Christmas/New Year Liberty Review

[Richard Parker]

My wife and I were married in October and took this cruise as our honeymoon. We chose this cruise because of the itinerary. I was also excited about sailing on a brand new ship. We were not disappointed. Of course, there were a few minor hiccups, but I think that must be expected on any stretch of 8 days (even on vacation.) Overall we had a wonderful experience and would highly recommend this cruise to anyone. I have seen a few specific questions that I will try to address as I go through with the review.

As I have started to write, I have seen that this review is long and sometimes veers off topic. You’ve been warned.

 

12/24/05—Ft. Lauderdale (Embarkation)

We booked the cruise late, so it was a significant price advantage to purchase our airfare as well as the cruise through Carnival. This caused me to worry quite a bit, especially after reading the many admonitions on this board to always fly in the day before. My family usually does arrive a day early, so I was worried until I was reassured by many on the board that all would not be lost if we flew the morning of the cruise. They were right.

 

Our flight left Kansas City at around 7:30 on Christmas Eve morning. We had a short layover in Atlanta and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on schedule at around 2:30. The Carnival rep. was waiting at the baggage claim and our bags had already arrived on an earlier flight, so there was no worrying about the bags. We waited about 15 minutes for a few others to arrive and then were taken to a Greyhound bus for the short ride to the pier. Luckily for us, we were the last stop for that particular bus, so our time on the bus was limited to about 15 minutes. There were other people on the bus, but I have no idea how long they had been waiting for the bus to get a full load.

 

It was probably about 3:00 by the time we arrived at the pier. Although the transfer ticket says that gratuities for the bus driver are included in the price of the transfer, the driver made sure to tell us about how hard he works and how cute and hungry his children were and asked us to take care of him so we could look him in the eye as we got off the bus. He said he would be the porter that would be responsible for getting our bags on the ship, so I didn’t really think anything of him asking for a tip. Then, after we had seen that our bags were off the bus and given the driver our tip, as we started to walk toward the ship, another porter came up to us and said he was the porter for our bags and asked for a tip. This one looked like the porters that have put our bags on the ship in the past. Having a couple bottles in our bags and not wanting them treated roughly, I also gave this one a small tip. I’m generally a fairly liberal tipper, so this didn’t really bother me as I expected to tip the porters anyway, but I can see how it might grate on some people. I had decided before we left that I would not let small things bother me, so I just figured that I could spare a few extra dollars to make two people who helped me out have a better Christmas and didn’t let it bother me. But for future cruisers who have Carnival transfers from the airport, be prepared that both your driver and the ground porter will ask for tips. In hindsight, I probably would have halved the amount I would normally tip and given half to the driver and half to the porter. But enough about that, we’re cruising right?

 

By this time, as I said, it was probably between 3:00 and 3:30. We were tired from the travel, but in a good cruising mood and excited to be that close to the ship. I, like everyone else, had read the embarkation horror stories. As I mentioned, we usually arrive the day before the cruise, so I am used to the routine of showing up in the morning as one of the first ones to the port and waiting in lines for security/Sign & Sail/check in and then having to sit in the room and wait until passengers were allowed to board the ship. This was completely different. We walked in to the building at the port and just kept walking. There was almost nobody there. We didn’t even stop at the end of the maze. We were waved through directly to an agent who checked our passports and tickets and gave us our S&S cards. From that desk, we walked directly to the security screener (again no line) and passed through without any problem. I had taken a tip from this board and bought a 12 pack of Sprite at home and replaced all of the Sprite cans except the 2 that showed through the handle with beer before gluing the end of the box closed. This 12 pack was in my carry on bag as it went through the metal detector and they didn’t even ask me to take it out of the bag. (I was somewhat disappointed that they didn’t ask so I could have shown off my handiwork!) Anyway…somewhere in there was our embarkation souvenir photo and our computer photo to match with the S&S, but there was no line for anything. We walked up the gangway and straight on to the ship and directly to our room. I am not exaggerating when I say that from the time we stepped off the bus at the port until we were on our balcony in our stateroom looking at that very bus in the parking lot, less than 15 minutes passed.

 

We did miss out on a couple of hours on the ship that day, but we also missed out on waiting in hours of lines and the accompanying frustration. I would like to say that this is how I will board every cruise in the future, but I know that when I’m the one in charge of the travel, the excitement of getting on the ship will make it seem like a good idea to go ahead and wait in the lines in the morning.

 

So, we were on the ship. We had a balcony on the Lido deck forward, starboard side. We unpacked quickly. There was plenty of space for everything. We did bring a few extra hangars, which were not absolutely necessary, but were nice to have. (The hangars provided by the ship are the type that have the small ball that fits into a plastic piece that stays attached to the rod, so it’s nice to have a regular hangar or 2 in case something needs to be hanged in the bathroom to steam while the shower is on or something like that.) We also easily brought on some drinks to keep the bar tab manageable throughout the week. (This has been discussed in other threads, so please save the remarks about breaking the rules. If it makes you feel better, you can rest assured that I know I am a bad person and morally inferior to you.) We had a box of wine, the aforementioned beer, and some plastic Miller Light bottles that I just packed in the checked luggage. No problem with breakage, confiscation or having to hide it from the steward.

 

After the muster drill, my wife was exhausted from the travel, so she laid down for a while while I explored the ship. (Being the internet junkie that I am and having recently sailed on the Victory, I already had a pretty good idea about where things were, but it was neat to see in person what I had been looking at as floor plans for months.) I had a foo foo drink of the day and generally enjoyed being on a ship again. I’ll comment on the décor more later in the review. I met our room steward, Jose, and gave him $10 and asked him to keep our collapsible cooler full of ice during the week. He said it would not be a problem. Our cooler, on the other hand, was a problem. I bought it brand new before we left and when we unfolded it, it had a big tear in the bottom, so we lined it with a wal-mart bag and left it on the bathroom floor by the drain all week. Not a big deal, but just a small hassle. Our steward was pleasant, but not overly friendly like some that we have had in the past. He did a great job with the room all week, so I have no complaints.

 

There was a medical emergency that delayed our departure from the scheduled 4:00 until around 7. After my wife got a little rest, we went out to the top decks to watch us sail away. Because of the late departure, the sail away was not as memorable as others when it’s light and you can see things, but it was still a sail away and we were excited to be on our honeymoon. We had to get to our dinner at 8:00 in the Silver Olympian dining room not too long after we were underway. We got dressed and went to dinner and met our waiters who were wonderful. Noemi was our head waiter from Hungary and Hademir was her assistant from Brazil. They, along with the food, made our dinners one of the best parts of the trip. We probably spent between 2 and 2.5 hours in the dining room every night, enjoying the food and talking to the waiters. We had a 2 person table, which was nice for our honeymoon. We thought about asking to be seated at a larger table to meet some different people, but quickly decided that we liked the more private 2 top for our honeymoon.

 

After dinner, we were both worn out from our long day of travel. We headed back to the room at around 11, bungeed the balcony door open and called it a night.

 

I have to stop fpr a while and do something productive today. I'll continue the review when I get a chance. Let me know if I missed anything and I'll try to answer the questions people have posed as I continue the review.

[big_duck]

[/font]

By this time, as I said, it was probably between 3:00 and 3:30. We were tired from the travel, but in a good cruising mood and excited to be that close to the ship. I, like everyone else, had read the embarkation horror stories. As I mentioned, we usually arrive the day before the cruise, so I am used to the routine of showing up in the morning as one of the first ones to the port and waiting in lines for security/Sign & Sail/check in and then having to sit in the room and wait until passengers were allowed to board the ship. This was completely different. We walked in to the building at the port and just kept walking. There was almost nobody there. We didn’t even stop at the end of the maze. We were waved through directly to an agent who checked our passports and tickets and gave us our S&S cards. From that desk, we walked directly to the security screener (again no line) and passed through without any problem. I had taken a tip from this board and bought a 12 pack of Sprite at home and replaced all of the Sprite cans except the 2 that showed through the handle with beer before gluing the end of the box closed. This 12 pack was in my carry on bag as it went through the metal detector and they didn’t even ask me to take it out of the bag. (I was somewhat disappointed that they didn’t ask so I could have shown off my handiwork!) Anyway…somewhere in there was our embarkation souvenir photo and our computer photo to match with the S&S, but there was no line for anything. We walked up the gangway and straight on to the ship and directly to our room. I am not exaggerating when I say that from the time we stepped off the bus at the port until we were on our balcony in our stateroom looking at that very bus in the parking lot, less than 15 minutes passed.

 

We did miss out on a couple of hours on the ship that day, but we also missed out on waiting in hours of lines and the accompanying frustration. I would like to say that this is how I will board every cruise in the future, but I know that when I’m the one in charge of the travel, the excitement of getting on the ship will make it seem like a good idea to go ahead and wait in the lines in the morning.

 

I've been saying this for months, but does anyone listen nooooo. :D

 

It's nice to have a convert.

[Stacylee]

May I ask.... did Noemi have dark (brown or black) straight hair - maybe long? I wonder if she is the same Noemi we had on the Triumph several years ago - however she was an assistant then and we LOVED her!!!

[Richard Parker]

Yes. Noemi did have dark hair that looked like it was long. She wore it up in a bun. She did say that she had been working for Carnival for several years, so it could be the same person. She was absolutely great. She wasn't afraid to give suggestions and let us know which dishes were the good ones. She was especially excited when I agreed to try rabbit because she said her grandmother used to make it and she loved it. It was actually very good.

[wpd805]

(This has been discussed in other threads, so please save the remarks about breaking the rules. If it makes you feel better, you can rest assured that I know I am a bad person and morally inferior to you.) .

 

 

hehehe Im goin to love this review...that was funny:D ! Were goin on same cruise 02-18-06..cannot wait to see the rest of the review !! Thanks in advance!

[Miler Higher]

Keep it coming, please...................... and thank you!

 

MH :p

[Richard Parker]

12/25/05 (Christmas)—At Sea

 

It’s very strange to be at sea for Christmas. We’re from Kansas City and used to at least bitter cold, if not snow, for Christmas. We arranged so that we celebrated Christmas with one side of the family before and the other side after the cruise, but still it felt like somehow the actual Christmas holiday got lost in the shuffle. I don’t think I would cruise over Christmas again. New Year’s…definitely, but not Christmas. As far as we could tell, they did not have any type of service or reflection time anywhere on the ship. They had a menorah lighting ceremony every night for Hannukah, but no service for Christmas. Oh well, I guess if it were that important, we wouldn’t have been cruising on Christmas day. It was very nice to wake up on Christmas morning and walk out to the 80 degree balcony. I might be able to get used to that.

 

My wife is very fair skinned and doesn’t tolerate the sun very well, so we can’t lay out by the pool all day. We did some of the organized activities, like trivia, and enjoyed those very much. But for the most part, the days at sea were just very relaxing. This was the first time we had a balcony and we took advantage of it. We spent a lot of time sitting in the shade of the balcony just enjoying being in such a beautiful environment. We saw a bunch of flying fish. At first I thought that a little sparrow had somehow flown all the way out to sea, but then it dove into the water and didn’t come back up. Then I saw another and finally figured it out.

 

Christmas night was a formal night at dinner. I’m not sure how much help I will be to future cruisers with the scheduling of formal nights because I don’t know whether they shifted one of ours to coincide with Christmas. My wife and I enjoy getting dressed up and took advantage of the formal night to wear our tux and formal dress and get some pictures. This time, we actually found one that we thought was worth paying for (maybe not worth paying $20 for, but that’s another story) and bought one. I’m sure that they have worked the business model to make the most money, but I think it would be neat for the guests and save the ship money on wasted prints if they would have a way to search through the pictures digitally and only have the ones you want to buy printed. Or at least have an option of purchasing smaller sizes of the formal pictures. My wife is beautiful, but I’m just not sure how many 8x10 pictures of ourselves we need hanging on our walls.

 

They did have a Christmas menu for the formal dinner. Turkey and all the fixings were available, but neither of us chose that. The food was very good all week. We especially liked trying the George Blanc Signature Selections. These quickly became the tie-breakers if there was a tough decision and we weren’t hungry enough to eat two different things. There was always one starter, one main course and one dessert of each dinner menu that were George Blanc selections. With one exception of a dessert with green peppercorn ice cream, we loved every one of these dishes we tried.

 

As I have stated a couple of times, our waiters made the dinners for us. Noemi was wonderful, but being a head waiter, she seemed to have more responsibilities and less time to talk to us. We really loved talking to her when she was able, but it was more conversation while we were ordering or while she was bringing something. We did hear about her shore excursions and a little about her family and friends at home. She also made some great suggestions and convinced me to try some new things that I wouldn’t have otherwise tried. Every time, her suggestions were right on. Our assistant waiter was Hademir. We both loved him. Every night, he would come by after dinner had been served and many of the guests had left and start giving us riddles and puzzles to figure out. We both loved enjoying our coffee and dessert while trying to solve his puzzles. This is something I think I would really miss if we did a cruise with freestyle dining. I have always enjoyed establishing a relationship with our waiters and feel like it enhances the dinner experience greatly. This was the night that they put candles in our dessert and sang Happy Honeymoon to us. A little cheesy, but it’s nice that they did something special to recognize us.

 

We didn’t make reservations at Harry’s at first because we knew we would love the dining room food and wanted to wait and see how bad the S&S balance was later in the cruise. On Thursday, we discovered that we were still within our budget and tried to get a reservation for one of the last nights, but they were sold out. I kept meaning to at least go in and have a drink to check it out, but never got around to it. So sorry, I can’t answer any questions about Harry’s other than if you know you want to go, get reservations early.

 

Someone also asked about the computers. The Web is the name of the internet room. It is a little difficult to find. You have to go into the lounge on level 4 aft and go around the bar on the port side of the ship. That’s the only way in or out and quite a few people had difficulty finding it. I didn’t have my own laptop, so I’m not sure what the prices are for using that, but I did have to log on to check my fantasy football playoffs. (I won my league, hooray for me!). There was an option of buying prepaid minute plans, but the cheapest one was I think 50 minutes and more than $25 which was way more that I wanted to spend, so I didn’t pay that much attention. Sorry. I did the minute by minute plan. It was 75 cents a minute, plus you had to pay a $3.20 “access fee.” It took me 4 minutes to check my score and the charge was $6.20. I would have been really mad had I lost my game, but winning made it seem like a reasonable price.

 

We were lucky to have relatively mild seas the whole trip. There was one day when the ship was swaying side to side quite a bit, but we didn’t have any major problems. I took Ginger capsules with me and took them preventatively for the first few days, but didn’t have any problems. We initially had a balcony on deck 6 about midship, but were upgraded to a balcony on deck 9 forward. This is fairly high up and forward but neither of us had any problems with motion or felt like it was rocking too much.

 

We ended Christmas day with a couple pictures and walking around the ship for a while after dinner. We walked by the piano bar and the dance club, but just weren’t feeling it from either of those places in our formal attire. We had a grand plan to go back and change and go out to do something, but after we got to our room and got comfortable, it just didn’t seem like going back out was worth it. Bungee to the balcony door and we were done for the night.

[2funcruzin]

I'm loving your review...keep it coming! I'm biting all my nails off......

[martdm]

Great stuff...can't wait for more!

[FirsttimersCT]

Checked 3 times today to see the ending

[mitchpam]

Having so much fun here in my living room... I can almost ignore the timer going off in the kitchen for the meatballs in the oven... almost!

Thanks for the wonderful, real, interesting review. Can't wait for the rest.

[2funcruzin]

Well don't leave us hanging..come on!!

[jkm151]

Great review. Cant wait to see the rest. We are going on the Liberty 1/21/06. Getting very excited now. Cant wait until we are cruising the Caribbean.

[shooterrobb]

where all waiting for more reviews, where going 02/04/06 can't wait

[shooterrobb]

jkm151, it would save time if you could leave the ship clean for us

[Richard Parker]

12/26/05—Costa Maya

 

We were initially scheduled to be in Cozumel today until the hurricanes had something to say about that. After several weeks of waiting, we finally found out that we would be heading to Costa Maya instead. A few visits to the port of call message board mede me feel a little better about the change. I have been to Cozumel once before and didn’t mind seeing a new place.

 

Costa Maya itself is exactly what you’d expect after reading the boards. It looks like something you would see if Disney decided it wanted to add a “Mexican Village” to one if its resorts in the US. Not that it was terrible or anything, but I just didn’t get a good impression on our way through. All of the tours were lined up trying to get into the place and it felt like we were on the wrong side of a cattle drive. Costa Maya was clean and had the usual shops selling typical souvenirs like you would see in any other Mexican resort town (blankets, purses, Corona shirts etc.) and of course, bars. We didn’t check out the big pool in Costa Maya, so I can’t comment on that.

 

For this day, we had decided to do the all inclusive Costa Maya Beach Break Party in Mahahual. This is something I found on the Costa Maya message board. But first, we had to get there. Mahahual is about 3 kilometers from Costa Maya. There is some regulation that prevents tour operators from shuttling people between the two, so you either have to take a taxi or a bus if you want a ride. Buses were $3 per person. It still being early in the cruise, we decided that we could walk the 3 KM and try to work off some of the extra calorie intake from our first couple of days on the ship. We both have a decent basic grasp of Spanish and it turned out that even that was not necessary as the route is very obvious and well marked. We started out of Costa Maya and a couple taxis stopped by us and offered rides for $2 each. By this time, we had decided that walking would be fun, so we declined.

 

The area outside Costa Maya is being developed. There is a parkway-type divided road with a wide strip of vegetation dividing it. There is a little trail in the middle of the divider that makes a mostly clear path through the trees, rocks, discarded Coke bottles and candy wrappers. We stayed on the path for a while, but then decided to walk on the side of the road so I didn’t have to keep ducking past vines. As I said, the area is developing. The street was very nice and there were side streets cut off of it with stone road signs. Most of these led to nothing or to lots that had been cleared, but a few had buildings in various stages of construction. There was one hotel that was nearly completed and it looked like a couple of condo developments a ways off the road toward the ocean. After about 15-20 minutes of walking on this road, it ends on what looks like a major highway. There is a sign pointing left to Mahahual and a sort of lighthouse structure is under construction that you can see to mark your destination. It was probably another 10 minutes of walking to reach the end of this road. The road was 2 lanes with a wide shoulder, but it was still just a tiny bit unnerving to be walking on the side of the highway with cars speeding by. The traffic was not heavy, but there was probably at least 2 cars per minute that passed us. When we reached the end of the highway, we were at a beach and another sign pointed right to Mahahual. It was another 5-10 minute walk before we were in the village. This is a dirt road that does kick up some dust when cars/bikes/ATVs go past and there is a Coast Guard or Police station of some sort on the way.

 

When we arrived in Mahahual, it was a nice place. There is a point where the cars have to stop at the beginning of town so most of the town is very pedestrian friendly. Again, both sides of the street are lined with vendors selling dresses, purses, sunglasses, liquor and pretty much everything else. There are also lots of bars on the beach side and restaurants on the shore side. The main street is right on the beach, so you can see the beach and ocean as you walk. It was a nice place. As I said, we booked a beach break and they told us to look for the Pez Quadro Beach Bar. The email told us that it was the far end of town and they weren’t kidding. It took another 10 minutes to walk to the end of town where we found the Pez Quadro.

 

As for the Beach Break Party, I would skip it next time. When we arrived at Pez Quadro, I asked about the party and the bartender knew my name. Not because he had done research to prepare himself for all the guests, but because we were apparently the only ones who signed up for the party. We had paid $30 per person for a guaranteed beach chair and an open bar for the day. We did get the beach chair and all we could drink, but so did the 25-30 other people at the bar and its beach who were paying by the item. The beers were $2 each and they offered Sol and Dos Equis. The mixed drinks were $4 each. I’m not sure whether they charged for chairs, but it couldn’t have been much. I think we figured that we would have paid $35-40 had we been paying for drinks individually as opposed to the $60 we paid. Not a big deal, because the place was really nice and not crowded, but if anyone is tempted to do this excursion, I would just go to the Pez Quadro and pay as you go. It takes a lot of drinks at those prices to equal what you paid. (It’s almost as if they are in business to make money or something!) That said, we never had to wait at the bar for a drink, which was nice. The bar was a thatch top with swings attached to the roof instead of barstools. There was a restaurant across the street that would bring you food on the beach. We didn’t eat anything, but the food that the people around us had looked very good.

 

The beach itself was very nice. There are massage tables everywhere where you can get 30 minutes for $20. That is, except for the tables right near where we were sitting who wanted $30 for 30 minutes and would not break on the price. They did seem to stay busy, even at that price, so more power to them. The water was nice and clear. There is a breakwater (sorry, I’m not too familiar with beach terminology) a ways out, so there aren’t many waves at the beach. There are also beds of sea grass about 10 feet out into the water. You walk out to them in water about knee level and then people were standing up on them and walking farther out in water up to their ankles. I chose to go in one of the pathways between these grass plateaus and ventured a little farther out, but the water stays shallow for a long ways.

 

We had to be back on the ship at 4:30, so we made our way back in the afternoon (by taxi this time). On the walk back through Mahahual, after a several drinks for both of us, my wife bought a dress from one of the vendors for about $20. Back in Costa Maya itself, we had a few minutes before needing to be back on the ship, and my wife decided I needed some black cowboy boots. We ended up with a nice pair of “ostrich” boots. I have no idea whether they are genuine, but they look good and I like them, so that’s good enough for me.

 

Dinner in the dining room after a nap in the evening. Another great dinner with Noemi and Hademir despite the long day drinking in the sun. Even with the nap, we were beat after dinner and called it a night.

 

I’m doing my best to get these reviews done, but it does take a while to get the details I want to include and I am not a very speedy keyboarder, so please be patient.

[Headhoncho]

I’m doing my best to get these reviews done, but it does take a while to get the details I want to include and I am not a very speedy keyboarder, so please be patient.

 

Richard Parker,

 

I'm thoroughly enjoying your review! Being an English major, I love your command of language and your ability to "turn a phrase". I also love your sense of humour.

Keep your reviews coming, however long it takes. Obviously you have learned that quality takes time.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. For us future liberty cruisers, those experiences are invaluable.

[2funcruzin]

Very well said headhoncho...I too will be more patient. I am truly enjoying the details of your review as well.

 

Thank you for taking the time to write them. It is invaulable information to us future cruisers.

[nickjuly]

Great review! Take your time , sure we are all enjoying it!!

 

 

Thanks!!:)

[Richard Parker]

12/27/05—At Sea

This was another day at sea. There was not much exciting other than the obvious fact that we were on a cruise in the middle of the Caribbean instead of at home. We did some of the trivia activities and enjoyed the hot tubs and our balcony, but nothing really jumps out at me from this day except the general warm memories of being on the ship. I’ll try to take this space to answer a few of the questions that have been posed.

Breakfast. We were taking full advantage of the fact that this was supposed to be a relaxing vacation, so most mornings, we opted to order room service and lounge around the room for a while. The room service was very timely, but the breakfast menu was pretty much limited to bagels and juice, which was fine. The quality of the bagels varied from good to dry and burnt. The good news was that it didn’t cost anything other than a tip, so if we didn’t like it, we would just walk down the hall to the buffet. The buffet fare has been discussed on the boards and certainly won’t win any awards, but I found myself very satisfied every time I had breakfast there. The breakfast buffet sort of reminds me of what I would like to find if I were on a weekend road trip to see a college football game and had been out the night before. There is a good selection of breakfast meats (ham, sausage and bacon) that are certainly acceptable and do a wonderful job adding to the traffic jam in my arteries. The scrambled eggs on the buffet are something I do not care for anywhere, but eggs are available at the omelet station at the end of the line. They will prepare your eggs any way you like in addition to making a tasty omelet with your selection of ham, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms and of course cheddar cheese. If you like, the chef will also grab some bacon or sausage from the buffet and throw it in your omelet. If you like Tabasco sauce on your eggs, it is available but not always apparent. You just have to hunt around for a while or ask one of the crew who is working the dining room. Back to the buffet. After the meats, there is a selection of toast and bagels and a huge hunk of cream cheese, which my wife declared her universal condiment and used on every breakfast item she ate. They also have the small round hash browns, which I enjoyed. Finally, there is a selection of fruits, which we took to eat on a couple of our excursions, yogurts and cereals. All three mornings we ate breakfast at the buffet, I ate way too much and wasn’t hungry until well into the afternoon, so I guess they must not have been that bad. We didn’t eat in the dining room for breakfast, so I can’t comment on that for the Liberty. We have done so in the past and I thought it was good, but not worth the effort in the morning. Lunch and dinner are an entirely different matter for me.

The cruise director was Brent Mitchell. I think it is probably a combination of our personalities and the inherent nature of a cruise director’s job, but by the end of the week, he got really annoying. I still have a very hard time blaming him or saying he didn’t do a great job because I think I would hate anyone that it on TV as many times and on as many channels as a cruise director has been on every one of my cruises. Kind of like the Sonic commercial guys or Jared from Subway. Just too much. Add to that the incessant intercom announcements and it would take a real special person to impress me as a cruise director. That said, I think he probably did a pretty good job. There were always plenty of activities going on for people with a variety of tastes. The rest of the cruise staff did a fine job as well. The assistant cruise director, Butch, seemed pretty funny when I caught some of the events he did that were on TV, but again, I’m probably not the best judge of who is or is not a good cruise director. Quite frankly, other than talking on the loudspeaker all the time and being on every other TV channel 24 hours a day, I’m not quite sure what a good cruise director is supposed to do. We did enjoy our cruise, so if he was directing our experience, I guess he gets a pass from me.

The casino is in the middle of the ship and if you are trying to get from the front to the back, you pretty much have to pass it. I used to enjoy casinos quite a bit until I starting losing every time I went and decided I wanted to spend my entertainment dollars elsewhere. I do know my way around a casino and this one seemed to be a pretty good one. I didn’t feel like playing craps this week and have never regularly played anything else, so I didn’t notice whether they had Texas Holdem or any other table games aside from the requisite blackjack, craps, roulette, 3 card poker etc.

For me, the best part of the casino was the sports bar attached to it. I didn’t spend nearly as much time as I expected to there (it was our honeymoon after all) but it seemed like a really nice place. They have a Spanish ESPN channel that they play most of the time and most of the big games were on in there. They also take advantage of the big screen TV out by the pool to show big games. There was an NFL game on Sunday on our embarkation day and they also showed Monday Night Football. It was a surprisingly good picture and sound watching the games on the deck. If you’re going to be on the Liberty for a major sporting event, rest assured that it will probably be shown in multiple places. The hardest thing is remembering when the games are going to be on after your mind switches to vacation mode and dates and times take on a very diminished significance.

The big screen TV on deck was a great addition to the ship. Before we cruised, I was not sure what they would show and was worried that it would be annoying, but it really added to the atmosphere of the deck. In the mornings, they show CNN Headline News so you can sit on deck and have a cup of coffee to maintain some sort of contact with reality. During the day, the big screen shows a variety of different things, depending on the activity on deck. Sometimes they show action sequences set to music. For example, they showed a series of clips of guys doing some sort of kite surfing set to music. It reminded me of a Warren Miller movie for watersports. These usually seemed to run after activities had taken place and people were milling about looking for the next activity. They also used the screen to show the various contests: hairy chest, Fear Factor, etc. They also make use of the big screen to do movie trivia contests. Sometimes, they would just show pretty pictures, like satellite photos or things that looked like screensaver designs. The screen was not annoying at all and didn’t interfere with any of the deck activities. In the evenings, they show a concert about 5:00. One night it was Tina Turner. Janet Jackson was also shown. Then, later in the night, they show a movie. They usually had 2 showings, one at around 7 and a later one around 9:30 to accommodate each dinner seating. Some of the movies I remember being shown were Finding Nemo; Monsters, Inc.; Ray and Harry Potter. Then, for New Year’s Eve, they used the screen to show party shots of the guests dancing and then they cut to the feed from Times Square for the midnight celebration. I was very impressed with the TV screen.

OK, I have to stop for the evening. I’ll do my best to crank out a couple more days of review tomorrow. Let me know if there’s anything I’m missing or a detail you would like included. I’ll do my best to be very detailed about the ports and our excursions, as those were a couple of the things I felt like I didn’t have much information about before we left.

[big_duck]

Great review, keep it coming.

[cathyoo]

Excellent job Mr Parker. There is another Liberty Christmas review posted and it amazing to see how different people have different experiences. Thank you for your well thought out review and I am looking forward to the rest.

[big_duck]

Richard, did you forget about us?

[martdm]

You spin a fine tale Mr. Parker...thanks for all the hard work to relay all the details! I'm looking forward to the future installments!

[joytravels]

I am loving your well-written posts re your Honeymoon Cruise on the Liberty and look forward to your next installment. I think you should send your story to a travel magazine!

 

Bungee to Balcony Door....now what is that all about?

 

We are traveling April 23 transatlantic to Rome. Why don't you guys come with us so we can read about how much fun we are having!

 

Joy