Review: First-time cruise on Liberty, West Med

[gillsjottings]

CRUISE REVIEW: LIBERTY OF THE SEAS WESTERN MED 23 JUNE 2012

 

I have created a blog about our European holiday, which you can find here: http://europein2012.blogspot.com/ it goes into a LOT more detail than this review will and has loads more photos. In this review I'll stick to the cruise portion of our holiday, as I’m guessing that’s what you’ll be interested in! I will do a post right at the end listing which tour operators we used etc.

 

 

"We" are my husband, Grant, my daughter, Paula (17), her boy-friend Calvin (17) and me, Gill. We are South African, first-time cruisers. Our flight from South Africa, via London, arrived in Barcelona the day before our cruise and we stayed over at the Hotel Jazz.

 

 

A heads-up - if you're staying in Barcelona before or after a cruise, do yourself a favour and go to the Magic fountains of Montjuic - best to go when it's getting dark, they are open from 9pm if I am not mistaken. Awesomeness indeed!

 

 

Sat 23 June:

After our exhausting travels, we slept like the dead last night and were up bright and early this morning, raring to go! We made it downstairs right on time, and our guide arrived at 8am as arranged. We loaded up the mini-van with all of our luggage and set off on a tour of Barcelona. Our tour was great fun and so interesting. We saw way more than I had expected to in the short 4 hours. We even managed to go inside the Sagrada Familia as the queues were really short. The final stop on our tour was the mountain of Montjuic, where we got stunning views of our ship...oooh the excitement!

 

How enormous is that ship!!

 

And then it was off to our home for the next week: Liberty of the Seas. We got to the port and a porter immediately whisked our luggage off and we were directed to the check-in counters

 

 

We queued for a while and then had to wait for what felt like ages, but was probably only a few minutes, while they photo-copied our passports and reviewed our documentation for Calvin (a couple of special documents are required if you are travelling with a minor with a different surname) Interestingly, anyone who required a schengen visa for Europe was required to hand in their passport for the duration of the cruise - this wasn't a problem for us and collecting it at the end was a smooth process. We had our photos taken for our sea-pass cards – these are cards that serve as keys to your room, security for boarding and means of payment for any extras. Once that was all sorted we were free to board the ship. After a brief stop at the chemist located in the duty-free section where Grant bought some sun-glasses, we climbed the ramp and were soon onboard the ship.

 

The ship is amazing, photos really don’t do it justice. It is huuuuuge!

 

We immediately made our way to the Windjammer restaurant for lunch. The ship has various restaurants, the Windjammer being a large buffet. There was a really large selection of foods to choose from.

 

After lunch we found our way to our room and met up with Lisa and Trevor (friends of ours who are cruising with us) who are in the room directly opposite ours, yay!

 

At this point I got into a slight flat-spin as everyone’s bags were there except mine. I had visions of my suit-cases bobbing around in the Med as we set sail….

 

While Paula and Cal unpacked, Grant and I took a walk around the ship. We had a look at the pools, the rock-climbing wall, the flow-rider, putt-putt course, the gym (treadmills with the best view ever!) lounges etc etc.

 

 

I never had a good sense of direction to begin with, but it seems that when on board a cruise boat I have no directional abilities at all! I will not be able to wander around on my own as I will never find my way back to my cabin again!

 

Soon it was time for the compulsory muster drill. We made our way to our designated area – Lisa seems to have the same problem I do with directions, and she elected to be the path-finder, so this was quite an adventure – and sat through the drill, which involved learning how to don a life-jacket, let’s hope this is information I will never have to use!

 

Supper-time came much quicker than expected! We're on My Time Dining and had booked to eat in the main dining-room tonight, so we changed into smarter clothes and made our way to our designated floor (the main dining-room is a multi-storied thing complete with ginormous chandelier, very Titanic!) Dinner was very nice, with lovely options for each course and very attentive service.

 

We took another little stroll after supper and then made our way back to our cabin, where Grant and I unpacked and then it was time for bed. We were feeling verrry tired by this time. Our cabin is a fairly tight squeeze for four of us, but there are lots of little nooks and crannies to pack our bits and pieces in (shelves behind the mirrors, that sort of thing), so I am sure we will do just fine!

 

 

Out of view in the above photo is an area with a couch, opposite is a large dressing table, and behind is the bathroom on the left and the wardrobe on the right.

[gillsjottings]

I set my alarm for 6:15 so that I could hit the shower first. Our morning went quite smoothly and we made it up to breakfast by about 7am. We had a good breakfast, there was plenty on offer – fruits, yoghurt, meats, cheeses, breads and rolls, porridges and cereals, the whole range of eggs, bacon, sausages etc as well as pancakes and waffles.

 

We met at the designated spot (which happened to be a theatre) for our tour to Cassis and we were soon on our way. We disembarked in the Port of Toulon and boarded a bus for our trip to Cassis.

 

 

We had a sweet French tour guide who accompanied us on our tour. We drove to Cassis on an amazing road called the Route des Cretes, up Cap Canaille, a spectacular cliff.

 

The road wound around some scary hair-pin bends, but boy was it worth it! The view from the top was breath-taking!

 

 

We stopped for photos at the top and then made our way down to the charming town of Cassis. The town is pedestrian-only, so the bus was parked at the very edge of town and we were then transported down into town by a little motorised train.

 

 

Once in town we immediately took the advice of the tour-guide and bought tickets for a boat trip to 3 of the calanques.

 

The calanques are basically coves, each one quite unique. The boat trip was out-of-this-world. A highlight of our holiday!

 

 

The huge, rugged, white cliff faces and the blue, blue, blue of the sea. I have never seen such spectacular blue! Wow! We visited Port-Miou, Port-Pin and En Vau. We also saw some nudists, seems this area is quite popular with the skinny dippers! Shoo, our conservative South African sensibilities were quite shocked! :D I am SO glad we did the boat trip, it was absolutely incredible.

 

 

The town of Cassis (pronounced Cas-sea) is really pretty. I just love the shuttered buildings of Provence, the lavender and the oleander bushes, but mix those with the blue of the Mediterranean Sea and it’s just magic.

 

After the boat ride we took a wander around Cassis, sampled some lavender ice-cream (surprisingly tasty!) bought a couple of momentoes and then it was time to head back to the bus. But first….just when you thought I might make it through a blog without a toilet story…..Lisa and I took a trip to the loo. Eish! It was a strange place indeed. A big scary-looking metal door with 3 large lights – yellow, red and green and a notice informing us that we had only 15 minutes to do the job! Once you exited (in the required 15 minutes, no more!) the entire room was sprayed with water and disinfectant – leaving about an inch of water on the floor to greet the next visitor! As you can imagine, it was not an easy job, hovering over the loo, clutching your handbag and trying to keep your pants out of the water…. Fun times!

 

There was a tiny little market right next to the ship where we bought a couple of gifts before boarding. It was much cheaper than the shops in Cassis.

 

We had lunch together at the Windjammer. Lots to choose from – salads, wraps, create-your-own burgers, sandwiches, a carvery, fish dishes, pasta and some yummy desserts and cookies.

 

We spent the afternoon relaxing and doing bits and pieces on the boat. We decided to take a walk up to the pool deck to watch the sail-away party. We missed the sail-away party in Barcelona as the ship was delayed for a while and we were having supper at sail-away time. The reason there is a sail-away party in Toulon is because some people join the cruise in Toulon instead of Barcelona.

 

We had supper in the Windjammer as it was Formal Night and we had decided not to dress up. It was lovely to see how some people really got into formal night, they looked so nice. After supper we made our way to the theatre to watch Up in the Air, an acrobatic show, in the theatre. I thought that parts of the show were really good and other parts quite weak, but overall I was glad we went to see it.

 

After the show we stopped for a quick cup of tea and then headed off to bed.

[gillsjottings]

This morning we arrived in Villefranche. Grant and I went up to the deck to watch as we glided into the port. This is the one port on our cruise in which the ship doesn’t actually dock – we had to catch a tender into shore. So after breakfast in the Windjammer we made our way down to Deck 1, where we waited in a line for a short while and then after scanning our sea-passes we boarded the ferry type boat that transferred us to the port in Villefranche. We waited a little while for the boat to fill up and then left for the port.

On the tender - that's my Dad on the left!

The tender boats were a lot bigger than I expected, and the ride was very comfortable and only took about 5 minutes. We got to Deck 1 at 08:45 and were in the port by 09:15.

After disembarking we met up with Sylvie Di Cristo, our tour guide for the day.

Villefranche

We immediately set off for the medieval village of Eze, hoping to get there before too many tourist buses. The drive to Eze was beautiful, with great views of our ship...

Eze is a tiny little hill-top village, all big walls and steep, cobbled, winding streets. Such a picturesque place. We managed to find a geocache at the church in the village. Eze currently has a permanent population of only 28 people, but a family of 3 is moving in shortly, so they will soon number 31 J

Okay, indulge me here, because I have yet another loo story! Most of the public toilets in Europe have “loo-ladies” who collect the money and keep the loos clean (having a wee in Europe is not cheap, we have been paying on average 60 Euro cents to use the loos i.e. R6 each!) The loo-lady in Eze was a particularly bossy and scary woman. But get this: while Grant was standing at the urinal, mid-wee, she marched in with her mop and began cleaning the floor around his feet and even between his legs! Over-zealous much?? I would have paid good money to see Grant’s face!

Then it was off to Nice. The roads along the Cote d’Azur are very winding and quite narrow, so it’s a little bit nerve-wracking, but the views are stunning. The sea really is azure and the yachts are beautiful and of course there are lots of my favourite oleander bushes and beautiful bougainvilleas too.

Nice was really pretty, but not as shoo-wow as I was expecting.

We had lunch at a little street café, Paula and I had nutella crepes which were delish. After lunch we took a lift up to the top of the mountain over-looking the city and the views from there were just spectacular.

 

There are recent tourists to Nice who believe that Paula and I are certifiably insane - we got a horrible fit of giggles in the lift, the kind that make you snort and cry and that just won't stop.... Grant and Cal were eventually pretending they didn't know us.... I'd tell you the story only it involves yet another loo, so I don't think you want to go there!

We then ambled briefly through the antique brocante that was happening in the square and then strolled along the beachfront promenade.

Then it was back in the car and off to Monaco. I had heard that Monaco was really not much to write home about, but I enjoyed it. We drove (along the Grand Prix track) directly to the casino in Monte-Carlo, which was a lot smaller than I expected. The greatest thing about Monte-Carlo was counting the number of sports cars we could see….about 9 or 10 different makes!

We then wandered past a few of the big name shops (Louis Vitton, Prada etc etc) before making our way around the back of the casino, which I thought was more appealing than the front.

Having seen enough of Monte-Carlo we drove closer to the Palace and then walked the steeeeep path up to the palace. Definitely worked off a couple of the puddings we’ve been eating! The area around the palace was soooo nice, lots of little winding streets with touristy shops, ice-cream places, bars and restaurants. I so wish we had had more time there, but it’s something to add to my “go back to list”.

We piled back in the car and headed back to Villefranche, where we had a short drive around and got to see the medieval streets, before saying good-bye to Sylvie.

Villefranche is a lot prettier and nicer than I imagined. After a quick saunter through the little shops we caught a tender back to our ship for some rest and relaxation after a busy day.

We had supper at Johnny Rockets. The burgers and shakes were good, but the service was extremely slow.

Paula, Cal, Grant and I were a bit naughty tonight – we got into bed, said good-night and then chatted for a lot longer than we should have, said good-night again...chatted a bit more - like a bunch of naughty kids at a sleep-over! I expected to have a lot of difficulties with the four of us sharing a cabin for a week, but Grant and I reverting to child-hood wasn't one of them ;-)

I must say that, on the whole, sharing a cabin has been a lot easier than I expected. We have got into quite a good routine that works for us. I get up at 6am on the dot and leave the others to snooze while I shower, Grant gets up shortly after I do and he heads to the showers at the gym. Once I am finished in the shower, Paula jumps in and Cal starts surfacing and generally chats to me while I put my make-up on. Then Cal heads to the bathroom, while Paula gets dressed in the cabin. Grant normally gets back at about that point and we all head to breakfast together. So it’s really not as hassley and fraught as I imagined it to be.

When we get back from our tours Grant, Paula and Cal usually go for a swim and that’s my “Me-time” (I’m a horrible beast if I don’t have some Me-time!) I jump in the shower and then laze about, doing this journal, going through our photos etc. By the time they get back to the room I am a happy person and ready to face the evening. So it's all good!

[gillsjottings]

We had an early start today. Up at 6am, breakfast at 7am and meet up with our tour guide on the dock at 8am – the pattern will be the same tomorrow and the next day too.

Today our guide was Riccardo, from Rome in Limo (and no, we weren’t in a limo!) He was lovely; chatty, informative and relaxed. We managed to get away by about 07:50, which worked out so well for us as we were one of the first groups to leave the docks, so we got to Pisa when it was still lovely and quiet. Riccardo pointed out to us that Pisa is more than just a certain leaning tower, he showed us a couple of other buildings and explained to us that it is a university town.

Then it was off to, in his words, “that most famous Italian mistake” – the leaning tower. We got into our tai chi poses and took the required photos.

Tai-chi over, we wandered around looking at the touristy shops. I bargained for a hat and a bag – came a bit short with the bag as I asked the price, he told me it was 15 Euros, I said no that was too expensive and began wandering off, he dropped the price by two Euros, I said no still too much and wandered off a bit more, he dropped the price by three Euros to a price that I was actually willing to pay, but hoping to get a bargain I said no and wandered off some more and the silly man then gave up on me and walked back to his stall….. I had to return like the prodigal son and say that yes I did in fact want the bag for 10 Euros! I felt quite stupid, but I’m really happy with my bag J

We then met up with Riccardo and set off for a winery near to Lucca. Riccardo had arranged for us to have a wine and olive oil tasting and a light lunch up there. Ohmysoul, I do so love Tuscany. You know how you have soul-mates? Well Tuscany is my soul-land! I love absolutely everything about it.

The drive up to the winery was quite something - it was really, really beautiful, but the actual driving part was quite the adventure! The road was narrow and it had lots of hair-pin bends. At first when Riccardo began to toot his hooter at every corner, I thought “how sweet, he is chasing the pigeons out of the road”… then it dawned on me, he was hooting to alert any on-coming drivers who couldn’t see us around the sharp bends on the extremely narrow road… Frightening I tell you!

 

In any event, we made it to the winery unscathed. The winery was just lovely.

I could buy the entire farm and move there tomorrow. Well if I had a couple of million Euro lying about I could! Kiara, who took us around was delightful and her English was great too. She took us on a tour of the winery and we ended up in the wine cellar where she taught us how to tell a good olive oil from a bad one – a good olive oil should smell like freshly mown grass, who knew?

We tasted some of their olive oil (which did indeed smell strongly of freshly mown grass!) with lovely home-made bread and provolone cheese – very delicious as was the white wine that accompanied it. We then had bruschetta with fresh tomato and basil, it was quite heavenly, paired with a lovely rose wine. We finally moved on to some cold meats, with ciabatta and tasted two of their best red wines, which were very good indeed, so good in fact that we had to immediately buy some to take home.

After our time at the winery we headed back down to Lucca. The entire old part of the city is surrounded by the great big tree-lined walls.

Riccardo offered us the opportunity to cycle along the walls, and although the temperature had by now reached 35ºC, we decided to do it! I mean how often do you get the opportunity to cycle along the walls of a medieval city in Tuscany? We hired a four-seater bicycle (no, I didn’t know they existed either!) and took a leisurely cycle around the old city, stopping for a delicious pineapple gelato along the way. It was so much fun! I will not ever be able to claim to have done the Tour de France, but did I do the Tour de Lucca? I sooo did!!

After something cold to drink we met up with Riccardo again and he drove us to the old amphitheatre, which has been turned into apartments and shops, a lovely place.

We did a little bit of shopping and then took a leisurely drive through Lucca. We’d love to have walked around a bit more, but at this point we were all feeling pretty hot and exhausted. It just means we’ll have to come back to Tuscany again… we have unfinished business there J

Riccardo drove us back to our boat where plenty of fluids, swims and showers were the order of the day, before supper in the main dining-room. After supper we went and watched the ice-show “Encore”. It was quite incredible to me that we were sitting on a cruise ship, out on the Med, watching ice-skating! The show was really good. A wonderful end to a brilliant day.

[gillsjottings]

We met our tour guide, Sergio, at 07:50 and were soon on our way out of Civitavecchia, headed for Rome. Once you are out of the harbour, Civitavecchia is quite appealing, with some reasonable beaches and according to Lisa a nice shopping area.

 

The trip to Rome took just over an hour, with some interesting views along the way. Sergio was a lovely tour guide who gave us plenty of info as we drove along.

 

Once we got to Rome, our first stop was the Colloseum. We went inside and up to the first floor, had a good look around and then went down to the interior of the bottom floor. Once we had seen everything we wanted to see we had a browse around the gift shop, before making our way back to Sergio at the vehicle.

 

We then drove to a viewing site for the Circus Maximus, where Sergio described the chariot races that once took place around the 2 Egyptian obelisks that had been situated at either end.

 

Next we drove up the hill to a beautiful orange garden that had stunning views over Rome.

There was a lovely old church next to the garden and we had a quick look in there – so nice to visit a place with not a single tourist, except us!

Next up was a viewing area that had magnificent views over the Forum.

Having had a good look at the Forum, we headed for the Pantheon.

 

 

 

We had a look around this amazing building, with the hole in its roof that never ceases to amaze me, before piling back into the car and heading to the Trevi fountain, where we did the touristy thing and threw coins over our shoulders into the fountain. Gotta make sure we come back to Rome you know J

 

We bought some delicious gelatos and browsed a gift shop before getting back into the car and making our way to the Spanish steps.

 

Sergio had phoned ahead to book us a table for lunch at a really nice Italian restaurant very close to the Vatican. The staff were really sweet and the meal was excellent.

 

 

That's Sergio to my left and a staff member of the restaurant next to him

After lunch we met our delightful Vatican guide, Francesca. I can honestly say she is the best tour-guide I have ever encountered. She brought the Vatican museums to life and had us hanging on her every word, no mean feat when dealing with a bunch of people who (apart from Paula!) prefer to breeze through museums without taking too much onboard! Francesca made it so interesting.

 

We moved on to the Sistine chapel and then to St Peter’s Basilica. Even though we had been there before my jaw still hit the floor as I entered the door of St Peter's and it was fun to see Cal’s reaction. Nothing can prepare you for that first impression.

 

Having toured the Basilica we met up with Sergio again and he took us to his favourite gelateria, right off the tourist trail, where we had delicious gelato topped with whipped Bailey’s cream (a bit of fusion going on there!) Yum!

 

Sergio then took us on a little detour to see an amazing optical illusion. We drove along a road where we could see St Peter’s on our left, we then turned right, so that St Peter’s was directly behind us – unbelievably, as we drove away from St Peter’s it grew bigger and bigger…. Quite amazing!

 

Sadly, it was then time to leave Rome and head back to our boat, with our heads full of about a million facts and impressions of a city that I for one never grow tired of.

 

We saw a couple of bikini-clad prostitutes lining the highway on the way back to Civitavecchia! Cal and Paula are so innocent, they had no idea why these woman were standing there wearing their swim-suits and high heels and were shocked when I later told them that they were prozzies!

 

After a freshen up back on board, Paula and Cal went off to Sorrentos for a pizza supper, while Lisa, Trev, Grant and I opted for dinner in the main dining-room. We went for coffee at Café Promenade after supper, before heading back to our cabin for some much-needed sleep.

[Spicester]

I can't wait to read your review. We are on the Liberty Western Med on Aug.25!

 

SuAnne

[gillsjottings]

The day started rather ominously, I was fine when I woke up this morning, but during breakfast had a couple of horrible waves of nausea, which was rather disturbing as we had a full day planned today! I left the boat feeling rather nervous!

 

 

We found the port at Naples to be a bit confusing; the private tour operators were not waiting with all the big tour buses as they usually are, but eventually we figured out that we had to walk through a bit of a shopping mall to a different parking lot where all the private tour operators were waiting for us.

 

 

Our guide for the day was Nicholas, he turned out to be an excellent driver, but not as chatty and friendly as our previous drivers. Quite honestly this turned out to be a good thing as, after a hectic couple of days, we were all quite keen to just sit back and enjoy the ride today!

 

 

After consulting with Nicholas we decided that our plan would be to head to Positano first. The drive there was amazing – such views! The Amalfi Coast is really, really beautiful, you drive along high up on the cliffs and look down on this blue, blue, crystal clear sea – you can see right down to the pebbles and rocks on the ocean floor.

 

 

 



 

Positano far exceeded my expectations. It is so different to any place I have ever seen before. The village is built on the steepest cliff-face, all the way down to the beach. The houses are literally one on top of each other!

 



 

 



 

We then drove to Sorrento. I loved Sorrento too. It’s not quite as unique as Positano, but it was pretty and had a lovely atmosphere. We took the train around town , which was a lovely way to see all the best bits in a short space of time.

Our driver had made a lunch booking for us at a very nice restaurant.

 

 

 

They fed us exceedingly well and gave us an after-lunch limoncello too! I am convinced that limoncello should be taken after every meal – my tummy had been threatening horrible things all morning, but after the limoncello it was beaten into submission and behaved perfectly respectably for the rest of the day.

 

After lunch we set off for Pompeii.

 

The plan was to have a fairly quick visit to Pompeii as we were all feeling quite exhausted and it was an extremely hot day. Quite frankly, my personal mission was to see only the brothel, some dead people and the stray dogs – don’t judge me, I’m just a real pleb sometimes!

 

Our visit turned out nothing like we expected at all! We didn’t hire a tour-guide, I mean how would we explain to a decent tour-guide that we only want to see the brothel and a bunch of dead guys?? So we bought a large and unwieldy map and tried to do it alone.

 

We wandered for a bit, saw some impressive ruins and a few heart-wrenching corpses (I found it rather more emotional than I had been expecting) and then just when things were getting interesting Grant fell dramatically off a step!

 

One moment he was standing next to me analysing the map while I admired a gorgeous stray dog (Pompeii is known for its stray dogs) and next thing he was lying on the floor a few metres away. For one heart-stopping moment I thought he had had a heart-attack! We got him up on his feet and he had cut his hand really badly on a sharp stone, he was bleeding, rather impressively all over the place (thanks no doubt to his blood thinning injections), it was horrible! The lady who worked in the shop where we had just bought water was very sweet and brought water, serviettes and ice and a couple of kind tourists came to help us too; one of them, a trained paramedic, advised us to get him to our ships doctor asap.

 

So we set off to find our driver…easier said than done! The road leading to the exit was choked with tourists, but it’s amazing what the words “Try not to bleed all over these people Grant” said loudly, in a South African accent, can do – you never saw a bunch of people scatter so fast! Reminded me of Moses at the Red Sea. On seeing our problem a very sweet American lady gave us some anti-bacterial wipes and great big plasters, which were a huge help, and we continued on our way.

 

What a mission we had finding our driver as we came out the wrong exit and walked about 100 miles before we found our way to the meeting point. Thankfully, although we were about an hour early, Nicholas was sitting in the car, so we were able to get straight in and set off for the harbour.

 

I would rather Grant hadn’t been hurt, but I must admit it was fascinating to see the medical facilities on board! They have a full-on casualty ward down on deck 1 with a receptionist, a couple of nurses and a doctor!

 

 

 

A nurse cleaned Grant up and then the doctor came and stitched him up. Another nurse then came to do the dressing on Grant’s hand and she turned out to be from Shelly Beach too! We had a really interesting chat to her about life on board. Fascinating.

 

By this time Grant and I were in dire need of a shower! We managed to get Grant in and out of the shower without wetting his bandaged hand, which was no mean feat! Once freshened up we went for an early dinner at Windjammers. It was quite nice to have some alone time, just the two of us. After supper we went to watch Saturday Night Fever, which wasn’t quite what I was expecting, but was very good, especially the guy in the lead role.

Then it was back to our cabin for an early night. Exhaustion had set in, big-time!

[gillsjottings]

Paula and Cal had booked a Flow-rider lesson for 7am this morning (Grant was meant to go too, but with the injury to his hand, that was not going to happen) so they went off bright and early, Grant went with them to get some photos and I luxuriated in a little lie-in. I got up and had a leisurely shower and then found my way up to the Flow-rider – not as easy as it sounds because this ship has my admittedly useless sense of direction completely befuddled! I walk out of our cabin and turn the wrong way every single time… including this time, luckily our “stateroom attendant” happened to be right outside our door and he pointed me in the right direction – he must have had a good chuckle at this stupid woman, who after nearly a week on-board still can’t figure out which way the lifts are!!

 

 

Anyway I managed to find my way to the Flow-rider (yay, me!) and got to see both the kiddos doing their thing.

Grant and I then went and had a lovely leisurely breakfast, Paula and Cal soon arrived, so we sat with them while they ate and then with Lisa and Trev too – so nice to have time to just kick-back and relax. We then had a wander along the promenade, and lucky for me they were having amazing specials on watches, so Grant bought me a watch, I was really delighted.

We popped in at Café Promenade for a cuppa with Lisa and Trev, visited the library, just for interest’s sake, and then made our way up to the pool deck.

 

I have to be honest and say that the pool area is my least favourite area on the boat. The facilities are absolutely wonderful, but I really hate crowds and excessive noise and the pool area is always a heaving mass of people and noisy kids, so it’s not my scene at all (good grief, I sound like a right pain in the butt don’t I?!), but it’s no doubt very cool for those who enjoy that type of thing. Grant and I walked right around the jogging track and then rewarded ourselves with first an ice-cream (from the free soft-serve machine) and then a beer on a lovely swinging seat in the solarium area.

 

 

 

 

We were lucky enough to see flying fish and dolphins as we relaxed there, admiring the view. The solarium is an area made specially for crotchety old bags like me ;-) it’s an adult’s only area with a pool, loungers and swinging seats. Perfect!

We all had lunch together at Windjammers and then spent the afternoon lazing about. Grant and I left Paula and Cal to begin packing while we went down to Guest Relations to collect our passports – for some reason all people who required Schengen Visas for Europe had to hand their passports in at the start of the cruise. Purely by chance we caught the last couple of minutes of the parade that was happening on the Promenade – really cute for the little kids! (You see, I'm not SUCH an old bag)

 

We had a final dinner in the main dining-room

 

 

 

and then went for a drink at “Olive or Twist” before heading to our rooms to pack.

 

Once we were all packed we went and said good-bye to Lisa and Trev who were leaving very early. It's been such fun sharing this experience with them. So sad that our cruise is over already, it’s been so much fun!

We put our suit-cases out in the passage and then headed to bed. The way it works is that you have to put your suit-cases outside by 11pm. You are assigned luggage tags, that correspond to a time that you will leave the boat in the morning. We were batch 18 and our batch was scheduled to leave the boat at 07:45 (you can go to Guest Relations and have the batch you have been assigned changed to a more convenient time if necessary). Alternatively, you can take your own luggage off the boat. We chose not to carry our luggage off, as with Grant’s injured hand he didn’t want to be carting luggage about.

 

[Spicester]

Just read about your tour to Cassis. We are doing the RCL tour. It sounds wonderful. Was the boat trip to the calanques included as part of the tour or was it extra? I must remember to wear a skirt rather than shorts or pants!

[gillsjottings]

In the morning we got up and when we were all sorted we packed our bits and pieces into our over-night bags. We then made our way to the Windjammer for our final breakfast on-board.

At the time that your batch has been assigned you gather in one of the lounges, in our case we were batch 18 and we had to meet in the Sphinx lounge by 07:45 so once breakfast was over we made our way to the Sphinx lounge. Right on time at 07:45 our batch number was called and we were lead down to the gangway. We walked into the terminal building by 07:50 and our suitcases were going round the carousel within 5 minutes.

 

 

 

 

We were ready to leave the terminal building within 15 minutes of our batch being called, so disembarkation was a lot quicker than we had expected and consequently we had a bit of a hang-around before our transfer was due to pick us up.

THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF OUR HOLIDAY:

BARCELONA:

Transfers and tour: Barcelona Day Tours It was very convenient to be picked up at the hotel for the tour and dropped off at the Cruise. Our transfers were fine except for the final one which was about 5 minutes late.

 

Hotel: Hotel Jazz Very nice hotel, conveniently located.

 

CRUISE:

Cruise ship: Liberty of the Seas, booked directly through Royal Caribbean. HIGHLY recommended. It's a good idea to do some research before booking your cruise. (For example, I found out that the best deck to book your cabin in on Liberty of the Seas is Deck 9) I used CruiseCritic.com a lot

 

Tours in Ports:

Toulon: We did the excursion to Cassis offered by the cruise ship. It was great. If you do this particular tour you MUST book a boat ride to the Calanques the moment you arrive in Cassis.

Nice: Sylvie Di Cristo was our guide, she was very good.

Livorno: We hired a driver/guide from RomeinLimo and with their advice, tailor-made our itinerary beforehand. Riccardo was our guide and he was excellent

Rome: We hired a driver/guide from RomeinLimo Sergio was our guide and he was brilliant. Our vatican guide (booked through RomeinLimo) was Francesca and she was the BEST!

Naples: We hired a driver/guide from RomeinLimo Nicola was our guide and although not as talkative and informative as the previous two, he was an excellent driver and very kind.

[gillsjottings]

Just read about your tour to Cassis. We are doing the RCL tour. It sounds wonderful. Was the boat trip to the calanques included as part of the tour or was it extra? I must remember to wear a skirt rather than shorts or pants!

 

We had to book the boat trip to the calanques ourselves - it was very easy to do, as we arrived at the shore front in Cassis we turned to the left and walked to the pier, there was a lady in a small booth selling the tickets. It's best to book it the moment you arrive in Cassis and to get on the first available boat, this way you have plenty of time for the boat trip and some shopping etc afterwards. You will LOVE it I'm sure.

[Spicester]

Sounds lovely. I will make sure to to get that booked straight away when we arrive in Cassis. Thanks!

[celie1110]

Thank you so much for your review. We are going on this cruise in September and I loved reading all about it.

[Just The 3 Of Us]

Lovely review! Thanks so much for sharing your experience with us.

[lakelorain]

Thanks for taking the time to write a review. We are doing the same cruise in October.

Any special places that you'd recommend for gelato or a meal?

[gillsjottings]

Thanks for taking the time to write a review. We are doing the same cruise in October.

Any special places that you'd recommend for gelato or a meal?

Hi There,

I'd recommend the following restaurants that we ate at:

Barcelona – Mikel Etxea, Ramblas 45 - this is where we had lovely tapas on our first night in Barcelona

Rome - la Soffitta Renovatio - our guide made reservations here for us and the pasta and pizza was really good, it's very close to St Peter's so ideal for a pre- or post- Vatican meal.

Sorrento – il Leone Rosso Ristorante - we had a lovely meal here on our day on the Amalfi coast

Gelato - we ate lots of gelato all over the place in Italy and it was ALL good :D. Probably the best was the gelateria in Rome that our guide took us to – Vice, Via Gregorio VII, 385 http://www.viceitalia.it

Have a wonderful time!

[lakelorain]

Hi There,

I'd recommend the following restaurants that we ate at:

Barcelona – Mikel Etxea, Ramblas 45 - this is where we had lovely tapas on our first night in Barcelona

Rome - la Soffitta Renovatio - our guide made reservations here for us and the pasta and pizza was really good, it's very close to St Peter's so ideal for a pre- or post- Vatican meal.

Sorrento – il Leone Rosso Ristorante - we had a lovely meal here on our day on the Amalfi coast

Gelato - we ate lots of gelato all over the place in Italy and it was ALL good :D. Probably the best was the gelateria in Rome that our guide took us to – Vice, Via Gregorio VII, 385 http://www.viceitalia.it

Have a wonderful time!

 

Thank you, so much, for the info. We'll try to check out the places you recommended.

[Pushka]

We will be on the Liberty this Saturday so your review was perfect. And we think very much alike!

 

 

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[gabby3]

Thank you for the review especially for the "loo" warnings. we will besailing on September 22 on the Liberty.

[Cruise from Calgary]

Thanks for sharing your review & photo's.:)

[Deebs2]

We are traveling the same itinerary July 2013. Thank you for your review. Very helpful!

[Pushka]

We are traveling the same itinerary July 2013. Thank you for your review. Very helpful!

 

Lucky you. We cruised July 21 2012. It was a fabulous cruise. Amazing weather. Bluest of blue Mediterranean seas. Wonderful port stops.

 

 

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[drummerdavebmth]

Thank you for a great review.

 

My girlfriend and I are doing this cruise in September (and hopefully using Rome In Limo for two of the ports too!)

 

We're staying in Barcalona for two nights before - really looking forward to it!! :)

[poodog]

Great review, thank you

[maggieq]

Hello,

 

Thanks for you review. We are on this same cruise in September and so looking forward to it. First time to Barcelona. We are looking to use Barcelona Day Tours for a tour the 2nd day we are there so we are well rested. Should we use them for pick up and drop off to the ship as well?

 

Dining times. Called my ta today and she didn't know what they were...

 

Do they offer express debarkation as we have a 10:45 a.m. flight back to NJ.

 

Thanks!