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Liberty 3-day Trip Report with Pictures


CruisinCrow
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I'm posting more of a journal than a review but since there aren't a lot of reviews on Liberty, I hope some people will find it helpful. For background, my husband and I are in our late 40s. Really, really late. :) We take mostly short weekend cruises and leave our long vacations for land-based trips. This was a low-key cruise for us because I've been having some medical issues for the past few months. We were just happy to have a change of scene for a few days!

 

Here we go...

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Port Canaveral

 

We were supposed to be in Cancun for Cinco de Mayo, not the Bahamas. But between all the doctor appointments and not knowing how I was going to feel on any given day, I didn’t think I was up for the logistics of airports, layovers and a week away from work. So we cancelled our trip to Mexico and booked something simpler - a 3-day cruise on Carnival Liberty out of Port Canaveral.

 

We checked in at the cruise terminal just before boarding started at 11:45 and didn’t have to wait long before we were on the ship. First stop was the aft bar on Lido Deck to purchase the soda package for Ron and a “welcome aboard” mojito for me. Vacation starts when I have my first mojito. :) Now what was for lunch? Liberty had plenty of options. In addition to the usual buffet, there was a Blue Iguana Cantina, which served tacos and burritos, and a Guy’s Burger Joint. We’d never been on a ship with either a Blue Iguana or a Guy’s Burger so I was looking forward to trying them both. We decided on Guy’s Burger first. Ron had the “Straight Up” burger (with lots of jalapeno peppers from the toppings bar) and I had the “Chilius Maximus”. Yummy!

 

Fortified with cheese, grease and rum, we were off to explore the ship. The layout of Liberty was very similar to Carnival Victory. But while Victory had a water theme with seahorses and mermaids, Liberty’s theme was “Great Artisans and their Works”. There were lots of wrought iron pillars along the Promenade Deck walkways and an enormous wrought iron chandelier with color-changing lights on the ceiling of the atrium. It was pretty in a Carnival-ship way. I especially liked the lights.

 

Atrium

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Promenade

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Normally on the first day of a cruise, I run all over the ship taking pictures of anything and everything. Eventually, Ron gets tired of following me around and parks at a bar until I’m finished. :) But I really wasn’t feeling all that energetic this time so we just took a quick tour of the main public areas before heading to our cabin to relax. We were actually lucky to have a cabin at all! Since we booked the cruise at the last minute, the ship was almost full. When we checked for availability, there were no balcony cabins left and only three oceanview cabins. We’d planned to go through American Airlines since we had a credit from cancelling the Mexico trip, but by the time we’d gone through the whole booking process online, we found out that we couldn’t use the credit for a cruise AND they wanted to charge a processing fee. So we started all over on the Carnival website, but by then all the oceanview cabins had been snapped up. We checked balcony cabins one more time and, lo and behold, one cabin had opened up! The last cabin on the ship. It was definitely not in an ideal location – directly across the hall from the aft staircases and underneath the 24-hour pizza station. But we had a cabin! And a balcony!

 

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Sail away was at 4 o’clock. The Lido Deck was crowded for the sail away party so we opted to watch from our balcony. On the way out of the channel, we passed the large barge that SpaceX uses to land their rockets after a launch. That was pretty neat! In the distance, we could see the launch pads at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. One day I would love to be at the Cape for a rocket launch. We can see the contrails from our coast but it would be amazing to be up close.

 

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We had passed the jetties and were heading out into the open ocean when the ship slowed to a stop and suddenly a bunch of brown mud stirred up from the bottom. Ron commented that the captain must have turned on the thrusters to hold the ship in place while the pilot got off. But after several minutes, we still hadn’t moved. Hmmm… We decided to go up on deck to find out what was going on. There were a few other people at the back of the ship looking down into the water so we went over to join them. From that vantage point, we could tell what had happened by the trail of mud. The ship had turned south and out of the channel before it had passed the last set of channel markers and had run aground. The captain was trying to wiggle us off the sandbar but we weren’t making any progress. I thought, “Well, this might be our shortest cruise ever!” Fortunately, we were still close enough to port that we could be towed back before we ran out of food and alcohol. Priorities, right? :)

 

Finally after about an hour, the captain managed to maneuver the ship enough to get us into deeper water and we were once again steaming towards Nassau. Ron and I guessed that 95% of the passengers never knew there was a problem. Most people were partying by the main pool or had gone inside to get ready for dinner and didn’t even notice.

 

Speaking of dinner…because we’d booked last minute, the only dining option available was late seating. Ugh, I hate waiting till 8:15 to eat. Plus since I wasn’t feeling 100%, I really wasn’t looking forward to holding up a conversation with a table of people I’d just met. We took a peek at the menu posted outside the dining room and nothing on it looked enticing enough to be worth the hassle, so we ate dinner at the Lido Restaurant instead. Ron picked up some vegetable lasagna and salad from the buffet while I ordered a sushi roll from the Sushi At Sea counter. Apparently, Sushi At Sea was just added to Liberty in the past few months. It offered four different kinds of sashimi for $1.50 each, as well as rolls for either $5 or $7.50. I had the spicy tuna roll and it was pretty tasty.

 

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We spent the rest of the evening in Czar’s Palace Casino, playing Black Jack at one of the $6 tables. The dealers were a lot of fun and we ended up playing for almost two hours. The pit boss even offered everyone at our table a free drink, which I don’t think has ever happened to us on a cruise ship before! That was a nice surprise. By the time we were ready to head to bed, I was up $50 and had added a new $1 souvenir chip to my collection. Yay!

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Thanks for the review and updated information on the ship. We sailed on her for the Christmas Holidays last year, getting off the ship on Christmas, and spending the day in Disney before driving home (30-40 minutes from the port and Disney). We're booked on her again for the end of June, which will be a birthday and graduation celebration. We decided this time it'll just be us, no family or friends, just time to kick back and relax and enjoy the weekend getaway.

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I'd love to read more. Is "Donkey" still the cruise director? He was great in March. I will be sailing the liberty again in June with my son. We are so excited. Did you try the steakhouse? Also what dive in movies are they playing these days. Any excursions?

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I'd love to read more. Is "Donkey" still the cruise director? He was great in March. I will be sailing the liberty again in June with my son. We are so excited. Did you try the steakhouse? Also what dive in movies are they playing these days. Any excursions?

 

Yes, Donkey is still the cruise director. We didn't eat at the steakhouse because I wanted to try out the new (for us) dining room menus. If it had been a longer cruise, we would have.

 

I believe the movies change each month. Someone recently posted the June movies but I don't remember what they were. You could do a search. They showed odd movies on our cruise - Nacho Libre for Cinco de Mayo and Sea Biscuit for the Kentucky Derby. I think they normally play more current ones.

 

Have a wonderful cruise with your son!

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On to Day 2...

 

Nassau

 

In the morning, we pulled into Nassau Harbor right on time, despite our little detour on the sandbar. Our plan for the day was to get a day pass at Sandals Royal Bahamian. It’s funny how even when Ron and I choose a cruise over an all-inclusive vacation, we still end up at an all-inclusive. :) We decided we’d take a taxi to the resort since that would be quicker and easier than taking the bus, but when we got in a taxi we found out it would be $25. Eek! Prices had gone up!

 

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Soon we were driving up the long flower-lined driveway to Sandals. It was great to be back “home” again. We were there for a week in 2009 and things hadn’t changed much since then. I did notice that they had toned down the pastel blue and yellow paint with more muted colors. And the Manor Building where we had stayed (now called the Balmoral Building) had been remodeled, with balconies added to the oceanfront rooms.

 

It was 11 o’clock by the time we got checked in so all the chairs around the two main pools were either occupied or marked “Reserved”. Fortunately, I remembered that if a reserved chair wasn’t used by 11 o’clock, it was up for grabs. Goodbye “Reserved” sign, hello Susan’s toosh. :) Our chairs were in a great location close to the activities pool’s swim-up bar, where we could watch the staff organizing beer-drinking games. We spent the day just relaxing – Ron mainly hanging out at the swim-up bar while I alternated between reading on my lounge chair and floating around the pool or the ocean. We had lunch at the Royal Cafe, the open-air restaurant between the two main pools. Of course, I had to order a Dirty Banana. No one makes Dirty Bananas like Sandals!

 

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