Just off Carnival Liberty with a 3 yr old and 14 family members (Long Review)

[bcsurvivor05]

I want this to be as detailed as I can. I used these boards to prepare for my trip and I hope to be as helpful as I can to others. I will post in pieces so I don't lose anything.

 

Our cruise was 2/2 - 2/10 and was the Eastern Carribean. We went to San Juan, St. Thomas, Tortola, Antiqua and Nassau.

 

We decided that being in NY we didn't want to chance bad weather so we flew in on 2/1 and stayed at the Marriott Springhill Suites. It was nice and we were happy that we did do that. They transported us from the airport to the hotel and then from the hotel to the port. Across the street from the hotel was a KMart so we got some last minute stuff there, including 3 - 6 packs of water (you are allowed 1 - 6 pack per person of any drink to take on board with you) and a small soft cooler for the beach(so that it will be easy to transport home by squishing it into our suitcase).

 

2/2/08 Saturday: We left the hotel around 12 and got to the port without a problem. They have porters helping with luggage and that was worth the extra couple of bucks because we had a ton of luggage between all of us. We got on line, which moved pretty quick. I had a 3 yr old in a stroller and they moved us right to the front of the line. (**if you are traveling with a child make sure to bring the stroller, it will be worth it**). (I have a Graco Metrolite stroller and it fit through the stateroom door without a problem. We used it quite often during the trip) The 3 of us (myself, child and hubby) were on board within about 20 minutes. It was wonderful. The rest of our family had to wait in line and it took about 45 mins or so for them to board, which is still not to bad. We were able to go to the room around 1:30 and it was currently 12:30 so we went to eat and sign up for the fountain card. The food was good (not great but good). I found that the first day the food was better then the other days (for the same food I mean). Within a few minutes of getting to our rooms the first of our luggage arrived. We had it all by about 3:30 so that was nice. In past cruises I didn't get my luggage until after dinner so this was a nice surprise. We happened to bump into our cabin steward when we asked a general question but he never actually introduced himself. I found out his name the day before we left. He did his job but I didn't get the "warm and fuzzies" that I am used to with a cabin steward. He didn't know our names and made no attempt to find out. Not very personable but again, he did his job. We asked for extra pool towels (they give you 2 in the room) and we had 6 at any given time so that was nice. We also had him empty the mini bar so we could put our water in it. Quite honestly, that was a waste of time because it wasn't very cold and when we asked if we could make it colder we were told no. We were at the early seating dinner (Golden Olypian 6:15) so we took quick showers and off to the dining room we went. It was a long day so I turned in pretty early. My husband went and donated to the casino that night as well ;)).

[bcsurvivor05]

2/3/08 Sunday: We were at sea today. We just got to know the ship and checked out Camp Carnival. My 3 yr old did love it. It was a big playroom filled with all sorts of toys, a play house, 2 kitchens and tons of other stuff. Initially the staff was very friendly. They give you a cell phone for you to keep for the entire cruise which turned out to be really great because people on the boat can call you as well as you call them. This was very handy. Of course I didn't think to use it that way until the 6th day. I did bring with us some walkie talkies which worked out really well. I highly recommend doing this with or without children. It is a really big boat and hard to find people. As a matter of fact, on this day we searched for family members for hours before finding them. The only place that you cannot use it is in the casino. This night was the Superbowl as well as first formal night. We (myself, daughter and hubby) got dressed up, took pictures and then he changed and went to watch the game with the rest of our male family members on the big screen. What a time they had. It was truely amazing to watch it with tons of people around and on that screen. The women went to formal dinner and then changed and met them on deck. It was quite windy that night but still really awesome. YEY GIANTS!

 

2/4/08 Monday San Juan: We didn't get to San Juan until 5pm so technically we had another day at sea. We were on the boat for 48 straight hours at this point. We decided not to get off of the boat but my siblings did. We hung around and let my daughter go in the pool. Since we were at port we decided after the pool to watch the movie on the big screen. There was no wind so we had a nice time. Pretty much a quiet day.

[crusinmama06]

Very interesting review. I'll be waiting for the rest :)

 

Have you always done Carnival? Or was this your first experience with them?

[bcsurvivor05]

2/5/08 Tuesday: St. Thomas - Most of us had been to St. Thomas before so we didn't all do the tour of the island. 1/2 of us went to Coral World and then we all met up at Sapphire Beach. Coral World was a complete waste of money. It was $15 per person and we were done in about 45 minutes. We had a cab coming back for us so we had to wait another 1 1/2 hrs for his return. I would NOT recommend going there. Sapphire Beach was really nice. Very beautiful but a bit choppy water. Being with a 3 yr old, I would have prefered to go to Meghans Bay, though my daughter loved the waves at Sapphire. The nice thing about Sapphire beach was that there was a large pavillion not to far from the water that was totally covered (which was great because some of us were really sunburned) and there was a great breeze there.

 

2/6/08 Wednesday: Antigua - None of us had been to Antigua so we all piled into a van and took a tour of the island and then went to a beach. We caught the van outside the ship and paid 1/4 the price that we would have had we booked it through carnival. Word to the wise...if you would like to do an island tour NEVER do it through the ships. They are very expensive. There are always open air cabs waiting at every port to take you around. Antigua was nice but I don't think I would do a tour again with a 3 yr old. At the end of the tour we went to a beach and the driver waited 2 hours for us there. The beach was great (I don't remember the name) and a few of us went Jet Skiing.

[bcsurvivor05]

Very interesting review. I'll be waiting for the rest :)

 

Have you always done Carnival? Or was this your first experience with them?

 

Yes, this was my 3rd Carnival cruise and I definately think that things have changed over the years.

[bcsurvivor05]

2/7/08 – Thursday: Tortola – I didn’t want to do another island tour with my 3 yr old so a few of us just decided to hang around and go shopping. Just a general note, if you are planning on shopping on any day, don’t do it the day you are in Tortola. It is quite a walk and definitely not worth it. We went back to the ship pretty early and went into the pool. The slide was open and we had a great time on that.

 

2/8/08 – Friday: Day at Sea – Today was a lazy day. Today was the day for the Walk for a Cure that they do to raise money for Breast Cancer. Being a survivor I definitely wanted to be a part of this, however, it was at 4pm. Tonight was also formal night and we had early seating dinner. I spoke to our CD about this to try to figure out which genious scheduled that one (of course kidding with him). A few of us did the walk but cut it short so we could get ready for formal night. Oh, a word about formal night, it is definitely not the way it used to be. I saw people from tuxes to leather (no I am not kidding). They were allowing just about anyone to enter into the dining room as long as they looked nice. Also, we spent most of the afternoon down by the aft pool (there was a bit of shade there, which was nice). There were several children there wearing swim diapers and no one said a thing. Quite honestly, this doesn’t bother me but I know this was a hot topic on the board and wanted to let everyone know. There were a lot of “rule breakers” that I saw. There were kids in the hot tubs, swim diapers, towel savers…the works and no one says anything. Again, these were not issues for me but I did take note of them being that there is so much controversy over them.

[bcsurvivor05]

2/9/08 – Saturday: Nassau – The best island by far! Most of us decided to go to Atlantis. We took a water taxi over (which I highly DO NOT recommend) and walked quite a distance to find out that it was $35 per person to get in. A few of us decided to continue to Atlantis and paid the money (if you took a land taxi it would have taken you right to the hotel instead of the water taxi which was pier to pier and a far walk. It was worth every penny. You can pay extra to use the amenities and though we didn’t do that, I wish we had planned for it. Atlantis is the most amazing place. They have water slides, a lazy river, pools, not to mention the whole aquarium. Absolutely stunning. It was a great way to end the week

 

2/10/08 – Sunday: Back to Port Everglades: Disembarkment went really well. We had a 12:10 flight so we were one of the first off of the boat. The first to get off are the self assist people. These are people who carry every last thing off of the boat themselves. There were quite a few people who chose to do this, much to my surprise. We were off of the ship and on the transfer bus by 9:30.

[bcsurvivor05]

Specifics:

Cabin: We were in cabin 1323 (deck 1 - Riveria). We had a full sized window that my daughter who is 39” tall could stand in with a few inches to spare. The rest of my family was on deck 6 – Upper. The only difference in the cabin was that they had a balcony and we did not. Our room was actually longer as the balcony took about 3 feet away from their room. If you are on the fence about a cabin with or without a balcony what I can tell you is this, we decided not to get a balcony because of my 3 yr old and the safety issue. To be honest, it would have been fine. There was a latch up very high that you could lock the door and she would have been able to look out the window or the door and see everything opposed to in our room where we had to actually pick her up to the window. I would recommend the balcony with any child knowing what I know now. The room had plenty of closets space and the extra drawers under the couch/bed were great and HUGE!. I would recommend bringing extra hangers if you are traveling with more then 2 people though. There is only 2 actual available plugs to be used, 1 in the actual cabin and 1 in the bathroom. I would highly recommend bringing a power strip. It helped us out a lot. There are no clocks in the rooms so I would also bring a clock. The bathroom is a nice size and the toilet is in a great position to help with shaving legs! There is a clothes line in the shower which came in handy a few times. I brought with us some extra door hangers to go over the closet doors for drying bathing suits as well. There were disposable razors (bic) and toothpaste, not to mention shampoo and shower gel available for you in the bathroom. The beds were a bit to hard for us but we asked them to do something about that and they added extra blankets under the sheets to try to make it softer. Though it did help it still was to hard for us. My daughter slept on the couch. It turned into a full sized twin so she had plenty of room. We took the pillows from the couch and stood them up next to the bed and asked for extra pillows to pile up as a barrier (she is very restless). We then put the table and chair next to that for extra security. She did well and did not fall off. Overall the room was nice and a pretty good size. The phone has a voice mail too so if you are traveling with other people you can leave messages for each other telling them where you will be.

[bcsurvivor05]

Camp Carnival: Honestly this was a big disappointment for me. They were very nice but not very attentive to her. The nice thing though is that they give you a cell phone,which can be used anywhere on the ship and you can call any of the rooms and anyone can call you. Unfortunately I didn’t realize this until day 6 but it really did come in handy. I only left my 3 yr old there for an hour or so a day and only the days at sea. I think 1 day I left her for 2. The issues that I had were that one of the days when my husband went to get her, they didn’t know where she was. Keep in mind that the room is not very big and there were MAYBE 5 kids in the 2-5 yr olds at any given time. It turned out that she was playing with someones keys hanging in the door of the office. The next day when I went to get her she was playing with the garbage can and there were no counselors around to stop her. Maybe it was because it was a slow week and they were dilly dalling but this was completely unacceptable to me. I would not recommend it for that age group. The older kids seem to be enjoying it from what I could see. Don’t get me wrong, my daughter did enjoy it but I felt that they weren’t taking care of the younger kids the way that they should be.

[bcsurvivor05]

Entertainment: The shows were really great. My 3 yr old loved each and every show (even the comedians) that we took her too. A bunch of us spent a lot of time in the piano bar and the piano player was really great. We closed the bar several nights. There was some music in the lobby as well but that was not very good. The singers really weren’t very good and the nights that they weren’t there they had a few string instruments playing. I felt like I was on titanic when they were playing. There was a guy playing up by the casino doing 50 – 60’s music and he was very good as well. Overall the entertainment I would say was really good.

Ship in general: The ship was very clean. Every time I turned around I saw someone cleaning something. If you dropped something on the lido deck, there was someone right behind you picking it up. My biggest complaint was the smoking. Though you are only allowed to smoke in certain areas and everyone seemed to adhear to that, if you went ANYWHERE on the Prominade deck, you smelled smoke. It was horrible! I tried not to have my daughter on that deck to often when the casino and bars were open. If you were on that deck you came off reaking of cigarette smoke. It made it difficult to wear clothes more then once. The ship was a bit confusing at times but overall had a good layout. The atruim was beautiful and the decor was just ok.

[cruisnmom3]

BC-thanks for the info! We've been on carnival with similar aged children and had no probs with the kids club but i will use this as a heads up. Also, can i ask what you did with your daughter while you were in the piano bar/bar/casino? That has been one of our big issue while traveling with kids...we usually go out separately or have a family member watch them....

[bcsurvivor05]

Pictures: There were photographers set up every night. It was really great for some informal cute shots. I tortured my daughter so that the photographers knew her when they saw her. My recommendation would be this: take a ton of pictures but don’t buy any until the last day. They ran a special buy 5 get 2 free. They are normally almost $22 per 8x10 so it is worth it to wait. They claim that they throw out pics to make room but they don’t. Every picture that we took was still there. Just go through daily and get rid of the ones you know that you definitely do not want and save the rest until the last day. They take them all and buy the ones you like. I wish I would have thought to do this before the last day but now I know.

 

Dining Room: We were in the Golden Olympian. The service was not so great. Again, they didn’t really try to make the effort to be your friend. They had no personality to be honest. The waiters performed (for lack of a better term) 3 nights but to be honest, it was a complete joke. We were also put so far out of the way that we couldn’t see anything anyway. The mater D was great though. Miguel. He was very funny and accommodated just about everything we asked of him. Our barmaid “Kate” was great too. She knew what everyone drank and had the regulars ready. The food was pretty good but not as good as I remember it being on past ships. They had both high chairs and booster seats so you do not have to worry about that.

[bcsurvivor05]

BC-thanks for the info! We've been on carnival with similar aged children and had no probs with the kids club but i will use this as a heads up. Also, can i ask what you did with your daughter while you were in the piano bar/bar/casino? That has been one of our big issue while traveling with kids...we usually go out separately or have a family member watch them....

 

We took turns going out. It was the only way we could do it.

[bcsurvivor05]

Fountain Card: this was the biggest issue for me overall. I purchased a fountain card for $55. This enables you to get all the soda that you want. Unfortunately the bartenders do not want to help you if they see it. They totally ignore you. Not only did this happen to me but to a bunch of others as well. The bartenders do not get tipped from those cards so therefore they don’t want to waste their time on you. It was very aggravating each time you wanted to get a soda. I actually saw people fighting with the bartenders in an attempt to take care of the issue.

 

TV: The TV gets all of the major channels (CBS, NBC, FOX ABC) on a Denver, CO feed. They also have 2 movie channels that play both current and older movies.

 

Restaurants: The food overall was good. I did frequent the deli, which was a bit hard to find. If you are standing by the pool with the slide and are looking at Emilie’s it is on the right hand side. The sushi bar is on the left hand side. The buffets do have some different things so make sure that you look at all of them daily before making selections. I didn’t care for the pizza but being from NY that is understandable. Most people did like the pizza. The pizzeria was located in the aft (back) pool area. There is also a sundae bar in the opposite corner of the pizzeria that not to many people know about. We didn’t go to Harrys or to fish n chips so I can’t tell you much about those.

[bcsurvivor05]

General stuff: Overall the cruise was good but tough with a 3 yr old. We did have family with us but we didn’t want to burden them to much with her. My daughter is a very good girl but it was still hard. We didn’t get to do to much together alone. We took turns with her. We brought walkie talkies with us (which I highly recommend with or without children) which helped out a lot. I would recommend getting the door handle blocks (the ones that pull down not the round handle ones) to try to prevent opening of doors that you don’t want opened (i.e. opening and closing the bathroom door was her favorite pastime). I brought the wrong ones with me. We didn’t do the muster drill ( have yet to actually do one and this was my 4th cruise). I know they gave out wrist bands for the young kids in case of an emergency with the boat but to be honest, there was no way my daughter would have worn it and no one said a thing to me that she didn’t have it on. If (god forbid) there was an emergency my husband would have made it to camp carnival faster then they would have brought her to us (trust me on that one) so I didn’t feel that it was an issue for us. We opted not to bring her car seat with us. There are no seat belts in any of the vans or transport vehicles so it would have been pointless. I am glad that I didn’t. I was going back and forth with it and honestly it would have been a waste.

[bcsurvivor05]

Packing list of things you may not think of:

 

Walkie talkies

Ziplock bags (great for putting ice in if you are taking a cooler with you)

Plastic bags for wet bathing suits after beach

Door handle locks for younger children

Over the door hangers

Extra hangers

Clock

Power strip

Pens

Water proof camera

Small soft cooler (so that you can squish it down into your suitcase.

Water or soda (you are allowed 1 six pack per person of any beverage)

Quarters (if you are planning on doing laundry)

Lots of dollar bills for tipping porters

 

 

That is about it for my review. I hope it helps. These are the things that I would have like told to me prior to me sailing last week. If I think of anything else I will definitely add it on.