Notes on Carnival Liberty Mediterranean Cruise

We just returned from a 12-day Mediterranean cruise on the Carnival Liberty.
We had a great time, but this is not a review. It's just a few notes about
things that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere that might be of interest if
you're taking this cruise. Most of these fall under the category of "things
Carnival doesn't tell you because they'd like to sell you a transfer or
excursion", plus a few other goodies.

Also, note that some of this is for travellers who are willing and able to
haul their luggage around, are comfortable with public transit, and are
willing to deal with a little inconvenience to save some cash.

This is based on a Jun 24 - July 6 2006 cruise on the Carnival Liberty
starting and ending in Civitavecchia (Rome) Italy.

- Transfers: Carnival would like you to buy a transfer from
them to/from the airport or Rome to Civitavecchia (the port
city the cruise leaves from), and they will tell you that
it's inconvenient and expensive to get there from Rome or
the airport.

They don't mention that they run a free shuttle from the
port entrance to the ship, or that the train station in
Civitavecchia has excellent service to/from Rome Termini
(the big station in Rome) and is only a few hundred meters
from the port entrance.

All you need to do is take a right out of the train station,
walk along the waterfront until you get to the port entrance,
and look for the shuttle bus (or ask around; when a ship that
big is in port, half the people hanging around are going to
the same place you are. The only caveat is that Carnival
seems to hire out their shuttles (here and in other ports)
to companies that don't always bother to put a descriptive
sign on the bus, so you probably won't see "Carnival" written
on a nice big sign. Another alternative is to take a taxi
from the train station.

You can do the same between the airport and Civitavecchia.
My understanding is that the shortest way is to take the
train into Rome (probably to a more western station than
Termini), then back out to Civitavecchia, but since we
didn't do that, I don't have the details.

- They also have shuttles (some free/some for 5-10 Euros) at
most of the ports. Some are mentioned by the cruise director,
some not, but I couldn't find any mentioned on their web site
(or through their "vacation planner"). Since they make a lot
of money from transfers and excursions, I guess that's not
surprising, but it is annoying. The pursers will tell you
about them if you ask.

- There are some ports (esp. Venice) where you really want to
be out on deck as the ship arrives and leaves. We discovered
two levels of outside decks that are out of the way, and thus,
less crowded. They are at the front of the ship on the 9th
and 10th level. Just go to the very front (through the cabin
corridors) and you'll find a door to the outside.

- The Cabinet lounge had, on our trip, a very good jazz trio
(Gavin Ahearn Trio), which played most evenings. World class
musicians playing serious jazz (even a free-jazz piece one
night, which I think was played primarily to tweak a group
of Carnival employees on break who were way too loud and not
paying attention to the music. As a bonus, when the show
band wasn't playing, an alto sax player and trombonist also
joined. Both were excellent, especially the alto sax. The
lounge allows smoking (including cigars), which can be annoying
for non-smokers, but on our trip the lounge was quiet enough
most nights that we were able to find seats that weren't too
bad. If you like jazz, you'll find these guys a lot more
satisfying than the big shows.

- Maybe this is well known to most travellers, but the purser's
desk has all sorts of information if you ask. I got train
schedules for some of the ports we visited, and they usually
had additional information about ports. This was particularly
helpful at Livorno, where we had planned to take a taxi to the
train station to go to Florence. There was a taxi strike and
we needed to change our plans. The purser gave me the train
schedule, told me about the shuttle, and told me which bus to
take to get from the shuttle to the train station.

I hope this is useful; sorry for being a bit long-winded.

Dick Hamilton

Hi Dick,

Interesting notes you made.
We just got back from our July 8 to 15 cruise to Greece and Turkey on
board the new MSC Musica. When arriving in Venice (port of embarkation
and debarkation) we spotted a Carnival funnel in one of the ship yards,
seemd like a Destiny class ship. Anyone knows if it is a new one or one
in maitenance ? Just curious.

Frank
Geneva, Switzerland

Dick Hamilton a écrit :

We just returned from a 12-day Mediterranean cruise on the Carnival Liberty.
We had a great time, but this is not a review. It's just a few notes about
things that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere that might be of interest if
you're taking this cruise. Most of these fall under the category of "things
Carnival doesn't tell you because they'd like to sell you a transfer or
excursion", plus a few other goodies.

Also, note that some of this is for travellers who are willing and able to
haul their luggage around, are comfortable with public transit, and are
willing to deal with a little inconvenience to save some cash.

This is based on a Jun 24 - July 6 2006 cruise on the Carnival Liberty
starting and ending in Civitavecchia (Rome) Italy.

- Transfers: Carnival would like you to buy a transfer from
them to/from the airport or Rome to Civitavecchia (the port
city the cruise leaves from), and they will tell you that
it's inconvenient and expensive to get there from Rome or
the airport.

They don't mention that they run a free shuttle from the
port entrance to the ship, or that the train station in
Civitavecchia has excellent service to/from Rome Termini
(the big station in Rome) and is only a few hundred meters
from the port entrance.

All you need to do is take a right out of the train station,
walk along the waterfront until you get to the port entrance,
and look for the shuttle bus (or ask around; when a ship that
big is in port, half the people hanging around are going to
the same place you are. The only caveat is that Carnival
seems to hire out their shuttles (here and in other ports)
to companies that don't always bother to put a descriptive
sign on the bus, so you probably won't see "Carnival" written
on a nice big sign. Another alternative is to take a taxi
from the train station.

You can do the same between the airport and Civitavecchia.
My understanding is that the shortest way is to take the
train into Rome (probably to a more western station than
Termini), then back out to Civitavecchia, but since we
didn't do that, I don't have the details.

- They also have shuttles (some free/some for 5-10 Euros) at
most of the ports. Some are mentioned by the cruise director,
some not, but I couldn't find any mentioned on their web site
(or through their "vacation planner"). Since they make a lot
of money from transfers and excursions, I guess that's not
surprising, but it is annoying. The pursers will tell you
about them if you ask.

- There are some ports (esp. Venice) where you really want to
be out on deck as the ship arrives and leaves. We discovered
two levels of outside decks that are out of the way, and thus,
less crowded. They are at the front of the ship on the 9th
and 10th level. Just go to the very front (through the cabin
corridors) and you'll find a door to the outside.

- The Cabinet lounge had, on our trip, a very good jazz trio
(Gavin Ahearn Trio), which played most evenings. World class
musicians playing serious jazz (even a free-jazz piece one
night, which I think was played primarily to tweak a group
of Carnival employees on break who were way too loud and not
paying attention to the music. As a bonus, when the show
band wasn't playing, an alto sax player and trombonist also
joined. Both were excellent, especially the alto sax. The
lounge allows smoking (including cigars), which can be annoying
for non-smokers, but on our trip the lounge was quiet enough
most nights that we were able to find seats that weren't too
bad. If you like jazz, you'll find these guys a lot more
satisfying than the big shows.

- Maybe this is well known to most travellers, but the purser's
desk has all sorts of information if you ask. I got train
schedules for some of the ports we visited, and they usually
had additional information about ports. This was particularly
helpful at Livorno, where we had planned to take a taxi to the
train station to go to Florence. There was a taxi strike and
we needed to change our plans. The purser gave me the train
schedule, told me about the shuttle, and told me which bus to
take to get from the shuttle to the train station.

I hope this is useful; sorry for being a bit long-winded.

Dick Hamilton

Frank,

When we were in port with the Liberty (which was around Jun 27-28)
I didn't see any other Carnival ship in port. Of course, the Liberty
shows up in Venice for a couple of days every 12 days this summer,
so you might have seen it in port. We docked to the west of the
city (I think to the west, about a mile or so to the "left" as
you look into St. Mark's square from the water).

BTW, how was the Musica? I think we left port on the day it was
christened. As we left port, the Musica was docked near St. Marks
with a viewing stand set up next to it on land.

Dick

"SwissCruiser" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi Dick,

Interesting notes you made.
We just got back from our July 8 to 15 cruise to Greece and Turkey on
board the new MSC Musica. When arriving in Venice (port of embarkation
and debarkation) we spotted a Carnival funnel in one of the ship yards,
seemd like a Destiny class ship. Anyone knows if it is a new one or one
in maitenance ? Just curious.

Frank
Geneva, Switzerland