We had a great cruise aboard Carnival Liberty, sailing from Fort Lauderdale February 17, 2007 to Costa Maya, Limon, and Colon. We're a family of five - Dad, Mom, sons 15, 10 and 6 (turned 7 during the cruise). This was our fifth cruise, but first cruise outside the summer season. Since we're from New York, our kids have a school break the week of President's Day. (For those of you who've ever wondered why some school districts are off that entire week - back in the 70's during one of the energy crises, the folks in Washington decided that if all schools closed during that week in February, we could save lots of energy by turning down the heat in the schools, and students could attend school one week later in the school year when there was no need to run the heating systems. After the energy crisis died down, most schools went back to their original calendar - but some schools decided they liked the week off in February and kept it in the calendar.) There weren't as many kids as I expected on this cruise - they announced there were 300 (compared to the announced 900 when we sailed on Conquest in July 2005).

We had a fairly active roll call before our cruise, and it was great meeting so many CCers on board. We met right after boat drill, then on the first two sea days in the morning. The roll call also paid off in Panama, as you'll read below. Hi to scperk, boatnick, giofamily, beachbumscanada, star10, Maggie, Dr. Jack Daniels, and anyone I missed; I'd love to cruise with all of you again!

Fort Lauderdale: We arrived the day before sailing and stayed at the Best Western Oceanside on Seabreeze Boulevard. It's a smaller, older hotel, but it worked just fine for us since we wanted to be near the marina for the Jungle Queen dinner cruise. It's also a short walk to the beach - which was too cold to enjoy during our visit, but was very nice for a walk. The Best Western also has a full buffet breakfast included. There's no shuttle to the port; you will need to call a cab. Read more