Our group of seven (four adults, three teens) generally enjoyed the cruise. My wife and I loved a 2005 cruise on the Carnival Legend, and didn't hesitate to book Carnival this time. Our embarkation at Miami was flawless; we arrived very early and curbside baggage check whisked the bags away. We relaxed in the comfortable and mostly empty terminal, and had early boarding passes. Boarding was a breeze, and we took a leisurely lunch after checking into our stateroom, which was clean and spacious. The balcony was wonderful! The crew was friendly and competent throughout. Overall, the Carnival Liberty is a spacious, clean, beautiful ship, and I never felt crowded, except when tendering off. Like all Carnival ships, the Liberty might be seen as somewhat garish or gaudy, but that all fits with the "Fun Cruise" theme. However, I do believe that this ship is less stable than others I have been on, there was noticable rolling and pitching despite the ship's size and mostly moderate seas. There was a storm on the last night of the cruise which accentuated these motions, as could be expected. I had no problem with this, but quite a few other passengers were really disturbed by it. We ate most of our meals at Emile's Grille (the buffet), which allowed flexibility and variety, and we could eat together as a family. The lines in the buffet moved along well enough unless you were waiting for something special like stir-fry, or an omelette at breakfast. It was easy and quick to get some scrambled eggs, a few strips of bacon, toast, and a cup of coffee. My kids like omelettes, usually something simple with just with ham or bacon, however the omelette line was long because some folks would give the omelette cook a hard time every morning by either A): Not deciding what they wanted on their omelette until it was their turn to order (to busy babbling), then holding up the line while they slowly mulled their choices; or B): Changing their mind (sometimes several times) after the cook had already started preparing their order. Unfortunately, I think there are just some people who are difficult and inconsiderate just because they feel it's their right to be that way. Other than the special-order snags, I always found the buffet food was well prepared and with sufficient variety during all mealtimes, but it often did lean towards the junk-food spectrum, with a lot of deep-fried offerings. Dining in the Golden Olympian dining room was unremarkable. We went only once because our travel companions preferred it, but generally we preferred the flexibility of the buffet. The one feature of this ship that I strongly disliked was the giant video screen on the Lido deck. During the day, videos of various rap and hip-hop personalities (I refuse to call them "artists") were shown in a constant stream, accompanied by blaring soundtracks. As a result, the Lido deck had a distinct urban-primitive atmosphere. This "entertainment" was so loud, it was impossible to have a conversation above the distortion. While many folks (most of whom appeared to be travelling together in large groups) undoubtedly enjoyed this racket, I often found myself taking advantage of my stateroom balcony to catch up on some reading. The same can be said of the Gloves sports bar, which was occupied nightly by the same large, loud, and obnoxious group of folks. On the one night that we stayed there, some were harassing the bartender and were making generally inappropriate remarks about her and some of their fellow passengers. On another night, a security officer made regular walk-throughs of the bar, and loitered just outside. After that, it didn't take long to determine the "no-go" areas of the ship, and Gloves was one of them. Fortunately, most passengers tended to stick with their early preferences. My personal favorite was the Lobby bar, which was never crowded and yet was in the middle of everything. The Lobby bar had the unexpected surprise of an excellent American Jazz ensemble one evening, and a nightly Hannukah observance for the ship's Jewish passengers. We were invited to participate in this, although we aren't Jewish, and I found it to be a friendly and interesting experience. Ship-board entertainment was okay; of particular note was the duo of The Village Idiots, who were very funny and safe for all ages. They also gave juggling lessons in the Lobby bar one afternoon. The crooner (I don't recall his name) who was supposedly paying tribute to Sammy Davis and Frank Sinatra was pretty lame, people were actually getting up and leaving during his performance. Butch, the Cruise Director, obviously enjoys what he does and did a great job at pulling it all together and keeping everyone informed. The ports were okay, Half Moon Cay was large enough where those who just wanted to relax could grab themselves some quiet beach, well away from the way-too-loud "DeeJay" and the overwhelming groups of hip-hop fans, who dominated the end of the beach near the reception area. Based on this mob, we didn't even bother with the offered barbecue and just ate late leisurely at the buffet when we went back to the ship. Tendering works well, as long as you don't try to be the first one off the ship and the last one back on. Early on, passengers were cramming into the stairwell down to zero-deck to await the tenders. Line-cutting and pushing by some folks were a problem and I was waiting for a fight to erupt. Carnival did not control the process well in my opinion, and the method of allowing so many passengers into such a restrictive space is potentially dangerous. We made our way back up to the Lido and had a cup of coffee, preferring to wait until the surge died down. We left the beach two hours ahead of sailing to avoid the crowd-problem on the return trip, and all went well. It was amusing to watch the throngs of last-minute beach partiers trying to squeeze aboard the last few tenders as the ship prepared to sail, all while sitting on my balcony sipping a cold beer.In summary, it was a good cruise, but was clouded somewhat by the outright crassness of a good section of the passengers and we concluded that Carnival is really aiming at the bottom of the market. It will be NCL, HAL, or RCL for us next time. We will not cruise Carnival again.