Liberty OTS 9 nights Cape Liberty, Bermuda, Labadee, La Romana, Puerto Plata, 6/1/23

[mugtech]

          We arrived at Cape Liberty with noon boarding time, it was 11:10 AM, and we got waived right in, no one checking the times.  It was the fastest check in ever, they took our picture, looked at our passports, asked the usual health questions, believed everything we said, asked no proof of vaccination, and we were on deck 4 by 11:30 AM. Went to c-12 and they asked us if we watched the safety film.  My wife said "Not yet".  I quickly explained she meant this trip, but we saw thd film 3 weeks ago on another cruise, my wife nodded and so did the crew member.  Time for windjammer.  We had been on Explorer recently, so the ship lzyout was very familiar to us.

          1:15 our cabin was accessible and we got our first look at the Orange Morgan being driven by two bears out on the promenade.   We had deck 6 inside cabin with a good view of the parades.  First time we had such a cabin since our first cruise on Mariner back in 2006.

            We had booked last minute, as inside GTY, and got stuck with 5:30 PM dining on deck 5.  The menu was very similar to the TA Explorer in April and May.  Every night there was one vegan starter, one vegan main course, and one vegan dessert.  Made ordering for me easy, but eventually boring,too much asparagus.  The waiters were very friendly, but often got the orders mixed up, and there were only 4 of us at the table.  Twice they told us how important it was for them to get 10's when we reviewed their performance.  Told them I understood, gave them 7's, and dimed them out on additional comments. The food in Windjammer was good enough, ate breakfast and lunch there every day, good selections and veggie burgers available upon request.

[mugtech]

             We enjoyed most of the entertainment we saw in the theatre and around the ship.  Nashville Tenors were 3 guys who sang mostly country songs with backup from the ship's orchestra, who did very well in a variety of other performances with all kinds of music.  I would recommend Nashville Tenors just because they did it so well, I don't usually go hear country music.  The ice skating was also done quite well,, started out west End and classical, but made it to Elvis by way of the Rolling Stones and Elton John.  The 40 minutes went fast, always enjoy the ice shows onships, the only time I see such shows.  Would also recommend the ice show on Explorer, starts with symphony orchestra Moody Blues, my favorite. We missed the magician and juggler, seen enough of them.  The comedian was funny enough.  The least entertaining was a comedian who did musical mimicking,  some was funny, some just not funny.  Did a few jokes based on the fact that Elvis is dead.  He looked at the audience and said "Don't you get it?"  I got it, just was not funny. 

          Played a lot of trivia and name that tune.  They announced on the second day that prizes would only be awarded at morning trivia (10AM) and evening trivia (5PM) general knowledge .  I did win the brain teaser trivia, getting 14 out of 15, probably because I had heard them before. I did not really want one of their cheap prizes, for many years I have had more key chains than keys.  It just seems cheap on their part to save a couple bucks that way.  Met some good people at the games and generally enjoyed learning some new things.  Sometimes the most challenging thing is understanding the English as a second language staff hosts.  Twice on Explorer and twice on Liberty for general knowledge trivia heard the question. "Who was the youngest USA president."  I got there at the end of a Madona name that tune.  Was surprised that two guys who did not appear to be 30 years old won by naming all 20 songs.  I knew 3 of them, glad I got there late.

[mugtech]

            Our day in Bermuda started out cool and wet, first rain we saw in many weeks.  Been to Bermuda several times, once for 3 days, so we just walked around the docks, got wet got back on the ship.  The next two days heading south to Labadee were very refreshing to start the days walking the decks and feeling the warm winds.

            Labadee was a great day at the beach, complete with lunch being served right there.  The food choices were limited, mostly burgers, hot dogs and fries.  It was nice to get an umbrella and two loungers for free, would have cost $30 in Florida.   There were some nice zip lines and better housing available for a price.  It just did not appear to be a foreign country, I don't feel like I was ever in Haiti. It was a great, relaxing day.

          La Romana was our only shore excursion, it was a short trip.  We booked the chu chu trolley and and toured through town for about an hour with police escort.  Prerecorded audio pointed out the highlights, many had something to do with the sugar business, and we did see a baseball team in uniforms walking to a local park.  Perhaps next to sugar, professional baseball players could be the Dominican Republic's largest export.  It was very hot and humid, reminded me of when we were stuck in the Philippines in June 2020.  I would advise going to DR sometime November to March, still good swimming weather, but not quite as hot and humid.

           Met some good folks at friends of Bill W meetings in the deck 15 chapel,  as I did on Explorer TA.  All members of any 12 step program are welcome.

          Enjoyed the cruise and am looking forward to  doing a quicky on Spectrum out of Singapore next March and then the 4/28/24 TA on Anthem with live Queen music.

[Merion_Mom]

Thank you, @mugtech.  🙂 

[meadowlander]

1 hour ago, mugtech said:

They announced on the second day that prizes would only be awarded at morning trivia (10AM) and evening trivia (5PM) general knowledge . 

Also said on the May 4 Liberty cruise (same itinerary as yours) which held true the first 5 days. Towards the end of the cruise, 1 staff member was awarding the standard prizes at every trivia he hosted.

[Tatka]

Thank you.

I do not see mentions of In the Air and Saturday Night Fever

 

We were on cruise before you and thought both were terrific.

Aerial duet, Colombian Latin dancers...  were amazing.

 

Liberty is in the first 5 or even 3 probably out of all cruises we had.

 

[mugtech]

34 minutes ago, Tatka said:

Thank you.

I do not see mentions of In the Air and Saturday Night Fever

 

We were on cruise before you and thought both were terrific.

Aerial duet, Colombian Latin dancers...  were amazing.

 

Liberty is in the first 5 or even 3 probably out of all cruises we had.

 

In the Air was also well done. In 1979 I was asked to join DREAD,  Detroit Rockers Engaged in the Abolishion of Disco.  Their membership card had a clever smashing a disco record, below it was printed Saturday Night Clever.  Usually try to avoid disco, hardrocker myself. Heard mixed reviews from those who went, some said could not compare to the movie.

[mugtech]

             One other thing that was slightly different was ESPN on our cabin tv.  Both ESPN and ESPN2 were listed, but a lot of the programming was not the same.  Found out we were watching Caribbean ESPN.  For NBA playoff games there was no scores listed on the screen and no clock or 24 second clock, nothing on the screen except the game.  It was hard to get used to because the announcers rarely mentioned the score or the time.  So I really had to pay attention and mentally keep score.  Even on sports center they had no scores or messages running at the bottom of the screen, unlike the USA version of ESPN.  Back home watching game 5 just reminded me of Caribbean ESPN.