My 11/18/07 Liberty review (LONG)

[mom2NnB]

Unfortunately we are back from vacation. As a first time cruiser I had no idea what to expect. It was so much more than I thought it would be.

 

Background: We are a family of 4 - DH & I (late 30’s), DS (11) and DD (6). We were celebrating our 15th Wedding Anniversary on-board.

 

Pre-Cruise: We stayed at the Sleep Inn, Dania Fl on Saturday night. It was a very nice hotel with great rates. Rooms were very clean and smelled nice (despite some reviews). Breakfast was included and was a hot continental breakfast including biscuits and gravy, make your own waffles, oatmeal and eggs as well as pasties, fruit and cereals.

 

Right next door was a Walgreens and across the street is a shopping strip mall that had a Mexican and Italian restaurant as well as a Dollar Tree, Chinese takeout, UPS store, nail salon and a Publix supermarket. Went to Pancho’s Backyard (Mexican) for lunch. Food was so good, a little spicy but economical. For dinner we went to Jojo’s (Italian) - good pizza and calamari - service is terrible. The waitress is very inattentive. You have to flag her down excessively just to get her attention. The busboy on the other hand is such a nice kid. The owner is old world Italian and didn’t address me at all only DH. We got the 11:00 shuttle and was at port by about 11:15. Driver overbooked so we were packed into the van like sardines, but as we were first in we all had seats with seatbelts.

 

Embarkation: Dropped our bags with the porter, filled out forms and got thru and on-board within ½ and hour. Couldn’t believe how fast it was all done. Filling out the Bahamas forms took the longest as I had to fill out all 4 myself and sat down to do it.

 

Ship: Was so magnificent. Gorgeous décor and staff was amazing. Over the 6 days onboard I could not believe how many waiters, stewards, etc. called us by name. How could they possible remember everyone’s names? We had an inside room on the Main deck. Small room, but big enough for our needs. Didn’t spend much time there and when the 4 of us were there didn’t really bump each other.

 

Staff: We LOVED Karl with a K. He was so adorable and DD fell in love with him and he was so nice to sit with her and talk with her. She was in heaven. What a nice guy. He kept everyone entertained and was so funny. Seemed to be everywhere onboard or on TV rerunning his talks.

 

Our Steward was Ronald and was so attentive. We never had to ask for anything after the first night. Our cooler and ice buckets were always filled with ice, he would replenish our soda into the ice if they ran low. Whenever we went to our deck he was always around and would ask “do you need anything?”.

 

Our waiters were Rudolpho and Inyoman. They would run and fill DD’s order first every night as she would fall asleep during dinner. They never blinked an eye when DS ordered 3 orders of shrimp cocktail at every meal for an appetizer. By the second night he stopped bringing DS the kids menu and gave him the regular one every night.

 

Food: The food was delicious albeit a bit salty. My ankles swelled every night during dinner that I had to take my shoes off to walk back to our room. (I’ve never had a problem with swelling). The water did have a bit of a salty taste (despite the opinion of others) to me. Could be because I don’t salt anything. But DH and DS who salt everything did find the soups a little salty. Not to the point of inedible, but a little salty. The lobster was a little tough. We had an 8:00 dinner and they were a little chewy, but we still ate them all. DH would is not a dessert person ate the melting cake every night and by day 3 the waiters would say “your regular sir?” I think we tried everything between the 4 of us and loved everything. The steaks were so tender and the Ossobucco was so moist you could cut it with a fork.

 

to be continued

[mom2NnB]

Activities: The kids only went to Camp twice. They like it alright but would rather hang at the pool with us or play in the arcade. We did leave them once in the evening for the babysitting and they had fun. We had a late seating so missed most of the shows as we were exhausted after dinner. We did see the Broadway review and loved it. The leads have amazing voices and DD was shocked by the Full Monty (they don’t really show anything). We avoided the lowed Lido pool and hung at that the one by the base of the slide and they Hot Tub there. Always could find seats and the waiters come up there so drink orders were never a problem.

 

There were I think about 1000 kids onboard but you hardly saw them and the ones you saw were very well behaved. I had more problems with drunken adults than the kids. There was the drunk guy dancing on the bench and falling over onto the kids repeatedly, the girl who puked into the bus tray then asked the waiter for another drink, the lady who was complaining about the kids sitting in the hot tub (behaving) and that she didn’t want to move to the aft Hot Tub because she would be too far from the bar. I only witnessed 2 young boys doing cannonballs in the hot tub but when asked to move into the pool they left without a word or complaint.

 

Ports: Nassau - it took a while to get off the ship because of the kids dawdling but we did some shopping and had a nice time. The people offered services but with a polite “no thanks” they left you alone.

 

Grand Cayman - walked over to the Paradise Restaurant and Eden’s rock to do shore snorkeling. It was so amazing - as soon as you get into the water you are in about 3 feet of water and there were so many fish. As soon as I put my face in the water there was a 4 foot Tarpon about 2 feet away from me. We were basically along until about an hour and a half later the Carnival shore excursion showed up. We were basically done so we packed up and headed over to do some shopping then went to eat. We went to Breezes and had some of the best food we’ve ever eaten. The Conch Soup was so good. The food was expensive. Our bill ended up coming out to $109.00 US. Holy Cow!! Our $1.00 is only worth .80 cents.

 

Jamaica - we hired Orville Taylor as our private tour guide. When we got to port, we had to search for someone who could find Orville. Well he never showed (said "something came up") and sent us a different guide. He was nice enough, but didn’t make us feel comfortable. Car didn’t have seatbelts, he crammed 4 of us into a small backseat. Drove like crazy dodging in and out for the traffic.

 

He drops us at DRF and says Ill be back in 2 hours. So we do DRF, ok climb, but they rush you up the falls so they can get more tours in and does nothing to make sure you are safe. Grabbed DD (6) out of mine and Dh's hands and pushes her onto a rock to stand alone. She is freaked out! and the guide is yelling "keep goin mon". I fell and bashed my shin open and he keeps yelling.

 

As soon as you get off the guides grab you and say "we took care of you, you now need to take care of us". And will then follow you to your locker to get money. OMG!!!! We then get bombarded with people selling stuff. We are changing into our sneakers and 2 guys approach and ask the kids their names and they start carving them into these ugly Tikis. They then force you to buy them. If you say no they yelled at us and followed us around.

 

Driver then picks us up and take us for a bite to eat. He says I'll be back within an hour. We go to the BibiBar (or something stupid like that). Food was awful but view was gorgeous. We finish eating and then sit outside for another 45 mins waiting for driver to come back. All these people are staring at us and talking about us in Jamaican and laughing. I was so scared when the driver finally came back we told him to take us back to the ship.

 

He dropped us at the wrong port, so we had to walk 4 blocks past ever merchant yelling things at us. We decided to say "I'll get you on the way back (knowing we wouldn't see them again) and they would stop following us. We also encountered 3 "Cheap Charlies" in a row including a female one.

 

The one highlight was the port liquor store. We got really good priced rums and got to sample before buying. Bought Passion Fruit, Mango and

Rum Punch as well as Appleton Rum.

 

We ate lunch onboard and decided Jamaica was not for us.

[mom2NnB]

Disembarkation: We had #17. We ate breakfast in the dining room. Went to our room to collect our carry off bags and then were to Jardin Café to wait. Was off ship by 9:30 crying. If I could have found someplace to hide to stay onboard I would have. Picked up our bags, shuttle dropped DH to pick up rental car and took kid and I back to Sleep Inn and spent Saturday and Sunday in Ft Lauderdale. Went down to beach and ate at Bubba Gump. Highly recommend it - good food and fun atmosphere.

 

Got home Monday night and started looking for our next cruise. Considering a job on-board the Liberty so I would never have to leave. What job could a 6 and 11 year old do? ;):D

 

Can't wait for our next cruise - sans the kids next time. Loved having them with us but really want to do one without them.

[mom2NnB]

Recommendations on Lido deck: The Grilled Reuben and the Arugala Roasted

Pepper and Mozzarella sandwich was outrageous (especially if you get it on a thinner bread and have it grilled). The Mongolian Grill is really good, but beware the Thai BBQ is hot - not as hot as Shezuwan but still spicy). The Calzone was only pizza dough with sauce, mozzarella and meat in it - no ricotta - was more like a rolled up pizza then a calzone.

 

I (and DD:D) highly recommend the Miami Vice. It was so tasty. The one in the specialty glass (a 16 oz plastic cup) was 7.95 but the refill was only 5.75 (give or take a quarter). We bought a tail fin cup for DD and with the smoothie and was 9.95 (dont remember the refill price). Buy the cup once and get it refilled all week with any drink for the cheaper price.

[MarriedInStThomas1807]

Great review! Can't wait to be on the Liberty!:D

[mom2NnB]

You will love it. Have a great time. Cant wait to go back.

[Charming01]

Sounds like you had a good trip! Great review!:D

[TIMEBINDER]

did you try the sushi bar

[criuisingurl079]

Did you have good weather? I'm off to the Liberty on Sat! Hoping for great warm sunny weather!! I'll say hello to her for you!:D

[mom2NnB]

Oh yes. Every nite. It was very good. When you order you have to specify # of pieces, otherwise you get one of each.

There is one nigiri (fish with a rice ball underneath), one seafood roll and one vegetable roll. All very very good. Try one of each if you like ask for more, if not try again tomorrow. Different stuff every nite. its 5:30 to 8:30

 

Sake was $4.00 for a bottle. DH ordered one every nite. The one nite he didnt ask for it the girl behind the counter asked "do you want your sake tonight".

[mom2NnB]

Did you have good weather? I'm off to the Liberty on Sat! Hoping for great warm sunny weather!! I'll say hello to her for you!:D

 

we had pretty good weather. Drizzled once or twice but never enough to get out of the pool. :D

 

Tell Karl with a K that Belle says hello.

[adamt]

could you post some more of your pictures?

 

anything with the ships areas would be great!

[LHP]

My oldest son has been trying to get me to try sushi...but I don't eat fish and I am allergic to shell fish.

 

I saw you post about vegetable sushi...was it good???

[Chan_T]

Were the formal nights on Tuesday and Thursday (or Monday and Thursday since Nassau is an early day)?

[mom2NnB]

ours were monday and thurdsay and both were listed as formal not formal optional on thursday but could have been because it was thanksgiving.

[mom2NnB]

My oldest son has been trying to get me to try sushi...but I don't eat fish and I am allergic to shell fish.

 

I saw you post about vegetable sushi...was it good???

 

the vegetable ones were great - even my kids ate it and my son is not a veggie eater. Try it all (except if it'll make you sick) and see what you like. they nly offer one piece of each unless you ask for a quantity (which is no problem). My 6 yr old DD went up 3 times and asked "can I have 3 pieces of sushi".