A First-timers Review: Carnival Liberty 5-2-2009 (with photos and capers)!

[Hollybelle]

Ok not to digress or "hijack" this, but do you mind me asking what scrapbooking forum you post on? It is one of my favorite hobbies (as is researching cruises and weddings) and I'd love to waste more of my life online with more forums that spark my interest.

 

Thanks holly!

 

Yep, I'd say we have some similar interests :).

 

There is a very small group of us over on the wdwmagic board that post in a thread there; we even share some layouts that aren't Disney themed :eek:! For whatever reason it's one of the few boards on that forum that is set to private, but membership is free: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/index.php (located under digital media and photography)! Unfortunately, we can go days and sometimes weeks without a post so we'd love to have some new recruits!

[charotarguy]

Wow, charotarguy, it's such a coincidence that you just posted about these two cameras. Last Friday I was researching the intova to death because it looks like such a great deal for the price. And then I came across the olympus 1030 and started drooling a bit because I've always loved my olympus cameras.

 

I ended up purchasing the olympus 1050 yesterday from amazon at the bargain price of $195. I figured once I bought a memory card and rechargeable batteries for the intova I wouldn't be far off from the purchase price of the olympus anyway and I already have the xd memory cards. So I splurged! I'll be taking it to Typhoon Lagoon at Disney next month and can't wait to try it out.

 

Now I just have to plan another cruise. I can't let this camera go unused! I'll use any excuse I can to get back on a ship... and soon :D!

 

Great choice,

 

If you have read the reviews of Intova on Amazon, I had posted one. What I like about it is its easy to use, camera is really light, it comes with a housing which is really rugged, and you can buy a lot of cheap Intova accessories. Apart from that there is nothing to the camera itself, its a no name camera, has a slow shutter speed, pictures in low light are grainy (any pictures taken inside) and is a BATTERY HOG (I mean one cannot comprehend how much it eats away from a alkeline battery).

 

Anyway I am glad you made the right choice. I am planning to go Olympus route when we plan our next cruise which hopefully will be soon.

 

Oh by the way I am really really enjoying your review. Keep it up, looking forward to you future review as well.

 

Charotarguy

[KittyMomma]

All I can say is wow!! This is going to be better than I ever imagined. Thank you for the time you have spent sharing this with us.

[miniwheat]

I love this review.:)

[BigRed93]

What a great review!

 

We were on the ship with you. It's fun to see others' experiences of your same week and re-living it. You took much better pictures than I did anyway...

 

This was my DHs first cruise as well after I have begged him to go with me for years. It was a wonderful time, even with the end of the week being a "mystery cruise".

 

You should have gone ziplining in Belize. I think that is one of the places that is worth it. I went last year and used a private company. It's hard when you don't have the luxury of some planning time. I was really looking foward to Honduras, but next time, I guess...:)

[NGRidley]

You have been making me more excited for my cruise!!! I am going on the Liberty on July 11-18 on the same interary (your original one - with Cozumel)

 

Looking at the excursions in Jamaica, my fiance and I didnt get really excited about them either. I am currently on crutches so Dunn River Falls is out, and he is afraid of heights/rollercoasters so going to the bobsled via the sky explorer is out. To save money we decided to book excursions at the other 2 ports

 

Jamaica our plan is to shop, eat and buy some rum:D and spend the afternoon on the boat.

 

This is our very first cruise (and first time our of Canada) so we are ok not trying to do everything everywhere.

[J2K66]

Still a great review. I'm still trying to go through some pictures and get them down to a reasonable amount and then will post some type of photo review.

 

NGRidley - if you want something to do in Jamaica, you could always get a day pass at an all-inclusive resort. I can suggest Breezes - Runaway Bay... although I'm probably biased since I got married there :) It's a fun resort though, with a great pool (swim up bar!) and beach. When we were on the Liberty, we booked the Martha Brae river rafting excursion. It's really laid back and relaxing, as you just float down the river on a 2 person bamboo raft. You have a guide who does all the work, and you stay dry :) I'll post a couple of pictures of it here.

 

 

 

[sailingawaysoon]

Thank you for such an awesome review. It looks like you had a wonderful time. You convinced me thru your review and pics to go ahead and try the stingray adventure. Happy cruising!

[liberty8809]

Fabulous review !! I'm hooked and can not wait for more !!

 

GREAT JOB !! Not too long till I am on this ship myself, this review makes me even more excited !!!!:);)

[Hollybelle]

Great choice,

 

If you have read the reviews of Intova on Amazon, I had posted one. What I like about it is its easy to use, camera is really light, it comes with a housing which is really rugged, and you can buy a lot of cheap Intova accessories. Apart from that there is nothing to the camera itself, its a no name camera, has a slow shutter speed, pictures in low light are grainy (any pictures taken inside) and is a BATTERY HOG (I mean one cannot comprehend how much it eats away from a alkeline battery).

 

Anyway I am glad you made the right choice. I am planning to go Olympus route when we plan our next cruise which hopefully will be soon.

 

Oh by the way I am really really enjoying your review. Keep it up, looking forward to you future review as well.

 

Charotarguy

 

Then yep, I'm sure I read your review because I was all over the amazon site. The battery issue was one of the first things that lead me to looking at the olympus, because I knew there would be "hidden" costs with the intova (rechargeable batteries, charger, memory card). And the "no name" aspect bothered me, considering my olympus cameras have always served me well. I don't know that the out-of-water quality will be any better than my current camera, but the underwater feature is worth it alone!

 

All I can say is wow!! This is going to be better than I ever imagined. Thank you for the time you have spent sharing this with us.

 

No problem, KittyMomma! I'm just glad you're enjoying it! Slowly, but surely it will all get posted.

 

I love this review.:)

 

Yay!! Me, too.

[Hollybelle]

What a great review!

 

We were on the ship with you. It's fun to see others' experiences of your same week and re-living it. You took much better pictures than I did anyway...

 

This was my DHs first cruise as well after I have begged him to go with me for years. It was a wonderful time, even with the end of the week being a "mystery cruise".

 

You should have gone ziplining in Belize. I think that is one of the places that is worth it. I went last year and used a private company. It's hard when you don't have the luxury of some planning time. I was really looking foward to Honduras, but next time, I guess...:)

 

Small world!! And you're right it did turn into somewhat of a mystery cruise. Yeah, we probably should have went for the ziplining but without any prior knowledge I was hesitant to fork over $110pp not knowing anything about it. That and I figure the same excursion is cheaper if not booked through Carnival. Oh well... it gives us something to do next time :D.

 

My parents were also looking forward to Honduras, as they've been there before and absolutely loved it. But, what can you do? It's not like we were going to decidedly have a bad time because we had to switch ports. You just have to roll with it, and like you said... there's always next time!!

 

You have been making me more excited for my cruise!!! I am going on the Liberty on July 11-18 on the same interary (your original one - with Cozumel)

 

Looking at the excursions in Jamaica, my fiance and I didnt get really excited about them either. I am currently on crutches so Dunn River Falls is out, and he is afraid of heights/rollercoasters so going to the bobsled via the sky explorer is out. To save money we decided to book excursions at the other 2 ports

 

Jamaica our plan is to shop, eat and buy some rum:D and spend the afternoon on the boat.

 

This is our very first cruise (and first time our of Canada) so we are ok not trying to do everything everywhere.

 

Oh you are going to have so much fun!!! And I think with excursions pre-booked in the other ports, that will work out well. Honestly, I found Jamaica so beautiful to look at from the ship that I could have just sat up there in a lounger looking out at the scenery!

 

Still a great review. I'm still trying to go through some pictures and get them down to a reasonable amount and then will post some type of photo review.

 

 

Thanks, J2K66. Great pictures of Jamaica; they seem to really have a cultural element and I love that. I'll be looking for your photo review :D!

[Hollybelle]

Thank you for such an awesome review. It looks like you had a wonderful time. You convinced me thru your review and pics to go ahead and try the stingray adventure. Happy cruising!

 

You are so welcome! And I'm excited you made the decision to go to Stingray City. You won't be disappointed; it was absolutely my favorite thing we did all week.

 

Fabulous review !! I'm hooked and can not wait for more !!

 

GREAT JOB !! Not too long till I am on this ship myself, this review makes me even more excited !!!!:);)

 

Thank you! Hopefully, I'll be able to wrap it up with a nice bow here soon :rolleyes:.

[Hollybelle]

So you know how when you’re on vacation you can just feel time slipping away, especially once you pass the halfway mark? At the beginning my thoughts are always “yay, we’ve got plenty of time to do everything, the whole week’s laid out in front of us.” And towards the end I’m all “what happened?! Where did the time go!?” Anyway, in my opinion, it’s a weird phenomenon. Just me!? Okay then, on with the regularly scheduled cruise review.

 

Day 6, Thursday, May 7: Belize City, Belize and Elegant Night #2

 

Capers:

 

 

 

 

[Hollybelle]

I woke up fairly early on Thursday, feeling all weirded out about time moving at an alarming rate and our cruise speeding to its end with us helpless to slow it down. Geez, I sound dramatic; but it is what it is… so we had to make the most of our remaining time! Brett and I grabbed some breakfast before heading down to the Venetian Palace to await our tender into Belize. We were among the first group called (around 8:15 am) and quickly boarded a speedboat-style tender to the city. My parents weren’t heading out until around 10 am, so we’ll get to their adventures a little later on.

 

Once docked, we found someone with an Altun Ha sign and were ushered quickly onto an old tour bus. Unfortunately, I can’t recall our guide’s name, but she was a young girl in her mid twenties and quite knowledgeable about the country. You could tell she was very proud to be a Belizean citizen! The first part of our tour took us through the north side of Belize City before heading out to the ruins. I have to admit I don’t remember much of the history lesson. I do recall her story about how Madonna’s famous “La Isla Bonita” was written about Belize after a friend raved over a visit to San Pedro. Hmmm… I wonder why this is all I can remember? I don’t know, probably because I was daydreaming about some private island out in the middle of the Caribbean ;)!

 

The ride to Altun Ha took about 45-60 minutes. And when we got there, there were probably 6 or 7 other tour busses in the parking lot. However, the area is pretty expansive so it wasn’t overly crowded once on the site.

 

Welcome:

 

 

Our guide gave us some history on the Mayan people and their way of life as we walked around the site. She described some customs and rituals that were common among the Mayans. Of course the only one that stuck with me long enough to relay the message to you all was the graphic description of piercing a man’s foreskin with the barb of a stingray to assess his virility and strength. Ahem… good thing we learned this AFTER visiting our stingray friends; otherwise, I don’t think I would have ever gotten Brett in the water at Stingray City!!

 

Our guide, looking for male volunteers:

 

 

After learning about the Mayans we were given approximately 25 minutes to climb. Brett and I decided to start out with the Sun God Temple because we didn’t have a lot of time. I don’t think the Sun God felt like rolling out the welcome mat for us considering it was rather overcast that day (the only day of our whole cruise), but I was actually thankful for the mild conditions. Otherwise, we would have been miserable with the heat and humidity.

 

Big Mama from across other ruins:

 

 

And a poorly composed picture of her from below:

 

 

Some visitors claimed a strange and colorful bird was seen flying around above:

 

 

Hey wait... that's Panchito Beakman!

[Hollybelle]

And the “money” shot:

 

 

That is if by money we mean… “been there, done that, and got a good picture for the scrapbook!” Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed seeing the ruins but I consider it a onetime thing, certainly not exciting enough to warrant a return trip like the stingrays. We didn’t visit with the Sun God long because there were other lesser gods to visit that day as well. Why do I disgrace them by calling them lesser gods, you ask? Well, let’s see, all the other temples had names like A1, A2 and B3 :rolleyes:. The Sun God certainly rules the roost at Altun Ha.

 

A2:

 

 

At the top of A2:

 

 

A stormy looking view of the Sun God Temple from A2:

 

 

The 25 minutes went by fast and we found ourselves headed back to the tour bus, where we of course waited another 25 minutes for the stragglers to show up. And they moseyed on over, taking their sweet time, not caring that everyone else was waiting patiently to leave. This must be why we were given such a limited amount of time to climb the ruins; the guide probably expects at least a few in every group to disregard the time limit. Arrrggghhhh, I really get irritated with people who have a sense of entitlement and act as if everyone else should be happy to wait for them, when you know these same people are the ones who complain loudest if they’re the least bit inconvenienced. But I digress.

[Hollybelle]

We left Altun Ha and headed back to Belize City, where we toured the south side. I tried to take some pictures, which was difficult from a moving tour bus; that and it just felt kind of wrong to take pictures of people living their lives as we cruised through on an air conditioned bus. I do have a few though.

 

This statue was a gift from Taiwan, some kind of representation of peace between the two countries:

 

 

In Belize, the kids all go home for lunch, here are some leaving school:

 

 

A look down one of the busy streets in the middle of the city:

 

 

The Belize City police station with some officers out front:

 

 

The city park:

 

 

And one of the many beautiful churches in the area:

 

 

I enjoyed the tour of the city, but after awhile it just felt like we were criss-crossing back and forth past the same landmarks and sitting still in some heavy traffic. By the time we reached the port we were ready to get off.

[Hollybelle]

Back inside the port terminal we went off in search of some cold beers. We checked out the Wet Lizard, but couldn’t find any seats. So instead we headed over to the Sandpiper to grab a few Belikins.

 

Wet Lizard:

 

 

Belikins at the Sandpiper bar:

 

 

We paid our tab at the Sandpiper and went to do a little shopping in the area. Brett picked up a t-shirt he liked and I found some handmade earrings at the bargain price of $5. Woohoo! I was interested in a t-shirt in one shop, but they didn’t have a small so I bypassed it. I came across the same shirt in another shop and the attendant found a small for me, put it in a bag and then charged me $10 more than the first store wanted. I know so many people try to get a better price, but I just wasn’t comfortable with haggling, so I paid for it and we moved on.

 

We were closing in on 2:30 pm and our stomachs were grumbling so we made our way to the tender line. We were lucky enough to walk right on a boat and as soon as we sat down Brett realized we hadn’t gotten our passports stamped. This was upsetting to me, so back off the tender we went in search of customs. We asked around and were eventually pointed in the right direction. The office was up above one of the terminals and the people couldn’t have been friendlier. Shortly thereafter we were back out on the dock waiting for another tender.

 

Some port pictures:

 

 

 

 

After a 15-20 minute tender ride we were back on the ship and in the grill line on Lido (around 3 pm). We had a quick bite to eat and decided a nap was in order before dinner, especially if we wanted to stay up for the adult’s only hypnotist show with Asad.

 

Next up: my parents day and cruise elegant night #2

[brwnzfan32]

Holly, I don't post much, just like to read, but wanted to tell you that your review is amazing. Going on the ship July 18, so I am getting excited reading your review. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

[mosweet]

Holly, your review has gotten me so much more excited for our cruise on the Liberty in September. It seems so far away but I know it will come and go so fast! Thanks and waiting to read more! :D

[Hollybelle]

Holly, I don't post much, just like to read, but wanted to tell you that your review is amazing. Going on the ship July 18, so I am getting excited reading your review. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

 

Thanks, brwnzfan, I'm glad my review is helping you get pumped up about your trip. A little over a month and you'll be on the ship :)!

 

Holly, your review has gotten me so much more excited for our cruise on the Liberty in September. It seems so far away but I know it will come and go so fast! Thanks and waiting to read more! :D

 

You're so welcome, mosweet! Have a margarita for me once you get on the ship!!

[Hollybelle]

My parent’s tender time was around 10 am and they were taken right to Bannister Caye for their “private island beach break.” A little while after they got there, they noticed people arriving by boat right from the port area (at what we can only guess was a much better price), and everyone got on the same tenders back to the boat at the end of the day. Just something to note if anyone is considering this excursion for their time in Belize.

 

Unfortunately, it was an overcast day threatening rain at some points so it wasn’t a perfect day for the beach, but they still had a great time. The infamous Thong Guy and his friends were there, too. And let’s face it, they alone probably provided some great laughs and entertainment! My mom’s favorite thing on Bannister Caye was all the starfish in shallow water just off the dock. She got some really cool pictures.

 

And because I wasn’t there, we’ll just have to make this part of the report a pretty pictorial review:

 

Bannister Caye:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hollybelle]

More pictures of Bannister Caye:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hollybelle]

Back on the ship, we woke up from our naps and got ready for our second elegant night of the cruise. Putting away our things, I grabbed the bag with my t-shirt in it and pulled it out. Boy, was I surprised to find I had a medium t-shirt and not a small... I’d been had!!! The vendor totally pulled one over on me. He probably took one look at me and thought, “This’ll be easy.” I should have double checked the size myself. Instead I let him grab it, fold it up and put it in the bag… all while I was none the wiser. Stupid, stupid, girl :rolleyes:.We got a good laugh out of it at dinner. I wonder how many times a day that guy pulls such things on ignorant tourists. Anyway… buyer’s beware!!

 

Speaking of dinner, let’s see what was on the menu for elegant night numero dos.

 

Steak:

 

 

Chicken:

 

 

Shrimp:

 

 

Chocolate amaretto cake:

 

 

And baked Alaska:

 

[Hollybelle]

The seas were really calm throughout the whole cruise with this night being the only exception; the boat was definitely rocking.

 

Here's one of the only pictures we actually got of ourselves on elegant night #2:

 

 

Because of the port change, Carnival wasn’t able to pick up the scheduled entertainers for the evening. So instead of a magic show, we got another juggler who was swapped out from the Valor. I was kind of looking forward to the magician, but what can you do?! The juggler was impressive, but you could tell he was hindered at least a little bit from the movement of the ship because he kept missing a few of his tricks. After the show, we wandered around Promenade for awhile and went to The Stage to listen to one of the bands. We were trying to buy some time before heading back to the Venetian Palace to get seats for the adult’s only hypnotist show with Asad. Eventually we went back to the cabin and lazed around until it was time. My parents ended up falling asleep, so we went without them.

 

Now… all the hilarity you might expect to ensue during an adult’s only show, most definitely ensued. One thing I didn’t quite understand was why one of the female participants volunteered while wearing a rather short, almost mini skirt. Who does that? Who knowingly gets on stage in said skirt for an adult show? Anyway… Asad played off some of the same jokes from the previous night only he dirtied them up a bit. He had the men on stage “try out” for roles in adult film… and because this is a family site I’ll only add that there were tears leaking out of my eyes I was laughing so hard!! Real or not, I was entertained. It was definitely worth staying up for.

 

We turned in for the night, along with this guy:

 

 

I still don’t have a clue what he was… a ram, maybe?!

 

Up next: our final day at sea and debarkation day :(.

[miniwheat]

Oh no I don't want the review to end. I'm loving it.:p