Review: Carnival liberty – september 20, 2015 – southern itinerary out of san juan,

[conshycruiser]

That's so funny! We actually went to that beach during our tour last year as well. We had to stay towards the left, and it seemed like we couldn't go over to the nicer section. Do you know if we can? I'd be willing to pay.

[pghsteelerfan]

That's so funny! We actually went to that beach during our tour last year as well. We had to stay towards the left, and it seemed like we couldn't go over to the nicer section. Do you know if we can? I'd be willing to pay.

 

Opps! I didn't know you were there the last time too. :D I think we were told the loungers on the nicer side (resort side) were $50.00 per lounger. Some others that we'd gotten to know on this cruise were also there, on another tour, and put their towels in the sand over on the resort side. You're allowed to to that and there is no charge. The free loungers for tours are those on the left, but you're definitely allowed over on the resort side and don't have to stay in that confined area.

 

I think there is a beach at one of the Sandals resorts but you need a day pass but I have no idea how much they charge. I've seen some inquiries about the Sandals beach on the Port of Call section. I think there are some other beaches on the north end, but I really don't know much about them and whether they are nice or not since I've never seen them myself.

Edited November 8, 2015 by pghsteelerfan

[conshycruiser]

Thanks! Although I loved St Lucia, I'm thinking this may be a ship day. I've never stayed on the ship day during a port day so we were thinking we may enjoy it.

[pghsteelerfan]

Thanks! Although I loved St Lucia, I'm thinking this may be a ship day. I've never stayed on the ship day during a port day so we were thinking we may enjoy it.

 

We've never stayed on the ship on a port day either but we love going into the ports. But it would be kind of nice to have the whole ship to yourself. I've seen many reviews where others have done that.

[conshycruiser]

Yes - and last time we never got to eat at fish and chips, so I would like the chance to try it for lunch! That's the only down fall of a port intensive trip, you don't get to experience everything on the boat.

[pghsteelerfan]

Yes - and last time we never got to eat at fish and chips, so I would like the chance to try it for lunch! That's the only down fall of a port intensive trip, you don't get to experience everything on the boat.

 

That is the only downside but we love the port intensive itineraries. My DH refuses to eat anywhere in port unless a meal comes with the tour. If not, we usually grab lunch when we get back on the ship. We have always had the late seating for dinner though (8:15PM), but we prefer that as we love kicking back without a rush to get ready for dinner and watch as we sail away from ports. Our usual dinner time is around 8PM anyway, since DH usually doesn't get home from work until 7:30PM, sometimes later. We have very heavy rush hour traffic where we live.

[conshycruiser]

That's smart. We ate in port every day last time and it got expensive! But we're early risers, so we would have breakfast around 7:00. Maybe I need to look into that.

[Crusin Karen]

Holly, LOVING all your pictures and the review. In regards to "elegant night" menu: I have ordered the spaghetti carbonara as an APPETIZER even tho it is listed in the entree section. I **think** it says "available as an appetizer" but even if not, they will always accomadate you and you can order something else for a main. I also love the Caesar salad, but have been somewhat disappointed with the salad offered in the MDR. For example, they no longer come around with fresh ground cheese. :confused::( I found the salad from the pizza place is MUCH better. I also love the cheese platter and it has been offered on most of our cruises, so don't know why you haven't had this before. Just some FYI for the next cruise! ;) Looking forward to St. Lucia. We have never been and it's a port of call on our March cruise and I am BEYOND EXCITED! I am going to read what you wrote in your Valor review to get in the mood! :)

[pghsteelerfan]

Holly, LOVING all your pictures and the review. In regards to "elegant night" menu: I have ordered the spaghetti carbonara as an APPETIZER even tho it is listed in the entree section. I **think** it says "available as an appetizer" but even if not, they will always accomadate you and you can order something else for a main. I also love the Caesar salad, but have been somewhat disappointed with the salad offered in the MDR. For example, they no longer come around with fresh ground cheese. :confused::( I found the salad from the pizza place is MUCH better. I also love the cheese platter and it has been offered on most of our cruises, so don't know why you haven't had this before. Just some FYI for the next cruise! ;) Looking forward to St. Lucia. We have never been and it's a port of call on our March cruise and I am BEYOND EXCITED! I am going to read what you wrote in your Valor review to get in the mood! :)

 

Hi Karen! Glad you're still enjoying the pictures.

 

On the elegant night we went to, believe it or not, my menu was in Spanish! LOL!!! Hubby let me borrow his and yes, the Spaghetti Carbonara was also offered as an appetizer. This may sound kind of silly, but my craving for the Spaghetti Carbonara is one of the reasons we went to the elegant night this time. :D I had actually been afraid that it was only offered as an appetizer and would have asked if I could have a larger portion or two appetizer portions if that was the case. I was happy to see it was also on the "main" menu. I found out from a few others who love this itinerary and had been on it recently which elegant night it was served (first elegant night for the three I asked), so we went to that one and skipped the other.

 

I totally forgot about them coming around with the extra, fresh grated cheese for the Caesar Salad. Thank you for the tip about Caesar Salad also being at the pizza place. We have never eaten there since we have pizza all the time here and we love Guy's. Blue Iguana was great too, but we have Chipotle's less than two miles from our house and Blue Iguana was very similar to Chipotle.

 

I never noticed the cheese plate for dessert before, but we really haven't cruised that often. I don't remember seeing it on Glory (2010) or Valor (2013), but that's when we had the old menus. On Liberty in 2014, they were just introducing the "American Menu" and Liberty was one of the "test" ships that had it before "tweaking" the menu and rolling it out fleet wide, but I didn't remember seeing it. I found out about the cheese plate from reviews by others and it was on our menu this time, every night.

 

I really think you'll love St. Lucia - it is just beautiful! Thanks again for the tips! :)

Edited November 9, 2015 by pghsteelerfan

[Dirkgun]

Holly, as usual still a fantastic review. Your pictures are amazing. It certainly looks like you have your DSLR dialed in. I too am having trouble quoting your messages.... weird. CC is also kind of hit and miss with the notices of when new posts appear. I think they are having some issues right now. I am so glad things worked out with Patsie Nurse in Barbados for you. She certainly did a good job for us as well.

[Crusin Karen]

That is the only downside but we love the port intensive itineraries. My DH refuses to eat anywhere in port unless a meal comes with the tour. If not, we usually grab lunch when we get back on the ship. We have always had the late seating for dinner though (8:15PM), but we prefer that as we love kicking back without a rush to get ready for dinner and watch as we sail away from ports. Our usual dinner time is around 8PM anyway, since DH usually doesn't get home from work until 7:30PM, sometimes later. We have very heavy rush hour traffic where we live.

Oh, oh, oh....I am the SAME WAY! We cruised with our friends on Liberty and at Grand Turk they got off the ship, went to Margaritaville, found a table and ordered 2 astronomically expensive burgers with fries. Ummmmm.....you can have a Guy's Burger "free" right on the ship that is sitting at the dock right in front of you! :confused::confused::eek::eek: I save my $ for a Caribbean Colada or Miami Vice! ;)

[RDR11]

Thanks forsharing your cruise. We will be on the Liberty for the 1st time next August and will do this iternary in December on the Fascination. So you are providing alot of information for our next 2 cruises. Thanks again for sharing!

[Jenny in TX]

Thank you so much for the shoutout! :D

 

Yes, I do hope to write a review of the cruise. With Amber Cove being so new, I hope to have a photo review for people to follow.

 

Quick question regarding Sapphire Beach. We were trying to pick a beach in St.Thomas, and I would really like to try Sapphire. How much was the cab fare? There are four of us going. Also, are there beach chairs to rent? Facilities, such as bathrooms and food, possibly a hotel nearby? Your pics of Sapphire are beautiful! :D I was going to settle for Emerald Beach, but now I don't want to!

 

We were on Sapphire Beach in April. It is a beautiful beach and we loved our time there. We walked up and went very far to the left and got 2 loungers and pulled them under the sea grape trees. We paid $9 per lounger and there was a lady that walked around (Monica) and took drink orders. I read a review on CC that said that they had delicious Mahi sandwiches, so I told her that we would be ordering two of those when lunch rolled around. She came back several times to bring us more drinks and when we were hungry we ordered the sandwiches. They were delicious and DH and really enjoyed them. There were huge pieces of Mahi on the sandwiches. We would definitely go back again next time we visit St. Thomas.

[pghsteelerfan]

Holly, as usual still a fantastic review. Your pictures are amazing. It certainly looks like you have your DSLR dialed in. I too am having trouble quoting your messages.... weird. CC is also kind of hit and miss with the notices of when new posts appear. I think they are having some issues right now. I am so glad things worked out with Patsie Nurse in Barbados for you. She certainly did a good job for us as well.

 

Hey there! Yes, thank you SO MUCH for passing along Patsie's information. We were very impressed with Bathsheba and loved Payne's Bay Beach. We really wanted to see Bathsheba this time and so glad you helped us find a way to.

 

I'm glad you're enjoying the pictures. Believe this or not, but on this latest post, the after dark pictures of the ship are from my smart phone's camera. I don't have to do anything, it automatically adjusts and the pictures have come out perfectly clear and look exactly as it did. The interior pictures I got with the phone are even much better than the DSLR. I'll continue to practice with that though. On future cruises, I just may use the phone for low light and interior pictures. Only downside with the phone is the zoom, those pictures come out extremely grainy but it's perfect for landscape.

 

I was beginning to wonder if it was them or our computer. I have also tried editing several post to correct the large gaps between paragraphs. When I put it in, I've used the correct spacing but when the posts are actually submitted...wow. Hopefully it's not making it too hard to read.

[pghsteelerfan]

Oh, oh, oh....I am the SAME WAY! We cruised with our friends on Liberty and at Grand Turk they got off the ship, went to Margaritaville, found a table and ordered 2 astronomically expensive burgers with fries. Ummmmm.....you can have a Guy's Burger "free" right on the ship that is sitting at the dock right in front of you! :confused::confused::eek::eek: I save my $ for a Caribbean Colada or Miami Vice! ;)

 

LOL!!! And I know we aren't the only ones. I'm just saw that there were some posts so thought I'd better check in. I won't be doing any updating today since I need to get back to cleaning. That's been neglected. Just taking a break while some floors dry then CC break over and back to work. :eek: I'll be updating tomorrow with St. Lucia though.

[pghsteelerfan]

Thanks forsharing your cruise. We will be on the Liberty for the 1st time next August and will do this iternary in December on the Fascination. So you are providing alot of information for our next 2 cruises. Thanks again for sharing!

 

Thank you very much for following along. I enjoy sharing because I also get to relive it. We had such a great time. We love Liberty and this is our favorite itinerary. Glad that some of this will be helpful to you for your upcoming cruises. :)

[Jenny in TX]

I am really enjoying your cruise and love all the pictures of Barbados! It seems like y'all really got to do and see a lot.

[pghsteelerfan]

We were on Sapphire Beach in April. It is a beautiful beach and we loved our time there. We walked up and went very far to the left and got 2 loungers and pulled them under the sea grape trees. We paid $9 per lounger and there was a lady that walked around (Monica) and took drink orders. I read a review on CC that said that they had delicious Mahi sandwiches, so I told her that we would be ordering two of those when lunch rolled around. She came back several times to bring us more drinks and when we were hungry we ordered the sandwiches. They were delicious and DH and really enjoyed them. There were huge pieces of Mahi on the sandwiches. We would definitely go back again next time we visit St. Thomas.

 

Thanks for helping with the questions. I also couldn't remember how much we paid for the loungers. I kept thinking it was $7.00 but that may have been elsewhere, so thank you for clarifying that. DH told me he didn't pay more than $15.00, but then he couldn't remember if that was St. Maarten or Sapphire. :)

[pghsteelerfan]

I am really enjoying your cruise and love all the pictures of Barbados! It seems like y'all really got to do and see a lot.

 

Thank you and so glad you're enjoying it. I'm actually enjoying reliving it. Oh, Barbados...I have wanted to see Bathsheba for a while now so I'm so glad we finally got to do that. But yes, we did see a lot more this time compared to when we were on Valor in 2013. Other CC members and reviews have been so helpful to me in planning and letting me know that more than one thing in certain places is definitely "doable", so we took advantage. :)

[jb1677]

Hey there! Yes, thank you SO MUCH for passing along Patsie's information. We were very impressed with Bathsheba and loved Payne's Bay Beach. We really wanted to see Bathsheba this time and so glad you helped us find a way to.

 

I'm glad you're enjoying the pictures. Believe this or not, but on this latest post, the after dark pictures of the ship are from my smart phone's camera. I don't have to do anything, it automatically adjusts and the pictures have come out perfectly clear and look exactly as it did. The interior pictures I got with the phone are even much better than the DSLR. I'll continue to practice with that though. On future cruises, I just may use the phone for low light and interior pictures. Only downside with the phone is the zoom, those pictures come out extremely grainy but it's perfect for landscape.

 

I was beginning to wonder if it was them or our computer. I have also tried editing several post to correct the large gaps between paragraphs. When I put it in, I've used the correct spacing but when the posts are actually submitted...wow. Hopefully it's not making it too hard to read.

 

Here is a photo tip - look at the properties of you smart phone pictures, they almost certainly have whats called EXIF data that will tell you the shutter speed/exposure time, ISO speed and aperture/f-stop. Photo programs and even sites you upload to show this data.

 

While the smart phone and DSLR are very different, the basic principles behind these 3 key things that make an exposure are true for all cameras. It should help you see something like "wow the smart phone used low f-stop, fast exposure and high ISO" and try similar on your DSLR. Its really fun to do this with side by side pictures where one device looked good and one bad, likey with all other things being equal you will see a big base exposure settings difference.

[RaiderFaninNM]

GREAT review, thanks for sharing!!

[pghsteelerfan]

Here is a photo tip - look at the properties of you smart phone pictures, they almost certainly have whats called EXIF data that will tell you the shutter speed/exposure time, ISO speed and aperture/f-stop. Photo programs and even sites you upload to show this data.

 

While the smart phone and DSLR are very different, the basic principles behind these 3 key things that make an exposure are true for all cameras. It should help you see something like "wow the smart phone used low f-stop, fast exposure and high ISO" and try similar on your DSLR. Its really fun to do this with side by side pictures where one device looked good and one bad, likey with all other things being equal you will see a big base exposure settings difference.

 

Thank you so much! Yes, I just looked under the "properties" of a few of the pictures and I do have that information. I used the pictures of Liberty in San Juan, after dark, since I had pictures from both the phone & DSLR and there are differences. Phone: f/1.9; Exposure time 1/10 sec.; ISO 400. DSLR: f/3.8 (or 9); Exposure time 1/10 sec. and ISO - 1600. When I finish with the review, I am going to try to make myself a "cheat sheet" with that information from the phone pictures so I can use it and try the manual settings on the DSLR and practice some low light pictures.

 

I do appreciate any tips I can get. I am not a professional but do love taking pictures and always want to improve. I'm also thinking about taking a class in the future. :)

[pghsteelerfan]

GREAT review, thanks for sharing!!

 

Thank you and I'm happy to share since I'm reliving the cruise. :) Glad to have you following along.

[pghsteelerfan]

[pghsteelerfan]

Thursday, September 24, 2015 – St. Lucia (Cruise Day 5)

 

 

 

Today's edition of the "Fun Times"