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Liberty OTS review with Photographs (4/10-17/16)

Cuizer2
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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

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Compass day two (I've increased the size by 10%. Looks like it is a little easier to read, but will require more scrolling) ...

 

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Liberty%20%20166_zpsctuiezyd.jpg

 

Liberty%20%20167a_zpsegfpxyag.jpg

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

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Great review and photos, love the dry wit humour. I'll never afford this for the family but one can always dream.

 

Look for lower prices. That is why I booked this cabin. It is normally about $5,000, I got it for about $4,000.

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Cel_cruise

Cel_cruise

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Thanks for the great review and all of the pictures!!! I can't wait to look thru them all with my kids as we prepare for our trip next year!

 

Mostly I have to say thanks for the awesome excursion reports! We are on this itinerary next April and I have really been struggling with what to do - and feeding monkeys seems like it could be exactly the fit I was looking for!!

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John&LaLa "Live from...." Rare

John&LaLa

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Friday, April 15, 2016 - Cozumel (also tax day)

 

Today is a day I am really looking forward to. The last time I was in Cozumel I swam with the manatee. It was great, my new favorite. My old favorite is feeding the stingrays at Stingray City. I book the 10:00 visit with the manatees online at a discount. The problem is, when you book you have to state which hotel or ship you are on. You can’t book without providing this information. You also can’t book if you are on a ship. The ship doesn’t offer the swim with the manatee as a shore excursion, so I decided to slightly misstate things. I said I was at a hotel and the name of the hotel was the “Liberty of the Seas” (since the ship really is a floating hotel). It worked. Booking online gave me a 10% discount. It got better once I got to the park.

 

But before I go to the park there were two things I wanted to do. One, have breakfast, which this time was steak & eggs at Chops. The other thing was to find out if we are one hour head of Cozumel or not. For Roatan and Belize the Compass (which is the ship’s newspaper) said we were one hour head. However, for Cozumel it did not say this. I saw Jorge (the Diamond Concierge) on my way to breakfast. He said Cozumel in the same time zone as Roatan and Belize so he thought the ship would be one hour ahead, but he would have to check. My reply is that Galveston is in the same time zone also. I saw Anis (the Concierge) in the Suite Lounge. I asked him and he used a very simple method to get the answer. He logged on to the computer and checked the local time. Cozumel and the ship’s time are both the same.

 

So after breakfast I head out to Chankanaab Park (also known as Dolphin Discovery). The taxi ride was $12 each way. Once there I didn’t have to pay anything extra for admission and I got a 25% discount on the 12:00 swim with the manatee session. Yes, I am doing the same thing twice. I have four wrist bands. Yellow and Pink are admission bands (apparently the park is both a commercial park (like Sea World) and a national park (like Yosemite). So there are two admission fees. Perhaps that is the reason for the 25% discount, since apparently the $59.00 swim with the manatee includes the price of admission. Who cares, I’m in.

 

I was here is 2004 and did the swim with the dolphin and swim with the seal programs. The last time I was here was March 2013 and that is when I swam with the manatee. The swim with the dolphin program has clearly become more popular. Unfortunately so has the swim with the manatee program. In 2013 there were three of people and two manatees. Today there were fourteen people in the first session and four manatees. I don’t know how many people were in the second session. I would guess at least eight. Fortunately, the manatees eat 10% of their body weight per day. So a 450 pound manatee eats forty-five pounds of lettuce and I don’t think both groups combined came to that amount, and there are four manatees. So I didn’t have to worry about the manatees being not hungry (or fed-up - ha ha).

 

In the first group there was a group of eight family/friends and six of us not with the group. So the family/friends where sent to feed three of the manatees while the other six of us interacted with the fourth manatee. When we finished interacting with the manatee, the two groups switched. As I finished feeding the manatees I wondered what to do next. Squirting the kids in the other group seemed to be a good idea. I can squirt water from between my two hands, a skill that takes some time to perfect. So the kids tried, but they could not squirt me back. Then I noticed two stalks from the lettuce. I know the manatees will eat that also. So ask for the two stalks and get to feed the manatees again.

 

A word of warning. You are not allowed to bring your own camera. They will take plenty of pictures of you. Their taking the pictures is free. Your taking the pictures is not. I believe you can buy individual pictures (print or digital) but I wanted them all in a digital format. No problem, that came to $70 for each session ($140 total for both sessions). It cost more for the photographs than it is for the swim with the manatees experience. Between the two sessions I ended up with 96 photographs of me with the manatees. That works out to about $1.46 per photograph, which isn’t a bad price on a per photograph basis.

 

After my second swim with the manatees, I decided to walk around the park and take pictures. I don’t think I covered all of the park, but I believe I was able to photograph more than ninety percent of the area that most people would be interested in. As I got ready to leave I noticed that the 2:00pm swim with the manatees was the smallest group. Small groups are nice, however, the manatees’ appetite insures that if you have a head of lettuce, you will find that one or more of the manatees will become your friend.

 

 

After boarding the ship I showered, dressed and then grabbed my good camera and went back out to photograph the outside of the ship, as this is the one port where I can stand on solid ground (not a bobbing tender) and take a clear photograph of the ship (no dock, people or small boats in front of it). On the way out I saw the hotel director who recognized me, and noticed that I was walking away from the ship. I assured him that I was not going far and would be back on time. After taking a few photographs of the ship I headed back and found the hotel director. I showed him one of the pictures I took.

 

Back on the ship, I was feeling good. I had fun with the manatees and I had my clear full broadside ship picture. Well, all of this came crashing down with one phone call. The shore excursion to Bush Airport, which includes a brief tour of NASA, has been cancelled. So now I have a flight home, but no way to get to the airport. After having solved all of the Sunday problems and after a very enjoyable time in Cozumel, this has me down in the dumps, even though I realize that the worst case is a three hundred dollar taxi ride by someone who learned how to drive in New York. This time I head to the Concierge (Suite Lounge). One, can he get me to the airport on Sunday? Two, can he book me into Giovanni’s Table tonight (I need a nice quite meal)?

 

He gets me a table at 6:30pm. I give him a tip and say THANK YOU! He seems fairly confident that he can get me to Bush Airport. I don’t share his confidence, but I am willing to wait until tomorrow morning to see what fate awaits me.

 

I work on this for a while and then head for dinner. I have a cheese plate appetizer and steak for the main course. My waiter lets me have the pasta main dish as an appetizer also. He says it is very good, and it was, as was the steak. I leave him an extra tip and head to the cabin. I want to work on this. However, even though it is now about the time I would normally have dinner and I want to work on this, that phone call (and the sun) has zapped the will and energy from me. I end up watching TV for a while in bed and eventually fall asleep.

 

Nice job Mr Cruizer, but tax day was not until April 18 this year. :D Something about Emancipation Day in DC :eek:

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nativetexan

nativetexan

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There are still six more to go. ;)

 

I'm easily entertained and I was having a no good, rotten day. A fresh cruise compass is all it takes!

 

Have a great day. Sharing your pics with our August crusiers. Very excited!!

 

Cheers!!

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

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Nice job Mr Cruizer, but tax day was not until April 18 this year. :D Something about Emancipation Day in DC :eek:

 

Well, I guess that is what I get for unplugging your printer. :p

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

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I'm easily entertained and I was having a no good, rotten day. A fresh cruise compass is all it takes!

 

Have a great day. Sharing your pics with our August crusiers. Very excited!!

 

Cheers!!

 

Well, I posted two more today, so you should be twice as happy. :D

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

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Thanks for the review Cuizer, it is very interesting! We haven't cruised with Royal yet, but have one booked for the Med next year.

Have you ever attended the Chef's Table?

 

No, I haven't tried the Chef's Table.

 

Do you know anyone going to the Panama Canal later this year. :)

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

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Love all these cruise compass posts!

 

(FYI, day 5 posted twice��)

 

Review is incredible, thanks for this.

 

Day five was posted in post number 141. Post # 143 is a quote of post # 141.

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Cuizer2

Cuizer2

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Has anyone that has been on LOS lately noticed if men are wearing dress shorts in the MDR for dinner? Husband is hoping nice shorts are acceptable but I told him to take some slacks just in case,

 

Whatever dress code policy Royal Caribbean has, it is not enforced.

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