Our Liberty cruise via Miami, FL(with pics) 5/27-6/4/11

[ree1009]

DAY 5: ST. THOMAS

Woke up in time to go sit on the balcony and watch us pull into port. St. Thomas is one of my favorite places. It was overcast today so the water didn’t have its usual colors but it was still beautiful! As we pulled into port the seagulls flocked to the boat. It was a very pretty sight.

[ree1009]

We ate breakfast and headed off the ship and met our group on the pier for the Ultimate Island Adventure. We boarded our trolley and headed up the mountain. You see some beautiful views on the way up but they drive so fast it is hard to get photos. We stopped at an overlook for Megan’s bay, where we will be going later. You could see the ships in port on the way up the mountain. We also stopped off at Drake’s seat for a quick photo op.

[ree1009]

We then headed to the beach for 2 hours of relaxing. When you get off of the buses if you head to the left there is a nice bath house that has showers and a foot wash station. There is also a bar/restaurant on the beach where you can grab some lunch. Megan’s bay is one of the top 10 beaches. It is beautiful with the mountains on either side. Sorry, we didn’t take a lot of photos, we spent most of our time in the water. (This time, HMC beat out Megan’s Bay).

[ree1009]

After our time at the beach, we loaded back up in our tour trolley and headed to Black beard’s Castle. Here is the look out tower that Black beard used and a fresh water pool that you can take a dip in. You also get a tour of the Rum factory while you are there. This is were your trolley drops you off. You can spend as much time as you like at the castle (which isn’t a castle at all, just the look out tower but definitely worth it for the views alone). There are very nice changing rooms and an outdoor shower here for you to use.

[ree1009]

When you are ready you take a self guided tour of one of the old homes (with the old décor) and the Amber museum, where you will find the Amber Waterfall. It is a wall waterfall that is made totally of Amber. Very pretty.

Side note: You will also pass the famous 99 steps. You can choose where you want to go from here. There is a fairy boat that will take you back to the dock, but we walked around and went to find the post office (it was my Dad’s Birthday and we wanted to send him a post card). We took a taxi back to the port. Then we went back to the ship and dropped off our things and headed out for a little shopping. DD got a “Coach” bag for like $40. And we picked up a couple of T-shirts for DBF. We got back on the ship and watched the sun start to set.

[ree1009]

We saw 3 dolphins playing around the pier but didn’t have the camera out. (And of course they were gone when we got it). We were all starved by this point so we skipped the MDR and went to the buffet for dinner tonight. Since we skipped the dining room we were able to catch the family friendly comedy act. It was funny and we all enjoyed it. This was the only night we got to see the comedy because the family friendly was always during our dinner time (work on that one, Carnival). And we had a 14 yr old so we didn’t do any of the adult comedy. My sister went to one show and left she said it was just too raunchy. The comedy club is a great idea that they have added to some of the ships. We went to our nightly show then off too bed. Tomorrow is Puerto Rico!

[ree1009]

PR really will be tomorrow or at least later tonight. I have to get the rest of the trip typed up. So see yall then!

[ree1009]

Can't wait for more - I'm going on the Liberty in November and am also booked at the Spring Hill Suites in Miami - am hoping I can pick up some wine and soda the night before my cruise while at the Spring Hill Suites.

 

There are 2 Spring Hill Suites in Miami, we were close to the airport. I think the other one is closer to the port. Either way, you will be close to something to pick up things. I know ours had a "market" where you could buy things. I didnt go in, My sister bought a couple of bottles of Pepsi but she said they were very overpriced. Not too surprising, I guess.

[ree1009]

Hopping on for the ride!! Great start. Can't wait for more!:D

Just saw you are going on Liberty next year. She will have been through drydock by then so you will have a whole new(ish) ship :)

[soccersharon]

Once on the island the bottom fell out. It was pouring rain. We were afraid we would not get to do our stingray adventure. But as quickly as it came, it was gone. We were loaded onto our shuttle and taken to the other side of the island. We were given snorkel gear and swim shoes, given some instructions and then in the water we went. There were steps leading into the water which wasn’t very deep so it was good for DD who just learned to swim and didn’t want to snorkel . It was a great adventure. The rays would just scoot by you like you weren’t even there. Rubbing against you as they went (it felt like jello rubbing against you). We got to feed a ray some squid (yuck) but it was cool feeding them. They just suck it out of your hand. Then the guides gave us a star fish, conch, and sea cucumber to hold and check out. Very cool!

 

 

 

Loving your review! How did you book the stringray adventure? Am not seeing on the Carnival website as an excursion option. Any advice would be appreicated!

[ree1009]

Loving your review! How did you book the stringray adventure? Am not seeing on the Carnival website as an excursion option. Any advice would be appreicated!

 

We booked through Carnival. Here is the excursion. Hopefully this will help. It is the Stingray Adventure at Half Moon Cay

http://www.carnival.com/Activities/Excursion/420012

[tmt218]

Great review! I can't wait to read the rest. HMC was beautiful! We can't wait to return there. How did the sting ray excursion compare to Grand Cayman? My Mom wanted to do this. We opted for a cabana instead. Next time we want to do the sting rays and horseback riding excursions.

[Froufie]

Wondering about lounge chairs/umbrellas at Megan's Bay? I notice many are lying on their towels but did see some chairs in one pic? Any idea on cost? And availability of shade?

 

Thanks,

[finoky]

Enjoying your review so far. Hope you enjoyed her as much as we did. We got off the Liberty the day ya'll got on.

[mj]

Great Pictures and enjoying the review so far.

[NurseW2Kiddies]

Keep up the good work!!! We WILL be on the Liberty after the drydock. Hoping for (I'm sure it will be) the addition of a Serenity!! That will be heaven....LOLOL!! So glad you all had a great time!

 

Where did you shop in St Thomas?? Sounds like there is an area right at the peir?? I was reading about an area called Vendors Plaza? Any info about that?

 

Who did you book your transportation throught, that took you to Megans Bay??

 

Thanks so much for any info! It is always appreciated. This is all making me excited for our trip next MAY!!! WAYYYYYY to long to have to wait.:D

[crewsweeper]

Enjoying your review Ree1009. Especially the pictures of the ship and public spaces. Trying to convince DW to do a pre-Breeze recon ports cruise on the Liberty next spring. So these pictures help.

[ree1009]

Great review! I can't wait to read the rest. HMC was beautiful! We can't wait to return there. How did the sting ray excursion compare to Grand Cayman? My Mom wanted to do this. We opted for a cabana instead. Next time we want to do the sting rays and horseback riding excursions.

This was my first sting ray encounter. It was nice for us because you didnt HAVE to snorkle. You didnt hold the rays or do the "kiss" on this one and we stood in a circle and each person only fed one ray. I know on some of the others you feed more than one ray but they also "suck" on you. No one had this happen to them. We were in the water a total of an hour so that was just right for us. We had time to enteract with them on our own for a while before we got into the circle for feeding.

[ree1009]

Froufe, There are chairs for rent at Megan's Bay, but we didnt check on them because we were able to get one of the picnic tables that was right under a tree on the beach. There is lots of shade because there are trees lining the beach. Hope that helps.

 

Tony, thanks for warming her up for us!

 

Nursew2kiddies, we did shop right outside of the piere area there is a huge shopping area (several blocks) that is fenced in basically just for the ships and there is also shopping right across the street which is where we found DDs purse. I am not sure of the name of the shopping center though, sorry. We booked the Ultimate Island Adventure through Carnival. We had done that one before and we all enjoyed it and since DBF and DD had never been there we knew they would enjoy it too. But you can get a taxi to go directly to Megan's Bay.

 

Crewsweeper, good luck! I am about to post more so hopefully this will convince your DW!

[soccersharon]

We booked through Carnival. Here is the excursion. Hopefully this will help. It is the Stingray Adventure at Half Moon Cay

http://www.carnival.com/Activities/Excursion/420012

 

 

Thanks so much! I had checked when I first booked, and I could swear that only the cabana rental appeared. All is good now...keep up the great work on the review!

 

Cheers!

[StingRaysfan]

AWESOME! Glad you did your review too!!!! :) Sorry we didn't bump into each other on the ship!!!

Edge the clown was awesome btw. Best show we saw all week... of course it helped that Larry was up on stage with him acting the fool. We watched him get ready in his clown make up too... It was pretty sweet!

 

Finish this review up! Can't wait to read the rest.. it transports me...

[fendere]

Hi, Ree!

 

Great job so far! You got some amazing photos!!! I want to figure out how to "steal" some of these from here. I love the one of us leaving Miami with the beach, sky line and water. Your photos are so much better than mine!

 

We didn't get a chance to see Edge transform into a clown this time, but we did on another cruise, I think it might have been on the Dream a couple spring breaks ago. We LOVED it!

 

I agree about the family comedy shows...we went to the one that didn't interfere with our late dining time and we loved it (well, the kids didn't get a lot of it- how funny was the vantrilloquist, the newlywed gal, and the funky mask???) I was dying! I ended up buying one of those disco ball drink cups too, to bring home for our basement "party room"! Haha!

 

Anyway, LOVING your review, and can't wait to read and SEE more of your photos!!

[ree1009]

Day 6: Puerto Rico

We woke up just in time to sail into port. This is one of the ports I had never been to so I had no idea what to expect. I was very pleasantly surprised. Had some pretty views to take in.

[ree1009]

That being said, we took the Puerto Rico’s Favorite excursion. I will give it a so-so. I am glad we did it. We just didn’t have long enough at the places we stopped. First we got on our tour bus which was supposed to have A/C, but it wasn’t working!! We headed to the San Cristobal Fortress where our guide insisted we watch the movie. It loops every 15 min and does it in English, then Spanish. We arrived about 5 min after the English version started. She had us wait so we could see the entire movie. Well. It was in Spanish and the subtitles went by so quickly you couldn’t read them. Then we headed out to the fort. We only had about 30 min to spend inside and you really need more if you are going to go exploring. There are some beautiful views from the top of the fort. But there is quite a walk to see those views. There are steep ramps to get to the top. I made it up and down one and that was it for me. DBF and DD went to the top of another and that was enough for them too. Here are some of the photos we took while at the fort.

[ree1009]

After the fort we headed to the El Yunque Rain forest. After you got out of the city it was a pretty drive up to the rainforest. However, it is about a 45 min ride. Our driver pointed out some points of interest and when we got into the rainforest we were dropped off at the welcome center. We thought we would be walking through the forest. You don’t, they take you to a couple of points of interest and let you take photos. Once again, you don’t have enough time here either. But you do get to see some amazing views. We saw the Coca falls and went to the top of the observation tower (which had about 100 steps). Worth the climb! Very pretty views of the surrounding mountains. http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb332/reeree1009/SDC17330.jpg[/img"]http://] http://]