Valor Western Carib 4/19/2009 Review

I started this as a live report from the Valor but my computer died and so did he live report. So, here is the blow by blow, including pictures. The first two days are a repeat from the live report except pictures have been added.

Saturday, April 18 – Fun Day Traveling

We left home at 5:30AM (!) to head to O’Hare for an 8:10 flight to Miami on United. Our flight was on time getting into Miami. For most of the flight the seat belt sign was on because of turbulence so there were a lot of people running to the restrooms when we landed! After baggage claim and a cab ride we were at the Holiday POM by about 1:30. Our room was clean so we were able to check in.

I chose the HI POM because I had Priority Guest Points accumulated so we could same the hotel money for aboard the ship. We ended up with a King Suite with a view of the port. Being able to see the port was nice but the suit was serious overkill for one night. The HI is an older hotel so it isn’t as glitzy as some of the newer hotels but it was clean and the rooms were comfortable. It is also right across the street from Bayside Marketplace so there are plenty of restaurants and shops nearby.

We walked around Bayside after dropping off our luggage and had lunch as The Knife, and Argentinian Steakhouse. The place smelled great so we decided to try it since we hadn’t had any breakfast. It was good but not great. The lunch price was $26 for all you can eat salad bar and grilled meats, fish and veggies. That also includes two beers, Sangria or a bottle of house wine. Not a bad deal, but I don’t think I would do it again. The food was tasty, but pretty much everything was overcooked since it was sitting on a hot grill until you walked up and asked for whatever you wanted.

That night we went to the Lincoln Road Mall in South Beach and walked around for a couple of hours. We stopped at a Cuban restaurant (Yuca) for a couple of appetizers and drinks. For those who don’t like the drink prices on Carnival, don’t go to South Beach! A Mojito was $14!

Sunday, April 19 – Embarkation

We woke up at 6:45 to watch the sun rise over the port. It was a beautiful sunrise over the Freedom of the Seas, Valor and Triumph.

Then we went back to sleep for another 90 minutes or so. We were at the port by 11:00 and we were zone 17. Check in was a bit of a mess. They only had one person working each of the lines and our line was at a standstill for some reason. The family who was at the counter when we walked up was there for almost 30 minutes. Finally they started taking folks from our line over to another line and we were able to check in. We met some of the folks from our roll call (we agreed to wear Mardi Gras beads to the port) and a couple of them had arrived at 9:00 and were in zone 5. Boarding went smoothly and we were on the ship and strolling on the Lido Deck by noon.

The first stop was the buffet for lunch. After hearing so much about the Reuben sandwiches on CC I had to try one. It was a good Reuben . They make it in a Panini grill and I felt that it could have been grilled a little longer so next time I’ll just ask them to keep it in the grill longer.

We also had our first Funship Special with lunch . The Funship special is good, but a little sweet for me, so I cut it with a little lemonade.

We spent the rest of the afternoon finding our way around the ship. We were able to get into our cabin at about 1:45 but our bags didn’t show up until about 5:30. Muster drill wasn’t bad. It took about 20 minutes.

After muster we went up to the Lido deck, grabbed another DOD and then went out the Secret Door for sail away. There were 5 or 6 people out their on the Lido deck and we could see another 3 or 4 people a couple of decks below. It was a nice place to be. We were the second ship to pull out (Norwegian Pearl went first) so there was a lot of yelling and cheering as we went past the Freedom and Triumph.

After we were out of the port we went down to see if our bags were there and unpacked.

We had late dinner in the Lincoln Dining Room (Lower, Table 182). Our head waiter was Jean from Haiti and he did an incredible job the whole cruise. We are sitting with a younger couple from Seattle and a couple around our age from Atlanta. Nice folks. For the meal I had a shrimp cocktail and Linguine with Italian Sausage and Amy had a salad and the Flat Iron Steak. Her steak was a little overcooked but not bad and the linguine was delicious. I had to try the Warm Chocolate Melting cake for dessert. It lived up to the reputation!

Oh yeah... we had a special visitor in our cabin that night. She said that she was looking for Freddie the Famingo!

After dinner we walked to the Ivanhoe theater to catch the Welcome Aboard show that was supposed to start at 10:30, but they were still selling Bingo cards and hadn’t even started the Bingo game by 10:30 so we went to check out Karaoke in the Eagles Lounge instead. It was pretty dead but we stuck around to hear a few songs. Most folks were pretty bad, which is fine since that is what makes watching karaoke so much fun!

By then it was midnight so we crashed.

Monday, April 20 – Fun Day At Sea

Our roll call had plans to meet at 9:00AM at the aft bar so we woke up at about 7:30 and had room service deliver coffee and a light breakfast. I used the door hanger for our morning coffee order every day. The results were somewhat inconsistent. Each morning I ordered coffee, milk, half and half, a banana and either a bagel or muffin. I filled in the number of guests (2). Some mornings I would get two of everything, others only one (except for coffee cups. We always received two of those). Some mornings we would receive the half and half, others not. Some mornings the milk was whole milk, some mornings it was reduced fat milk. Some mornings I was asked to sign the order form when the order was delivered, others not. The only thing that was consistent was that they were consistently early! The form has a requested time window and the first morning hey hit the window. Every other morning they were up to 15 minutes early. I guess early is better than late, but I started getting up earlier and earlier just to make sure that I wasn’t “occupied” when the order would arrive.

Anyway… Back to the fun day at sea. We had about 60 people on our roll call, but only about 10 of them were active. Of those, we were only missing two or three (you know who you are!). We spent about 30 minutes getting to know each other then we went for a cabin tour. We had a mix of Ocean View, Balcony, Aft balcony and Aft Wrap cabins and one of the front cabins that is technically an Inside cabin but has an obstructed view. We had an OV so it was great for us to see the other cabin categories since it was our first cruise. The Aft Wrap was the biggest hit of the tour!

After the tour we changed into our swimming suits and spent the rest of the day at the Prometheus Pool (the adults only area).

It was a beautiful day and a great way to start out our cruise. We had ordered a bottle of rum through Bon Voyage so we used the lemonade from the buffet to make some of our drinks, but we also sampled the DOD at least once.

At one point during the day we noticed people looking up at the sun, so we did the same (what is it about people looking up that makes everyone do it?). We were treated to a Sun Dog (a ring around the sun similar to a rainbow. It was a very cool sight!

We ate at the buffet for lunch. I tried the Mongolian BBQ and it was just OK. The Szechuan sauce wasn’t very spicy and was watery so it really didn’t flavor the meat or veggies. I also tried the lettuce wraps and Thai cucumber salad from the Pan Asian station and those were very good.

We left the pool area at about 6:30 to clean up for the Captain’s Cocktail Party and the first elegant night. We ran into a couple from our roll call on our way to the cocktail party and sat with them at the bar in the disco and had our own personal bar tender (it was not very crowded) and had three or four drinks before dinner.

At dinner we had a new couple at our table from New York (Queens). Very nice people. This was lobster tail night so we both ordered it. I asked for a surf and turf with both lobster and prime rib and ended up with one of each entree instead of lobster and prime rib on the same plate. The lobster was very small (about four bites) but was tender and tasty, and my prime rib was cooked perfectly.

After dinner we went back to the Eagles Lounge for some more karaoke and then stayed for the adult comedy show with Jim Brick at the urging of our waitress, Beata (more about Beata later). We didn’t see the comedian in his non-adult show, but we heard that he was funny, but the adult show was mostly body-part humor. After the show we went back to the cabin.

Tuesday, April 21 – Grand Cayman

This was our first port on our first cruise, so I wanted to make sure that we got off of the ship on time to meet our excursion. We did the Rays, Reef and Rum Point tour with Native Way. Our instructions from Sharon as Native Way told us to meet them at 8:45 ship time so we decided to try to get on the first tender just in case. We showed up at the Ivanhoe Theater at 7:30 (when they were to start giving out the tender stickers) and we ended up in group 1. We were on shore by about 8:00 ship time, which was 7:00 local time so none of the shops were open yet. We looked around for the Native Way signs and could find them so we found a place to sit. We met another couple from the ship who were on the same tour and a couple from our roll call who were on another Native Way tour. After a while I took a walk around and found two guys with Native Way signs in front of the small white info booth. We checked in with them and went into a couple of shops (which had now opened) until it was time to leave. When we went back to the meeting place we met Sharon, who is a wonderful person. She escorted us to a nice van and they took us about 15 minutes across the island to their boat.

We were on the Trippin’ Out with Captain Chris and his crew, JC and Andrew. As we rode out of the harbor they explained to us what to expect. Along the way we took in the beautiful water and a small storm cloud going by in the distance. The water was crystal clear and I could see starfish on the bottom along the way. At one point Chris slowed the boat down and told us to look for turtles. After a few minutes we saw two. One of them came up to the surface near the boat and we were able to see two remoras following it.

As we neared Stingray City we could see a few boats already there and lots of people standing in clusters. We pulled up away from the other boats and immediately saw stingrays swimming around. After a little instruction from the crew we got into the water and we were immediately surrounded by the stingrays. They would swim by us and fold up one of their wings and rub it along out leg as they went by. I was amazed at how soft and smooth the underside of their wings was. After a while JC and Andrew captured one of the rays and had each of us take turns having our pictures taken holding the ray, kissing the ray (for good luck) and getting a back massage from the rays. Of course, they were selling the pictures ($20 for one, $30 for two, $50 for all of them).

They came out very good and we ended up buying them. We all had a chance to feed the stingrays a piece of squid. Basically it is like having something sucked out of your hand by a vacuum cleaner. Captain Chris also captured a male and showed us the difference. Besides some anatomical differences, the males are much smaller than the females.

After the stingrays we went about 5 minutes and snorkeled for about 45 minutes along the barrier reef. The snorkeling was very good with nice coral and a good variety of fish.

From there we went to Rum Point and had lunch. They had menus on the boat and they called in our order so the food was ready when we got there. My wife had the jerked pork sandwich which was good but not great. I had the catch of the day, which was Mahi Mahi grilled and served with a pesto cream sauce. It was excellent! After lunch we walked around Rum Point and bought a t-shirt in the gift shop. Then we spent some time in the water before getting back on the boat for the ride back.

Once we arrived back at the port we did a little shopping. I am a big guy and I can’t find t-shirts that fit me very often so I buy hats and local hut sauce. I found two local hot sauces that I hadn’t tried so I bought them.

Back on the ship we cleaned up and then sat by the adult pool for a while. We soaked in the hot tub and met some new people. One of them was a young woman named Darcy. Darcy was a lot of fun and a real comedienne. We would run into her in the hot tub almost every day. After that we cleaned up and went to dinner. I don’t remember what we ate, but dessert was strawberry cheesecake for me and diet lemon cake for my wife. After that it was more karaoke and then to bed.

enjoying your report! Just 4 more days until my Valor cruise! Love the details about Rays, Reef and Rum Point...thank you! Looking forward to it even more now! You mentioned you bought your pictures, will they take pictures for you with your own camera or only the company's?

Great Pictures!!!

We were treated to a Sun Dog (a ring around the sun similar to a rainbow. It was a very cool sight!

 

that's an amazing picture. enjoying your review as i'm looking at valor in august / sept. but that picture is awesome nonetheless. :cool:

Jim Brick is still doing "comedy" shows on the Valor? I've sailed the Valor twice (Oct 07 and April 08), and he was on both cruises. Both times, many people in the audience left, including myself. Nobody in either of my groups thought he was funny at all. We even wrote it on out comment cards.

Thanks for your great review and especially the pictures. I am sailing on the Valor this Sunday and am very excited.

Great review so far Ron......

Did the usual suspects show up for the meet & greet?

Ron

I'm loving your review! Its bringing back some great memories of the Valor. Keep it coming...!

Love your review so far. The picture of the sun is absolutely amazing!

enjoying your report! Just 4 more days until my Valor cruise! Love the details about Rays, Reef and Rum Point...thank you! Looking forward to it even more now! You mentioned you bought your pictures, will they take pictures for you with your own camera or only the company's?

I didn't ask them since we had met another couple from Valor before the tour and they took pictures with our camera for us (and I took pictures of them and just e-mailed to them). The weren't high pressure at all with the pictures. You had a chance to view them on board and at lunch and take your time deciding. The quality was very good so we decided to buy them.

Jim Brick is still doing "comedy" shows on the Valor? I've sailed the Valor twice (Oct 07 and April 08), and he was on both cruises. Both times, many people in the audience left, including myself. Nobody in either of my groups thought he was funny at all. We even wrote it on out comment cards.

Yep... He is still there. I heard that his regular show was funny but the adult show was rather juvenile.

Great review so far Ron......

 

Did the usual suspects show up for the meet & greet?

Thanks, Keith! Yep, most of the regulars made it. We missed you!

Great review!! Can't wait to see more.

What a great review and awesome pictures. Thank you

the turtle photo is AWESOME! It looks like something out of a book.

thanks for the review. We leave on the Valor July 5 and are doing the same tour as you with Native Way.

Thanks again.

sorry, I forgot to ask, where did the Ruben Sandwich come from? It's looks yummy!

sorry, I forgot to ask, where did the Ruben Sandwich come from? It's looks yummy!

It is from the Deli in Rosies (the buffet). it is on the port side in between the two buffet areas.

Here is the next installment...

Wednesday, April 22 – Isla Roatan, Honduras

Since we weren’t supposed to dock in Roatan until noon we slept in a little and then went to the Washington dining room. After hearing so much about the Eggs Benedict here on CC we tried them. The eggs were cooked perfectly and the ham was thick and tasty, but the hollandaise was thick and bland. We both decided not to order them again. On the way out of the dining room we saw Jean, our waiter at dinner. We talked to him for a few minutes. He works both breakfast and lunch (when served) in the Washington dining room and then dinner in the Lincoln dining room! That’s a long day! He has been with Carnival for 13 years and has a wife and four year old child back in Haiti. He is on contract for 8 months and then off for two. He told us how much he loved his job and that he puts his heart into it. He tells his dining room partners that if they can’t do the same then they should find another partner to work with. His dedication really showed in his service.

After breakfast we went up to the top deck to watch as we sailed into Roatan. We could see rain all around us and it finally started raining just as we docked.

We went down to the cabin to change and by the time we left the ship at about 12:30 the rain had stopped. We had reservations at Fins and Flippers for the day. You can see the island from the ship.

Our instructions told us to look for bright green F&F T-shirts on the dock. We stopped to look in a couple of shops along the way and eventually saw a sign that pointed the way to taxis and tours. We walked a short way in that direction and I saw a sign for F&F and two or three people in green and blue t-shirts. A nice young man greeted us and made a call on the radio and then told us that he would escort us to their private dock. We saw him at the end of the day in one of the shops and he told me that he reads CC and would be looking for my review. If you are reading, I’m very sorry that I forgot your name!

Anyway… He took us out of the dock area and along the street. There were a lot of folks selling tours but for the most part they left us alone since we were with him. After a few minutes we were met by another F&F employee who took us the rest of the way and the first guy went back to look for more folks. We walked for no more than 5 minutes and reached a private dock. We only had to wait for a couple of minutes for the boat to the island. We expected for him to wait for more people but he took us across immediately. We were met at the dock by Cindy, the manager. Cindy hopped onto the boat and explained the facilities available on the island and then took us into the main building to pay our admission and check in. besides the beach and snorkeling they have some different wildlife, including at least one big cat, three sea lions (rescued when a shelter in St. Lucia was destroyed by a hurricane), a beautiful pool, a gift shop and a snack shop.

We came for the snorkeling so we hit the gift shop to rent fins ($3 a pair) (we brought our own mask and snorkel) and headed to the beach. We saw two ladies from our roll call at the beach and talked for a bit and then headed out the dock. At the end of the dock there is a palapa with benches so we set our gear there and went down the ladder into the water. When you are on the dock you will see two red buoys about 100 feet out. Once you are in the water you swim over sand and small coral towards the bouys. Once there you will see a channel through the larger coral that leads you out to the drop off and the main part of the reef. The first view of the deep blue waters of the drop off is beautiful! The water was crystal clear and the coral and fish are spectacular.

This may have been the best snorkeling I have ever experienced (Molokini Crater in Hawaii may have been better, but it is close). If you are not familiar with snorkeling or not comfortable with deep water this is a great place to go. They have a young man in a kayak out with you all of the time (even when it started to pour rain). While we were there he rescued a couple who had gotten into an area where they could get back out. We snorkeled for a couple of hours even though it rain a few times (we didn’t care. The only thing exposed to the rain was the back of our heads).

After that we went to the snack bar for a drink and some Calimari Sofrito (fried calamari with a spiced mayo dipping sauce).

I had a local beer (Salva Vida) and my wife had the drink special, a Coco Loco. Both the beer and the calamari were great and she enjoyed the Coco Loco. Then we walked around for a while and eventually went back for more snorkeling. At one point my wife got tired and went up to the pool. I joined her after a while and we went into the gift shop before heading back to the ship. I bought a hat and my wife bought a hand made ceramic vase. The prices for everything including the food and drinks were very reasonable.

We caught the boat back to the main island at about 5:45 and walked back to the dock. Along the way I saw two young kids heading towards us. I expected them to ask us to buy something or just ask for money. Instead they both thanked us for coming to their island and told us to have a nice trip. That was a nice surprise!

At the dock we had time for another local beer (Imperial) and a little shopping before getting back on board.

I found a couple of local hot sauces at a shop on the dock and bought them.

We watched the last few stragglers running for the ship from our cabin. One guy dropped a small plastic baggie as he ran. One of the local dancers saw it and wlked over to grab it. He handed it to one of the security officers from the ship and the security officer opened it and smelled it. Then he and the other security officers stood around discussing and smelling the bag for a few minutes. I don't know if anything came of that discussion but it was interesting.

Back on the ship we cleaned up went to the lobby bar for a drink before dinner. At dinner the new couple from New York was sitting at another table. Apparently they had joined our by accident. This night we were joined by a couple from California who had asked to be moved to our table from a table by the window since we were in the middle of the shows. I guess we were the hot table! I think dinner this night was beef short ribs, which were very good.

After dinner we went back to the Eagles Lounge for more karaoke. There was a large group there who were having a good time, but when ever one of them got up to sing the entire group would go up on stage with them. It was funny the first couple of times, but when they started doing that to singers who weren’t part of their group it got to be a bit much. After that we left and went for a walk around the ship before heading back to the cabin.

Thursday, April 23 – Belize

This was the only port that we booked our excursion through Carnival. Since the tender ride to shore if fairly long we decided to book through Carnival since their excursions left directly from the ship. This was our only mistake of the trip.

We received our ticket in the cabin a couple of days earlier and the instruction told us to meet in the disco at 8:45. We got there at about 8:40 and the place was mobbed. Shortly after we got there they took most of the people out for another excursion. Then people began filtering in for our excursion, the Goff Caye Snorkel. Apparently no one had bothered to look at the number of people who had signed up for the excursion because they were scrambling at the last minute to find a second boat!

They took us down to the 0 deck at about 9:00 and jammed about 50 of us onto the first boat. We were almost sitting on top of each other. It took about 30 minutes to get to the Caye. Along the way they handed out the equipment to those who needed it. We just needed fins. At the dock they gave us a choice of staying on the boat and snorkeling off of the boat or snorkeling off of shore. They told us that we would be seeing the same stuff. My wife felt more comfortable from shore so we did that. As we were getting ready to go into the water the second boat pulled up with at least another 50 people!

The Caye itself is beautiful. It is small and has three palm trees, some brush, a palapa, a dock and beach. It is right on the reef. There was a group of locals setting up a grill and a table to sell grilled chicken, kabobs and drinks.

We thought that we were going to be able to snorkel on our own, but we were herded into the large group. The group had a mix of novices and experienced snorkelers. They had enough staff to have split the group up by experience, but they didn’t so a bunch of us had to wait for them to teach the newbies how to put on their fins, etc. Once everyone was ready we headed off in a large herd. For most of the time all we could see was bubbles from the person in front of us! At one point the group from the boat joined as so we had almost 100 people in one area. With that many people we saw almost no fish. One time another guy and I drifted away from the group towards the shore and suddenly we saw fish every where. We also saw a pair of cuttlefish and watched them for a while. But, after a few minutes we heard the guides yelling at us to get back with the group!

After snorkeling we dried off and ordered a local beer (Beliken) and some of the grilled chicken.

The beer was very good and the chicken was tasty. After eating we walked along the beach.

and sat in the water for a while taking to another couple. They took a couple of pictures of us and we took a couple of pictures of them. Then it was time to head back to the ship.

To summarize this excursion, the Caye was beautiful! As you sail into Belize you see it on the starboard side (and again on the port side as you leave). It is very small and remote.

I think the snorkeling could have been good it it weren’t for the number of people. All in all, I can’t recommend it. If we go back to Belize we’ll book with a third party instead.

After cleaning up we too a tender to shore and shopped the dock area. I bought some more hot sauce and my wife bought a hand carved slate Mayan Calendar. Then we stopped at Wet Willy’s for a couple of more Belikens before heading back.

Once again we cleaned up and headed to the adult pool area. After that it was dinner (filet mignon, I think) and then we went to the 80’s show. It was a good show and a lot of fun.

Oh! One thing happened in Belize that really made us feel good. As we were walking through the shops I heard someone calling my name. I turned around and saw Beata, our waitress from the Eagles Lounge! She was on shore for some free time and she took time out of her day to talk to us and ask us how we were enjoying Belize. That she remembered our names was impressive, but that she took some of her precious free time to talk to us made us feel very good.

If you are on Valor and see Beata please tell her that we say hello!

I am loving your review and I can't wait to get on the ship in July! Seems like school will never end!

What type of camera are you using underwater? I am getting ready to buy a new one and my girlfriend recommended a waterproof digital camera, is that what you have? The pictures are so clear.

Thanks

I am loving your review and I can't wait to get on the ship in July! Seems like school will never end!

What type of camera are you using underwater? I am getting ready to buy a new one and my girlfriend recommended a waterproof digital camera, is that what you have? The pictures are so clear.

Thanks

I have the Olympus 1030SW and love it. Whatever type you decide on get at least one extra battery. My battery died on my at F&F right when I found two cuttlefish. I had a spare on shore so I swam in to change it out but they were gone when I got back. Also, get the largest memory card that you can find or have an extra card. I almost filled two 2G cards since i was taking videos as well. For the Olympus, I think it is worth the few extra bucks for by their XD picture cards. Get the M+ type. They are faster and allow better quality videos.

If you don't mind refurbished equipment watch the auctions at Overstock.com. Olympus sells refurbs there and I got a great deal on mine.

Thanks so much!

I am enjoying your review, thank you for taking the time to post one :)

Great review. The pictures are really super. We are also thinking about staying the Holiday Inn in POM. Can you share what the cost of the taxi was from the airport and the hotel? Also the cost of the taxi to the port from the hotel...

Thanks,

Ray

Great review! We're sailing on the Valor this Sunday! A couple of questions:

1)Where can you purchase the liquor to have delivered to your room? I've looked on the gifts on carnival's website but I can't find it listed - only wine.

2) Last year in Cayman we took a taxi to Royal Palms at 7 Mile Beach. We're undecided on if we want to just do that again, or take a taxi all the way over to Rum Point. Was Rum Point nice enough to warrant the extra time & effort?