REVIEW: Carnival Valor to Southern Caribbean Oct 6-13, 2013 OUR FIRST CRUISE!

Hi everyone! As a warning, this will be a long, photo heavy review! I read every review of the Valor before our trip, and even went back to read some of the previous ship doing the same itinerary and got so much great information from them, I thought I'd write one of my own!

Just to give you a little background, my husband and I planned this trip to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, which was also the 29th anniversary of the day we became a couple. He is 45, I am 43, so to save you the trouble of doing the math in your head, we started dating when I was 14 and he was 16, and we got married at 18 and 20! No one thought we would last and we didn't have a lot of support from our families so our wedding was basically on our own expense. For that reason, we never had a honeymoon. Over the last 25 years we've gone through a lot of really rough times and we always talked about taking our "honeymoon" at some point and it never happened. Finally last year around our 24th anniversary we decided it was about time to take our honeymoon and we decided we would make it happen one way or another.

We have 3 kids, our oldest was born on our 2nd anniversary and is now 23. She was instrumental in starting the fund for our trip, and gave us a lovely music box that said 25th anniversary and filled it with a sizable amount of cash to start our fund. Over the last year we have added whatever cash we could. I started selling items on ebay and working extra hours when I could. We were determined to not let our 25th anniversary pass without a big celebration. (The other kids are a daughter who is 19 and just moved out this fall to start college, and a son who is 16 and is a high school Sophomore. He has Aspergers so if anyone knows anything about Aspergers, you'll understand how very much we needed this break!)

We finally booked the cruise in January 2013, nearly 10 months in advance. We had long discussions about what to do for this trip...at first he wanted a land vacation, with a spot on a beach somewhere and a week of just total relaxation. I've always wanted to cruise. He had taken one cruise before way back in 1986 on a ship called the Galileo through a company called Fantasy Cruises. It was a much smaller ship than the cruise ships of today (1200 or so passengers). His experience wasn't so amazing that he felt he really wanted to cruise again. (we recently read that the Galileo ship sank in 1999 after a fire). I work for a major hotel company so of course we looked at staying at a hotel on the beach using my discount, but I just kept going back to the idea of cruising.

After researching various cruises and itineraries, I came across the Valor cruise itinerary out of San Juan. We discussed the idea of staying a couple days before or after the cruise in a hotel in San Juan and cruising so that we'd both have our dreams fulfilled. My husband used to travel a lot for work and had a lot of airline miles saved up, enough to get his ticket to San Juan for free. I had earned enough airline credit from a bumped flight the year before to cover my ticket...so with 2 free tickets to San Juan, the idea of not needing a passport since San Juan is a US Territory, and the combination of a land and cruise trip, our plans we finally decided on! (We did decide later on to play it safe and get passports anyway though.)

Carnival Valor, Oct 6-13 2013 departing from San Juan, Puerto Rico with ports of call in Charlotte Amalie St Thomas-USVI, Bridgetown Barbados, Castries St Lucia, Basseterre St Kitts, and Philipsburg St Maarten.

DAY 1-Oct 3, 2013

Our flight left at 5:50 in the morning so our day started very early. We left home at 4am. It was pouring rain and absolutely dreadful! Just loading the luggage in the car was a disaster and we were soaked and miserable. Our daughter took us to the airport and we were just about pulling in to the drop off zone and after we had gone over and over our checklists, I asked my husband if he grabbed the cash that was in our music box. We had a sizable amount of cash that we were taking as a lot of our excursions required cash and we wanted small bills for taxi's and tips etc. Talk about a panic situation when we realized the cash was still in the box on the dresser at home...30 minutes away and we were already running later than we wanted because of the rain. At this point the stress of planning everything so perfectly just kind of hit me hard and I was in tears as we were trying to figure out what to do.

We called the bank and asked if they had an ATM at the airport. No, but there were other ATM's there. We had to ask the bank to raise the daily cash withdrawal limit for us to take out the cash we thought we would be needing. The bank agreed, and thankfully we were able to take out what we needed with only a small fee for the other bank's ATM use. (Our daughter had to go to the bank later for us that day to deposit the cash from our dresser stash). Crisis solved!

We got through the airport security fairly quickly, flying out of Omaha, NE. Eppley is a pretty small airport. We each had one checked suitcase, one carry on suitcase and one bag. Next time we will pack much less! (more on that later!)

After the ATM/cash debacle, we didn't have a lot of time to wait before our Delta flight was boarding. It was still dark outside, and still pouring rain. But we were soon on our way!

The flight was to Atlanta and we watched the sun rise out the window after we finally flew out of the rainstorm.

We made it to Atlanta on time, and had a 1 hour layover, but by the time we got off the plane and went to the bathroom and found our next gate, we only had a few minutes to wait before our flight to San Juan was boarding. We had planned to grab some breakfast in Atlanta but there wasn't time so we decided to get a food box on the plane instead. It was a good hour into our 3 hour 15 min flight to Puerto Rico before they began to serve anything. We were sitting in the middle of the plane, and the 2 carts started at the front and the back and met in the middle so we were the last ones to be served. Of course by this point we were pretty hungry, and they had run out of food boxes for purchase. No cheese trays, no fruit plates, no sandwiches left. Nothing. We were kind of ticked off and cranky at this point, but they did give us an extra package of peanuts. That tablespoon worth of peanuts had to tide us over until we got to Puerto Rico. I forgot to mention earlier that I am a complete night owl, and work mid shift so I actually had no sleep before we left. None. Hubby had about an hour's nap. We were tired, stressed, and starving! We'll definitely plan better if we ever do something like this again

The rest of the flight was good. It was so pretty flying over the Bahamas and seeing the turquoise waters and beaches from above.

We are looking at this itinerary with some friends...I will definitely be following along! :-)

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We flew down the eastern coast of Florida as well and we were pretty easily able to spot Kennedy Space Center and the NASA buildings. This stretch of Florida is called Canaveral National Seashore. We've been there twice, the beaches are amazing. It's just east of Titusville and north of NASA/Cape Canaveral.

Kennedy Space Center:

There was an in flight movie (The Way Way Back) but I couldn't get my headphones to work properly, they kept cutting out, and I was far too tired to watch a movie so I tried to sleep. I'm not sure how much sleep either of us actually got on the flight, but before we knew it we were landing in Puerto Rico!

We were seated on the right side of the plane (while looking forward) so we weren't really able to see the forts from our side. But it was still pretty! We landed a few minutes early and headed off to find our luggage. We didn't really have any issues in the San Juan airport, it was pretty easy to find our way around. Our luggage had arrived and we were relieved.

We had decided to rent a car and we were staying in San Juan for 3 nights before the cruise. We rented from a local company called ACE, which is actually the same company as Charlies. The instructions on our email said to call for the shuttle from the courtesy phone at the airport. The only problem is there are no courtesy phones at the airport, so we had to use the cell phone.

On a side note, we have Verizon for our cell service. My husband called Verizon beforehand to find out what services were available in Puerto Rico and the various islands and the costs involved. We were told to use the phone service in Puerto Rico it is .69 per minute, even though it is a US Territory. We had read conflicting info on this, and haven't received our phone bill yet so I can't yet confirm the charge. We were told that there was no charge for texts as it was on our plan, and no additional charge for data other than our plan. Hopefully that will be the case when the bill arrives.

So hubby called ACE to get the shuttle and they said look for the van marked Charlies. It arrived pretty soon after our call and there were a few other people needing the shuttle so it was nearly full. The drive to the car rental office was maybe 15 minutes, it didn't seem very long. As soon as we stepped outside the airport we were greeted with the heat and humidity! OMG it was so humid! We were both dripping with sweat withing a few minutes time so getting into the cool van with working a/c felt great!

Great start! I'm subscribed, can't wait to read more. We leave on the Valor 11/3 and can't wait! Thanks for writing this review!

We arrived at the car rental office and we had found a rate of less than $30 per day for a mid size car (a Nissan I think?) Our 3 day total was around $85, and we chose to pay a $10 fee for the toll roads. It allowed us to use the drive through lane without stopping and hassling with the individual tolls. We figured that was worth $10! It did take some time to get through the line and get our vehicle, maybe 30 minutes or so. We opted to not take their insurance as our own insurance covers us as well as the credit card we used to pay for the rental. But soon we were on our way, on our own to navigate the crazy streets!

We had read a lot about the driving in Puerto Rico...some saying it was far worse than NYC and that people treated stop signs and traffic lights as optional. We didn't find it to be as crazy as we had read. People did tend to pull out in front of you rather than waiting for an opening and no one seemed to use turn signals. Pedestrians definitely have the right of way, if they set foot out into the street, cars would stop for them. In some areas there were these huge speed bump/pedestrian crossways that you basically had to stop before driving over. But all in all we found that it wasn't as scary as we thought it would be. But all roads and signs are in Spanish but it was pretty easy to figure out even though we don't speak Spanish.

We packed our own GPS, which came in handy for the most part, although a lot of the times the roads had different names in the GPS than what they were marked as, if you could find street signs at all. We found our way to the hotel, which was the Courtyard by Marriott Isla Verde Beach Resort. We were on the top floor with an incredible view!

Checking into the hotel was easy, it is pretty much a gated property from the front, with a parking garage. We got a parking pass linked to our room so we had to enter our room key to open the gate each time. The hotel is a resort, which if you know Marriott properties, it is unusual for a Courtyard hotel to be a resort, but as they say "location, location, location!". So yes there is a resort fee (all the beach front properties that we looked into had a resort fee). The hotel does not have an airport shuttle, but I read somewhere that this is because of some agreement with the taxi companies, and none of the hotels even at the airport provide shuttle service. Taxi charges are regulated and charges are based on zones or something like that, with an additional charge of $1 per piece of luggage. Anyway, the Courtyard was gorgeous! Large chandelier in the lobby, fountain outside, and the lobby was busy! There are several restaurants, with live music and dancing, a casino etc.

We got settled into our room and of course headed straight to the balcony to see the beach! Ah, we were finally able to relax and soak in the paradise!

We are looking at this itinerary with some friends...I will definitely be following along! :-)

 

 

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Yay, my first follower! You'll love this cruise if it's what you decide! Very port intensive...busy busy busy! With only 1 day at sea we barely had time to scratch the surface of all there was to do on the ship. The Valor was lovely and well maintained, we were very pleased!

Great start! I'm subscribed, can't wait to read more. We leave on the Valor 11/3 and can't wait! Thanks for writing this review!

Can I come with you? I'd seriously do this cruise again in a heartbeat! You'll have a blast!

Even though we were starving and super tired, we changed right away into our swim suits and headed to the beach. We wanted to enjoy the afternoon before it was too dark, we figured sleep and food could come later. It was about 3:30 or 4 pm when we were on the beach feeling sand between our toes! Ahhhh! The Isla Verde Beach and all beaches in Puerto Rico are public, but for guests at the hotel they provide lounge chairs, umbrellas and towels. I had read that they issue arm bands for resort guests, but we never had them (maybe because we were there in the off peak season?). We got our towels near the pool and with our hotel towels we had no problem getting lounge chairs, which we never really used as we got into the water right away.

The beach was not at all crowded. It was obvious that some people were not hotel guests, but it didn't matter. The hotel is the last one on the east side of the beach so there's a long stretch of beach to the east of the hotel without any big buildings etc. To the west there are several large condos and other hotels, including another Marriott property, the Ritz Carlton. The water was warm, but the waves were a little rough, which made the water kind of murky. But you can walk in pretty far without a severe drop off. The waves were big enough to knock you over at times. We stayed out at the beach until it started to get dark and decided to go shower for dinner.

Another note about the hotel location; Yes the hotel is right across the street from the airport. From the windows near the elevators you can see the airport very easily and you can hear take offs and landings. But I don't recall it being an issue at all at night, it seemed most of the activity was during the day. The doors to the balconies are doubled so from the inside it wasn't really an issue at all for us.

During our planning I found a daily deal website called Gustazos. We checked it daily for any local deals and did find a couple restaurant deals that were within walking distance of the hotel. We didn't decide on renting a car until a couple weeks before so we had limited ourselves to deals within walking distance of the hotel to save on taxi fares. We used one of our deals on our first night at a restaurant called Platos. It was a few blocks down the street. It was Thursday night so we called ahead to see if we needed reservations, and were told we didn't need one before 7:30pm. It was around 6 so we headed out. We did dress in slacks for dinner as I had read that most people dress up to go out and we didn't want to seem out of place. As it turned out it seemed about 1/2 the people we saw were very dressed up (lots of mini skirts and jewelry on the ladies), and the other half were the obvious tourists wearing shorts and casual attire, and it seemed perfectly OK either way.

The deal we had for Platos cost us $29 for $60 off the menu plus a bottle of house wine. We ordered an appetizer to share, and I had a lobster mofongo and he had something called El Jibarito. Both were very good, but we didn't take any food porn pics to share, sorry! We also ordered dessert and with drinks and tip it was a bit over the $60 total. But it was still an excellent meal, with great service!

There was a Walgreen's between the hotel and restaurant, so we stopped in for a couple things we needed. But note, this one is not open 24 hours like most of them are in the US.

We got back to the hotel and talked about going back out to the pool/hot tub, which are open 24 hours, or to the casino just to wander around, but instead we ended up in bed pretty early as we were so exhausted!

A couple months before the trip, I lost a filling in my last tooth on the top, and eventually the tooth broke. I detest going to the dentist, and kept putting it off, and wouldn't you know it, a few days before we were leaving home it started hurting...bad! I finally went to the dentist on 10/1 and we left on 10/3. The dentist couldn't get me in for a root canal and crown before we left, so she at least gave me a prescription for Hydrocodone and Ibuprofin 600mg, plus an antibiotic as it was now infected. Yippee...because antibiotics and painkillers go so well with alcohol and the sun, right? Ah well, it was my own fault for not taking care of my tooth months earlier.

So glad you guys finally got to take your LONG awaited honeymoon!!!! What a great cruise for you first one!

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Can I come with you? I'd seriously do this cruise again in a heartbeat! You'll have a blast!

Sure! I forgot to tell you that our stories are very similar. We are a little bit old than you but we just celebrated our 32nd anniversary. We were also 18 and 20 when we got married. Like you, people assumed it wouldn't last or that we "had" to get married.....I guess they were surprised when our daughter was born 3 years later....longest pregnancy in history! ha

OCT 4, 2013 Day 2

Good Morning San Juan!

Well, Friday we had a big day planned. We wanted to drive out to the rainforest called El Yunque and see some of the waterfalls, spend some time at a beach in Luquillo that we had read was very nice, and we had planned to go to the Bio-luminescent Bay that evening. I didn't sleep very well that night before and woke up in severe pain from my tooth. I took a Hydrocodone and Ibuprofin, along with my antibiotic and went back to sleep as best I could. I woke up early with my stomach hurting terribly! I was doubled over and nearly in tears and figured out that I must have waited far too long after eating so taking the antibiotic on an empty stomach was a very bad idea. We had planned on grabbing some fast food on our way to the rainforest in the morning, but instead called room service and I ordered some dry toast and a can of Sprite...which cost $12! But it worked and within a few minutes of eating my stomach settled and I was feeling up for adventure!

We finally got out of the hotel and on the road around 10 or 10:30. We had been concerned about the government shutdown affecting things on the trip...and it did to some degree, more on that later. But we talked to the front desk (Yanet was so sweet and helped us tremendously!) and she told us that the Gov't shutdown did close the visitor center with the rainforest, but the rainforest is so much more than that and there was still a lot we could drive through and see.

Gas is sold by the liter, so by a quick calculation, gas wasn't priced much different than in the States. But at first I thought I was having a flashback to gas prices when I was in high school!

It was about a 30-45 minute drive before we got into the rainforest area. The roads in the rainforest are very narrow and full of potholes, so it was quite an adventure!

Lots of swerving on his part and yelping on my part but we survived. Hearing the coqui frogs and the rain falling was really beautiful!

So glad you guys finally got to take your LONG awaited honeymoon!!!! What a great cruise for you first one!

 

 

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Very long awaited! But so worth it! Thanks!

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Sure! I forgot to tell you that our stories are very similar. We are a little bit old than you but we just celebrated our 32nd anniversary. We were also 18 and 20 when we got married. Like you, people assumed it wouldn't last or that we "had" to get married.....I guess they were surprised when our daughter was born 3 years later....longest pregnancy in history! ha

Oh goodness, I remember that feeling! People assumed all the time that I was pregnant when we got married, but nope! And even after I had our first, I remember a lady stopping me in the store, she saw the baby and my wedding ring and flat out said "Oh, I see you HAD to get married?" I mean seriously?? It was so frustrating at times that no one could understand that it was actually possible for us to get married so young because we actually loved each other and wanted to be together! Congrats to you on your 32nd anniversary!

We made it to the top area to a trail and we parked the car and got out to walk, but it was far too muddy and we are not hikers so we didn't venture far at all.

The views from the mountaintop were breathtaking!

We didn't see any real waterfalls going in one direction, but we decided to just wander around down another road and see if there were any in that direction...saw several beautiful waterfalls and took lots of photos.

More pics from the rainforest drive:

We saw a lot of stray dogs, not just in Puerto Rico, but all of the islands we visited. They were not wild or mean dogs, just strays. Most of them seemed to be well fed, and they were very friendly. It kind of broke my heart because I wanted to bring them all home! This one was wandering the roads in the rainforest and at one point he just laid down in the middle of the road. I worried he would be run over.

We managed to find our way out of the rainforest and back to the main roads without much difficulty, but hubby does have an amazing sense of direction. We found our way to Luquillo but didn't see where the beach was. We got further into town and realized we must have passed it so we turned around and headed back the way we came. We did find the beach and the Kioskos, which is a long strip of connected kiosks, that had various fried foods, lots of bars and a couple shops.

Behind the Kioskos is the beach and you can drive your car basically up onto the beach area so we felt quite comfortable with the car in view while we swam. We loved the foods and bought a few items.

The only downfall to Luquillo beach is that we didn't find any bathrooms or showers etc. Well, there was a bathroom that was not very clean that was at the end of the kioskos, but no showers at all. I've read there are bathrooms and nice facilities at Luquillo, but we didn't find them so maybe we weren't at the right spot. But the beach was pretty clean and the water was super calm! There was even an area of coral and rocks right near the shore with some pretty fish. We didn't have snorkel gear with us, but hubby did have a pair of goggles so he was able to see some fish pretty easily right there a few feet from shore. The water wasn't a bright turquoise blue but it was clear and calm. The sand was pretty soft. We stayed for awhile, and then headed out because we had a bio bay excursion planned and had to be there by 6pm.

Don't worry, we knew it was alive so we put it back!

This dog was so cute, he would actually get on and off the boogie board on his own. He would climb on and jump back in the water, it was so cute!

We stopped at a McDonald's to use the restroom, grabbed a meal to share and tried to clean up as best we could. It was only a few minutes drive to Fajardo where we had to meet for the bio bay tour. The area by Laguna Grande is pretty nice, a few booths set up with merchants and food, an open park area and lots of kayaks! TONS of kayaks and we were off season! We found a company that is one of only 2 that use motorized boats for the tour rather than the kayaks that most of the tours use. We weren't sure we could physically handle the kayak tour and had read a lot of mixed reviews on the kayaks so we went with Bio Island (bioislandpr) for the tour. It was around the same cost as the kayak tours $52 per person. The people were super friendly and very organized. We were not disappointed with our decision!

In this last photo you can see the teeny hole in the trees where the kayaks are heading

If you haven't heard of the bio bay, it is one of only something like 5 in the world, 3 of which are in Puerto Rico. One is on the southwest side of the island, one is on the northeast corner (that's Laguna Grande) and the 3rd is on the island of Vieques. The one on Vieques is supposed to be the best one, but hardest to get to, and the one in Laguna Grande is the next best. The water is full of a specific type of plankton that glows in the water when they are agitated. They feed off of mangrove trees and the water has to be just right, which is why there are so few places in the world where this plankton survives. It used to be years ago that you could swim in the water, but in an effort to protect it they no longer allow swimming.

The boat took us in through the mile long cave like tunnel of mangrove trees. When there were no kayakers in view he was able to turn on the lights so we could see the trees and the tunnel they form. It was breathtaking! It felt very surreal. The frogs and noises were almost overwhelming. We motored past the kayaks, most of whom were struggling in the dark, bumping into each other and looked generally miserable. As we entered the lagoon it was much larger than I had pictured in my mind. It was wide open, very dark and very calm. Pretty soon as we were getting further in, you could see the water start to glow! It was so amazing! There are no photos of this part of our adventure, as the glowing doesn't show up, you would need a very long exposure to capture it, and you also need movement in the water so if you can get anything to show it's just a glowing blue blur blob. We didn't really try because we knew we didn't have the right kind of camera equipment. The captain told us stories about the area before the "world" found out about it, and how the locals tried to keep it a secret. When a hurricane opened up the pathway into the lagoon back in 1989 I think he said, word got out. They couldn't keep their secret world to themselves any longer. The captain gave us sticks to use to stir the water to see the glowing, and we could reach down and touch it. The kayaks were basically clumped together in one section and we had the freedom to boat all over the lagoon. He knew where to see bigger fish, and how to use the sticks to tap the water and see the shrimp all jump, causing the glowing. He knew where the glow was most concentrated and where the best place was to scoop up the water in our hands and just shake the water gently to see our hands glowing. I wish it was possible to show you how amazing it was, but you'll have to just get there yourself to see it first hand!

The whole ride lasted maybe an hour or so. We passed the kayakers again on our way out of the lagoon. On the way in, they kayaks were going with the current. But on the way out they had to fight a 5-7 mile per hour current, in the dark with dozens, if not hundreds of other kayaks. We tried not the laugh and point at them while we breezed by in our motor boat!

We were so disappointed it was over, and even asked if they had room on the next boat to go again, but they didn't. However we knew in the next boat going out that one of the couples from our roll call page were going to be there, so we waited to meet them when they arrived. Afterwards we walked around a little bit more, had some super delicious pork skewers and pina coladas before heading back to our hotel.

The drive from Fajardo to Isla Verde was only about 40 minutes or so. While we were in the lagoon, we could see San Juan way off in the distance and it was storming pretty good. Apparently it was stormy enough that there were large sections of the road without power so driving back was a little tense. But we made it back, and were beat! Went to bed pretty early again.

Happy Anniversary. I see we are all in for some adventure as we read this.

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to reading the rest.

OCT 5, 2013 day 3

Originally we had planned for a "nothing" day on Saturday, a day to just lounge around the hotel and swim and relax, but we had such an amazing day on the eastern side of the island the day before that we decided to just do it again. So we got out of the hotel by around 9 or 9:30 am and went to Burger King for breakfast. One of the local breakfast sandwiches in PR is called a Mallorca. It is basically a ham and cheese sandwich covered in powdered sugar. I don't know why but I couldn't bring myself to try it, but hubby did and he said it was pretty good. It just didn't sound appealing to me at all. After breakfast we headed out east again and took a different direction up into the rainforest.

The main highways and big roads were well maintained and very much like the States

We had talked to some other people who had been to the rainforest earlier who said that yes the visitor center was closed, but people could easily walk past the gate and still see the big La Coca Falls. Others said they were still able to walk up to the tower, which is supposed to have the most amazing views. We wandered around looking for La Coca Falls and at one point drove over a bridge where there were several cars parked and no one in sight except for one man. We asked him what was there and he said there was a river and you could get in and swim! We parked the car, it was actually pouring down rain (imagine that, in the rainforest!) and we had our suits on so we figured why not? The man we spoke with name was Mike and he was from the island of Guadalupe. He was traveling by himself, and just enjoying meeting locals. He was so nice! We had to walk down a kind of steep path to the river and we put our semi dry towels under the bridge.

Mike and DH (DH was trying to be cool...but failed, poor hubby!)

There were many locals there, grilling, drinking and just having fun even in the rain. The rain cleared up and the water was cold and clear. It was gorgeous!

Happy Anniversary. I see we are all in for some adventure as we read this.

 

Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to reading the rest.

Aw, thank you!

There were many locals there, grilling, drinking and just having fun even in the rain. The rain cleared up and the water was cold and clear. It was gorgeous!

I'm not even sure how long we were there, time didn't matter. We could have stayed all day!

After a bit, we were were just sitting in the middle part and the water changed out of nowhere...it got murky brown and flowed much faster and deeper very suddenly!

You can see here that the small dry path leading to the spot under the bridge was now under water!

We could barely get out of the water fast enough. Apparently it started raining pretty hard further up the mountain and the water just rushed down stream. Maybe we should have paid more attention to the warning sign when we entered:

We decided to get back in the car and drive around some more.

More photos from our drive through El Yunque:

We're booked on the Valor next November it seems like such along ways away can't wait to go. We were on the Breeze in April and loved the ship.

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I'm loving your review so far. Thanks for taking the time to post it. We'll be on the valor next Sunday! I can't wait.

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Not too far from that we found La Coca Falls. It was gated off, but there were quite a few people there walking around the gate to the falls which was just a few feet away.

We walked down to take some photos and some people said the tower was a short hike up the road, so we headed in that direction. We got maybe half way there and a group was headed back down pretty quickly. They said a park ranger was there and was ticketing people for trespassing; $125 ticket! We didn't want any of those, so we hightailed it out of there.