Monday, March 16 ~ Sapphire Beach in St. Thomas

When we woke up at 7:15am, we were already docked in St. Thomas and we could see people getting off the ship out our window.  We got ready and went to breakfast at the Lido buffet.  It was very hectic and crowded, and we waited 15 minutes for an omelet!

The port area in St. Thomas is so beautiful with all the little white boats contrasting against the deep blue water and bright green hills…

We left the ship and walked through the little shopping area to the taxi stand.  A taxi to Sapphire Beach cost $10 per person each way, plus tip.  We ended up in a minivan with 7 passengers instead of a big open air taxi like most people.  It was really nice to have the air conditioning, but it was a long ride and we had to drop some people at Coki Beach on the way so that took extra time.  It took 35 minutes total and we arrived at Sapphire Beach a little after 10am.  There was already a lot of people there, although I wouldn’t say it was crowded.  We paid $9 each plus tip for lounge chairs, and the girl set them up where we requested under a tree for shade.  Little did we know that it would be overcast and cloudy all day with occasional drizzle, so we didn’t really need the tree’s shade.  There was a light breeze and it was slightly cool all day.  I only took my cover-up off to take a few quick photos, and it was too cold and the water was too choppy to snorkel in the ocean.  

We brought a few pouches of Gasolina to enjoy on the beach.  I’m not sure if it was because they are only sold in Puerto Rico so the St. Thomas locals didn’t know what we were drinking, or just because they didn’t care, but no one said anything to us about drinking something we didn’t buy directly from them.  In fact, there was a big group of college-aged kids sitting next to us who were on spring break and staying on the island all week, and they had a huge cooler filled with beers that we watched them carry onto the beach and no one said anything to them either.  

We took advantage and took some photos when the sun eventually came out…

A few other things about Sapphire Beach:  I know they had some construction for the past few months.  As of when we were there, the bathrooms were open, but there was still a section of the property under construction.  There was one vendor set up on the beach selling jewelry and dresses, but she did not bother us or pressure us to buy anything.  If people approached her to browse her products, then she answered their questions, but she did not walk up and down the beach asking us to buy stuff.  There were 2 runners from the restaurant who came around with drink and food menus and could take your orders from the beach so you didn’t have to get up if you were hungry.  Other than that, it was a pleasant quiet day at the beach, even if it was too cold to do the water sports!  I was able to snorkel here on my 2012 cruise, so if you are interested in that experience, please refer to that review.

There was a taxi waiting outside to bring us back to the ship when we were ready to leave at 1:45pm.   It again cost $10 per person for a 30 minute ride, and the driver dropped us off near the stores outside the port.  We got back on the ship by 2:30pm after a slow moving line at the gangway.  First stop was to drop off our bags in the cabin (it came in handy that we could run up one flight of stairs to our cabin on deck 1 instead of waiting for the elevators), and then we went to the Lido buffet for lunch… another Mongolian Wok stir fry for me, and the burrito bar for J.

After lunch, we spent the afternoon relaxing on a sun bed on Serenity deck.  I have seen photos of those sun beds having a clamshell to provide shade, but none of the sun beds on the Valor had that clamshell attachment. Today was a good day to use the sun beds because it was a bit overcast and cloudy, but I avoided the beds on bright sunny days for fear of getting a sunburn.

I got hungry again an hour later so I grabbed some cheese pizza (which involved a long walk all the way across the ship to the aft pizza station.)  I really wanted to have the mushroom pizza but it would take them 20 minutes to cook it fresh for me and I didn’t want to wait that long so I just took the plain cheese slices that were already available.

I went back to the cabin to shower at 5pm and the clanging noise came back.  I called guest services and they said they would send someone up to check it out.  The maintenance guy finally arrived nearly an hour later, and of course the sound stopped by then.  He said he thought it was the anchor settling after sail away.  I explained that it happened last night over an hour before sail away too so I doubted it was the anchor.  He said to call guest services if the noise came back.  I’ll bet you can guess what happened next… 10 minutes after the maintenance guy left, the clanging noise started again.  I called guest services again and the girl said she would come right away to hopefully arrive while the noise was still happening.  She knocked on the door 5 minutes later and waited with us for about 5 minutes but sure enough, the noise remained quiet while she was there.  And of course, a minute or two after she left, the clanging returned.  By now, it was 6:45pm and we planned to go to dinner at 6:30pm so I didn’t want to call and wait for them to come again (especially since the noise seemed to be scared of the ship staff and it always stopped when they were around!). Instead, I took out my iPhone and recorded a 1 minute voice memo of the sound.  It worked great and really captured how consistent and annoying the banging was.  We then headed down to dinner and agreed to forget about the banging for a few hours and we could deal with it after we ate.  

This was my first experience with any time dining.  We got to the 3rd floor mid-ship Lincoln dining room and there were maybe 5 parties ahead of us lined up to be seated.  It took just a few minutes until we were brought to a table for 2 towards the back of the dining room.  I had read enough Cruise Critic reviews that complain about how close together the tables are, so I wasn’t surprised to see that our table had about a foot of space between our neighboring tables.  No big deal! It was great to have the flexibility to eat when it was convenient for us, especially with all the clanging drama in our cabin. 

I ordered the duck and the fried shrimp for my appetizers, the seafood newburg for my entree, and of course the warm chocolate melting cake for dessert.  They brought everyone 2 ramekins of vanilla ice cream without having to request it.  All of the food was served warm and it was delicious as always.  I am not going to post the menus for each day since they were the same old menus that you can easily find in other reviews (plus all the ships will have new American Table menus soon anyway).  I will post some food porn though!

We wore our green Mardi Gras beads in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow…

Walking through the lobby…

After dinner, we went to guest services to play them the sound recording of the clanging noise.  We spoke with a lovely lady named Sylvia, and she was extremely helpful.  She listened to the recording and excused herself for a few minutes to speak to her supervisor.  When she returned, she explained that there was one unoccupied cabin left on the ship and she offered to take us to see it.  I had spent a great deal of time and energy picking out the perfect cabin for our needs, so I was worried that this new cabin would be in a bad location.  As it turned out, it was a balcony cabin all the way forward on deck 7.  As I mentioned at the start of my review, I am a huge fan of deck 7, and I have never been in a balcony cabin before.  Maybe everything would work out well for us after all!  Sylvia took us up to see cabin 7220.  On the way up there, she explained that it was only available because another couple missed the cruise due to flight cancellations during a blizzard in their home city.  We felt really sorry for whoever that was- it must be awful to miss out on your vacation so last minute due to weather problems!  

The new cabin was lovely… Not a single clanging noise to be heard!  We were thrilled at the idea of a silent peaceful remainder to our vacation, and Sylvia said the cabin was ready immediately if we wanted to change cabins tonight.  While it was less than ideal to miss out on an evening of fun on the ship, I wanted to make the room change ASAP to avoid another night in the noisy cabin and so we could get on with enjoying the rest of our cruise.  We took 30 minutes to repack all of our belongings (and by repack, I mean take every plastic grocery bag we had in or cabin, plus our beach bags and other luggage, and throw everything in so it was portable… no need to cram it all tightly which would have taken way more time!), and we called for a porter to help move our bags.  By 10:45pm, everything was unloaded in the new cabin and we decided to head down to the 11:15pm adult comedy show so at least we could do one fun thing tonight! 

Tonight’s comedian was Lou Johnson and he did a whole set about cruising. I guess he really knows his audience!  He didn’t waste any time making fun of people in the front row like most comedians do… The whole 30 minute act was filled with hilarious content about his experiences working on cruise ships.  If you have a chance to go, I would definitely recommend seeing Lou Johnson’s act!

After that, we got back to the cabin at midnight, ordered some grilled cheese from room service, and spent an hour unpacking and getting settled in our new home for the rest of the week.  Overall, the experience with the clanging noise was a hassle and it wasn’t ideal to waste time on our vacation dealing with it, but we thought Carnival handled the situation fairly and took care of us.  

Mr. Monkey was waiting to say goodnight

Up next: our only day at sea, spent mostly outside on our new balcony!!