5/23 - DH and I left Savannah, GA driving to Miami, FL to board the Carnival Liberty. Everything was great for the drive, the weather was perfect! We spent the night at the Hyatt Place near the Miami airport, it was roughly $200 for the night, but they did allow us to leave our car in their parking lot for the duration of the cruise. The hotel provided a van to take us to the port, so away we went!

5/24 - EMBARKATION - DH and I called Carnival to verify boarding time for this sailing (since we were not scheduled to leave port until 7 pm). Although the Carnival representative told us we couldn't get on until 3:30, we decided to go to the port at 12:30, we arrived at the port at 1:00, to our surprise, we were on board by 1:15!!! No, we did not use the VIP line, we actually never even found a line until we were already on board! We were able to drop our carry-ons in our room and headed to the Lido for lunch.

PUBLIC ROOMS - After all the talk on CC about various rooms smelling like cigarette smoke, we decided to see for ourselves. The only area where the cigarette smoke was a constant was in the Casino, but that is expected. There were various times when we would walk through the lobby and smell it a little, but that was only near the doors when people were smoking on the open deck and others would open the door. The cigarette smoke was not overwhelming or over-powering anywhere except the casino during the tournaments. As for the rest of the public rooms, they were always clean and comfortable. Read more