My family and I sailed on the Liberty the week of Thanksgiving. Traveling with me was my mother, wife and four children (12, 11, 9 & 6). The initial impression of the ship.. It was big. The checkin process was poor. I just cruised on RCCL in January and it was much more organized / professional. Carnival has a self serve checkin process. The process is just a cost cutting measure. People were just fending for themselves because the manpower was not there to assist.

The screening process / security was weak at best. We walked on with extra bottles of wine and 4 12 packs of soda. The 12 packs were concealed and could have very well been beer but nobody cared to check. Feel free to bring on booze because they were not checking. None in my carry on was detected either.

Once on the ship we were herded like cattle up to the top decks for lunch. The cabins opened up around 1:30ish which I thought was great. Our bags did not arrive until around 430 but was still in time for dinner and that is all that is important. Read more