Liberty and Ben and Jerry Sweet Review (You Must Be “In the Know”)

[LuCruise]

Originally l had no plan on writing a review on our Liberty cruise as I tend to only do this after family cruises with our kids.  This one was just DH and me.  However, there aren’t many reviews on Liberty, plus I wanted to share our Ben and Jerry sweet room experience so thought, I'd write a short one.  It won’t be a “day by day” as it would be  very boring of something like “we ate, we then went for a walk, then read, then ate, then did trivia, then ate, then read”  I’m bored already just writing it…lol (even though it was a great holiday). 

 

 

The Cruise

 

DH and I went on a 4 night Bahamas cruise on Liberty from Mon Dec 19 – Fri Dec 23

Sun – Fly in to Fort Lauderdale.  Stayed at Hyatt Place (near cruise port and Harbor Shops)

Mon – Meet our home for the next 4 nights

Tues – Nassau, Bahamas

Wed – CoCo Cay, Bahamas

Thurs – Sea Day

Fri – Fort Lauderdale.  Manage to get home even though flight cancelled due to storms.

 

A couple photos to start.  The first one was taken at Nassau.  This is typically a good port to get off for the purpose of getting a great ship photo (DH will say it's also a good stop to look at watches, but I only see the former reason).  There is lots of construction there now though so I couldn't get the right angle.

 

This one was taken at CoCo Cay.  Liberty is a medium size ship when compared to all Royal ships, but it looks pretty big next to Serenade of the Seas.

Edited December 24, 2022 by LuCruise

[LindaD22]

We’re on Liberty in February, our first time on this ship. I’m looking forward to your review!

[FionaMG]

Considering a Freedom cruise in 2024. As we have not sailed this class yet I'll be interested to read about your experience. 🙂

[LuCruise]

2 hours ago, LindaD22 said:

We’re on Liberty in February, our first time on this ship. I’m looking forward to your review!

It's a great ship.  You will love it.

35 minutes ago, FionaMG said:

Considering a Freedom cruise in 2024. As we have not sailed this class yet I'll be interested to read about your experience. 🙂

Great. I'll go over entertainment, shows, room, etc, but let me know if any specific questions.

[LuCruise]

Pre-Cruise

 

Quick comment about pre-cruise hotel/area in Fort Lauderdale since it's always tough trying to decide where to stay.  We booked Hyatt Place Fort Lauderdale Cruise Port near Harbor Shops.  Fort Lauderdale is an easy port for cruising.  It's not the most exciting, but both the airport and this area of hotels are only a 10 minutes drive from the airport so very convenient.

 

We have stayed in Four Points and Holiday Inn Express before.  Both fine, but we really liked the room at Hyatt as it is very spacious.  It also has a divider, which I assume is there as well if you book for a family of four.

 

The area is great as it's near a Publix (we always make a very important purchase and bring back special cereal to Canada that we can't get there).  They also have Total Wine, which an impressive place.  it's huge with tons of selection.  We didn't need wine this time due to our room (details coming), but it was still fun to look around, plus we got some samples!

 

Whenever we come to this area, we go to Duffy's Sports Grill for dinner.  It was really busy that night due to the soccer game, but we got a table no issue.  Food is really good and they have 2 for 1 drinks if you get the same drink.  I love mojitos and they had one with gummy bears so even better.  Sounds weird (or an oxymoron with kids candy with alcohol) but it was yummy.

 

[LuCruise]

The Ben & Jerry's Sweet  (Promenade Room 6305)

Cruise Critic helped us way back and told us about this secret room, so I wanted to share with others in case anyone else wants to take advantage of this great deal.  But on Liberty, it really is a secret as you just had to know about the privileges of this room.  They didn’t tell us.

 

For those that haven’t heard about this room, it is Promenade Room 6305 (so good price).  What is different about this room is that it is situated right above the Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop with two big cow buts obstructing your view. 

 

Our door was already decorated (handy for finding your room without having to look at the numbers down the long hallway)

 

Once inside the room, this is your view

 

And it is decorated cutely with cows

 

 

We have stayed in this room once before on Independence (it's only on Liberty, Independence and Freedom).  So what's the big deal?  In place of having your view blocked, you get:

 

• free Ben & Jerry ice cream each day
• access to the Suite Lounge

 

On Independence, we also got:

• a  tray of sweets in our room each day
• a Gold Card which gave us other privileges such as reserved theatre seats (I prefer front row though so we never used them), breakfast seating in Chops and a few other things I don't remember

 

On Independence, there was a letter in our room explaining all.

 

On Liberty, there were vouchers for free daily ice cream, but there was no letter explaining anything else.  So you had to be in the know and ask about it .  Even then, we went to Guest Services and the person had to call 3 other people to see if this was true as she didn't know what we were talking about.  She did however, eventually get in touch with the  concierge of the Suite Lounge who said yes, we get access to the room and to come and meet her when it opened at 4:30pm and she would give us a card.  Phew...We know this was a bonus but we would have brought wine on board if they took away this access.  We didn't get anything else that we got Independence, but it was the Suite Lounge that was the Sweet deal!

 

Now comparing to Independence, one thing amazing now on Liberty is that in the Suite Lounge, you can get any drink.  (I'm guessing this isn't a specific thing for Liberty as others explained on here about this before we left...but a change to Suite Lounges in general.)  When on Independence, it was a very specific list of alcohol. The wine wasn't very good and this meant it was just simple drink mixtures.  But now, you can get any mixed drinks, so we got things like Mojitos, Lava Flow, Old Fashioned (for DH), wine of our choice, and chocolate martinis.  We would typically got to the Lounge when it opened, got a drink.  Each day happened to be sail away by about 30 minutes in so that was lovely with the big windows.  Then we would grab another drink and take it for dinner. Great!

 

A photo of the Lounge.  It has big windows and lots of seating.

 

So moral of this story...if anyone books this room, be sure to go to Guest Services to get access.  If they don't know, the Suite Concierge can help you.  They were wonderful!

Edited December 25, 2022 by LuCruise

[jsf]

It's easy to find the Ben and Jerry's cabin you just keep going LEFT😄

[FionaMG]

@LuCruise is this room a connecting room on Liberty? I couldn't tell from the pics but deck plan for Freedom shows it as being connecting. Thanks.

[LuCruise]

20 minutes ago, FionaMG said:

@LuCruise is this room a connecting room on Liberty? I couldn't tell from the pics but deck plan for Freedom shows it as being connecting. Thanks.

Yes good point to mention...it is a connecting room. We had zero issues with noise but of course that's the luck of the draw on who your neighbor.

[PolicromaSol]

Do they do themed rooms on any other ships? Curious about this.

[FionaMG]

1 hour ago, LuCruise said:

Yes good point to mention...it is a connecting room. We had zero issues with noise but of course that's the luck of the draw on who your neighbor.

Thanks very much. That's very helpful to know. 🙂

[LuCruise]

2 hours ago, PolicromaSol said:

Do they do themed rooms on any other ships? Curious about this.

As far as I know, it's just Freedom, Liberty and Independence for the Ben & Jerry Room (due to the location of the room vs the cows over the shop).  No other themed room that I have heard of.

[LuCruise]

Food & Service

 

Food is subjective, and I am not overly critical,  but will give some opinions from DH and I on our experience.  We stuck to the included venues so can’t comment on any specialty restaurants.  We had traditional dining, early time.

 

Main Dining Room - Dinner

Shortly after boarding, we noticed that our assigned dinner table was listed in the app so we headed to the Main Dining Room to check it out.  We were surprised to be on Deck 3, as this is typically My Time. Perhaps there was an overflow of traditional bookings?  We did notice that My Time was listed as not starting until 7:15pm, so maybe that is how they manage both.

 

We walked around until we found our table and was very happy with our location.  Perfect!

 

With this table, one thing that stood out of an advantage of early dining vs late dining is that we could see out when we sat down for dinner.  Then maybe 30 – 45 minutes later, it was dark.  So for late dining, you wouldn’t see outside at all. Food for thought.

 

Will start with our servers at dinner.  They were excellent.  Since we came in with our own drinks from the Suite Lounge, we made it easy for the one who is in charge of the drinks.  Guess we were pretty boring for her.  Our main server too was great, and he even said hello to us by our names when we saw him in the MDR later on in the cruise at lunch time.  Now that's impressive.

 

For the food, it was mostly good.  Guess this will be our last cruise where it includes the classic items, which is too bad as things like the Caesar salad, escargots, salmon, apple pie are some of the regular items that we choose.  Plus French Onion Soup as this is our DD's nightly appetizer so she'll be upset when we come on our next cruise in March.  Food was mostly great.  DH did order the escargot and said it was bland, which is unusual.  I tried it on the last night (night 4) and it was just as good as always so must have been an off night.

 

Will attach a few photos from the nights.

 

The salmon (this is always my backup selection so too bad it won't be available going forward)

 

Battered Fish and Seafood

 

Apple Pie.  Another classic going away.  I'm not even a pie person but always get this as it's sooo good.

 

Seafood Alfredo. It was ok...a bit bland (until our waiter brought out the parmesan shavings to add)

 

Stuffed Portobello Mushroom

 

One nice touch they had on the last night was champaign for everyone (adults).  So DH and I had a drink for each hand...lol.

 

Every night aside from the first night was totall full, with the exception of just one table.  I was surprised as usually many tables are empty due to others selecting specialty dining or Windjammer.

 

Overall, our experience was very good with few complaints.

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by LuCruise

[LuCruise]

Food & Service

 

Main Dining Room - Breakfast

Our kids don't love breakfast in the MDR so when it's just DH and I, we try and go.  We went on the CoCo Cay morning as we weren't in any major rush to get off.  For the dining room, before covid, they had a buffet plus you could order off the menu, but it seems like now it's just the menu option, which is too bad.  It's not like we were lacking food, the it was nice being able to grab a few sides ourselves.

 

I'll say that we were a bit disappointed with the MDR at breakfast.  DH ordered an omelet of some kind and I ordered the eggs benedict but spinach instead of bacon (I don't eat meat).  DH said his was ok.  Mine was bland, whereas in the past it's always been great.  Service was slow too but it was fine.

 

Main Dining Room - Lunch

Similarly, we wanted to try the MDR at lunch time.  Since we only had one sea day, it was only open on our last day.  Like breakfast, they no longer have the Tutti Fruiti salad bar at lunch, which is too bad as this was sooo good.  The menu was limited for me, but only because I don't eat meat, I love salmon but it's a "dinner item" for me, and I don't like Lentil soup.  So, I was stuck with appetizers.  But this worked out as I was able to get the Caesar salad (which is usually my dinner appetizer - so it meant I could order something else for dinner ...lol) .  I also ordered the mozzarella sticks off the appetizer section.  It was very tasty but very salty.  DH ordered the Lentil soup and said ti was good.  Service was good..not too fast, not too slow, and we still made it in time for the 1pm Belly Flop contest.

Edited December 26, 2022 by LuCruise

[LuCruise]

Food & Service

 

Windjammer

The Windjammer usually has very good selection and is a busy happening place.  Unlike other ships, the one on Liberty doesn't have any sinks for washing your hands.  Instead, but they have a cheery guy in a cowboy hat that gave everyone sanitizer as you walked in.  He always gave us a smile.

 

We were on Anthem in March when it was still under covid restrictions.  Back then, they had switched to the crew serving everything.  It was much cleaner but a bit of a pain as it slowed things down, plus if you just wanted a small taste of something or a small amount of syrup you were out of luck.  You would get a gob of whatever, and a pool of syrup, etc.  It still seemed cleaner though with them serving so I didn't mind it. 

 

On Liberty, the buffet is back to normal with self serve.  So I always sanitized again after getting food prior to tasting anything.

 

Lunch

Like most others, we went to the Windjammer on boarding day.  The entrance was so nice as they had a large gingerbread town (more than one house) and an American flag in cup cakes.  Pretty cool!  Not sure if anyone took any of those cupcakes but this is a photo at the start of the cruise.

 

As for my thoughts, I'm a sandwich or salad girl for lunch so I never love going here for lunch.  They do have a good variety of things though and I would say that the food was just ok.  Some good, some not so good but it was fine.

 

We went here again for lunch on our Nassau day.  DH ate from the Windjammer buffet, but I stopped beforehand at Sorentos and picked up veggie pizza and a mini tuna sandwich instead, and just brought it to the buffet.  Since it's all Royal food, that's not an issue.

 

Breakfast

I usually really enjoy breakfast at the Windjammer.  Not sure if I was just getting bored of it, or if the food was off, but it didn't seem as good.  DH felt the same.  The food was either bland, dry or not warm enough (and this is coming from someone who typically isn't overly critical of food).  My favorite things were the grapefruit and cheese slices, and I regretted not getting cereal...so basically things that Royal didn't make.  Just our personal opinions though.  And honestly, what is a Royal cruise without going to the Windjammer?

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2022 by LuCruise

[LuCruise]

Main Dining Room

I missed sharing this picture of the main dining room in my earlier post.  Royal's dining rooms (with the exception of Anthem) are just beautiful.  I was able to capture the room on boarding day with no one in it.  Just beautiful!

[LuCruise]

Coffee Card

There have been some posts recently about the coffee card so thought I'd mention how it works on Liberty.  This was a 4 day cruise so we pre-purchased one card for DH and I. This allowed 15 punches.

 

When we entered our stateroom, the card itself wasn't there but there was a note to go to Cafe Promenade to pick it up.  When we got there, the barista had a list to verify our names and gave us the card. We asked how it worked and he explained, 1 punch for a small, 2 punches for anything else.  Things like the Frappuccino types or Iced Coffee can only be put in a grande cup.  We didn't try and fight this but simply planned accordingly.  Cafe Promenade on Liberty serves Starbucks coffee and all of their specialty drinks.  Nice!

 

So every morning before heading to our breakfast, we'd stop and grab a small Cafe Latte.  This left one other day when we could get something else in a bigger size (e.g. I had a Frappaccino and DH had a larger cofee) plus one other day with one small and one large. 

 

This worked fine for us and was honestly fine.  Our next cruise is a week cruise on Oasis with our kids and thus, we will purchase 2 cards.  The nice thing with the cards too is that it is sharable, unlike the drink packages.

 

P.S. - If the Deluxe drink package wasn't ridiculous with this cruise, then we would have purchased it.  Mind you, we didn't really need it anyways with the Ben and Jerry Sweet.

Edited December 27, 2022 by LuCruise

[LuCruise]

Entertainment

The shows on cruise ships are one of my favorite things about cruising (that, and the food).  Shows are subjective but my feedback is overall it was great on Liberty.  Definitely things were back to normal covid-wise which was nice to see.

 

In The Air (Royal's production show)

There is no story but it's themed about in the air and in the water.  At some points DH would look at me like "WTH is this?" mostly the water scenes.  But personally I really enjoyed this show.  The costumes were colourful and the dancing was amazing.  There was this one couple that really stood out.

 

Saturday Night Fever

Same cast as In the Air, so again, dancing was amazing.  I didn't love the story myself, but that's more a critic on the movie.  Royal's production was amazing.  The guy playing the lead role moved exactly like John Travolta.  I was worried of getting a seat for this one as there were only 2 showings; 4:30pm and 9pm and so figured the 9pm would be packed.  However, we went 1hr early and had no issue getting good seats.  Don't miss this one.

 

Ice Show

Again, very good skaters but the show itself was a little boring compared to other cruises where they make it more fun (Mariner, Navigator and Symphony with the drones, etc).  May also be a personal preference the first 75% of the music was older and slower vs something I knew.

 

Headliner - Comedian

Our cruise was the last cruise with this comedian but he was ok. Some good jokes, but I liked his personality and delivery of the comedy with how he laughs at his own jokes.  He also did a second show late on the last night, definitely not for kids.

 

The Quest

Our cruise was the first one where The Quest returned since the pandemic.  It was run really well and I liked how people didn't seem as prepared for this one.  The last few that we've seen on other ships, people came prepared with potential items that will be included so it wasn't as much fun.

 

Love and Marriage

This show is always fun.  They had a newlywed couple, the mid range couple (a guy named "Joe" who became a celebrity on the ship as he got well known), but not really the long married couple.  It was a bit annoying as this one couple said they were married 50+ years but clearly they were barely even 50 years old.  No one else volunteered though for that category so they were the couple.  It was still a funny show.

 

Belly Flop

Another fun show and let's just say that Joe was the winner, which wasn't a surprise.

 

Schooner Bar

The piano player was excellent.  You could tell that she loves what she does and she interacted with the audience which makes for a better performance.  She even took requests and 90% of the time would be able to play the song (and if not, said she would learn it for the next night).

 

Battle of the Sexes

This one wasn't well hosted as the host didn't even explain the game.  We've been to this before where it was better but I found this one silly and not well done.

 

Trivia

We joined a few of these.  They are always fun, even if hard.  I'm used to them being done in Schooner Bar but these were mostly in the Star Lounge, which actually worked well due to the space and layout of the room.  

 

70s Show

This one is also always fun.  It was held on the Promenade on the last night.  I think if we had been in our room it would have been quite noisy as our room was a bit behind the beam where they were standing.  (There was another beam behind us with dancers).

As an aside, we never even heard noise from our room on the Promenade.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2022 by LuCruise

[Ideb]

On 12/24/2022 at 9:33 AM, LuCruise said:

Originally l had no plan on writing a review on our Liberty cruise as I tend to only do this after family cruises with our kids.  This one was just DH and me.  However, there aren’t many reviews on Liberty, plus I wanted to share our Ben and Jerry sweet room experience so thought, I'd write a short one.  It won’t be a “day by day” as it would be  very boring of something like “we ate, we then went for a walk, then read, then ate, then did trivia, then ate, then read”  I’m bored already just writing it…lol (even though it was a great holiday). 

 

 

The Cruise

 

DH and I went on a 4 night Bahamas cruise on Liberty from Mon Dec 19 – Fri Dec 23

Sun – Fly in to Fort Lauderdale.  Stayed at Hyatt Place (near cruise port and Harbor Shops)

Mon – Meet our home for the next 4 nights

Tues – Nassau, Bahamas

Wed – CoCo Cay, Bahamas

Thurs – Sea Day

Fri – Fort Lauderdale.  Manage to get home even though flight cancelled due to storms.

 

A couple photos to start.  The first one was taken at Nassau.  This is typically a good port to get off for the purpose of getting a great ship photo (DH will say it's also a good stop to look at watches, but I only see the former reason).  There is lots of construction there now though so I couldn't get the right angle.

 

This one was taken at CoCo Cay.  Liberty is a medium size ship when compared to all Royal ships, but it looks pretty big next to Serenade of the Seas.

I'm enjoying your trip review so much! We were on this cruise with you 🙂 It was my husband, myself and two sons. It was our first Royal cruise. We also had interior promenade rooms. We were on deck 8 in rooms 8253 and 8355 adjoining rooms. One day we were walking through the promenade and I was telling my family about the room above Ben and Jerry's. I knew it was a special room but I didn't know about all the perks. You were wondering about whether anyone ate the flag cupcakes: they were passing them out when we were leaving the lunch buffet so we took two to our cabin. The other picture is the view of the promenade from our rooms. We were right above the Christmas tree.

[FionaMG]

On 12/27/2022 at 2:31 PM, LuCruise said:

 

Wow, looks amazing!

[LuCruise]

2 hours ago, Ideb said:

I'm enjoying your trip review so much! We were on this cruise with you 🙂 It was my husband, myself and two sons. It was our first Royal cruise. We also had interior promenade rooms. We were on deck 8 in rooms 8253 and 8355 adjoining rooms. One day we were walking through the promenade and I was telling my family about the room above Ben and Jerry's. I knew it was a special room but I didn't know about all the perks. You were wondering about whether anyone ate the flag cupcakes: they were passing them out when we were leaving the lunch buffet so we took two to our cabin. The other picture is the view of the promenade from our rooms. We were right above the Christmas tree.

Thanks for the note.  Hope you enjoyed Liberty as well!  Looks like you had a neat view with being right over the Christmas tree.  We quite like these rooms and will also do connecting rooms when we come with our kids.  Lol...thanks for the note about the cup cakes.  Definitely would have lost the effect if the  odd one was gone but can see them just handing them all out. 😁

If going again on one of these ships, the B&J room with the connecting would be a great option.

[bluewater1298]

Enjoying your review! We'll be sailing on Liberty for the same 4 day cruise in just a couple of weeks (Jan 16-20). We have a promenade room as well. Unfortunately Ben and Jerry's room wasn't available when we booked.

 

I have a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind. What time was your arrival check-in time? And what time did you get to board? We have an 11:00 arrival. We're hoping to be able to board when we arrive.

 

Also, was the water cold in Coco Cay? We don't plan to do any of the excursions. Just relax on the beach if it's a sunny day. Not sure how the water temp will be in the winter. I know the pools on the ship are usually too cold in the winter. I wish they would heat them.

 

This will be our first cruise since before Covid. We've always loved Royal and have had good experiences in the past. I've been reading a lot about the food quality going downhill, but you seem to have enjoyed most of it. I'm just planing to go without any great expectations and hopefully it will be ok. Glad to hear the entertainment is getting back to normal! We love The Quest!

 

Thanks so much for your review! It's good to hear a positive one. I'm getting excited for ours cruise now!

[twoshay]

On 12/24/2022 at 10:45 AM, LindaD22 said:

We’re on Liberty in February, our first time on this ship. I’m looking forward to your review!

So are we!  First time on Liberty and RCL.  Excited to hear more.

[LuCruise]

10 hours ago, bluewater1298 said:

Enjoying your review! We'll be sailing on Liberty for the same 4 day cruise in just a couple of weeks (Jan 16-20). We have a promenade room as well. Unfortunately Ben and Jerry's room wasn't available when we booked.

 

I have a couple of questions for you, if you don't mind. What time was your arrival check-in time? And what time did you get to board? We have an 11:00 arrival. We're hoping to be able to board when we arrive.

 

Also, was the water cold in Coco Cay? We don't plan to do any of the excursions. Just relax on the beach if it's a sunny day. Not sure how the water temp will be in the winter. I know the pools on the ship are usually too cold in the winter. I wish they would heat them.

 

This will be our first cruise since before Covid. We've always loved Royal and have had good experiences in the past. I've been reading a lot about the food quality going downhill, but you seem to have enjoyed most of it. I'm just planing to go without any great expectations and hopefully it will be ok. Glad to hear the entertainment is getting back to normal! We love The Quest!

 

Thanks so much for your review! It's good to hear a positive one. I'm getting excited for ours cruise now!

Too bad you couldn't get the room, but you'll still have a great time.

 

We also had 11am boarding time.  It was very easy.  We arrived at the port at 10:30am and went through check in right away.  They had one suite section and a regular section.  (We sat in regular section).  While waiting we did the first two steps of the muster  i.e. watched the videos.  It didn't take long for them to call us.  Unlike other cruises, they didn't call you by status but just by the row where you are seating.  So it doesn't hurt to come early to get a closer seat.  I looked at my watched when walking on the ship and it was 10:58am so not bad.

 

I can post a few photos of CoCo Cay.  Like you, we didn't have any excursions so just went to one of the beaches (Chill Island side).  It was a lovely day.  The water was cool, but I'm a chicken that way.  Once you got used to it, it was fine.  I only went to my thighs but there were many swimming and snorkeling.  

 

Enjoy your cruise.  It's coming up!

[LuCruise]

Ship Photos

We've been on a few Royal ships.  They all have a similar layout with a Royal feel and way of doing things, but it's always fun to see how they differ.  When booking a cruise, we will often select a ship that we haven't been on yet (this includes all of our upcoming bookings as well).

 

Thought I'd post some miscellaneous photos that I took around Liberty.

 

Schooner Bar (It's empty as I took this close to when we boarded)

 

The Promenade deck.  I love the bridge that they have on Freedom class ships.

 

From above showing the tree.

 

It's always fun too to see what car each ship has.

 

The Solarium

 

The main pool.  Yes, that is the movie screen and it's covered as it's not working.  We never actually sat at this pool (I just did lots of laps around) so it didn't bother us that it wasn't working.  They always had music playing and such so it was still an upbeat happening area.

 

The kids pool.  Our kids are teenagers so even if they were with us, they wouldn't have used this pool/splash area but I do love how they have it for younger kids.  So much fun for them.

 

The regular waterslides

 

The Tidal Wave slide.  It's hard to capture the whole thing in one photo but it's a regular slide on a mat that ends with the part that sends you back (to the exit)

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by LuCruise