Carnival Valor - Maiden 7 day Caribbean Voyage - December 19, 2004 from Port of Miami. Cruised to Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

Overall: The Ship gets high marks for pulling off a very good first cruise in terms of good looking ship, good food, good entertainment, competent staff and generally good service.

Embarkation and Debarkation: Unfortunately one of Carnival's weak points on many of its ships is the confusion and slowness associated with getting on and off the ship. This ship's first embarkation was chaotic, confusing and indeed too long. We got to the terminal early after staying at the local Holiday Inn Marina - good overnight stay choice. Carnival's agents tried to force the enormous gathering of people to go on the "pick up your documents line" (as soon as you entered the building), which was serviced by only two agents. This was clearly for people that had not received any documents at all prior to leaving their homes . not for the masses who already received documents from Carnival or travel agents. After waiting on this line for over 45 minutes, another agent overruled the first agent and moved us all to a general line and things started to move whereby we could go through security and get to the more than dozen agents waiting inside to check us in.

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After picking up our boarding cards, we were put in holding room and asked to wait another 30 minutes. Then things got moving and we were allowed to get on the ship. Total time to get on the ship, about an hour and a quarter . and that's for those who arrived early. I still am amazed that cruise lines like Celebrity can and do get guests on board in as little it 20-30 minutes.

Getting off the ship was also very slow. Everyone was held up by a few guests - who for some unknown reason - were being paged for well over an hour and did not respond. Funny . this does not happen on other cruise lines.

Ship's Decorations, Flow and Rooms:

At 110,000 tons she's a big ship and nicely decorated. While there is the usual glitz and gaudiness of the newer Carnival Ships, Valor is better coordinated in terms of colors, hues and styles of decorations in individual venues. This ship had a lot of "Americana" decorations in a number of public venues. The two main dining rooms, yes two for evening dining, are the "Lincoln" for the guests in the front of the ship and the "Washington" at the back of the ship . also decorate in an American Historic theme.

Elevators are a drawback on this ship. While there are enough, they are very small, and because of the lack of their size, cause backups at busy and non-busy times.

We had a TBA balcony (assigned when we arrived) #8376 - Verandah deck .. Deck 8. This standard balcony room is not as big as HA Oosterdam or Celebrity Summit and some other ships on which we have traveled. Room located towards the aft, port side. Rooms are decorated in medium cherry wood-tones with coordinating fixtures. No real bedspread. More of a plain white duvet covers. Standard bath set-up . small shower, though not as small as other Carnival Ships we have been on (Spirit and Legend). Ample storage. Small, narrow deck. Accommodates 2 chairs and small table. The view from these balconies from inside the cabin is not as good as other ships because of the configuration of the door/window area and the way the drapes are positioned.

Unfortunately, our room was right under the Lido (Rosie's Restaurant), whose flooring is mostly Mexican ceramic tiles. We had very poor first few nights sleep because you CAN hear the food and dish carts being rolled along the restaurant's floor (from early am to the wee hours). We finally got used to it and after day four did not have to sleep with pillows over our heads to break the noise. Would not choose a room in this location. In fact this is the first time in seven cruises that we did not pick our room in advance. taking instead the TBA option. Did so because Carnival wanted an extra $100 pp to pick the balcony room of our choice. The bathrooms had a selection of free toiletries . which is pretty much standard on the newer Carnival Ships. I got a kick out of the ceramic picture of Eleanor Roosevelt hung over the toilet. She was indeed a great lady. I think she deserved better positioning than over the toilet! Our stateroom attendant (Dean) and his helper did an excellent job!

There is one crazy aspect of the design of this ship. You can walk from bow to stern only on two floors, 5 and 9. On all of the other floors the flow is blocked . and I mean blocked. On every floor other than 5 and 9 . when we got off the elevators we found ourselves blocked and lost. For example, if you were dining at the Washington main dining room (back of the ship) in the evening (on floor 3 or 4) and you wanted to walk to the Theatre (on floor 3 or 4) to see a show, you literally had to get on an elevator and go up to floor 5 walk to the front of the ship, get on the elevator, again, and go down to floor 3 (or 4) to get to the theatre. This is an annoying design flaw of this ship. Then again, maybe it is a necessary structural design given the ship's size and length. All week long people were complaining about being lost, trying to figure out how to find venues due to the lack of flow-through of many of the floors.

Food:

A highlight of this ship was the food. It was very good. Luncheon choices were abundant . in Rosie's Restaurant you had a choice of a Mongolian "Hot Boot" station
(You load all sorts of uncooked veggies, meats, and seafood into a bowl and have it cooked with your choice of sauce). Great touch . very popular . but somewhat slow because your food is being cooked to order and there are only two chefs. Rosie's also has standard buffet set-up, with changing types of luncheon foods . indigenous to various countries . as well as one sandwich bar (creates all types of grilled sandwiches; a permanent Chinese food station and a Fish and Chip station, one floor up with all sorts of fried seafood. There is also a Pizza/calzone station ( 24 hours) as well as hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, etc. While Rosie's is designed for maximum flow, the lines for food were pervasive . but what can you do when you have 3000+ guests to serve?

There is a separate (square) dessert station in Rosie's which worked very well, equipped with servers to give you as many choices as you would like. The quality of the desserts was very good. They definitely bake with butter! The dessert chef's forte is cheesecake! All possible varieties of cheesecake were available throughout the week, as well as different varieties of Napoleans, among many other types of desserts.

Each night at 11:30 there was some type of mini-food buffet service in Rosie's Restaurant. It was there if you wanted it.

Evening dining in the main dining rooms was quite good, service excellent. Seconds were readily offered and each night our waiter voluntarily gave guidance as to what he considered to be good choices on the menu. Our table # 349 (second seating) on the third floor, nearer the entrance was a table for 4. Our waiter, Claudio (from Chile) was excellent . well-seasoned . ever prompt, again giving guidance about best selections on the menu.

Our head maitre' d was from Dublin Ireland. Each night he treated us to his rendition of a Sinatra song. There were many times that he sang in which sounded very similar to old blue eyes! Great voice and nice personal touch hearing Sinatra songs after each meal. He also had all the waiters and servers do a different type of dance routine each night making for an interesting and "friendly" atmosphere.

The alternative dining room is a good one, pretty much standard fair if you have been on any of the other newer Carnival Ships. We shared the huge porterhouse and 10 oz lobster tail. To us, it is always worth the $25 pp to have this meal. We enjoy it, and always take advantage of it on each ship. The only problem the night we went is that this dining room was way too cold in temperature. Most women were wearing their husbands' jackets. Also our wait staff was not well trained, were novices . so the service was definitely lacking, which is not normally the case in extra-charge alternative dining.

Pools:

There are five small pools on this ship as well as a flume ride. One of the pools and flume ride were out of commission until the end of the cruise (they were leaking). The latter was great fun, many twists and turns and quite fast. Really neat. All pools are small. The one pool that I swam in (main Lido area), surprisingly had ceramic tile flooring, instead of gunite (cement) and was very slippery. Seating on the lido (pool deck) is in tiers rather than at one level. This deck also has, large plastic (semi-rocking chairs) as well as lounges. Different touch.

Gym:

Small, but fairly well equipped with good quality strength training and weight bearing equipment. They certainly offered a lot of classes, both paid and gratis.

Entertainment:

There were two major shows provided by the Carnival Singers and Dancers and they were great!!!!! In fact they were so good, they overshadowed the other entertainment and made you want at least one more show with these very talented people. Other entertainment included comedians and Christopher Allan Graves .. A Sinatra and Sammy Davis - type singer, who we have seen on other Carnival Ships.

Cruise Director:

Our cruise director, Josh, from Philly was a pip! Very visible, and really a stand-up comic in disguise. It seems to me that Carnival mandates that their Cruise Directors be off the "extraversion scale" (a good thing), be very visible and help ensure that all have a good time. This is not the case with other cruise lines, where some directors' are non-existent. I think Carnival gets this one right. We've yet to be disappointed in any of their cruise directors and enjoy the entertainment that they manage and provide.

Bingo:

As is always the case, Bingo games are plentiful. What made it more attractive on the Valor is that every evening, before each show in the theatre, a one game Bingo was offered that paid $.500-700. My type of bingo!

Ports of Call:

In Nassau we shopped - as we didn't have as much time as we did in the next two ports. It struck me that Nassau may be benefiting from the hurricane Ivan devastation that hit
Grand Cayman. Unlike a few years ago when we last visited Nassau, I saw much more upscale shopping, more stores and a general hustle and bustle, as well as new construction, etc.

In St. Thomas we went to the ever-popular beach at Magen's Bay. Was terribly crowded, the water was cloudy and while a nice spot, we could hardly understand why it is rated one the top ten beaches in the world? It is about a half hour cab ride if you go direct from the ship at a cost of $6 pp each way. Coming back, we made the mistake of leaving the beach at 4 pm and of course the bus had to make a stop to drop off others in the center of town and we ended up getting caught in the rush hour nightmare. It took us 1 hour and 20 minutes to get back to the ship from that beach.

In St. Maarten, we took the ferry, directly outside the port to Front Street, which also dropped us right at Great Bay (just steps in back of Front Street). We walked a few hundred yards, rented covered beach chairs for $8 each and spent the day on the beach. We bought the ferry wrist band (@$5 pp) and it allowed us to go back and forth to the ship (went back for lunch). This whole process was so simple and also gave us access to all the shopping on Front Street - Philipsburg. We really enjoyed this and would do it again if we have this port on another Caribbean cruise. The water was a gorgeous turquoise blue, very clean. Warning - do not sit in the first row of the beach chairs closest to the water as the vendors do walk by every few minutes hawking their products. Also take the time to walk several hundred yards from the ferry terminal to get away from the crowds. Our tablemates opted to go to Orient Beach, which they lamented was way over crowded, and obviously the place that the crowds flock to. Great Bay was not as crowded and very enjoyable.

Guests aboard:

This cruise certainly attracted a very nice group of guests. While there were children aboard, there were surprisingly very few smaller children .but many more teenagers who had many venues set up for them (their own night club, game room, etc.).
Many guests opted to dress up on the formal nights; there were many men in tuxes.

Summary:

In the past five years we have cruised with Costa, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Holland America and Carnival (3 times). Unfortunately Carnival continues to get a somewhat older, undue rap for being the rowdy, party ship. That couldn't be further from the truth! From traveling on those other lines, often we heard fellow cruisers say they would never take a Carnival Cruise. We often speak in Carnival's defense because we have had such a positive experience on all three cruises ( Legend, Spirit, Valor). Because it was brand, spanking new, a maiden voyage . quite frankly we expected the worst and got a very good cruise --- one of the best we have taken so far! While we like cruising on a variety of ships, with different cruise lines we continue to defend Carnival as an all around, pretty good cruise line that consistently delivers. In our minds they have really have only one thing to improve --- embarkation/debarkation. Go Carnival!

M. Hopp