Great itinerary; ship's too big

By Steelelady

• April 29, 2014

• Southern Caribbean

I love cruising the Southern Caribbean, just not on a ship as big as the carnival Valor. I have done this itinerary, sailing from San Juan on the Sun Princess, Costa Daphne, and Holland America Veendam. I much prefer the smaller ships for several reasons. Each of the ports has had to make accommodation for the immense size of this class, and as a result must dock away from the center of the port city (except for St. Kitts), necessitating a taxi ride of some description to get into the main area of the port. I much prefer walking off the ship at leisure into the central part of town, then sightseeing or shopping. Also, the design of the Valor is confusing, in that one can not easily get from bow to stern, especially on the lower decks. The interior hallways are not very wide, or very attractive. the food in the main dining room was OK, nothing to write home about. Omelette station, pizza station. grilling stations saved the day, as did room service. Wait staff for late seating dinner was at least engaged with their diners. At the open seating meals, service was perfunctory at best. Spa services were extremely overpriced, as were many of the "alcoholic beverages". I suspect that families with young children would enjoy the ship's facilities more than we did. Even though we have cruised on Carnival 3 times previously, and knew what to expect, I was still somewhat disappointed with the ship itself. The devil is in the details, and Valor is starting to show her age.