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Showing posts with the label Cruise Lines

Nassau Review: Blue Lagoon vs. Junkanoo Beach

Wondering what to do when your Bahamian cruise stops in Nassau? Have other cruisers told you to stay on the ship? I recently went on a 3-night cruise aboard the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas that stopped in Nassau. I tried the two most popular recommended activities: visiting the free Junkanoo Public Beach and the Blue Lagoon Island excursion.  On my first cruise to Nassau, I stayed onboard the ship. Once I started venturing out and doing excursions, I realized I was missing out on so many beautiful places and memorable experiences. My favorite excursion to date was with Stuart Cove's Dive Bahamas! You can read about that here . On this recent cruise, I decided to try the Blue Lagoon Island Deluxe Beach Break. This was a beautiful island paradise. It was a short 30 minute boat ride from the pier, with views of Atlantis and celebrity homes along the way. We saw mansions belonging to Oprah, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, to name a few. On the other side we saw local fishermen

Liberty of the Seas - Royal Caribbean Cruise Line

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has an entire fleet of ships with varying features and sizes.  Liberty of the Seas is a Freedom Class ship, which puts it in the middle range at a size that can appeal to many cruisers.  There is a variety of fun activities from water slides to live entertainment, but the ship isn't too large so it still feels very manageable. The ship debuted in 2007 and updated in 2016 and has 15 decks with a capacity of just over 3,600 passengers. Since the ship didn't get "amplified" in 2020 due to the pandemic, it is also one of the more cost effective options to choose!   While the ship doesn't have some of the newest updates to come to Royal Caribbean, we never felt wanting for more and found the ship to still be in great shape and offered plenty to do for our 7 night sailing.  We've sailed on Symphony previously shortly after her debut, so we did have experience with some of the larger and newer ship features before embarking on this sailing

Le Petit Chef on Celebrity Beyond

When you go on a cruise, one of the big things that a ship is judged on is its food. Quality. Quantity. What’s included; what's not and so on. Recently, I was on the Celebrity Beyond for an Eastern Caribbean sailing to St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.  Usually I tend to stick to the included offerings for dining. The Oceanview CafĂ© (the buffet offering) is always good for me for breakfast and lunch, as is the four separate dining rooms, each of which offers the same dinner menu rotation, but also include dishes from the area of the world they represent; Normandie being French, Cosmopolitan being Continental, Cyprus being Greek, and Tuscan being Italian.  On this last sailing I was convinced to try a specialty restaurant/dining experience by the name of Le Petit Chef. At this dining experience, you are seated at a table and a video show is presented all over your table, guided by none other than Le Petit Chef himself, as he makes your dinner.  The an

Giovanni's Table on Liberty of the Seas

Royal Caribbean Cruise Line has wonderful specialty dining options on all of their ships.  They all have some variety of an Italian restaurant and I've tried Jamie's Italian on the Symphony of the Seas and now Giovanni's Table on Liberty of the Seas. The restaurant is located by the Windjammer Buffet, tucked off to one side as you enter the area.  Once inside, the atmosphere is dark and cozy, very different from the buffet hectic world outside the doors.  There is an open kitchen along the one wall and windows along the other.  The restaurant is a set upcharge, and then you can order whatever you want from the food menu that is to your liking throughout the meal.  Giovanni's is actually undergoing some changes on a lot of RCCL ships, but Liberty hadn't had those changes yet so it was still the "old" one, which was fine by us. We had an amazing meal here, and wouldn't hesitate to come back again on a future cruise.  You might see Giovanni's Kitchen