*LIBERTY* Review & Pics Galore! (9/4/10)

[shonandsuzie]

This furniture, curtains and bedding did not appeal to us at all on the reviews, etc that we checked out. We were thinking that it was OLD. But really, it's designed this way but very NEW. Nice, nice place.

We got settled in, took pictures and headed down to find out about the water taxi and breakfast. LeBonne Crepe was recommended for breakfast. It was a block away and delicious!

 

 

 

After breakfast we walked over to the water taxi stop and jumped on. For $15 you can ride all day long (up until mid-night). You can get on and off as much as you please. It takes you through the intercoastal area. The captain gives you a tour while you ride. He pointed out all of the HUGE houses and the stories that go along with each. We even got up close and personal with the Oasis of the Seas while taxi-ing through the water. We took the water taxi all the way up to the Galleria Mall. That mall is the bomb!!!!! Even the food court is fancy. And they really know how to do clearance sales! 70% off.

FYI--- I got 4 swim suits and a cover up for $100 total!!!

Later that evening we had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory which is right next to the Riverside Hotel and walked around outside a bit.

One of the water taxis:

 

Part of our hotel (the pool is right behind that fence btw) from the water taxi:

[shonandsuzie]

More shots from the water taxi:

 

 

 

 

[StingRaysfan]

Great Review... LOVE all the pictures! Quite a few of you have posted reviews and it seems that you guys had an awesome roll call!!! Glad you all had a great time!

[shonandsuzie]

SUNDAY--

 

On Sunday morning, we walked down to LaBonne Crepe again. Came back and began packing. We took great care in getting our 6 bottles of liquor packed within our existing luggage under the 50 lb allowance (more on this later).

Once that was done we checked out of the hotel and headed down to the Hard Rock Hotel/Casino. It was about 15 minutes from our hotel. We went in and took their money, had dinner and at about 5:30 headed to the airport to return the rental car and head home.

 

We have nothing but love for these people....

 

We need to try this pool area too...it's pretty.

 

 

 

 

Now for the end of the story......................................

So…we get up to the counter at the airport, The luggage weighs 51 and 50.5. The lady has us take out stuff until it said 50 and 50(which we did). Then she questioned the size of our STANDARD 19 inch carryon “rolly” luggage. She actually made Shon put each carry-on in the metal thing to be sure it would fit. She was quite rude. Was pointing with hands on hips and whatnot. She scared the crap out of the people behind us who were actually carrying OVERLY LARGE bags. (They got on with them, BTW). Just sayin’…..

It did not ruin our trip but that lady was mean. I think we’re just too cute and that made her angry.

The flight was fine then;

We get back to our home airport and call for our ride. We learn that our teenage son could not pick us up from the airport (in our car) because he had ran it out of gas. :mad: LOL....... Kids. We called a cousin to pick us up,went home smiling all of the way.

 

You gotta love a magnificent vacation to put life in perspective.

....... And life is good.

 

The End.

 

Hope you enjoyed! I am going to answer evey question, I promise!!! But for now...I need to eat and get a kiss from Shon who has FINALLY come home from work. I think they missed him! He didn't get to spend most of his work day playing with cruise pictures and writing cruise reviews like his wife! ha-ha!:p

[wildcatt99]

Thanks for a Super review!

[dane225]

Awesome review and pics!!!!:)

[Willbcruisin]

Excellent review and pics! I really enjoy every word and photo!

 

You guys are exactly the kind of folks we love to meet cruising and through CC!!

 

Thanks for sharing and happy cruising!

[Meyer2]

Wonderful review, beautiful pictures!! Glad you guys all had a great time!

[shonandsuzie]

love it so far thoses pictures of the pool are awesome! Did you save the fun times? I'm going to be on her in 10 days!!

I did save them initially but ended up getting rid of them when we were packing. Sorry.

They were much better this year, I thought. They said that they changed the design after marketers advised them to use much less wording.

 

Have a great cruise!!!

 

 

 

Before I forget again............

One thing that I forgot to mention in the review was the COMEDY CLUB/SHOWS. We were very excited that we would have a comedy club on the Liberty. We went to the R rated shows for the most part. Maybe we caught one PG one. We were sad because they didn't offer it every night though. That place got really packed each show so they should consider adding more.

[shonandsuzie]

This is a great review and fantastic photos!

 

You guys look like a lot of fun! :D

Thank you. :)

and Yup.....FUN FUN FUN!!!!!;):cool:

[shonandsuzie]

Great photos! Thank you for posting!

Thank you.

I have hundreds of pictures. It was soooo hard determining what would be too many or too few or which would be interesting to the most people... :confused:

[shonandsuzie]

awesome review...keep it coming! loving the pics. the end of the month and i'll be in double digits. :o

YAY! Double digits here you come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D I wish I were in double digits again too.

Thanks for the compliment.:)

[sharecruises]

Great review...looks like you had a really super roll call of folks

 

I loved Liberty also...I am going on almost this same trip on Glory in late Jan

but we don't go to Half Moon Cay, guess the HALs are there then LOL

Grand Turk looks really really nice however

 

Glad you enjoyed beautiful Ft Lauderdale...I have lived here for years and still am in awe of how nice it really really is:p

Las Olas area (where you stayed) is just great, very neat shops and restaurants, kind of "European" feel...Riverside Hotel is highly regarded,

it is old "style" furniture, looks like the 1930's or 40's I think but it is very updated and nice as you discovered, they just want to keep that "old Florida" look...kind of neat..and super location

 

The Water Taxi is the way to go ....:) so much fun

Next time you should drive out to Sawgrass Mills..huge outlet mall

shoppers paradise

another great place now is Gulfstream Racetrack..huge new mall, casino, all brand new...tons of clubs and restaurants there

 

Fort Lauderdale beach is also really beautiful :)

Thanks for the lovely pictures

 

PS...sorry those smokers above your balcony were so rude and stupid. Those jerks could have started a fire :eek:

[shonandsuzie]

I LOVE your review. Thanks for taking the time to post the pics, they make me wish my cruise was this Saturday. The pool at the Westin is amazing, love the pics.

Just glad Shon didn't have a U of M shirt on. Go Buckeyes:D

Well, we're both MSU alumni so you wont see yucky Maize and Blue shirts on our bodies. :p Although...I must say we'd pick UofM over Ohio State if those were our ONLY options.....he-he..:D

 

Yes, indeed. That pool area was awesome at the Westin. We spent a lot of time down there. The cool thing was that it wasn't too busy either. Must be this time of year is lower for them.

[shonandsuzie]

Wow. What a great review and beautiful pictures.

Thank you. :)

Loving your review and photos. I was on the Liberty last October and had a great cruise. Glad you had a good cruise.!:)

Thank you, hope your time on Liberty was as awesome as ours was!

[shonandsuzie]

Great review so far....I was going to correct you on the "Krogers"

haha....we have mostly Publix here, darn few Winn Dixies left

and very very few Albertson's

 

South Florida is the world of Publix :)

 

sorry to hear about your ticket...hope you fight and win !

Still can't believe I wrote Krogers. We dont even have Krogers around here. :confused: LOL. So funny because when I took the pictures of the store and the door Shon was like "Why are you taking those pictures?" I replied..."b/c I will definately forget the name." Ha! I was right! AGAIN.... ;)

 

We definately plan to fight the ticket but doubt that we'll win. Sucks. But "such is life" as my mom always says...

[shonandsuzie]

Great Review... LOVE all the pictures! Quite a few of you have posted reviews and it seems that you guys had an awesome roll call!!! Glad you all had a great time!

Thank you. And yes, this group was very fun. The roll call was super active for the past year which made the planning and anticipation even that much sweeter! Sgt. Jeff and LonestarGary did well organizing lots of activities and getting lots of people interested. Then lots of others brought up ideas and they took off brilliantly too. Fun times, indeed!:D Gotta love LOCOS.

[sassy_mrsjay]

Thank you so much! This was a wonderful review and I may have to try out Liberty.:):)

[Destiny2007]

AWESOME review!!! We leave in 17 days and counting!! I am already starting to pack!!!! The ship looks beautiful and the islands look amazing. We have previously been to St. Thomas and PR but I don't think you can ever go there too many times! You guys look like you had such a fun time I wish our roll call was a little more active!!!! How was the tender to Half Moon??? Did you get up early?? I know we did it last year for Royal but we waited until after the crowd to die down some. So are the comedy shows only a couple of nights throughout the week and where were they held??? Sorry for all the questions!! Also did you take any water/soda on board with you?

[shonandsuzie]

Great review...looks like you had a really super roll call of folks

 

I loved Liberty also...I am going on almost this same trip on Glory in late Jan

but we don't go to Half Moon Cay, guess the HALs are there then LOL

Grand Turk looks really really nice however

 

Glad you enjoyed beautiful Ft Lauderdale...I have lived here for years and still am in awe of how nice it really really is:p

Las Olas area (where you stayed) is just great, very neat shops and restaurants, kind of "European" feel...Riverside Hotel is highly regarded,

it is old "style" furniture, looks like the 1930's or 40's I think but it is very updated and nice as you discovered, they just want to keep that "old Florida" look...kind of neat..and super location

 

The Water Taxi is the way to go ....:) so much fun

Next time you should drive out to Sawgrass Mills..huge outlet mall

shoppers paradise

another great place now is Gulfstream Racetrack..huge new mall, casino, all brand new...tons of clubs and restaurants there

 

Fort Lauderdale beach is also really beautiful :)

Thanks for the lovely pictures

 

PS...sorry those smokers above your balcony were so rude and stupid. Those jerks could have started a fire :eek:

We have been to Sawgass Mills before and I surely agree that it was shoppers paradise!

 

I felt the same about the fire hazard. Scarey as heck to go out and see a frickin' match laying on our balcony. I had to get a little "Gully" on the dude (which embarassed Shon to no end) but seriously??? Who just does that?

[shonandsuzie]

Thank you so much! This was a wonderful review and I may have to try out Liberty.:):)

And we want to try out the Dream! ;):)

[shonandsuzie]

AWESOME review!!! We leave in 17 days and counting!! I am already starting to pack!!!! The ship looks beautiful and the islands look amazing. We have previously been to St. Thomas and PR but I don't think you can ever go there too many times! You guys look like you had such a fun time I wish our roll call was a little more active!!!! How was the tender to Half Moon??? Did you get up early?? I know we did it last year for Royal but we waited until after the crowd to die down some. So are the comedy shows only a couple of nights throughout the week and where were they held??? Sorry for all the questions!! Also did you take any water/soda on board with you?

17 days! LUCKY!

 

The tender was fine going to Half Moon Cay. Pretty quick plus a great chance to take pics of the ship and the island from different angles. Our group had rented that Private Oasis Grand Cabana so we had to meet kind of early in a lounge and then could tender before other passengers. (There was a problem with that process due to some miscommunication issues within our group-which is bound to happen with this many people) We still did not have to wait long for a tender and I was having my first cocktail on the Cabana at 9:45-ish.:eek:;)

 

I think there were 4 nights of comedy. :( Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Friday maybe...? Something like that. In the aft lounge on 5. Victoria's Lounge I think. (See this is why I need pictures...my old memory is terrible!!!:o)

 

Some in our group took soda and water. No problems with that. Now alcohol...ha-ha a couple of our people had big issues with that. And funny dinner stories all about it.:D

[ebonniekins]

I had the privilege of hanging out with Shon and Suzie (I was the friend in the orange in San Juan) and let me tell you, they are super fun to hang with. We really did have a blast on the is cruise.

 

Suzie I loved your review and I hope to get a chance to cruise with you and Shon again real soon!

[shonandsuzie]

I had the privilege of hanging out with Shon and Suzie (I was the friend in the orange in San Juan) and let me tell you, they are super fun to hang with. We really did have a blast on the is cruise.

 

Suzie I loved your review and I hope to get a chance to cruise with you and Shon again real soon!

Thanks cuzz. ;) You better be careful what you wish for..you'll look up and see me and Shon on your Liberty cruise next year, too!:cool:

[iwannacruznow]

Great review,wonderful pictures.Just one question.That nice young man you were with,how does he put up with your constant whining?