We sailed from Miami on Carnival Liberty on Saturday, February 4, 2012. We were in Room 7396, a balcony cabin on Empress Deck. We traveled with our 24 year old son and his family, including their 2 1/2 year old son, who had an inside cabin across the hall. We were close to the elevators and it was more noisy than other, similarly placed cabins on other ships. Unfortunately, the occupants of the cabin next door were chain smokers and this seriously impacted our ability to enjoy our balcony.

This was a first cruise for baby and mom, fourth for dad. It was the seventh cruise for my husband and myself. We last sailed on Carnival in 2006, and have had two other cruises since, one on Coral Princess to Alaska in 2009 and another Caribbean on Celebrity Equinox in 2011. I could definitely notice a difference in the clientele on Carnival this time. There were many first time cruisers. Mostly from the US, the group included people of all ages and all backgrounds.

We flew into Miami on Friday night, arriving at the Residence Inn Doral about 10 PM. We had reserved a 2 bedroom penthouse, which was just exactly what we needed for our group. We rented a car from Hertz to get our group to and from the port and that worked out very nicely. We were able to stop at Walmart to buy diapers and the toiletries we couldn't take on the airplane, then dropped the car at the downtown Hertz office. They shuttled us to the ship very quickly. No extra charge for the drop-off. Read more