Typical Carnival Cruise, had a great time!!
Carnival Valor Cruise Review
Contributor Level:
Third Mate
Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 2
Helpful Votes: 63
5 Night Western Caribbean (New Orleans Roundtrip)
Sail date: October 21, 2019
Ship: Carnival Valor
Traveled as: Couple
Reviewed: 5 years ago
Review summary
Lucky 13th cruise!! We had a great time! Loved the Valor!Embarkation
We usually board later in the afternoon to avoid the rush. Parking at the port was almost full but we managed a spot on the roof. We followed the lines straight to check in, no wait, and were on the ship in under 15 minutes!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
Was a little disappointed with the dining room options, nothing really stood out as being really good, but it was nothing to complain about. Guy's Burgers and Blue Iguana were great. I always love seaday brunch. My husband likes going to the Taste Bar, which they must have recently gotten rid of on this ship. Drinks were of course great! Seaday brunch is a must!!
Onboard Activities
Entertainment
Comedy shows are always great! We also did a couple of trivia games. There was always something going on! I'm in the minority with this, but I thought the cruise director was really annoying, but I liked Georgia and the members of the "fun squad" were great!!
Service and Staff
Our room steward was great, no surprise there! We had your time dining and tried to keep our same dining team, we sat in their section 3 of the 5 nights. They were all so great, very friendly and service was excellent. I like to lounge in the sun on the Serenity deck on sea days and was really disappointed with the service there. Usually the waiters are walking around, taking orders, picking up old cups. Peoples old plates with old food and bottles of beer and cups were piled up constantly. And not once did a waiter come to order drinks. No problem, I can walk to the bar. So at the bar, the waiter is standing near by and comes up to me as I'm waiting my turn at the bar and says he can take my order and bring it to me. I figured he just started his shift or something and that's why he happened to be standing there, nope. The next time I go to the bar again, he's still standing there, leaning against the privacy wall thing, he says he can take my order again. At this point, I wait for the bartender and did the rest of the day. I dont mind going to the bar, but it was just really irritating that they'd assign a waiter to that deck and he just stands there and takes orders once you're already at the bar, kind of defeats the purpose. The bartenders throughout the ship were great.
Ship Quality
I would knock half a star for the pileup of dishes along the serenity deck, but other than that.. this was a clean and well maintained ship!! The crew were always cleaning something, the tables around lido were quickly cleared and cleaned, we never had to wait for a table to be bussed. It is an older ship, and I honestly wouldnt have even noticed because it looks great!
Cabin / Stateroom
Cabin was pretty spacious and kept very clean. Cabin was on the main deck in the rear of the boat. Will NOT do that again!! The cabin shook like crazy and made everything rattle, is was so annoying. It was also really loud when docking, we usually sleep in and avoid the rush on port days.. we were up a lot earlier than normal!
Ship tip
Go.. have fun!
Thumbs up
0
Ports of call
We booked Sergios 5 in 1 tour. It was amazing and we had such a great time!! They picked us up right at the port and we had a very small group with us for the tour, so much better than the huge group Carnival excursions we've done there before. It was a great experience and we felt 100% safe the entire time. You can find Sergios Tours on FB and trip advisor.
Disembarkation
We took our own baggage off. We walked right off the ship no problem. Then as soon as we got off the line was super backed up not moving. I think something may have happened to cause the backup, it went pretty quickly once the line started moving again. Typically we walk right off.