Carnival Liberty 3/22-3/29 2015 Repositioning Cruise Review

Crusin Karen · April 16, 2015

We were on the Liberty in January for a B2B. Have loved ALL the ships we have sailed on, but I have to say, this was probably our favorite! Thanks for sharing your cruise with us.

SugarStar00 · April 18, 2015

Disembarking

The dreaded day had come and it was time to leave the beautiful Liberty. We had FTTF so we were given the number 2 tag to get off the ship, the first group to follow the self assist people. The estimated time we were to be called was 8:15 but they didn’t call us until about 9:00am. Since we were staying in San Juan we weren’t in a huge hurry but we skipped breakfast on the ship and were going to get something in Old San Juan. Once our zone was called we headed down towards the gangway and the line was backed up two flights of stairs. On our way out we passed several Carnival staff members checking and rechecking our customs forms. It took almost an hour to get from the stairs, off the ship and into the customs building. I heard other people complaining that they paid $50 to be able to get off the ship early and quickly (FTTF) and how ridiculous this was. Other people worried about missing early flights. I’d have to agree it was the longest debarking I’ve ever encountered. That said, we’ve always stayed on the ship as long as possible because we usually have a late flight, this was our first time ever getting off early. As we entered the customs building it became evident what the problem was- nobody was following the rules! There were people from any and every zone in line. I suppose if everyone tries to get off the ship at once, delays will happen. I think this is a huge failure on Carnival’s part; instead of checking the customs forms 3 times, maybe have someone checking zone numbers and redirecting cheaters and line skippers back to their waiting area. Annoying but whatever, at least I wasn’t going to miss a flight, just breakfast. So once we got through customs and outside it was just after 10am.

San Juan Post Cruise

We stayed overnight at the Sheraton in Old San Juan directly across from the pier. We wheeled our luggage down about 1 block, crossed the street and were there. Our plan for the day was to do a hotel day pass at the Marriott Stellaris Resort Hotel and Casino, for one last relaxing beach day. I had called the Marriott that morning from the ship and was told I had to buy the day pass on the website “Resort for a Day”.com. I was able to do it on my phone, and it required a $25.00pp deposit. We were able to “pre check in” at the hotel and check our bags with them. They also had computers with a printer available right in the lobby so I could print out my day pass info. Since it was getting a bit late, we decided to skip breakfast and just head to Marriott to make the most of our day. I was getting a little shaky from not eating yet, so we grabbed a muffin at the hotel’s little café in the lobby, before grabbing a cab right outside. We arrived to the Marriott about 10:45am. Once we were there we showed our confirmation, paid the balance (total for the day pass was $75pp with a $10pp food/drink voucher) got four towels, food vouchers and headed to the beach. The grounds were very beautiful with lots of palm trees and two pools, one with a swim up bar and a slide. There were many lounge chairs available around the pool, but we wanted to be on the beach one last day. We were looking for available chairs, and eventually figured out we had to ask an attendant to set up chairs and an umbrella for us. We did so and of course had to tip him. A waitress brought us a menu for drinks and lunch but after almost and hour never returned to take our order. Just around noon the sky turned black and it started raining. It was the only rain we saw all week so I couldn’t complain. I quickly ran up to the patio to see if we could get a seat up there for lunch and we were sat right away, plenty of seats! We had lunch and a couple of good drinks under the patio while the storm passed. It cleared up after about an hour and we were good to go! We sat around a bit longer, ordered another round of drinks, went for a walk and then packed up around 430. Seth had to practically carry me off the beach, I just didn’t want it to be over. Outside the Marriott we again got a cab almost immediately back to our hotel. We officially checked in and they brought our bags up to our room about 20-30min later. While we were waiting for our luggage I looked for a place for dinner, we decided on The Parrot Club. We had eaten at Barrachina’s the last time we were in San Juan and wanted to try something new. I’m so glad we did because it was amazing! It was about 2 streets behind our hotel (I was surprised at how well I remembered my way around from a few years ago) a very short walk. It’s a little on the smaller side and there seemed to be a lot of big parties. I was worried we would have to wait a while but luckily there was a table for 2 open. Our waiter was very attentive and polite, he provided excellent welcoming service. We ordered several Martini’s each (so yummy!) and an appetizer of steak empanadas. I ordered the plantain crusted seared Mahi Mahi which was more amazing than I thought. It was very crispy on the outside and had tons of flavor. It came with mashed yucca which looked like mashed potatoes but was much heavier and stickier. Delish. Seth ordered some sort of chicken served over mofango, he enjoyed it very much as well. We had two more martini’s for dessert and then headed down to watch the Liberty sail away. A few years ago we were able to sit in front of the Sheraton and have a drink but this year the restaurant was closed so we just walked across the street and watched from up close. Sad to see her go off with her new family, but neat to watch. We wanted to have one more drink before heading off to bed and actually had a little trouble! The burger place was closed, so we tried Senior Frogs, but sat down at a table for almost 15 min an no one even brought us a menu (they were cleaning up but still open for atleast another hour) so we just decided to leave and try another place. We walked around where I knew a few restaurants were and only one sports bar type place was open, we sat at a table outside and ordered two small fishbowls. They were enormous! We sat for over an hour trying to finish them, the waitress could tell we were getting tired so she offered to put the rest of our drinks in a to go cup-how nice! So we sipped them on the way back to the hotel and then crashed for the night.

The next morning we had until 11am to check out, so we took our time. We walked over to Starbucks and grabbed some breakfast and coffee and went back to the room to repack our luggage so it wouldn’t be over weight. We had to shuffle a lot of stuff around because we both were right at the 50lb mark. Thank goodness we invested in a $7 luggage scale this year because we’ve had to shuffle our stuff around in the airport once and that’s not fun! Once again we checked our bags at the front desk because our flight wasn’t until 6pm. We just wandered around Old San Juan for the afternoon and had a nice quiet lunch outside at Toro Salao again. We ate there last time and really liked it so thought we’d go again and it was just as good. We walked around more after lunch and realized it had suddenly gotten much more crowded, with tours of people all over the place. As we headed back to the hotel to get our luggage and a cab we saw that the Valor was in town! I wish I had known it was coming in I would have liked to watch it. We headed to the airport around 4, once again no problem getting cab, and it was only about a 10min ride $25 plus tip. We had an easy check in with Jet Blue and our bags were perfectly weighted. There is one extra step when you leave from San Juan, before checking your bags you have to go to a separate area for agricultural inspection. It took less than 2 minutes, there was no line. You plop your bags on the belt, it goes through the machine and they put a sticker on it giving you the green light. Easy peasy. On our way to the gate they make you walk through the duty free shop, and their tactics worked because I bought two bottles of Bacardi (13.99 each and 25% off the second bottle). They even give you a great little carrying case for it. Our flight went off without hitch and before we knew it we were back in the freezing cold northeast.

Hotel room at the Sheraton ry%3D400