We decided it was time for a 7 day Eastern Caribbean cruise for us. We would depart from Port Canaveral and visit the following port of calls:- Nassau, Bahamas
- St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Grand Turk
We were sailing on Carnival Cruise Line. Of course, we had the drama of Tropical Storm Erika leading up to our departure. We received an email the night before we left saying that Nassau would be eliminated from our port of calls due to the weather and our time in St. Thomas would be extended by 2 hours.
After spending the night at Davenport, FL, to miss the early morning Tampa traffic, we arrived at Park 'n Cruise at Port Canaveral to park our car for the week. They shuttled us over to the cruise port and handled our luggage.
Once we finally got through all of the hoops for security and check-in, we boarded the ship Carnival Valor. We got onboard around 12:30 pm and made our way up to the food court to get some lunch. We couldn't get into our room until 3:00 so we had plenty of time to just chill out.
After lunch, we explored the ship a little bit and found several familiar sights, including renovations being completed on one of the hot tubs. We finally headed to our room. It was small, but all we really needed. We waited for our luggage to arrive, but delivery was really backed up.
Once we left Port Canaveral, we went back to our room on Deck 6 to check on our luggage. Robin was welcomed with a tropical flower arrangement, waiting for her in the room. Dean had a sweet note included with it. Our luggage had all arrived, so we rested and watched the onboard tv information channels. We were informed that Tropical Storm Erika had broken up so we would be going back to our original itinerary. That meant we would be going to Nassau the next morning.
We had chosen the late dinner seating so we didn't go to our dining room until 8:15 pm. Upon arriving for dinner, we found ourselves sitting by ourselves at a circular table for 10 people. After a few minutes, we had 2 more people, Heath and Jennifer, join us. They were from Dallas and were just friends. We engaged in conversation with them as we began to get our food. After about 30 minutes, another couple, Bradford and Karen, joined us. They were from Brandon, FL. We began friendships that we enjoyed all week long.
