Kim & Randy’s Liberty-Eastern Aft-Wrap Cruise!

[oncruisecontrol]

Great review. I am really enjoying reading it. Nice photos too. The Liberty is one of my favorite ships.

[oneboysmom]

Absolutely loving your review! Am planning on the liberty next March/April on same cruise. What would you say would be the best side to get your room on? We are doing a balcony, just unsure of the side yet.

Thanks for all the wonderful pics! Looking forward to the rest of it!

[rtw68]

To be honest, either side is fine. If we missed something coming into port, we were able to see it very well while leaving.

 

I wouldn't hesitate to book either side.

[oneboysmom]

Thanks!!

[rtw68]

This is a picture from the lookout section built during World War II

 

 

 

I could look at the sea all day.

 

 

 

After the fort, we walked around San Juan and of course had to stop at the Starbucks

 

 

[rtw68]

We made our way back to the ship

 

 

Some pics from the ship

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

 

Sailaway was around 3:30PM.

 

Here is a small airport next to the port

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

 

 

 

 

 

One thing that I should mention about the port is when you leave the ship and start to exit the terminal; tour people will bombard you. They just don’t take no for an answer! Pushy was a nice way to say it.

 

It took a couple very strong NO’s to get them to leave us alone. Other than that, San Juan is great.

[rtw68]

We ended up eating in the buffet that night, and enjoyed some late night pizza.

 

Here was our towel animal.

 

 

 

Some chocolate covered strawberries.

 

 

This is probably a good time to talk about the cabin. The cabin due to its location is oddly shaped. Because of that, there is no room for a couch that is typical in the other balcony rooms.

 

We enjoyed the location and the cabin was just fine! The cabin is at the very end of the ship.

 

 

 

Right by the cabin door going into the cabin

 

[rtw68]

 

Looking back to the cabin entrance

 

 

Cabin windows

 

 

Door leading to balcony

 

 

Last window

 

 

The bathroom is a typical balcony bathroom. I didn’t take any pictures of it.

 

The safe uses a credit card/gift card. We took an old Sign & Sail card and used that which worked just fine.

 

The cabin does squeak and rattle at times while sailing along. It woke me up a couple times, but later in the week I didn't notice it.

 

There wasn't as much movement being fully aft that I had expected. We had calm and rougher seas and didn't experience any motion sickness.

 

It was great being just one deck up to the aft pool/bar area and it was very easy to get to the buffet and Lido deck.

 

We wouldn't hesitate to book an aft again!

[rtw68]

Here is a video of the balcony from all angles.

 

 

The balcony was wet each morning because of the automatic sprayers that cleaned the windows on the deck above.

[rtw68]

GRAND TURK

 

Sorry for the delay in posting more, post-cruise life has been keeping me very busy.

 

We didn’t arrive into Grand Turk until around 10:00AM. We weren’t supposed to arrive until11:00AM.

 

We were in port with Carnival Victory and they arrived close to 11:00AM.

 

Here are some pictures as we made our way into port.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

When we were in Grand Turk in December, they had loud announcements and music going as soon as we pulled into port. Not this time! Looked like a ghost town.

 

 

Can’t beat that blue water!

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

We watched Victory come in before we were allowed to leave the ship for our excursion. They actually closed the gangway for about 20 minutes once the ship started coming in before it had completely docked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

We made our way off the ship and had a little time before our excursion. We did the Gibbs Cay Beach and Stingray Encounter through Carnival. We haven’t felt adventuresome enough to stray away from Carnival sponsored excursions. Perhaps someday we will, but its nice to know that if something happens, they would wait for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rtw68]

Our last visit to Grand Turk I completely missed the Gemini area. I wanted to make sure I had some pics taken of the area.

 

 

 

 

 

We checked in for the excursion and finally boarded the boat to head to Gibb’s Cay.

 

 

[rtw68]

 

 

 

 

 

The stingrays were interesting. They made a loop around Gibb’s Cay and the stingrays came for their feeding.

 

[rtw68]

They gave us a couple rules to follow. Instead of stepping around they wanted us to “shuffle” to avoid stepping on the stingrays. They swam all around us and a couple times I could feel them brush against me.

 

They are very tame and used to human interaction. Never had any fear of being in the water with them.

 

 

 

I tried to get a couple underwater pics with my camera of the stingrays going by

 

 

 

 

They had a photographer taking pictures. I completely forgot to go back and get ours because they were about 40 minutes behind in getting them processed. Oh well, there’s always next time, right?

 

Here is DW giving the stingray a kiss.

 

[rtw68]

They told everyone to kiss the tail… ok… whatever…

 

 

Ok, my turn…

 

 

Didn’t get any pictures of it, but they put the stingray on your head like a hat. I’m sure the photographer got a great pic of that one… :rolleyes:

 

Here is a pic of the boat

 

 

While we were over at Gibb’s Cay, it rained like crazy over Victory & Liberty. In fact, once we got back, or balcony was flooded and only when the ship started moving did the water drain off.

We spent some time swimming around while others went snorkeling and then we headed back to port.

 

 

[rtw68]

 

 

 

We spent a little time at the port but it was very crowded and hot so we headed back to the ship.

 

The aft pool roof was closed because of the heavy rain earlier so we spent some time there. That turned out to be our go-to spot for the week!

 

We made our way back to the cabin to watch sail-away. Victory left before we did and we ended up following the same course just about back to Miami.

 

 

So long Grand Turk!

 

 

[rtw68]

 

 

We followed Victory..

 

 

Somebody’s comfortable on the balcony..

 

 

 

[rtw68]

 

Sorry for the balcony pic overload. I just couldn’t get enough pics of it.

 

 

 

 

You can see Victory ahead of us (all the way forward)

 

 

We were lazy (yet again) and didn’t dress up for Elegant Evening. The buffet was good enough for us.

 

That night, we saw the show “Just Rock” which was enjoyable, and saw Cowboy Bill in the adult comedy show.

 

Here was our towel animal for the night.

 

[MisterMom]

 

 

 

Am I the only one who sees a Carnival whale tail in the clouds in this photo?

[rtw68]

 

Hard to believe we had one more Fun Day at Sea and they were going to throw us off! :eek: