Carnival Liberty Eastern Caribbean review 4/26 - 5/3

[ptn]

This is my review for Carnival Liberty Eastern Caribbean 4/26 - 5/3. I try to get this review out while the detail is still fresh in my memory. I’ll post pictures later. The followings are my opinions about my experience so please feel free to disagree or ask questions. I want to thank the members who put up reviews and tips which I use to plan this trip. Hopefully, you’ll find my review just as useful.

 

Background: our group has a total of 14 people, 8 adults and 6 kids. I go with my wife and 2 daughters (age 5 and 4). The others are my parents-in-law, my wife’s sister family: husband and son (age 8) and daughter (age 5), my friend’s family: a couple with daughter (age 10) and son (age 8). We (except my friend’s family) did the same itinerary 2 years ago. We loved Half Moon Cay so much that we decided to do it again. I researched and planed shore activities so that we could do them by ourselves. With 6 kids in our group, I want to have the flexibility and not to hurry our kids to meet to tour group schedule. We all booked this trip last October. We all started with interior rooms then the price drop enough to cover OV upgrade. My friend and I decided to upgrade while the rest of the group stayed with interior rooms and put the difference in OBC. Then the upsell fairy hit me and my friends. I didn’t bite but my friend upgraded to Spa level balcony room for an additional $300.

 

Pre-cruise: my wife and I tend to get really busy before our vacation so she enlists her Mom to help us. She stayed with us for a week before the departure and that was big help. We didn’t have to worry about cooking our meals and cleaning up. We just focus on wrapping things up at work and packing for this trip. We were really thankful for that. We left Portland, OR on Thursday night on a red-eye to Fort Lauderdale via JFK. My daughters are used to sleeping on red-eye flight so it’s not a big deal to us. JetBlue allowed 1 free check in for each passenger so we took advantage of that since we brought our diving gear and underwater camera and camcorder systems. Those have to be carried since they are fragile. We also brought along 2 carseats since we’ll be driving in San Thomas and San Juan so I didn’t want to rely on rental car company for carseat. All the flights were on time so we got to FLL around 9:40AM. I rented a minivan from FOX then drove to Comfort Inn and Suites, Miami Airport North. I chose to stay there since I had to return the van at MIA the next day. This hotel has free shuttle to MIA and POA. There weren’t many restaurants or shops within walking distance so you’ll need a car to get around this area. I asked for an early check in but there was none at the time so they told us to wait. We waited for a little bit and we started feel hungry since it was almost noon. I asked them to store our luggage so we could go out for lunch. Luckily, they ran out of storage room and a room became available so they checked us in. The suite has plenty of room for 5 people with 2 beds and a pullout couch. By the time we finished lugging our luggage to our room, we were hungry. I drove to Little Haiti, to try out Fiorito restaurant. This Argentine restaurant has really good octopus, short ribs, ceviche, empanadas, sausages and flan. After a really good lunch, we went back to our hotel. Everyone felt tired so kids and adult went down for a nap. We woke up in the afternoon and went to South Beach. We parked in a parking garage about 2 blocks away then walked to Lummus Park. We played in the sand and water until it was dark then go eat dinner. We went to Jamon Iberico Pata Negra. This was a little gem, tucked away in a condo building with nothing nearby. We had the Iberico cured pork, broken eggs, octopus, roast suckling pig in juice, paella, and flan again. It was a great meal and the chef came out to chat with us a little bit. We loved this place and wished we could come back. It was 11pm when we left the restaurant. Tomorrow is embarkation day.

[cruise luvr]

Can't wait for more! I would like to do the Liberty Eastern in the fall.

[Jimmy Geegitz]

Hey a Liberty review!! Nice finally! Been awhile.

[wantocruisemore]

Excited to read the rest of your review!

[destaw7182]

Great review so far! I can't wait for more.

[APDMOM]

I'm reading too! 4 weeks until we board :)

[Jamman54]

Looking forward to the rest of your review and pictures. We board the Liberty for the first time in August.

[092306]

Good start, looking forward to the rest and pictures!

[Beth]

Did you have the new menu? How did you like it? Thanks Beth

[c&d]

We were on this cruise, we had the new menu, I was not that impressed with it, Chicken every night, pork chops 4 nights, Prime Rib twice, only 4 main entrees to pick from, in my opinion very limited choices, upside is you can pick side dishes. Desserts were not that great, had to ask for ice cream not on menu, no cappacino pie, or bitter n blanc, had a pie every night but had to ask what it was.

[mnsawyer]

We were on the Liberty - my husband and I really enjoyed this cruise - loved the itinerary and four ports in 7 days - HMC and Grand Turk were new to us - beautiful places - HMC food was very poor - only negative part of the cruise in our opinion

 

We thought the dining room choices were a lot better than a year ago - we enjoyed the dining room for dinner and breakfast - food much better and atmosphere much more relaxed than lido food - we did eat at the Mongolian Wok a few times and enjoyed it very much

 

Service was good and our wait staff excellent - we tried lots of dishes and the only item I did not like was a dessert on the final night - otherwise, we liked everything but are not picky eaters

 

We were on the Lido deck in a lovely balcony cabin - our zone was not called on Saturday am until 9:15 so that was much later than we expected but we were in no rush - enjoyed our balcony and the room steward did not ask us to leave

 

Sorry if I am highjacking this thread but would be more than willing to answer any questions

 

Plenty of deck chairs - very few children on this cruise - we sailed much later than we typically do - we are usually late March but this time it worked out well for us especially with the long, cold winter

[Itzmyn]

We're from Portland, Oregon too, and thinking of taking Liberty to Southern Carib. on Jan. 16. Flying in Winter is always "iffy" due to the weather and possible cancellations, and the red-eye on Jet Blue is something we've looked into. Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[APDMOM]

Where did you go? :confused: Anxiously awaiting more :D

[AZmike480]

Looking forward to the review. We did this cruise in December and loved it.

 

AZmike480

[jamon]

Can someone who has recently been on Liberty tell me about the bands that were on the ship. Carnival ships use to have a house band in addition to a duo or trio. Did they have a band on the ship??? What was their name... thanks

[ptn]

Sorry for the long delay. Working, triathlon training, prepare my daughter for her first recital have taken up all my time the last few weeks. Here is the next chapter of my review

 

The hotel provided free shuttle to POM so it was easy. One week before our departure, I got an email from Carnival telling us not to come to POM until 1pm due to new custom procedure for ship coming back from Belize. However, the hotel arranged shuttle for us around noon so we went and expected a long wait. To our surprise, the check-in process was painless. After security process, we waited in line for 5 minutes then Carnival staff checked us in. After that we boarded the ship right away. The whole process took less than 20 minutes.

 

All of us were hungry at this point so we went to Lido deck for grab lunch. Guy’s burgers, burrito from Blue Iguana Cantina, fish ‘n chips, fried oysters were delicious. After lunch, our room was ready so we headed down to our room and store our luggage. Some of our check-in suitcases had arrived so we unpacked them and settle in. Soon after that, muster drill began then we left Miami for open sea.

 

Room review:

We were glad that we got the OV room. Our daughters loved to climb up to the window and lay there. They either pretended to sleep or pointed out stuff they saw through the window. They also loved the bunk bed which became their play structure when they were in the room. Room steward did a good job keeping the room and bathroom clean especially after Grand Turk since our dive gears were spread all over our room to dry out. We gave him extra tip at the end of the trip for his effort.

 

Food review:

We always ate breakfast in the dining room except for one morning. It gave us time to chill and it was a nice way to start our day. We ate lunch at Lido deck buffet. Guy’s burger was my go-to item for lunch. Everyone was able to find what they liked. The line at the Mongolian Wok was always long. The new diner menu was ok. It wasn’t better than the old one I didn’t have any complain as I was able to find what I want to try during the trip. Most of the time, I tried port of call menu since I’d like to try new stuff. Formal night dinners were very good. I still enjoy the lobsters and jumbo shrimps. Dessert selection was kind of limited. I don’t cruise often but I can see the quality starts to go down a notch or two. However, I don’t see an increase in ticket price after all these years so I think it’s a way to keep the cost down. Does it compare to a nice restaurant in Portland, OR? No. Is it good for the price that I pay? Yes. It was good but not great.

 

Nice touch: Carnival gave us two free alcohol drinks in the sea day brunch. Since I didn’t drink I gave them to my father-in-law and he loved it.

 

Our waiter always brought us extra food that we didn’t order. He always said “Try this”. Some of his recommendations were spot on.

 

My daughter turned 4 on the second day of the cruise. I ordered a chocolate cake for her and the price was really reasonable, $15 for 10-inch chocolate cake. 14 of us couldn’t finish it. Our waiters sang to her and made her feel special. She loved every moment of it.

 

Things that have changed: no more free cappuccino after dinner. I had no problem getting free cappuccino after my meal on my previous 3 cruises but no more this time.

 

Wait staff seemed to be busier during dinner time. They didn’t have time to talk with us like they used to. They worked really hard and did a great job taking care of us for a week so we gave them a little extra for their tips.

 

Ports review

Half Moon Cay: this port was the reason why we chose this itinerary and it didn’t fail us. It rained a little bit when got to the tender but stopped shortly after. For the rest of the day, it was alternating between sunny and cloudy. The sand was like powder and the water was crystal clear. We got cabana #15 which was the furthest one. It was nice and quiet just the way we liked it. The kids were having the blast playing in sand and water. My oldest daughter started to collect sea shells. My wife and I decided to search out a good snorkeling spot and we headed to the rocky tip at the far end of the island. That led to a comical turn of events.

 

As we walked toward the far end of the island, we passed a horse stable. We talked among ourselves, “Wow, this is cool”, “Yeah, this is where they take people on horseback riding excursion”… After reaching the end of the island, the snorkeling was not that good either. We gave up and decided to walk back to our cabana then my wife had a brilliant idea, “Why don’t we swim back?”. Both of us are strong swimmers so it’s not a problem for us swimming a mile or so. We headed back in the water and started swimming back. The water was calm. We were about 25 yards out, hugging the shore as we swam. It was a great swim. Suddenly, we were in the middle of a mine field made of floating horse poops. I had to swim over to alert my wife since she didn’t notice it yet. Her reaction was “Oh my god, eww eww eww …… This is disgusting. Eww eww eww ……”. We swam so fast to get back to the shore and saw more horse poops on the sand. The moral of the story is “Don’t go down in the water near the horse stable”. Other than that, it was a perfect day at Half Moon Cay.

 

St. Thomas: we were the only ship in port and it was nice since there weren’t a ton of people like the last time. My family wanted to go back to Magen Bay and my friend’s family wanted to go with us. We rented 3 cars from Budget, just right off the Havensight dock. I wanted a minivan but they didn’t have any so we all squeezed in two cars. I didn’t want to rely on small rental car place for car seats so I brought my daughters’ car seats with us.. Driving in St. Thomas is pretty easy since you can’t go more and 35mph anyway. We drove to Drake’s seat to take pictures of Magen Bay and iguanas hanging out on the tree branches below. We like Magen Bay because of calm wave and clean facility. There was a fee to get in but it was worth it. I talked to a lifeguard and the good spot for snorkeling was the rocky point on the right hand side when you facing the water. Unfortunately, I took my family to the left side so there wasn’t much to see. The kids had a great time again playing at the beach. There was a restaurant that sold foods and drinks. My daughters collected more sea shells. We loved watching sea birds dove into water to catch fish. It was a nice day at Magen Bay.

 

St. Juan: we saw all the forts two years ago so we decided to go El Yunque rainforest. Hertz rental was in Sheraton hotel, just across the street from the ship dock. I got a minivan this time so my parents-in-law were comfortable in the back seat. The rental van and cars were equipped with E-Z pass to go through toll road. It came with a fee but it was worth it since we didn’t have to wait at the toll booth. It’s about 45 minutes from Old San Juan. We visit the Visitor Center to get a map. Park rangers showed us where the attractions were. We also saw a movie about El Yunque rainforest which was nice and informative. My mother-in-law and my friend had heart condition so hiking was not an option. We drove to the waterfall and it was not that impressive. Oregon is the land of waterfalls and I’ve seen many of them so my expectation is high. The waterfall was small and didn’t have a lot of water. We continued drive further up to see the tower. We walked to the top of the tower to see the beautiful view of the surrounding. After that, it’s time to leave so we drove back down. There was a small restaurant and gift shop on the right hand side as I drove down. We stopped for fresh coconuts and food and the kids as they got hungry. The coconuts were just ok, not as sweet as SE Asia coconuts. I was kind of disappointed with El Yunque. I think the best thing about El Yunque is hiking. If you’re there for a few days, hiking to the waterfall or to the top of it will be awesome. It’s not worth it to go there for a few hours then hurry back to port. Hence I don’t recommend this activity if you’re in San Juan

 

Grand Turk: my wife and I planned to go scuba diving so our family would watch our daughters while we were gone. I booked two tank dives with Blue Water Divers. We took the taxi to town and the driver dropped us off at Blue Water Divers. Pierre was our guide and took us to our boat. I asked him where were the rest and he said that just two of us today. Wow, we never dove with just two of us and a guide before. That was really nice. The reef was really healthy. There were plenty of small and medium fishes. I was hoping to see some shark but we only saw a small nurse shark. Pierre explained that they had been killing lion fishes which were invasive species. Our last dive site was Coral Garden. At this site, there were two medium size groupers that followed us an entire dive like puppies. It was really cool. Groupers are not shy but I’ve never seen anything like this. Later on, Pierre told me that they fed these groupers lion fishes that they killed so they learned to follow divers. Blue Water Divers was awesome. Highly recommended if you want to snorkel or dive in a smaller group.

 

After two dives, we got hungry so we walked down the street to find conch. We went to a restaurant but it was close. We continued walking and ran into some wild horses. They were pretty cool. We still didn’t see any conch restaurant after walking for a while. Luckily, a taxi went by and asked us if we wanted a ride. We told him that we wanted conch so he took us to a street. There were a few stalls/restaurants. The restaurant had conch cracker but no conch salad so I ordered one to go. Then we walk to a stall across the street and she had conch salad so I order two to go. The taxi came back and took us back to the cruise center. We found a spot at the beach and ate our conch cracker and conch salad. That was really good. If you want good conch in Grand Turk, ask your taxi driver. We said goodbye to Grand Turk and headed back to Miami.

 

Ship review is next.

[ptn]

We liked Liberty ship. We stayed in room 2355 and we liked its location. This sounded funny but my wife liked that fact that it was near the laundry room. The ship always looked nice and clean. We could see the crew working hard to do maintenance work. As we disembarked, we saw the crew sanding benches around the aft pool and other major works.

 

After St. Thomas, we saw a Coast Guard helicopter flew close to the ship. We didn’t think much about that. A moment later, everyone was up the top deck to witness the rescue. A passenger was injured and needed to be air lifted. The ship was slowing down but still moving. The wind was blowing like crazy. The helicopter cautiously moved closer to the ship to drop the basket. It took a while but they finally got the passenger on the helicopter. As it flew away, everyone on deck gave an around of applause for the job well done. It was amazing watching that. My hat was off to the men and women who served our country.

 

This was the first time we sailed in April and it was a pleasure. According to our cruise director, there were between 300-400 kids. She said there were over 1000 kids on the ship few weeks earlier during spring break. I also noticed a more lay back atmosphere. People were having fun but less rowdy.

 

Camp Carnival: my daughters (2 and 4 years old at the time) didn’t want to go to Camp Carnival at all in our previous cruise. They were 4 and 5 this time and they looked forward to go to Camp Carnival. We were pleasantly surprised. The staff did a great job of keeping them entertained. We enjoyed our kid-free time. We never use the service in the evening so I couldn’t comment on that.

 

Entertainment: we went to several shows. The two main shows: Legends of Rock ‘n Roll and Around the World were the same show at I saw on my first cruise 10 years ago. This time around, my daughters were old enough and they really enjoyed it. I heard rumor that Carnival would cut these shows due to their cost. That would be a shame. The juggling comedian was really good. My wife, her sister and my friend went to several late night comedy show and they enjoyed them. I didn’t do since I had to stay back and worked with my daughters on her homework. I rewarded her with ice cream on the Lido deck when she was done. Her little sister enjoyed late night pepperoni pizza. I don’t think I’ll have problem to go in the middle of school year in the future.

 

There was a band in the hallway near casino that sounded pretty good whenever I walked by. Because they were close to the casino, we didn’t stay long because of smoking from the casino. There was a 2 person band in the lobby but I didn’t spend much time there. Up on Lido deck, there were 2 singers taking turn. Sometimes, they played together. They were entertaining enough for me whenever I hung out there. The rest of the time, a DJ played music.

 

My daughters loved watching movie on Lido deck. My older one loved the water slide. She could go on it for hours with her cousins. I wished that they would keep orange juice and apple juice throughout the day instead of just for breakfast. Lemonade was available all the time. The crew was always nice to my daughters and they had a blast

 

Seven days went by fast. Disembarkation was painless. We used Jiffy Jeff Transportation to take us back to Ft. Lauderdale. Jeff called us at 7am to check on us to figure when we got off the ship. After getting our luggage around 9am, we waited about 10 minutes and Jeff’s van arrived to pick us up. The van was nice and clean. Drive was polite and helpful. It was $13/person from POM to Ft. Lauderdale and it had to be paid in cash. No credit card was accepted. I recommend his shuttle service. The driver took us to Rodeway Inn and Suites where I reserved two dayrooms since our flight was not leaving until 5pm. The room was clean but old. However, it was a great value at $50 and it had two double beds. We were able to lay down and took a nap. The hotel also had a restaurant and we got pizza for lunch. At 2:30pm, the hotel shuttle took us to Ft. Lauderdale airport and we were ready to go home. So we thought.

 

Next, the unexpected excursion

[ptn]

After debarkation, we wait for 10 minutes for Jiffy Jeff Transportation to take us to Rodeway Inn and Suites. The driver kept in touch with us while we were waiting and gave us ETA. I would use Jiffy Jeff again. By the way, they only take cash.

 

We got to our room around 10am and just laid around to rest and relax. The hotel and room were dated but clean. For $50, it was a perfect place to rest instead of hanging out at the airport. At 2:45pm, we took the hotel shuttle to the airport. At this time, it was raining hard, really hard. Several streets were flooded. Our shuttle driver had to drive around to find a safe way to get to airport. We checked in our luggage and were informed that our flight was on time. We were waiting around and the gate agent announced over PA that our flight was approaching and would be on the ground in 5 minutes. Five minutes later, the gate agent announced over PA that control center just informed them that our flight would be delayed for 1.5 hours. Passengers from another flight to Lima, Peru were instructed to board at our gate. After pressing by passengers, the gate agent admitted that our flight was on time but they decide to use it for the Lima, Peru flight which was delayed due to weather. We would miss our 9pm flight at JFK. Since it was a once a day flight, we would have to wait until 9pm Sunday to fly out of JFK back to Portland, OR. We have two options: stay in FLL and repeat the same thing tomorrow or taking the delayed flight to JFK and waited for the 9pm flight to go back to PDX. I opted for the latter one because I wanted to get one leg of the trip out of the way.

 

We got to JFK around 9:30pm and I went to talk to ticket agent to ask for hotel. At first, they refused to give us hotel room and blamed it on the weather. I had to tell them that our plane was on time but they used it for another flight. They checked their record and confirm that our plane was switched. At that point, they offered us 3 rooms since there were 5 people but I only took 2 since our kids were small enough to sleep with us. They also re-book our tickets for tomorrow flight. We got to our room around 11:30pm and everyone was exhausted. Luckily, the hotel had take-out menus from several restaurants nearby so we ordered some food then hit the sack.

 

I woke up early the next day then went down the talk to hotel front desk staff to ask for the late checkout. The latest they would allow us was 1pm which still left us 6 hours before we had to go to airport. Then I had an idea of going to the Statue of Liberty since my mother-in-law had never been to NY and my daughters had learned about it at school. The staff told me that they had storage room to store our luggage until we came back. That solved my problem. I told my family about my excursion plan and they were really excited about that. We took the hotel shuttle back to JFK then took the subway to Manhattan then took the ferry to see Statue of Liberty. We had to skip the Ellis Island since I didn’t want to cut too close. My daughters and my mother-in-law were happy to see the real Statue of Liberty. We also saw the Freedom Tower peeking out of Manhattan skyline. We got back to our hotel with time to spare, picked up our luggage then take our luggage to JFK. We finally back to our home at 1:30 Monday morning and that was the end of our trip. I had 5 hours of sleep before waking up the get ready for work. Sometimes, life gives you a lemon. You just have to make lemonade out of it. Thank you for reading.