Review, Liberty of the Seas, Nov. 24th

[LouLou921]

This is my first review and my first sailing with Royal Caribbean.

More like a diary, there will be little to no pictures. There was just too much going on for me to take a lot of review-type pics.

 

The cruise, Liberty of the Seas 5 Night Western Caribbean.

The cruisers, myself--Carrie, and my husband--John. Joining us were several friends...we were going with about 30 people from the university alumni association.

 

A little about us--I'm 39, John is 40. We have no children and live in the midwest. This is our third cruise and our first with RCI. The first two cruises were on Carnival. John and I actually met on our very first cruise, 11 years ago. A large group of us were traveling and he was rooming with an acquaintance of mine. This first cruise was amazing, everyone was having a blast, we saw some fantastic islands, good food, drinks and so much flirting. There was nothing to sway us against Carnival.

 

The second cruise we took about 4 years ago with 4 of our friends. Also with Carnival. We chose this one based on price and that it stopped in Costa Rica. A Costa Rican was travelling with us and this was a great way to see his parents for the day. While we had a lot of fun, we left this cruise with a desire to try another line. The boat seemed full of people and many of them seemed pushy and argumentative. Sooo many people, everywhere you went.

 

So, last year, the alumni association was planning a trip. John and I were also planning a trip for our 10th anniversary. My friend was throwing ideas around and really wanted to do a cruise. I told her we were in if it wasn't on Carnival. I also really wanted something longer than 5 nights, but this is the one we ended up choosing.

 

Let's go...

[will773]

Can't wait!

[LouLou921]

We knew we wanted to fly in a day early and just relax before boarding. We hadn't done this before and flying in the day of makes for a very long day.

 

Our friend, Julio, travels a lot for business. He offered to use his points to get a couple of rooms in Fort Lauderdale. We'd planned on flying in on Friday, Nov. 23rd, but soon discovered we'd save quite a bit if we flew in on Thanksgiving. Julio made reservations for two nights at the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort. We made Thanksgiving dinner reservations at 3030 Ocean on the property.

The rest of our group had purchased tickets earlier and got good deals for flights on Friday.

 

Getting there--I was not prepared for the amount of people flying on Thanksgiving. I knew there'd be some but man, it was busy. Our layover was in Houston. We had lunch at Pappadeaux's in the airport. Cocktails and oysters were the perfect way to start our vacation.

 

We arrived in Fort Lauderdale with everyone else on earth. It took quite a while for to get our bags, Julio went to Avis to get the last rental car ever. He was a little miffed as he thinks he's very important and the tiny Toyota we got was a little insulting. :)

We made do and made our way to the hotel.

 

The hotel was beautiful. We felt a little bedraggled and out of place. Julio felt better as the front desk fawned over him a bit. They gave us a spa discount, so I made a reservation for a mani/pedi the next day. Our rooms were lovely and overlooked the ocean. We rested and freshened up, then headed downstairs for our 8:30 dinner.

 

Dinner was wonderful, I had swordfish, my husband had butter roasted lobster. Julio had red snapper and we shared two bottles of wine. I think my dessert was bananas foster creme brulee. It was very good.

We hung out in the bar afterward, then strolled the property.

 

Friday--we slept in a little, then took a long walk on the beach. Breakfast, then a little time in the ocean. Water was a little chilly for me, but John spent a lot of time in the water. I left the guys for my mani/pedi and they headed to the heated pool.

 

Later that day, we ran errands, for we'd remembered everything we'd forgotton. CVS, Sephora at the Galleria, Total Wine. Then we picked up another set of friends at their hotel and headed to the very busy Southport Raw Bar. This was just what we needed. Pitchers of beer, more oysters, clam strips, laughing, more pitchers of beer, crab legs, more laughing. We shared a couple slices of key lime pie---this was really, really good.

Back to the hotel to rest up for the next day. So excited to see the ship!

 

We had plans to get out to the port early, but ended up taking it easy. We went to the gym at the hotel and indulged in the very expensive breakfast buffet. Then took the car to the Avis at the Hyatt, where we sat and sat some more with everyone else and their multiple bags waiting for the shuttle. I was anxious and couldn't take much more of this. So we grabbed a waiting cab and off we went.

 

There were a lot of people leaving today, it was fun seeing all of the different ships. The Oasis was there, the Eurodam...it took us longer than we'd thought to get back to Terminal 25. But once we did, the process to get on board went very smoothly and quickly. We were on the boat at 12:45pm.

[johnlcruise]

So far a great review. Looking forward to the rest. Thanks for taking the time to post your Adventure.

[Jeaninitini]

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I am looking forward to your review as well, I am on the LOS cruise on the 8th.

 

Can you please tell us if they had any alcohol drink packages offered?

[LouLou921]

My first impressions of the ship....lovely, elegant, very clean. We went to the pool deck to meet some friends. Had my first drink, a BBC---I was looking forward to trying this and this first one didn't disappoint. The next two I had were not nearly as good.

We wandered the pool deck for a while and then went to check out our rooms. I'd booked 1700 on deck 10 and was so excited to see it. We were duly impressed. So big, and that balcony! My husband was thrilled that my obsessive planning had turned up this gem. And there were the loungers on the balcony. Whew!

We met our steward, Francesa. She was so sweet and helpful. I did ask if she had a couple of extra robes, we didn't bring ours. We tipped her a bit then and we had them on our bed in the next hour or so.

 

Julio had room 1694, right next to ours. This room, had no balcony, but a very charming, large round window. The window was deeply set and had a window seat of sorts. He was very happy with this room.

 

The rest of our friends were on Deck 9 and Deck 10. Everyone seemed pleased with their rooms.

 

Back to Deck 11 for a very light lunch. I had a piece of honey stung chicken and some waldorf salad. This was the first time I'd seen the Windjammer. I was very impressed by it's size and the amount of seating.

 

Time for Muster! Sweet mercy, this took forever. We were outside on Deck 4 and we had stragglers showing up at 4:20pm. One late arrival thought this was an opportunity to joke around, but everyone groaned. Get in line.

Then someone fainted. There was a lot of commotion and staring. Let's all stare at the poor woman on the ground.

I can't remember when this finally ended. We took the stairs back up to Deck 10. We'd ordered some champagne for sailaway and invited our friends to join us. This is where we spent the next couple of hours.

 

Tip---I brought my ipod, but no speakers. The metal trashcan works great. I turned it on, dropped it in and it amplified the music nicely. A little tinny. :)

 

And now for the longest dinner of our lives.

Our bags had arrived, so we got ready for dinner in the Michelangelo dining room.

We were quickly shown to our table of 7 and we were seated next to some of the other members of our travelling group. This was a nice table, meant for 8, but set for our 7. Our waiter Jean and assistant waiter Sandor introduced themselves. We'd all ordered wine packages, and it took a minute to get the little booklets we would order from.

That done, it took a little longer than I would've liked to order dinner. People around us were well into their meal. I had escargot for my starter, and the horseradish crusted salmon. I liked both. The salmon was a little overdone, but I'm on a boat, I have wine and bread and butter.

I really liked my dessert tonight...the sugar free strawberry charlotte. But we didn't get it till almost 10:45pm. Everyone at our table was agitated. There was no apology, no explanation. We actually had two other assistant waiters trying to help. By the time we got out of there, we were done for the night. My husband and I went to our room, as did a few others. The rest went to explore the ship.

[LouLou921]

Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I am looking forward to your review as well, I am on the LOS cruise on the 8th.

 

Can you please tell us if they had any alcohol drink packages offered?

 

No drink packages. We'd ordered the wine package and ordered champagne from gifts & gear. And we took on two bottles of wine.

[Jeaninitini]

Thank you!

[lisa414ny]

Thanks for taking the time to write a review!

[workathome]

We have suite 1400 on our cruise next year, and am glad you had loungers! I know that could change by our cruise, but at least they are there now! We will have 4 people in our room, do you think it will be roomy enough? Thank you so much for doing this review!

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review!

[NorthCoastBuck]

We are in this room for the Jan 5th 5 night Western also. Can't wait to read about your cruise. How is the walk all the way to the back of the ship? This is our first cruise.

[nancronin]

LouLou - you're doing great - love it so far!

[LouLou921]

We slept so well this first night. And really, every night. When I first sat on the bed, I thought it wouldn't be comfortable. But I slept like a baby.

 

We set an alarm to wake up around 7am. Back to the pool deck for some walking/jogging. I got tired of walking in circles and only did about 30 minutes. We went back to the room for a quick change and met friends in the MDR for breakfast. I just wanted to try it once. And it was fine, not great. I had granola with yogurt from the buffet set up in the middle of the room. Then I tried the eggs benedict from the menu. These were just so-so. Coffee was too weak for me. H had a bloody mary that he enjoyed. This was also a morning for the Dreamworks breakfast, it was cute watching the kids get their pictures taken with the characters.

 

After breakfast, we got ready for some poolside time. There seemed to be lots of open chairs. We did find several on an end a few rows away from the pool. There were two wadded up towels on a couple of them. I asked the people next to these if anyone was sitting there and they said no. We just moved the towels to an empty chair and sat down. My friend was worried that we'd have a confrontation a little later, but nothing ever happened. We were there for hours. I read, John napped. An excellent reggae band played for us and there was soccer on the big screen. Around 1pm, we took turns and got a little food from the Windjammer. I had an excellent lamb curry and a cucumber/tomato salad.

There were hamburgers and hot dogs set up on the pool deck.

We ended up watching the Bellyflop Contest---I had zero interest in this. But I set my book down and ended up laughing and enjoying the silliness.

 

There was one little incident behind us regarding space and saved chairs. It blew over pretty quickly. But it was interesting to see, because one of these people was involved in another argument on the last sea day!

 

Around 2pm, we left the pool area and did a little exploring of the ship. I just loved the promenade. Then back to the room to get ready.

 

It was formal night and we had a little celebration planned. Our friends came to our room at 6:30pm and we did a small vow renewal ceremony. Julio was the master of ceremonies and John and I wrote our own vows. It was really very sweet and the girls teared up a little. We drank some champagne and then headed up to the Olive Or Twist for a private party.

What a beautiful bar!

 

We headed to the MDR for dinner again. And we were all hoping for some dramatic improvement in timing---we were not disappointed. They were on the ball. I heard our Assistant Waiter tell a friend that he was new to the MDR.

I had two starters---the oakwood smoked chicken breast and the chilled banana rum soup, both were nice. Then the roasted duck--this was very good and I really liked the sides it came with. I was very disappointed in the lemon meringue pie, lots of meringue, too much crust and not enough lemon filling.

 

---a note about dining---we ate in the MDR every night, as service had improved. No one was interested in Chops or Portofino, well, I was, but everyone else was fine skipping them. We talked about going to WJ one night, but decided against it. We enjoyed getting together with our friends and catching up with one another and hearing about their days. Next cruise, we'll mix it up more.

 

After dinner we walked around some, we checked out the Champagne Bar and Boleros. Boleros was always busy---they need a bigger dance floor. I got an excellent Long Island Iced Tea from the Schooner Bar. Then I suggested Catacombs. A friend said they'd been the night before and it just wasn't for them. I wanted to dance and said I was going in to check it out. They were playing some fun, older dance music...so I ran out and told my friends to give it another try. We ended up having a blast and dancing the night away!

 

I did wear a white dress with a little birdcage veil for the vow renewal, and it was fun talking to people about it...we got a lot of "congratulations". We also had some pictures taken---but on the whole, I was disappointed with the pictures....we did a few each night and they just seemed not very good. The lighting, the posing...or maybe it was us. ;)

[LouLou921]

We are in this room for the Jan 5th 5 night Western also. Can't wait to read about your cruise. How is the walk all the way to the back of the ship? This is our first cruise.

 

I never minded the walk. I walk a lot at home though, so maybe that's why. Only once did we walk the entire hallway, but that was just funny, we couldn't understand why the walk had doubled.

[LBumb]

was on same cruise. had so much fun stayed on for the next four days. couldn't pass on the deal. met some great people in DL.

[LouLou921]

LBumb, how fun! We had some friends who tried, but they were told there was no availability. I wonder if they just wanted to keep their same cabin?

[LouLou921]

We hung up the room service breakfast sign the night before. We ordered enough for three, as Julio was joining us to breakfast in our room/balcony.

This was great, granola and yogurt again for me. Some bacon, some pastries, apple juice. We ordered coffee and hot water. I ended up using the hot water and some Starbuck's Via I'd brought.

 

Then we got ready for Belize. We thought we had plenty of time to tender and make it to Belize for our excursion. Hahahaha, we were so naive. We ended up waiting in line for almost an hour and a half. It was getting tense too. There wasn't enough staff directing people and the lines became confusing. When a staff member did instruct one family to get in the back of the line, they ignored her and stayed where they were. I thought we were never going to make it off the ship. We did and didn't miss our privately booked excursion, thankfully. We booked Snorkeling and Beach Break at Goff's Caye and it was wonderful! I was in heaven.

Afterwards, we hit the Wet Lizard for some beer and I bought a couple of souvenirs. Then back to the ship.

 

To our cabins to drop things off, then down to the Promenade. Ham & cheese croissants hit the spot. Then we got a couple of cones at Ben & Jerry's. And we had time for an afternoon nap!

 

Dinner was fun, our tablemates had done a different snorkeling excursion and we got to hear all about that. We played best part, worst part of the day and tendering was everyone's worst part. But the fantastic snorkeling, lobster on the beach and blue water of Belize made up for it!

 

Tonight I went crazy and ordered two soups...the roasted garlic & strawberry bisque, loved them both! I don't remember my main...I looked at another menu online, and the sides for the veal t-bone seemed to match what I ate, but I don't think it was the t-bone. Whatever, I must have been having a good time. The sugar-free strawberries romanoff were a great finish.

 

The MDR always seemed to be warm, so after dinner, we usually stepped outside to cool down. Tonight, we stopped at Bolero's for a couple of mojitos. Then we made our way to Hoof & Claw, as we realized we hadn't been there before. We got a large table right on the edge of the venue. Chuck Brown was the entertainer and we all enjoyed the beer & the music. We did realize this was a smoking venue, but honestly, the smoke never bothered us. The fans above must have helped.

Afterwards, we joined some friends in the casino. John and I never gambled but we watched our friends play some.

 

As it was now several hours after dinner, the group thought we needed some pizza. Hoo boy, I can't imagine being sober and willingly eating this "pizza". But at 2am, it was just fine. I got some berry mousse and a fried got the tiramisu, we were both very happy with these.

 

We made plans to meet in the WJ for breakfast before heading off to Cozumel in the morning.

[BillOh]

 

Back to Deck 11 for a very light lunch. I had a piece of honey stung chicken and some waldorf salad. This was the first time I'd seen the Windjammer. I was very impressed by it's size and the amount of seating.

 

They got the WJ right on this class of ship. Nice job so far, I get something out of every review with or without pictures. Back to reading!

[LouLou921]

Good gravy, the pics were huge! Trying again...

[BillOh]

Time for Muster! Sweet mercy, this took forever. We were outside on Deck 4 and we had stragglers showing up at 4:20pm. One late arrival thought this was an opportunity to joke around, but everyone groaned. Get in line.

Then someone fainted. There was a lot of commotion and staring. Let's all stare at the poor woman on the ground.

 

 

You touched on a very important point. Thank God Royal does't make you put on the life vest and then stand around in them for a long time or this would probably happen more. The Florida Musters where you are forced to stand out in the heat (not disparaging the process, I know its important) can be tough. We try to balance not keeping others waiting and not being first so you are cramped up again the bulkhead with dozens of bodies between you and any air flow.

[barbie5401]

We actually had cabin 1400 on this cruise - yes it is very big, yes there is one lounge chair - however, there is a pole right in the middle of the cabin:D

[LouLou921]

You know, the pole never bothered me. I thought it might, but it was easy to ignore.

[LouLou921]

 

[BillOh]

Afterwards, we hit the Wet Lizard

Dinner was fun, our tablemates had done a different snorkeling excursion and we got to hear all about that. We played best part, worst part of the day and tendering was everyone's worst part.

 

 

 

This is one reason I read your review. I looked forward to snorkeling in Belize. We were there on Navigator (slightly smaller ship) and tendering was tedious, but not horrible, so I wondered how it would be on this larger ship.