We had been planning our vacation for about 6 months and over that time I had convinced my brother and sisters to join us with their family. There were 17 of us in all. I began to worry that it might be a let down because we were all becoming very excited. We all ended up having a great time and everything was almost perfect the entire week. My wife and I had cruised with Princess Cruises years ago for our honeymoon and enjoyed them. We also cruised with NCL a couple of years ago which we did enjoy but they are the bottom of the barrel for cruises as far as ships, food and service. We had both cruised with Carnival years ago also.

We flew into Ft. Lauderdale on Friday to avoid any weather issues. We recieved 8 inches of snow in Kansas the week before we left so we picked a good time to go. We stayed at a Holiday Inn in Ft Lauderdale which was very nice. We used EZ express transportation service which was very reasonable for our group; ended up being $18.00 per person for a round trip. They were late picking us up from the hotel Sat. morning but we made it OK. We got to the boat terminal in Miami about 12:00pm and there was already quite a crowd there. It only took us about 45 minutes to get through the lines, check in and be on deck with a drink in hand; it went very smooth.

Our rooms were ready right on time and our luggage showed up soon after. My family stayed in a Family Ocean View cabin on the 11th floor which is the Spa Deck. The Liberty is the only ship (I believe) with this option still available and it was very nice. It has a full; and I mean full, window to view out from and it allows a little extra square footage which helps because there were four of us in our room. Myself, my wife, and our two children who are 7 and 10. We had other family members stay in a balcony room and my brother stayed in a forward suite. All rooms were very nice. The rooms are equiped with great storage; we never had to see our lugage or clothes in our room the entire trip. The bathrooms are nice with good storage also. The hot water never runs out. Read more