Carnival Liberty 8/12 Review

[Swimmergirl33]

My parents, brother (21), and I (17) sailed on Liberty from Ft. Lauderdale on August 12th.

My mom and I have been on 3 Carnival cruises, my father 2, and my brother 1. We had 3600 guests on board, 900 of which were kids.

Embarkation was a mess. There was no organization what so ever. We are part of the Vacation Club and we were supposed to have VIP boarding. However, it was virtually the same. Some of our lines were shorter but for the most part it took about the same time.

Dining: The lido food was so-so. Breakfast (eggs, grits) were awful. Lunch on the lido was fine. The sandwiches and pizza were very good. Unfortunately, many people thought they were more special and cut lines frequently.

We ate in the Silver Olympian. Our staff was the best! The food was great! I couldn’t be happier.

Room: We had a room on the spa deck. The room was clean and spacious. Every time we left it seemed our room was cleaned. It was very convenient to the pool.

Spa: My dad and I had the teeth whitening. We had great results and loved it. They did sell us products at the end. My mom did the ionthermie (sp?) and she felt it was a bit of a rip off. They did try to sell us products but didn’t push it.

Pool: The pools were somewhat dirty. Oil was floating on the surface and the water was yellow. What do you expect with 3600 guests though? The slide line was always long and a few kids thought they were ‘special’ and tried to cut line throughout the whole trip. Luckily, on the last day someone had the courage to speak up and the kids stopped. The stairs going from deck 11 to 12 on the right side of the boat are awful. If you are going up to the slide bring your shoes! The steps are made of a different material and will burn your feet. Many kids and adults complained of this.

Shows: We went to a few shows. They were ok, nothing special. We did have good comedians and a ventriloquist. I can’t remember their names at the time though.

Crowds: The only time you noticed crowds was lunch time, at the pool, or going to dinner. The ship had enough things going on throughout the day to help the congestion.

The Cruise director Todd was great! He is great at entertaining the crowds.

Ports: Key West- it was ok. My mom and I decided to walk around and shop while the boys did the White Knuckle Thrill Ride. They absolutely loved it and say they would recommend it to anyone

Grand Cayman- This was a lovely port. We did have to tender in, but it didn’t take long at all. The boys decided to shop. My mom and I did the Stingray Sandbar. We had a great time. The stingrays are so sweet. It is a little scary at first but after a few minutes it is a lot of fun.

Ocho Rios- We all 4 did the Canopy tour. We were all a little scared on the first jump but after that we got used to it. The workers were so friendly. I would recommend this to everyone. (Even those who hate heights).

Dining Attire: Carnival needs to enforce dress code. People were wearing blue jean shorts on formal night. There were a handful of people every night who dressed no where close to the rules.

To be 100% honest this cruise was not what we expected. This group seemed to be full of cheap people with no manners at all. I understand rates are cheaper at this time of year and that may be the reason, however, we are considering looking into Royal Caribbean for our next cruise.

All in all we had a great cruise. There were a few bumps along the way but we still enjoyed ourselves!

[jimbug]

Thank you for your review. I'll be on the Liberty in March with a large family group. Did you get a chance to see the Golden Olympian dining room? How does it compare, looks-wise, with the Silver dining room? We signed up for 6:15 dinner, which is in the Golden, but I've heard a lot of people say that the Silver is much prettier...in which case, maybe we'll switch to 5:45 dinner just for that.

[Swimmergirl33]

I actually didn't even think about looking at the Golden Olympian. I do know that the Silver Olympian is VERY pretty though.

[Cruising89143]

Thank you for your review. I'll be on the Liberty in March with a large family group. Did you get a chance to see the Golden Olympian dining room? How does it compare, looks-wise, with the Silver dining room? We signed up for 6:15 dinner, which is in the Golden, but I've heard a lot of people say that the Silver is much prettier...in which case, maybe we'll switch to 5:45 dinner just for that.

 

Here is a site that has a nice review with plenty of photos of the Liberty. There are a couple of the dining room. Click on the link and then look under cruise reviews for the Liberty.

http://www.shipparade.com/indx.htm

[vacrv]

I too was on this cruise with my wife and 12 year old son. Everything Swimmergirl said compared with my experience and then some:

 

Embarcation: It was a huge mess. We had VIP status due to being in a Cat 11 suite. We stood in a line outside of the registration area for an hour. When they finally let people into the registration area there was no consideration given to VIP cruisers until a bunch of us spoke up. We heard later that the delay in registration was due to the passengers getting off not following the rules and going off before there number was called. Apparently customs became overwhelmed and stopped clearing passengers...this is what we were told. Once through registration boarding was a breeze. We did not actually leave port until 7:30 p.m. due to some passengers whose flights were late arriving, I commend Carnival for waiting.

 

Suite: We had a Cat 11. It was very nice and larger than the junior suite that we had last summer on RC. Our steward Clynton was awesome, the room was always clean and my cooler stayed filled with ice.

 

Lido: We agree that breakfast was awful, so was lunch and dinner. If you did not get a sandwich, pizza or cheesburger you were stuck with a salad bar and some type of mystery meats for lunch. Since we did not do formal nights we had dinner twice in Lido. They had a carving of some very tough meat and a pasta station. On RC the Windjammer buffet selection was always vast and the food quality good no matter what meal we were eating.

 

Silver Olympian: Beautiful room, as was the rest of the ship. Our wait staff was incredible, they brought my son items that were not even on the menu. Our food was just so-so. People did not follow the dress code. Although we did not do formal night we dressed appropriatley for the other nights. There were people in shorts, tank tops and one guy who was seated not too far from me had on Dodgers cap.

 

Pools: Crowded, cloudy yellow water. On the last day someone threw up in one of the pools resulting in its closing. Kids were cutting in line at the slide, my wife who speaks her mind asked them to wait there turn, one responded that she wa not the boss of them, she preplied that she is an adult and they would listen to her. Did not have too much trouble finding a chair when we went.

 

Key West: We walked around, went to the pirate museum and shopped, had a great time

 

Grand Caymen: Did the Carnival Turtle Farm, Hell and Stingray City tour it was a blast

 

Ocho Rios: Did the Carnival tracing Columbus footsteps and beach break tour and had a great time.

 

Shows: We went to 2 of the Production shows and saw the family oriented comedian and enjoyed them immensley.

 

Camp Carnival: My son and several others commented that the staff was not at all invloved with the kids, at some times they were even less then friendly.

 

Cruise Director: He is great

 

 

The ship: Huge and beautiful and very clean interior areas.

 

Debarkation:Very organized, the new system works well. We were off of the ship and in the cab line within 15 minutes of our name being called

 

 

Other passengers: Here come the flames..... I have never been around so many rude pushy people, especially at the Lido and waiting to debark for excursions. I understand that there were 900 kids on board, mine was one of them, but he knows how to behave. We were constantly being pushed and shoved and had people cutting in front of us. At Key West there was a gentleman trying to get a wheelchair down the ramp to meet a passenger, people would not move out of his way. The kids in the wheelies were an issue as well.

 

Overall although we did have a great time off of the boat, the boat experience itself fell short of our expectations. We will definitley go back to RC for our next cruise.

[ali6879]

Another who was also on this cruise. I highly agree with the enforcement needed in the dining rooms. It was ridiculous. People were in shorts, jeans with holes in them, and just generally dressed poorly. Also, people wandered in at any time, up to an hour and a half after the seating expecting to be served (we only saw a group turned away once and that was when we were finishing our dessert).

 

I didn't notice too many issues with getting off the ship at port. My guess is that is because we stayed on the ship for a few hours before trying to leave.

 

Embarkation was a nightmare as others have said. The lines at the pursers desk were also long at all times, I never saw it with a line shorter than 20 people.

 

The good points - Todd Witmer is WONDERFUL as a cruise director. I will gladly go back on a ship with him again.

 

The ship is beautiful, very clean and the staff obviously works to keep it that way.

 

Camp Carnival did a great job with the kids. I never really had problems with them being underfoot.

 

You can read my review posted here:

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=31706.

[poptart]

mmmmmmmmmm seems like it was one of "those" cruises where your fellow passengers and kids leave a lot to be desired.

 

I wish there were some way of telling when that will happen--but you just never know until you get on the ship.

 

I'm glad you all had a good time in spite of it!

Thanks for sharing.

[birdie16]

I does sound like it is more a case of a "bad bunch" of passengers, than a ship problem. If I was working on a ship with a tacky, rude bunch I have to say, I would probably just put in as much effort as I had to and hope I can hold my tongue until the next week!

 

I sure hope we get a good bunch of passengers when we cruise on this ship in September!

 

Thanks for your reviews.

[serene56]

The difference in the dining room:

 

one is done up in silver the other gold.

 

the silver one--located in the aft have windows across the back of the ship--which gives the room a more open feel compared to the mid ship one. This is the only difference.

Sometimes the curtains will be closed and you wont notice the difference.

 

If you do take the 6:15 dining time breakfast and lunch are served in the Silver Olympian.. this way you can experince both dining rooms.

[serene56]

You can read my review posted here:

.

 

 

i am getting an error message with the link

[ali6879]

Let's try it again:

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=31706

 

It worked for me when I opened a different window for it...let me know if you're still having problems.

[serene56]

the secondlink worked--thanks.

 

you said you had ean early flight.. what time was your flight?

 

and what is zome three tags??

[ali6879]

Our flight was at 11:40AM.

 

On the Liberty, they are now calling you to disembark by zone number rather than color of your luggage tags. THey give you the zone tag the day before and if you have an early flight, you can take the proof down to the Purser's Desk and they will change your tags to an earlier numbered zone. Zones 1-5 were the first ones called off the ship.

[serene56]

How easy was it to find your luggage with the new zone tags?

[SAILSKAT]

I have not had time to do my review yet, but I can say that my experience was a little different (which it should be because I have a daughter that is older than the teen reviewer, so I experienced different things because I did different things). One thing I have to say is that I was on deck every morning by 6:00 am and each and every morning I saw them cleaning and the refilling the pools, everyday. (I don't know if they could close them during the day and refill them twice a day, it may not be practical.) My youngest daughter was on the waterslide everyday and I never saw the line longer than 20 people, but she only would take one or two slides because she would want to move on and do something else. I guess if you wanted to take 10 trips and the wait was 10 minutes then it would get tiresome. I agree with the hot deck, we just wore flip flops which seems more sanitary in a public pool area anyway. For the dining room we were on the upper level of the Silver for late seating and I would say that 90% of our fellow upper level port side table mates were always dressed appropriately. I did however notice some people on the lower level who were underdressed. There were a few younger teens (maybe 16 or 17) who would sometimes sit at a table in our section without an adult and they were underdressed wearing sweatshirts and abercrombie like t-shirts. But hey, they are just kids and they were otherwise well behaved. It didn't bother me at all. We ate breakfast in the dining room and it was always good. We ate lunch in port on 3 days and the other 2 we ate at the fish and chips (which was very good - I especially loved the Maui onion and calamari fritters). We didn't see any rudeness at all (and we are used to NYC so we know what tourist crowds can be like). Everyone we encountered was friendly and just having a great time. Sorry that the orginal poster had trouble, but I just didn't see it. However, some people may be rude to a 17 old kid but would not treat an adult the same way. It's not right, but it does happen.

[serene56]

did you by chance get to experince the wok station during the week?

 

this place had the best stir fry i ever in my life tasted

[ali6879]

How easy was it to find your luggage with the new zone tags?

 

 

We found our luggage in under a minute - as soon as we entered the zone, we looked around and found all 4 pieces in a matter of seconds.

[hubofhockey]

That's a very fair and honest review. I agree on the breakfasts. They're close to awful. It's an area where Carnival skimps that RCCL does not. I also agree on the food in the Silver Olympian (dining). It's very good.

 

On my Liberty cruise, the pools seemed to be pretty clean.

 

You can't help but have a good time on the Liberty.

 

I don't know if I'd want to see Key West as part of a cruise. My Liberty Western did Grand Cayman, Costa Maya, and Freeport. On my cruise, I didn't get a good sense if people dressed differently on the Liberty than they did on the RCCL EOS (my 2006 cruise).

 

I agree with you on Todd Wittmer. He has an understated way about himself but is still funny and accessible. I hope he's still the CD when we do our Liberty Eastern next April.

[serene56]

I don't know if I'd want to see Key West as part of a cruise. My Liberty Western did Grand Cayman, Costa Maya, and Freeport. On my cruise, I didn't get a good sense if people dressed differently on the Liberty than they did on the RCCL EOS (my 2006 cruise). .

 

i would give up freeport for Key West-- (OOO I did that for our upcoming cruise) I hated to give up Costa Maya for Ocho Rios. But because of the hurricane this past week it looks like I would not have gone there anyways.

[mgg42]

Interesting to hear the reports about the "clientelle" on this particular sailing. I am heading out on Liberty on 9/23 and I anticipate it will be a different crowd. In particular, I have my doubts I will see 900 kids just weeks after a return to school.

 

As for casual attire in the dining room. I understand there are people who say it's vacation and they should do whatever they want. Well, fine then. Go to the Lido, that's what it's there for. You CAN do whatever you want, within the confines of what is considered acceptable.

 

As for anyone wearing a baseball cap to dinner. Well, that's just PATHETIC:(

 

I will be sure to let you all know how things are in late September!

[pavteam]

We cruised on the Liberty on December 17 and did not have any of these problems - there was 9 of us in our group. Yes, embarcation was crowded, but not unreasonable. We ate in the Golden Dining room and thought it was very nice - I actually thought it was prettier than the Silver dining room. NO problem with the food - although hubby & I ate breakfast in the dining room every morning. Lunch was always good. I did not see anyone that wasn't dressed up for our 2 formal nights - but if they aren't dressed up, they shouldn't eat in the dining room on formal nights. We all had rooms on the verandah deck and none of us had any problems - all our stewards were polite and helpful. There were about 450 kids on the cruise, so it wasn't too bad - but I don't like kids in hot tubs - especially when the hot tub is marked adults only. I also think the sneakers with wheels should be banned on the cruise ships - kids with these on have almost take down elderly folks on every cruise that I have been on. We LOVED our cruise on the Liberty and are anxious to compare our Glory cruise to it.

[SAILSKAT]

Interesting to hear the reports about the "clientelle" on this particular sailing. I am heading out on Liberty on 9/23 and I anticipate it will be a different crowd. In particular, I have my doubts I will see 900 kids just weeks after a return to school.

 

As for casual attire in the dining room. I understand there are people who say it's vacation and they should do whatever they want. Well, fine then. Go to the Lido, that's what it's there for. You CAN do whatever you want, within the confines of what is considered acceptable.

 

As for anyone wearing a baseball cap to dinner. Well, that's just PATHETIC:(

 

I will be sure to let you all know how things are in late September!

 

Seriously, I didn't notice that many kids and I am looking at my Lido deck photos from the afternoon at sea and I don't see alot on the deck. I would have guessed maybe 300 younger kids on board. However there did seem to be a lot of high school aged kids - so I guess if you added them into the mix there would be 900. (I assume they count anyone under 18 as a kid.) However, in general they seemed well behaved with a few exceptions here and there. (I'm not surgar coating this either because I have a pretty short fuse and no patience for unruly kids).

 

About the baseball hat. The comic just layed into one 21 year old kid wearing a backwards baseball cap. Then he just kept making fun of him for two shows. It was pretty funny.

[Payd]

It sounds like you had fun!

 

Happy Cruising!!

 

Payd:)

[mgg42]

Seriously, I didn't notice that many kids and I am looking at my Lido deck photos from the afternoon at sea and I don't see alot on the deck. I would have guessed maybe 300 younger kids on board. However there did seem to be a lot of high school aged kids - so I guess if you added them into the mix there would be 900. (I assume they count anyone under 18 as a kid.) However, in general they seemed well behaved with a few exceptions here and there. (I'm not surgar coating this either because I have a pretty short fuse and no patience for unruly kids).

 

About the baseball hat. The comic just layed into one 21 year old kid wearing a backwards baseball cap. Then he just kept making fun of him for two shows. It was pretty funny.

 

Sorry for the confusion! There were two thread this morning with Liberty reviews right next to each other. I was referencing things mentioned in the other review.

[SusieM]

MGG42...we have a roll call going, please stop over and say hello.

 

SusieM