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

[Luke gs Daddy]

Thanks for taking the time to write your review. We are doing this in March and it will be our 2nd Southern out of SJ.

It seems like The Valor was the only ship in port at the different stops from your pictures. Would you Please confirm or deny?

Thanks and have a great day!!

[michiganirish]

thanks so much for taking time to post this review. we did this 2 years in a row with bro sil - they are doing it again in jan. this is wonderful trip down memory lane. congrats on your anniversary

[hockeyluver]

Hmm think I may have found what to do in St. Lucia and St. Kitts :D Cant wait for more!!

Edited October 26, 2013 by hockeyluver

[Perfect Stranger]

St. Kitts is beautiful! That WAS a steep hill, though.

 

The picture with the monkey's tongue out is cute.

 

Your review is so easy to read and the photos are outstanding!

[valentinebaby1]

Thanks for taking the time to write your review. We are doing this in March and it will be our 2nd Southern out of SJ.

It seems like The Valor was the only ship in port at the different stops from your pictures. Would you Please confirm or deny?

Thanks and have a great day!!

 

You're welcome! We were the only ship in every port, including San Juan both ends!

 

thanks so much for taking time to post this review. we did this 2 years in a row with bro sil - they are doing it again in jan. this is wonderful trip down memory lane. congrats on your anniversary

 

You're welcome, and thank you!

[valentinebaby1]

Hmm think I may have found what to do in St. Lucia and St. Kitts :D Cant wait for more!!

 

I was really hesitant to do an island tour 3 days in a row (We did one in St Maarten too, which will be coming up soon!) but each island was so different, we were glad we did!

 

St. Kitts is beautiful! That WAS a steep hill, though.

The picture with the monkey's tongue out is cute.

 

Your review is so easy to read and the photos are outstanding!

 

VERY steep hill, but the view from the top is amazing! I wanted to bring Jacques home with me, he was so cute! And thank you!

[Jenny in TX]

Enjoying your review. DH and I are hoping to book a cruise out of San Juan in October 2014.

[Cairnmom]

Enjoying your review. San Juan is my favorite port of embarkation!

[Limeia]

Our next stop was the volcano and the mud baths. This is the only time during the tour that I was a bit disappointed. We were given a choice of either doing the mud baths or a tour of the volcano. Basically the van stopped and they said if you wanted to do the mud baths to get out there, and gave them about 15 minutes and then said they had to walk up the road to meet the rest of us at the volcano site. Hubby and I hadn't really talked about it prior so we had to make a split second decision. He wanted to do it, I had read about it and read that it was really smelly and stained your clothing and that it was hard to wash out the smell and muck. So I said I didn't want to. So we ended up separating at that point. About half the van stayed at the mud baths.

 

 

The rest of us had an opportunity to hear about the volcano and history, and saw a little bit of the botanical gardens and a small waterfall.

 

 

 

 

You could see the earth bubbling in the volcano site. But boy did it stink! It was still raining on and off, and after a few minutes the stinky mud bathers joined up with us and we loaded back into the van to head to the next stop.

 

We are booked with Cosol tours for December. They make it sound like you get to go to both the mud baths and the volcano :confused: You said your DH went to the mud bath? What did he think of it? Were the people really stinky once they got back in the van? Did it really stay stuck to the bathing suits or stain them? I thought the mud baths would be fun to do but now I am having second thoughts.

[valentinebaby1]

Enjoying your review. DH and I are hoping to book a cruise out of San Juan in October 2014.

 

DO IT! Hubby and I looked up pricing today to book for Oct 2014 for our 26th anniversary...if we had the deposit right this minute we probably would have booked it.

 

Enjoying your review. San Juan is my favorite port of embarkation!

 

I loved San Juan!

[valentinebaby1]

We are booked with Cosol tours for December. They make it sound like you get to go to both the mud baths and the volcano :confused: You said your DH went to the mud bath? What did he think of it? Were the people really stinky once they got back in the van? Did it really stay stuck to the bathing suits or stain them? I thought the mud baths would be fun to do but now I am having second thoughts.

 

Hubby thought it was a neat experience. The smell was no worse in the area with the mud baths than it was by the volcano, the whole area smelled like rotten eggs. Now there was someone in our van who didn't smell very pleasant from the beginning of the day...and after they went into the mud bath it was much worse smelling in our van for the rest of the day, but just like being in the volcano area; you got used to it...I had read that the mud can stain, but hubby's suit wasn't stained it was just very very smelly. He had to do a load of laundry on the ship that night or I was gonna throw his suit away. It was fine after a good washing though.

 

You could do both...what they did was stopped first at the mud bath and anyone who wanted to do that got out, were given a time to meet the rest of us and then the van continued up the hill to the volcano spot. You could see the volcano from the road, but if you got out you could walk around to another side of it, and there was a small waterfall to see and there were lots of different plants and trees to see that were marked with labels with their names. Those of us who went to the volcano site were able to spend more time there and got a guided tour. Those who were at the mud bath got to see the volcano, they just didn't have much time to walk around and see the rest and didn't get the tour explanation. They had to walk a little ways to catch up with us. Here's the best photos I could find of the distance between the 2 spots. The building with the green roof is the home of the mud baths;

 

 

The first photo hubby took about half way up the walk, the 2nd photo was with my camera and I was further back into the volcano area and you can barely see the road he had to walk up.

 

Edited October 27, 2013 by valentinebaby1

[pghsteelerfan]

I just have to tell you how much I loved seeing your pictures of St. Kitts and I almost felt like I was on the tour with you. On our cruise, that was our rainy day and the clouds were so low that we could barely see anything, so I loved being able to "see" more of the island. We ended up going to Cockleshell Beach (southern end) and if we ever get back, I'd love to do an island tour and see the rest...so pretty. I would do this cruise again in an instant, but it may be a while before we can cruise again due to some recent hard times for us too. I'm loving your review and looking forward to more. Thank you for sharing.

[valentinebaby1]

I just have to tell you how much I loved seeing your pictures of St. Kitts and I almost felt like I was on the tour with you. On our cruise, that was our rainy day and the clouds were so low that we could barely see anything, so I loved being able to "see" more of the island. We ended up going to Cockleshell Beach (southern end) and if we ever get back, I'd love to do an island tour and see the rest...so pretty. I would do this cruise again in an instant, but it may be a while before we can cruise again due to some recent hard times for us too. I'm loving your review and looking forward to more. Thank you for sharing.

 

Thank you! Hoping to finish the rest of it tonight...but then I don't know what I'll do with my time :( I've spent so much of the last year planning this trip, and once my review is over I'm not sure what I'll do! We've already had a major car breakdown since we've been back so I know what you mean about hard times..when you live paycheck to paycheck it's going to be about impossible to make another trip like this happen any time soon.

[rendal]

This was my least favorite part of St. Lucia as well. We are going again on Nov. 10 and I made them promise not to go there bc of the smell!! Bring me to the Pitons! Great Review and Very Kind of you to answer everyone! Cant wait to read the rest!

[valentinebaby1]

OCT 12, 2013-day 10

St Maarten was on the agenda for today, and we woke to another beautiful day!

 

 

As it turned out, the group of 10 of us had all signed up for the same excursion in St Maarten, through Bernard's Tours so we knew it was going to be a wild and crazy day!

 

 

 

We met just off the ship and found our tour in the port area, just as we were instructed. There were a few other people on the tour with us, including a couple we were together with in Barbados, so we knew everyone on our tour already except for two couples. We got into the large air conditioned bus and met our tour guide and driver for the day, named Mailman. He was absolutely hilarious and I had read so many good reviews where he was the tour guide, I was really excited to have Mailman as our guide as well. We started out by getting our "bartender" in order and the spiced rum punch started flowing and it was only 9 or 9:30 am. Mailman used a PA system on the bus so we could all hear him very clearly as he gave us information on the history of Sint Maarten/Saint Martin.

 

Our first stop was at an iguana farm, where we got the chance to feed the iguanas some lettuce. The farm apparently got a big contract with Disney Cruises so they are in the process of upgrading and expanding their facilities. There were so many iguanas, plus a couple monkeys in a cage and a large snake. We were only there for about 15 minutes, but it was fun!

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

 

 

After that we soon crossed the border to the French side of the island

 

 

The next stop was a brief photo opp at Oyster Pond, where you can see the island of St Barths in the distance.

 

 

 

Around the corner we stopped again with a chance to see some of the sea creatures fresh out of the water. A couple of brave souls, including my husband, ate urchin fresh from the ocean. It's supposed to be an aphrodisiac ;)

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

Next stop...Orient Beach!

 

Now I had some fears about going to Orient Beach, I won't lie. The beach is separated into 2 sections, one of course where clothing is optional, but we saw some body parts on the other side as well. The beach was not at all crowded that day. It is on the Atlantic side, so the waves were much bigger than on the Caribbean side. The water was clear and gorgeous turquoise blue, but there was quite a bit of debris in the water, some kind of sea grass. I'm not sure if this is typical of Orient Beach, but it wasn't that big of a deal. Mailman took us to one end, where we were able to rent 2 chairs and an umbrella and get 2 rum punch drinks for cheap (I can't remember how much...maybe $15 total?). I'm not sure if there was snorkel gear for rent here, but it wasn't really a great snorkel spot. The group of us played in the waves and had a very nice time. Part of the group had decided that they had to make a trip down to the "other side" of the beach...I didn't feel comfortable with it so I stayed behind. And lets just say that what happens at Orient Beach, stays at Orient Beach...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

After our time was up at Orient Beach (about 90 minutes) we made the drive to the city of Marigot, where there is an open market and a bakery called Serafinas that was to die for!

 

 

 

 

 

We bought lunch here; it was a little pricey, we spent about $30 on a foot long type deli sandwich that we split, a couple of macaroons, some type of strawberry eclair and some other piece of fluffy cake. But it was worth every penny...so delicious!! We only had about 20 min for this stop and the line at Serafina's was pretty long so we barely had time to get our food and had to take it on the bus with us.

 

Here's the bus we were in, by the way:

 

 

After our stop in Marigot, we headed to Maho Beach, hoping to catch a few planes landing and taking off.

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

We got to Maho Beach just in time for this:

 

 

 

After the big plane landed, we saw a couple of little planes land, and a couple of little planes take off. The guys in our group really wanted to "ride the fence" so we were hoping for a big one to take off...our time was supposed to be short, but Mailman let us hang around for an extra bit to wait for the big planes to take off. We all agreed it was fine and we didn't need a lot of time in port when we got back so we stretched our time out at Maho instead.

 

Here's the beach, taken while we were just waiting for planes to come and go:

 

 

 

 

 

Most of us didn't even go into the water here, but hubby and a few of us did. As far as beaches go, it's not the best beach for swimming or sunbathing...the feature here is obviously the airport!

[valentinebaby1]

The last bit of time at Maho Beach was spent with a couple of take offs...a couple of the planes were larger, and the guys (and a couple of the girls) got to mark off their bucket list by riding the fence!

 

 

I didn't take many photos of the fence riding because I was videotaping instead. But the whole experience was simply amazing!

 

I hope "our group" doesn't mind me posting this, but this is one of my favorite photos of the entire trip, taken on our last day together. It was such a wonderful adventure together. We are all talking about the idea of vacationing together again some day...I really hope we can make that happen!

 

 

After our slightly extended stay at Maho Beach, we headed back to Philipsburg. We had a brief stop to see our ship in port before getting back to her.

 

 

Soon we were back in Philipsburg and had just about 30 minutes before we had to be back on the ship. We said goodbye to Mailman:

 

 

We had just enough time to buy some Guavaberry Rum to take home with us. We also bought some Mango Rum, and had a Guavaberry drink before heading back to the ship.

 

 

We boarded the ship with no time to spare and headed straight out to the Lido deck instead of to our room like we usually did. We were sad about it being our last evening on the ship and we wanted to spend as much time "out" as we could.

 

We swam in the pool for a bit to cool off, and jumped in the warm tub (ok, it was a hot tub, but we didn't think it was all that hot!). Soon Hugo was back out on the deck with a new contest, and I urged hubby to enter because I was still hankering for a ship on a stick. He agreed and soon Hugo had 10 or so people to play his game. It was a simple game, a kind of follow the leader/simon says type game and contestants were eliminated along the way. Soon it was down to hubby and two other contestants...so the game changed to a singing competition. Each had to sing a song, they had 3 seconds to start singing and no song could be repeated. It went back and forth and the 3rd contestant was eliminated...and finally VICTORIOUS! He won me a trophy! And a bottle of champagne too!

 

 

 

 

 

[valentinebaby1]

The sun was starting to set at this point so we headed up to the Serenity Deck to watch the sunset and took photos of our last cruise sunset:

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the sunset, we went back to shower, and had agreed to meet our group for one last dinner together. We had another couple ask to join us, so we were a group of 12 and too large for one table so we got 2 tables of 6 next to each other. Dinner was bittersweet. I kept thinking about leaving the next morning and I hated that thought!

 

For dinner, I was excited to try the frogs legs, and I loved them so much I ordered a 2nd! Hubby had mushrooms and I had the mango cream soup, and for our entrees we had prime rib. Hubby also had jumbo shrimp and I had fried chicken (I was not very impressed with the fried chicken though, but the rest was great!). Our last dessert on the ship was the Souffle and it was amazing!

 

After dinner we said goodbye to all of our new friends. We knew we had to get back to our room to pack, and that's where we had some issues...

 

We had purchased about 9 or 10 bottles of alcohol, plus a couple smaller bottles of hot sauces, banana ketchup etc. And we had amassed a huge collection of shot glasses and the other fun glasses from the ship (the disco ball, the funnel, the blowfish, the monkey head etc) and we had to figure out a way to pack everything.

 

It took us a couple of hours to pack and we put our suitcases out to be picked up with only about 10 minutes to spare. We packed the bottles in the blow up arm bands we brought for that purpose, but we had only brought 3 sets, and we used 2 per bottle. so we used those for the biggest bottles. Then we had to wrap all the glasses, and the large conch shells we bought/found (we had a total of four of them). We had to get creative and packed the shot glasses inside of the larger glasses, and used our dirty clothes for packing materials. But we finally did it.

 

We were so exhausted at this point that we ended up trying to go to sleep. The ship was rocking the most this night, and at a much faster speed than ever before. The rocking didn't really bother me, but I think it was hard to go to sleep because we didn't want it to be morning.

 

[valentinebaby1]

This was my least favorite part of St. Lucia as well. We are going again on Nov. 10 and I made them promise not to go there bc of the smell!! Bring me to the Pitons! Great Review and Very Kind of you to answer everyone! Cant wait to read the rest!

 

The Pitons were so amazing, if we ever get back to St Lucia we'd love to spend more time at the beach there! And thank you!

[Name Of The Game]

We've also toured with Bernard (himself) in St. Maarten and made many of the same stops. Your review and pictures brought back the memories. This is one of my favorite reviews ever!

[hancogran]

We've also toured twice with Bernard as our guide and the tour was basically the same except we went to Rima's Beach World to shop for about 20 minutes at the beginning, instead of feeding the iguanas. :( Like the idea of seeing the iguanas better.