My husband and I chose the Liberty based on it's itinerary. This was our 4th cruise, 3rd with Carnival. We flew to Miami Friday night and stayed at the Airport Embassy Suites. We left the hotel at 11:00 a.m. and arrived at the port at 11:30. The taxi cost $25. After a simple check-in, we were onboard enjoying rum punch by 12:45. The Carnival employees at check-in were courteous and helpful. We found our Aft balcony cabin at 3:00, with our bags waiting at the door. The muster drill lasted about 20 min. Dinner the first evening was open seating but we had late seating the rest of the week. Food selections were plentiful and we often chose 2 appetizer/salad selections. We ordered from the Wine package before sailing by calling Carnival's Bon Voyage dept. and the coupons were delivered to our table the first night. We also ordered a bottle of rum from the gift dept. and it was waiting in our cabin. We ordered drink coupons as well and they were also delivered to us at dinner. While these things weren't necessarily cheaper, they weren't added to our sail and sign account, but were charged to our credit card before we left. That way, we spread the costs out over a couple of cards. I brought along a small plastic bottle to put rum in that we took with us to the pool areas and for our day at Half Moon Cay to "doctor" up the drinks a bit. The mini-bar in the cabin is stocked with sodas, beer and airplane sized liquor bottles. Our room steward asked us if we wanted it unlocked. You can also have them remove all the items in the fridge if you want to put your own items there.

We enjoyed the Serenity area on deck 10. The lounge chairs there are a little nicer and it's definitely quieter there. However, you need to get up there early, around 8:00 on mornings at sea. There aren't a lot of chairs available and they go quickly.

I can think of three things that bothered us a bit. One, people need to clean up a bit more for dinner in the dining room. We saw people there that looked like they had just finished their Saturday morning grocery shopping. We figure if the waiters can wear nice suit/uniforms, serve us on white table cloths and cloth napkins with numerous utensils, we can put on a shirt nicer than a T-shirt. Two, while I'm happy the housekeeping staff kept our cabins clean and tidy, we could do without having to dodge their carts in the hallways. Not only the carts, there were usually vacuum cleaners and cleaning buckets full of dirty water sitting in the hallway. I don't leave those items out all day while I'm cleaning, why should they? Third, Carnival really needs to do something about crowd control on port day. I'll address it specifically in the St. Thomas review below. Read more