Review: Liberty West Carrib 11-21/11-28

[5-to-cruise]

$20 for the 5 of us to Paradise Beach at 10:00. Looks like its about 9 klm from pier.
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Bought 5 wrist bands, got chairs. Dropped off 2 milks for Tom at the bar. Kids ran into the water to play on the water toys.

My youngest at the top of the iceburg.
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2 of the 3 going down the slide
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Water trampoline
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My kids are decent swimmers but I was a wee bit nervous about them playing on the toys. A few of them were a ways out and the water was definatly going to be over their heads. There was a guy in a kayack keeping an eye on things but still.

I got a kyack and paddled out to watch how they do and to take some pictures. No worries... everyone did fine. I'm sure being in the salt water helped with their boyancy. Plus having the energy of a small kid.

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I had great timing on that picture above!

[5-to-cruise]

We didn't do it but there was parasailing as well.
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We got snorkel gear for the 5 of us. Its a $20 deposit per set or leave a form of id. Since I didn't want to leave $100 sitting there I gave over drivers license. The snorkel gear is included in the price but if you lose something you pay for it.

Warning... if you are going to go snorkeling put a lot of sun lotion on the back of your neck, back of your legs, arms and if you are not wearing a shirt, on your back or they will get quite sunburn.

Finally got to use the underwater camera case. Having an issue seeing the lcd screen in the bright light so I resorted to just pointing and pushing the button and hoping for the best. Took a LOT of pictures and a few videos.

Its aways amazing just how close to shore you can see fish. You can step a few feet out and see fish swimming around.

Hint: Much of the beach has rock/coral in the first few feet that makes it hard to walk around. Go down to the far right side of the Paradise Beach section and its all sand there.

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The dreaded 'mask face' from snorkling too much.
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Took a break for lunch. Kids went out and played while we waited for the food.

The rocker. Kids really liked this one. Every now and then it would flip over and someone would have to reset it.
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Kids find a hermit crab and try to keep him around our chairs by building various forts.
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Portions are BIG. Food very good but we ordered way too much. Even with me not ordering anything but splitting things with people. $85 for the food and drink for the day.

Lets see... left to right. Popcorn shrimp, pizza, chicken tacos, Paradise nachos (I think it was called).
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[dawnrae]

Loving the review so far. Capers printing out great. Thanks so much.

Dawnrae

[5-to-cruise]

Chips and salsa and a salad.
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Chicken Wrap
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The beach was hopping and the waiters were busy. It took a little while to get our waiter, place our order and get the food but nothing too bad. We never felt neglected and just waited for them to get to us. And if you are going to hand out and wait for food you can do worse then a beach in Cozumel!

The kids find another hermit crab. A really, really small one. I'm not sure what its using for a 'shell' but I don't think its a shell.
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Alex gives climbing the palm tree a try.
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And jumping on the trampoline for the others...
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[taxiang]

Really enjoying your review and pictures. Keep it coming!

[5-to-cruise]

Snorkling again.

I'm kind of bummed this picture didn't turn out better. Those were some big and pretty fish. You can just make out the white head of a fish these guys were eating.
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Lots of fish under the pier! Sorry the camera work is so shaky but its still pretty cool.
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We also saw some small stingray.
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Krista got her hair braded. I think it was $25 for what she got done.
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[5-to-cruise]

Alex was in the water so long his lips got wrinkled. I didn't even know that was possible!
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A reason to buy as much stuff at home and bring it with you... we paid $9 for these cameras.
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One of the two parrots they have at PB.
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Someone said they were pretty too look at but kinda mean and not to try and touch them. This one was dancing to music that played. I tried to take a picture/movie of him doing it but I swear he stopped when he saw me looking at him and refused to do it again.

Chatted with Tom from the 'Hey Tom' thead fame. VERY nice guy. He hung out and talked for a while and gave us a recommendation for a place to eat in town.

More family showed up... brother, GF Liz, Sister and her boyfriend and son and my Mom. More snorkling and playing on water toys.

Side note: My brother and Liz took a taxi to a light house on the far end of the island and went to an eco-park. The taxi driver was a young guy who couldn't speak much english but was nice and they enjoyed their trip.

My sister, mom, son and bf took a jeep tour that I had found. They had a very good time and enjoyed it a lot. It did a snorkel stop, a village in the middle of the island and a trip to a beach on the far side.

As we went to leave PB we turned in all our snorkel gear. When my brother went to turn his in we couldn't find his mask. We were pretty sure we had grabbed it and turned it in with ours by mistake and there was some confusion when we were counting our gear but I had just waved it off. Since we couldn't find the mask my brother had to pay $20 for it. :( The snorkel guy asked if we wanted to talk to Tom but I didn't want to impose on him so I said 'no'. I was bumed as it was leaving a bad taste in what otherwise had been a good day.

As we gathered up the rest of our stuff I saw Tom talking to the snorkel guy and then walk off. As we left the snorkel guy said he counted the masks and taking into account what was still checked out he had all the equipment accounted for and gave my brother his $20 back. Wohoo. My brother gave him a $5 as thanks and we headed out. Said goodby to Tom and caught a taxi from the group waiting at the exit of Paradise Beach.

Since we had 11 people now we took a van-taxi and it cost us $40 to head into town. We went to Casa Denis near the square in town. On the way we could see the Freedom sailing away into the sunset.

On a sad note our youngest left his hat in the van. It was a gift from my sisters boyfriend and was an army hat with a medals on it and Nicky was quite fond of it. Much crying and sadness ensued. :(

[5-to-cruise]

Dinner was good but we were there at a bad time... dusk. We were swarmed by mosquitoes. Lots and lots of them. The towns folk said it was happy hour for the mosquitoes. My brother went off to find some bug spray and the restaurant gave us some as well. It helped but everyone had a lot of bites by that time.

Dinner was $95 for the 11 of us though Sherry didn't eat and my Mom only had a soup. I had Yucan pork taco's. Quite good but didn't seem to have any special flavor that I noticed.

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My pork tacos
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My brother and Liz both enjoyed their meals very much and I need to email Tom back and say thanks for the recommendation.

We asked the waiter where we could find a fan so we could have some sound control in the rooms. He said if we started walking back to the ship we would pass a 'Mega' store and could find one in there. I also heard it called Mega Americana. (Btw, my brother and Liz made the walk from the Ship to Town twice. They said it was about 3 miles. My sister made it once and said it was 7. I'm going with my brother on this one.)

Much walking and hunting and we finally found it.
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Didn't have an escalator but a kind of moving ramp. Very strange.
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Walked around the huge store looking for fans but couldn't find them. Asked and we were shown the only fan they had. It was on a stand about 4 feet tall, was dented with no knob, had an original price of about $50 (based on 10-1 exchange rate) and when turned on was very quiet. Bleh. I told them we needed a cheap fan. Our hopes squashed we caught a taxi back to the ship. There were 7 of us so we needed 2 taxis and each cost us $7 to use.

[5-to-cruise]

Ship was lite up at night. The taxi driver stopped so I could take a picture.
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Back though the shopping areas. The kids bought the things they had found the first time though and we took some more pictures.
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Sherry got something to eat on the ship and I had a 2nd dinner. Watched some more football on the large screen tv with more ice cream. At 10:00 we and numouris other people went to the side of the ship to see if anyone would miss us leaving. At the last min a van pulled though the gate and drove down to the end of the pier and let some people off. They all had pull along luggage so we're not sure if it was late passagers or crew members. No one running for the ship at the last min though.

Off to bed after a long day.

Towel crab meets 'Sharky'.
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(Wow, that was long!)

rv

[recyclelady]

This is a terrific review. And I love the photos of all of your kids....especially your daughter with the shiny silver evening purse!:D

[5-to-cruise]

Forgot likes/dislikes and review notes.

Likes:

1. Paradise Beach was great and the kids had a blast.

2. Eating Mexican food in Mexico.

3. Hooking up with my family and doing stuff together.

Dislikes

1. Mosquitoes. If you go and you are going to be there late bring bug spray.

2. At the end of the day I checked our money and found we had gone though the whole $400. I had kind of thought we'd have some left over. Not really a dislike as we spent money that was budgeted but it sure went fast! Good day though.

3. Getting sunburnt. Remember the backs of necks, legs and arms!

Review:

All in all it was a 'good day'. Had a lot of fun, saw a lot of fish, kids played pretty much non-stop at PB. We would definatly be willing to go to PB again if in Cozumel.

Didn't do much on the ship today so no comments. I even missed the DoD!

Re the noise in our rooms. My brother has an iphone with an app that does ambiant noise. Sherry had brought a clock/ipod player that we were able to plug the iphone into. It refused to charge the phone up, but we were able to play 'large waterfall' and crank the volume up on it to drown out the music. The next day Sherry said it was 'wonderful'.

[w8ing2cruz]

Awesome review 5-to-cruise!!! Noticed you had a Lake Geneva tee shirt on in one of the pictures. I work in Lake Geneva and live in Elkhorn! Very brave driving to FLA with kids from here in the Midwest :o We also loved Paradise Beach but it looks like there are way more toys there then when we visited. Can't wait to read the rest!!

[magictam]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4][COLOR=green]Loving your review and pictures. Great Job!![/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4][COLOR=#008000][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4][COLOR=#008000]I would love any pictures you would care to share of the Liberty. I'll be using them as a wall paper for my computer. [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4][COLOR=#008000][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4][COLOR=#008000]Thanks, Tammie[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=4][COLOR=#008000]magictam at msn.com[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[5-to-cruise]

Capers for Monday
[URL]http://www.wideopenwest.com/~rvalle/2009cruise/day3capers.pdf[/URL]

[5-to-cruise]

Tuesday - day at sea.

Up at 8:00 and breakfast in the silver dinning room. Seas rougher today and its cloudy out.
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By the way, if anyone is ever looking for some solitude deck 4 seems very empty. There were a few chairs down here as well.
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I wanted a few pictures of the atrium.
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Time for some homework.
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We tried to set a bit of time on most days aside for homework/reading. Plus the kids usually would read at night before going to sleep.

Lunch in Silver dinning room. We were sat at a table with 3 other people already there. Nice... he used to be from Chicago but lives in Florida now. Talking about the joys of driving from Chi to Florida.

I got the Jamacian Bean soup and Chicken Ceaser Salad. Both were good. Service good... no complaints.
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It was raining out after lunch but quickly stopped. Then the sun came out and blazed down. The boys and I played a round of the min golf. The sun might have been out but it was still very windy and really windy up on the golf course!

5:00 pm and Uncle Werner picks up the kids... its our night out and we're going to Harry's for dinner! We get dressed up and we're done early so we head down to the 5th floor to have our pictures taken. And... can you believe it... no one is there. We actually WANT our picture taken and can't find anyone. Usually you have to beat them off with a stick. Too funny.

No worries, we'll get them done after dinner. I'll just have to be more careful when eating then I normally am.

We wander around for 15 min trying to figure out how to get up to Harry's. Let me tell you, wandering across the Lido deck by the pool and big TV while dressed up in a suit and tie is an experiance. We were definatly the center of attention as we walked across the deck. Then went up to level 10 and wandered back across to finally get outside of Harry's. We started out early for our 6 pm seating and got there just in time.

Harry's was pretty empty as I figured it would be. Only 1 or 2 other tables there. One right next to us though. The waitress brings over the tray and gives us the speil about what is available. Strip steak, 8 oz filet, prime rib, 24 oz poerterhouse, 12 oz lobster tail, lamb, surf and turf. I ordered the shrimp cocktail and the porterhouse with Yukan golden mashed potatoes with wasabie. Sherry ordered the filet with mac and cheese with truffle oil and a salald.

We were given a few small dishes 'complemints of the chief'. From what I could see men were given a small cup of shrimp and... potatoes? in a yellow sauce. It was very tasty. The ladies were given a small cup of aspearagase soup. Sherry is not big on asparagase. I tried some with a really really small spoon. Tasted like asparagus which I wasn't really in the mood for so left most of it.

I had walked into Harry's planning on getting the surf and turf. Turns out it is half a lobster tail and half the filet. I'm sure it would be good and probably be enough food but I'm not there to get half of anything. So... porterhouse it is.

The shrimp cocktail arrives and it is WAY bigger shrimp then in the main dinning room. Hmmmm, good. Steak arrives and its huge and oh so good. Sherry takes one bite of her filet and says "This steak ruins it for all the other steaks out there". The mac and cheese was... interesting. I can't say it was 'bad' but the flavor was very intense and kind of overwhelming. I'd had enough after a few bites.

Dessert was an apple tart for me and a fruit cup for Sherry. The tart had ginger ice cream on it and was very good. The fruit cup was a bunch of fruit cut thin and stuck long ways into a cup so it stuck out the top. Very pretty and had more fruit in it then you would have thought at first look.

Sadly I didn't really take pictures durning the dinner. It really didn't seem like the sort of place to do that (though I'm sure they wouldn't have cared). And the lady next to us kept looking over at us when the food arrived. I'm sure she was just admiriing the steak but...

I did take a picture of the apple tart. I didn't want to use a flash so its kind of dark.
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Service was great. We had two servers. Polina from Ukraine was our main server and an gentlman assint who's name I didn't catch. He stood behide me for most the dinner and never let my water glass get empty.

Chatted with Polina for a bit. Super nice girl. She's traveled around the US a bit and had even made it up to Chicago.

I know there is some debate on tipping more then you are already charged for eating there. The bill actually says Tips (Optional). It was such a great dinner and we liked the service so much I did leave some extra ($15).

We found a photograph place on 5 who's background we liked and had some pictures taken. Note: its hard to have the pictures taken while wearing glasses as the lights reflect off. We tried to tip Sherry's head a bit and move the classes down some bit they were still catching the light. Still, after looking at the pictures at the end of the cruise we found one we liked and bought it.

Met up with family in the sports bar and we made plans for tomorrow (Cayman). I bought two DoD's because they came in the fishtail cups and I thought Liz wanted one of the cups.
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Turns out she wanted to buy one of the cups without the drink so she could give it to our kids. I sucked down one of the Goomba Smashes quickly and was planning on drinking the other when... the Goomba smashed me. I don't know if it was just a 'lucky' batch of DoDs or if the drink is always like that but that one hit me. I ended up not drinking the 2nd and sort of slowly drinking it thoughout the next day. Back to room and pickup the kids at 9:30.

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[5-to-cruise]

[quote name='recyclelady']This is a terrific review. And I love the photos of all of your kids....especially your daughter with the shiny silver evening purse!:D[/QUOTE]

Thanks! Yeah, wasn't she just SO happy about that? :)

rv

[5-to-cruise]

Likes:

1. Harry's.


Ummm... thats all I have written down. No dislikes either. Oh, I know.

2. Having a quiet dinner with Sherry.



Review:

Harry's was very good. I don't think its something I would do more then once on a cruise but I'd probably do it at least once on any future cruise we go on. Service was great, food was great and the company was great. :)

[whendoweleave?]

Gotta get up super early....just subscribing so I can read the whole thing tomorrow! :)

[toothy26]

This review is making me so excited for my first ever Carnival cruise on the Liberty!

[5-to-cruise]

Our scanner is acting up. I'll have to post the capers later.

I'm adding this picture after getting approval to post it from Liz. I think, for some people, this sums up what a cruise is all about.
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[Nunu]

OP great job. I love reading the road trip parts.

[framerman]

Great review....Keep it up!!!

[LBumb]

one of the best reviews i have ever read. isnt tom at paradise beach a great guy.