Liberty Report - Awesome Time

[Poohbeck]

This is my FIRST CC Trip Report. We just had so much fun on our Family Liberty cruise, I had to share. This was April Vacation for my kids and my nephew's kids. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Our cast includes, me, my DH, DS14 & DS12. Also joining us is my BIL, SIL, my SIL’s parents, my nephew, his wife and their DS5 & DS9. 12 of us all together. :)

 

Food – I have a severe intolerance to dairy. The pills do NOT work for me. At around 2pm on Saturday (embarkation day), my nephew’s wife and I headed down to the Maître D to sort out a dinner seating issue. I also wanted to talk to them about my dairy issue. They told us we had to keep our seating the way it is for tonight, but, they would fix it going forward. And, they did!

As for my dairy issue, the Maître D.’s assistant showed me on the menu what I could safely have for dinner that night and then a Hostess would meet me at dinner every night to pick what I would like for the next night.

And, just like they claimed, they did. EVERY night Natasa would come to our table during dinner and show me the next night’s menu. I would order whatever I wanted and they would fix it so I could have it. They even could make me Chocolate Melting Cake, which I ended up having EVERY night! Gosh I miss that cake; I wish I had ordered some “to go”. I have to say, the food was fantastic and I didn’t have a problem at all.

 

My whole table loved the food every night. Our table, well most of our table, enjoyed the “Didja Eva” appetizers every night which included shark, escargot, sushi, crocodile, frog legs… Everyone just raved about the food. How can you not like food you don’t have to shop for, put away, cook, clean dishes from, etc…

 

 

Me and Natasa

 

[Poohbeck]

Our Room Steward.

Wangi. She introduced herself to us, as "Hi, I'm Wangi, 1G, not 3G" We cracked up. She was the BEST

 

[Poohbeck]

Staff – This was only our 2nd cruise, we cruised on the Valor 2 years ago. The staff on this cruise was AMAZING!!! Our room steward was such a pleasure and thanked us for having such polite teenage boys. The staff at dinner was fantastic. We would see our dinner staff every day at breakfast and lunch and it was so nice of them to come up to us and say hi to us by name. I just don’t remember the personalization so much last time.

 

Faster to the Fun – I was so lucky to purchase this. When I originally started booking our excursions, FTTF was sold out, but a few months later I found some had opened up and I booked it. My SIL and Nephew also were able to book it before they were sold out again.

 

When we go to the cruise port, at 10:30am, there were not that many people there and we were thru the FTTF line and had our SS cards and were sitting by 10:45am. I know this had nothing to do with FTTF because we were so early, but, I was happy. We had Priority Boarding, so we now just had to wait.

 

No sooner did we sit down, my SIL and Nephew and crew showed up. They had a bit of a wait at FTTF, but, they were sitting with us by at least 11:10am; they also had Priority Boarding. We were on ship by 11:30am.

When we got to our room, it was ready! All of my gift purchases were they on the bed for my husband and boys. Yeah! We dumped our bags and went up to eat. By 1pm or so, we headed back to our room to unpack and our luggage was there. Nice.

 

FTTF also gives you a special line at Guest Services. We had to go down there twice and both times the regular line was HUGE. Both times there was no one in the FTTF line so I was able to get my assistance and be on my merry way - very quick!

 

We got in zone 2 for our tender at Half Moon Cay – I only wish there was priority for the ride back. J

 

When we got home to Miami for Debarkation, we got zone 1. We didn’t really need to get off the ship quick because our flight home was at 9:20pm. So, we got out of the room, went to the Lido for breakfast and by the time we were ready to leave, they were on Zone 3 and we just walked off. Nice.

 

Our luggage was tagged as Faster to the Fun. The porters saw us coming with my Boarding Pass out with the FTTF circle logo and immediately took our bags. :)

 

The line begins here:

 

Waiting for Priority Boarding to be called.

[Poohbeck]

Circle C and Club 02 – Our boys are 14 and 16. They had a BLAST when there were both in Circle C back in April 2011. They made so many friends and they still keep in touch with some of them via Facebook. I was a little concerned that this trip that their Clubs wouldn’t live up to the hype. I was pleasantly wrong.

They had a BLAST! The first night was their meet and greet and they had a lot of fun. From that point on, they were hooked. Some of the activities they did; karaoke, scavenger hunt, video games, deck party, late night sports, pool time, slide competitions, smoothie social, etc… Mostly, they would go to the club to see their friends and hang out.

My 16 year old was quite impressed with the Club 02 Director. She is from Serbia, can speak 5 languages and has her Doctorate in Art. He asked why she works here and she said to help her English and help her get into Art in the States.

My boys were out every night until 12:30am/1am with their Clubs. Some nights we were in the room waiting for them. We kept track of their activities and occasionally checked on them. We gave them a curfew based on the schedule and they were on time every night. One evening I made them come in at 11pm because we had an early port the next day. They were not too happy. I guess a few other parents did the same thing, so, they really didn’t miss much.

 

Again, they had so much fun with the Clubs and with the kids they met. They are both texting and FB’ing their new friends and hope to catch up with them again.

[Poohbeck]

Shows – The shows were OK. They were something to do for our adult nights. They were nowhere near Broadway quality, but, they were fun. We missed going to two nights of shows. One night I was exhausted and fell asleep at 8:30pm, the other night the show was GameShows so we skipped.

The comedians, on the other hand, were fantastic! We were able to attend of few shows and they were so hilarious. Two times we went and there were no seats and we had to leave. There was no way I could stand for the whole thing, especially with it being in the Aft and the bouncing of the ship.

 

In the end, I was pleased with the shows. If I wanted Broadway quality, I would have stayed home and gone to NYC.

[Poohbeck]

Hopefully I will have my some of my day-to-day trip reports ready tomorrow. I also just learned how to post pics. :) So, I am dealing with that too.

[FireMedT]

Thanks for sharing. I am looking at a Liberty cruise in October and would like to hear more about your experience. :)

[bandnurse]

Thanks!

 

My family and I will be on the Liberty June 8. While this will be our 4th cruise, we are still as excited as if it were our 1st! I have spent the last several months scouring the boards for anything and everything Liberty! Were you on the Eastern or Western Itinerary? Our previous cruises were all Western and this year we are going Eastern.

 

Really appreciate you taking the time to review and post the pics. I know how time consuming it can be. I look forward to reading more:)

 

Thanks Again!

:D

[Poohbeck]

It was Eastern; 0ur first cruise was Western. I think I like Eastern better, but, it could be that we had a group with us this time which made it that much better. :)

 

I'm trying to finish up some more and will post tomorrow.

Any you are correct, it is time consuming with the pics.

[Groliv]

Enjoying your review. We cruise on the Liberty on June 29th. We have western itinerary, and are excited! Did your boys have to get dressed up for dinner? My 17 yr old son does not like to get dressed up. Beige cargo pants and a polo shirt is about as fancy as he gets!!:rolleyes:

[Poohbeck]

Enjoying your review. We cruise on the Liberty on June 29th. We have western itinerary, and are excited! Did your boys have to get dressed up for dinner? My 17 yr old son does not like to get dressed up. Beige cargo pants and a polo shirt is about as fancy as he gets!!:rolleyes:

 

I packed beige pants, polo shirts and boat shoes for the boys for dinner. They never wore the pants. They wore their nice shorts, polo shirts and the shoes. By the end of the week I let them wear t-shirts instead of polo shirts and they were fine.

 

On our Formal Night they did wear a shirt and tie with black pants, but, I saw some teen boys in polos and they were fine.

[Poohbeck]

Here we go.

As a reminder, he is my cast of characters:

Our cast includes, me, my DH, DS14 & DS12. Also joining us is my BIL, SIL, my SIL’s parents, my nephew, his wife and their DS5 & DS9.

Friday, April 12th

Our cast includes, me, my DH, DS14 & DS12. Also joining us is my BIL, SIL, my SIL’s parents, my nephew, his wife and their DS5 & DS9.

Our direct flight (my family of 4 – the others will arrive tomorrow) to Miami left Bradley International Airport (CT) at 6am, so it was an early morning for us. We thankfully only live about 15mintues away from the airport so that was good. We left the house at 3:30am so we could drop off the car and take the shuttle to the airport. There were no issues and we were at the airport checking in by 4:05am. We got to our gate and then got in line for breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. I don’t think DD was expecting so many of us because they didn’t open until about 5:20pm and the line was HUGE. We all had a very quick breakfast, boarded the plan and took off. Vacation, here we come.

We landed at MIA at approximately 9am, got our luggage, got a taxi and were on our way to our hotel for the day and night. I booked us a room at the Casa Moderna in Miami near the port. It received mixed reviews on CC and Trip Advisor because of the bathroom. The bathrooms don’t have doors and the shower has clear glass doors. I reluctantly booked because my husband really did NOT want double beds and this was the only hotel I could find in downtown Miami that had 2 Queen Beds in the room. We figured we would make do with the privacy issue. Since we were arriving so early, I booked our room early arrival and confirmed it a week earlier. They had told me that there may be a charge for an early room, if they had any available.

We arrived at the Casa Moderna at approximately 9:45am and they had a room available immediately if we would pay an upgrade of $50.00. We were exhausted and both said “YES”. The upgrade was a suite which came with a King bed, a double bed for the boys and two bathrooms! We also had a view of the turning basin. Awesome!! We got to the room, then went to breakfast again and then headed to the room so we could all take a nap.

At about 1:30pm we went to the pool for the afternoon. The pool has a fantastic view of the Cruise Port and Turning Basin. There is a lot of construction across the way, but, it didn’t bother me. At around 4pm we watched a steady supply of cruise ships leave the Cruise Port. There is also a small cocktail bar near one of the pools that we purchased some adult beverages at.

The hotel was nice. I don’t think it was amazing; their restaurant was a bit overpriced and service was slow. But overall, we liked the room, the beds, the view and the location. There was a BP gas station one block away where we purchased our water bottles to bring on board, a replacement pair of sunglasses for my son (he left them at the restaurant) and some better coffee on Saturday morning. I would stay there again for these reasons.

For dinner that night we walked over to Bayside, we used the MetroMover for two stops because I have back/hip issues and didn’t want it to kick start. It really was close enough to walk though. We walked around, ate dinner at Bubba Gump’s and called it a night. Funny story…our last cruise left from Miami and we ate a Bubba Gump’s…we got the same table this time.

 

The view from our room:

A ship turning in the turning basin. That will be us tomorrow!

[TakeMeAway1001]

Great start, it's going to my turn next weekend :)

[inlinesick]

cant wait to here more!!!

[RubyChin]

Glad to see the review. My two sons (16 & 14 ) had a blast in the clubs. There 1am curfew left us waiting up a few nights also!

[trutojc]

Great Review

[Jeafl]

Looking forward to the rest!

[Poohbeck]

Glad to see the review. My two sons (16 & 14 ) had a blast in the clubs. There 1am curfew left us waiting up a few nights also!

 

We had such a hard time waiting up for them. :D If the club ended at 12:30am they had until 12:45am to get into the room, if it was 1am, they had until 1:15am. And they never complained when they had to get up the next morning to go into port.

[Poohbeck]

Saturday, April 13th

I was up at around 5am because I was just so excited. Everyone ended up waking up and we watched our Liberty come in to port and we saw a Disney ship turn in the basin. So cool. We were soooo excited.

 

We got ready, finished packing went to the longest breakfast ever at the hotel and then checked out. We took a taxi to the cruise port.

 

Once on the ship, we went to our room (FTTF), dumped our bags and headed to Lido to find our group and have some lunch. No sooner did we sit down, it started to rain, thunder and lightning. Noooooooo. We had a long lunch with our group of 12; we had our first Drink of the Day and relaxed.

 

We finally took off from the group to go to our room to unpack. I figured we should make use of the rainy/downtime. No sooner did we finish unpacking, the sun came out. We went to our Muster and then it was sail away. When out on the Lido for our sail away, the sky was clear and you would never know it had rained except for the rain puddles on the deck.

 

We had to leave the Sail Away early because I had the Kids Club signups at 5:15pm. I was having such a good time at the party and didn’t want to leave, but, the kids (teens) needed to be enrolled. They are not allowed to attend if they are not registered. No sooner did we finish that it was time to head to our 6pm dinner.

 

The kids then went to their Club and my husband and I went to the Welcome Aboard show with the adults. After that I called it a night.

Next up, Half Moon Cay.

 

Our first drink of the day, during the downpours!

[sds1arm2]

Excited to here more! Only 42 days left for me.

[Poohbeck]

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Half Moon Cay

I read a LOT of hype about HMC on the Cruise Boards, so I had high expectations. Well, my expectations were met and exceeded!

The four of us were up, got dressed, beach bags packed, had breakfast and coffee and were in line for our tender stickers at 8:30am. We were lucky because we arrived at port early and we were on the first tender out.

We picked a beach area close to the pier and shopping area. I have a bad hip/back, so I didn’t want to be traipsing too far. Plus, the kid’s water slide area was near to this and I figured my nephew’s 5 year old would like it. (I guess it looks better than it is) We saved enough space for 12 people, paid for 2 clam shells and started to relax. Within no time the rest of our families arrived. It was times like these though that we all missed our cell phones. We couldn’t just call them and tell them where we were. One of us had to stand guard and watch for the others so we could get our group together. But, on the other hand, it was SOOOO nice to not have the disruption of cell phones. I loved looking around and not seeing people’s noses in their phones.

What did we do at HMC? Well, we swam, stood in the ocean and talked. The boys rented tubes to relax in. The boys had their snorkel gear to discover with. They swam out to the water rafts and jumped and dived into the ocean. We ate and even had some adult beverages.

At lunch time we walked over to the dining area and there was a nice spread of food. The jerk chicken was great. There were also hamburgers, different salads, couscous, and lots of desserts. When lunch was over, we walked back to our beach area and did more of the same.

When I first started booking excursions, I tried to rent a cabana and they were all booked. I then periodically went on-line to see if any opened up and I had no luck. Well, I’m kind of glad we didn’t get one. I liked where we were on the beach and the clam shells were perfect to get out of the sun. I later heard that some people were complaining that the music on HMC was too loud, but, we didn’t hear any music where we were sitting.

The sun was pretty strong at HMC. My DS14 looked like he was starting to burn so I had him put on more sunscreen. When we got back on the ship, he looked like he had been spray painted red!!! We went to the store on the ship and got some Aloe spray and some 50 sunscreen for the rest of the trip. The 15 and 30 we brought were not cutting it for him. We were lucky because the next day he had tanned in, I guess it looked worse than it was. My SIL though burned the tops of her feet so back that they were turning purple and swelled so bad her ankles were swollen. By the end of the week they were doing better. Also, when I got home and re-connected with some of my roll call friends on another site, I found out two of the members got 2nd degrees burns on their legs from HMC. So, use your sunscreen!! We had a beautiful, cloudless day; perfect for a sunburn.

I learned later the ship store sold out of all their Aloe. The clerk said they sold out in one day and usually have enough supplies of Aloe on ship to last the week.

Dinner was wonderful and we were able to make it to the Family Friendly Comedy Night at 7:45pm and everyone enjoyed it. Then the boys went off to the Kids Clubs and the adults went to the Show and that was it.

Tomorrow is a Sea Day!

 

My Clam Shell at HMC. It must be pretty warm if I'm sitting in the shade. :)

My favorite picture of the whole cruise! Look at that water!

 

Our beautiful ship.

[riclop]

Thanks for the fun review.

[spacepotatoes]

Thanks for the review! Looking forward to the rest :)

[Poohbeck]

Monday, April 15, 2013

Sea Days are my least favorite day. I absolutely love Port days! I can’t say entirely why, but, we are a new cruising family and really love to sightsee on our port days.

But, this was a welcome break. Everyone in our 12 group got a little too much sun at HMC. So today, we slept in and then headed up to the Lido.

The kids went to their kids clubs and my SIL and I sat by the pool. The guys went to the Excursion desk to fix something, hit a few of the bars to sample some adult beverages and then offered to get us ladies lunch so we didn’t lose our pool seats. I do have to say though, there were no issues getting a seat by the pool. I’m not sure if it’s because of the new policy, or, everyone just had so much sun at HMC and decided to stay out of the sun. We watched the hairy chest contest and Cocktail contest; they were fun to watch.

Tonight is the first Formal night. My hubby and I made it to the room around 3pm’ish so we could start getting ready for dinner. I wanted to ensure we had pictures done at 5:30pm, before dinner. Hubby went down to the laundry room to iron shirts.

I turned on the TV to see where our ship was on the map and then channeled surfed to see what might be on the Network TV’s. Unfortunately the unthinkable had happened; news channels were covering the incident in Boston that had just happened. The four of us were then glued to the TV until dinner.

Everyone at our dinner table had heard about Boston, but, we didn’t want to scare the little ones, so we didn’t talk about it. For the rest of the cruise, we continuously turned on the TV in our room to catch the updates.

Then it was the same as every night on the cruise, the kids went to their clubs, the adults went to the shows and had adult beverages. This was our pattern for the rest of the cruise – kind of.

The Cocktail Challenge.

The Bananic Titanic Won! This drink was pure banana heaven.

 

 

On our way to dinner.

[momonthego17]

Great review! How much was it to rent a clam shell? My Dh and I are going to HMC and undecided about renting a cabana. Sounds like you had a great time at that port! Thanks for the info.