jbranstetter04's video: Carnival Valor Ship - Caribbean Cruis: Theme Heroes and Heroism

The Carnival cruise ship valor's theme is heroes and heroism, and I liked it. It was just my style and just what I needed to be on during the elections this fall. Yes, I missed the big elections, but of course I voted, by mail. I was given a chance to go on this cruise for free, so I took it; who wouldn't. Can you imagine a cruise ship with American flags on the floors, the stairs, the bar countertops etc? Can you imagine in this day and age a ship with sculptured images of George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and other remarkable Americans up above you surrounding some of the public rooms? A ship where as you walk down the stairs there is, between the decks, first a painting of Abraham Lincoln and then one of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon? Well you don't have to imagine it, all that you have to do is to book yourself a cruise on the Valor and you can see it all for yourself. And for those of you who love to smoke an occasional cigar, on the Atlantic deck there is the Winston cigar bar where you can feel free to smoke cigars to your hearts content. This huge bar stretches the entire width of the ship and has more than enough seating for all. It has leather seats and real solid wood tables with pictures on the walls of Winston Churchill and others from the WWII era. If you like smoking cigars in a classy setting, then this is the place for you. Dinner was at 8:15 in the Lincoln dinning room. The food was the best. I had the duck, I had the snails, and I even had the little fish eggs too. I mean why not, it is free with the cruise. You can order as little or as much as you want. Not sure what was the best thing that I had, but if I had to choose, I think that it was a cake and ice cream that I had one night. Right now I don't recall what it was, but it was fantastic, it melted in my mouth. Anyway, they treat you as if you were royalty. In the morning you can eat at the Washington dining room for breakfast. I only did this once because it conflicted with my late night casino schedule. What I did instead was to get up and eat at Rosie's Restaurant before 11:30 or so. Yes Rosie's, like Rosie the riveter of WWII. It is the place where you can eat at almost anytime of the day. Here's how Carnival describes it: "Eat whatever you like, whenever you like at Carnival Valor's Rosie's Lido Restaurant. Choose hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza, salads, roast beef, chicken, fish, broccoli, rice, potatoes, ice cream, cake, pie, cookies...". So this is where I ate my breakfast almost every day, and lunch too when I was on the ship. My nights after having dinner and a show were spent it at the Shogun Casino. This is where I made all of my money to pay for the cruise. Ha ha, not really. This casino was like any other casino with the exception that it had Shoguns standing all over the place, like you would see a display of a Night in armor. Other than that, it was just like a normal casino. I would walk in with money and then some hours later I would stagger out with less money. The first night was the worse. It was the evil roulette wheel that got me. I lost 150 dollars on it. After that I stuck to the one cent slot machines and lost money at a much slower rate. When the ship stops in port there are plenty of excursions that you can pay to go on. The two that I went on cost $70 and $85 each. The first one was when we stopped at the Grand Cayman Islands. We went to swim with and to touch the stingrays. We only touched then gently, I'm not taking about molesting them like a TSA agent would do; we were kind and unobtrusive. The next excursion was in the country of Belize. There we were bused the entire width of the country almost as far as Guatemala to see the ancient Aztec pyramids. But to me the best part of the pyramid trip was the 2 hour bus ride across Belize. We got to see a lot of the country and the people. I took some picture that I will post it as a separate video later. The people in Belize are poor, but seem happy with what they have, and I was told that they don't envy what others have. This is one of the few countries south of the border where the official language is English. Also their Belize dollar is directly linked to the value of our dollar. Two of their dollars equals one of ours. I'm sure that this was a good idea when they first did it, but the way things are going, they may regret it in the future. Before Belize we had a stop at Isla Roatan, an island off of Honduras. There we hired a couple of guys to take us around the island to see the sights and the people. Then after Belize we had our last stop which was at Cozumel Mexico. Here you can see the tourist town at the dock, or you can go into the old town and see the real Mexico. But of course the more of the real Mexico that you see, the more chance there is of you becoming a real victim of a real Mexican criminal, so it is might be better to not go too far off of the beaten path. jbranstetter04