Returned from Liberty 6/4/11 Cruise: Great time

[Mike M]

Hi,

My family (DD,SIL,GD,GS and wife) just returned from the Carnival Liberty and overall had a great time. The ship is in overall good shape and the staff was excellent. The grandkids loved Camp Carnival and it was hard to get them to leave. My granddaughter even wanted to do the late night "Slumber Party". After three days of begging we relented and allowed her to go. The kids are there from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.. She loved it but none of us got any sleep that night. Between Dad and Grandpa checking up on her every hour or so and then waiting until the counselor returned her at 3:15 a.m. we were all pretty worn out. No one was awake before 10 the next morning. Good thing it was a sea day.

There were a large number of kids on the cruise and the pools and water slides were the busy place but not too rowdy.

We had Your Time Dining and really liked it. Almost every night we had the same wait team with Antonio as our head waiter. We ate between 6 and 7 every night but had no standing reservation. The wait team was as excellent and efficient as you would expect in traditional dining and better than many teams we've had.

Cabin steward did his job but you could tell that the stewards have more cabins assigned to them and spend less time on each cabin.

Definitely did see cutbacks in the food. The food was overall fine but there are fewer higher quality cuts of meat and fish. The Flat Iron Steak, while edible, is not a good cut and unless you order it rare/medium rare it is tough.

Also the dessert menu, in the main dining room, has been cut with only two new offerings each night and the every night offerings of Chocolate Melting Cake, fruit, ice cream and cheese. I'm sorry but I have never been a real fan of Chocolate Melting Cake. It is too inconsistent. It can be almost a pudding to a hard chunk of cake. Ice cream was always my "go to" dessert.

The only disappointments were: The balcony partition between the connecting staterooms that we had (6283/6285) could not be opened. It would block one of the doors. I had been assured, prior to booking, that it could be opened. It's a bit silly to have connecting cabins with a balcony partition that can't be opened. It really didn't have too much of an impact but we were looking forward to it being opened.

The only other was that there were some passengers who were a bit irritating. For the first couple of days there was a group of senior people who would go to the family pools and yell at kids for just swimming and making any sort of a splash. I finally got fed up and told them to go to the "adult" pool, at the stern, if kids bothered them so much. They said they didn't like that pool as much and just wanted a quiet pool to relax. Over the blaring rock music I yelled; "You call this quiet?"

So if that's all I have to complain about then it must have been a pretty good cruise and it was.

I'll write a full review for the Reader Review section but this is the quick and dirty.

BTW: Nachi Cocum on Cozumel was an Excellent beach day and well worth the price. The kids and the adults all loved it.

Take care,
Mike

[Manuel]

Originally Posted by Mike M

There

Definitely did see cutbacks in the food. The food was overall fine but there are fewer higher quality cuts of meat and fish. The Flat Iron Steak, while edible, is not a good cut and unless you order it rare/medium rare it is tough.

Also the dessert menu, in the main dining room, has been cut with only two new offerings each night and the every night offerings of Chocolate Melting Cake, fruit, ice cream and cheese. I'm sorry but I have never been a real fan of Chocolate Melting Cake. It is too inconsistent. It can be almost a pudding to a hard chunk of cake. Ice cream was always my "go to" dessert.


Take care,
Mike

Of course there are cutbacks on the food! They want people to go to the special restaurants.

They find out that people are willing to pay extra for their food, so they cut back on the MDR.

TM

[Luanne Russo]

Mike, I can't believe your cruise is already over with. It sounds like you had a good time, and I look forward to seeing your full review.

[Kuki]

Welcome home to the Mikey crowd! Sounds like aside from a couple speed bumps, that you had a wonderful time.

[skymaster]

Excellent, Mike! Sounds like a super cruise to me. I've never understood why some of the "old farts" insist on camping near the main pool, and then complain about the noise?
Thanks for posting, and I agree with Luanne. It seems like you just left for that cruise! Oh well,,,time to start planning the next one.

Welcome home,

"SKY"

[Trip]

Welcome home. Amazing how fast a week goes! Glad you had a nice time.

[Moiraine]

Not a fan of the Chocolate Melting Cake!

Ah well! Sounds like you had a good time overall. You know you are always going to run into a few, ah, nuts, on vacation, cruise or land, each and every time.

Glad the grandkids had a good time. My seventeen year old is at the stage that she thinks she is just too cool to go anywhere with the parents anymore. Just as well that I am housebound with my father. She told me a while back that we could send her and a friend to Hawaii for senior trip. I just laughed at her. That was before her dad lost his job and there was still the possibility as far as the money went, but PLEASE! She thought she was going to slip that one past me!

[Donna]

Welcome back Mike and family,
Yes, it is hard to believe that you are already back, that one week goes so quickly. Great to hear everyone enjoyed the cruise/food, ports, etc... Now it is back to regular life and look forward to the next one.

[Fern]

Mike, thanks for the "quick and dirty" review! It pretty much mirror's our Carnival cruise experience.

I totally agree with your opinion of the flat iron steak. As I recall, this is a cut that's usually cut up and made into stew . The only other way I've seen it served is rare, cut on the bias and put in a salad.

I'm almost afraid to admit it, but I, too, am not a big fan of the Chocolate Melting Cake and I love chocolate!

I'll be looking forward to reading your "official" review,

[Moiraine]

What am I going to do with the two of you!