.50 for a mix drink, but man do they make them strong. This pain killer drink had about 3 different rums in it and a “splash” of something with coconut in it….it was delicious.

My overall impression of Magen's Bay is just ok, maybe it was because it was cloudy all day, but I thought it would be prettier. Don't get me wrong, the scenery is nice and we picked a great day to go as it wasn't too full (only ship in port), but I wasn't overly impressed. Glad I saw it, but if I'm back in St. Thomas, ill check out something new.

We caught a cab with our new friends and while waiting for some other people to get in the cab, I saw my first trash can hugger of the week. Apparently the drinks were a little TOO strong for her. She was ok, she had ,what one could only assume was her father, pouring water on her back as she filled up the garbage can. I did snap pictures, I take pictures of everything, and no I will not post them... lol

On the way back to the cruise terminal our cab stopped so we could snap some pictures….

The sun came back out as we were driving back to the cruise termina….again…Emily was happy. lol

Since we already started at Magen’s bay and we didn’t have to get up early tomorrow, naturally a stop at Senior Frogs was in order!

So as we stand there drinking the beer at 4:05pm (had to be back on the ship at 4:30), I turn to Emily and was like, “did you get your magnet?”. I mean you would think that shopping all morning, buying a rash guard, snorkeling gear, that she would be able to find a magnet. Well before she even answered she said , “hold this!” Hands me her beer and runs out, I was assuming that the answer to my questions was a resounding no. about 10 min later, she comes back with a bag in her hand and a smile on her face. Handed her the beer and made it on the ship at 4:29pm…no we didn’t have to run…this time…

ST THOMAS CONT.

Once back on the ship, we watched sail away from our balcony and got ready for dinner. Tonight was our first night at our table for traditional dining. We went for the early dining for two reasons. We were hoping to get up early every day to explore the ports which meant earlier to bed than usual. Secondly, after long days in the port I know if we had extra time before dinner we would end up falling asleep. Now I’m usually good for the 20 min rally nap and then I’m ready to go, Emily on the other hand is like waking a hibernating bear, you better watch your fingers if you wake her up from a nap (I mean that in the nicest possible way Em! But she would be the first to agree with me haha).

I’ll get the whole dining experience out right away, we thoroughly enjoyed it! Our waiters were awesome, the head waiter had a sarcastic personality which fit in perfectly with Emily and I. We were able to joke around with him and he was able to joke around with us right back. The food as always is a very subjective thing. Overall I thought the food was very good. There were things I thought could have been better (frog legs were kind of bland, but maybe that’s the way they were supposed to be), but we were always able to find something on the menu that we liked. Desert wise, I did like the Chocolate Melting Cake, but if you get the chance, try the Bitter and Blanc ….amazing. We were looking forward to having a table where we could meet other people, but ended up in a booth by ourselves. There was supposed to be a single or another couple joining us, but they ended up going to a different table. In retrospect, it was a great thing we had our quiet time at dinner, because the rest of the trip turned out to be anything but quiet time....yes im talking to you hecklers that found my review and said it sucked!!

Here is a pic of the Washington Dining room.

Next up… Crazy Sea day!

SEA DAY!

Ok, I’m back…. I should be able to post a few tonight.

So I forgot to mention that we had a late night at the casino the night after St. Thomas, so we took full advantage of our one sea day and slept until about 9am, that is sleeping in for me these days. We got up and looked outside and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

We went to the see day brunch, had steak and eggs. The steak was good, but the eggs are a little to be desired on a cruise ship. Throughout the cruise, the omelets were ok, but don’t get the scrambled eggs. I believe they are powdered eggs and just don’t measure up to regular eggs. Anyway, I got my bloody mary and the sea day officially started.

Next was the slot pull! I had joined our sailings roll call on Cruise Critic and screen name Normal1 had coordinated a bunch of us meeting at the Casino Bar and donating…yes donating…$15 dollars. We had 24 people, so there was a good amount of money in the pot. The idea was to find a $1 slot machine and put all the money in, everybody take 5 spins at max bet and cash out when everyone had their turn. DHoskins from our roll call was in charge of finding the machine since he is from Vegas. Well after looking looooonnggg and hard to find the perfect machine, he finally found it, the machine we were going to win our jackpot! We almost put the money in and someone yelled out, “Hey that’s a quarter machine!” I’m glad we brought the high rollers from Vegas! Haha So another search started and we found a $1 machine, entered all the money in, after all 24 people took their 5 spins…we ended up getting about $9 back each. Well the gambleholics that we are, we couldn’t stop there, so we took what we won from the $1 machine and went back to the quarter machine because after all, that was going to be the lucky one right? Not so much, we ended up getting $8 back each. After collecting our money, 8 of us put our winnings on the roulette table on black….it came up red…. Should have taken that as a foreshadow for the rest of the trip.

During the slot pull we made friends with most of the people that participated and they ended up being a big part of the cruise. Following our debacle on the roulette table we all made it up to the aft pool, sat at the bar and the day started to take shape. Before long, pretty much the entire aft pool area knew one another and their names (Thanks Shasta). One thing that I loved from this cruise, is that there were people from all over the country. We met people from California, Texas, Minnesota, Maryland, Iowa, Idaho, Nevada, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and pretty much everywhere in between. A family from Louisiana brought their Bose speakers down, Emily gave them her ipod and everyone seemed to be having a great time, I know we were. I have a ton of pictures form this day, and they all have other people in them. I don’t want to post them without their permission. I believe some of you are following along in the review, so if you give me the OK I’ll post a few.

The night brought another great dinner, more failed attempts at Blackjack and a great comedy show. I’ll get to the second set of comedians later in the review, but the first set of comedians were really good. Then went to bed because tomorrow is Barbados!!!

__________________

OK! im all caught up. Give me a few min and ill keep it going with Barbados. I have some awesome pictures from there, so looking forward to sharing them.

Glad you're continuing with your review...I love the Valor...sailed on it 4 times! But never this itinerary. Looks amazing and I'm looking forward to reading more!

Making me more exited to go on that's itinerary

We were on your cruise and now I'm having withdrawals. I guess we need to book another trip ASAP.

Love you pictures, especially the turtle poking its head out of the water.

BARBADOS!!!!

Forewarning, this part of the review will end having a lot of pictures associated with it…Barbados was too awesome not to post them.

When we woke up, I went out onto the balcony to take some pictures as I always do and it was really nice to hear a steel drum band playing some island music outside on the pier. It was another beautiful day, so I let the balcony door open so we could hear the music while we were getting ready, it really set the mood for the day.

After we got ready we went down to get breakfast in the dining room, which I highly recommend. Much better than the buffet and you get waited on lol. As far as time, it varied, but for the most part we were in and out in about a half hour.

We were looking forward to all of the ports, but for me, I was really looking forward to Barbados and swimming with turtles. The previous sea day when we were all having a good time at the aft pool, we all agreed that we were going to meet up at the Boatyard. So we got off the boat, I tipped the steel drum band since I had been listening to them for the past hour or so, and headed into the pier. I stopped to take a picture at the Barbados sign..

At this point, Emily got her magnet and we went to catch a cab to the Boatyard. It was $8 per person to the Boatyard(I believe), and it was a $15 admission fee which got you two chairs and an umbrella, a welcome drink and a cab back to the cruise port at the end of the day. First impression, pulling into the parking lot…ok, looks like fun…second impression as you walk through the bar, onto the beach and see the water for the first time….WOW!!! It was the most amazing water I’ve ever seen. Here are some pictures from the beach at the Boatyard, pictures speak a thousand words…

They had a water trampoline, an iceburg to climb on, a rope swing and a high platform to jump off of, was really a fun place.

That Boatyard Barbados song got stuck in my head! lol Love your review so far! Great job! :D I cannot believe it's been a week since we got off the Valor :/ I wanna go back!

BARBADOS CONT….

Cab ride was only about 10-15 min. We paid our entrance fee and got two chairs right by our friends we made the previous day, and were ready to enjoy the day. Now I said I wanted to see the turtles, we did not book an excursion because of things I ready on CruiseCritic. We read that there were people that walk around and offer to take you out on their boat for a reasonable price. Well….we didn’t even have our bags on the chair and someone was asking us if we wanted to go swim with the turtles. I kind of wanted to wait a little until we got settled in, but urged us to go now before all the excursions got out there and it became really crowded. I said, “Emily, do your thing” So she goes, “How much?!?” He said $20, after about 2 more min, we ended up going for $15. Emily could talk someone into selling her a $10 bill for $8, she’s good… lol. We recruited 3 of our friends to go with us and the 5 of us were on our way. He said it would take about an hour.

So we got in the boat and drove about 100 feet to the other side of the pier and he stops. Emily is like, “this is it?!? I think we just got scammed!” The guy laughed and said no, he was just dropping off the banana boat. Yes, they had a banana boat. After dropping that off, we were on our way to the turtles (was only a 5 min ride, it’s in the same beach area as the Boatyard). Here are some pics from this little adventure. They are my favorite from the entire cruise…

Shasta making it to the boat…

Me laughing at something… Look at that water! ugh I want to go back

Looking in at the Boatyard…

This is where the turtles were. As you can see, they aren’t far off shore.

Next up….pictures of the turtles!!!

Im so glad you're back!! Great job on the review and loving your Barbados comments. I would go back to Barbados and The Boatyard in a second! :)

P.S. (I saw pictures in People magazine that there was an actress there while we were there. Forgot who though)

BARBADOS CONT…

I forgot to mention that the guys who took us on this little excursion were really great, the one was actually a police officer in Barbados and does this on his days off. So we felt safe and they also said there would be rum punch for us! On the way out, Shasta is like, “when do we get the rum punch?”, they told her not till after we were done snorkeling. I told them that they needed to forgive her, she hasn’t been to a meeting in 4 days… ;-)

Ok, so more pictures and less words here. This was my favorite part of the cruise, truly an awesome experience and I’m so happy we did it. In case anyone is wondering, all of these pictures were taken with an Olympus TG-850 waterproof camera….

As you can see, there were other fish swimming around too…

They would swim right underneath you to the point where you could pretty much reach out and touch them

More in a few.....

BARBADOS CONT…..

What is snorkeling without a selfie… only have one or two more selfies in this review…I promise!

Overall we had about 20 min or so to swim with the Turtles, which was perfect because this was pulling in and it was going to get a little more crowded…

So once we got back on the boat, they told us they were going to drive us over to the shipwreck so we can go snorkeling there for a little bit…we were definitely getting our $15 worth!

Here are some pics from the shipwreck, which was a natural wreck by the way. It wasn’t staged for snorkeling…

After the snorkeling was over, it was time for some rum punch! Shasta was happy haha

Overall this was well worth every cent that we paid, it was about an hour and half. They took us back to the Boatyard let us out and it was time to enjoy the beach…. We gave them the full $20 anyway.....

Im so glad you're back!! Great job on the review and loving your Barbados comments. I would go back to Barbados and The Boatyard in a second! :)

 

P.S. (I saw pictures in People magazine that there was an actress there while we were there. Forgot who though)

Haha, thanks! I had so much fun that day. I'm so glad that you guys decided to hop on that boat with us!

Really enjoying this review. We sail this ship & itinerary in November and while I don't want to wish the summer away, I'm super excited to get packin'. Keep the great review comin'

Really enjoying this review. We sail this ship & itinerary in November and while I don't want to wish the summer away, I'm super excited to get packin'. Keep the great review comin'

Thanks, will do! But am done for the night. Ill finish up Barbados and get into St. Lucia tomorrow....

Great review so far... I'm hooked. :p