Liberty review August 30, 2015 (and April 5, 2015)

[brinvic]

We're on that cruise too can't wait!

[KatPem]

Friday we are going to venture in two different directions. I will review our April trip first. We were scheduled for St Kitts on Friday. After boarding on Thursday, the captain announced that due to high winds, we were not going to be able to go to St Kitts. I was ok with that, another sea day is good for me with such a port intensive schedule. But, oh wait, he then announces that we will instead be docking at Dominica!! OUR FAVORITE ISLAND!!! We have been to Dominica two other times and told our kids all about it! Since it isn't included in many itineraries, the chance of us taking the kdis there ever was very small. I think I was jumping up and down a bit when he announced it lol This is where my doing the zip lining comes in handy. See, I just did what they wanted to do, even though I was pretty freaked out at the thoguht of the free fall and tarzan swing but guess what I LOVE on Dominica....the hot springs!!! So, at dinner, we discussed what to do the next day when my favorite (that day any way) says Mom, you get to go to your hot springs now.....Gosh I love her (younger daughter). So, with that decided ;) we looked at excursions once we got back to our room. We wanted to do the hot springs tour but it stated they must be 16 (kids were 11-13-14-17). That was the only one with hot springs and it included Titou Gorge, which is amazing! My husband went down to talk to them at the excursion desk...and came back with tickets! They said that you did not have to be 16 so I am glad he checked. Otherwise, we would've taken a taxi to the Screw Spa since we were familiar with the island but we thought the kids would enjoy Titou Gorge and that should really only be done with a tour of some sort.

Double rainbow after we got back on the ship

[KatPem]

Our excursion started out at Titou Gorge. The water there feels cold at first, trust me, you get used to it very quickly and it is well worth it! I don't have any pictures due to our waterproof camera waiting until we were on vacation to decide not to work. You swim through the gorge up to the waterfall and can choose to jump off into the water there (only like 1-3 feet). It is absolutely gorgeous and a bonus for kids....Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed there. My older son doesn't like anything, not even really cruises but he LOVED Titou Gorge, it was his favorite thing he has ever done! After that, we got back on the van and headed to Screw Spa. Now, on a previous trip I had been to Tia's Spa. Tia's is very nice, small and secluded. I was excited to see Screw Spa. It was GORGEOUS!!!! It is huge! There are several pools, you can take stairs to the bottom pool and work your way up, each one a little bit hotter. I was unable to get into the hottest one but the rest were amazing. There is also a cold plunge pool to cool off in. These are all natural fed straight from the land. Here is one picture to give you an idea. The pool on the right with the waterfall is the cold plunge pool, the one in the top middle is the smallest and hottest.

Proof I do have children. This is one of the larger pools

All of my kids LOVED this tour and it was their favorite island to date. Knowing it was ours as well, you know as three teens and one pre-teen, it was hard to admit that they loved it! Lol They all even liked it more than the ziplining...score one for mom!

[KatPem]

Now, for our August trip, we knew we wouldn't luck out again. We had been to St Kitts before. I re-researched it again this time and nothing sounded as good as another beach day at Carambola Beach Club. I love the nice, padded loungers. A nice restroom right there is great, the drinks are cheap ($15 for an ice bucket with 6 drinks (beer or soda). There is snorkeling right off shore for my husband and I can relax and enjoy. I know there were some that have said they didn't care for it but I enjoy it.

 

While researching, I found out that some people had found sea glass on St Kitts. Of course, since we docked early, we decided to go on the hunt first before heading to Carambola. We had read to exit the port area, take a left and along the road there was a beach with sea glass. Let me first say, I probably wouldn't have done this without my husband there. It wasn't the most comfortable area, lots of locals and they weren't overly friendly. We didn't have any issues at all, just were a little uncomfortable at times...not so much so that we wouldn't do it again though. We had been warned that the beach was dirty, and it was. We continued on a little ways where it wasn't quite as dirty and it was easier to access. Here is a picture from the boat, on the left side along the water is where we found the glass.

Here is a zoomed in view.

There was an amazing amount of glass here, you could've easily filled buckets full and not touched it. While there, two little boys...aged 6 and 9, came along and were helping us get the 'good pieces'. They were very sweet and unlike a lot of places where kids act like they want a tip, these boys didn't. We ended up with 3 small ziplock baggies full. There were tons, lots of unusual pieces that we hadn't seen and lots of blue, which we don't normally find. I haven't laid it all out yet since we have been home to take a picture but here is what we got and we didn't touch what was there.

We took our finds back on the boat and headed out to Carambola. If you want to go there, you need to specify Carambola, otherwise if you just say South Friars beach, more than likely they will drop you off at Shipwreck, which is nice, just very different. We walked down there as there as often monkey's behind the bar. We didn't see any but we did see some Mongeese.

[KatPem]

We stayed at Carambola most of the day, it was $30 for two chairs and an umbrella. I had emailed them in advance to reserve them which was good cause when we got there about 11:00am, they were almost out of the unreserved umbrellas but had plenty of loungers still. Walking back to Carambola from Shipwreck

[KatPem]

My husband liked Carambola last time as there is snorkeling right off the shore, you can go the entire way from Shipwreck to Carambola. Here are some pictures from his snorkeling adventures. This time he ended up staying down by Shipwreck most of the time to snorkel as we didn't explore much down there last time.

[KatPem]

[KatPem]

After leaving Carambola, our great taxi driver (we had him in the morning and set up a time for him to return to pick us back up. His name is Kenrick Jarvis of J's Taxi Services. His cell is 869-764-3348 and tel is 869-465-5062. His card lists an email of jtaxiservice@hotmail.com and says he does tours of the beaches, half island, full island, historical sites, sunset, weddings, etc. He was a great guy and showed us many things on the way back.

[KatPem]

Friday's Fun Times

 

Edited September 15, 2015 by KatPem

[Jenny in TX]

Great job on your review! Cruising out of San Juan is on my short list.

[pcvtmom]

Love the way you've included both cruises in one review. It gives the reader lots of options if contemplating these ports of call!

[KatPem]

On Saturday we stopped at St Maarten. With the kids, we took a taxi to Marigot. With it being a Saturday, the local market was open. We stopped at Serefina's for some pastries (yum) and then headed to the local market to explore for a bit. It was $38 for the taxi since there were 6 of us. About 11:00 we decided it was time to head to Maho Beach. It was another $38 for that taxi as well. It was pretty busy there.

The kids enjoyed it. Many of the friends they had made were there so we stayed there until about 2:30. The water is fairly rough when you get in and out, my youngest was able to find a little bit of sea glass. He donned his snorkel mask and it kept him occupied when he wasn't ohhing and ahhing over the planes. This was very cool and a once in a lifetime thing but I probably wouldn't go back unless it was with someone that hadn't been or the kids really wanted to.

[KatPem]

My husband wanted to go to Orient Beach in August. We had spent a week here on our honeymoon for our one year anniversary way back in 1998 and loved Orient. I started reading reviews and there was lots of construction going on so we opted to try something new. Finally, we decided on Pinel Island. We took a cab ($25) to the pinel island ferry. We were told that they ran every 10 minutes but it was every 30 minutes. We took the 10am ferry over. Looking at the island from the ferry

We chose a set of loungers, it was $20 for two for the day. We ended up hiking across to the other side of the island. Yeah, I found some more seaglass. We got a handful or two of it. I combed for glass while my husband snorkeled. I snorkeled for a bit myself but after seeing St Lucia, it just didn't compare. Here are some pictures he took snorkeling. I went straight out from the left end of the beach, it was ok. He ended up going to the left around the rock formation and he said it was better there. By that time I was done.

[KatPem]

[KatPem]

We went back over to the beach area. Beers were $4 and frozen virgin drinks were $6 and very good! The beach area was beautiful, we had loungers under some palm trees as we wanted to stay out of the sun a bit.

This little bird like to hang out with us

View from the water

I thought these little picnic tables were cool

[KatPem]

There were tons of lizards/iguanas by the bars, they never bothered me

This one did surprise this guy though

We took the 2:00 ferry back and asked the driver about a taxi, he called one for us and it was waiting when we arrived at the dock. We had him drop us off on Front St in Phillipsburg so we could get some wifi and contact the kids to say hello. We were sad for our vacation to end. We chose to walk back to the ship and while it wasn't bad, it was definitely a lot farther than we anticipated...something to keep in mind if you are debating it.

Edited September 15, 2015 by KatPem

[KatPem]

Saturday's Fun Times

[KatPem]

In conclusion, we had a BLAST the entire week. We had some great tablemates for dinner every night that made for great conversation. We went to the comedy club a few times, the love and marriage show and we did as much relaxing as possible on such a port intensive cruise. I would not hesitate to book this cruise again as there is so many things to do on these islands and I absolutely already loved what we chose to do. We loved the ship, loved our room stewards and wait staff. We didn't have any issues with anyone except the one rude lady during muester that was hassling the worker cause she was asked numerous times to stay quit and off her phone. She was way out of line and I remember hoping we wouldn't be sitting with her at dinner as I would have to move. We met some great people and cannot wait to book another cruise!

 

If you have any questions, on either sailing, I am happy to answer what I can. You won't be disappointed in this itinerary if you choose to take it! Thanks for reading and I am sorry if I bored or confused you, I am not a writer....just a mom that loves to cruise!

[KatPem]

We are sailing on 11/22 and I am so excited to hear the rest of your review. It is not often that people who have children review. I have a 10 yr old so I can wait to hear everything.

 

Thanks, you will love it. If you have any particular questions, please don't hesitate to ask. We have cruise twice with the kids and they were 9-11-12-15 and 11-13-14-17 at the time.

[KatPem]

I am enjoying your review!! We sail on 11/1 and we have a 11 year old son...cannot wait to go to Sapphire and here what things you did for the rest of the islands :D

 

Sapphire was beautiful. We got there early and were kind of concerned since no one was there and nothing was open but it picked up and the shops opened shortly afterwards. It was great as it was not anywhere near as busy there as at Coki. We prefer to go to St John (Cinnamon Bay is our favorite) but we hadn't ever stayed on St Thomas so both these trips we wanted to check it out. If you are into snorkeling, talk to the guys at the dive shop. We had our own equipment but they told my husband the best places to go...and they have drinks :)

[KatPem]

Great job on your review! Cruising out of San Juan is on my short list.

 

Thanks, you absolutely should! San Juan is beautiful in itself, but the islands you visit out of San Juan are even more amazing. We watched for good deals through Southwest and were flexible with our days and times so it wasn't much more flying there than it was to go out of Miami.

[KatPem]

Love the way you've included both cruises in one review. It gives the reader lots of options if contemplating these ports of call!

 

Thanks, I debated about doing it, as I thought it may confuse some people but I figured it would be best to just go island by island instead of repeating myself.

[sweenbean21]

Sapphire was beautiful. We got there early and were kind of concerned since no one was there and nothing was open but it picked up and the shops opened shortly afterwards. It was great as it was not anywhere near as busy there as at Coki. We prefer to go to St John (Cinnamon Bay is our favorite) but we hadn't ever stayed on St Thomas so both these trips we wanted to check it out. If you are into snorkeling, talk to the guys at the dive shop. We had our own equipment but they told my husband the best places to go...and they have drinks :)

 

Thank you!!! We have our own equipment and have never been to STT so will get to St John next time :) Because there WILL be a next time 😊

[Love2travel4]

Thank you so much! I leave on 10-31 on NCL...but will hit St. kitts, Barbados, St. Lucia. And St. Thomas. I have already booked Calabaza and Spencer Ambrose, so excited to see your review and pics. I can't wait!

 

Then....in March 2016, I am booked for the first time on the Liberty out of San Juan for a 12 day Journeys cruise.

 

I am thinking of taking your advice and checking out Sapphire Beach in St. Thomas.

[djmcwilliams106]

This was an amazing review. We head out on 10/18 and it is the 6 day cruise which includes Dominica. I was have a hard time figuring out what to do there. Thanks for the great review. BTW do you have a site/link where your photos are posted so I can get the fun times. I would like to go through them before my trip.