Carnival Liberty April 23rd Eastern with pics

[Ruggled]

Hello everyone! I wanted to share my review of the Liberty. Last review of the Legend I started including pictures because I found that I actually enjoyed reading reviews that did this (I used to have the short and sweet reviews so if you're looking for one of those, I'm sorry, I'll be letting you down.) I'll try to do the review in sections so that I can post the pics associated with the post.

 

In a nutshell, we consider this cruise on the Liberty one of our favorites. The ship was beautiful, the four ports were great, and outside of a couple of little issues and a decent size loss in the casino, we had a WONDERFUL time.

 

This was our 7th Carnival cruise, our 12th overall, and we had two cabins, an aft balcony for DH and me and an inside stateroom across the hall for our DS who is 15 and one of his friends who is also 15 and was on his first cruise.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions--I'm missing the cruise already! :(

[Ruggled]

We chose to fly in the day before the cruise and took a flight from RDU to FLL on Southwest. We had arranged for SAS to pick us up from the airport. They were great and rang my cell phone while we were waiting for our luggage. We found the van, which already had one couple waiting and then waited another 10 minutes or so for the second couple before heading to Miami.

 

The other two couples were going directly to the port for their ships. Traffic was bad and there were some backups but the time from FLL to the ports took around 40 minutes with traffic. Once these two groups were dropped off, we headed back to downtown Miami. This is where it got a bit weird. We were booked at the InterContinental, but our driver pulled up beside the Continental hotel, an older hotel across the street from the waterfront. He then insisted this was our stop. I could plainly SEE the InterContinental a block away on the waterfront and told him that was where we were supposed to go yet he proceeded to argue that we WERE at the InterContinental and that the "Inter" was just in very small letters...we literally had to argue with the guy to drive us across the street. He didn't want to be responsible for taking us to the "wrong" hotel. I assured him we knew where we were going. That was all just a bit strange--I have never had to argue with someone on what hotel I was staying at!

 

Here is the InterContinental--this view is from Bayside so you can see how close it is to the hotel.

 

The InterContinental is nice. The pool area does get shaded in the afternoon so sun worshipers should know that there won't be much sun. Rooms are large and well appointed. Bayside is an easy two block walk along the waterfront and there is a CVS about 3 blocks down the street. We bought wine there for our carry-ons. We were early and the room would not be ready until the "listed check in time" of 4PM so we checked our luggage and headed over to Bayside for lunch at the Latin American Cafe--good but not outstanding. Lunch for four with two drinks (a mojito and a Miami Vice set us back over $120)....

 

We decided to take the Thriller speedboat tour which goes out to see the houses of the rich and famous and then takes you out into the ocean for a run up and back on Miami Beach. The boys thought it was great fun...here's a picture of the InterContinental again, this time from the back of the speedboat.

 

 

That evening after check in, we went out to the Hard Rock cafe and had (in my opinion) a far better meal and far better service than we'd had at the Latin American cafe plus the total bill with two drinks (a beer and a blackberry mojito) came to less than the price for lunch.

 

Bayside on Friday nights is a lot of fun. The boys hung out for awhile and then went back to the hotel. DH and I stayed late. There was a live band, lots of places to shop and for those that want a little taste of South Beach, I HIGHLY recommend the new mojito bar outside of Havana Nines. We had a great time with the staff, they have amazingly fresh mojitos--the melon mojito is divine--do NOT be afraid to walk in this place and have a good time. It has the feel of an exclusive SoBe club but these folks are super friendly!

 

One of my favorite bartenders....

 

[StingRaysfan]

Can't wait for this because we are leaving in 29 days.. but ... if you left on April 23rd shouldn't you still be on the ship????

[Ruggled]

Can't wait for this because we are leaving in 29 days.. but ... if you left on April 23rd shouldn't you still be on the ship????

 

Darnit! I hope I can get that changed! We got back on April 23rd. This was the April 16th cruise. Thanks for keeping me straight!

[StingRaysfan]

LOL.. April 23rd was probably just wishful thinking that you were back on the ship... Alright.. waiting for the rest :) I am sooooo excited... this 29 days can't go by fast enough!

[Ruggled]

OK, so April 16th......not the 23rd....we left port! :o

 

We planned on being at the port around 10:30 but we got up a little later than planned (see previous post on late night at the mojito bar :D). I grabbed breakfast at the Starbucks in the lobby and we were checked out and had a cab by 10:35. We were at the port and unloaded less than 10 minutes later--total cost including tip was around $10.

 

We left our bags with the porters and headed through security. I had heard horror stories about smuggling being a problem in Miami. An experienced rum-runner user, I was an angel and ordered from Bon Voyage so we had nothing on us except our allowed wine. I warned the guys to expect to have their soda bottles searched as we went through security. We were in and through security in 5 minutes flat..no discussions, no questions, not even a shake of a soda bottle........oh well, you just never know do you?

 

We had arrived fairly early and rather than use the kiosk to sign in, I took advantage of the empty desks in the "regular" check in line to ask whether it was possible to go ahead and get keys changed for the rooms so that the boys could have the inside cabin we had booked while DH and I took the aft balcony. They were wonderful...she said once the ship was "released" from the current cruise she could go in and make changes. We took a zone 12 card and waited. As irony would have it, the people sitting behind us got the coveted "VIP embarkation" card under their chair and gave us their Zone 1 card...so as soon as the boarding started for VIP, the guest services person switched our keys and we were on our way on the ship by 11:30.

 

The Liberty is the first ship that I've been on with Carnival that had a net over the pool during embarkation. This was something new for us as we've been on a number of other ships. I had looked forward to a dip in the pool before sailaway, but we settled for having a few DODs and searching for Komang who we have heard on these boards is a fantastic bar waiter. We found him quickly and he became our friend for the week.

 

The Liberty is a beautiful ship. Decor is understated for Carnival ships and I found it to be a very attractive ship with no odd pink vases or gaudy grapes in the dining room. Cabins were available at 1:30. I am now spoiled for life for an aft balcony. We had an aft wrap on the Legend for Christmas and I had heard about the two aft balconies on the Conquest class ships that are wider than the rest. Let me confirm..they are wider and our cabin, 8450, was AWESOME. Here are a couple of shots of our balcony and a shot of the aft wrap besides ours.

 

 

(and because I know he posts pics of lots of people, I'd like to point out PaulMedic on his aft wrap on the OTHER side of the ship--you'll see him with--(surprise) his camera!)

 

 

 

Sailaway from Miami is beautiful. Here's a shot of Miami Beach.

 

[Ruggled]

Half Moon Cay is as good as everyone says. The tendering stinks as much as everyone says too..the only way to make HMC perfect would be to build a dock or come up with a better tender system. The biggest issue is there is a tender backup because the path to the tender dock allows only one ship to pass at a time--there can be no constant two way traffic, so you end up with a backup at the dock or a backup at the ship.

 

Either way, I'm already actively seeking an itinerary that includes HMC again.

 

Here is a shot of cabanas 6, 7 and 8.

 

 

We had #7, the peach cabana, which we chose as soon as we got onboard. Not being platinum, by the time we got there 10-15 were already taken though I had no desire to be that far away. We like to be a bit more in the action, though I don't think I'd want #1 or #2. After looking at the cabanas, I think anything from #4 onward would be fine, even #5 beside the big old pirate bar.

 

#7 was right at the transition between "busy" beach and "quiet" beach. The restrooms and dining area were behind us. Cabana renters...you don't need to bring your Carnival towels as there will be 4 waiting for you. Along with the towels we had more fruit, veggies and dip and chips and salsa/guacamole/sour cream than we could eat. We also had plenty of water and the sodas we'd ordered when we picked our cabana. Truly a slice of heaven!

 

Here's a shot of #7...with Komang--bar/pool/HMC beach waiter extraordinare.

 

 

No, we had no cabana poachers or squatters. However, one man who was in a clamshell out in front of our cabana asked if he could use our shower. DH said he could..the next thing you know, his family of 15 people were all on the cabana deck using the shower. DH just asked for their Sail and Sign card...oh well, live and learn! :D

 

So..on the tendering back. This place is amazing, which means people want to stay to the end. Unfortunately, when that happens and they are only using one of the tender doors on the ship because they are loading items onto the ship from a second boat at the second tender door, you get lines like this...

 

 

Yes, it was that bad.all of those people ringing the square are waiting in line..the line continued around the left of the building in left side of the picture. It was bad...really, really bad. Lesson learned...either go really early to HMC and plan to go back by 1:30 or 2:00, or find yourself a seat at the bar and stay there until they load the bartenders on a tender to take them back.

[Ruggled]

Sea Days are pretty much the same for us..sleep in, hang out, laugh at the chair hogs, visit the casino...so I won't go into detail. We usually love sea days so it was nice to have one after HMC.

 

Our roll call pretty much booked the Fury (along with about 11 of the 15 cabanas on HMC) so we were looking forward to the trip. The guys on the Fury met us in front of the Fat Turtle restaurant and we boarded the boat to Buck Island. Wind was light, so we couldn't sail which we were looking forward to but hey, it is what it is.

 

There is nothing more postcard perfect than the harbor in St. Thomas..the idyllic Caribbean port.

 

 

We had a great time on the Fury. Here's a pic of the boat and some of the CC crowd:

 

 

I'm not a huge snorkeler and am a "surface" snorkeler so I don't dive down. DH can do it forever and loves to explore the ocean floor. The guys on the Fury made sure that we got information about the turtles and the rest of the sea life. They brought up sea urchins and starfish for us to hold and there were some really pretty fish in the nearby reef. But what we came for were the turtles. They were really cool!

 

 

I highly recommend the crew of the Fury, and for a bit different excursion than the usual "sail and snorkel" being able to say I was swimming with these guys (and the baracuda and stingrays as well) was certainly worth the trip.

[PaulMedik]

LOL.. April 23rd was probably just wishful thinking that you were back on the ship...

 

StingRaysFan,

 

Me too since I'm in the pics!

 

(and because I know he posts pics of lots of people, I'd like to point out PaulMedic on his aft wrap on the OTHER side of the ship--you'll see him with--(surprise) his camera!)

 

 

Debbie,

 

I got one of you too at about the same time;

 

 

I tried to get a shot down the rail of South Beach, but some guy was about to jump or something;

 

 

It sure was nice of you to talk him down from there;

 

 

I knew your cabin was on the opposite corner, but didn't realize I had shots of you until reading your review. :o

 

Don't worry about that first shot I got of you two at the Paparazi Bar; it turned out just like you said it would. :p I'll make sure it doesn't make it to the internet. ;) It looks like you're trying to spit in your husbands ear, but since you saved his life......

[lidodeckbound]

So glad you found K! Isn't he great!?

[IMDORY]

We were below you in 6456...gotta love those aft ext. balconies! In fact, we are in Paul's picture at sail away that he posted here. I did meet Paul and his wife, but I had no idea you and your family were back there with us.

 

Agree, the HMC tender thing was really crummy. If/when we ever do it again, we are waiting for the end of the line at the bar...standing in line for an hour in the hot sun was not very fun. The island was SO great though!

[Ruggled]

StingRaysFan,

 

I tried to get a shot down the rail of South Beach, but some guy was about to jump or something;

 

It sure was nice of you to talk him down from there;

 

 

 

Don't worry about that first shot I got of you two at the Paparazi Bar; it turned out just like you said it would. :p I'll make sure it doesn't make it to the internet. ;) It looks like you're trying to spit in your husbands ear, but since you saved his life......

 

That is entirely too funny Paul! (I had intended to note in this review that it is very easy to stand on a lounger on our balcony and see over into the neighbor's balcony)..now I see that it can allow one to appear suicidal from the other side of the ship! LOL

 

And yes, please delete that picture..I had a feeling it would come out VERY badly!

 

It was great to meet everyone we were lucky enough to meet from the roll call!

 

So glad you found K! Isn't he great!?

 

Oh he was the greatest. We told him we'd heard about him on Cruise Critic and he couldn't believe it. He was a sweetheart!~

[Ruggled]

Well, on to San Juan. As I mentioned before, the really cool thing about these 4 ports is they are so different. Some people said they didn't get off the ship in San Juan because it was too "city"....what a mistake they made! This is a very walkable city with a great vibe, super friendly people and some really neat things to see. Once you get past the port (and ignore the taxi drivers that tell you the walk to the fort is over an hour) you can look two blocks over and see the fort from the ship.

 

In fact, here is the ship from the fort:

 

 

Now, the lighthouse (El Morro) is a good walk from the ship..it is a walk from the fort, and some people enjoyed strolling the city to see them both. You could take a taxi, or the trolley service with clearly marked stops as well. We decided not to go to El Morro or the cemetary while we were there, but here is a beautiful shot from the fort looking toward El Morro.

 

 

After the fort, we headed back into town, walking some beautiful blue brick streets. I bought coconut ice cream from a vendor on the street for $1 and it was awesome. The boys, however, had a mission...one of the girls on the cruise had told them there was a..........Polo Outlet........in San Juan. I told them we could go if they could find it.

 

If you don't know where to go...ask a police officer. There are plenty of them around and they are happy to give directions. About four police officers later, we found the Polo outlet. Prices were about 25% less than they are in the local department stores so they guys stocked up. We checked out a few other outlets, a couple of jewelry stores, and then headed back to the ship.

 

We decided San Juan will be a place we come back to visit. The short time you are in port isn't near enough to enjoy the culture of this place!

[ItsAllAboutTheSass]

Let me confirm..they are wider and our cabin, 8450, was AWESOME.

 

We had the same cabin in 2009. you are right, it was AWESOME.

[Ruggled]

So, our last port before the final sea day was Grand Turk. We had the Chef's table that evening and it was also the second elegant evening of the cruise. (The first elegant evening was the first sea day).

 

The island itself is certainly small. We had no plans whatsoever except to get off the ship and go to Margaritaville. Here's a shot of the area as we saw it from the ship.

 

 

We thought Margaritaville was great. We were the only ship in port so didn't get a cabana, and I'm glad we didn't because here, I don't think we'd use it. The cabanas were fully enclosed, air conditioned, and looked like a nice place if you have toddlers or little ones you might want to keep out of the sun. As it was, we needed a few loungers to drop our shoes and bag...and we were pretty much in the water after that.

 

The pool area was huge. There were pool games near the DJ booth and it was your typical Spring Break beer chugging, booty shaking sort of stuff which was entertaining. There was also a swim up bar, a zero entry area, and plenty of other areas to just hang out in the pool on the quieter side or watch the flow rider users--which mostly seemed to be the guys who worked at the flow rider as opposed to anyone else :confused:

 

 

We took a walk down the beach to Jack's Shack-honestly the place wasn't for me. Take note, they don't take credit cards..if you spend more than $20 they will take that in the shop, but they really weren't warm on the idea. A lot of the casino crew were there playing volleyball and they were having a good time--I can see why the crew would want to come further down the beach to get away from the guests for the day. Drink prices weren't that much lower than Margaritaville. I know some people love the place but it was a little bit too much "shack" for me. We were happy with Margaritaville so headed back there for the rest of the day.

 

We headed back to the ship to get ready for dinner (Chef's Table) and the view from my balcony really shows how pretty this place is "away" from Margaritaville where it is less commercial.

 

[Ruggled]

The Crew:

 

Cruise Director: I am not Jen-basher. I get her "thing" and I think its sort of cute in a cartoon character sort of way. DH and I had a nice chat with her at the farewell party and I found her to be genuine and engaging one on one. Plenty of CD's have a "thing" that makes them memorable--either good or bad. Its the CDs that you don't remember that don't get it. They don't make or break my cruise, but I thought Jen was pretty cool and I saw her all over the ship.

 

Our room steward was I Ketut..he and the assistant stewards were great. Room was always made up quickly when we left. They quickly took care of a slow draining shower, everything was just great.

 

We had 6PM seating in the Silver dining room on the second level at the rail, just the four of us in a booth. That was fine--it was entertaining to have dinner alone with the boys although we often enjoy a larger group table. Clive was our head waiter and he was efficient and very nice. Service out of the kitchen was slow throughout the cruise for whatever reason so we often wouldn't see our appetizer until 6:30 or so. However, the assistant waiter, Petuin? I think was his name..otherwise known as Smiley stole the show. That guy was so adorable I wanted to take him home with me. The boys loved him. We have had bad luck lately in the dining room with dining crews but these guys made it memorable.

 

The night we went to the Chef's Table, which was the second elegant evening, we went by the dinner table only to find that the boys had...DATES! It was like prom, the four of them were dressed to the nines. Clive told us the boys should have kicked us off the table days earlier. ;)

 

The Chef's table was great...this was our second one. The chef of this ship was less informational than on our Legend Chef's table about how the dishes were prepared, etc. However, the food and the service were exceptional. Still well worth the $75 per person (and we did tip on top of that)...we will do this every chance we get.

 

Casino:

 

The Players Club sent us strawberries, two photo certificates for $15 each, as well as a welcome gift basket with wine, fruit, cheese, etc. This casino staff was great and we had a lot of fun with them. The bonus was that the first night at the tables, the second dealer to come to our table was standing beside me waiting to take over, he and I looked at each other and I probably scared the heck out of the rest of the people at the table when I yelled out his name and gave him a hug......yes, I've had him as a dealer on a previous cruise, actually our cruise at Christmas on the Legend. He and his fiancée had gone home to Romania for two months and had just come to the Liberty. Emil and Iliana are WONDERFUL..if you play in the casino on the Liberty and you see them..call them Boris and Natasha (and old joke from the Christmas cruise)..they will know I've been talking about them.

 

Sadly, the casino was not so good to me, though Emil tried really hard the last night to deal friendly Blackjack cards and got us a little bit back. ;) We were lucky for other people at the table but not so much for ourselves.

 

Embarkation:

 

We took our time getting off so didn't do self assist. We were luggage tag #25 which was to be called around 9:30 but it wasn't until 10AM or so when we were called. We had another mess-up with SAS on the way out..they had us for 3 people instead of 4, so not enough room in the van. That added about an hour to our trip back to FLL, but our flight wasn't until 2:15 so no big deal.

 

So overall...really a great cruise, one of our favorites. If anyone has any questions, I'll try to help answer (and some of the CC folks I sailed with who are far more expert than I may also be reading this thread so ask away!).

 

Just booked next year's cruise...I can't bear to go long without one in my future!

[jimbo5544]

Nice review so far. Love your pics. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the Chefs Table. We did the first one...think it was Tuesday. Loved it

[jimbo5544]

oops you beat me to it...;)

[Ruggled]

Jim, we were originally booked for Tuesday as well but didn't think we'd feel like doing that after an afternoon of snorkeling in the sun.

 

I enjoyed the Chef's Table. We were surprised at the number of people in our group who didn't eat tartar, or didn't eat fish at all..given that there are a number of courses that are fish based (and in the case of a couple of courses they are ahi or tartar courses) they missed out on several of the courses.

 

Still, we do have a number of pictures. I'll leave you with the dessert picture DH took..he was supposed to take pics of every course but failed miserably. :D

 

 

I hate we didn't get the chance to meet you...I was wanting a tour of that Captain's Suite..but I thought about you guys as I pointed out your digs as we went by on the Fury and the HMC tender.

[jimbo5544]

Sorry we did not get to meet you guys as well. I will post some pics in my mini review this weekend. Have had the upload of all my pics fail twice tonight...:mad:When I get them up there I will post a couple of the room. I loved the room, pretty sure I would do it again, but not in row :eek:, it would def put a crimp in the cruising bucket...

 

Where are you guys cruising next?

[Ruggled]

Booked Spring Break for next year, April 7th on the Dream...I'm due back in St. Maarten. My jewelry store is wondering if I'm OK..plus I have to stock up on Guavaberry Liquer...the stuff you can buy in St. Thomas doesn't compare.

[jimbo5544]

Booked Spring Break for next year, April 7th on the Dream...I'm due back in St. Maarten. My jewelry store is wondering if I'm OK..plus I have to stock up on Guavaberry Liquer...the stuff you can buy in St. Thomas doesn't compare.

Dream and St. Maarten....not a bad combo. We had a family diner last night where most everyone that cruised with us was over and were discussing the cruise. One of my daughters mentioned that the only thing that would have made this cruise better (the Liberty cruise I mean) was if it stopped in St. Maarten. I totally agreed (although some of that might have been the wine talking:cool:).

[Blasian]

Hello everyone! I wanted to share my review of the Liberty. Last review of the Legend I started including pictures because I found that I actually enjoyed reading reviews that did this (I used to have the short and sweet reviews so if you're looking for one of those, I'm sorry, I'll be letting you down.) I'll try to do the review in sections so that I can post the pics associated with the post.

 

In a nutshell, we consider this cruise on the Liberty one of our favorites. The ship was beautiful, the four ports were great, and outside of a couple of little issues and a decent size loss in the casino, we had a WONDERFUL time.

 

This was our 7th Carnival cruise, our 12th overall, and we had two cabins, an aft balcony for DH and me and an inside stateroom across the hall for our DS who is 15 and one of his friends who is also 15 and was on his first cruise.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions--I'm missing the cruise already! :(

---

I read your review and LOVED it.

 

We are scheduled for this cruise in October. I have a question about San Juan and Grand Turk.

 

San Juan: Were you there as the sun was setting? The reason I ask is because there are two Carnival excursions for zip lining. One is listed as a "Nightfall Canopy Tour."

 

Grand Turk: You mentioned that there might have been some "butt shaking" at the pool in Grand Turk. How raunchy was the atmosphere? We will have several young children (8-13) with us.

 

Thanks in advance :)

[jimbo5544]

---

I read your review and LOVED it.

 

We are scheduled for this cruise in October. I have a question about San Juan and Grand Turk.

 

San Juan: Where you there as the sun was setting? The reason I ask is because there are two Carnival excursions for zip lining. One is listed as a "Nightfall Canopy Tour."

 

Grand Turk: You mentioned that there might have been some "butt shaking" at the pool in Grand Turk. How raunchy was the atmosphere? We will have several young children (8-13) with us.

 

Thanks in advance :)

I am going to jump in on the 2nd one for Debbie (we were on the same cruise and roll call). While there was some "action" at the bar. we had small children in our group and it was never an issue.

[Baby Let's Cruise]

Thank you for the great review! I was wondering if you have any pictures of your cabin. We are in 8450 on the Freedom in September and the cabins would be the same on the Conquest class ships. Any pics would be appreciated. Thank you! :D