Liberty Of The Seas - Aug. 6 - 11: Quick Review

I just wanted to give a quick review of our trip on the Liberty of the Seas.

Background: We are a small family of three, myself, my wife and my son (11yrs). We have sailed as a family 3 times prior to this trip. Two of those were on Disney and one was last year on the Carnival Breeze. The Disney cruises were wonderful and the Breeze as good, but not great. It served it's purpose for a less expensive option for a family cruise out of Galveston (30 min drive). Up until this cruise, we have always had a balcony stateroom. We brought along our nephew this time to give him a nice vacation and somebody for our son to hang out with.

Embarkation: We arrived at port around 1:30ish. We passed through security pretty quickly, but bottlenecked at check-in. After about a 30 minute wait in line, we were onboard and ready to start our vacations.

Once on the ship: As soon as we boarded, we purchased the soda package for the boys. After that we made our way to the promenade, where I purchased the Surf and Stream Package for 2 devices. The plan was to use our iphones to text between us and the boys.

Pushy up-sales: Surprisingly, we didn't get approached the entire cruise to buy dinner packages, internet, drink packages, etc. I was actually looking to be approached, but after a couple of days of nobody hitting me up, I pretty much forgot about it.

Stateroom: We had an interior stateroom for the four of us. I honestly went into this thinking we'd be very cramped, but we made it work out just fine. I did miss sitting on the balcony watching the ocean. The pull-down beds had some wear and tear from use, but they functioned just fine. The TV was had some dead pixels from what I could only guess being poked or hit with something. Overall, we fit just fine and our room steward was great.

Internet: We purchased the Surf and Stream for 2 devices and we had no issues with speed. My son and nephew both would watch youtube videos in the evening and my wife did some work on her laptop with no problems or lag.

Pools and slides: Here is where things were strange. The Sports deck had the basketball court, rock climbing wall, waterslides and flowrider. These features are heavily advertised and honestly, were the main reason I chose RC over the Breeze again. But here is where RC left me scratching my head. All of those activities closed every day by 6pm or earlier (basketball being the exception). Now, I could understand if it were the winder months and it got dark early, but we still had at least 2 more hours of daylight to play around. Even on port days, when you have to be back onboard by 4:30, they would shut everything down around 6. I noticed this with the pools as well. Even though they would state the pools were open to 11pm in the compass, it would only be one side of the main pool. I recall walking through the Solarium and noticing that it was closed before sunset as well. It just struck us as strange.

Shows and entertainment: We saw two different comedian shows and both were great. We saw In The Air and that was pretty good. The acrobatics were fantastic, but the story was... well, not really a story. We saw the ice skating show and that was fun to watch as well. We attended a couple of trivia challenges and enjoyed that. My son was really excited for the DreamWorks parade. He enjoyed it, but after experiencing characters on the Disney cruise I thought it was ho hum... but that is to be expected with Disney. Neither of the kids went to the kids clubs, as we all like to spend the day together and have fun together. However, once the slides shut down, we found ourselves wandering around looking for something to get into as a family.

Food: We ate at the MDR three times and it was pretty good. The only issue we had was the steaks. We ordered steak cooked medium each time and on all three occasions, at least one of them came back cooked wrong. However, our waiter quickly replaced them and all was well. We ate breakfast each morning in the Windjammer, lunch a couple of times and dinner a few times as well. I thought it was pretty good for being a buffet. We also ate at Johnny Rockets and well all thought it was good. The shakes were fantastic!

Conclusion: Overall, we really enjoyed the cruise. We all felt it really fell right in the middle between Disney and Carnival. The ship was nicer than the Breeze, but honestly we had bit more fun on the Breeze. The best way that I can describe what I felt on the ship was that small town feeling of "rolling up the sidewalks" once it was dinner time. Will we sale RC again? Sure, but I'll make sure that there are more activities or at least longer hours to enjoy them before we book. It looks like Harmony may suit our style a bit more than the Liberty. I hope you enjoyed my review of our trip and if you have any questions, let me know.

Jake

Thanks for the review

Thanks!

Thank you for the review.

One quick question, were crepes available in the Windjammer in the evenings ?

I do recall seeing crepes a few times in the evenings at the Windjammer.

Were you able to verify they had lobster tails in the WJ on the last night? Seems this is a recent thing I want to try out. We sail on her in just over 3 weeks.

JTB,

We didn't eat at the Windjammer the last evening, so I can't verify the lobster tails. Sorry.

Thanks for your review. That is indeed strange about the pools - never seen that happen.

Thanks for your review. That is indeed strange about the pools - never seen that happen.

We did have a rough day(and night) at sea due to avoiding a tropical storm, so I understand closing things down due to unsafe conditions. However, the early hours were scheduled every day on the compass. The compass did say that the "pools" would be open until 11pm, but that turned out to be only one of the main pools.

Thank you for the review....on the 9/10 sailing.

Good review! Thanks :)

Good review! We were also on this sailing

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I had read that about the slides closing at 6pm - I agree it's disappointing. Can I ask, how much was the 2 device surf & stream? I thought I'd read that on the 2nd day they offered a discount (though if you'd already purchased it, you may not ever have looked/noticed.)