Carnival Valor Review 8 night 4/28-5/6/12

[rajones007]

Please continue. You can't leave me hanging like this!

 

 

18oz Ribeye only food porn pic

I just did my Homer Simpson drooling-over-food impression without even realizing it. Somebody get me a towel.

 

I would like a bite-by-bite detailed review on this awesome looking steak. ;)

 

Thanks!

[luvflorida]

We will be leaving on the Valor next Saturday and we agree that parking is quite expensive. We are driving over from Naples. Did you rent your car from Ft Myers airport and drop it at MIA? I am thinking of doing this now that you mentioned it. A cab from the airport to the port can't be very much. Love your review!!! Linda

[brensr41]

We will be leaving on the Valor next Saturday and we agree that parking is quite expensive. We are driving over from Naples. Did you rent your car from Ft Myers airport and drop it at MIA? I am thinking of doing this now that you mentioned it. A cab from the airport to the port can't be very much. Love your review!!! Linda

 

Yes from fort myers to miami and the cab fare was 24 dollars flat rate. I will finish the review tomorrow and thanks for reading

[luvflorida]

Thank You!

Linda

[luvflorida]

Yes from fort myers to miami and the cab fare was 24 dollars flat rate. I will finish the review tomorrow and thanks for reading

 

I just found a premier parking site $8 per day with free shuttle to port of Miami https://premierparkingusa.com/

 

We are parking for $66 for 8 days with a 10% off coupon from retailmenot.com/view/premierparkingusa.com

 

These people have parking all over the usa at airports and cruise terminals etc.

[reerun25]

Enjoying the review!

[brensr41]

I just found a premier parking site $8 per day with free shuttle to port of Miami https://premierparkingusa.com/

 

We are parking for $66 for 8 days with a 10% off coupon from retailmenot.com/view/premierparkingusa.com

 

These people have parking all over the usa at airports and cruise terminals etc.

I originally booked with premiere parking but after reading many reviews and horror stories we decided to cancel the reservation. In the Miami part of this board there is a local news video of people getting their cars broken into. News report said it was 18 cars in 3 weeks. Beware if you book it they charge you around $20 cancellation fee, cant remember exact amount.

[brensr41]

Day#5- St.Maarten

Woke up ready to tour! We had a 9:00am excursion with Bernard Tours. This was the first time we booked independently so we were a little nervous, but it turned out to be one of the best excursions. Started off by meeting at the end of the pier, met a couple our age while waiting that we ended up spending quite a bit of time with. First stop was an area where they had a bunch of Iguana’s, the guide gave us lettuce to feed them and would hold them for photo ops. We spent about 20 minutes here it was a nice break from driving, def not the highlight of the tour. From there we went to a really nice lookout point (see pics), there was a guide grabbing sea urchins, star fish, and some sort of shell fish. Be aware the gentlemen grabbing the marine life did expect a little tip (standard seemed to be $1). There was a nice built up deck that had a great view of the ocean, def a great photo op. Spent about 20 min there and we were off to Orient beach.

Once we arrived at Orient beach we headed down and rented 2 beach chairs and umbrella for $10. Where we were located was just at the boarder of where the reagular beach turned into the nude beach. This meant we had a lot of onlookers from the Nude side wonder close to us. Great spot for people watching, but keep this in mind if you have children. Beautiful beach we lucked out with the weather it was actually raining in the distance but we never ended up in it. Where we rented the chairs they offered bar service, very cheap $2 for a beer and the guy would bring them down to you. Only complaint was that the vendors walked right on the beach across the lounge chairs with coverups, jewelry, and towels. It felt like a minute didn’t go by without someone asking if you wanted to buy something. We had an experience with a local Reggae singer. He would come up with portable CD player in hand and give this story about how our marriage would last longer with his music. He wouldn’t stop until you listened I refused several times but my DW is too nice and gave in and listened. After he realized we weren’t buying into it he finally left. We spent about 2 total hours on the beach and then it was time for our next stop.

From there we went to downtown Marigot the French capital. The tour guide recommended some local restaurants and a French pastry Shoppe. We only had a half an hour but we didn’t eat at Orient beach so we went to local restaurant and my DW had garlic shrimp with rice which she said was very good. We rushed to the French pastry Shoppe because we were short on time but it was well worth it. I got this amazing triple chocolate mousse pastry. There was a quite a bit of shopping to do there but we didn’t have time. It was mostly local vendors with local goods.

From there we went to Maho beach where we spent most of our time at the sunset beach bar. This is the famous beach where the planes fly over before landing at the airport. It is a must see and the bar has the times posted on arrivals. On a side note at the Sunset Beach Bar topless women drink free. So beware with your children. We left Maho beach and headed back to the peir. They offered to stop in Phillipsburg for some shopping but no one in our group really cared to stop. David was our tour guide he was great and Bernards Tours is definitely someone we will continue to use when we visit St.Maarten. Total tour cost was $40 per person, which was very reasonable considering cost of cab just to Orient Beach was $20 one way.

Back on the ship we got cleaned up and headed to the sports bar to meet up with a group of people to watch baseball before dinner. Best deal in the bar was 120oz of Thirsty Frog beer for $25. This was poured in something that looked like a blender with a spigot on it. It poured about 8 glasses of beer and our group went through 2 of them for a great time before dinner. The show after dinner was “More than Magic” with Rand Woodbury. It was a David Cooperfield type show. Worth going kept us entertained for an hour. This drew an end to another night with another early morning ahead at St.Thomas. This was mega deck party night which got moved inside due to rain. They also had the Mexican Midnight buffet which we did not attend.

[brensr41]

St.Maarten Pier

Oyster Bay Lookout

[brensr41]

Orient Beach

Maho Beach

 

[brensr41]

Orient Beach

[boaterette]

Really nice review. Thank you.

[Spring1onu]

Enjoying your review! Great pics too :)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[brensr41]

Day#6-St.Thomas

Up early again for another shore excursion. We had an 8:30 tour booked for the St.Johns Champaign Catamaran through Carnival. It was a brief drive through many ridiculously steep hills, winding roads, hair pin turns and blind corners all in an open air bus (see pic). Once we arrived at the marina we boarded the catamaran, embarking on a 40min journey to St.Johns. There were about 25 people on the catamaran with a crew of 3. As we sailed to St.Johns we were offered non-alcoholic drinks and given snorkel gear. About half way there the tour guide gave us background on what we were looking at and where we were going. Very informative and intriguing. We anchored about 300yds off of Honeymoon Cove. This beach was very secluded only way to get there is to swim. Before we left the boat the guides pointed out the areas for best snorkeling and where to see the sea turtles. If you didn’t want to swim/snorkel to the beach they had a dingy to take you ashore in. We enjoyed this very much my DW came face to face with a sea turtle and we got great pics. After about 30min the rain came. It started pouring but that didn’t stop us it was actually quite fun. Total time on the beach was about 2hrs. As we headed back they tried to sail but because of the rain that had just came there was no wind. That did not stop us from having fun!! Alcohol started flowing at this point as well as some good music and finger foods. Nice assortment of beer, rum punch, and champagne for everyone to enjoy. This was by far our favorite excursion. FYI: no alcohol till after swim and snorkel.

After the excursion we went back to the ship for lunch and I finally had my first day of the Mongolian wok in the lido buffet. This was the only time the line was not ridiculously long. It was worth it. After lunch we went back into port and went around the local shops. Not very impressed a lot of jewelry stores, which is not what we were interested in. Other people that we talked to said that even downtown had majority of jewelry shops. Dinner in the dining room was good. After dinner show was Marcus Anthony a motown singer. This is the second time seeing him and we knew his show was not to be missed. He interacts with the audience quite a bit and entices people to come up on the stage and dance. So beware if you are sitting up front. After that we went to see Smiley Joe Wiley the late night comedian. This is also the second time we have seen him. Funny but act didn’t change too much from when we had seen him on a different ship. Other comedian was Jerry Goodspeed he was an Ventriloquist and we weren’t too interested so we skipped out and made our nightly stop at the piano bar where Brad was as good as ever.

[brensr41]

St.Thomas

 

Champagne Catamaran

Honeymoon Beach

Sea Turtle

[brensr41]

 

Pouring Rain

 

Open Air Bus (AKA-Death Cab)

[Eeyoregon]

We will be leaving on the Valor next Saturday and we agree that parking is quite expensive. We are driving over from Naples. Did you rent your car from Ft Myers airport and drop it at MIA? I am thinking of doing this now that you mentioned it. A cab from the airport to the port can't be very much. Love your review!!! Linda

 

Linda: Check into Budget car rentals. I got a GREAT one-way rate for Florida using BCD code Y937800 and free upgrade coupon UUWZ027. Both codes/coupons were sent to me from Budget.com when I didn't complete a mock booking ;).

[brensr41]

Day#7- Sea Day

First of two sea days headed back to Miami. We slept in today not rushing to do anything in particular. DW loves cooking herself in the sun so she headed to the sun deck, while I went to the future cruise presentation. After the future cruise talk I spent about an hour and a half in the casino, shopping for another watch that I wasn’t going to tell the DW about, and enjoying some drinks in the sports bar. We watched pool Olympics which was entertaining and then had lunch in the lido. After lunch we both ended up napping for a while. We really didn’t do a lot during the day. This was the final formal night we headed down to take some pictures and headed to the martini bar. DW got Melon crush martini which she said tasted like a jolly rancher and really enjoyed it. After dinner was the 80’s themed show “Far from over”. We thoroughly enjoyed this show. Dancing singing and the costumes were outstanding. After the show my DW felt like dancing so we met our dinner mates at the One small step dance club. Had fun people watching and I noticed a lot of the Carnival dancers came in after their performance and the club seemed to be filled with employees. After we left the club our night came to an end.

Day #8-Sea Day

This happened to be Cinco de Mayo and Kentucky Derby day. They called it Cinco de Derby. Slept in again, DW continued to cook herself so I followed suit with casino and sports bar. We decided to meet in the main dining room for lunch. The menu was actually very nice but the service was below par. Maybe it was because we came in 15min before they closed. Last cruise nap before we went to the fun farewell party. This was held in the eagle’s aft lounge and is a MUST ATTEND. Same as the past guest party free alcohol and show band performance. No appetizers served during this one but please know that they do not advertise that this party includes free drinks. This party always occurs on the last sea day whether it is a 6, 7, or 8 day cruise. The Cruise director and staff were there and really got the crowd involved. They were walking around thanking the passengers and making sure everyone had a great cruise. Matt the CD was going around and taking pictures as well. After that we went up to the lido deck to watch the Kentucky derby on the big screen. Once this was over we had a drink at the sports bar and headed up to the room to get ready for our final dinner. After dinner was the Carnival Legends show which we skipped. For those who do not know what this is it’s a guest karaoke show to always the same famous singers i.e. Brittany Spears, Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, and Madonna etc. Once you see it once that is enough, in my opinion. We met our dinner mates for a final showing of Bard at the piano bar. Tonight’s theme was bathrobe party with brad. They encouraged everyone to wear the bathrobe from your cabin. We closed the piano bar down one final night and said goodbye to our friends as we headed up to the cabin to finish packing. The final night on the balcony is my favorite because you can always see a bunch of cruise ships either coming or going all light up at night.

Day #9-Debarkation

We opted to do self-assist seeing as though it has been very easy in the past. Debarkation started around 7am. We were off the ship by 7:15am and in a cab by 7:30am on our way to pick up our rental car. Going through customs was the easiest we had experienced in Miami. We sadly picked up our rental car and realized it was the end to another great cruise and headed home.

[brensr41]

Guys Synchronized swimming

 

DW cooking

 

CD; Comedy Manager & Asst CD

Brad @ Bathrobe Party!

Passing Carnival Dream

[brensr41]

Caught the Captain walking by

Farewell Party!

 

Docking in Miami

View from secret deck

[brensr41]

Final Thoughts

This being cruise #7 we were still thoroughly pleased with our vacation. Carnival is still our favorite cruise line for many reasons. A cruise is what you make it no matter the weather conditions, or any other minor hiccup that may occur. Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions regarding things I might not have covered as well as any specific pictures of the ship you might like to see. Cruising in our opinion is the best bang for your buck vacation, and always remember you get out of it what you put into it. BON VOYAGE!! **** 126days till our next cruise “Freedom of the Seas”

[luvflorida]

Linda: Check into Budget car rentals. I got a GREAT one-way rate for Florida using BCD code Y937800 and free upgrade coupon UUWZ027. Both codes/coupons were sent to me from Budget.com when I didn't complete a mock booking ;).

 

Thanks for the great tip. I am getting sooo excited for next Sat. to arrive. Doing the fun stuff of going through clothes and planning what to take!!

I am loving this review.

[Morgansmommy]

Final Thoughts

This being cruise #7 we were still thoroughly pleased with our vacation. Carnival is still our favorite cruise line for many reasons. A cruise is what you make it no matter the weather conditions, or any other minor hiccup that may occur. Please don’t hesitate to ask any questions regarding things I might not have covered as well as any specific pictures of the ship you might like to see. Cruising in our opinion is the best bang for your buck vacation, and always remember you get out of it what you put into it. BON VOYAGE!! **** 126days till our next cruise “Freedom of the Seas”

Thanks so much for your reviews and all your pictures! I am sailing on the Valor on July 21, also on an 8 day but we are headed to Aruba, Curacao and Dominican Republic. But it was nice hearing about the ship and it's details. I am sooo looking forward to it and I hope you have a great time on Freedoim with far less rain!

[grooveynurse]

We're doing this cruise in Sept! Thanks sooo much for the awesome review!!!

[b4cruze]

thanks for sharing! I love the Valor! We head out her for our 3rd time soon! :)