Liberty 2-9 2011 review

[KnightsOfNi]

Hi everyone I have learned so much from reviews that I thought I would share a few thoughts from my recent cruise.

This is my second cruise, my firs was on the Freedom so I felt right at home!:D

1st Jan

Flew into Miami the day before and stayed in the Airport Marriot, they have a shuttle so that was very convenient.

Marriot also have 'Pure' rooms so if you have allergies you will have a great night sleep.

Took a taxi to South Beach as I have not been there before, it was fun but not my scene, I prefer a quiet beach.

Went to 'The Catch of the Day' for supper, they have great seafood but are not the cheapest place to eat. Went there 2 years ago and enjoyed it just as much.

2nd Jan (Cruise day!!)

Breakfast, Sabor Latino! a little Cuban place next to the Marriot, I highly recommend this place. Super clean, good food, friendly place full of locals.

Just be careful of the Cuban Coffee it is AKA rocket fuel!;)

Wondered around a local market then it is off to the port.

Getting to the port is best by taxi IMHO, if you use the shuttle you go at their times, for us we just went down to the entrance and a cab was there to take us.

Arrived at 11am was drinking my first Mojito at 11:30:D

The check in clerk was the nicest I have ever seen, super friendly and loved the Liberty.

We were late leaving because there was a problem with 'paperwork' I don't know what happened but there was a family disembarked and we left without them.

We missed the sail away because we had the 6pm dining.

We were nervous about our table as we were on a table for 8, but as it turned out we got along great, 2 couples, 2 friends and us.

Our waiter was brilliant, attentive, too polite;) and took care of our needs, our assistant waiter was terrible, he was slow, got orders wrong and sometimes just seemed to be avoiding anything that resembled work!

He was so bad we had to chase him down to give him his tip! Which he barely deserved.

Jan 3rd Day at sea

Today was a sea day. Relaxed, took in some sun, had dinner, good day.

Oh and DW talked me into getting the shave and a facial ready for formal night, and reluctantly I have to say it was great!:o

[Tranquil Waters]

Typo on month? Nevermind, I see the Jan. in the review body....:)

[LongTimeTvlr]

Thought you were reviewing the trip before you went. That would be a first, though I have read reviews that read like the writer knew what they wanted to say regardless of how the cruise went.

[KnightsOfNi]

Jan 4th Costa Maya

Got up early and had breakfast in the MDR as I did every day but the Belize stop.

The plan for today was Maya Chan, as many of you know you must book ahead as they cap the number of people to avoid overcrowding.

In my opinion, well worth it. The food was great, the drinks were great and they were always looking for ways to make you happy and comfortable.

When we expounded our day with our tablemates, it was unanimously decided, we had the best day! Most were disappointed with Costa Maya.

We had our own private Palapa and enjoyed unwinding. I did not realize they do a short kayak snorkeling tour at no extra charge, so that was added to our day as was a $25 massage!

Did I say the food was good? They started cooking in the morning and the smells were incredible.

Jan 5th Belize

This day was surprisingly my favorite of the trip. There is some negativity about Belize and this is probably mainly due to there being nothing right at the port.

So my view is pay up for a quality excursion. Use a ship tour, as tenders are used and the bus drivers are maniacs so who knows what will happen.

We did the Laminai River boat tour and loved it. It started with a 1hr bus ride (which I did not love). The guide gave us lots of local info on Belize, its history and culture which was very interesting.

As I said though the bus ride was a bit rough.

Next was the 90 minute riverboat ride to Laminai. To me the best part of the trip, we saw crocs and lots of boats, we were the 2nd boat on the river so we got to see quite a bit.

Some on our trip did not like the river part as it was quite long and he went fast but I loved it.

Laminai itself was very interesting and I thought we had a very good guide he explained a lot about Mayan culture and highlighted trees and plants of interest.

We heard the Howler Monkeys the whole time but did not see any.

One side note, there is a fair bit of walking as is explained in the writeup nothing strenuous though. Somebody came with an elderly family member and complained about the walking?!:confused:

The result? No one got to see the furthest Mayan ruin as the party could not make it. There were some visibly disappointed.

Please read the excursion notes so you know what to expect, I would never expect everyone else to change their plans to suit what I want to do!

The ruins themselves were interesting, as I have never been to Mayan ruins before I was quite fascinated by them.

We then did the river boat back, had a small lunch plus local beer, then the bus back to the port. On arrival to the port we tendered straight back to the ship.

[KnightsOfNi]

Sorry 2nd of Jan 2011.

Ok just figured out what was in my head.

2nd to the 9th 2011 still missed the Jan part though!

No edit feature on first post?

Regards

Knights

[Tranquil Waters]

Sorry 2nd of Jan 2011.

Ok just figured out what was in my head.

2nd to the 9th 2011 still missed the Jan part though!

No edit feature on first post?

Regards

Knights

 

I have never known how to edit thread titles. Have been known to make a typo or two or........ and never could edit them. I know I have 20 minutes or so to edit the body of a post but if you can edit a thread title I would appreciate anyone sharing that info. :o:)

[LongTimeTvlr]

I did it once by getting the site host to do it, though I can't remember how I got their attention. They changed it in a matter of minutes. It wasn't on the Royal threads, it was on Celebrity, but I imagine it would work the same way.

[KnightsOfNi]

Jan 6th Cozumel

Had nothing originally planned for today so we booked a trip through the TV, we must have booked it on the 4th because the tickets were ready in our room on the 5th.

We booked the 3 reef snorkel by boat. It was an older boat but it chugged along nicely. Our guide took us to 3 reefs ( as the name suggests) and we saw lots of fish, some schooling together which was cool.

We took an underwater camera so if any pics came out I will add them later.

By the third reef I was getting tired so I soaked up some sun on the back of the boat, while most everyone else did some more snorkeling.

The guide was good and I would recommend this excursion, especially for the price. One thing that was funny to me was it advertised snacks at the end, we did get snacks, a bag of Cheetos.

Went well with the beer though!

After the excursion we went straight back to the ship again.

Jan 7th Grand Cayman

Almost did not make it. The sea was too rough to run the tenders into Georgetown.

Fortunately we were given an alternative to anchor in Spotts bay.

Shuttles and Taxis were on had to transfer us to Georgetown, and any excursions were relocated to Spotts so it was not really any problem.

We were excited to see Grand Cayman it is truly beautiful. We had to tender again today and it was relatively uneventful, other than being behind a woman in the line up for tender tickets ripping into the poor guy because he only had #5 and she must get off first.

We did not book anything today, we grabbed a cab from the port straight to the beach.

Once we were on the beach we walked for about 2 hours along the beach enjoying the view, after we had our fill of the beach we decided to walk back to Georgetown.

Not very exciting I know but it was a nice relaxing day.

On the way back to town we decided to have an authentic Grand Cayman lunch, something exotic.!

We went to Wendys:D Warning Cayman dollars are valued higher than USD so they convert for you but the price is higher than on the display.

Went through a shop or two and taxied back to Spotts.

[KnightsOfNi]

All in all a fantastic trip, I enjoyed it more than my first cruise on the Eastern Caribbean.

The weather was perfect and there was not the same pressure to buy things from local vendors all the time. I do think that the excursions helped a lot.

The food was good every day other than Friday, I ordered steak and it was tough and full of grizzle. I am not a big dessert lover but they seemed a bit hit and miss to me.

I did not eat in the Windjammer other than embarkation, I prefer the MDR with the service.

It was very sad about the man who went overboard, a couple on our table were a cabin or 2 down from the family, and could not help but to hear the commotion when they were looking for him, and then the poor family trying to cope with the tragic loss. I hope they are alright and are able to get any answers they need.

It made for some sobering conversations at dinner but everyone was concerned and respectful.

The shows were well performed but sometimes confusing, think they find difficulty in trying to please everyone which causes a bit of a disconnect.

However respect to the performers, the aerial show was probably the highlight as well as the balancing act. The comedian had me laughing the whole time with his observational cruise ship humor.

Jan 9th (Come on last day already:()

We booked a tour today and had priority disembarkation off the ship, but it was chaotic on the ship, we got sent back and forth from the Schooner bar and the Platinum Theater till they made up their mind where we were supposed to be.

As has been noted it took a long time for some to get off, we saw huge lines of people trying to get off.

The tour was given priority off the ship and then we sailed through immigration in about 30 seconds, so it must have been international customers that were held up.

We deliberately planned a post cruise tour today, we did the Everglades tour. WHY

For 3 reasons 1) I have never been to the Everglades 2) It includes airport transfers 3) Something to look forward to at the end of the trip!

The tour was great, the coach locked all our cases away underneath so we did not need to worry about them.

The guide gave us the spiel on Miami, the Everglades and Crocodiles. It was very interesting.

We got to the park, pre-ordered lunch and got on the air boats.

The air boat ride was a lot of fun we saw a number of alligators and the guide gave us much info on the area.

The funny thing was he sounded just like Larry the cable guy, so we were very entertained.

After the tour we got a wild life talk/show by a local expert where he wrestled with alligators, kissed a toad and made anyone who showed up late hold a scorpion. COOL:D

Then we had our lunch, for me a fabulous Catfish sandwich, then the bus took us to MIA accompanied by more commentary.

This tour was so good and a definite highlight, but the funny thing was, there was hardly anyone on it.

The guide said they were going to cancel because there was not enough people but RCI subsidized the difference so the tour could go ahead.

Top marks RCI

If you made it to the end I hope this was of some help to you.

If you have any questions about this trip I will try to answer them for you.

Regards

Knights

[ryano]

On any VBulletin message forum such as CC, you can edit your own thread title by simply double clicking the title itself and selecting the text and changing it to whatever you want it to read.

 

You only have so many minutes to do it though and then you would have to go through an Admin to have it done Im pretty sure