Carnival cutbacks!

Carnival Valor Cruise Review to Caribbean - Eastern

Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 2
Helpful Votes: 40

Overall rating:

3 out of 5
Verified Review
Carnival Valor

8 Night Eastern Caribbean (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)

Sail date: July 29, 2016

Ship: Carnival Valor

Cabin type: Balcony

Cabin number: 1054

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 8 years ago

Review summary

We have sailed on many Carnival cruises, including 2 European 12 days.  We just returned from the Valor. Our dining room waitstaff were very attentive to our needs.  The food was excellent both in the Washington Dining Room and at the Buffet.  A nice touch was the Brunch menu for our At Sea Days. Drink offerings were either lemonade or iced tea, hot tea, only black tea, or coffee. What was lacking on the ship were activities such as scrap booking, guest speakers, watercolor classes etc.  The dancers and singers at the 3 evening performances were excellent as well as their costumes.  However, the sets were very lacking as compared to what we experience on RCCL and Disney.  The Casinos slots were very, very, very, tight.  Usually they loosen up the last two evenings.  We did not see too many happy slot players. This will probably be our last Carnival cruise as we prefer sailing with Royal Caribbean and of course Disney with our Grandkids.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

5 out of 5

Onboard Activities

1 out of 5
Not very many to keep everyone entertained. Bingo was held many times during the day with only 3 games per session. We did not play. Trivia seemed to be held 3 or 4 times a day. Only 1 craft class and no art classes. Spa was very expensive.

Entertainment

3 out of 5
Dancers and costumes were great. Very meager stage settings as compared to other cruise lines.

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Ship Quality

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5
Clean and properly attended to.

Ship tip

Carnival offers a pack of water bottles for $3.99 if ordered precruising. It is a very casual ship as far as dressing. I would not bring a lot of dress up clothing. One outfit would be enough.

Ports of call

Port Canaveral, Florida

5 out of 5

Philipsburg, St. Maarten

3 out of 5
We only do the port shops as we have been there many times

Basseterre, St. Kitts

1 out of 5
Very poor. I would not feel comfortable walking around the area at all.

San Juan, Puerto Rico

5 out of 5
A very nice city to visit. It is safe if you stay in the area around the ship docking.

Grand Turk Island

5 out of 5
A lovely end to the trip. Very scenic island for relaxing on the beach. There is also a pool off the beach. Umbrellas and chairs were free.
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4 Comments

ToddTheCruiser    8 years ago

I loved Valor.  I also Loved Magic.  Carnival is fun but the cutbacks are getting out of hand

stevenstair    8 years ago

Our 14th cruise in Feb with Carnival, we are very happy with them.

cruise4lf    8 years ago

That's good, don't knock carnival because of your experience some of us like carnival and we were on the same ship July and we liked everything except the cruise director she was boring but we had a good time enjoying ourselves because we made it fun.

hedgapple    8 years ago

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