MY VALOR ADVENTURE!!! (TAKE 2, had issues with photobucket) With a lot of pictures..

[CruiseIreland]

Hi skidawg,

 

Really enjoying your review. Photos are beautiful. I am becoming interested in Carnival and I am trying to catch up on Gambee's review of Breeze too. Ken

[trapezelover]

Loving the review!!! Thanks :)

[skidawg79]

Hi skidawg,

 

Really enjoying your review. Photos are beautiful. I am becoming interested in Carnival and I am trying to catch up on Gambee's review of Breeze too. Ken

 

Hey Ken! thanks for reading. I have no reservations about cruising Carnival again. I was always weary about things I heard about Carnival and just decided to try it because of the price. I'm a pretty low maintenance person, so if things are clean and the workers are trying, I'm happy. Service wise, I would say the service was as good, if not better than my other two cruises. I was very pleased. again this is just my experience, but Carnival gained a new fan after this cruise.

[skidawg79]

That Boatyard Barbados song got stuck in my head! lol Love your review so far! Great job! :D I cannot believe it's been a week since we got off the Valor :/ I wanna go back!

 

Me too! sucks being back at work lol

[luv2tvl]

Those Barbados pictures were ah-mazing!

Loving the review!!!

[skidawg79]

BARBADOS CONT…

We got dropped back off at the Boatyard and next thing to do….go get our welcome drink naturally! One thing to keep in mind, Barbados dollars are double the US dollars, so make sure you know if your looking at Barbados dollar prices or US dollar prices. ($18 dollars in Barbados dollars would be $9 in US currency).

 

We spent the majority of the day in the water as it was a beautiful day. I swam out to the Iceberg and climbed to the top, let me just say that’s it’s not the most stable of structures when you’re on the top. So when I tried to stand up and jump off the top, I slipped and didn’t have the most graceful of dismounts. It was one of those things that if you had caught it on tape, you would probably either laugh or turn your eyes and go, “ooooohhhhh ouch” lol. Here I am before the dismount laying on top of the iceberg (have to look close).

After my graceful fall off the iceberg, we went in for some lunch and drinks. They have drink specials during happy hour at the bar from 11-12am and 2-3pm and 5-6pm(if your there that late).

 

Lunch was pretty good and then Around 1pm they start to play the music a little louder and do the free shots where you tip your head back and they pour the shots right into your mouth. Normally I would be all about it, but was in the middle of eating lunch so stayed at my table. Well that didn’t keep them away from us as they made their way around the tables and I got my shot right at my seat! Lol

 

Right around this time, they warned everyone to get off the beach as there was a storm coming. You could look over towards the ship and tell that it was pouring over there, but the rain never made it to the boatyard! After all, there are two places that it never rains…on the golf course and on vacation! It didn't take long until it cleared back up and since age regression always happens on vacations, we went back in the water to play on the rope swing, high dive, trampoline and I wanted a second chance at dismounting my nemesis…the iceberg! This time i had a well planned out back dive dismount which I executed perfectly. :-)

 

Here is a pic looking back towards the ship, as you can see it really isn’t that far….

Another pic of the rope swing and high dive. Again, look at that water!!

I then took my camera up to the high dive, jumped off and got an awesome self-video of myself jumping, and then going under the water and resurfacing. Well that turned out to be the last picture/video I took with the camera as all the buttons on the back of the camera stopped working…ooops!

 

Well I was pretty bumbed as it was a brand new camera, bought it a month before the cruise. I had bought it for the sole reason of going on this cruise. But I knew it was under warranty and I would get it taken care of when I got home. (update on the camera situation: I bought it through Crutchfield and they sent me a brand new camera and I had it in 2 days at no cost)

 

Luckily, Emily had hear camera and I had my cell phone to take pictures so the rest of the trip we used those. I wasn’t too upset because the turtles were the main reason that I bought it and luckily I did that a few hours earlier. The battery and memory card chamber was not compromised so I didn’t lose any pictures.

 

After playing around we went to catch a cab back to the ship. Once we arrived back at the cruise terminal, we stopped at this cute little bar right outside the taxi area and had a few drinks. We were cutting it close on getting back on the ship and Emily and this girl that we had just met 10 min earlier had full beers, so they had a little challenge on who could finish their beer quicker. Well one thing you don’t do is challenge an Irish girl to a chugging contest, because let me tell you, you don't stand a chance lol.

 

We were all done with our drinks and heading back to the ship…we weren’t running but we were definitely a few min after 4:30…oops. Although we weren’t even close to being the last. I went up to our room, took a shower and went back out on the balcony and there were still people walking the pier at like 4:55…now that’s cutting it too closer for my comfort.

 

Bermuda wasn’t the prettiest of ports, very industrial, but it was my favorite island as far as beaches that I’ve been to. I don’t mean just this cruise, I mean ever.

 

Later that night, we had another great dinner and hung out with all of our new friends between the Casino and the Martini bars and it was, let’s just say, interesting. The group came up with a game that I’ll keep the details to a minimum, but the loser had to do a shot of the bartenders choice. Usually I would say that's like winning even when you lose, but not these shots. They were definitely no reward. haha The bartender told me flat out that she had never seen the Martini bar that full so late at night. I did have a little more luck in the casino tonight as I hit 3 fours in my 3 card hand on Let it Ride and won about $275! Thanks Sevda!! (she took it all back later in the cruise….thanks Sevda…grrr).

Next up....St. Lucia and our experience with Cosol tours.....

Edited June 2, 2014 by skidawg79

[Normal 1]

Great review so far!! I booked another for us on Friday for spring break. Hello my name is Karen and I am an addict....

[olcar]

Just hope there is no cure than more cruising.

[The Grumpus]

Great adventure! Thanks for sharing the memories of your cruise. I'm going to have to finish the ride using my PC, the iPhone doesn't do it justice!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[DavyJoneses]

Thanks for the review...really enjoyed the pictures as well.

[skidawg79]

Great review so far!! I booked another for us on Friday for spring break. Hello my name is Karen and I am an addict....

 

Haha nice Karen! I was just talking with Emily about taking one around the same time next year. I want to hit any combination of curaçao, Belize, grand cayman, Aruba. I know I won't get all of them but it will definitely have some of those involved.

[skidawg79]

Great adventure! Thanks for sharing the memories of your cruise. I'm going to have to finish the ride using my PC, the iPhone doesn't do it justice!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Thanks Fred! By the way I get to Annapolis every now and then. Good friends from college live there, well about 20 min outside Annapolis. They actually got married at the church right on Navy's campus. Her dad went there.

[skidawg79]

Thanks for the review...really enjoyed the pictures as well.

 

Like ^^^

[ibcnusoon]

Enjoying your review! LOVED this itinerary! Would do it again in a heartbeat!!

[The Grumpus]

Thanks Fred! By the way I get to Annapolis every now and then. Good friends from college live there, well about 20 min outside Annapolis. They actually got married at the church right on Navy's campus. Her dad went there.

That's great. I've been to a couple weddings there myself. Very formal and an interesting place to witness a wedding.

 

Love all you pics and the review. It really makes me want to take another cruise out of OSJ. I didn't really take advantage of OSJ as a home port the first time I cruise from there - I flew in the day of the cruise and flew out the day it ended. Next time I wouldn't think of going on a cruise from of OSJ without staying at least a day or two on each end.

[Biffer1997]

Thanks for the fabulous pics and review! Excited to read more to get ideas for my Valor cruise next April . Will def look into The a boatyard in Barbados.

[shark&minnow]

Your pictures of the turtles were beautiful! I want to buy a water camera before our trip. What kind do you have? Thank you-:)

[skidawg79]

Your pictures of the turtles were beautiful! I want to buy a water camera before our trip. What kind do you have? Thank you-:)

 

I took those with an Olympus TG-850. There were three underwater settings. Just the regular beach/pool setting, underwater landscape setting and the underwater action setting. I used all three to see what would come out the best and the ones I posted were used with the underwater action settings. By far the clearest. Good camera, just don't jump off the high dive with it lol.

[pghsteelerfan]

Another Valor review!!! I've been waiting for one. :) We were on the Valor out of San Juan to the Southern Caribbean last May and LOVED it! I think it was our favorite cruise ever. I'm enjoying your review and beautiful pictures and looking forward to the rest. BTW, we're also from the 'burgh (well, just outside). :)

[adonisr]

skidawg - did your cabin have a mini frig in it? And if so, did it do pretty good at keeping things cold?

[skidawg79]

Another Valor review!!! I've been waiting for one. :) We were on the Valor out of San Juan to the Southern Caribbean last May and LOVED it! I think it was our favorite cruise ever. I'm enjoying your review and beautiful pictures and looking forward to the rest. BTW, we're also from the 'burgh (well, just outside). :)

 

 

I read your review prior to our cruise, I enjoyed yours as well! I live in the Greentree area of Pittsburgh. :-)

[skidawg79]

skidawg - did your cabin have a mini frig in it? And if so, did it do pretty good at keeping things cold?

 

Yes it did have a mini fridge, it was stocked with a mini bar. We asked our room steward if he could remove it, he just asked us to put whatever we didn't want on the counter and when we returned a few hours later it was gone. It did keep things cool, but it wasn't the coldest fridge I've ever had.

[adonisr]

Yes it did have a mini fridge, it was stocked with a mini bar. We asked our room steward if he could remove it, he just asked us to put whatever we didn't want on the counter and when we returned a few hours later it was gone. It did keep things cool, but it wasn't the coldest fridge I've ever had.

 

Thanks for the info. Now back to work on your review - we are enjoying it :)

[pghsteelerfan]

I read your review prior to our cruise, I enjoyed yours as well! I live in the Greentree area of Pittsburgh. :-)

 

Thanks. I know exactly where Greentree is. I'm from Greensburg and DH is from Murrysville. Funny how many people not familiar with the Pgh area get Greentree and Greensburg confused. :)

[skidawg79]

Thanks. I know exactly where Greentree is. I'm from Greensburg and DH is from Murrysville. Funny how many people not familiar with the Pgh area get Greentree and Greensburg confused. :)

 

Haha, yes...two very different areas.