Carnival Liberty Review

4.5 / 5.0
1,580 reviews

Disappointed this time with Carnival

Review for the Southern Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Liberty
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Wags2
2-5 Cruises • Age 60s

Rating by category

Cabin
Embarkation
Dining

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Sail Date: Oct 2015
Cabin: Balcony

We have taken a number of cruises, this one being the second on Carnival. We booked this cruise over a year in advance. From the very second we stepped foot on the ship through the duration, the feeling was very subdued, by the employees, music, even the cruise director, until the last day of the trip, where he sounded happier in his announcements. The ship is laid out exactly as the Triumph, which we sailed on 2 years ago and had a great time with fantastic reviews! We bought the faster to the fun card for this trip, which was worth not having to wait in line to board and our luggage was delivered to our cabin soon after we boarded. But that is really all that was good for. We had no trouble getting off the ship at each port. For debarkation, there was really no time savings to having the "faster to the fun" card. If you take a cruise for some daytime cruising this is not the cruise you want to take. Pretty much all the cruising time is done after dark. This is billed as a 6 night cruise. What a joke! The 1st night, we left port late at 11:00 pm. We don't take long to unpack, get settled and head to the fun, of which there was not a lot to head to that afternoon/night.The 6th night they had a movie playing at the main pool, as they did every night, which was closed as well as both the pool side bars. You couldn't even order a soda until later when they finally opened the Red Frog and began showing a 2nd movie after 9:00 pm. It made us feel as if they didn't want anyone doing anything except to prepare to get off their ship! Late that night they did offer a comedy show as well as the casino, which was open every night after the ship left port. As I'm sure with all cruises, the casino is not open at all while docked in each port.

We traveled with 2 other couples. Arrangements had been made, and confirmed via email by Carnival months ago, for all of us to be seated together at the early dinner. None of us were seated together and one couple wasn't even scheduled for the early seating. Took over a wasted hour to get it all straightened out. We finally get to dinner and find Carnival has made some big changes to the menu! They offer a few items to choose from, but if you wanted a steak or lobster, you have to pay an ADDITIONAL $20.00 for that meal (This is in the dinning room, NOT one of the specialty restaurants!), except for the captains night dinner. The shrimp in the shrimp cocktail were more like salad sized shrimp and lucky if the lobster was 4 ounces. Our lead waiter, Anselmo, and his staff were excellent! Other issues with the food: The buffet lines were always way too long, never open long enough, the Taste Bar opened at 5:30 till maybe 7:00. When are you supposed to get a chance to taste something....on your way to your early seating dinner? Guy's Burger Joint, one of the BEST places to eat on the ship is only open from noon till maybe 6:00 pm and yes the lines were always long. If you do an excursion at each port, you never get the chance to eat there. The only thing offered for food later in the evening is pizza, and yes a long line, at least a 20 minute wait.

It is understandable that a ship needs maintenance, but it seemed as if they decided to do it all during our cruise. The water slide pool and hot tub were shut down the 2nd night and never reopened for our cruise! They did a complete overhaul on it, so I'm sure the next group thoroughly enjoyed what we paid for but didn't get to use! We had to deal with sanding dust, grinding dust and painting the entire cruise, right next to the main pool and walkway to the main pool. Seemed like daily there was something else we would come across where we would need to take a detour because of some sort of repair or maintenance.

Cabin Review

Balcony

Cabin 8E

We stayed in a balcony cabin which had plenty of room for two people. Our room steward, was very kind, knew our names and took care of all of our requests. I'm glad I travel with disinfectant wipes. Even though the room looked clean, I started to wipe down the coffee table, counters, phone, etc, and by time I was finished, I had gone through an entire travel pack of the wipes all of which were black.

Port Reviews

Dominica

Took our own taxi to the waterfall. Not sure I would pay for an excursion. The waterfall was beautiful.

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