Liberty 11/18 4 day review from a younger perspective

[Jared100]

Hello,

 

I recently sailed on the Liberty 11/18-11/22 to Nassau and Freeport. I wanted to write this review because I don't often see reviews from people in their 20's, and I wanted to be able to contribute to this great sub.

I am 24 and was sailing with my 21 year old girlfriend. We live in Jacksonville and this cruise worked perfectly with my off days of work (Sun-Weds). We came back on Thanksgiving. This was our second cruise together and first together on Carnival. This was my first Carnival cruise since I cruised the Liberty in 2008.

 

Embarkation:

We parked at a nearby shuttle lot, and were shuttled 10 minutes to the port. This was our first cruise with the new embarkation process, and it was extremely easy. Our check in time was 11:30 and we got there at 12:05 so we had to go into the "Early/late" line, which was still very fast. We were on the ship within 10 minutes probably. The staterooms were ready by 1:30 and we then went to the life jacket drill which is still outside, but luckily didn't require actual wearing of the jackets. Unfortunately a girl next to us passed out hard and started seizing, but the staff was very quick in getting the situation taken care of. Still it was a scary start to the cruise.

 

Ship

:The ship seemed to be in fine shape. I am very familiar with this layout and it never felt very crowded. Our favorite spots were the Alchemy Bar, and the lunch restaurants. There is no actual comedy club on board, they have it in the Victoria Lounge in the aft. I had never used a ships Gym before but I somehow worked out on the first day, and it was really nice. I enjoyed the steam room and sauna as well to sweat out all the prior days alcohol.

 

Room

: We were originally in an inside room, and were upgraded to an OV on the same deck, 1, a couple of days before the cruise. The room was very nice and I had never been that low to the water before! Our steward, Michael, was amazing. He was probably the best I have ever had. He was so friendly and always visible and always called us by our names when he saw us in the hallway. We told him we only needed him to come in the AM but he still tidied up the room at night too. He worked very hard as most of them do. On the last night he kept all of our towel animals together and then built a towel heart around them, something I had never seen before.  I was very surprised at the quality of tv entertainment in the room. We don't spend a huge amount of time here, but some nights we were in early and there was always a premium movie or two on.  The rotation on the free premium channel included Coco, Ready Player 1, Wrinkle in Time, Pitch Perfect 3, and about 3 others. TBS and TNT also showed good content generally, although sometimes repetitive.

 

Cheers

: We both bought cheers this cruise, but I don't think I would again. While I was able to normally drink enough to break even per day, (roughly 5.5), my girlfriend was not. We did take advantage of the free powerades and premium iced coffees, which come with the package and that was nice. But next time, it would probably be cheaper just to pay per drink.

 

Bars/Bar Service

- I was astonished at the number of people walking around the pool area taking orders. This is something I thought had gone away with the times, and people had to just go to the bar to get a drink. It was a pleasant surprise. The Blue Iguana had an AMAZING frozen Guava Margarita. It was probably the best pool drink we found. The bars were never very crowded and the servers were good. I do hate how the cheers package comes with 18% prepaid gratuity, because I feel obligated to tip when i get the drink anyways, which i did, normally $1 a drink. This makes me feel like I'm double tipping somewhere in the 30% range. I did not feel like the drinks were strong and I don't think i got very buzzed. Perhaps it was because of all the food I ate!

 

I would say the best place for drinks is the Alchemy bar. I had never been to a mixologist before and it was so cool. I did not get anything off their menu but instead always challenged them by giving them vague descriptions. One time, I told the mixologist to make me the most popular custom drink she had made of the day. She told me she had just started and the guy next to me was her first drink. I told her to make that then! I normally HATE Bourbon and Whiskey, so when i saw the receipt said Buffalo Trace, I thought I was in trouble. BUT DANG!!! it was so good. It was very fruity and I hardly noticed the Bourbon. I would proceed to order random things in this manner. CAUTION: the only time i was not able to finish my drink was when I told one of them to give me something to go to sleep. Well they poured straight Bourbon in a martini glass. I think it was because they knew I hated it, and that is Eastern European sense of humor! But overall Alchemy is the place to be! Even if you like girly fruity citrusy drinks like me, or strong drinks.

 

Entertainment

- I was pretty dissapointed when I saw our CD was not Donkey, who I had heard great things about. He had just gotten off and we had NoNo. She was okay, but I wasn't blown away. We did not play Bingo or trivia this time. We did see alot of the shows, and i was really happy about them. The Playlist Production team was fantastic, and they were really nice too. We ran into them at Alchemy one night and had a pleasant conversation, and they even remembered us the rest of the trip. The two shows we saw were Flick, and the 80s rock show. I really liked Flick, I thought they nailed all the major movie songs I could think of. The "movie magic guy" who runs around all crazy doing random crazy things was hilarious to me.

We also saw the Love & Marriage show which was always was great! No quest this time which was sad, but I know its more of a RCCL thing.

 

The Comedians were not very good. We had two, Rob Little and I forget the other guy. Of the two, I saw 4 shows, and the second guy was funnier than Rob, but neither was very good and relied more on the audience than a set routine it seemed like. I also was not a fan of the Comedy Club Manager David from Atlanta.

Casino was good, I did not win but I taught myself Craps a few days before so i could play on the ship. There were alot of families on the ship due to holiday so the casino was hardly crowded at night and did not make for a very social venue.

 

Food/ Service.

This was the only place I would ding Carnival. We went to the main dining room the first night with YTD, and it was AWFUL. We had a two top next to 4 huge tables with the same head server. Were talking like 10 tops or higher. The guy was way to overwhelmed and never came and greeted us. Eventually our order was taken, and it was very small, just chicken breast and another entree and an app, and it didn't come for almost an HOUR. By the time it came the server actually told us "Sorry its slow but IT IS WHAT IT IS". I couldn't believe he actually said that. Very unprofessional and we did not stay for dessert or come back the rest of the cruise.

We loved Guys and Blue Iguana, especially the fish taco was my favorite. I did not get a burrito. The food in the buffet was okay, but the CAKES!!! the cakes were awesome. I heard this is new, and Carnival should definitely keep it. I normally love to eat on a cruise as i LOVE food, but i think because I got the Cheers package, i was kind of deterred from eating as I wanted to be able to utilize Cheers and not feel sick. Kind of sad I didnt get to enjoy the food as much, but as I stated earlier next time i will not get Cheers.

We did not get room service. We did do the seaday brunch, which was awesome, and the food came out in 5 minutes! I ordered the Filet and scrambled eggs and it was super good. I would recommend.

 

Ports-

Nassau- We just walked to Junkaoo beach this time. Previously we had done the day pass at Breezes, but we opted not to spend that $ since we bought cheers. The walk was further than I thought, but i was actually plesantly surprised at the beach. I had heard it was not a very nice beach, but we found the water to be beautiful. There were only 2 other ships in port so it wasnt very crowded. We did not like the locals peddling their goods and services but that was unavoidable.

Freeport- HUGE SURPRISE! We didn't have high hopes for freeport after reading alot of reviews, but it was our favorite day. The port is in an industrial area so there is not much around the area, and everything must be reached via taxi or shuttle. However, they have a taxi stand with predetermined prices which made things super easy. We went to Taino beach, which was $7 pp per way. It is a private beach club, where for $5 you get access to the facilities, free paddelboard and kayak usage, and a beautiful beach with crystal clear (but rocky) water. The towels and chairs were very cheap, and they also had plenty of food and drink options. We rented a locker for $12. There is a inflatable water park free to use for kids, and also ziplining, jet ski, and banana boat rentals are available.

We were blessed because once a week these local guys who do the Banana boats and happen to train local dolphins, come to the beach and do a free show. Normally you have to take a banana boat to see the dolphins. The show was amazing, it was just like at an aquarium, where the guys were in a boat blowing whistles and telling them to do tricks. It was nice knowing they were wild and not captive, and we happend to be on paddle boards at the time so we were really close!

I highly reccomend Taino Beach in Freeport

 

I apologize for any grammar/spelling/capitalization mistakes at the end, the post was longer than i thought it would be! I think that about covers the trip but please let me know if you have any questions I am more than happy to answer! If i can think of anything else I will add it!

 

Thanks,

 

Jared

Edited November 30, 2018 by Jared100

[silvercrikhix]

Thank you for your review from the viewpoint of mid 20’s something!  

‘I don’t see much difference from an age perspective here though. 

‘Now, if you had done some crazy adrenaline excursion...that would be a change not often seen. 

Glad you enjoyed your cruise..... what’s not to like, right! 

[Jared100]

2 minutes ago, silvercrikhix said:

Thank you for your review from the viewpoint of mid 20’s something!  

‘I don’t see much difference from an age perspective here though. 

‘Now, if you had done some crazy adrenaline excursion...that would be a change not often seen. 

Glad you enjoyed your cruise..... what’s not to like, right! 

We definitely live pretty tame lives, but I know that in my case, researching cruises it is hard to find anything from people my age. Hopefully others will now have something to go  off of 🙂

[Jared100]

Internet Package:

We bought the social media package for $36 and it was a waste of money. We only did it to keep our snapchat streak of over 700 days alive. The speed of Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat was so slow it was unusable.

[pcvtmom]

Thanks for your review!  We might give Taino Beach a try next time we're in Freeport.

[jennmaybe]

Where did you guys eat dinner since it wasn't in the MDR?  Buffet?

[sizleen515]

16 hours ago, Jared100 said:

I would say the best place for drinks is the Alchemy bar. I had never been to a mixologist before and it was so cool. 

 

I would assume that Katsiaryna (Kat) and Tatiana were still there as we just got off the LIberty on the 15th. They were by far the best mixologist's we've ever had. Kat's dry Russian sense of humor was the hit of the bar and we spent every night there, along with many other "regulars" who we got to know quite well. We even were lucky enough to be invited to the mixology class and received our certificate for mixology haha

 

Oh what i wouldn't do for a spicy chipotle pineapple martini right now!!

 

[Jared100]

6 hours ago, jennmaybe said:

Where did you guys eat dinner since it wasn't in the MDR?  Buffet?

Tried to time it so that I had a large lunch of Guy's and Blue Iguana around 3 pm and then a light dinner at buffet and deli, with maybe late night pizza

 

5 hours ago, sizleen515 said:

 

I would assume that Katsiaryna (Kat) and Tatiana were still there as we just got off the LIberty on the 15th. They were by far the best mixologist's we've ever had. Kat's dry Russian sense of humor was the hit of the bar and we spent every night there, along with many other "regulars" who we got to know quite well. We even were lucky enough to be invited to the mixology class and received our certificate for mixology haha

 

Oh what i wouldn't do for a spicy chipotle pineapple martini right now!!

 

It sounds like the same girls! The drinks were great and their Eastern European personality was funny. I asked one of them from Belarus to give me something that reminds her of home, and she said all we have is potatos, so I will give you potato vodka (titos). I told her its okay just make something creative with it

[kelbell]

Thank you for the review.  Can you tell me what parking lot company you used? And 

how was the shuttle service picking you up at the end of your cruise?

[Jared100]

8 hours ago, kelbell said:

Thank you for the review.  Can you tell me what parking lot company you used? And 

how was the shuttle service picking you up at the end of your cruise?

I'm pretty sure it was called Cruise Time. The lot was pretty sketchy but it was fine. The return service was easy and went well. We did self departure so we walked to the pickup spot and the shuttle was already there waiting. We sat for 10 minutes waiting for another family and then we were taken back to our cars.