Best time of year to sail Valor from San Juan

[AZmike480]

We are looking at booking the Valor our of San Juan. We were wondering what the best time of year was for this cruise. Taking into account temperature, rain, and of course how crowded the ports of call are.

 

I have never been to San Juan but will be there for the Splendor repositioning cruise in November. This is a 1 shot cruise so I didn't have to think about whether there might be a better time. I am looking for some advice, based on your experiences, for when to book the Valor.

 

Sharon

 

Hey kuv2trvlnow,

 

here's a place that can tell you how crowded ports are, I use it to pick my cruise dates which helps. Its cruise tt dot com. I hope I dont get my hand slapped for posting this helpful info.:D

 

AZmike480

[queeniemi]

Must have kept trying because she's tied up to the dock right now!

[Cyclone99]

Valor is out at sea now, and the itineraries history says it was in port for 25 minutes.

[pghsteelerfan]

Must have kept trying because she's tied up to the dock right now!

 

I hope so, I'd hate for them to miss St. Kitts. The site I was looking at this morning is now showing Valor at sea (cloudy) with no islands in site. Which site do you have? This is the one I've been on: http://carnivalentertainment.net/ships/ships/view-ship/id/21

 

Hopefully this one (one I posted) is just wrong. I know a few weeks ago, Valor was "stuck" in Barbados for more than a week and others were "stuck" at their Wednesday positions for more than a week), but they were upgrading the camera systems. I "met" someone here on CC who is on this Valor sailing and I'd hate to see her and her family, and all the others, miss St. Kitts. We just missed Grand Cayman on Liberty last week, but we've been there before. St. Kitts is a "new" island for a lot of people and a beautiful one.

[jwalk03]

We did the Valor cruise the first week of September last year. Yes Fall is hurricane season, but that makes it the cheapest time to cruise and fly to San Juan. Our cruise was less than $400 pp, and our roundtrip flight from Columbus, OH was like $350 pp. Great Deals!

 

Our weather was awesome at every port except St. Lucia. It rained, and rained hard almost the entire day. We still had fun, and went with the flow though and St. Lucia to unlike any other port I have ever been to.

 

Hurricanes are less likely in the Southern Carribean as well, in fact Barbados is not even part of the hurricane belt becuase of its location. St. Lucia has only had 14 hurricanes come within 60 miles of the island since 1850, or one every 12 years or so.

 

My point is I guess, that a lot of people avoid hurricane season, and its kind of silly to me. Its a great time of year to cruise! Kids are back in school, the weather is typically great, and the prices are among the cheapest of the entire year! Also we were the only ship in every single port, so no problems with overcrowding AT ALL!

[pghsteelerfan]

Valor is out at sea now, and the itineraries history says it was in port for 25 minutes.

 

I wonder if there was a medical emergency??? We had a medical emergency on our Liberty sailing last week on the last day and had to turn around had go to Key West to evacuate our fellow passenger. We still made it back to Miami on schedule. Another site this morning showed Valor's track where it looked like they had trouble docking, left, then turned around and came back then leave again, heading out to sea. I just checked it again and the track shows them heading southwest and now due west - heading nowhere near St. Maarten, which is their next port. Here's the link to that: http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-63.17002/centery:16.98564/zoom:8/mmsi:354298000

Edited April 18, 2014 by pghsteelerfan

[ILUVCRUIZN]

We always sail in February and it works great for us, we usually have great weather and by that time we are so tired of winter we are ready to head some place warm. We are booked on the Valor for Feb of 2015 and in most ports we are the only ship there, so that is awesome... :D

Edited April 18, 2014 by ILUVCRUIZN

[adamt]

This is, without question, the best cruise i've ever taken. I love the port of SJ and that iten is unbeatable. Waiting for your cruise in OSJ is like a mini vacation in and of itself!

 

With that, to answer your question, ANYTIME is a great time to take this cruise.

 

I've cruised in both summer and winter out of SJ and the summer cruise temps, as i remember, were much more comfortable than the Dec cruise we took on the Liberty.

[queeniemi]

Valor is out at sea now, and the itineraries history says it was in port for 25 minutes.

 

Mr Cyclone99 I found your post intriguing, where did you go to find that cool information?

[bolk]

have gone in March and april and always good weather

[lunagirl]

We're actually going on Carnival Liberty on a Western Caribbean cruise (Miami to Cozumel, Belize, Roatan, & Grand Cayman) at the beginning of April this year and we've been wondering about the weather there. Have you had decent weather in April in the Western Caribbean? Thanks!

My husband and I did this Western Cruise in April and LOVED it. We had warm air and water temperatures and no rain. We were thrilled with the weather and the cruise. Have a great time!

[luv2trvlnow]

I'm the original poster and want to thank everyone for their insights. We decided to book the Valor for March 22, 2015. Mostly because this year Southwest is not flying to San Juan from Tulsa during most of April and all of May. They did fly there in March and will be flying there again starting in June. If they do the same thing next year it would be best for us to go in March so we don't have to pay AA's higher rates and baggage fees. Hopefully we have chosen a good time.

Sharon