The 952-foot ship can hold up to 1,200 crew members and just over 3,750 guests despite normal guests capacity is 3,000. The vessel is homeported in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has a "Heroes and Heroics" theme. Carnival Valor sails 4 and 5-night cruises to Cozumel, Mexico. Some of Carnival Valor's public areas were refurbished during a drydocking from April 23 through May 8, 2016. In 2017, the ship earned a perfect health score of 100 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was part of the agency's Vessel Sanitation Program, whose purpose is to prevent the transmission and spread of gastrointestinal disease. Crewmember Genti Jankula broke his back onboard Carnival Valor in 2014. In September 2018, a Monaco judge ruled that Carnival should pay him $1.4 million, but the company refused to pay. He then took the company to a U.S. Federal court in Miami before Judge Ursula Ungaro, who ruled in his favor; Jankula won the suit. On February 13, 2020, a rock music-themed cruise, known as ShipRocked, took place onboard Carnival Valor. Performers included Lzzy Hale and her band Halestorm, Alter Bridge, and Beartooth.
Port calls
On September 4, 2018, due to heavy rains and floods on Galveston, Texas, Carnival Valor's departure was delayed. On January 23, 2019, the ship lost power at sea for an hour when she left Galveston on her way to Cozumel. On May 10, 2019, the ship repositioned and switched homeports with Carnival Dream to begin short sailings. On July 11, 2019, the ship docked in Mobile, Alabama instead of New Orleans due to a tropical storm. On April 3, 2020, the ship along with other three cruise ships departed from the port of Gulfport, Mississippi after Governor Tate Reeves announced a “shelter-in-place” order to contain the spread of coronavirus.
Incidents
On August 3, 2017, the ship contacted the Houston-Galveston Coast Guard station and requested assistance for a woman who was injured from a fall. She was then medically evacuated by helicopter near Galveston after the ship left port for Cozumel. On October 10, 2019, a 23-year-old male passenger was critically injured when he fell from where he was sitting onto a lower deck. He was medically transported by a Coast Guard Eurocopter MH-65 Dolphin from New Orleans.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the CDC reported, as early as April 22, 2020, that at least one person who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 had tested positive within 14 days after disembarking. On March 15, a 49-year-old man from Ohio tested positive of the COVID-19 after he started displaying symptoms. On April 8, 300 crew members who tested negative for COVID-19 disembarked at the port of New Orleans.
