Category: Food

My Carnival Liberty Vacation 2022

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date March 3, 2022

And now Week 7 of my 7-week series on my 8-day fun-filled vacation on the Carnival Liberty out of Miami Florida.

If you missed any of the previous weeks of this series then you can click here: Week 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6. (If you missed all of them then start with Week 1 and work your way forward.)

You know I disembarked the Carnival Liberty 46 days ago, and I’ve been reliving my 8 days on that fun ship every #TravelThursday since then. When I walked off the ship and into the terminal building at PortMiami I thought to myself – that was a great cruise – just as great as my previous Carnival cruise of nearly 3 years earlier. I was already thinking about when my next Carnival cruise would be. More to come on that !

What do I actually do on a Carnival cruise ship ? Well I don’t drink or party. Those days and nights ended on – ironically – a Carnival cruise ship in 2007. I drank alcohol for the very last time in my life on that ship coming out of the Mediterranean Sea and entering the Atlantic Ocean on its way across the sea to Miami. I drank for 22 years from age 18 to 40. I quit drinking 14 months after the start of my salvation in Christ.

Here’s what I do onboard when not in port. I eat a lot. I walk a lot. I eat and walk more than twice as much on a cruise ship as I do back at home and at work. I watch people, and I meet people. Carnival does a fantastic job in encouraging activities where you meet and talk with new people that will hopefully become new friends. I play trivia. I play BINGO. I attend nearly all of the shows in the main lounge. I laugh a lot. I applaud a lot.

I also pray a lot and dive-in to God’s Word while watching and listening to His marvelous seas. On some cruises I even write sermons; although, I didn’t do so on this cruise because of all of the activities that I was participating in.

This was a very unique cruise in that it was only about 40% full (my estimate – not based on any actual data). There was plenty of open space with very few people at all times during this cruise – both inside and outside on the open decks. I think on my next cruise it will be back to normal – at 100% full capacity.

And so now my big announcement. Exactly a month ago – just 18 days after disembarking the Carnival Liberty – I booked my next Carnival cruise. I’ll be sailing on their newest and biggest ship ever – the Carnival Celebration. It’s still under construction in Finland. It makes its maiden Transatlantic voyage from 06 to 20 November 2022, and she arrives in Miami as her new homeport. I’ll be sailing on her about a month-and-a-half after her arrival. It’ll be the newest cruise ship I sail on in my entire 30+ year history of cruising. (I sailed across the Atlantic on the Carnival Freedom in 2007 – 8 months after her maiden voyage.)

Next #TravelThursday a new short series (not 7 weeks) begins at the scene of my next vacation. It won’t be too far away from home – just 60 to 90 minutes away – north up in Broward County. I’m attending a couple of concerts, and I’m spending some fun times with my family (visiting from North Texas).

Tags Caribbean, Carnival, Cruise

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My Carnival Liberty Vacation 2022

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date February 24, 2022
1 Comment on My Carnival Liberty Vacation 2022

And now Week 6 of my 7-week series on my 8-day fun-filled vacation on the Carnival Liberty out of Miami Florida.

If you missed any of the previous weeks of this series then you can click here: Week 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5. (If you missed all of them then start with Week 1 and work your way forward.)

As I’ve mentioned previously I’ve been on Carnival (15 cruises), NCL (6), Royal Caribbean (once), and Disney (once). All of these cruise lines specialize in something different. Carnival has the best (and most) fun activities for all ages from early in the morning until late at night. NCL has the best professional entertainment at sea. Royal Caribbean has the best innovations that you won’t see on any other cruise line. Disney has the best food, and surprisingly I had some fun at the dance club late-night on my one Disney cruise (in 2018).

My favorite cruise line (by far) is Carnival, as I enjoy all of the fun activities at sea. Carnival has a reputation of being the “Walmart” of cruises. Hey – I like Walmart. You get a good deal for your money at both. If you want to go on a fancy cruise ship then don’t go on Carnival, and you can pay three times the amount for your cruise.

Carnival also has a reputation of being filled with drunken college kids running rampant. Yeah – maybe if you go in March or April – which I would never do. My 2ND week of January cruise had very few kids on it, and not too many in their 20s or 30s either. In fact – as a near-55-year-old – I think a little more than half of the cruisers were older than me. Go in March, April, June, July, or August, and meet a different demographic. January is a fantastic time to take a cruise (for me anyway), as it’s back-to-work and back-to-school for most people.

Carnival is not really known for their spectacular food quality, but I enjoy eating a lot of good food onboard. It’s certainly better than anything that I can get here in my hometown. Most of the food on Carnival is free (part of the overall cruise price). On my cruise I actually did eat at both of the “upcharge” places a couple of times each. Their steakhouse cost $38 (all-inclusive). You get a lot of food there – HUGE portions – and it really is the best food on the entire cruise ship.

I was assigned a 6 PM (early) seating at a large table in one of the two main dining rooms. I ate there 5 out of 8 nights. As Carnival typically does when you’re a solo cruiser (like myself) I was seated with other solo cruisers in my age group (which turned out to be 50s, 60s, and 70s). I enjoyed the company of each and every one of them, and we got along great as dinner companions. We ate. We talked. We laughed. We looked forward to seeing each other each night at 6 PM.

I ate a lot of good food on my cruise, and I did a lot of walking around the ship and in the 3 ports-of-call in an attempt to burn off a bunch of those calories. I typically eat twice as much food – (OK maybe even more than that) – than I do back on land at home and at work. Of course I also get more exercise walking on cruises (and on vacations in general) than I do during my normal everyday routine.

Next #TravelThursday – the journey concludes as I reveal my next cruise (already booked). I’ll also reveal my next vacation (on land) which will be much closer to home.

Tags Caribbean, Carnival, Cruise

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My Carnival Liberty Vacation 2022

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 20, 2022

And I am back from another fun-filled vacation. This time it was 8 days on the Carnival Liberty out of Miami Florida. Over the next 7 weeks of #TravelThursday I’ll blog about this cruise, so let’s get started.

In order to get started we need to go all the way back to a time shortly before we all knew what COVID was.

I actually booked this 8-day cruise out of Miami to Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao on February 10TH 2020. And then COVID shutdown the world a month later.

I booked this cruise 1 year and 1 week after returning from my last cruise on the Carnival Glory out of Miami. That was my 14TH Carnival cruise (in early-2019) and 22ND cruise overall since 1991. I love Carnival cruises, and I’ll share the many reasons why over the next 7 weeks.

I booked this cruise on the newer and bigger Carnival Horizon (in-service since 2018). It would’ve been my first cruise on a new(ish) cruise ship since October / November 2007 when I sailed on the Carnival Freedom out of Civitavecchia Rome Italy for its maiden voyage across the Atlantic to Miami. That Carnival Freedom cruise over the course of 14 days remains as my favorite cruise of all-time.

I’ve actually sailed on the Carnival Freedom more nights (29) than any other cruise ship. I sailed 2 more times on her in 2010 and 2014. That 3RD Carnival Freedom cruise in 2014 was not such a great experience, and I thought that it would be my final Carnival cruise ever.

I gave Carnival another chance almost 5 years later in 2019 on the Carnival Glory, and that turned out to be an excellent cruise; hence, my booking of the January 2021 cruise on the Carnival Horizon.

Well COVID canceled that cruise, and in lieu of getting my money back from Carnival I simply rebooked it for exactly a year later with a generous financial incentive included.

This past November the Carnival Horizon began experiencing propulsion problems with its maximum cruising speed. It was pulled from service and sent to an urgent extended dry dock over in Palermo Italy so that it could be repaired and also freshened-up a bit. It was replaced by the Carnival Sunshine for some of its December sailings – and the Carnival Liberty for some of its January sailings. Again – I could’ve chosen to cancel this cruise (due to the ship change), but I chose to sail on the replacement ship for even more financial incentives. I could’ve canceled this cruise at any time up to the day of sailing for no penalty at all (due to the CDC’s warning against sailing on cruise ships), but I kept this vacation intact.

And so I sailed on the 16½-year-old Carnival Liberty with an embarkation date of Saturday January 08TH 2022. I arrived at PortMiami shortly before 10:30 AM EST, and I stepped foot on the ship less than 45 minutes later. (It took less than 15 minutes to actually check-in at the terminal, but customers weren’t allowed on the ship until just after 11 AM.)

As this was my 7TH Carnival cruise in a row on the mid-2000s Carnival Conquest-class cruise ship (Glory, Valor, Liberty, Freedom) I knew where everything was on the ship. Of course it’s been almost 3 years, so I was confused at times. That just increased my steps on my Fitbit.

The ship set sail at 6 PM on that first night (about 2 hours late due to an unspecified maintenance issue that was awaiting a part). At that time I was already halfway into my dinner at the upscale steakhouse on deck 10. It’s a $38 upcharge to eat there, and that’s a bit steep, but they do serve the best food on the entire ship (and the biggest portions). Check out my cheesecake dessert !

After dinner (and that ENORMOUS slice of cheesecake) I enjoyed playing my first round of BINGO (3 games) – followed by the main show in the main lounge (which seats 1,400). I actually attended (and enjoyed) every main show in the main lounge during the course of this 8-day cruise, and it was never more than about 25% full.

This was a cruise for the fully-vaccinated, and you had to present proof of a negative COVID test taken within 48 hours of cruise embarkation in order to get on the ship. I believe that the cruise ship sailed at about 40% to 50% full. It’s my first cruise ever that wasn’t at or near 100% full. It was at less than half capacity more so for the change (downgrade) in ship rather than the strict COVID vaccination and testing rules. Nobody booked this ship. Carnival rebooked everyone (who didn’t cancel) from the Carnival Horizon. The Carnival Liberty was actually out-of-service for almost 22 months during COVID, and it was brought back into service a month earlier than planned to fill-in for the Carnival Horizon. After almost 22 months of inactivity there were most certainly maintenance and repair issues on this ship. I’ll explain some of those issues next #TravelThursday.

Tags Caribbean, Carnival, Cruise

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My November Vacation 2021 Road-Trip

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 6, 2022

#TravelThursday continues now with Part 6 of my 7-part blog series on my recent 18-day road-trip between South Florida and North Texas.

Last week I left-off at the end of Day 16 at my hotel destination on the west side of Hattiesburg right around sunset that night. It was my 2ND stay at that particular hotel, and it was a good night’s stay. Back in November I wrote all about Hattiesburg Mississippi here on #TravelThursday. On a future road-trip I need to spend a couple of days there exploring the local area rather than just a hotel night.

Early the next morning – Saturday November 27TH 2021 – I departed at dawn with freezing cold temperatures and a heavy layer of frost on my car windows. Temperatures dropped to as low as 30°F / -1°C during the first hour of my drive southeastward along historic U.S. 98. I drove through Semmes and Mobile Alabama right around 8 AM, and on the east side of Mobile (after another scenic drive along Battleship Parkway) I picked-up I-10 eastward.

Post-Thanksgiving holiday traffic on I-10 eastward was a madhouse. Once again it was quite scary driving through Pensacola. It didn’t really get much better after that. I don’t think I’ve seen and experienced I-10 as busy as it was on that Saturday.

I eventually had enough of the extreme anxiety, and I got off I-10 about 95 miles earlier than originally planned – at U.S. 231 – which leads southward into Panama City. I’m very familiar with this road, as one of my longtime friends has lived a couple of miles off the road for the past 20+ years. After a fuel pitstop at Love’s (my new favorite gas station / travel stop on the road) I took a series of backroads across the Florida Panhandle (south of Tallahassee) and into the “Big Bend” area of the Florida peninsula.

U.S. 98 is fun (translation – peaceful) to drive between Hattiesburg Mississippi and Mobile Alabama, and I especially love it along the “Big Bend” area of Florida south of Perry. I picked-up U.S. 98 in Wakulla County – which is another fascinating area of my state that I’ve spent very little time in (other than driving through). I’m a big fan of “Welcome To Plathville” on TLC, and on a recent Season 3 episode the family ventured down to Wakulla Springs State Park for some fun in the sun and sea. Now I want to visit !

I enjoyed a nice #LuDinner (late-Lunch / early-Dinner combined) at an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant in Chiefland – which incidentally I plan to eat at on every future visit through Chiefland. After my hearty meal I continued on for another hour to my hotel destination for the night in Crystal Springs (another town I’ve spent the night at previously). It’s located along U.S. 98 and Florida State Road 44, and where the two routes meet – it’s a very busy and congested intersection.

From the very cold low-30s up to the mild mid-60s – those were the temperatures during my drive back into my home state.

Just like Day 16 I drove another 523 miles on Day 17, so that’s 2,497 miles on this road-trip so far. And that’s where I’ll end Part 6 of this 7-part blog series. I’ll conclude with my road-trip adventures and experiences next #TravelThursday.