I dig Rota okay, but it's hardly among the "best liberty ports." Puerto de Santa Maria is pretty nice, though.
Hey, it was number 2. Besides, SSBN, Parche (spec ops boat) and VQ...let's see...yeah, I don't get many good stops.

I dig Rota okay, but it's hardly among the "best liberty ports." Puerto de Santa Maria is pretty nice, though.
Was there anyone who did STA-21 from the Parche who went back to Subs? My roommate last cruise went NFO after leaving there.
To bad there is no more Subic/Cubi.
After Olongapo and Subic City there IS NO liberty ports.Nothing like them never was.
I have no idea what it's like now but Palma was the Olongapo of the Med except cleaner.
Panama City, FL...? Perhaps Magaluf.Or the Panama City of Spain...
Best Ever: Haifa Israel
Stand by for a great sea story...this one is a no-shitter. So USS Big Deck Gator is about a week from a much-deserved 3 day visit to Curacao. My buddy Archer (not quite as dickish as the cartoon character but just as devilish) says he's reserving a room at the Hilton and wants to know if I'm in. Duh. Our group was three dudes and 2 chicks and we thought that was about as big a group which could comfortably crash in a suite so we closed out. Five days out, the mess deck and wardroom are alive with the word that we were headed to Curacao RIGHT in the middle of Pride Week. Four days out, the new word is that Pride Week HQ is the Hilton so everyone should make reservations at the Marriott (1/2 mile down the beach). Three days out, shit is so serious that the Big XO gets on SITE TV during the Port Brief and changes the liberty policy to direct that every liberty group signs out with at least one female (and recommends overnights at the Marriott vice Hilton). Two days out, I corner Archer and say "WTF, shipmate?" He says "bitch, be cool." So we get off the boat, get in a cab and head to the Hilton resigned to the fact that the poolside bar music would be programmed to "Best of Erasure" all weekend. Oh well, at least we had two hot female JGs with us (one a track star, the other a swimmer). We get to the hotel and it's crickets. We roll to the pool and it's 4 sets of Dutch hot blonde female topless sunbathers. We start high-fiving beer commercial style and Archer goes, "so what do you think about the Pride Week rumor I started?" It gets better...after 24 hours of drinking, snorkeling with the ladies (if that's what you wanna call it) and generally living it up, we couldn't bear not knowing how the other 99% were living. We grabbed our fins and swam around the cove to the Marriott where we descended on the most ungodly sausage fest ever complete with the PHIBRON Commodore in the overcrowed pool with the the other 995 of our best friends. One of our smartass buddies asked how was Pride Week at the Hilton, to which we could only respond, "Sucks, but at least the drinks are free."I will second Curaçao...
Two days out, I corner Archer and say "WTF, shipmate?" He says "bitch, be cool."