Carnival Liberty 12/18-12/24 review

[pjhootch]

Carnival Liberty review, December 18-24

Just some thoughts:

Embarkation: This was a bit crazier than I’ve experienced before. Getting through the terminal itself and checking in was no worse than before. There were lines of course but they moved at a decent pace. However, getting INTO the ship was a bit longer than I’ve waited before. Once we got to the deck (Deck 3 Main Lobby), the lines stretched double all the way to the ends of the deck in each direction. They seemed to move at a snail’s pace and when it started raining the poor folks on the outer edges of the doubled up line got a bit damp. From arriving on deck 3 and getting into the main lobby took about an hour. Once inside however, we went straight to the Lido deck where waiters were handing out champagne. By that time it was much appreciated J

Sea Days: No more tea time. There were plenty of things to do and people seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was still ice carving and the basic contests and games. Chairs were available around the lido deck if you wanted… but it is usually too crowded there for me. We did notice the buffet lines for food were sometimes quite long, and we never did figure out why. The buffet food was quite decent. I think there were fewer selections than on our last cruise but there was still plenty of variety so it was all just fine. My husband and our table mate waited for an hour in the Mongolian grill line. Not exaggerating. I gave up and was headed to the room by the time he got his lunch. He really liked the food but he never got in line again.

Dinner Time: We had late dining and very nice table mates. Excellent wait staff and assistants. The whole dining room experience was very enjoyable and our service was great. The food was very good. We were on the Victory last year and there were a few misses with the food on that holiday cruise. We found no misses at all this year. Our waiter was very good about explaining the portions and making sure everyone had enough of what they wanted. The prime rib was great, lobster small but tasty and the food was always hot when it arrived.

Random Observations: The ship was always clean. Okay… I stay out of the Lido pool bathrooms because of past cruises (grin) but everywhere else was clean, all the time. Our room steward did a good job. He seemed to repeatedly come to our room when we were getting relaxing before dinner. I guess he figured we’d be out doing something at that time. Not a big deal, he was very polite and always came back after we left. The piano bar was decent and Brad was entertaining. There was a great singer in the main lobby most evenings, a wonderful band playing Latin music, and a guitar player doing a solo act that was pleasant if not sensational. Sometimes he was very good when he mixed things up a bit. There was a band called Blood Power that was kind of excruciating when they played Rush or Queen, but manageable when they weren’t being too ambitious.

Ports: Cozumel- we had a great day but went off on a motorcycle excursion that stayed away from all the crowds. We’ve done the beach before and since the weather didn’t look to be overly warm, decided to do something different this time. I have to say I was really relieved to be out of the crush when our little group of 6 bikes would pass the tour groups of 20 or more jeeps or dune buggies. Yikes. Wonderful day all in all. Easy on and off ship that day. We were scheduled to leave port fairly early and were supposed to be back on the ship by 3:30 (may be off by half an hour or so). At a few minutes to 5 they paged 5 passengers by name. I went out on the balcony and sure enough, there were a handful of people strolling down the pier with shopping bags. We left port over an hour late that evening after waiting for the slowpokes to return.

Grand Cayman- beautiful and relaxed beach day. We just took a cab to Calico Jacks and spent the day drinking and hanging out by the beach. The water was a bit chilly for my husband but I loved it. We didn’t bother renting chairs or anything because it turned out to be a very short day. There were well over 10,000 cruise ship passengers in port that day. The ship’s announcement informed us that since we left Cozumel late, it would delay our arrival in Grand Cayman by an hour, and they would extend our last tender time to give us an extra hour or so. Unfortunately the tender situation went completely crazy and naturally, folks that had Carnival sponsored excursions were given priority. I felt bad for the folks that had independent excursions booked because it probably threw a wrench in their plans. We were going to just hit the beach so we waited until about 10:00 to get a tender number (as the Captain requested of people). However, that didn’t work out very well since we were on tender 21 of at least 38, and although we were given our number at 10:00 a.m., we didn’t actually get into a tender until 12 noon. Our table mates said they were watching the tender process from their balcony and that right at the beginning of the tender process, a large tender pulled up, loaded three photographers on, and took off without loading anyone else. Getting back on in GC was just about as difficult. With so many ships in port people couldn’t find the correct line. We nearly had an insurrection in our line a few times when people would just stroll into the front or the middle of the line, ignoring the winding mess of folks behind them waiting for tenders. It took about an hour to get back on board, and we had given ourselves enough time that we weren’t trying to just jump on the last tender.

Jamaica- this was the best weather of the cruise. It was warm (about 79), the water was pretty warm, the Red Stripe was cold and people were enjoying themselves. We took a shuttle to Doctor’s Cave Beach (we stopped in Montego Bay) and spent the late morning and early afternoon there. We did rent chairs there and the view was beautiful. No vendors on the beach to speak of. A couple of guys came in from the water but they were pretty unobtrusive and didn’t bother people. After the beach we strolled down the “hip strip” for a while and shopped for t-shirts and odds and ends. No hassles- at least not anything that bothers me. Everyone wanted to braid my husband’s hair since it is very long and he keeps it in one braid. Nobody was aggressive about selling weed or braiding and we talked to a few people out on the sidewalk and everyone took “no-thank you” very gracefully.

The only issue we had in Montego Bay was right at the pier, so just a word of warning about Montego Bay. From the ship you are not allowed to walk down the pier to the main port, but have to take a shuttle from the disembarkation point. Our shuttle driver kind of gave us the taxi driver shuffle, and took us right out of the main gate. Some of the passengers on our shuttle were a family group looking to do a tour. They were trying to find out from him where they could arrange that. Instead of dropping us off in the main area where they could negotiate with drivers, he cut a deal with them and without telling any of us what he was really doing he drove us straight past the main port area, got onto the road to town and then pulled over and waited for a buddy of his to show up so he could offload the tour group directly onto his friend’s bus. Problem is, there were others who wanted to get off at the pier and had plans. There we were, stuck on a shuttle where the shuttle was not supposed to be, with no way to just walk back in through the security gates. He did make a U-turn and took us back inside the port area to let us off, but by that time we had been on the shuttle for over 45 minutes, just to wind up back where we should have been nearly an hour earlier. That got under my skin a bit, but mostly because I figured out what was going on just a little too late to save us an hour of down time, and it was too late to speak up and get everyone in an uproar when there was nothing to be done but wait it out.

Overall it was a great time. There were 1300 children on board, by the way. There were certainly a lot of kids around, but mostly I saw kids that were just excited to be on vacation and having a great time. There was the normal silliness you see sometimes, like the one woman in the lido hot tub one evening with her baby (YEP- too young to walk) and 8 other kids that were jumping, splashing passengers and dunking each other. Amazingly, they had that hot tub all to themselves! I did witness a really funny moment with the club O2 teens one evening. There were about 20 of them sitting on the promenade outside the club room. I walked by just as their “leader” caught up with them. He was addressing them because they apparently hadn’t waited for him and he’d been looking all over for them. They clearly had given him the slip and had been out doing something without him for a while. All the kids looked about 16 or 17, and here was this poor little guy in a funny shirt and a clip board and the illusion of control. It would have been perfect if he was wearing a beanie with the little spinner on top. They weren’t being mean to him, but it was obvious they found him fairly irritating like a little gnat. They were giving him a hard time like teens do to someone that talks to them like elementary school kids. The kids were all polite and never caused a problem, they were just hanging out and having fun.

[daddybuff]

Thanks for the great review. We sail the Liberty in Feb. One thing I did want to ask, was Montego Bay on your original itinerary because we are suppose to go to Ocho Rios

[pjhootch]

Daddybuff,

 

Yes, we were scheduled to go to Montego Bay instead of Ocho Rios. I have been to Ocho Rios before and you can have a really good time there if you do a bit of homework first. We found Ocho Rios not to be as easy to just stroll around and vendors seemed a bit pushier there. If you are looking for a tour guide there I can recommend someone we've used before that does a wonderful job.

 

A lot of the really popular tourist activities are actually in the Ocho Rios area, so I noticed many of the Carnival sponsored excursions on our Montego Bay stop, included 1.5-2.0 hours of driving. When you stop in Ocho Rios those excursions are only minutes away.

[XCruiseMe17]

Who were the Maitre'D's on the ship?

[pjhootch]

Who were the Maitre'D's on the ship?

 

Constantine and Elvis. We never saw Elvis as we were in the other dining room.

[Brandonlees]

So is the free champaign a new thing? This is the 2nd or 3rd time i read about it. When we went on the Dream back in october I don't remember seeing this. Or is it just the liberty? We are going on the liberty in 1 1/2 weeks and I was just wondering.:D

[Manatee Mom]

We had a great time. Decided to stay on the ship at Grand Cayman for all the reasons you mention. See part 2 for the sarcasm about the # of ships in port.

 

Part 1

 

Part 2

[XCruiseMe17]

Constantine and Elvis. We never saw Elvis as we were in the other dining room.

 

Thank you! =)

 

Im sure I met Constantine, but I cant recall what he looks like. Elvis is pretty cool he was our Maitre'd in November! Im cruising Liberty again March so I was just wondering. Thank you!!!

[spideyfam]

Sorry about the trouble with the taxi. I think I would have complained. Never been to MoBay, but have been to Ochos Rios 3 times. Sounds more complicated than it needs to be. But I am sure they have thier reasons.

[pjhootch]

We had a great time. Decided to stay on the ship at Grand Cayman for all the reasons you mention. See part 2 for the sarcasm about the # of ships in port.]

 

Yes Grand Cayman was insane. I like your video! We still really enjoyed the beach day even though it was shorter than planned. I was ready to throttle the folks that delayed us leaving Cozumel, however.

 

The champagne may have been flowing because this was "sort of" a holiday cruise. We disembarked on Christmas Eve. I can tell you that after standing on the deck for an hour waiting to get on board, the free champagne was just what the doctor ordered. I've never guzzled champagne while eating from a buffet before, but I sure did that day. :D

 

I thought briefly about complaining about the shuttle driver in Jamaica. Decided it would require me to remember sticker numbers or plate numbers and since I can't remember what I had for breakfast these days, nixed the thought. It was an inconvenience for sure, but if it was the worst thing that happened on the cruise I can live with that. What irked me was that it wasn't supposed to BE a taxi. ;) The driver was just supposed to take us from the disembark point to the terminal and let us off. No one had a choice about riding since it is required when you get off the ship. Oh well. I learned to be as alert in a shuttle from the ship as I normally would be in a cab. It isn't usually easy to fool a couple of New Yorkers but we learned our lesson!

[jdfsaints]

Thank you! =)

 

Im sure I met Constantine, but I cant recall what he looks like. Elvis is pretty cool he was our Maitre'd in November! Im cruising Liberty again March so I was just wondering. Thank you!!!

 

He reminded me of Mirko Cro Cop, a Croatian UFC fighter.