Our cruise on the Liberty on 5/30-6/6 was outstanding as usual. As I had mentioned in my previous post, I was traveling with my son in my cabin and my married friends and their grown daughter was in a seperate cabin.

Our room stewart’s name was Sami and he took very good care of us. We would see him at least once everyday and he always greeted us by name with a hugh smile. One day my son had slept in and when Sami saw me, he asked if everything was okay and apologized for not being able to take care of the room. I told him that there was no need to apologize since my son is the one who kept him from getting in the room.

The ship was beautiful and the food was outstanding. Butch was very funny. This makes my third Carnival cruise. I do not know why but I cannot even remember who the CD was on my first Carnival cruise. We had Big Tex on the second cruise and Butch on the third. They were both equally funny and entertaining.

The shows were all very entertaining. I attended all of the shows. One difference I noticed between Big Tex and Butch was that before and after the shows I seem to remeber that Big Tex would be out on the stage welcoming everyone before the show and then he would come back out at the end to thank everyone for coming. Butch would do the same but it appeared he did it on a microphone from backstage….I guess I prefered seeing the person talking, so I liked the way Big Tex handled it.

We really enjoyed the dining room experience and went to dinner every night in the Silver dining room. We were at the early seating at 6:00PM and were at table 534. Our head waiter was Laurence and the assistant waiter was a young lady whose name I can not recall. On our past Carnival cruises the head waiter would ask our names on the first night and would then address us by name the remainder of the the cruise. Laurence did not ask our names so of course he never addressed us by name. Other than that, the service was excellent although it did not seem like Laurence was overly friendly. On our two past cruises we really enjoyed when the dining room staff would sing and dance. On the Liberty it seemed to me that they waited too long to do the “show” and for the first few days we thought maybe they had stopped doing the singing and dancing. We were leaving the dining room one night and that is when the “show” started. We waited on the last night so that we could enjoy the final show. We were dissapointed because it appeared like most of the singing and dancing was taking place on the lower lever and we were upstairs. Some people got up to go look down at the show but I thought they should have involved both levels better.

On our final day at sea, there was something that happened which caused the ship to list quite a bit. We were out on lounge chairs on the lobby deck when it happened…..A couple of hours after it happened, Butch was making some other announcement and mentioned that the Captain had to turn suddenly and that is what caused the listing. Reading other blogs since our return I learned that a lot of water came out of the pools during the turn and a lot of items were broken in the gift shops. Based on converstations with other passengers, it seemed like a lot of people would have liked to have had a better explanation of what happened. I read on one site that some people were told by the crew that we had gone into Cuban waters and had to turn quickly….I really do not think this is true but would liked to have know what the issue was. It was kinda exciting but in telling my cruise experinence to others would like to be able to say what caused it.

On a scale of 1-10 I would have to give this cruise a 20….Even with the listing incident and with the head waiter not calling us by name, crusing with Carnival is my idea of a wonderful vacation. My friends and I are already planning our next cruise on the Dream for next summer.

One last note and I will end this long-winded review. In an earlier response you had mentioned that you would send something special to my friends who after the death of my wife, are the only reason while I am still enjoying crusing….I am not sure what happened, but nothing was sent to their cabin. Not a big deal but I wanted to let you know.

Thanks again for your time and I will continue to be a faithful reader……Your humor, your friendly outlook, and the way you write about your beautiful wife and daughter continues to impress me……I hope that one day we will get to meet you so that I can thank you in person….

Thanks,
Mike

Safe travels to Italy. Remember – photos of Lido Cabin #10272. Can’t wait to hear all about her and the Costa ships.

Hugs,
Carol

My fiancee.

Please reply whenever you can…

First of all, I’m glad to hear that Kye and Heidi are doing great! Also, Happy Belated Birthday to your mother! Hope she had a great birthday and I wish her all the best!

I will be sailing on the Triumph this Sunday, June 7th and wanted to know who the CD is going to be as I didn’t see June’s CD schedule posted yet. Also, what would you suggest as far as activities go for St. John, Canada? I’ve met up with the group I’m traveling with a few times and we are still clueless on what to do when we get there. I greatly appreciate it.

I know this couple who recently sailed on the Imagination for their very first cruise and I hate to hear the fact that they did not enjoy it not one bit. They’re the only people I know that do not like cruising at all as everyone else I know who has been on a cruise told me that they love it. They said that a lot of guests were very “wild” and that the food wasn’t so good… and with the Evolutions of Fun upgrade that the Imagination got, I would think that they would have been amazed as I would have been.

I love Carnival and have enjoyed each and every cruise that I have been on. I guess their expectations were too high. They told me that an employee told them to try a luxury cruise line when they went to make a complaint. They kinda did this to themselves though, going on their first cruise with a negative attitude thinking that they won’t like it.

The wife told me that she wouldn’t mind doing another cruise perhaps on a newer, bigger ship, but the husband is really “hard-headed” and thinks all cruises are like the one that they experienced last month and he will never sail on any cruise line again…

I’m just as disappointed as you might be reading this, and I wish there was something I could’ve done to make their cruise enjoyable after all the research I have done for them. I’m like the cruise expert in my family… However, I won’t let this negative review affect my upcoming cruise next week as this will be my fifth cruise since 2002.

I can’t wait to see the photos of the Dream and how she is coming along! Have a safe trip to Italy! Thanks for the daily laughs as usual. Until next time my friend.

Cheers,
Alex G.