Carnival Valor

Carnival Valor Cruise Review

Cruises: 7+ cruises
Reviews: 3
Helpful Votes: 88

Overall rating:

4 out of 5
Carnival Valor

5 Night Western Caribbean (New Orleans Roundtrip)

Sail date: November 23, 2019

Ship: Carnival Valor

Cabin type: Oceanview

Cabin number: 1339

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 4 years ago

Review summary

Bring your own medication. Only one outlet in cabin

Embarkation

5 out of 5
We had FTTF with a report time of 11:30. (Terminal doesn’t open till 10:00) We arrived at 10:15 and walked right in. Boarding began at 10:45 and we were dropping off our luggage in the cabin before 11:00.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

4 out of 5
Food was good but far from great. Guy’s Burger had a nonstop line that people waited in for 45 minutes or longer. If you get the Cheers package, know what kind of drinks you want because we spent the whole cruise trying out every bar and every kind of drink because every bar/bar tenders makes them different from the very sweet frozen mixture for the frozen drinks to the heavy pours when they watered down the mixture to much and the bar tenders added more alcohol to cover the weak mix. We just stayed away from the frozen drinks unless we were at the Lobby Bar.

American Lobby and Atrium Bar

5 out of 5

Best place for any drinks on the ship in the evening hours! Thank you ladies.

Pizza Pirate

2 out of 5

Not impressed, very thin crust and very little sauce. They didn’t let you add or take away from the menu.

Lincoln Dining Room

4 out of 5

Anytime Dine. Food was good not great. Staff was great but the assistant maître d’ is a azz towards the staff and was more of a problem than helping the staff. One of the staff asked him for 2 minutes to finish clearing her tables right before the show. He told her very loud right in front of us to shut up and get ready for the show. She just put her head down and stood there. He then said to her”Do you have a problem? I didn’t think so. Go get ready”. The next day at breakfast, the crew in the Washington dining room set up a table for a group of 10 and right after the table was finished the assistant maître d’ walked up and took every napkin off the table instead of grabbing the ones stored in a cabinet right next to the table. When the family of 10 was brought to the table, the staff had to reset the table while the family stood around the table making the staff look like fools.

Guy's Burger Joint

1 out of 5

Never tried them because we were not going to wait 45+ minutes for burgers.

Washington Dining Room

4 out of 5

Early and Late Dinner alongside MDR Breakfast. Staff was great, food was good.

Redfrog Pub

4 out of 5

Nice place to go to get away from the Cancer bar in the casino.

Room Service

3 out of 5

It’s a buffet. Not bad but not great either.

BlueIguana Cantina

5 out of 5

Best tasting food on the Lido deck.

Onboard Activities

4 out of 5

Cherry on Top

1 out of 5

Not very impressed. Almost $4 for a half pound. We watched a lil kid spend $150 on a bag of gummy worms when her mom wasn’t looking. The shop wouldn’t let them return them because she stepped out of the store but didn’t leave the door way. The Mom wasn’t a happy cruiser afterwards.

Pool

1 out of 5

Over crowded because lots of chairs were strapped down and locked up on the upper decks. Any events were standing room only to include the Dive in Movies.

Serenity

3 out of 5

Not really a good location next to the kids club having half the deck and kids yelling so loud you can hear them on the other side of the ship. It should be moved to the back of the ship with the Adult pool.

Photo Gallery

1 out of 5

$21.99 for a 8/10. I don’t think so. Not to mention that you can’t even walk around the area when open because the crowds.

Argonaut Pool

4 out of 5

Best place on the ship to get away from the kids running around. we saw the staff asking kids and families to leave the adult areas every day.

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Ivanhoe Theater

3 out of 5

Only one of the guys had a good voice in the shows.

Carnival Seaside Theater

1 out of 5

Standing room only for the Dive in Movies. Lot’s of chairs were strapped down and locked up on the upper deck.

Service and Staff

4 out of 5
Waiters were always busy and they looked short handed in every area. You could get your own drinks faster than waiting around for them. FTTF was well worth getting because the line at guest service was always long and we just walked right up to get our hub app and WiFi working. Had to call the room steward twice and guest service once to get a sharps container for the cabin. Cabins temperature was cool for the most part but not cold. The refrigerator/ Hot Box could not even get a bottle of water pass room temperature.

Ship Quality

3 out of 5
We were still finding new ways to get around after the 5th morning. Decks 3-5 are hard to get around. Ship was getting work done on the decks in every port. Crew was great at keeping everything clean. The Casino is one cigarette away from the entire deck 5 from getting Cancer. Don’t even waste your time going to the casino if you don’t smoke. You will become a walking advertisement for the casino just by walking pass it.

Cabin / Stateroom

4 out of 5
Room was clean and comfortable temperature but not cold at all till late at night. Room was colder than the refrigerator. Our room steward was very nice.

Ship tip

Get your frozen drinks from the Lobby bar. Just about every other bars mix’s was way to sweet or way to much water mixture in them. Also know what you want to drink before you sail. We wasted 3 days on different drinks because they are never the same. We gave up on the frozen drinks.

Ports of call

Cozumel, Mexico

4 out of 5
Mr. Sancho’s was fun but crowded. Our service was bad but we did see others getting great service. We only saw our server twice, once when he seated us and the second time was 30 minutes before we walked out. (Someone must have told him that we were packing up our stuff to leave) we got 3 bottles of water from him. We put a food order in but never received it so we went to the pool bar for drinks and buffet for food.

New Orleans, Louisiana

5 out of 5
Lots to do and see. Bourbon street is a tourist trap but Frenchman street is much better. WWII Museum is great and the Zoo is top notch. Great places to eat outside of the French Quarter.

Disembarkation

5 out of 5
We had FTTF and took our luggage off with us. If you turn your luggage in the night before then you will have to wait for it to be unloaded with everyone’s luggage. As fast as you can walk is how fast you can get off the ship if you bring your luggage with you.
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1 Comment

cmglover25    4 years ago

We had great service when we went to Mr. Sancho’s. Love it there. Can’t wait to go again.

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