I’ve been working on this post for a little over a week because I keep going back and adding little tidbits. Two weeks ago I was in the middle of the gulf on my way to Mexico on the beautiful cruise ship that is the Carnival Valor. It wasn’t my first time doing that cruise, but it was my first time on this vessel. I took the same trip back in 2015 on the Triumph and the Valor was just as beautiful.
I’d been planning the trip with two of my cousins and their sons for a few months now and the kids’ excitement grew as we got closer to the departure date. In fact, the car was buzzing with excitement as we ventured to Galveston that Thursday afternoon. The car was loaded down with luggage, numerous 12 packs of soda and carbonated water and my two bottles of wine. I planned on taking full advantage of their one bottle per adult per room policy. We found decent cruise parking and made our way to the boat and my little cousin Ty couldn’t hold back his excitement. It was not only his first cruise but his first time out of the country! We wanted to treat him to the adventure for his birthday and for having such a great school year and he lived like a king on that cruise.
We did the standard muster drill and after that the real fun started. I’d never done a cruise with kiddos before, so I wasn’t sure if they’d be with us all day but we ended up dropping both of them off at the on-site daycare and they had a blast while we enjoyed ourselves too. The kiddos got to participate in arts & crafts projects, dance competitions and other fun activities while we got to go to live shows, trivia, karaoke and other deck activities. It was wonderful!
I had a game plan for this cruise and decided to hit up as many activities I could on the ship. Carnival has recently revamped their app, so we could use that in addition to the flyer of daily activities that’s left in our room to see what was happening on the ship. The app was so convenient! We could “favorite” activities and plan our day, keep track of our ship expenses as well as text each other! Yep! You read that correctly, we were able to message each other in the app without paying a crazy fee for data. The messaging package was $5/person for the entire duration of the cruise and it was $5 well spent. In fact, I ended up purchasing one of the data packages, the ‘Social Media’ one for like $15 and was able to keep up with my accounts. I was able to access Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and was even able to iMessage people! I didn’t post much, but it was nice to check out things when I had a bit of down time. And honestly, there wasn’t much of that.
Between the shows, laying out and reading, Harry Potter trivia, eating and Trivia Pursuit I was quite busy. We hit up karaoke a few times and I thought I was doing something by getting up and blessing the mic with my rendition of Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”, but I was shown up by a few people. One of them being my little cousin Ty when he got up and did “Candy Girl” by New Edition. Y’all, I cried! He was too cute up there doing his little choreo steps and hitting those high notes. He’s a recent NE convert and I’m not mad about that at all.
One of the most memorable parts of the trip was our day spent in Cozumel. We decided to go to Playa Mia and spent the day at the beach there at the waterpark and I even decided to go parasailing. I was scared at first, but it ended up being one of the best experiences and I wouldn’t mind doing it again. I was a baby genius and put sunscreen everywhere except my face so I came back a few shades darker, but all is well. I got a new foundation to match my “summer color”.
I absolutely love cruising with Carnival and we’ve already started planning our next cruise. Next December we want to take a 7-day one and I can’t wait! Have any of y’all been on a cruise? What was your favorite onboard activity? Comment below or tweet me and let me know! Oh and check out my video recap of the vacation below. I seriously can’t wait until our 7-day cruise next year!