Carnival Liberty Seven Nights Western Caribbean Re-Review - 03/22/2014 to 03/29/2014

[CruiseFlicks]

Folks, I had originally started this review last month, but later realized two things:

a) Editing is limited on CC forums

b) Photobucket's limits are quickly exceeded when lot of people read your review!

 

So, I've reduced the resolution of the photos I uploaded and am back again. Remember if you have not read this review - or seen the photos - before, it is new to you :-)

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In September 2010, we - me and DW, DS(9) and DD(5) - cruised on the Disney Wonder; it was a three night cruise with halts at Nassau, Bahamas and Castaway Cay. Most everyone we met said that Disney is the ultimate in cruising and once you go on them, you won't like the competition and that kids wouldn't enjoy the cruise either.

 

Though we liked the cruise, it was a ho hum kind of experience and we wondered why people like to cruise, and especially Disney.

 

- Nassau Bahamas: We did not really spend too much time off the ship. As we were not terribly water-friendly, we did not even consider going to Atlantis. So, we just left DD in the kid's club and strolled around within hearing (sort of) of the ship.

 

- Fireworks in the sea: It was not as great as we had been given to believe by friends.

 

- Castaway Cay: Now this was something we really enjoyed. Though the snorkelling - me and DS - was a disaster, we enjoyed renting bikes. All four of us got custom-sized bikes and we had the run of the island (as did others, of course). We biked all the way across to the other side (if memory serves me right) and climbed the lookout post and took pictures of the Wonder. Biking across the huge airstrip is something I still remember vividly - I have never ridden a bike on such a vast pavement elsewhere.

 

- Food: We are vegetarians of (Asian) Indian origin, so the food was more of a miss than a hit for us. We were not terribly thrilled by the wait staff either. We are not heavy into drinks like soda, so the prospect of unlimited beverages did not really endear itself to us.

 

- Though the kids had a wonderful time there, I have a recollection of hassles getting the kids in and out of the kids club on the Wonder. Just that we had to wait everytime we checked the kids in or out. Even to register the kids and get the armbands - IIRC - was time-consuming.

 

- Disney character appearances were another touted selling point. However, we found the lines to be as long or even longer than what we encountered at the (local to us) theme parks, plus the wait for the pictures with the princesses kept us from getting off the boat quickly at Nassau (even though we did not really have anything major planned).

 

Oops! This was supposed to be a review of a Carnival Cruise. Sorry, I got carried away with the comparison. What I was trying to say is that we did not really get why folks cruise - to us, even though we had fun in Castaway Cay, it did not feel worth the nearly $2000 we spent on one of the smallest sized cabin on the ship (though we did not really feel that it was too small for us).

 

So, this year, when we started planning for a vacation, our first choice was Europe. Too expensive - it got scratched pretty quickly. Second up was the Northwest. I had grand dreams of landing in Calgary/Victoria/Seattle/Portland/Edmonton/wherever, rent a car for a nice full circle drive in a week visiting Glacier Park, etc. Priced the air tickets for sometime in July. Scratched that as too expensive as well. Well, I was left with needing to "use or lose" a week in the next four months and a staycation is not really my cup of tea (or coffee).

 

So, we looked at cruises ... longer than 3 day variety, so we could explore the world, not just the Bahamas. I saw an excellent deal on Norwegian. Whether from Tampa or Miami, they were pricing at about $1600 for us for the Western Caribbean circuit. Unfortunately, whoever I spoke with said that Carnival was better, especially the food. With that in mind, the only option we were left with was to pony up the additional $400 plus drive down (four hours - at my driving speed) to Miami.

 

The Disney cruise we had booked nine months in advance and had plenty of time to plan. The Carnival cruise was booked just about a month or so in advance. So, we barely had any time to plan. We had no excursion booked when we went on board the ship - we called our travel agent who confirmed that there was no price difference whether you booked online with Carnival or did so on the ship. The only issue might be that the tour we wanted might be full. Well, we didn't really have a choice anyway, so that was that.

 

Similarly, I procrastinated filling out the details online with Carnival and realized too late that there was a 72-hour pre-cruise deadline for pre-registering the kids for the clubs. So, that also now needed to be done on the ship.

 

Enough with the preamble. On with the review:

 

We turned in about midnight on Friday excited to be on a cruise after quite a while. It took some time to finish packing. Between the four of us [sURPRISE] I had the most luggage. Usually, I have the least. I don't know if I was committing a mistake or the rest of the family. For the weeklong cruise, I had one airplane check-in size bag and one airplane carry-on size bag. There were only three more carry-on size bags for the rest of the gang. Worst case scenario - someone would be doing laundry and that person was definitely not going to be me :-).

 

Next morning, we woke up early - I had set an 8 am deadline for leaving, in the unlikely event of an issue with the car. As we had prepaid for parking in an off-port facility, we were antsy about taking our newer vehicle with us. In any event, we went with the older car and fortunately, needed to take only a couple of breaks - one for gas and one for the restroom.

 

It was stormy in the Fort Lauderdale area and we had stop-and-go traffic for about five miles or so. I was a bit worried that it would get too close for comfort (for me that would be getting aboard the ship at 2 pm for a 4 pm stated departure). Fortunately, once we got past that one long bottleneck, the traffic - and, more importantly, the sky - cleared, and we got to the parking lot right after noon.

 

Car parked (safely, of course) at Safe Cruise Parking

 

 

Miami skyline from our shuttle bus

 

 

The line at check-in - not too long but not too short either; we had not received any notification of when to come or not come to check-in, so we presented ourselves just before 1 pm. We were group # 39, I think.

 

 

The Carnival Victory was docked right behind (or ahead, depending on the point of view) us - both facing west towards Miami - but left before we did. She - and later, we - had to go further in and turn around. I don't know what the rules are about reversing, i.e., why is it not an option? Is it the length of the channel that is the issue or is it some other issue? Also, I don't know what governs how the ships dock - on 29th, I saw another ship come in and do the turn around before docking so she was facing the sea when docked.

 

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The Victory has almost completed her turn around with the American Airlines Arena (Miami Heat's homecourt) in the background.

 

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As she completes her turn ...

 

 

... people look out ...

 

 

... as she sails away!

 

 

As most everyone else on the Victory was waving at us, this one dude had his priorities straight. I am sliding, come hell or high water! ;-)

 

 

In the meantime (and, to be honest, before the Victory sailed away, which makes this post non-chronological), we had helped ourselves to the Lido buffet. From a cursory glance at the items on the buffet, it appeared that Italian dishes dominated (but I could be wrong because, like I said, it was a quick glance to figure out which items were vegetarian). I ended up getting a couple of cold Italian pastas that I did not really care much for then headed over to my kind of food, i.e., the dessert section.

 

I got a piece of the Mango Mousse ...

 

 

... and a few of those delicious strawberry pop cakes. Any other day I might have devoured a couple of the other items on show; however, once I had finished what was on my plate, there was just no room for more :-(

 

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That "more" could've been jello or the crumb cake ...

 

 

... or whatever else the staff served up next!

 

 

When we were getting on the ship, we had been informed that our room would not be ready until 1:30 pm; however, as it was already past 1:15 pm when we came onboard, we decided to check out the room and, sure enough, we were able to get in. We put our carryon items in the room, looked around, figured out the safe - nice to work it where it locked based on my driver's license (I was the only one who needed to use it for the duration of the cruise, as I was really antsy of losing our passports, which were all in there throughout). We did notice that some other rooms already had their bags outside, and wondered why our check-in bags were yet to make it.

 

Anyway, we left the room after a few minutes and headed up to eat. Not much to say here, as the lines were pretty short and plenty of seating was available. We looked around and deduced that the food setting was a bit Italian based on the available options (we could be wrong on that - look forward to being corrected). Anyway, like I said in a previous post, we ate the available options - but we wondered about the food being cold. As we are not connoisseurs, I don't know whether that specific food item is supposed to be eaten cold or warm (unfortunately, I do not remember the item name). Oh well, bottom line, we were full by the time we exited the place and that is what mattered (to us) as we had only eaten snacks since leaving home before 8 am.

 

After eating, we went to the Venetian Palace (or Victoria Lounge - for the duration of the cruise, I kept mixing them up) to get kids registered for their respective camps. As I noted earlier, I was unable to pre-register them in time. This process took a good half hour including their presentation.

 

That done, we headed outside and I looked to see if I could spot a table tennis (ping pong) table. Sure enough, I found that there were a couple available. DS and I checked it out for a few minutes. I can hold a rally pretty good and DS can do a fair job of it; however, the wind killed the session, though we did get our exercise to make up for the food.

 

In between, DD had discovered the slide and was reasonably impressed (especially given that we have not visited the local waterparks - Disney or Wet 'N Wild - in the last year or so). Other than the food, it was the water area that had helped us select Carnival over Norwegian (for a similar itinerary, we had choice of either the Epic or the Pearl, if I remember right).

 

We were then called for the muster drill. For Disney, we had had to go to our room, wear our life jackets and then present ourselves in the muster area. Here, we only had to go there and supposedly watch the crew demonstrate. I cannot speak for the other areas, but in ours, the crew did not demonstrate anything I recall seeing. Besides, the line was three deep and were not organized by height. Had there been a true emergency, the crew would have had to do a lot more than they should have been required to had the passengers been adequately forewarned. Be that as it may, we were thankful that the cruise was uneventful in this regard. In retrospect, if there is one issue I can find fault with Carnival, this is probably it - especially given that the last year or so they have had the most (famous) incidents with their ships.

 

Just to maintain proper sequence, I must mention here that all these events occurred before the Victory sailed away (an earlier post).

 

Photo time:

 

Long (infinite?) corridor which sure appears much longer on any of these stateroom floors than it actually is

 

 

Area where we had the kiddie camp registrations

 

 

Chandeliers(?) inside ...

 

 

... and outside

 

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Whirlpool area where some folks were relaxing.

 

 

I have a feeling that they were either informed that they needed to leave or they had something else planned, because the area was empty a few minutes later.

 

 

A view of the ambience

 

 

Terminal area as seen from the ship

 

 

This Celebrity cruiseliner departed as we were in the muster drill

 

 

Our ship's tail

 

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And then, it was our turn to leave - we were a couple of hours late I believe, assuming I am right in thinking that our official departure time was 4 pm. The engines revved up, the tail started emitting smoke ...

 

 

... the gangway plank is pulled ...

 

 

... and Carnival's official videographer is in business.

 

 

Though we were out of there, we were not really out of there (yet). We first had to do the turn around dance. A slight turn to the right first ...

 

 

... followed by a thrust to the fwd starboard side so we are facing the Miami skyline at close quarters ...

 

 

... and we are turned around and have the Atlantic Ocean in sight.

 

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This is the closest I could get to the prow of the ship (I believe I was either on Deck Six or Deck Seven or Deck Eight). I saw (ordinary) folks getting their photos taken by each other and thought I could get there as well, but was informed that that was the crew area.

 

 

All these yachts gave the area the feel of a regatta in the making.

 

 

A Miami tour bus in action

 

 

Ferry being loaded with cars

 

 

Palm trees swaying in the breeze

 

[AmberTeka]

I feel like I have taken this cruise with you TWICE, get very interested, and then dab nab it.....don't know what happened. I hope you finish this time. And post the Fun Times if you have them.

 

I will be interested to see what you think of the Vegan food on the Liberty. I think I remember from before that you were pleased. My daughter, who is also a vegan, not for religious reasons, but due to wanting to stay slim and continue running as she does. A lot.

 

We took her family with us on the Dream in March and she ordered the Indian Vegan dinner three times. She liked it that much. Our Wait staff was very concerned that she did not know how spicy it was, and I very much appreciated their concern. As she can knock back hot pepper sauce that makes me cringe just to smell it...it turned out to be funny. We had ATM. due to waiting to dine when the baby was in a good mood, so we only got that group three times but, They were the greatest.

 

I am glad to see that comparison with Disney. We have a 3 year old toddler grand daughter, and while she we would love. it,..my husband, who does donate to the casino....would not.

Your pictures this time are very clear.

 

We live in Jax. 4 hours driving like a bat out of you know where..does not sound too bad. .It is 3 hours from Jax. driving ordinary. ........We can make it back to Jax in six hours..from Ft. Lauderdale..........not even stopping for potty breaks.( Husband jumped out at the gas station across from the vets.)...if our dog is in the vets and we have to be back by 2..or he stays until Monday.

KEEP WRITING. An EXCELLENT Review. I am making noted of the things YOU liked to eat to give to my daughter. They are going with us again Next Spring break...on the Liberty! I am deciding on a five day or seven day

Edited May 24, 2014 by AmberTeka

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Some unique buildings

 

 

 

Are we there yet? We are ... almost ...

 

 

... and then we are in the Atlantic Ocean!

 

 

This is the best I could get of the sunset that day :-(

 

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And just like that, it is time to get ready for dinner. Here is a shot of the towel animal left in the room ...

 

 

... and a couple in the corridor where the stewards have been practicing :-)

 

 

We were assigned table 379 in the Silver Olympian Restaurant on the Lobby Deck (Deck Three). As our room was in the aft of the ship, it was just a couple of flights of stairs up. But, as we later learned, it was difficult to get to the lobby this way. One had to go all the way to Deck Five, walk across the cigarette smoke infested area surrounding the casino then walk down to get to the lobby for Guest Services/Shore Excursions.

 

 

 

We had a chick-pea based entree for dinner, which was the only vegetarian option of the night, but we were set for the rest of the cruise because we requested an Indian vegetarian option if available (and it was, of course) - we were pampered royally for the remainder of our time on the ship.

 

 

I, a melting chocolate lava cake virgin, opted for the tiramisu (an OK choice but obviously not the best). DD went for her favorite Apple Pie. DS went for the lava cake and suddenly, I was a lava cake virgin no more! Don't remember and can't tell by the photo what DW had.

 

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After dinner, I don't remember doing anything of note that first night. On the morning of the second day, I got up pretty early to watch the sunrise. It was the only day I could get a decent photo of the sunrise. I walked/jogged/ran about a couple of miles on the jogging track on most of the mornings. Here are a few photos of the sunrise, the jogging track and other folks enjoying the sunrise: