Carnival Liberty Seven Night Western Caribbean - March 22-29, 2014

[CruiseFlicks]

Wow, those photos are fantastic! The water looks amazing, thanks for posting these and an informative review!

Thank you and you are very welcome!

 

How is the layout of the ship? How was the service, CC recommend this ship, just wondering if it's still good. I looked on my cruise international app and it doesn't show 2.0 upgrades.

On our last day on the ship, I walked up and down the ship, taking photos everywhere. Though I took layout photos on each deck as well. For some reason, not all of the came out very clear. Here are a couple that should give you a good idea of the overall layout.

 

 

 

Staterooms are primarily located on Deck One, Deck Two, Deck Six, Deck Seven and Deck Eight. There are staterooms on other decks as well, I believe, but not as many.

 

Deck Nine (Lido) is the most happening place on the ship. Most evenings, there was either a party or dancing up there, or they screened movies. We went to watch the party/dancing, but did not watch any of the movies. Plus, most of the non-dining room food experiences are to be had here. The area is called Emile's and has multiple buffet locations (I believe there are three) are available and have the same items (I did not compare, but they looked pretty much identical); the Blue Iguana Cantina serves Mexican food; there are multiple locations for beverages and ice creams; there is a 24-hour pizza place; there is a deli place (which I never visited); Mongolian Wok (which also I never visited). I trust I have not missed much. You can also take a flight of chairs up to Fish and Chips, but I never went there (maybe I should have visited once to take a photo).

 

There is a slide for kids (and adults) that I also went on during the first sea day. Of course, I made the mistake of lying down and snorted sea water at the end of the slide. It was not funny!! ;-) There are several pool areas and though DD and DS spent time with other kids, neither DW nor I spent much time there. I did step into one of the whirlpools the last morning.

 

You can get towels in this area and also get balls for volleyball, basketball and table-tennis (ping pong). Note that passengers are responsible for the blue beach towels which are also allowed off the ship. If you borrow any, they will be held against your 'sign and sail' (or whatever the correct term is) card. If you don't return them, it is a steep penalty - $22 per towel, if I remember correctly. Four of these towels are provided in the staterooms.

 

Deck Five (Promenade) was the second most frequented deck by me. It has general entertainment areas such as video games, the casino, the sports bar, the piano bar, the alchemy bar (if I remember right, because I never went in there), future cruise counter, a beverage place (where you would need to pay to be served), and a general walkway that would be swarmed by photographers and photographees ;-) on most evenings, especially the two formal nights. Deck Five also has a couple of areas that sell perfumes, clothing, and where they have sales throughout the cruise.

 

 

 

 

Sports Bar

 

Deck Five, Deck Four and Deck Three have a unique arrangement in that one cannot go from front (Fwd) to back (Aft) of the ship on either Deck Three or Deck Four. So, I would typically press the elevator button to Deck Three, realize my mistake, then walk up two decks and walk across, breathing in a generous dose of cigar/cigarette smoke coming out of the casino. Alternatively, this exercise can be performed on any of the other Decks (other than Three and Four) but I found it easiest to go up to Five. The one thing I remember the most about Deck Four is that this is where the library is located which I visited once and also where all the photos are laid out. There were really too many of them. I really think Carnival would be doing the guests a favor by just creating CDs and selling them for a nominal surcharge. Plus for sure, there would be much less wastage all the way around.

 

The main show rooms and lounges were on Deck Three and take up vertical space upto Deck Five. The Guest Services, Shore Excursions, and the lobby are all on Deck Three. The main dining rooms are on Decks Three and Four.

 

Spa Carnival is on Deck Eleven and Camp Carnival (9-11 year olds, I think) is on Deck Twelve. I forget where Circle C (12-14 year olds) was. The older kids also had a meeting place somewhere near the mini-golf and basketball/volleyball court area - I am not exactly sure where. There is a jogging track that is a ninth of a mile per lap. This is located in the mid-ship area on Deck Eleven.

 

For getting off the ship, we usually walked out of Deck Zero either onto the gangway or into a waiting tender. The medics are also on this deck. I didn't have a need to go there, but DW had to make a visit - more on that later.

 

I have jumped back and forth, but hopefully you now have a general idea of the ship. Obviously, we loved the ship and the cruise. Needless to say, we loved all of the staff as well.

Edited April 13, 2014 by CruiseFlicks
To add a photo of the sports bar

[sjn911]

Thanks for great review, photos and funtimes...really enjoying it...sarah

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for posting your review and the wonderful photo's.

[CruiseFlicks]

This photo is begging for a caption. I had just taken it by chance, but now it looks like a humanoid!

 

 

Some more photos of the sea - these are from inside the bus so they are not as clear as the previous ones.

 

 

Barbara, our guide, informed us that this is the area where the locals come on thier days off. The island has practically no crime, she said, because there is not much place for the perpetrators to hide ... and only four gas stations for gas!

 

This is the Cozumel version of Disney's EPCOT. What we had misinterpreted as a trip to a Mayan village turned out to be a trip to a "Mayan village" (just like the Mexico at EPCOT that I'm visiting with DD later today) :-) Here is a sneak preview ...

[pepperfeet]

Like I mentioned earlier, this was our second cruise. For our first cruise,we had booked the stateroom nearly 10 months earlier than the cruise date. Besides, it was a three-night cruise with a day in Nassau and one in Castaway Cay. As a result, we had had ample time to plan whether to purchase any excursions or not.

 

This time around, though we purchased the tickets about a month or so before the cruise date, it was - for us - a last-minute decision. As a result, we did not really have a lot of time to plan out the cruise, leave alone the shore excursion. Suffice it to say that we did not even get the kids pre-registered for their respective camps.

 

Anyway, we had to figure out pretty quickly what we wanted to do so that the tickets didn't run out. As there was plenty of disagreement to go around on the choice of what to do, I hit upon an idea. We had been given a list of all shore excursions - subject to availability and guest minimums (if not enough cruisers expressed interest, an excursion could potentially be cancelled - though I have no idea how often that happens). I decided that I would - on the first night after the rest of the family had slept - read through the descriptions and X out those I definitely had no interest in (or it was too pricey in my opinion). In the morning, DW and kids could look through the one not Xed out and select what they wanted to do ... while I watched cricket at the Sports Bar. Cricket was being played - the World Cup - in Bangladesh during our cruise. The timings were ideal for me - the games were in the evening, i.e., very early in EDT/Ship's Time.

 

As a result of this arrangement, we decided the following:

 

- Cozumel: local tour and "Mayan village" (about $30 per person; three hours)

- Belize: a visit to Xunantunich (about $90 per person; included lunch; seven hours)

- Roatan: the aerial chairlift to the beach ($12 per adult and $7 per kid)

- Cayman Islands: nothing appealed to us

 

Here is some background. DS is pretty good at swimming. I am OK. DD can swim but I would put myself above her in skill level. DW is not a water person (for that matter, none of us is, but I am saying this in relative terms ;-). Besides, we (DS and I) did not have a good time with our previous snorkelling experience so we were not candidates for subjecting ourselves to more of that. Also, living so close to SeaWorld in the Central Florida area means that we are inured to the attractions of dolphins and sting rays and the like (if not turned off by the one that killed Steve Irwin). So, it was easy for us to unanimously cross out the shore excursions that involved any of these.

 

In addition, I wanted to keep the budget as low as we could while still enjoying as much as we could. So, we did not want to choose the most expensive item on the list at each place.

 

We also did not want to get really tired out after taking excursion after excursion in the sun for four days in a row. We were reminded of this on the fourth day, but more on that later.

 

Last but definitely not the least - in fact this was probably one of the biggest factors - we wanted to make sure that if we were, in fact, going on a longer excursion at one of the tender ports (Belize and Grand Cayman), we had to go with Carnival, as we did not want to get left behind for any reason! In any event, we opted for Xunantunich instead of the ruins in Mexico because a) we wanted to do one or the other, b) the Mexican one was (if I remember right) more expensive and c) the Xunantunich one took us a long way into Belize (it was only later that I realized that not only did it take us across the width of Belize, but that it also almost took us into Guatemala!).

We were on that same cruise. This was our eighth time on Carnival. We did notice all the cutbacks. For one thing. I really missed the live carribean band on the lido deck. You can listen to a loud dj anywhere. Also the food was not as good as previous cruises. One show was good, the other was so so. You wanted to walk out but you felt sorry for them. As for the ship, it was the best decorated we have ever been on. The band in the atrium was really good.

[deetrayn]

Unfortunately, we did not. We are not huge social animals (other than online :-) ... so did not really meet a lot of folks. That said, I did meet some folks on our trips from: Switzerland, Italy, Chicago, Tennessee, Canada (northwest and northeast). But I exchanged contact information with only one person. DS surprisingly did better, given that - I thought - he was less social than me ;-)

 

Ok. I am enjoying your review and pics. Thanks for sharing. :)

[Kfoot]

Wow! great review. I would love to see pics of your Indian vegetarian meals.

[CruiseFlicks]

I will need to photoshop/crop a couple of others, but for now I present ...

 

CD Brittany Boyd from Canada

 

One of the first crew I saw - the official cruise photographer

 

Assistant CD Wally (where from?) and Entertainment crew member Bethan (from England), who was a hoot - here she makes a funny face as we prepare to disembark

 

Head waiter Alexander from the Philippines

 

Our waiter Dexter from the Philippines

[CruiseFlicks]

I will work on the narrative during the weekend; for now, let me put up the Fun Times for Belize ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CruiseFlicks]

 

 

 

[CruiseFlicks]

Thanks to Nicole's post, I know what those yummy bread-cheese sandwiches are called ... the ones I smuggled out to Cozumel from the Blue Iguana Cantina.

[CruiseFlicks]

Wow! great review. I would love to see pics of your Indian vegetarian meals.

 

We had pulav, tortillas (DW would have loved to have roTis but I was not complaining - not one bit!), Paneer Makhani and daal, and Aloo baingan.

 

In this photo, the paneer makhani is to the right, the daal is to the left, aaloo baingan is towards the bottom and there is raita to the bottom right, which is a vegetable garnish in yogurt.

 

In this photo, aaloo baingan takes the pride of place, surrounded by mini bowls of salad (we were not big fans of salad, with Indian cuisine at least, so we asked our dinner crew not to bring those after the first couple of days). Also in the photo are visible the tortillas and the paapads (these are gaining fame with a new name 'poppadums', god knows why!).

 

We did full justice to the paneer - a perennial family favorite - and not too shabby a job with the daal ...

 

... or the aaloo baingan. Please don't mistake these ladles for spoons - those plates were pretty impressive in size. We were really really full each day, so much so that even I - a dessert hound by nature - had second thoughts about having dessert (they were just thoughts - they didn't keep me away from dessert)

[CruiseFlicks]

Here are the photos of the main course, besides the plain rice and tortilla (which I did not take photos of):

 

Yogurt rice (or curd rice, as it is referred to in India)

 

Beans curry with coconut - I would say this is the Indian version of the green bean casserole! ;-)

 

Sambar, an Indian soup

 

Daal with some vegetables

[Kfoot]

Those food looks really good. Making me hungry. Did you have to tell them ahead of time what you would like to eat. I didn't realize a Carnival would be able to prepare all those food, but I'm happy to know they can cater to all nationalities.

Did you enjoy it. Was it to your liking?

[CruiseFlicks]

Sorry for the delay. Got busy with other activities. Now, where was I?

 

Yes, we were in Cozumel and had reached the 'Mayan village' - we were welcomed by a Mayan elder who chanted a prayer inviting us to his village, and were treated to a tortilla and some hummus-like paste. It was tasty though I don't think I would have asked for seconds :-)

 

 

Later, we were taken to what was the focal point of the excursion for some - the Tequila tasting. The local guide gave some information about how tequila was made back then and how it is now and how the agave is one of the ingredients. I was not paying much attention, given that I am a teetotaler.

 

 

However, I was interested to find out if there were any alternatives for the tequila tasting. And soon, among the array of pots that appeared to transform the place into our high school chemistry lab, I had my answer - Agave Nectar.

 

[CruiseFlicks]

More Chemistry lab kind of photos

 

 

As I am not a big fan of honey (which is similar though obviously not the same), I took a small thimble full in my shot glass, apprehensive of the taste. I liked it. When the other folks were getting additional shots, I inquired whether I could get some more of the nectar. Sure, go ahead Amigo, I was informed. So, I poured myself an entire shot glass full (i.e., as deep as my thumbnail - I am saying this because I am not sure if my interpretation of a 'shot glass' is correct!). I kid you not, but it was so sweet that I was unable to finish it on the entire bus ride back to the dock and had to finally dump the remainder into a garbage can.

 

But before we left, I purchased a bottle of Agave nectar from the local shop at the tequila tasting place. Had I done any research beforehand, I would not have been conned (I do not really mean that) into purchasing an expensive bottle of Agave nectar, which is available over the internet for less than half the price. Oh well ... at least the tequila tasting was worth something to those folks :-)

 

Another gift shop at that location

 

Exchange rates are displayed so you know what you are paying

 

Is anyone still with me or have you moved on to other more recent threads? :-)

[CruiseFlicks]

Those food looks really good. Making me hungry. Did you have to tell them ahead of time what you would like to eat. I didn't realize a Carnival would be able to prepare all those food, but I'm happy to know they can cater to all nationalities.

Did you enjoy it. Was it to your liking?

 

Of course we loved the Indian food. What I still don't know - even though others appear to be mentioning it - is whether we were specially treated with Indian food for dinner upon request or whether all Carnival ships provide it as an alternative option.

 

Besides, when I had inquired our TA before leaving on our cruise, she informed us that there is no "Indian vegetarian" option that she could request Carnival on our behalf. But someone we met on Liberty later told me that he had specially requested Indian vegetarian food beforehand. Could someone clarify? Or should I ask this question on a separate thread (or should I ask John Heald this question on FB)?

[Shaded Lady]

I'm not sure if it's just me or if anyone else is having a problem, but I can't see the pictures in yesterday's posts... it's saying if these are my pictures I need to upgrade my subscription to Plus on Photobucket...

[Kfoot]

Its not just you. I think CruiseFlicks need to probably upgrade his Photobucket account.

Edited April 20, 2014 by Kfoot

[CruiseFlicks]

I didn't realize that the photos would take up so much bandwidth. You could still right-click on each photo and select the 'open image in new tab' option but that is cumbersome.

 

I cannot edit any of the previous posts that I have already posted. I don't want to pay to upgrade my photobucket account. I cannot modify the photos to a lower resolution to save on bandwidth.

 

The best I can do at this point is recreate the entire thread once more with low resolution photos (or point to flickr like swim13 has done) or create a blog and point to it from cruisecritic. Any other suggestions? I would love to make a quick change that works for everyone :-)

Edited April 22, 2014 by CruiseFlicks