My Way Too Windy Review of Liberty of the Seas - May 14th, 2017

This is my first stab at a review so I apologize if it doesn't flow properly. I took time to try to get things organized the best I could but after reading so many reviews on this site that I benefitted from, the bar was too high for me reach I'm afraid. Still I feel like practice makes perfect and I owe this board my contribution after having read so many reviews leading up to this.

WHO ARE WE

Just a little bit about our group so you understand a littlebit of perspective. I turn 30 this year and am the oldest of 5 children and mywife Kailiana is a few years younger. I have only sailed once prior to this onNavigator out of Galveston back in 2014 for our honeymoon. Kaili did a PanamaCanal sailing back in I believe 2010 with Holland America. We both live in theTulsa, OK area.

My parents, Rick and Lisa, are in their early 50’s and livein Bedford, OH (Cleveland). This was their 2nd sailing after we sentthem on Vision of the Seas back in 2014 out of Tampa.

My sisters, Amanda and Alaina, in their 20’s. Amanda justgraduated from Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois and will be living inOklahoma City for the summer doing an internship at the Oklahoma City Zoo andhopes to be a zookeeper. Alaina lives in Bedford with my parents and is in schooland has a love of photography. This was their first cruise and the first timethey’ve had a reason to get a passport so they were really excited for someadventure.

Next I'll jump into the trip and try to include as many pictures as I can.

OKC

I come from a family of 7 so it’s difficult to get all of uson the same schedule for anything. We are also fairly spread out these daysbecause my brother, one of my sisters, and I moved to Oklahoma while my parentsand two of my sisters live in Cleveland, OH. On the day before the sailing myparents and two of my sisters were going to be in OKC to see my brothergraduate from OU with his doctorate in physical therapy. My wife was alsograduating from Rogers State University with her associates in nursing so assoon as her graduation let out we made the drive from Tulsa down to OklahomaCity to celebrate with everybody at my brother’s house.

We didn’t leave until about 6:30 that evening so we made itthrough Dallas by around 10 that night and briefly contemplated finding a hoteland stopping there. We decided that was still a little too early to stop and alittle too far from Galveston for our comfort (although we have done that drivefor a previous sailing with an early start). There isn’t much between Dallasand Houston so it’s sort of like in golf where you either have to lay up beforethe lake or go for the green. Unfortunately we ran out of energy between thetwo cities and ended up taking an exit in Fairfield, TX that had a few hotels.I’m a planner who likes everything laid out ahead of time but my familyoperates differently. My original plan had been to stay at the Home2 Suites inWillowbrook (North Houston) because I had found a room that would sleep 6 for$76 a few weeks out. That price eventually doubled and then the hotel booked upfully. I couldn’t commit to it ahead of time because I knew there was a chancewe wouldn’t get out of OKC as early as I had hoped for and would struggle tomake Houston. I turned out to be right unfortunately so we found ourselvesdoing things the old fashioned way, driving up to the lobby of one hotel,getting out and asking about their rate and then either calling another onefrom the car while driving to yet another option to check. Eventually wesettled on the Days Inn which was bargain priced and just adequate for sleepinga few hours. We aren’t fancy folk and viewed it as just a practical option fornot spending much time. It came with a continental breakfast so that was justgravy.

We unloaded the car for security purposes and would findourselves loading it all back up just a few hours later.

Nice, thanks for posting! I grew up in Edmond and am enjoying the Oklahoma connection and reading your review. We sail on Liberty in September and are looking forward to it. One quick question, as you go. What time did you dock back in Galveston? On time?

Sail Away

We made a plan to get on the road by 8am at the latest andsomehow we ended up getting on the road ahead of time. My sisters are identicaltwins and also in their sleeping habits so getting them up and going early is amajor accomplishment.

We stopped about an hour into the drive to hit a Walmart for a few forgotten supplies and lanyards for oursea passes and we were back on the road with a new personal record for shortestWalmart outing. We were on a mission to make the coast as quickly as possibleeven though we knew we wouldn’t make it there early enough for my taste.

Just as we used on our last cruise, we parked with EZ CruiseParking by the railroad museum. It’s nothing flashy and I’m sure there arebetter prices but they’re easy enough to deal with and this time I decidedagainst taking their extra $5 off promotion that requires you to skip theshuttle and walk. It’s just not worth lugging your bags down the street andsince my family all decided to pack in as many small bags as possible for somereason I figured it was better to get a shuttle than have to pull up theterminal and unload before parking.

A lot has changed to theterminal since our last time sailing out of Galveston. The building used tojust be an unfinished metal building where you went through the metal detectorsright away and then stood in a line that weaved back and forth until reachingthe counter to get your sea pass. From there you went straight to the gangway.

Now it’s a more complexbuilding so we stood in a line that weaved back and forth to get through themetal detector first. My dad had a hip replacement last year so he was havingsome issues getting through security and was taken aside so they could use thewand on him. While this was happening my wife and one of my sisters decided tovideo it. One of the security workers approached them and scolded them for thisand made them delete the footage from their phones in front of her. I only wishI could have videoed them getting in trouble!

After making it throughsecurity we saw a lot of people sitting in chairs before reaching the countersto get your sea pass. I thought they were waiting to approach the counter sowhen the employee there looked at my boarding documents and told me to go inthe Gold line (I’ve been on exactly 1 cruise before this so I know I’m at thebottom of the food chain) I started getting a little swagger about myself.“Hmm, I guess being a gold member does have some perks. Good to see Royal isrewarding me for spending the extra $100 to go from a regular inside to aPromenade. So long suckers, enjoy the hell of sitting there in chairs while Itake the fast lane to vacation.”

Getting our sea pass took a long time after a very short line because they werehaving all kinds of system issues but once we received our passes we were toldto, you guessed it, go sit in those chairs with everyone else! And sit we did.We sat for what felt like an eternity and likely was pretty darn near close.Because the terminals on the ship were experiencing issues (we only heard aboutthis through word of mouth because the speakers, while loud, were impossible toactually understand) there was a log jam happening where the whole building wasfilling up with people so once the flood gates opened, more passengers flowedthrough the channel than normally would in that short period of time. Linesbecame more like herds with people pushing through widly. My dad and I arebroad shouldered enough that we decided to eventually spread out wide to makesure nobody could get around us while we inpatiently waited in line. ********** was hot and humid but as we made our way to the ship, Royal crewmembers brought bottled water to hand out to guests while we waited to get onthe ship. It might be unfair to say but it felt like the moment we went fromcruise terminal service to Royal Caribbean service, things improved. Maybe thatwas just a spiritual lifting of the spirits but it felt like the ship crew wasmuch more organized and confident in what they were doing. The terminalemployees on the other hand had been saying things to each other like, “I don’tknow, I guess we can try pushing the line out this way to spread it out. Let’ssee if it works.” Not exactly inspiring confidence that they were prepared forsituations like this.

We boarded around 4:00 andwere told that the muster drill would be at 4:30 so made our way to the cabinson deck 7 where we found our bags had not suffered with us waiting in linebecause of system issues. I might have preferred stowing myself away in a baghad that been an option honestly.

After taking a few pictures ondeck 4 in our sailaway outfits we changed for our 5:30pm dinner and then wentto the welcome show that featured Rodney Johnson, a comedian who we enjoyedthat night but not as much the next night when he did a more adult routine thatjust wasn’t really that funny to me.

All loaded up

First glance

Muster drill

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SEA DAYS

Sea days were all kind of a blur to me so I’ll lump them in together for this review since I don’t have enough vivid details to make it worth separate posts. We really enjoyed the sea days on this sailing and never found the ship to feel overly crowded. Finding a table for 6 near the window inthe Windjammer wasn’t always easy at breakfast but we managed okay. The pool deck usually had some chairs available but chair hogging is obviously a problem because the number of people in the pool and hot tubs was much less than the number of chairs that had towels and belongings. The deck crew tried their best to clear things if they stayed on chairs too long but it’s an uphill battle. That said, if you go up to deck 12 where the track is there was never a shortage of chairs so as long as you don’t mind the sun and heat it was nice.

The Solarium was pretty busy but there was usually enough room in the cantilevered hot tubs and pool. On the 2nd sea day I sat down at one of the front porch style swings and put my phone on the seat beside me. When a couple lounge chairs right next to it opened up, my wife and I grabbed out belongings and swooped to the chairs, narrowly edging a woman to the spot as she was power walking from further away to try to close in on the desired chairs. I grabbed all of my belongings…except my iPhone 7 Plus. I mention that it’s a 7 Plus only because prior to buying it a few months ago I had kept a beat up Samsung S4 that I just couldn’t bring myself to upgrade from for years so finally biting the bullet to commit to 2 years of paying a new expensive phone off was a big deal to me and here I lose it just a couple months in. About 30 minutes into a nap I woke up and wanted to take a picture but that’s when I realized I had left my phone on that swing. Of course the phone was gone so we frantically went to the towel station to ask if one had been turned in, then down to Guest Services to file a claim, and finally back up to the towel station to ask once more. We later checked with Guest Services after dinner and someone had turned it in. The representative seemed surprised that it actually turned up so I’m wondering if maybe there aren’t as many honest people as I want to believe. Either way, if that person who turned it in is reading this, thank you. I went from feeling sick to my stomach to joy which feels weird to say about a phone honestly.

During our sea days we really spent more time by the Flowrider and slides than I thought we would. My wife and sisters really loved the boogie boarding (I put off trying it until the final sea day and then missed out because they had to close it for maintenance of a broken pump) and we all really enjoyed the slides. The racing slides are pretty slow as many have mentioned and the first time down I basically came to a stop at two points. I figured out that you will go down faster if you stay more compact so I would ball myself up into a cannonball posture and go down pretty fast but laying completely flat does not work for some people, including me. The Tidal Wave was a lot of fun even though you don’t get very wet sitting in the raft. There is a weight requirement but they never made my wife or I step on the scale and I never saw them ask anyone to so either they’re just going off the eyeball test or they aren’t strict on enforcing it. After carrying the tube up the spiral stairs to the top you go down what turns out to be a really steep drop before sliding up the quarter pipe and then back down the final chute backwards. The ride lasts only maybe 5 or so seconds but I loved it. From the outside I didn’t think the slide would seem too bad but that drop is no joke and feels like a roller coaster so if that stomach drop feeling turns you off you might not like it. My mother hates roller coasters though and she didn’t mind trying it out.

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Roatan, Honduras

Our first port was Roatan. On our previous sailing we had used Victor Bodden for his Sun-n-Fun tour which was $30/person and included a monkey encounter and some time at the beach. This time we went with the Zip-n-Dip package for $65/person because my sisters wanted to try zip lining. Once we got off the ship on deck 1 we approached Victor’s booth at the dock and checked in. We were greeted by Victor who told us we would leave in about 30 minutes but he wouldn’t have the driver leave without us so we grabbed a coffee and spent a few minutes scouting the shopping out for later when we returned.

Victor introduced us to one of his team members who walked us down a row of vans and buses to our van where we met Kenny McCoy, our driver for the day. Kenny did a nice job throughout the day keeping our group on schedule and just looking out for us as well as answering any questions we had about the island and telling us about life there. Once we arrived at Victor’s facility we went in to pay for our tours and receive wristbands for the beach and zip lining. Then a team of zip line employees helped get us fitted with gear and we hiked to the first station. I believe there are 11 zips at his facility and while I have never been before this, those in my group who have been other places tell me that it was fun but not as thrilling as where they’ve gone. I felt like it was an excellent value considering all you get with that price and the team makes it more interesting by showing you tricks you can do like going upside down. But they’re also safety conscious and despite them warning us to keep our legs and feet up as we approached the landings, I managed to forget that warning immediately and crashed my right leg into the first landing plank. It hurt pretty bad for a minute but didn’t have any lingering effects. I learned my lesson though and made sure to lift my feet up considerably.

After we finished the zip lines we were escorted by a guide through the animal exhibits, feeding sunflower seeds to the capuchin monkeysand macaws and then making friends with a sloth.

From there we headed to West Bay Beach at Bananarama Resort where we were shown the showers, restrooms, and the chairs we had reserved. The vendors that frequently walk the beach were a little much to me so I took a waterproof box, loaded up my money, sea pass, and driver’s license, and went out into the water where they left me alone. Eventually my wife was able to negotiate with a snorkeling guide to take us out to the reef for an hour for only $10/person for 4 of us (my parents stayed back and relaxed). It was good, not great, but excellent at the price point and we returned to the beach exhausted.

We rinsed off quickly and loaded up into the van to return to the port for some shopping. At the port the vendors don’t seem at all inclined to negotiate as I believe they work for the port rather than themselves so nothing really peaked my interest…except they did have fruit gelato so we indulged in that. Once we finished it we walked maybe 150 feet and found ourselves buying a fresh coconut for $3. The vendor told us to bring it back when we were done drinking it so he could cut it open for us to eat. He also noticed my Cleveland Indians hat and told me that he’s a huge Cleveland Cavaliers fan and that they were going to beat Boston and go to the championship again. I didn’t know if he was just saying that but I appreciated him saying it anyway. Once we finished the coconut, my wife took it back to get it cut open and when she returned she told me that she wished I had a Cavs t-shirt because the guy remembered her and asked her to bring him a shirt next time we visit the island.

I thought about it for a minute and remembered that I had brought a Kyrie Irving jersey with me to wear on the ship because I like to go watch the games while at sea so she ran back onto the ship to get it. We took a picture of it next to the Roatan welcome sign and then snuck up on him with it behind my back. He was absolutely ecstatic and was grinning ear to ear. The jersey was the last thing I packed because I wasn’t sure if I really needed to bring it. It felt just right being able to give it to him and see him that happy.

A few minutes later we were just getting ready to walk back to the ship for 4:30 boarding. I think it was maybe 4:05 at the time. And as we’re walking we hear him call out to us, “hey, hey man, man wait up!” He was still wearing the jersey and was so thankful that he wanted to try to repay the gesture. He said that his wife is one of the women who does the hair braiding and that he would like to have her braid my wife’s hair. I was grateful for the gesture but explained that we wouldn’t have enough time. I wish we had known ahead of time that there would be 3 people running late getting on that the ship actually waited for because we easily could have taken him up on it and allowed him to show us that hospitality that was obviously important to him. But instead he settled for pulling out his phone and showing me a picture of his brother wearing a Lebron James Cavs jersey. There would be no doubting that he really is a Cavs fan and now he had a Kyrie jersey to wear to show it. I don’t have a super impressive world traveler’s resume but I’ve gone on some pretty cool trips, including a bicycle trip across the country, but in everytrip I’ve ever taken I’ve noticed that while the places can be beautiful, it’s the people you meet who truly make the experiences unforgettable. You can find a mountain on any continent just about, same with trees, rivers, lakes, etc. But it’s the people who make a place unique. Roatan is now a memory of a kinship with a fellow Cavs fan a thousand miles away, not just one of many beautiful little islands this world contains.

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We will load the Expedia or Priceline app on our phone when traveling without a hotel already booked, just pick a city on your route and see what's available, the booking goes through almost instantly and you don't have to drive around them all to figure out the price. Just for next time ;)

Costa Maya was the centerpiece of this sailing for us. We intentionally booked the date we did not only because some of my family happened to be down our way so we could drive, but because it went to Costa Maya out of Galveston and on Royal Caribbean. A few years back my siblings and I pitched in to send my parents on their first cruise for their 30th anniversary on Vision of the Seas out of Tampa. It visited Roatan, Cozumel, Belize, and Costa Maya and of those 4 it was Costa Maya that stood out to them as their own little slice of paradise. We had sent them to Maya Chan as an excursion there and they spent those years in between wishing they could return.

I’ll be honest, Costa Maya isn’t really my favorite port. I’m partial to Roatan myself. Costa Maya has a lot of sea grass that washes up on shore. It smells bad in the hot sun and attracts sand fleas. There’s some definite imperfection to the place.

But I can see what the draw is at the same time. Costa Maya is still fairly young in terms of being a cruise destination and while the port they’ve built is really impressive and you could easily spend the whole day just relaxing there, once you leave the port area you see the place for what it once was and still kind of is; a fishing village. The pier here is pretty long but not as bad as I had been lead to believe by my parents and our cruise director. There is a train like what you would take at a zoo that will transport you most of the way but we just chose to walk it. Then once we got through the shops we had to leave the cruise area and walk down the street maybe 1,000 feet or so to where we saw yellow cabs. There we met arepresentative from Maya Chan beach who checked us in and gave us wristbands and got us into a taxi van.

The drive from the port to Maya Chan is…adventurous. Most of it is along the shore on really rough dirt roads that have large pot holes and ruts along the way. A Jeep taxi would be a great idea here because it has to be absolutely murdering the suspension on the vans they’re using.

Most of the way you’re just passing little huts or very primitive beach resorts but once we made it to Maya Chan there was an obvious step up on quality in terms of landscaping and construction. They have carved out this little strip of paradise that I didn’t see anywhere else along the way in the same way. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not overly fancy or sophisticated. If you’re looking for a 5-Star resort experience this isn’t it. But it’s a family atmosphere with a staff that will absolutely bend over backwards trying to make their customers leave happy.

As we stepped off the van we were greeted by a server who walked us back to their large palapa that covers the bar and restaurant along with some tables. There we met David who runs the place and he pointed out the filtered water, restrooms, showers, massage area (massages are the only thing that costs extra) and gave us the wifi password. Then we were escorted to our private palapa for our group of 6. It had several Adirondack chairs, a bed, and a hammock along with some small tables. There was also a sign welcoming my parents back and one wishing my wife and I a happy anniversary. We were brought welcome rum punch, homemade tortilla chips, pico, and guacamole. Then my wife and I were given a small bottle of champagne with plastic flutes to toast our anniversary.

Throughout the day the servers were constantly checking with us to see if we wanted another drink. It felt like there were times when I would only be a sip or two in before they would check on me for another. I’m telling you, unparalleled service. They would even bring drinks out to you if you were sitting in a floating chair.

We took advantage of the stand up paddle boards, sea kayaks, and floating chairs and did some snorkeling which wasn’t as good as Roatan but still interesting enough when we saw a school of thousands of silver fish swirling around.

For lunch they served a taco bar that featured marinated skirt steak, chicken, sea bass (I ate almost a full plate of this by itself), and a Mayan take on pulled pork served with homemade tortillas off the grill and all the toppings you could want.

During the booking process I had informed them that one of my sisters is vegetarian and that my mom would like tortillas made entirely out of cheese (she’s on a low carb diet) if at all possible. I don’t usually make requests like that but I figured I’d see what they did and if they couldn’t accommodate, oh well. Well when my sister walked up to the line, David pulled out a special plate of potato enchiladas that she loved and when my mom came up he pulled out 4 perfectly shaped crunchy tortillas made entirely out of cheese that he had worked late at night to figure out how to make for her. I didn’t expect them to deliver but they exceeded expectations. So while Costa Maya isn’t my favorite port, if I’m ever back I’ll be trying to book with Maya Chan without question.

Once back at the port we did some shopping and I enjoyed their saltwater pool that walks up to Senor Frogs bar. In places like Roatanand Belize I don’t know that you could enjoy a full day just at the cruise port but Costa Maya is set up for those who just would rather stay close to the ship. If I couldn’t book an excursion I could easily see myself hanging around in that pool and maybe going back on to the ship for lunch and coming back out for a few hours. It won’t be long before Costa Maya really hits her stride in being a tourist destination. Whether that’s desired or not is probably a matter of personal preference but I don’t think the cruise director was wrong in saying that it could eventually become a lot more like Cozumel.

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We will load the Expedia or Priceline app on our phone when traveling without a hotel already booked, just pick a city on your route and see what's available, the booking goes through almost instantly and you don't have to drive around them all to figure out the price. Just for next time ;)

Yeah typically I just use my Hotels.com app so I can collect nights toward a free night stay but in the area we were in it was really slim pickings and unfortunately I was the one driving and I'm usually the tech savvy one of the group. Nobody wanted to try to figure it out on my phone so I just pulled off the next exit so I could have a chance to look something up and since there were hotels there everyone just wanted to get one of them lol. Missed out on collecting my nights!

Cozumel, Mexico

I didn’t have high expectations for Cozumel this time around. The last time we visited we rented a scooter and did a lap around the island and really enjoyed the thrill of riding it in the wind and seeing the other side of the island where most cruisers don’t venture out to. With my dad battling the pain of his other hip that he’ll have replaced next month, scooters were out of the question. So I thought maybe I would rent a Jeep for him and 3 others and then a scooter that we could take turns with. But then the more I read the more I talked myself out of it with the liability. With scooters you can go a long way on a road that is limited to 2 wheeled vehicles but with a Jeep you have to stay on the road with everyone else and I felt like there was at least a heightened risk involved of an accident. So I ended up settling on booking with Black Hat Tours. His rate was $180 for 4 hours which came out to $30/person for transportation anywhere we wanted on the island. Seemed like a good enough deal and I figured if nothing else we could do a lap around the island and get back on the ship if we were bored.

My communication with Crescencio (the owner) was all via Facebook Messenger and he told me to just meet him at the entrance of the Hard Rock Café across the street from International Pier at 10am. We ended up getting out of the pier area earlier than that (I had booked 10am so we could just not feel rushed on the last port day) so we walked over at 9:30am and as we got to the entrance we saw a short man with a black hat on holding a sign with my name on it. He had already been there just in case which I found particularly impressive since it’s his policy to only take cash payment on the day of the tour with no requirement of a deposit.

He walked us down the street to his well maintained taxi van and explained that he would offer recommendations based on our interests but that ultimately we could go wherever we wanted and he wouldn’t try to push us to do anything. He also had a cooler in the van that was well stocked with bottled water, glass bottled Coca-Cola, and beer and he said to drink it up because it was all ours.

We ended up doing a lap around the island but stopped along the way at little seaside shops to do some bartering and each time we got out he would lock our stuff in the van and keep a watchful eye over us while we shopped. Later we came up to a little quiet beach where big waves were crashing in so we asked him to stop and we spent a half hour diving through the waves on a beach where there were only maybe five people outside of our group and one of them was a waiter taking drink orders. Next time we’re in Cozumel we might spend the whole day there soaking up the sun and enjoying the peace. Hopefully my mentioning it won’t ruin the secret lol.

A few miles later we stopped at a small seaside restaurant and bar and ordered some appetizers to share. We invited Crescencio over to join us for lunch and had a great time learning his story and seeing picture of his kids and grandchildren on his phone. Crescencio speaks such good English that there were times I would forget that he’s not actually an American and I might say a word he wasn’t familiar with. The man is the utmost professional but after 4 hours with him I consider him a friend as well and I will recommend him to anybody. He explained that his policy of trusting customers to show up without requiring a deposit has only come back to get him once and even then he said that he didn’t know why they didn’t show up, that maybe they were sick or something came up. I came away with a profound respect for him and hope that his business continues to grow.

After a short stop at Senor Frogs for nostalgia sake we had Crescencio drop us off at the pier so we could do some shopping and relaxing around the ship before boarding time at 4:30. He asked us to pose with some props by his van so he could use it on his Facebook page where he’s growing his brand and we asked him to take a picture with us as well before parting ways. My in-laws are cruising next week and we are encouraging them to spend the day with him.

Once back at the pier we dropped off our bags and went swimming by the Senor Frogs that is at International Pier before making our way through the crowd and security to get back on the ship.

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Yeah typically I just use my Hotels.com app so I can collect nights toward a free night stay but in the area we were in it was really slim pickings and unfortunately I was the one driving and I'm usually the tech savvy one of the group. Nobody wanted to try to figure it out on my phone so I just pulled off the next exit so I could have a chance to look something up and since there were hotels there everyone just wanted to get one of them lol. Missed out on collecting my nights!

Got it ;p

On a side note, I just tried to Google Crescencio's FB page and apparently he's looking for love on a Mexican dating site!!!

Got it ;p

 

 

 

On a side note, I just tried to Google Crescencio's FB page and apparently he's looking for love on a Mexican dating site!!!

Hmm now it makes sense why he was being so friendly to me!

His FB is Black Hat Cozumel

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Loving your thread! We tend to travel with our adult children.. great to hear it form the "kids" side!!!

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LOVE your review...and thanks for the wonderfully detailed information on Maya Chan and Cozumel!!!

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From the moment we set foot on the ship on day 1 we were encouraged by the crew to try out their specialty dining. I’ve read all your reviews so I know that some believe it’s worth it and others come away unimpressed. There were tables set up when we first entered the ship on deck 4 and we were approached while sitting in the Windjammer and while sitting in Sorrentos as well as when we went to leave Windjammer each morning after breakfast. I’ll be honest, it never really bothered me and I never found it to be pushy. I figure it must be working if they’re doing this because they wouldn’t risk alienating customers (and I’m sure it alienates/turns off some) if there wasn’t a pay off of people booking it.

But like I said, we aren’t fancy folk. I grew up playing baseball and my dad was a pitcher. His approach was that you throw the fastball until someone proves they can hit it. Then you start mixing up curveballs, sliders, etc. Basically, if it’s not broke don’t fix it.

For me the Main Dining Room is every bit worth the price of admission and until it fails to live up to my expectations based on the price of the cruise, I won’t feel inclined to spend more money for something else, at least at this stage in my life where I’m just happy to be on a cruise at all.That said, it’s not all perfect. Some meals tasted great, others seemed bland. Some nights I wanted to try three different main courses or appetizers, some nights I wondered if I was in for a Windjammer follow up immediately after (I never ended up having to go that route).

We had the early dining time of 5:30pm. It worked out well for us because we usually return to the ship early on port days so we had enough time to get ready and head down. Our server was Matias Espinal who did a fantastic job in general, but especially compared to my previous cruise. His assistant waitress seemed to really struggle or maybe just not have the energy that it takes to do a great job. We often didn’t receive our drinks until late and she just didn’t seem to quite have things down. Matias did a great job working with her and we did hand her an envelope with a little extra gratuity on the last night anyway because I think she was at least sincerely trying.

Some highlights for me were the beef tenderloin, prime rib, and lamb chops (cooked medium well at Matias’ recommendation because I always get everything medium rare and he advised me against it). The lobster was enjoyable enough as were the tiger shrimp but didn’t really wow and the breaded fish I had one night (I believe it was cod) was pretty underwhelming. But Matias always made sure we were happy and if you looked like you were taking too long to eat something he took it as a sign that you maybe didn’t love it and would end up bringing you something else to try. I also requested the Indian dish one night at the recommendation of some of you and it was really good We definitely ate well on this trip.

It's also worth noting that one of my sisters is a vegetarian and had no issue finding something interesting and tasty each night. Matias also would bring her extra vegetables or vegetarian options to try that she hadn't considered.

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For appetizers I really enjoyed the chilled fruit soups as they were probably the only light eating I did for any meal and they left me ready for the usually two main courses I typically ordered. On my previous sailing I played shy about doing this because I wanted to enjoy a week of pretending to be civilized but this time I decided to just embrace the fact that I’m a bit of a caveman when it comes to food and try anything that sounded good.

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