Just got off the Liberty today

We took a group of 20 on the Liberty this week. Had a great time and would be more than happy to answer any questions. I know there has been a lot of negativity with this ship and personally didn't experience much of what was said. I've been on many cruises so feel free to ask for comparisons as well.

Thanks for the post! I'm glad you had a great time - we are headed on liberty next week! There will be 2 of us (in our 30s) first time cruisers. It appears that all interior and suites are sold out and only about 15 balcony rooms / ocean view rooms left - therefore a pretty full ship. Are we going to have trouble getting deck chairs either on main deck or serenity?

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Thanks for the post! I'm glad you had a great time - we are headed on liberty next week! There will be 2 of us (in our 30s) first time cruisers. It appears that all interior and suites are sold out and only about 15 balcony rooms / ocean view rooms left - therefore a pretty full ship. Are we going to have trouble getting deck chairs either on main deck or serenity?

 

 

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I was surprised at how not crowded the Liberty felt. We hung out at the Serenity constantly and it was always very quiet. The main pool also is set-up in a way to spread people out. With the Red Frog and the Blue Iguana and Guy Fieri all having their own crowds, the deck chairs seemed easy to grab.

On our last Carnival cruise I almost always skipped the omelet station and Mongolian Wok because of the long lines. This time they were usually only 5 deep at most. I think they are getting better at spreading out crowds.

Guest Services, however, ALWAYS had a forever line.

We took a group of 20 on the Liberty this week. Had a great time and would be more than happy to answer any questions. I know there has been a lot of negativity with this ship and personally didn't experience much of what was said. I've been on many cruises so feel free to ask for comparisons as well.

Thanks for your thoughts.

We are sailing on the Liberty next week, and are wondering where we can have lunch on embarkation day if we don't go the buffet.

Anyone know?

How was your dining experience? the waitstaff?

We are sailing on the Liberty next week, and are wondering where we can have lunch on embarkation day if we don't go the buffet.

 

Anyone know?

Guy's/Iguana

We are sailing on the Liberty next week, and are wondering where we can have lunch on embarkation day if we don't go the buffet.

 

Anyone know?

You do have to go to the Lido deck on embarkation Day to eat. However, I personally never ate at the Buffet. There is the Mongolian Wok, the taco/burrito Blue Iguana, the pizza place, and Guy Fieri'sburgers. They are all open on the first day and delicious. There also is a great BBQ place up one floor but i didn't go day one so I'm not sure if it is open. More than likely it is.

How was your dining experience? the waitstaff?

We had late dining and because there were 20 of us I couldn't get it changed. So that was disappointing as all the under 18 things are during late dining and we had 7 kids with us. But our wait staff was very attentive. Our main waiter was Robert in the Silver dining room. Between the 20 of us we probably ordered everything on the menu, to mixed reviews. My nephew is 19 and ordered at least 2-3 appetizers and entrees every night and 1 was always delicious. On my last night I ordered the pork chop with apples and it was way over cooked and flavorless. So I reordered the flat iron steak (available every night) and it was SO yummy! I read that sour cream and bacon come 10 minutes later for your baked potato but that was not our experience. Things came right away. I had my med rare steak within just a few minutes of sending the pork back. One night one of us didn't see the escargot and ordered it much later and they went right back and got it for us.

That all being said, the descriptions in the menu are lacking. One night they have pepper steak on the menu. I hate pepper steak. But when it came to my nephew it was actually jerk braised beef with some peppers which I adore. Totally would have ordered that. And we also had somethings, of course, that we didn't like. Some of the desserts were blah. Do have the Nutella tiramisu, tho. Yum! Oh, and the vegetarian options were really yummy. There was a curry the first night that all we meat eaters wished we had ordered.

Overall, our dining experience was really good. It is not like 20 years ago, that I totally agree with. But it is still light years ahead of the freezer meals I feed my family every night.

One tip- it is way more fun for your wait staff if you get up and dance with them during the music and show. Come on, people, participate and Party! You'll all become best friends if you dance and laugh with them and then they will just automatically bring you your milk with your chocolate melting cake every night without you even asking. 😊

Since I mentioned in my last post about missing out on some of the events due to having under 18's with us and being late dining, I thought I would mention the stuff that we did do.

We missed any karaoke and comedians. Sorry, I love them both but have no input.

We did trivia. We did a TON of trivia. Pretty much there is a trivia thing happening on the half hour from 1:00 every day on and we did them all. Trivial Pursuit was our favorite as it was cumulative and your points were added together each day for a four day total. We lost big time but had so much fun in the process. And the 80's music trivia on the last night is really just a dance party in disguise. It is not to be missed as it is Dustin, the cruise director, at his best. I would say he is not too much older than 30, but he certainly knew all the words to every song so perhaps I misjudge him and he is just a young looking 40.

Mike lead most of the trivia, however, and his calm manner suited it perfectly. He is funny and has a quick wit and kept the chaos in control. When others of the staff attempted to lead the trivia things went awry. Although it did lead to a ton of laughter. And who knew that there was break dancing in trivia? Grins lead us two times and added spinning on his head into the mix.

We did the deck parties and laughed and laughed. They really do a nice job on their deck parties. I will say that they are more of a Zumba class than a deck party so wear appropriate shoes. It is all line dances like Cha Cha Slide, Gangham Style, etc. And Dustin and his team lead it with an iron fist of enthusiasm. I had already worked out that day and was trying to take the stairs most places and the extra hour workout at midnight made it so the next I could barely sit-up my abs and thighs burned so badly. But it was totally worth it because it was so fun! And bonus: I didn't gain weight on this cruise despite eating everything available to me, which we all know on a cruise is a LOT!

We also did the main shows in the Venetian Palace. The around the world one on the 2nd night is one of the best cruise shows I've seen. They do all kinds of dancing from Irish Step to Spanish Flamenco and they did them surprisingly well. The girl singer (I can't remember her name) is UNBELIEVABLE! Best cruise singer I've ever watched. No idea why she isn't a famous singer with a record deal. She is the whole package. Amazing voice, beautiful, great dancer. Amazing. The guy singer... well. Yeah. I never could tell what he was singing until the chorus and he just made his scenes seem awkward. I couldn't pinpoint why but definitely awkwardness in his manner. It showed up big time in the 2nd big show about rock music. They have this big, pink phone that he sat on that goes up and down and it was just straight up weird. Weird. And he made it weirder by riding it like a bronco horse.

We tried the piano bar but were disappointed because the guy could only do piano type songs like Billy Joel. The thing we love about piano bars is doing unconventional but still popular stuff and he couldn't do any of that. It was almost always totally empty which is a shame.

We did Camp Carnival stuff. We had kids in almost every age group over 8. The selfie scavenger hunt is a hoot. We won, of course, as scavenger hunts are our thing. We did the Build a Bear thing. They are $24 a piece and SO cute. And the big kids did stuff too but I don't know what because they are teenagers. They seemed to be laughing when I happened to pass them and they stayed up late every night. So it must have been fine. If you have teenagers, you understand.

My eldest daughter and I did the afternoon tea as we are big tea people. It was mainly the bridge crowd we had run into in the library earlier. We loved it. They had free tea and $1.95 tea. We spent the money and it was worth it. I had a coconut tea and she had a Earl Grey variant that we plan on buying off Amazon they were both so good. And darling little treats, macarons and tea cakes and scones. They even had clotted cream and cucumber sandwiches.

I didn't do it, but my sister did the Seuss breakfast. Said the decor is darling. The food is really all about being cute, though, not about being delicious. Her 16 year old son loved the fruit loop french toast. He said it was almost his favorite thing he had to eat on the cruise. So the food is clearly designed for kids.

He also got picked for the Game Show in the Venetian Palace. Sydney lead that and she was awesome. It might be my favorite moment of the ship as she decided who would win at the beginning and then made their winning mandatory in a hilarious way. Even had none of us gotten picked it would have been well worth watching.

We didn't do the magician, but some of our group did and they said his only real trick was making the audience disappear. It was a hypnosis act.

The mini golf is fun but very windy. The pools were nice. I did hot tub fairly often and it was more enjoyable than on some cruises I've been on. Super hot water and never too crowded.

That's pretty much it for onship entertainment. For four days we packed a lot in.

I'll be sailing the first week of April. Spring break :eek::eek:

Thank you for this review. I have been a bit nervous with some of the less then stellar reviews and this one made me feel much better about our upcoming cruise.

Did you get off the ship at any of the ports? Any suggestions if you did?

Thank you for this review. I have been a bit nervous with some of the less then stellar reviews and this one made me feel much better about our upcoming cruise.

 

Did you get off the ship at any of the ports? Any suggestions if you did?

We walked off Nassau and did a horse drawn carriage tour of the city and then walked to Junkaroo. It was my 9 year old's choice that day and I had zero expectations. It was way more fun than I was anticipating. The carriage was $15 an adult and $10 a kid.

Freeport we did Pat and Diane sea safari snorkeling tour. It was AMAZING!!! But I can't promise it would be for everyone. It would be great no matter what. But there were only 7 of us because our ship was the only one in port and lots of people didn't get off the cruise because the days had switched due to weather. So we took a small fishing boat out to a reef and about 20 dolphins including 3 babies hung out with us. The water was crystal clear, the fish were everywhere and the captain and deck hand were both wonderful. It was $42.50 a person plus $10 bus transfer and tax. And we tipped because it was so spectacular. For 3 of us we ended up spending just under $200. And that included free alcohol or soda for kids.

Thank you for your POSITIVE review! We're sailing the Liberty on 2/26, with a 3yr old and 13yr old.

I just read that your sister did the Seuss at Sea breakfast - overall, did she enjoy it? It's on our list (for my 3yr old) and I'm excited about, but rarely read comments about it anywhere.

And how was the weather overall - warm enough to get some color? I've read that the beaches will be chilly, but still hoping for warmth!

Thank you for your POSITIVE review! We're sailing the Liberty on 2/26, with a 3yr old and 13yr old.

 

I just read that your sister did the Seuss at Sea breakfast - overall, did she enjoy it? It's on our list (for my 3yr old) and I'm excited about, but rarely read comments about it anywhere.

 

And how was the weather overall - warm enough to get some color? I've read that the beaches will be chilly, but still hoping for warmth!

Seuss at Sea is really cute themed and at only $5 you should definitely do it. She is a foodie and wasn't impressed with the taste, surely green eggs and ham can't possible be the most delicious way to eat eggs. However she thought the theming was adorable. They also have Cat in the Hat at the opening deck party dancing with everyone along with Thing 1 and Thing 2. Then later in the cruise they have photo ops with them with props you can wear. And there is a cute kids parade where they all carry characters on board with them. Cute.

Camp Carnival in general was a success for us. It's a great room and my 9 year old loved that they had multiple PS 4's to play on and you could play 2 players. They do a lot of activities and crafts to do. My nephew is much more social and went a lot and participated in stuff. My kid sticks to me like glue so she didn't go a ton.

Port Canaveral was really warm and we swam that day. The next day it poured and was super windy. They closed the roof on Serenity and I went hot tubbing there and it was a perfect temperature for it but it is adults only. The other two days it was plenty warm enough to swim. You do need a sweatshirt or sweater if you plan on being outside after 10:00 p.m. But all the other days we wore normal cruise clothes. Shorts, swim suits, etc and didn't think twice about hopping in the water. With the exception of Junkaroo beach. That water was FREEZING! The water at Freeport was warm, though. Not sure why it was different temps but it was.

Hello,

I am a 25 year old guy heading on the Liberty in 2 weeks with my 2 buddies. Are there alot of people are age on the cruise? Or was it mostly couples/families?

My eldest daughter and I did the afternoon tea as we are big tea people. It was mainly the bridge crowd we had run into in the library earlier. We loved it. They had free tea and $1.95 tea. We spent the money and it was worth it. I had a coconut tea and she had a Earl Grey variant that we plan on buying off Amazon they were both so good. And darling little treats, macarons and tea cakes and scones. They even had clotted cream and cucumber sandwiches.

I wonder when they started charging extra for special teas. They used to come around with a chest and you selected whatever you wanted and there was no surcharge. But I read they no longer offer a choice at the beverage stations either. It seems that some on these boards are bringing their own with them or considering that.

Hello,

 

I am a 25 year old guy heading on the Liberty in 2 weeks with my 2 buddies. Are there alot of people are age on the cruise? Or was it mostly couples/families?

I didn't see a lot of young single people. There was a wide variety of ages and seemed to be quite a few honeymooners who were 25ish. There weren't a ton of kids on board either, pretty sure people still being in school discouraged that age group. But if you are willing to hang out with people a little older the 30-40 year olds were well represented and a partying crowd. I don't think you'll have troubles finding lots of fun people to party with.

I wonder when they started charging extra for special teas. They used to come around with a chest and you selected whatever you wanted and there was no surcharge. But I read they no longer offer a choice at the beverage stations either. It seems that some on these boards are bringing their own with them or considering that.

Im not sure. There were the normal 6-8 teas that cruises and hotels seemed to have. I really enjoy Bigelow Orange & Spice and that seems to be everywhere and free so I never take my own tea. It's on Carnival as well. But if there is a special tea, I'm willing to pay.

I wonder when they started charging extra for special teas. They used to come around with a chest and you selected whatever you wanted and there was no surcharge. But I read they no longer offer a choice at the beverage stations either. It seems that some on these boards are bringing their own with them or considering that.

Two years ago Carnival discontinued the Bigelow teas and now they put out Lipton's Orange Pekoe, Decaf Pekoe and Lipton green tea only. As mentioned at afternoon tea on sea days upgraded teas are available for a fee.

Yes, many here say they now just bring along their favorite teas with them, we do.

I will be on Liberty on May 7th of this year. This is my first time on a Carnival cruise and I was wondering if they have sushi on the ship. I was watching some youtube videos that people had done and I thought I saw sushi but maybe it was another ship. Since this is my first time on Carnival and my friends first cruise ever what should we definitely not miss like (food, entertainment, activities)?

Hi! Was the Seafood Shack open on the ship? Did you try it? Thanks!

I will be on Liberty on May 7th of this year. This is my first time on a Carnival cruise and I was wondering if they have sushi on the ship. I was watching some youtube videos that people had done and I thought I saw sushi but maybe it was another ship. Since this is my first time on Carnival and my friends first cruise ever what should we definitely not miss like (food, entertainment, activities)?

I believe there was sushi day one on the rotating buffet. But to my knowledge none of us tried it and I never saw it again. Hmmm. Not miss... I'm a participator. I love to be a part of the action so I loved the deck parties. So much fun. The shows in the Venetian are really, really good. The BBQ on deck 10 was yummy as was Guys Brugers and the burrito bar. And dinner in the main dining room- don't be shy. Order what you want, 3 appetizers? Go for it. If you don't love something, send it back and get something else. 3/4 of the food is delicious. Don't settle for 1/4 that isn't.

Hi! Was the Seafood Shack open on the ship? Did you try it? Thanks!

I think the fish and chips is discontinued now on the Liberty. However, we made due. If you get 3 fish tacos at the burrito place and a large order from Guys (they are beside each other) then just throw away the tortillas and you have fish and chips. My nephew did this and said it was great.

Hello,

 

I am a 25 year old guy heading on the Liberty in 2 weeks with my 2 buddies. Are there alot of people are age on the cruise? Or was it mostly couples/families?

I'm 25 and will be on the liberty in 2 weeks with my boyfriend, sister, and her friend. :)

I'm 25 and will be on the liberty in 2 weeks with my boyfriend, sister, and her friend. :)

What date are you guys sailing trying to find people on our cruise as well

What date are you guys sailing trying to find people on our cruise as well

GO on your actual Roll Call and do your Poll there... you'll connect with everyone on your sailing.

I was also on this same cruise and agree with many of estherhead's comments about the cruise. However....

Guy's Burgers are way over-hyped in my opinion. Their French Fries were the worst I have tried to eat. Holland America's Dive-in provides much better sandwiches and absolutely delicious fries.

The fish and chips section that used to be on Deck 10 in the Lido Restaurant has been replaced with a BBQ section. I had lunch there on embarkation day. With the exception of potato salad that seemed partly frozen, the food was good. The extra cost Seafood Shack aft of the Lido Restaurant takes the place of the fish and chips venue. The menu sounded good, but not enough time to try it.

Diamonds Steakhouse is a real winner. Ambiance and service are superior to HAL's Pinnacle Grill. Food quality, preparation, and presentation is very good. I ordered the Lobster Tail and it was good, not the best I have ever eaten, but quite satisfactory. A major attraction is a free bottle of house wine or 50% off any wine on their wine list when dining there on the first evening or on Gala Night.

Entertainment/music is Carnival's strong suit, in my opinion. Every music group/performer I heard was very enjoyable. The string duo were the best I have heard on any ship. The two cast shows were very well done as well. Don't miss Towel Animal Theater. Even as a senior citizen, I found this to be cute and humorous.

CD Dustin did an excellent job, was out and about, i.e. very visible/approachable, and his "The Morning Show", while not the best of the type I have seen on a Carnival ship, started my day with a smile or two.

Room Service Breakfast arrived on time or slightly before the time requested, which I appreciated. And, to avoid the chaos of the Lido Restaurant on the morning of disembarkation, Room Service Breakfast is an option that is not mentioned in the printed disembarkation information. (On that morning, though, my requested time for delivery was not honored; the Steward arrived at 6:00 A. M. That's OK by me because I know how much work turn-around day us involved for the crew.)

I enjoyed my cruise!