Life, LIBERTY, and the Pursuit of an Awesome Cruise- Review 4/5-4/12 Southern Caribbe

Thank you for all the effort in the review, will be sailing in September and this just makes the wait and anticipation tolerable.

BTW - thank you for your husband's service and your sacrifices.

All the best

PLEASE take pictures of all the menus each night and post them! We're going in Sept. and I'd love to plan ahead...especially for the "didya ever" foods!

 

Thanks!

We are doing this same cruise, hope to see y'all on board. Didya Ever foods are the best...

Fair winds and following seas.

Maybe we will end up on the same boat! I am very excited about this excursion, the first we have booked! Planning to taxi to the beach in St. Thomas & St. Maarten. DH is booking scuba for St. Lucia & St. Kitts. Considering Spencer Ambrose for the rest of us in St. Lucia; no idea for St. Kitts. Can't wait for the cruise!

your husband will love to scuba in St. Lucia. We had our honeymoon there and dove every day; it is my favorite island and looking forward to return if even for a day.

Fair winds and following seas

Sorry if you already posted this, but did you do FTTF? Is there any advantage to this on this particular cruise?

We had FTTF for the 4/26 sailing. There was no tendering at all and people board this ship at various times all throughout the day because sailing is so late, so the lines weren't huge when we checked in at about 11:15. If you're on the fence about FTTF, you can definitely do without it on this cruise. However, we always get it if available. I like to be first on and first off. And I love the convenience of having my room ready and early luggage delivery. Also I've been able to skip long lines at customer service a couple of times. So I prefer to get it, but to be honest. You could do without it at this port.

We are doing this same cruise, hope to see y'all on board. Didya Ever foods are the best...

 

Fair winds and following seas.

You should subscribe to our roll call... Maybe we can all meet sometime on the ship to introduce ourselves :)

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2123572

You should subscribe to our roll call... Maybe we can all meet sometime on the ship to introduce ourselves :)

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2123572

Thank you, will do so; and look fwd to sharing a round or two.

Fair winds and following seas

Sorry if you already posted this, but did you do FTTF? Is there any advantage to this on this particular cruise?

Sorry about not seeing this. I've purpose,y avoided finishing my review (leaving from San Juan isn't exciting anyways!) because I didn't want it to end.

We never do FTTF. I don't think it is necessary, especially because you have such a widespread time to board the ship for this itinerary. We went through the entire process- from walking into the building to walking on the ship- in 20-30 minutes midafternoon. We could walk right to our room. It worked for us, although everyone has different preferences!

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Can you advise who you booked this tour thru and how bumpy was the catamaran. My son can get sea sick of it's too much but he would love the snorkeling. We are booked on liberty over Xmas so wanting to book excursions early! Thanks. Janet

Just chiming in on catamaran tour - I can say I easily get seasick just riding in backseat of car- so here is my opinion - first it is more bumpy hitting waves in front,but like driving in front seat see the horizon and even captain of catamaran advised sit in front if suffer seasickness tendency. I also lived on Bonine a took a fresh dose few hours prior.

My son does not suffer motion sickness, and turned green sitting in back, and soon came up front. Air in face really helps. We also did a catamaran in St.Thomas (the Fury w/pickup at marina) and same opinion.

He should be fine with Bonine. I also brought sea and ginger gum in addition.

On ship- eat green apples a crew recommendation.

Tour is not worth missing.

There are tons of shops at the pier here. We of course didn't have time to go to them, but there are a lot and they are "nice", similar to the ones in St. Thomas.

 

I had heard about this guavaberry colada and rum shop on the boards. So we decided to split one final drink in St. Maarten.

 

 

Waiting for our drink..

 

 

What I forgot to mention are the people trying to sell you things at Orient beach. There are quite a few locals who come around trying to sell you things- aloe vera massages, braids, hats, dresses, etc. All we simply had to do was say no thank you, and they didn't ask us again as they made their rounds up and down the beach. There was one sort of obnoxious man trying to sell a CD- he wouldn't give up, and would target the guys telling them that they needed to share this beautiful music with their ladies and why weren't they open to reggae, etc. When he approached us, we didn't answer every single question/approach he tried. We simply told him we weren't interested, and he didn't spend as much time badgering us as he did others.

 

If they do come around, they will be willing to make a bargain. I decided to buy the orange cover up in my previous picture. I asked how much they were, she told me a price, and I said thank you and walked away. I was only leaving to go ask my DH his opinion on if I should spend the money or not, and she asked how much I had. While I don't promote robbing these people of their income, I do promote bargaining. So you can always ask for a better deal- if they say no they say no.

 

Anyways, we enjoyed our guavaberry daiquiri (dangerously good!) as we waited to board the Liberty one final time.

 

 

We boarded the ship, cleaned ourselves up, and headed to dinner. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the menu this date (sorry!). My mind must have been on enjoying the dinner, talking with our wait staff a little extra, and thanking them for such awesome service. We did tip our wait staff a little extra. I miss the days of envelopes that you pass out on the last evening, but I understand why things have been changed. We decided to tip a little extra just so we could show our appreciation to the staff in person.

 

We didn't do much this evening- grabbed a drink, sat at the outdoor movie on the Lido deck for a little while. Headed back to the room for the not so fun packing while my DH fell asleep on me. We were not doing self disembark, so luggage had to be in the hall by midnight.

Do you recall price for cover up? It looks super cute & I like the Orange. Did you see it anywhere else, type of material - thanks.

After they discontinued envelopes, I started bringing thank you cards with envelopes.

Thank your taking the tine to go into so much detail. Very helpful. We just booked the same cruise for the end of June and have loved getting your insight.

On the Calabaza tour in Barbados, how do you get the pictures they take of you?

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On the Calabaza tour in Barbados, how do you get the pictures they take of you?

 

 

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Gina will email you the link. If you give me your email address or some way to send it to you, I can send you the link now so you can see what the pictures are like. (It's a Microsoft Live Drive and she probably doesn't it want it made public...)

Cruised on Carnival Liberty April 12 - 19, 2015. Cruise was marred by a friend who was unreasonable. It would have been good had I not invited her. We went to Dominica instead of St Kitts because of the ongoing Thruster issue which they made seem that it was something that had just occurred but I was aware of the issue 2 weeks before we boarded. I thought it was repaired but found out before leaving St Lucia that it wasn't.

Unfortunately, based on what I've read from past cruisers, the Liberty has had the thruster problem for a year or two...just after it's dry dock and 2.0 upgrade.

It has just gotten worse and now they are admitting it's a problem and planning on trying to fix it.

Now that they have a tug for St. Kitts, I'm not really concerned about it. Although it would be nice to know that it had been fixed by our cruise in Sept. (It's supposed to be done by the end of June or so)

Cruised on Carnival Liberty April 12 - 19, 2015. Cruise was marred by a friend who was unreasonable. It would have been good had I not invited her. We went to Dominica instead of St Kitts because of the ongoing Thruster issue which they made seem that it was something that had just occurred but I was aware of the issue 2 weeks before we boarded. I thought it was repaired but found out before leaving St Lucia that it wasn't.

Do you recall price for cover up? It looks super cute & I like the Orange. Did you see it anywhere else, type of material - thanks.

After they discontinued envelopes, I started bringing thank you cards with envelopes.

The cover-up cost me $18. This particular lady was selling them for $20. She offered it for $18 when I walked away. I'm sure you could probably get it down to around $15. There are plenty of ladies walking around selling these, so if you don't see one you like keep looking!

On the Calabaza tour in Barbados, how do you get the pictures they take of you?

 

 

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Like stated, you getan email with a link for the pictures. Also included in the email is an attachment of recipes for food and rum punch, some of which you sample during the tour.

All pictures I posted from the excursion on Barbados are the actual pictures emailed from Gina. In my opinion, very good! And so nice that you can enjoy the day vs. spending all day trying to get the perfect shot.

Do you know if you have faster to the fun, would you be off the ship early enough to make a 8:55 flight? All of the reasonable flights to NYC LEAVE at this time.

Thank you for any info.

Do you know if you have faster to the fun, would you be off the ship early enough to make a 8:55 flight? All of the reasonable flights to NYC LEAVE at this time.

 

Thank you for any info.

I doubt it. When you fly from the San Juan airport, you have to go through the FDA checkpoint before you even check in and it can get backed up. I have flown from SJU several times (both cruises and regular trips) and there has always been a bit of a wait.

Do you know if you have faster to the fun, would you be off the ship early enough to make a 8:55 flight? All of the reasonable flights to NYC LEAVE at this time.

 

Thank you for any info.

I had FTTF last week and the earliest we could get off the ship was 7:30, go through customs and then take a 20 minute taxi ride to the airport. Then you have to go through the FDA checkpoint, baggage drop and then security. I would have to say "no". If you're flying JetBlue, they have their own terminal which does speed things up a bit, but that is still an extremely tight timeline.

I had FTTF last week and the earliest we could get off the ship was 7:30, go through customs and then take a 20 minute taxi ride to the airport. Then you have to go through the FDA checkpoint, baggage drop and then security. I would have to say "no". If you're flying JetBlue, they have their own terminal which does speed things up a bit, but that is still an extremely tight timeline.

Also, if you are not checked in at least 45 minutes prior to your flight, they will deny you boarding.

I had faster to the fun. You get a letter the day before. You meet in the dining room at 645AM if you carry your own luggage off. We left the ship about 730. We got a taxi which is about 20 minutes. We flew Delta. You have to through agriculture. We had to check our bags and they do not have curbside service. There was only one line for security

From departure from cruise to security is about an hour.

I would say 1000 flight would be great. 9 is cutting it too close.

That is definately cutting it close! I don't think you'd make it, and trying would create far too much stress. Any other times or is it possible you can fly out the following day?

Way close, I am almost sure you will not make it. Consider a later flight and if the cost is prohibitive it may make sense to fly back the next day and use the difference for a hotel stay and enjoy SJ once more.

Best wishes

Thank you for the fabulous review. We appreciate the time it took to put it together!! We love to snorkel. Did you hear comments from others as to companies that went to great reefs etc on the trip?

Also, mentioned checking in to the ship at 11am. Did you actually check in all your luggage and get ID card and have your room at that time? We have a group and are planning our day around the check in process since we arrive a day early.

Way close, I am almost sure you will not make it. Consider a later flight and if the cost is prohibitive it may make sense to fly back the next day and use the difference for a hotel stay and enjoy SJ once more.

 

Best wishes

My cruise from San Juan it is cheaper for me to fly back on Monday instead of Sunday even paying for my hotel. I am flying back to NY.