Our First Cruise: Carnival Liberty 4/17-4/24

[IMDORY]

It started raining again. My husband and I are now starting to get a little disappointed that we spent the money for the day room and the day is not very nice.

It turns out that my son likes swimming in the salt waters of the Caribbean-maybe because it is warmer than the Atlantic ocean up north? So he really didn't care about the pool at all. Next trip we'll just stick to going to a beach.

 

 

We decided to get some lunch at the little beach side restaurant at the hotel. Food was ok, nothing special. It is now starting to rain pretty steady and all three of us are getting a little cranky. By the end of lunch the weather starts to clear. I decided that we should go up to the pool for a bit. When we go up to the pool, the weather made a total turn around and it was beautiful for the remainder of the day. Our moods start to get happy again.

 

I took some beach/water pics from the pool area, it really was a very nice beach with a nice sandy bottom and clear, calm waters.

 

 

We left the hotel at 3pm to get a taxi and go back to the ship. This time we got a dirty, run down van with no a/c-but the taxi driver was really nice and we had great conversations on our trip. We shared the ride with some Oasis people, so we got to get a quick look at the ship-HUGE!

 

It took a little longer to get back to Havensight. The traffic was more congested. I can't imagine what it is like when there are 6 ships and one being the Oasis in port-yikes!

 

We saw a bunch of lizards/chameleons? in a little grassy area near a stop light-that was cool.

[IMDORY]

It was now getting quite warm and muggy and we were looking forward to getting back on the ship, but my son wanted to buy "something" from St. Thomas. So, we looked in the little stores around the pier area. I think we went in all the little stores with the exception of the jewelry stores and finally in the last store we found just the right thing-fake pirate coins. Off we go to get to the ship when my husband sees a little store selling PEPSI (he's a Pepsi guy) and it is only $1 per can-bargain compared to the coke on the ship. He gets one and it is gone almost immediately. I just now realized that we should have bought like 6 or 12 and brought them on the ship...can we do that? I don't see why we can't?

We enter the pier area.

 

We drop our stuff off in our cabin, then head to the lido pool so my son can use the slide. He wanted to be back on board for "Water Wars" with the camp, but chose shopping at the pier over rushing back to the ship. It was ok-he'll do "Water Wars" the next night at the Camp party.

 

The ship is having a sail away party and they are offering the famous St. Thomas drink-bushwackers at a reduced price for one hour around sail away. My husband and I each get one. They were good. We had a nice time just sitting in the chairs, listening to the music, people watching...we were just having a great time. After a while we head back to our cabin to get ready for dinner and Camp C for the evening. We went on our balcony to see what we could and the Oasis of the Seas was within sight-we are still amazed at how huge this ship is.

 

My son has dinner, we take him to camp, we go to dinner. Another nice night. Our table mates were really nice and we enjoyed dining with them all week. I can't remember what I had to eat. If I saw a menu, I could pick it out. I honestly can't remember what we did that night. We were all pretty tired. There was a big Mardi Gras party on the lido at 11pm. We went back to our cabin after dinner to change and we just never made it back out. We were all pretty tired. We heard the cheering though, kinda wished we were there, but we didn't get up. I also knew we were getting into St. Maarten at 7am tomorrow morning. I had 2 or 3 stops planned and wanted to get off the ship earlier than later tomorrow...so we were in bed a littler earlier this night-about 11:30-midnight or so.

 

Tomorrow: St. Maarten

[JackieH]

You have beautiful pictures :)

[fern1226]

Love your review and thanks for including pictures. Will be on her in over a year. We were on the Liberty-Western in 08. Really excited about going on the Eastern - never been. Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[Jeafl]

Great review so far! I am really looking forward to the rest of it. :) We are doing (almost) the same cruise in a little over a month. We aren't going to St. Maarten, although I have been there before.

 

Can't wait to read the next segment!

[mom2seanash]

Loving your review so far. We are also from Syracuse and are taking our first cruise on the Liberty Aug 28th. Cant wait to hear more and see more pictures from your cruise!:)

[IMDORY]

Loving your review so far. We are also from Syracuse and are taking our first cruise on the Liberty Aug 28th. Cant wait to hear more and see more pictures from your cruise!:)

 

Have fun on the Liberty in August/September-I think you will have a great time!

[IMDORY]

Great review so far! I am really looking forward to the rest of it. :) We are doing (almost) the same cruise in a little over a month. We aren't going to St. Maarten, although I have been there before.

 

Can't wait to read the next segment!

 

Is the one you are going on the "Exotic Eastern" that is

HMC/Grand Turk/San Juan/St. Thomas?

 

That's the one we're going on next year on the Liberty.

[IMDORY]

Love your review and thanks for including pictures. Will be on her in over a year. We were on the Liberty-Western in 08. Really excited about going on the Eastern - never been. Looking forward to the rest of your review.

 

I remember when our countdown clock for this cruise was 420-something days-I thought it would never get here!

 

The longest wait seemed to be the final month before the cruise-every day just dragged in anticipation.

[IMDORY]

You have beautiful pictures :)

 

Thanks!

[IMDORY]

Day 5: Wednesday

Port: St. Maarten

 

I woke up when I heard us getting into port. I went out on the balcony to see what I could see and this is what I saw:

 

 

Yup, the Oasis of the Seas is right behinds us. We pull straight into the dock. I watch the gigantic Oasis turn completely around and back in! I can't even imagine being able to do that. I got a good look at the back of the ship-again I'm just amazed at how big that ship is.

 

 

I go back in and get the guys moving. I think they wanted to sleep a little more, but I wanted to go to the open market in Marigot before we go to the beach so, I want to get an early start. Lido for breakfast then off the ship.

 

The port area of St. Maarten was very clean and neat, much nicer than St. Thomas. We go to the taxi area and wait a few minutes for a taxi, then we are off to the French side capital of Marigot. The drive was nice and we had the chance to see a lot of on the ride. St. Maarten seemed a little nicer and cleaner than St. Thomas. Not, that there weren't buildings or areas that were run down, but everything just looked a little nicer I guess.

 

We arrive in Marigot around 10am and head to the open market area. I didn't want to do much shopping on our trip, but I did want to bring a little something home for a few people. I thought at the market I may find something interesting. Most of the vendors were selling clothes, beachy type dresses and cover ups, lots of wooden stuff etc. I was hoping to find paintings or French linens, or rum. I ended up finding all of those. Although I only found one linen vendor and her credit card machine wasn't working and I only had so much cash on hand and linens are quite expensive-so I skipped it...

My son found a little wooden toy thing that was a fish and the tail sort of bobbed. He was happy b/c he wanted something for each place we went to. I was happy we wouldn't have to scramble at the end of the day to find "something". I got a couple of pretty little watercolors of areas around the island, some cinnamon, and 3 bottles of local rum. I had heard of a producer called Ma Dou Dou and had planned on going there but, it would have been a stop for our taxi on the way to the beach and I wasn't exactly sure where this place was or if it was even open-so the guy at the market got my sale. We got "exotic", "berries", and "chocolate". We gave the first 2 as gifts and kept the chocolate one for us. We opened it up last weekend and had it on ice-kind of like Bailey's I guess-but with a rum taste. It was good.

 

We had been there for about an hour now and it was getting quite muggy. We were ready to head to the beach. We went to the taxi stand and got a taxi to Le Galion beach. I thought about going to Orient, but again, wanted to get away from the crowds. I heard Orient can get crowded. Also, Le Galion just looked so calm and peaceful. I wanted to stay away from waves. Pretty much as soon as we drove away from Marigot it started raining. Great. More rain on a beach. Oh well. We saw some more sights on our way-Le Galion is just below Orient. When we were dropped off we arranged to have our taxi driver pick us up. Originally I thought a 3pm pick up would be good, but the driver talked us into 2pm. It was raining and we thought that if we're going to sit on the beach in the rain, we'll be ready to leave by 2pm.

 

We walked down the beach and arrived at Chez Pat the little beach "shack" on Le Galion. We changed into swim suits said hi to the people working there and grabbed 2 beach chairs under a beach umbrella. There is a "beach boy" that works there-he looks like he's in his 20's or 30's? We decided to run a tab for chairs/umbrella/food drink. He was very nice. He said he was from New Zeland and he looked like a surfer kind of guy.

 

So here we are in paradise and it is raining. My son played in the sand anyway with some other kids who were off of the Liberty.

 

 

My husband and I were a bit disappointed, we had REALLY looked forward to this beach and here it is raining steady.

 

 

Then within about a 1/2 hour, the rain stopped and it got really sunny and beautiful for the remainder of the day. I made my son come over and I slathered him with sunblock from head to toe. I've heard about how much more intense the sun is down here, and I wasn't taking chances. I even pulled out the Titanium Dioxide stuff for myself-I pretty much never wear stuff that thick, but I did not want to ruin the rest of my cruise with a burn...more on that later...

 

My son played with the other two kids from the ship the entire day. I think he knew the boy from Camp Carnival already. After I finished or was finishing putting on my sunblock my son came over holding his shoulder telling me that he thinks "something got him" in the water. I think jellyfish or something like that. I can't believe it-the water is SO calm and shallow and clear here-well, there were some spots with sea weed on the bottom and he and his pal were looking for fish over there and I think my son found one. I had him sit down. He said it really stung. After about 5 minutes of sitting it was really red and splochy and looked like it was sort of spreading. I asked the "beach boy" what he thought. He got some cortaid and rubbed it all over the area and said that it looks like a fish ran into him and that can cause skin irritation but this should take care of it and stay out of the sun for a little bit. After about 20 minutes the area was pretty much clear again. Thanks beach guy!

[dpal2208]

Dory,

 

Thanks for the great review. We are staying in the exact cabin in Sept. Your pics are great and your review really is getting me excited about going.

 

I look forward to your posts.

 

thanks again.

 

Bon Voyage.

 

djp

[IMDORY]

I bought an aqua pouch thing at home to put our money, credit card, etc. in so we didn't have to worry and we could all be in the water. So we put our stuff in that and went in. The water was SO nice-like 85 degrees, sandy bottom and you could just walk out for a long way and it still wasn't deep. Now THIS is was I thought this day would be like!

 

 

 

 

 

Ahhh. Happy. My husband asks if I want a drink. I decide to get into the island mode and have a rum punch-I never had that before. It was ok. My husband had a Carib. I had a taste-good. AND only $2. After paying what-$7 for Bud Light on the ship-the Carib tasted even better!

 

So here we are sitting in the shallow water in a beach on St. Maarten in the sun drinking a drink. I never want to leave. I think we must have sat in the shallow water for at least an hour and a half. It turned 1:30 and my son was hungry, so we got him some chicken nuggets and a Carib for me and my husband. We paid our tab and left this beautiful beach to get our taxi. Now I wished we stayed until 3pm. It was probably good for us to start heading back toward the ship. We still had a good 20 minute ride back to the port and we now got to see more of the island. We did a little circle around the island that day. I will say the island is bigger than I thought it would be. I also thought the French side was nicer than what I saw on the Dutch side-but not by a lot.

 

When we got out of our taxi, my legs hurt. My shins burned. hmmmm. oh oh. I just now realize I forgot to put sunblock on my shins. :eek: It is pretty hot and humid and my shins feel like the surface of the sun...I just want to get back on the ship and go to our cabin and take a nice cold shower. We went to the lido to get some late lunch and let my son go down the slide a few times-then we head back to the cabin.

 

I had booked a port day spa special for 4:30. I was feeling totally exhausted and a little funny-maybe a little sick feeling, but I didn't want to cancel. I did 4 treatments that were supposed to be 20 minutes each. Ginger & Lime salt scrub/foot reflexology/scalp massage/hot stone massage. I had originally wanted to do the hot stone-but it was so expensive. I liked that the port special let me do a little bit of a few different things-for about half the cost.

 

First we started with the ginger/lime scrub, I get this stuff rubbed all over me and then I'm wrapped up like a burrito in a foil blanket in a heated bed thing. That felt really nice! Then, on to the foot massage-oh-that was awesome-and I fell asleep during it...the scalp massage-it was ok. I now realize that I also burned the part of my hair too..oops. Then I go in the shower and rise off and go on a massage bed for the hot stone massage. While I was waiting for my massage therapist to return, we were pulling away from port in St. Maarten. I had a big full length window in the treatment room to see it. That was a truly peaceful moment and then- OMG-the hot stone massage-that was the best thing in the world! It felt SO wonderful. My massage therapist was the best. I've had some massages here and there over the years-but she was the best. I will do this again on my next cruise for sure. When it was over, I did get the "hard sell" of products that everyone talks about, but hey these people gotta make a living too, right? So I listened and there was actually one product that did interest me and it wasn't too horribly expensive, so I got that. I turned down the 2 others she presented. She was really good about it and she was really very nice. That would be great if she was still on the ship next year, I would go back and have her give me a massage for sure.

 

After, I went back to my cabin to find my son and husband taking a serious nap. They were starting their nap when I left and it was now about 2 hours later. My son is going to the big late night party at Camp Carnival from 10-3:30am-I know, I can't believe I've agreed to this but, I've heard so many reports of how much fun the kids have. I just wish it ended at around 2am. So eventually, they wake up, we get dinner for my son and we take him to camp around 7ish. We get ready for dinner. I do not feel very good. My shins are killing me and now my legs, ankles, and feet are swollen and puffed up pretty bad-and that in itself just kinda hurts-it feels like my skin can't stretch anymore. I also just don't feel "right" I try not to let my husband know-I don't want to ruin his night. We go to dinner and it was very nice-but I just wanted to get in my pj's, put my feet up, and slather aloe on my legs. Unfortunately, sitting in a chair for two hours at dinner made the swelling even worse and I hobbled out of the dining room that night and the remainder of the nights of the cruise AND 3 more days after we return home. I'm pretty sure I had sun poisoning.

 

This is what we find when we return to the cabin:

Too cute!

 

I could tell my husband wanted to go up to the Mega Deck party that night...I finally said that I just couldn't. He could see that I was in bad shape. Here was our big night out with our son at the camp party and we were in bed by 11pm. Earlier in my review I confused my nights-originally I said we heard cheering on Mardi Gras night-no, it was Mega Deck party night. I now remember this b/c when we heard the cheering, I could tell it made my husband feel worse that he was missing out on the party. I was feeling bad too b/c I was feeling that we were missing the party. I think I told him he could go...but I knew he wouldn't go if I wouldn't. I felt really bad. And I didn't even really sleep much b/c my son is not in his bed and I just worry b/c that is what I do. From 2am on I'm really ready for him to be back, but resist my temptation to just go and get him. At 3:35am the door opens and he's "home". I'm so relieved and I ask him how it was, he was so excited-he had so much fun. I'm so glad I sucked it up and let him do it. Now I can sleep-except my legs are on fire.

[IMDORY]

Dory,

 

Thanks for the great review. We are staying in the exact cabin in Sept. Your pics are great and your review really is getting me excited about going.

 

I look forward to your posts.

 

thanks again.

 

Bon Voyage.

 

djp

 

GREAT cabin-you will love it!

[IMDORY]

Day 6: Thursday

Fun Day At Sea

 

My focus group meeting for my $100 OBC was this morning at 9am. I got up and slipped out without waking the guys. I went to the Lido for b'fast and then down to the tapestry conference room for the meeting. It lasted about 90 minutes. I didn't mind it, I knew the guys would still be asleep and it was interesting to hear other first time cruisers opinions.

 

After the meeting I went back to the room. My son was up and hungry, so I took him up to the Lido to get b'fast and then we went down to the picture gallery and bought a few of my pictures. We then went into the shop and bought some spray on "cooling aloe" spray. I thought this might help more than the regular old aloe that I packed. I think it was a little better-and I could spray it on and didn't have to touch my legs. My son bought a 3 pack of golf balls that said Carnival on them. There. Now he has "something" from the ship.

 

We went back changed into swimsuits, slathered on sunscreen, and my son did the water slide for a while, my husband and I sat in loungers and I was sure to keep a towel on my legs to avoid any more sun getting to them-even though I had a ton of sunscreen on them. Soon it was time to go back and change so my son could do the Camp activities in the afternoon. While he was in camp, my husband took a nap in our cabin and I laid upside on a lounge chair on our balcony so I could prop my horribly swollen feet up high. I put towels under my head for a pillow. There was a good deal of shade on the balcony, so I made sure to stay in it. Even in the shade it was so nice and warm and balmy. That was very nice and relaxing-here was my view:

 

 

After a while it was time to pick my son up from camp and we headed back to the lido for more water slide time. My husband and I grabbed a drink and talked to some people for quite a while. I think it was around 6:30 when we left b/c the movie Julie and Julia had just started on the big screen. We never really made a point to sit on the lido and watch a movie, I think it would have been fun. There is just so much to see and do-I guess that is partly why people go back and cruise again maybe. Next time I'm sure we will do a few things that we didn't get to this time.

 

When we got back to our cabin we went out on the balcony to check out the view as we usually do and this is what we saw:

 

 

Wow. The seas were SO calm. It was so pretty. We got ready for the Camp/dinner routine. Tonight was the second elegant night. Dinner was good. I had the Delice of the Ocean-I really liked that-Next time I would do two of that and maybe skip the entree. My entree was Chateaubriand-it was good/ok. For dessert I had the Bitter and Blanc (I think it was this night??) whatever night I did have it-yes, it was really yummy-better than the warm chocolate cake-which was good. My VERY favorite dessert of the entire cruise was the Grand Marnier Souffle-Yummy, Yum, Yum!!

 

As uncomfortable as my burn was and the swelling-I really did not let it ruin things too much. I will say that by the end of dinner each night the swelling was so bad that I was really uncomfortable and all I really wanted to do was just get off my feet and go to bed. I knew we only had a little more time left on this cool ship and I didn't want to waste it b/c of a stupid sunburn. So, I sucked it up and hobbled around the last few days and nights. This night I went back and changed so I would be more comfortable. My husband went to pick up our son at the camp. I told him I'd meet them on the lido-meaning the lido pool. When I walked in our cabin, this is what I found:

So cute!!

I also found this every night of our cruise:

 

That was one of the things I just loved about the cruise-turn down service. It was so nice to return to our room in the evening and have our bed all crisp and fresh, the room clean-ahhh. Not that we are slobs or anything-in fact, I think I kept the cabin quite tidy during the week. I just really appreciated this as much as the beautiful turquoise waters at the beaches-really.

 

I went up to the lido deck pool and no sign of the guys...so I went up to camp-no they left already, I did about 2 laps around the entire lido deck-I checked the ice cream machines aft...finally I ran into them. I guess while I was changing, my son wanted to go swimming. They went down to the cabin to get his swim trunks on and I missed them. Unfortunately, by the time they got back, the staff was emptying the pools, and he wasn't allowed in aft pool-adults only. After that, I think we headed aft to get ice cream and eventually down to the atrium for a while. We sat and listened to the lady sing and we people watched and just took in the atrium for a while. Then we walked the promenade deck and back to our cabin to go to bed. My son loved our hanging monkey towel animal. I was hoping that tomorrow I'd get some relief from the burn and swelling of my legs/feet.

[C&THollings]

Love the review and the pictures. I was on her in January and miss her so...

Working on planning our next cruise in March next year, the boat is calling me!!

[Jeafl]

Is the one you are going on the "Exotic Eastern" that is

HMC/Grand Turk/San Juan/St. Thomas?

 

That's the one we're going on next year on the Liberty.

 

YES! We leave in just over a month, I can't wait!! :)

[Jeafl]

I'm so sorry to hear about your sunburn. On our last cruise my then 9 year old son's shoulders got severely burned. So much so that he had constant chills. His lips also got sunburned really badly. I never thought to put sunblock on his lips. Not sure what happened with his shoulders since I did put sunblock on them.

 

Anyway, still loving your review! It makes the waiting time a little more tolerable. :)

 

Kind of an odd question--I had read that the color changing chandelier in the atrium was broken and stuck on only one color. Is that true? Also, did you ever see a pasta bar? Some people say there is one on Liberty, and some say they never saw it.

[dpal2208]

Hey Dory,

 

Still enjoying your review. I am looking forward to September and enjoying the aft wrap.

 

Do you have any Videos of the cabin and balcony posted anywhere on line? I would love to see them.

 

Bon Voyage

 

djp

[jdbmga]

I'm so sorry to hear about your sunburn. On our last cruise my then 9 year old son's shoulders got severely burned. So much so that he had constant chills. His lips also got sunburned really badly. I never thought to put sunblock on his lips. Not sure what happened with his shoulders since I did put sunblock on them.

 

Anyway, still loving your review! It makes the waiting time a little more tolerable. :)

 

Kind of an odd question--I had read that the color changing chandelier in the atrium was broken and stuck on only one color. Is that true? Also, did you ever see a pasta bar? Some people say there is one on Liberty, and some say they never saw it.

 

According to this the Dream is the only ship with the pasta bar

https://www.bookccl.com/irman/bookccl/shipboard_knowledge/EatingPleasure.htm

[Mary Ellen1]

Fabulous review! We were on the Liberty in March and really enjoyed it.

[Litewait]

According to this the Dream is the only ship with the pasta bar

https://www.bookccl.com/irman/bookccl/shipboard_knowledge/EatingPleasure.htm

 

I know for a fact the Spirit has it, as I have enjoyed it..;)