Carnival Liberty Southern Caribbean review with pics (Aug. 2-9, 2015)

[Stinger-pr]

Question? Was there a Sushi resturant on the Liberty?

If I recall correctly there was a sushi tasting or something like that at some point at one of the outlets but no dedicated sushi place. I wasn't really looking for this so maybe someone else can chime in with a better answer.

[Stinger-pr]

Day 2: St. Thomas

 

I got up early because I enjoy watching the ship make port early in the morning. This is one of the most beautiful ports in the itinerary, especially under the morning sun. My daughter was still asleep so I went up to Lido and then up to Panorama deck and boy was it windy!! The wind was blowing very strong and I worried for a moment that due to the wind and the previous (not sure if resolved) thruster issues that Liberty had we would be able to dock without assistance, but sure enough we did.

 

 

 

 

 

We got ready for breakfast and headed for the buffet. Breakfast was good taste-wise but temperatures varied between the things we put in our plates. For example, my scrambled eggs were hot but my sausage was cold and freakin’ hard! Bacon was also a bit cold. My daughter had French toast and liked it so let’s call it a draw.

 

 

 

Having been in St. Thomas a few times before, but not having seen enough of the island I wanted to so something different from my last visits. Feeling confident enough I could drive on the left side of the road with a left side steering wheel I decided to rent a car for the day and venture off. Heck, I drive in Puerto Rico every day; St. Thomas cannot possibly be any worse!!! Anyway… The plan was to snorkel in every island we visited and what better place to start out than in St. Thomas?

I did some research and ended up renting a car with Avis. St. Thomas Car Rental Tips of the day: 1) Do your homework folks!! To book with Avis you gotta search for “Avis St. Thomas” because I couldn’t find a way to book from their main, US site. 2) Avis does NOT make “holds” or charge “security deposits” UNLESS you don’t buy any type of insurance (I booked through one of the big travel sites because their insurance was cheaper than Avis’). 3) There are discount codes out there. Find them… Use them!! The lady at the counter didn’t even move to inspect the car. I did a video walk-around on the car before even opening the doors. They didn’t inspect them either when returned. BUT… your millage might vary. No extra, ghost or hidden charges were later discovered on my credit card. It was a pretty painless experience. I had booked to pick up at 8:30 and by 8:45 we were on our way. The Avis office (basically a small wooden room with A/C) is in the Al Cohen Mall parking lot across the street from Havensight Mall.

Off we went to nearby Pueblo supermarket to buy ice for a collapsible cooler we had brought, some soda and snacks (I got two Carib beers… drank at the beach). I set my smartphone’s GPS to Coki beach and followed the instructions. **St. Thomas Driving tip of the day: Learn to use and love your GPS (I had pre-programmed the day’s destinations prior to arrival). Road signs in St. Thomas are mostly done for reference to locals and you can miss some weird-angled turn points in a blink of an eye. Keep an eye open.**

 

[Stinger-pr]

St.Thomas Cont...

 

We got to Coki beach, paid $5 for parking behind the shacks near the entrance to Coral World, grabbed our stuff and headed to the beach. We were quickly approached by people renting chairs, snorkel gear and selling food and drink from the different shacks. We had brought our own snorkel gear for the trip and a beach blanket (standard beach gear in PR) so we were going to just lay in the sand when not in the water. We found an empty spot between chairs, set up and in the water we went. BTW I don’t know if we were just too early (got there around 9:30am) but there weren’t that many people the whole time we were at Coki. As you can see, beach chairs line most of the water’s edge area. We were never told anything by anyone or frowned upon for taking up space between chairs. But we never really intruded on anyone anyway.

 

 

 

First impression was OMG!! The water here was so freakin’ clear!! I don’t think I’ve see water so clear in Puerto Rico. And soon after came the fish. And bunches of them!! They were every where and did not really care too much about mingling with humans because they swam around you and come very close. I had forgot to bring dog treats from home to hand feed the fish but as you can see, other people did not forget. They really eat out of your hand (try bringing bread or dog snacks as in the picture below). The best place to snorkel was on the right side of the beach near the rocks and Coral World. We ventured of into deeper water to see if I could see one of the rumored, elusive stingrays and lo and behold there it was!! First time for both of us seeing one. We also saw a hilarious scene straight out of Finding Nemo where a small crab, claws pointing up was “fighting” with a fish that refused to leave it alone…lol!

 

 

 

 

The water was very calm and it was an amazing experience for us both. We stayed until around 11:15am, packed up and headed to Sapphire Beach. And if you have followed the St. Thomas board on the “Ports of Call” area you know there are some good and bad reviews for this place.

[Stinger-pr]

St. Thomas Cont...

 

Sapphire Beach

 

My experience at Sapphire Beach was mixed but not negative by any means. When I arrived I noticed the parking lot and adjacent grounds needed some overdue upkeep. Yes, there is a part of the structure that’s “closed for renovations” but from what I’ve read, it’s been like that for quite sometime now. You get to the beach walking in between two of the buildings. And what a gorgeous beach it was. Yes, there was some Sargasso on the beach but there were workers cleaning it up in parts. This is a problem to most beaches exposed to the Atlantic ocean so folks, for those that complaint about it, don’t. It’s a naturally occurring phenomenon that’s all over the place. We were right besides this “dive” shop where they rented all kinds of water toys and chairs and sold different kinds of beers.

 

 

 

 

 

We set up our blanket and stuff nearby in some shade as it was already high noon (look for the blue Carnival towel on the picture looking at the beach from the water) and in the water we went. And to tell you the truth we were kind of let down. There was noticeably more currents in the water (although it isn't that apparent in the pictures) and in places it got murky due to this. We snorkeled for a while over some sea grass patches to the left of were we set up camp but VERY few fishes showed up so we moved towards the rocks on the right side. I don’t know if it was the currents or the sun or who knows what, but we mostly saw medium to large school of very small fish. Nothing to get exited about, really. My daughter and I swam around a bit (for about 45 minutes) and decided to call it quits. That’s too bad. But maybe we had too high expectations after being in Coki beach just before coming to Sapphire. I know some people say this is a good snorkeling spot but maybe we just didn’t have any luck that particular day. I’m not saying that Sapphire is no good. It was... We still enjoyed Sapphire very much. It’s still is an amazingly beautiful beach. But our experience that day could’ve been influenced by the winds in the area (it was more windy than other places), especially out at sea where wind pushes currents and waves toward the coast.

 

 

 

[Stinger-pr]

St Thomas Cont.

 

Now, regarding some other area topics I can say that yes, there were people at the beach that were guests of the condo, but never in anyway looked down on us. Even though we were clearly not from the place (we had our blue Carnival towels in plain sight). I even talked for a bit with a couple that came to snorkel from the condo and were equally frustrated. There was a waiter for a nearby kiosk and he came around every once in a while but was not disruptive and other than the first time he came to us and introduced himself, he was never disruptive at all.

After about two hours we packed up and off we went towards the lookout point on Skyline road (overview of Charlotte Amalie and the whole waterfront from Long Bay, where the Liberty was docked, to Krum bay, near where RCCL docks) and then Drake’s seat (overlooking Meagan’s bay and some of the surrounding island and cays).

 

From the Skyline Dr. lookout point:

 

 

 

And from Drake's seat overlooking Meagan's Bay and surrounding islands:

 

 

 

Around 3pm we started to come down from the mountains into Downtown Charlotte Amalie because we wanted to do some shopping before leaving. I got to the public parking lot besides Fort Christian and walked maybe three minutes to the vendor’s plaza (the one with the vendors under blue tarps) and about 6 minutes to my destination: Gladys Café. This is my obligatory stop in St. Thomas just to buy hot sauce. I love hot sauce and Gladys Café makes some excellent sauce in house. It’s not a trip to St. Thomas until I get my hot sauce from Gladys. I went into some of the stores to check out liquor prices but was unimpressed and didn’t bite since I knew that more than likely, I’d find better prices in St. Marteen (and I was right). Back we went to the “blue tarp vendors” because my daughter wanted a t-shirt from every island and some other trinket. She found a shirt and a colorful St. Thomas fabric wrist band and we were done. Total cost for about 30 minutes of parking: a whopping $1. We topped off the car with gas and dropped it off at Avis. We walked to the ship, me unimpressed by liquor prices in Heavensight Mall (we’re going to St. Maarten anyway and I know there are better deals there) we went straight for the ship. Now, same as my last cruise, St. Thomas was the ONLY port where I had to show ID along with my Sail and Sign card and had to physically show my daughter’s birth certificate to pass the checkpoint so keep that in mind when you debark in St. Thomas. We wanted to go and see the sail away from St. Thomas from the (not-so-secret-anymore) secret deck on deck 7 only to find all access from all floors closed due to winds. Too bad… so off to Lido we went.

 

[Stinger-pr]

St. Thomas dinning:

 

Today would be the first time we would have dinner in the MDR since we skipped in San Juan and it was the first time our dinner assignment would really mess our daily embarkation plans. Since dinner was at 6pm we were unsure if we should snack some to entertain our stomachs or just gut it out until dinner. Since it was a bit past 5pm when we started to push off the pier we decided to just get some ice cream and get ready for dinner. This would be our first missed sunset of the cruise due to the dinner time. I was NOT happy. But oh, well… The saving grace was that our dinning room crew was simply fantastic. Dinner was at the Silver Olimpian (Aft) dinning room. Although it was almost in the middle of the room, we got a table for two the whole cruise. We got lucky as our head waiter, Samuel, was from Guatemala so, even though my DD and I both speak good English, it was great to be able to talk in our native Spanish. He and his assistants: Antonio (Phillipines) and Augus (Indonesia) were very gracious, attentive and entertaining all week. They were very attentive to details, called us by name every single night after introduction and learned our preferences (like the two ice cream scoops with the Melting Cake). All three made it a point to stop every once in a while to see if everything was ok and were overall quite entertaining.

I forgot to take a picture of the dinner menu this evening but I think we both had the Caesar salad which was always very good every day. For our main course I had the flat iron steak (boy has this sucker shrunk since last year!!) with baked potato and my DD had the grilled chicken breast with French fries (even when not in the menu, they would get them if we asked). Both were tender, hot and flavorful although like I mentioned, the steak was very small. I don’t know if it’s my mind shrinking but I don’t remember it being so small last year. In fact, I found most of the portions on this trip (with some exceptions) to me very small. All the same, I guess in the end it was worth it since I only gained 3lbs. for the whole week..LOL.

 

 

[Baatman]

Great pictures...thanks!

[Stinger-pr]

Yes, that is the steak. I had yet to cut off any part of it. Sauce was tasty but the roasted garlic almost seemed for show and not for taste.

 

 

Bread was brought to the table every night but it was hit and miss on the temperature. Some nights it was warm, other cold and hard. But the highlight, of course, was dessert.

 

Two chocolate melting cakes (two ice cream scoops) and one passion fruit flan (custard) to share (we’d do this every night, one CMC each and one different dessert to taste and share). Both were delicious!!

 

 

Having finished dinner we went to our cabin for a while and meet our first towel animal. My daughter loved them! We stayed a few minutes and quickly decided to go see the night’s Dive-in Theater movie. They were showing The Hunger Games: Mocking jay part 1. We grabbed a lounger each and drank some sodas we brought from the room. We got some popcorn and quickly put it down. This is the non salted, non butter, no nothing style of popcorn and other than a hint of oil; it had absolutely no flavor whatsoever. If you’re used to movie theater style salted, buttered popcorn this will taste like crap. But…to each his own.

 

 

 

My daughter had the vision of bringing a jacket for the cruise and boy did I regret not doing the same. That night it was really windy. So much that as much as a fan of the Hunger Games saga that my daughter is, she said she couldn’t stand the wind and we decided to head indoors. As you can see in the picture, there weren’t many people about the outside areas.. Tomorrow should be a bit more relaxed day since it’s Day at Sea.

[QTPieRye]

Love this review and your pictures are absolutely amazing! The pics from Coki Beach were gorgeous! What type of camera are using above and under water?

[QTPieRye]

Love this review and your pictures are absolutely amazing! The pics from Coki Beach were gorgeous! What type of camera are using above and under water?

[Love2travel4]

Loving your review. I'm sailing the Liberty for the first time in March 2016. Staying 3 nights in PR beforehand😀

 

I've been to St. Thomas 3x before (I know you said you've been many times$. I've done Magens Bay, And then St. John 2x. Coki looks beautiful! I am thinking of grabbing a taxi from the ship and spending the day there! Thanks for the awesome pics. Do you by any chance have pics of the rental prices at Coki? Looking for chairs and snorkel.

 

Thank you and looking forward to more.

[Stinger-pr]

Love this review and your pictures are absolutely amazing! The pics from Coki Beach were gorgeous! What type of camera are using above and under water?

Thanks for your kind words. I'm glad you're enjoying the review. For underwater pictures I used a Nikon AW100 Camera. For out of the water it was a combination of a Canon SX50hs, a Canon ELPH115is (most dining room and inside of ship) and, a Samsung Galaxy S5 smartphone. My daughter also used a Canon A570 camera and a Generic brand Android tablet for her point of view. I used Lightroom 5.7 for some color correction here and there.

[Stinger-pr]

Loving your review. I'm sailing the Liberty for the first time in March 2016. Staying 3 nights in PR beforehand😀

 

I've been to St. Thomas 3x before (I know you said you've been many times$. I've done Magens Bay, And then St. John 2x. Coki looks beautiful! I am thinking of grabbing a taxi from the ship and spending the day there! Thanks for the awesome pics. Do you by any chance have pics of the rental prices at Coki? Looking for chairs and snorkel.

 

Thank you and looking forward to more.

 

You won't regret going to Coki. We were the only ship in port and, unless everybody arrives after noon, it never seemed to get crowded. Since I wasn't paying attention to rental prices I can't tell you any, sorry. If you're going to be in PR and renting a car I might have some off-the-beaten-path things and places you might be interested in.

[MrsPhoenix91]

Loving your photos!!!!

[Cruisegoer]

I forgot to take a picture of the dinner menu this evening but I think we both had the Caesar salad which was always very good every day. For our main course I had the flat iron steak (boy has this sucker shrunk since last year!!) with baked potato and my DD had the grilled chicken breast with French fries (even when not in the menu, they would get them if we asked). Both were tender, hot and flavorful although like I mentioned, the steak was very small. I don’t know if it’s my mind shrinking but I don’t remember it being so small last year. In fact, I found most of the portions on this trip (with some exceptions) to me very small. All the same, I guess in the end it was worth it since I only gained 3lbs. for the whole week..LOL.

 

You know that you can order multiples entrees, appetizers or desserts right and seconds or more of anything you truly like.

[Stinger-pr]

Yes, I'm aware I can order multiple anything. But really, does anyone really HAVE to?? A bigger portion is always more cost effective than double orders.

[adamt]

great review and great pics thus far. My favorite cruise ship in the fleet! Will be on her the day after Thanksgiving! This is making me wish for time to fly by even more! Thanks!!

[Stinger-pr]

Day 3: Fun Day At Sea

 

Today I didn’t even set the alarm clock so we slept in until mid-morning. For breakfast we tried what would become our go-to morning food: the omelet station. Today as would be every morning hereafter there was a line, maybe 10-12 people deep on either side of the station but movement of the line was pretty constant. Wait time was around maybe 15 minutes. There are two lines for two stations. Cooks work up to three orders at a time and they do a heck of a job. Ingredients always looked and tasted fresh and everything was cooked perfect. You don’t have to only order omelets since people were also ordering fried eggs, sunny side up, over easy…any which way. These guys always had a smile on their face. I also found later that there was a third station that doubles for the Deli during the afternoon (I think) which usually had less of a line than the station by the mid-ship buffet. As usual, the bacon police was out in full force and I ALWAYS had to ask for a bit more (usually they’d give you just a couple of slices). I also saw that the lines for the breakfast burritos were always very long and even though I’d read people rave about them I never gathered the strength to stand in such a long line. I had enough of long lines having to get in one two nights (and several after that…uggh!!) for pizza.

 

 

This is the station that turns into the Deli Later on.

 

By the time we finished breakfast and discussed a few of the things for the upcoming days they were starting to make the change over for the coming lunch time. For example, the buffet omelet station changes over to the Mongolian Wok. After breakfast we walked about the ship a bit and I noticed that either there were really not many chair hogs or Carnival personnel were really enforcing the rules. Even being almost mid-day you could find some (not many but…) empty chair all around the main pool but mainly on the upper decks. The Lido around the pool was packed!! We saw the Hairy Chest contest and while we had a few laughs and the entertainment staff worked very hard, it seems that this has become fun for a niche group since I noticed that not may people were really into it. But it might’ve been just me.

 

 

We went up to the mini golf to play and found the “sports deck” full. There was a pretty good basketball game going on and a bunch of people lining up to play next. Same thing at the volleyball court. It was really hard to play the mini golf due to the high winds. But it was still fun and had a few good laughs after putting the ball and watching it roll almost all they way back because of the wind. BTW, I play golf (sometimes) and I got beat (legit) by my daughter… I must really practice more my green skills. Oh and just so you know, the clubs at the mini golf are really, really mini. My daughter is 5'5" and those clubs were about knee high for her. I am 6'3" so there.... that's what threw my short game off. We went over to the secret decks only to find them closed due to wind again so we went to our cabin to rest a bit and watch some movies.

 

There were so many people in the pool that we decided not to use it. My daughter went to Circle C for a while for a magic show and I decided to catch some (more) sun on deck 10 aft. About an hour later I came back To find my kind in the room saying the magic show was fun but that she was unimpressed by the overall atmosphere at Circle C. There weren’t many kids apparently and I don’t really now if true or not, but she didn’t feel too welcome since most kids were from the US and she was the only one from Puerto Rico. Language was not a factor since she speaks and understands very good English. But she apparently got singled out a bit. So she decided no to go back to Circle C for the remainder of the cruise. For lunch we went back to get some burgers from Guy’s and took them to the room to continue with the movies until it was time to start to get ready for dinner.

 

Tonight was the first elegant night so we dressed up nice and went to dinner. In my opinion this was the only night that having assigned seating was a good thing since we had absolutely no wait time when we got to the dinning room. This is when I noticed something with the menu. Every night BUT tonight the menu read “American Table” but this night’s menu read “American Feast”. Even the menu itself was printed different. Anyway, we don’t eat seafood (just preference) so we decided on some alternatives. She went with her Caesar’s salad I went with the mushroom crème soup. I had this last year and for me, it was the standout food item of the trip so I was eager to try it again this time and it didn’t disappoint. It was simply delicious!!!

 

[Stinger-pr]

Fun Day At Sea cont...

 

The temperature of the food tonight was perfect: not too hot not too warm. It was just right. For our mains we both went with prime rib and baked potato. She ordered and extra side of fries (not on the menu) so I got both potatoes. The meat was tender, well cooked and flavorful. And for dessert we went with the two melting cakes and the vanilla crème Brule. The crème Brule was a bit mild but still very good. In all, dinner was great, if a bit lengthy since we were at the dinning room for over an hour and a half.

 

 

Some dancing from the crew (can you tell by their "movement" which is Latino?? lol):

 

Dessert menu:

 

Vanilla Creme Brule (sorry, dug in just before my kid said "stop!! Picture!)

 

After dinner we took some portrait pictures that, to tell you the truth came out better than I expected (damn you Carnival for not having cheaper pictures or packages!!). My daughter went for a while to the room while I stayed behind to watch the Best of the Decades trivia with interim Cruise Director Brian (Felipe Cuotto was off-ship for a few week) in the lobby area. While we were hoping for Felipe, Brian was very entertaining and funny in the activities he hosted. He was maybe a notch or two below Felipe’s energy level but honestly, it wasn’t a bad thing. During the trivia he had everybody dancing and singing. He even had whoever got in the elevators to shake, move or dance. All in all, a fun time.

 

 

I went to the cabin to change out of my suit and went to the Just Rock presentation in the main theater. Although not exactly “just rock” (which was fine by most people) the music was great, singers had good voices and the dancer and numbers were awesome. It’s amazing how much stage decoration and props these people stash back there. I’d consider a Behind the Fun tour for my next trip just to see the logistics of this setup. We went to bed shortly after the show and after getting everything ready for Barbados tomorrow.

[Stinger-pr]

Day 4: Barbados

 

Today was a sort-of freelance day since I didn’t take any tours but ended up doing a few other things. After another great breakfast at the omelet station (and some “fighting” from the bacon police) we left the ship around 9am and after the requisite pictures in front of the "Welcome to Barbados" Sign (why don't people realize the sign is the same on both sides and you get a better picture with the ship in the background???) headed to The Boatyard for the day and to snorkel some. Now…. Taxis in Barbados!! There is much debate about the quality of (or sometimes lack of) service that taxis in Barbados give. There is an “organized” area for tour buses and regular taxis in the pier where they herd you to taxis of all kinds (Compact cars, small and large vans) depending on the amount of people in your party and the place you want to go. Keep in mind that, for example, if the van you’re in seats 8 and there are 6 in the van, most drivers won’t leave until they get their two remaining passengers. They don’t really care if you’re in a van with no air conditioning, are sitting in the hot and humid Caribbean morning sun and if all the windows work or not. This has been my experience both times I’ve been in Barbados. This time we were 5 in a 7 passenger van, no AC waiting in the sun for over 15 minutes while the driver fetched some more people to got to The Boatyard. No one was biting and it wasn’t until we all threatened to get out of the van and find another that the driver agreed to leave with less passengers. Price was fixed at US$5+tip each to the Boatyard (or basically anywhere in Carlisle Beach). Tour prices for the whole island are also set inside the terminal but I’v read that if you exit the terminal on foot, there are independent taxis that usually charge less for the same places and/or tours but I can’t confirm this.

 

 

 

 

 

We got to the Boatyard around 9:30am and paid US$15 each for entry to The Boatyard. This included access to the facility Restrooms, showers, water activities, Wi-Fi, 1 drink (includes soda or one of a few specific drinks) each, one beach chair each and a shared umbrella as well as the taxi back to the ship with trips every 10 minutes or so starting at around noon (I think). Tip of the day: If you decide to go to Boatyard AND do the turtle snorkeling “tour”, be a chair hog!! I’ll tell you why in a minute.

 

 

 

 

As soon as we got to the beach we were approached by a guy with a “Neville” and asked if we wanted to do some snorkeling. Last time I was in town I went with Bliss watersports (yellow and white double-decker boat) and had a blast. I had read great things about Neville so I decided to give him a try so when we were asked I said that if it really was with Neville, I was interested. He got in his cell phone and called for the boat and quoted us US$40 EACH for the tour (yes I did ask of it was US or Barbados $). I stopped dead in my tracks and told him thanks, but no thanks. I said that I’m not one to be conned and that I knew that was not the price. I started to walk away when he said “ok $30”. I turned and said no more than $20 EACH and with a noticeable frown he said “fine”. I then noticed that the boat approaching the beach was Bliss’s double-decker and not Neville’s. When I asked about this not being Neville like he said, he apologized and said Neville was not out today. In fact, Bliss’s boat was the only one operating from the beach since the others were from bigger boats that sailed from near the pier or ship-based tours.

 

Picture of Bliss Watersports boat from last year:

Tip of the day 2: If you can, take the early tours. The guys for the boats (at least from Bliss’s) throw bait to get the turtles to come near (and boy do they ever!!). But as there are more swimmers and they stop being hungry they don’t appear that often. We also snorkeled over a shipwreck near where the turtles are and saw a whole bunch of fish of all kinds. We had brought our own snorkeling gear but they provide masks, snorkels and snorkeling vests (if needed) for no extra cost as well as some juice and some good, strong rum punch. About an hour or so after boarding, we were taken to the place they picked us up from picking up and dropping off other passengers along the whole beach. Another thing about being early is that the boat is less crowded during the first trips. But it can get pretty full as the morning progresses.

 

 

[Cruiser 4 Life 66]

Thanks for your review and pics. Looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

[Stinger-pr]

Barbados Cont...

 

This is a bit out of sequence but I couldn't edit my last post to include this part so....

 

Good Morning Barbados!!!

 

 

For those wondering, Barbados is not really a "pretty" port. The ship docks at an industrial area.

 

 

 

My requisite strange Funnel pic:

 

There had been a rally-type auto race a fer weeks before and the were a couple of cars like this in the dock apparently waiting to be shipped out:

 

For those of you that have been following the news about the Liberty for a while might remember about the thruster issues that a while back made it miss some port calls at St. Kitts due to difficulties docking with a damaged thruster (or two... can't remember). This was the first time there were tug boats (2) alongside the ship. Apparently they were there "just in case" because they never actually help the ship dock or depart (they were there during the afternoon as well) at any point.

[Stinger-pr]

Barbados Cont...

 

TURTLES!!

 

 

 

 

 

Now remember what I said earlier about chair hogging at the Boatyard before seeing the turtles? When we got back to Boatyard we were almost left with no chair or umbrella. This are not monitored (although there are personnel all around) and are available on a first come, first served basis. After walking around for a while, we saw a couple get up from theirs and almost ran for the chairs. Once there I got our drinks (one soft drink of course) and hung around the place for a few hours catching some (even more!) sun and swimming around for a while. We finally started to get ready to leave around 2pm. FYI: last taxi to the cruise terminal leaves the Boatyard around 3:30pm. My daughter bought some souvenirs for her mom, sis and grandma from one of the shops in the "very limited shopping" cruise terminal. I bypassed shopping at Barbados altogether. Everything seems so expensive compared to basically everywhere else on the itinerary. We used the few wifi spots open at the terminal to contact home and got back on the ship.

[Stinger-pr]

Barbados Cont...

 

Since we were on board well before sail away time, we again went to Guy's for burgers and fries (yes, we are creatures of habit and I'm a Taurus so I do well with routine...lol). We were done by sail away so we grabbed some ice cream and tried the secret decks again and FINALLY they were open!! The wind today was almost calm so we finally got to see sail away almost alone and got some amazing views of the sun and sky.

 

 

In case you were wondering, YES in the correct light (almost at any moment of the day or night) you can see from the outside into the cabins with the large windows that look out into those decks. I talked later with one of the passengers that was actually staying in one and she allowed me to look through the window to her cabin and at that time of day (about 5:25pm) it wasn't that hard to look inside. She said that nobody had looked while she was there but she also used the curtains all the time during the night.

 

We went back to our cabin and got ready for dinner. Tonight we went the ho-hum route and flipped the second night's menu between us. We both had the Caesar salad, my daughter had the flat Iron steak (equally small as last time) and I had a great tasting grilled chicken breast.

 

 

 

For dessert we went with the very, very good cheesecake and our customary melting cakes each.

 

By the way, I forgot to mention: with the exception of San Juan (or so we were told by the crew) and St. Thomas, there was dancing from the dinning room staff all other nights.

[Stinger-pr]

Thanks for your review and pics. Looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

It's coming a bit slower than I'd want but thanks for sticking around and reading.