Liberty of the Seas Review: 8-1-2009-Eastern-LONG

[Bencruisin]

My family consists of two daughters (17 and 23) and my wife and I are 50. We enjoy all types of physical activity which is the reason we opted for the Liberty 7 day cruise versus the Carnival 8 day cruise. Carnival was less expensive but didn't have the flow-rider, ice skating, boxing ring and rock wall. We have cruised 4 times on Carnival and this was our first Royal cruise.

The day before we drove to Miami and stayed at the Hyatt Regency Miami, 400 South East Second Ave, which is a 4 star hotel. Got it on Priceline for $70. Great hotel and location. Do Priceline starting at $50 and work your way up and you might score it for $60. The hotel was 5 minutes from the ship. There is also a free public rail service right off the hotel to take you to the Bayside mall which is way more than a mall and has free entertainment, good restaurants, etc. We enjoyed the Bayside. We ate at a restaurant called Knives I think which served Latin food, all you can eat, where you can get different meat selections from chicken, steak, pork, etc. freshly prepared. I think it was around $20 per person and includes an ok bottle of table wine per person.

The Liberty was fully booked for this cruise so I expected, crowding, massive lines and sold out venues but with the exception of ice skating it never happened. What a really pleasant surprise.

I’ll get into more detail about food, entertainment, Carnival comparisons and such at the end of the review so I can combine the similarities.

Day 1 – the drive from the hotel to the ship was easy. At 12:15 PM we dropped off the luggage with the porter, parked the car and were standing in front of our cabin area slightly before 1:00 PM. AMAZINGLY QUICK. Be sure to fill out and print your sea pass info on-line, have your passports ready and you will fly though embarkation. They don’t open the stateroom areas till 1:00 PM so we sat on the steps for about 5 minutes before they opened the doors and we dropped off our carry-ons in the room. We were in cabins 2421 and 2425. The cabins were smaller than Carnival but the layout seemed better organized. We went up to the Windjammer for lunch. The honey stung chicken was ok. Don’t really understand what all the fuss is about. We toured the ship and were blown away by the sheer size. The Royal Promenade was smaller than what we envisioned from pictures and descriptions but it’s still impressive. The luggage arrived just in time for us to dress for dinner. While the wife went to check out the shops in the Promenade the kids and I booked the tours at the guest relations desk. Since the ship was sold out we booked all the tours day 1. We arranged for MTD when we booked so we went to the nightly show which wasn’t very good and then headed off to the MDR when we were ready. I’ll describe MTD in detail at the end of the review. After dinner we had a few more drinks, went to karaoke where there was a great group of folk partying and singing, walked around some more, people watched and danced in Boleros where the latin band and the crowd was wonderful. Filled out the room service card for coffee and such for the next morning and went to sleep. Had a great first day!

Day 2 – At sea. The in-room phone rang about 5 minutes before the requested room-service time to let us know our coffee was on the way. We never experienced this delivery call on Carnival and appreciated it. So much so that we used it as our standard wake up call every day. We’d take the coffee up to deck 4 and relax till it was time to wake the kids. We always book an inside cabin because of price and the lack of sunlight. I’m a heavy sleeper noise wise but the slightest amount of light trips my wake up switch. I really enjoy the cave-like darkness. It’s like one of those sensory deprivation chambers … so much better than our master bedroom at home for sleeping. We all went to the exercise area for our daily work-out. The work-out facility had excellent equipment, in fantastic condition and plenty of it. We did have to wait a bit for a treadmill but nothing unreasonable. Minutes at best. By the time I had stretched and warmed up there were several available. Same for the family. We all do weights and I run, the wife power walks and does the stepper and my kids like the treadmill, elliptical and trying out other machines. My only complaint would be the boxing ring. I have been doing different martial arts for decades and both my children are advanced practitioners and we were looking forward to beating the crap out of each other in a real boxing ring but you can only use the ring if you pay to book a session with a RCI trainer. After working out we went to the Windjammer for lunch. There were no real lines or unacceptable crowding. Well done RCI! We walked around some more and checked out the teen programs for my 17 year old. Being 17 and mature for her age she was not inclined to hang out where the break down age wise was so skewed to younger teens. 17 turned out to be a less than optimum age on the cruise. Too young to get into the adult venues and too old to enjoy the teen programs. She still had a great time….hanging with us and older sis, meeting kids her own age at the pool areas, flow-rider, etc. and catching up on her summer reading list. She did have a complaint about the library…she has a thing about quiet when she reads so she would head off to the library and there were people in the library who were anything but quiet. My take – Knowing how teens are, if quiet in the ship’s library is one of your only complaints, you really gotta give credit to RCI. The wife and I took a well deserved siesta and we all met up for dinner in the MDR. After dinner we headed off to the nightly RCI show, with the RCI entertainers which was again, not very good. The adult comedy act that night was funny as hell though.

Day 3 – At sea. After room service morning coffee, we all headed to the rock wall. My oldest daughter and I signed the waivers, got our harness and climbing shoes and got in line. My wife and youngest daughter took a pass on the rock wall. I can’t remember how tall the rock wall is but it’s massively tall. Once again even with the fully booked ship the lines where more than acceptable. Each person climbing wears a harness that has a rope attached that is held by a RCI person working a pulley. The RCI person did not pull us up to the next hand-hold. They merely keep the line tight in case you fall. My eldest went first and I got started on another line before she finished. One of my workout routines is various positions on a pull up bar so I thought I’d be flying through the rock wall with ease. I was in for a surprise. It’s mostly leg work, balance and core strength. So much for pull ups. I got to the top and rang the bell in what felt like 5 to 10 minutes and my legs were more tired than my arms. What a fantastic view! So now that I had accomplished my mission and enjoyed the view and rang the bell at the top I’m looking forward to rappelling down. But NO, …my oldest daughter, who is well built and pretty was singled out by the RCI line holders. Seems there was this 11 year old boy who had tried earlier to get to the top but didn’t make it. They told him if he made it to the top this time my oldest would give him a big kiss… which my daughter gladly agreed to and the 11 year old was also very happy about. So while I was finished my line guy and the 11 year old’s line guy were either too busy staring at my daughter or routing on the 11 year old. So there I am at the top with a line just tight enough for me not to drop but not tight enough to eliminate my legs and arms from having to work. I didn’t want to seem like a wimp so I rang the bell AGAIN thinking this’ll get their attention. Nope. Heck, even my wife and youngest forgot I was up there . So I reached up and rang the darn bell one more time to no avail and finally yelled “Hey! Unless you’re planning on serving me dinner up here I’d like to come down now!” That got my rope guy’s attention and I was able to rappel down. I’d like to say it was a smooth ride down but since I wanted to bounce off the wall like on T.V. instead of just being lowered it wasn’t very smooth but it was an experience I’ll never forget and at no time was I in danger and I didn’t get hurt. When I reached bottom the 11 year old boy had just rang the bell at the top and they lowered him till he was eye level with my daughter which left about 2 feet of air under him. My eldest gave him a hug and big smooch on the cheek and everyone cheered while he smiled from ear to ear. I laughed pretty hard now that I understood why I didn’t get lowered after I rang the bell. After the rock wall we had lunch in the Windjammer, walked around the Promenade and shopped and went down to the karaoke booth were you can make your own DVD. We made the DVD but it never got processed and we never got charged. Seems there was a problem with the computer process for the karaoke DVD. After that the wife and I worked out and took a nap (I wish I could bottle how good an afternoon nap is for a 50 year old – pretty sure I could make enough to buy a cruise ship). The kids went to the pool and hung out. I finished my nap before the wife woke and went to the casino to enter the blackjack tournament. The blackjack tournament is $25 and they group you into 7 players per round of 7 hands with each person starting with $500. The 7 highest money winners get to play in the final. I took first place that day with $1200. They have 2 more sessions like this before the final round on the last day at sea. My $1200 left me in 2nd place for the final. Yay! We met up for the evening show with the RCI entertainers and then off to MTD in the MDR. We had to get up early for the excursion in St. Martin the next morning.

Day 4 – Phillipsburg, St. Martin. We had booked the Rhino Riders tour for 10:30 AM but we got a phone message and a hard-copy the night before letting us know it was rescheduled for 11:30 AM. We were happy to get an extra hour of sleep. We ate breakfast in the Windjammer (first and only time we got up early enough to make breakfast). Breakfast was excellent because we didn’t go for the ready made stuff and had made to order eggs. The tour was excellent! Those Rhino Riders are sturdy inflatable speed boats that haul azz. We met up with the tour folk on the pier and got on a barely air conditioned bus for the 20 minute ride. The bus driver was very informative and the ride up the mountains was a thrill…there was barely enough room for two cars going in opposite directions let alone a car and a bus. The bus driver turned off the A/C heading up the steep hill for extra power and asked us to open the windows if it got too hot J It was never uncomfortable though. The tour consisted of two folk to a boat. Each boat follows a guide, single file for about a 30 minute one way ride to the far side of the island where you can snorkel and swim for about 30 minutes before heading back the same way. The boat is what the tour is about and the snorkel-swimming is just added value. Don’t take this tour if snorkeling is what you’re after since there isn’t much time and there is nothing to see under water. As I said the boats haul and we got some air a few times. The wife was constantly yelling for me to slow down . We got back to the boat and had a late snack in the Windjammer and another nap. The kids were wiped out and slept a bit too. We went to the nightly show again, off to MTD in the MDR and then karaoke. My wife and kids picked out a song for me (Randy Travis, Forever and Ever Amen) and told me just before I got called. I play guitar and sing if you can call it that, and have sung this to my wife when we first got married 26 years ago. Thank goodness for the wine package and the courage a good cabernet provides! Then off to the casino where my wife won $60 on the video poker machine and I won about the same playing blackjack.

Day 5 – San Juan, Puerto Rico. Should have gotten to bed earlier. We had an early tour, Carabelli Horse-back ride into the rain forest. We had coffee but no breakfast and met the tour at the end of the pier. My wife was born in Puerto Rico but lived in Philly since she was about 5 so she never got to see much of it and wanted to see the rain forest and we all love horses so the tour was a good match. Some of the things I’ve read about the tour on this site didn’t match up. Someone said it was 1 hour, one-way, on a non-air-conditioned bus. We had a ride of about 30 minutes one-way during rush hour and it was in a very well maintained bus with plenty of A/C. The bus driver was very informative and pleasant. I have ridden horses at least 5 times while my wife and kids have ridden only once and these were some of the best behaved horses I’ve ever seen. These horses actually obeyed when the reigns were worked and in most cases didn’t need much reign work unless you wanted to change the order of the pack. There wasn’t a large number of nags either. The tour guide was very good at matching the horse to the person and the horses didn’t try to buck or tree rub anyone off or rush back to the stable going or coming. For those who have ridden rented horses before, you know what I mean when I say that even when we were 5 minutes from the stable on the way back not one horse out of the 20 or so in the trip tried to run back or got unruly. The trip consists of about 30 minutes one way up into the rain-forest with a lead guide, a back end guide and two others that monitor those in between. The rain-forest was a small let down of sorts but the horses, guides and overall tour were excellent. The rain forest isn’t the kind Tarzan swings around in. When you get to the rain forest stop you can buy water, soda and beer cheaply and swim in the stream. When my eldest got on her horse before we started the tour the horse began to pee. She couldn’t figure out how to get the horse to miss her legs and we laughed ourselves senseless watching her try to get her legs out of the way without giving the horse a command. On the ride back the bus would drop you off for shopping or back at the pier. Once on board it was eat at the Windjammer and a nap before meeting up for nightly show and the MDR. I can’t remember what we did afterwards but I do know it involved several glasses of wine and perhaps some latin dancing .

Day 6 – Labadee, Haiti. We booked the first personal watercraft tour in the morning and the 12:30 Dragon Breath Zip Line. What’s cool about booking the first tour in the morning is that you’re tendered and you get assembled to go ashore before the tender is open for anyone who has not booked a first morning tour. What’s not cool is how early the meet up time, 7:30AM in the morning, comes after drinking and partying the night before! The tender takes all of about 5-10 minutes once they release the lines. It has an upper and lower level. You definitely want the lower level because it’s covered and it’s sunny and HOT and it takes several minutes to load and go. Labadee is clean and well run. The personal watercraft tour is ok and similar to the Rhino Rider tour. If I had it to do again I would book the Rhino Rider only. The personal watercraft is a jet ski and the tour is about an hour long including the instructions. Like the Rhino Rider tour you follow, single file and are not allowed any time to ride, even in a defined area, on your own. So you line up and if the person in front of you is slow, you go slowly since you cannot pass them. At one point you stop in a small bay where some folks from the island paddle up, each in a plastic sit-on-top kayak and try to sell you trinkets that they will hold for you till you pay at the end of the tour. Cheesy and uncomfortable. So unless you have never been on a jet ski take a pass. After the jet skis we bought some Labadoozies. The Labadoozies were a fruity concoction similar to pina colodas. It was a little early to start drinking but what the heck….we each had one except that my youngest had no alcohol in hers. I kiddingly mentioned that I’d take her rum and the RCI server poured about 3 additional shots in each of ours without additional charge. Even with almost 4 shots of rum we couldn’t taste it but we sure felt it. We went shopping in the market. I read on this site that the sellers are aggressive and abrasive. Definitely true. Didn’t bother me and the wife too much but really got to my kids. My eldest got the hang of it toward the end but my youngest couldn’t stop trying to be nice and was really intimidated. This only happened in the market place where all the booths are under one roof in a circle and just outside in a row. It was also obvious that the vendors had been told, maybe recently, that touching was a no-no. They would occasionally reach out to take your hand or upper arm and would correct themselves before making contact. I considered it part of the experience. My eldest wanted 3 small oil paintings for her and her roommates and a wooden statue with a man and a women for her boyfriend who collects them. She picked out 3 pictures and the guy said it was $60. I told him $20. We haggled and settled on $25. Could have gotten them for under $20. We found two matching wooden statues of a man and a women. The vendor said $10 a piece or $15 for both and I, having learned my lesson said $1. We settled on $5 for both. On our way to the Dragon Breath zip line my daughter spotted a larger more pleasing statue of a man and woman kissing and I asked the different vendor if he would take $5 dollars and the other two statues we had bought. He said no. We started to walk off and he said ok. When I tried to give him the other two statues we already bought he laughed and said you keep them. Obviously I overpaid. Off to the zip line! My wife is scared of heights but she asked the kids and me to book the tours so she was surprised and not thrilled about the zip line. If you do the zip line bring a tee shirt. We didn’t and had to buy 3 tee shirts or walk all the way back to the lockers at the watercraft area and would have to miss the scheduled start time and maybe the island lunch. Cost was $40 bucks for 3 tee shirts . The first leg of the zip line is a small try-out about 200-300 feet up. My wife was still scared but thought she could deal with it. She screamed most of the way down. When the tryout was over she said that wasn’t so bad – that’s when we told her this wasn’t the real one. We got into a large jeep and went to the real zip line which is high enough to make people on the ground look like ants. I wanted to hold back and go when the wife went but they match you up to a line by weight so I had to go before her. Ladies, here’s a warning…in the 26 years we’ve been married I have never been allowed to know my wife’s weight…when they match you to a line you have to tell them whether you fall into the under 100, 100-130, 130-160, 160-180, or over 180 category. My wife was more unhappy about that than the height. Me and the kids were at the bottom waiting on the wife. Even with the height and distance we could tell when she started from the screaming . We ate at the BBQ buffet on the island. The food was regular BBQ food like burgers and hot dogs. We were hungry and too tired to go back to the ship to eat but we should have waited till we got to the ship to eat. The food wasn’t good. We got to the tender just before another tender left and there were no more seats on the lower level so we sat in the hot sun for about ten minutes before it left. Another few minutes and it would have been unbearable. There was one lady on the tender, in the row before us who kept getting up to take pictures. She was wearing a bikini that had stretched out badly on the bottom so that her front and back privates weren’t private. We kept trying to think of a non-embarrassing way to let her know but couldn’t. I hate to admit it but we laughed ourselves silly trying to come up with a way to tell her. Back on the ship we slept till the nightly show and went to the MDR. More gambling, drinking and dancing and off to bed.

Day 7 – At sea. We all agreed to get up early and do the flow rider to beat the crowds. Only my eldest and I made it. We spent two hours trying to stand-up surf and got the hang of it toward the end. There were no crowds to speak of. It took less than 15 minutes between turns. At the end of the two hours they end the stand-up surfing to do boogie boarding and the stand-up folk are left hanging unless they want to boogie board which most didn’t. I really enjoyed the flow rider and wish I had spent more time on it. What stopped me? The thought of waiting in line at the peak times. I was told the wait could be 20-30 minutes a turn at the peak so opted out. Now I wish I hadn’t. It was challenging and fun to try the stand up. Heck, it was even fun just watching. We tried to get in to the ice skating but with a full ship and only 50 people max at a session it was often booked up when we got there even if we were 30 minutes early. In defense of RCI if you showed up on time or early and it was already booked you could get an advance reservation for the coming session. Sometimes the session after was also booked. At 3:00 PM the last preliminary blackjack round was held and I was still in 2nd place for the final round. I got horrible cards for the final and wound up out of the money. If they get 70 participants in total 1st place is a cruise for 2 on the Enchantment and 2nd and 3rd win cash. We didn’t have 70 total so it was all cash prizes. There was a tie for 1st and 2nd place and rather than play it out the finishers opted to split the combined total of the 1st and 2nd cash prize. They each got $262. I don’t remember what 3rd place got. Went back to the room to get the bags packed and out the door before 11:00 PM as required. Went to see which pictures we would buy and found that some were in their slots and others could only be found by working the electronic kiosk that had all the pictures for viewing and ordering. We ordered and paid for two pictures from the electronic kiosk. When it was completed a message came up and said the pictures would be delivered by 8:00 PM. They never arrived and we had to go down and get them at 7:00 AM before departing. Did the usual nap, show, MDR and then did karaoke till about 12:30.

Day 8 – Disembarking. Woke at 6:00 AM to have coffee (They don’t do the room service on the last day) and back to finish packing our carry-off luggage. Just before 7:00 AM we were at the picture desk to pick up the kiosk pictures. I mentioned that we thought the message said they would be delivered to the stateroom and was told I mis-read the message. Maybe they’re right. My departure color had already been called so we went through customs and were at the baggage carousel and outside within a half-hour. By 8:00 AM we had loaded the car and were gone. Really smooth! Well done RCI and customs!

Entertainment: My youngest goes to a highly rated high school for the performing arts. The quality and professionalism of the productions at my daughter’s school from instrumentals, musical theatre, electronic arts to dance is close to Broadway caliber and light years from a regular high school production. We expected something better or the same level of quality from RCI but were disappointed. The comedians were good as was the ice show and the quick change artists. The other productions were just plain bad. The RCI performers were talented enough but the material, choreography, etc. was just below average and poorly directed. Much better than a normal high school production is all I can say. I forced my family to attend each night but if I had it to do over again I would take a pass after the first show. If it weren't for theater etiquette we would have walked out of each show after the first 10 minutes. Actually that would be my best advice - don't opt for the front row - choose a seat/section where you can leave without offending the performers and theater goers. The “guest” performers were the Nelson’s who are the children of Ricky Nelson (Ozzie and Harriet). They were pretty good and did a retrospective. I should mention that children under the age of 12 would probably enjoy all of RCI’s shows. The Love and Marriage Show and Quest were pretty good too. CCL vs RCI – About the same. One area that RCI has it over CCL on this cruise – we always found good seats on the Liberty and on CCL you got there early or you stood. I’m wondering if its because the shows were so bad or because there were so many non-english speaking folk (latin and asian) who might not have preferred the English centric productions or was there just better seating and more of it. I think it was mostly better seating and more of it followed by the quality of the show itself that left seats available.

Service: Service was better than average to superb in every area. The MDR service for MTD was not consistent. Over a 7 day cruise we had 4 different sets of wait staff. The service ranged from slightly above average to great. I can't say that service was bad at any meal. Our favorites were Felix and James. They were superb and we requested them each night but the request was only met once, on the last night. We would have had to wait 20 minutes or more to sit in their section on some nights or chose another time to dine. On the last night of the cruise we sat in their section and could tell they were under pressure. There was smoke coming off their feet they were moving so fast. So that night their service was still excellent but not as stellar as it was previously. So even the same staff can provide a different experience given the demographics that night. I felt bad for them – they knew we specifically waited for a table in their section and we could tell they appreciated it and wanted to chat a bit but couldn’t. We waited till things slowed down before we left and let them know how special they made the cruise for us. Also it’s what you prefer - my eldest daughter worked as a hostess and server during college and liked the more efficient, professional staff where my youngest enjoyed the more personable staff. Sometimes you get someone with both like Felix and James. CCL vs RCI – RCI was slightly better. Service level can be related to perceived attitude. On CCL my stateroom attendant once let slip a frustrated look when I asked her to fill my collapsible cooler with ice before we left for a tour. That look only lasted a second and that’s the closest I ever came to bad service on any cruise.

Food: The food in the Liberty's MDR and Windjammer was a B minus to a C. Imagine Red Lobster, Chillis, Outback, etc. food with better ambiance and the service staff gladly cater to your every whim. I have separated service from food in the rating or it would have been a B. We opted for MTD so we could eat when we wanted. The MTD hostess and organization was very good and has to be extremely tough. Imagine trying to please people on a sold out ship who may take offense for being made to wait even a few minutes when they can show up as they like. They don’t have the luxury of saying “Sorry Sir, you should have made a reservation. We can’t seat you tonight”. We didn’t make reservations on the first or second night but after noticing how hard the hostess and wait staff were working to fill the gap we did make reservations. After each meal we were asked to make the reservation before we left. It has to make their prep work easier to know when people will arrive. CCL vs RCI - Overall the food on Carnival was better. We ate in the MDR each night. Carnival's MDR food was noticeably better in taste, selection and presentation. Carnival's buffet was also better - my best example was the deli booth on CCL - items like corned beef on rye were very close to a real NY deli. Also on Carnival the buffet selection seemed to change a bit more and didn't feel so similar each day. Carnival desserts were better. I'm a chocoholic and on the Liberty found only 2 days where my addiction was satisfied. Chocolate aside the Liberty desserts were just ok. I found a few desserts that were pretty good and wondered why that level wasn't consistent. My comparison is based on large ship to large ship since there are more amenities food wise on the larger ships. Just to be clear - I did not have a bad meal on any of my cruises.

MTD vs Standard Seating: My 17 and 23 year old daughters said they would have preferred standard seating because they like how the cruise line matches up like demographics for the diners. They are still friends with the kids they met that way on past cruises. I preferred the flexibility of arranging our dinner around the day’s schedule. It’s kind of a toss up but I still like the flexibility more. On some nights we sat at a window overlooking the ocean. On another night we sat near the cutlery station and in a corner.

Wine and Dine Package: We got the high end 7 bottle package. Supposedly you get 25% off your wine cost. You are restricted to a handful of wines. We like red wine primarily. I’m no connoisseur but I know a few things including what I like. The majority of the wines in the package are your basic $10-$15 wines here in the states. Berringer, Stone Cellar, good standard wines from Chile and Australia. I tried every one of the reds in the top package and found two that were decent. A cabernet from Stone Cellar and a merlot from Chile. The others were just ok and one was just below ok. When we finished off the package I was happy to start choosing from the available wine list.

Water and Soda Package: My youngest drinks water and diet Pepsi consistently it still didn’t pay.

Other CCL vs RCI comparisons:
- Décor: RCI is more upscale and less gaudy, CCL is more fun. Another way to put it is CCL has more chrome while RCI has more brass and polished wood.
- Clientele: RCI folk seemed more mannerly and open to having fun if it would not offend others, CCL folk seemed more out there and ready for a good party. There seemed to be more “excuse me’s” and less line cutting on RCI. There was also less spontaneity RCI. Before the flames start lighting up I gotta tell ya at different times I can fall into either category.
- Flexibility: On RCI if an activity was scheduled to start at 1:15 and end at 2:00 that’s what it did no if ands or buts. Whether or not there was something scheduled behind it for that room/venue or not, even when people were having a good time. On CCL if the place was rockin and nothing was scheduled behind it…it stayed open beyond the schedule whether it was a bar, dance club or karaoke. I’m an organization freak but I’m not sure which I prefer.

Summary: My family and I had a great time and will do it all again with Royal but not on the Liberty. Not because we dislike the Liberty but because we’ve done their ports and the ship’s entertainment and on-board itinerary doesn’t change over enough. I had such a good time that I slept for 11 hours straight when we got home and the car ride home was not long. I need a vacation to rest up from the fantastic RCI vacation!

Now that I’ve cruised RCI do I have a preference for RCI or CCL? Nope. Both have their advantages IMHO. I’ll cruise both lines in the future with preference given to cost and ports but I sure wish CCL had a flow rider .

[reallyitsmema]

Thanks for the great review. Sounds like you did it all! We have only done RCI cruises so far so it is always nice to see a comparison of different lines.

[san4u2]

How exciting to read your review! we leave in 4 days!!!

[cathykb]

Thanks for a great detailed review. We're sailing on the Liberty...but not until February.

Cathy

[LDR]

Great review! We are sailing her in June. LONG wait!

[yogimax]

Thanks for your detailed review!

[ArkieCruisin]

Wow what a great review. Thanks so much for sharing.

[medfordgirl]

just out of curiosity, do you remember how much it was to get a session in the boxing ring? Does it cost anything to use the gloves and punching bags etc?
Thanks

[yogimax]

Thanks, we will be on Liberty in 12 days!

[dual]

Many thanks for the most comprehensive review OP - my 1st cruise is in November 2009 on Liberty so im looking forward to it.

[trecle]

We are going on Liberty on March 2010

[heffa72]

Thanks for the review. It helps to plan some of the "unknowns" for me. I've been on 8 CCL cruises and this will be my first time on RCCL.

[destiny217]

Does the ship have a photo op on Dragon's Breath set up somewhere?