Back From Liberty Today- Mixed Review

[2boyzmom]

Hello everyone. I'm tired but want to put everything down while it's fresh in my mind.

Traveled with my DH and two sons age 9 and 11. They have cruised quite a bit so I trust their kids club reviews.

 

Embarkation- arrived at the pier at 11:45 and was on the ship within one hour. Most poor souls who arrived after us did not board for hours! I was told their was even a fistfight outside. Awful! Rich the activities director told us at the meet n greet that it is definitely a Port of Miami immigration issue. The ship prior to us DID NOT go to Belize and it was still bad.

 

Cabin- very nice balcony with connecting inside cabin. Fantastic for a family of four. Cabin 9396 and 9401 if you are inetersted in this configuration.

 

Sailaway was great with Dreamworks for the kids. I was told their were 900 kids on board and I beleive it. I have cruised quite a few President's weeks but never with this many kids. No security at all stopping them from "rough housing" around the pool and almost running people over in the halls. There were 4300 people on board and while most of the time it was fine, sea days were wayyy too crowded at the pools and other ship activities.

 

Dreamworks breakfast was excellent. Thanks cruise critic for letting us know. It was not advertised well and most people missed out. It was very intimate which was great but a shame it was only offered twice.

 

Service- very good except they were severerly lacking wait staff around the pool. We usually gave up and just got our own drinks. This has never happened to us on any cruise..

 

Kids club- first time my boys did not want to go. Counselors for their age group were a bit "underenthused" to say the least and obviously could not handle all the kids on board. The boys told me activities were cancelled due to "too much talking". They did go later in the cruise, but it was not as enthusiastic as prior years.

 

MUTS- A great idea but underused. Only one movie in 8 nights was offered duiring "family hours" at 8 PM or so. Not sure why they put movies on at 10:30 PM or a concert at 1AM! The pool area was always dead except for one or two nights so it seems wasted.....

 

Ice Skating- again great but underused. Only 2 nights were shows offered and only 2 or 3 days of ice skaiting for guests. I wonder why it is not offered more..

 

St. Thomas- lovely but very very crowded. 2 other large ships in port so Megans Bay was more like Coney Island than the Virgin Islands. Coki was great and much quieter.

 

St. Martin- our original tour aboard the Capt Morgan was cancelled so we took the "Lord Sheffield". Nice but overpriced. Only stopped to snorkel once and the gourmet lunch was a few ribs and undercooked chicken wings. We have never only stopped once on a 3 hour excursion and others were complaining too...

 

San Juan- stayed on board to enjoy the amenities of the ship and am sad to say- in port everything seemed to stop. Flowrider was stand up only, no rock wall, no ice skating, no dining room lunch. So it was a bust for us...

 

Labadee- excellent day! Did the water park and kids loved it.

 

Food- had MTD which worked out great. Very accommodating and had no problem getting a 7PM reservation each night. Chops was excellent. Never ate buffet or Johnny Rockets. Just not thrilled with the lack of dining options on a ship this size. Sounds like they remedied that on the Oasis and Allure...

 

Overall impression was very good but I just think I am not enamoured by the "mega ship" atmosphere. I highly prefer the radiance class but am looking forward to trying the smaller "explorer of the seas" next year...

[AtlFolks]

Cruised Liberty with you last week.

 

Port of Miami sucks - they won't see me again. I'll cruise out of FLL or Canveral in the future. No excuse for making 300 people wait in line at security while the check-in lobby clears. Shame on you Miami!

 

Yes, kid's club staff in the older group was no energy, but my 10 yr old loved the Gaga Ball during late night.

 

Staff in the 7 yr old group were fantastic! We, and our son, love Tina!

 

Agree that deck staff were not watching the pool area at all - very disappointing. So many bad things can happen while at sea, plus many pre-teens were disturbing other pax. They need to fix this pronto.

 

Regarding bar staff, I never had a problem getting a drink. However, is it my imagination, or have the drink prices gone up and the serving sizes gotten smaller? Best "drink of the week award" goes to the Labradoozie - YUM!

 

Also, what's up with removing the "buy one get one" bar coupon from the C&A booklet? Other offers were either underwhelming or insulting, c'mon, 10% off a $3 drink!

 

Princess showed NFL football during the day on their jumbo screen and great movies at night. I'd like to think RCCL will figure out what to do with theirs very soon.

 

Food was disappointing on this cruise. They rolled out a new menu last week, which was a bit underwhelming as compared to past crusies. Out waiter, Erol, was top shelf!

 

All service staff were top notch for us - we were very lucky, but I think RCCL has put a large emphasis on taking care of the customer.

 

RCCL still leads for us as compared to Princess, and especially Disney. We sincerely hope RCCL does not cut too much to increase margins at the expense of quality. Loyal customers notice the details.

 

Yours in Cruising!

[foxesden1]

New menu????????? Please share!!!

[Kimmie36]

You mention a new menu,is this fleet wide? I sure hope so RCCL needs to spruce up the old menu!

[ZoeyVictoria]

I'm with them... NEW MENU?! I hope they kept the top favorites and changed some of the other stuff. Can't wait to see a menu.

[marci22]

Regarding bar staff, I never had a problem getting a drink. However, is it my imagination, or have the drink prices gone up and the serving sizes gotten smaller?

 

Not sure about the prices, but the serving sizes have definitely gotten smaller. I have saved one or two of those Royal Caribbean plastic promo glasses each time we cruised, and since 2005, there have been at least 3 different sizes, each one getting progressively smaller.

[funfamilyof6]

Thanks for the great review...we totally agree with you about the ice skating. I don't know why RCCL has such a great "extra" and doesn't get maximum use of it. It would also keep some of those "bored teens" occupied. We had a different experience with the kids clubs, but we went in August. All of our kids (all ages) loved them.

 

Just so you know...we are going on the Explorer in April. It is my understanding that the Explorer isn't much different than the Freedom. It is almost as big as the Freedom. The major difference being no Flowrider, we will certainly miss the Flowrider!

 

We also hope they do more with the MUTS, although we don't want to see sports.

 

Noticed you also went on the Zenith...we went on it for our Honeymoon. We have such great memories of that one.

[mikeblum]

the m's must have it today...hopefully the new menu will bring better food to the MDR...and that they start using the MUTS to better usage in the evenings...why ion god green earth would you start a concet at 1am...they can not be live...start them at 10 pm...HELLO RCCL...listen to your customers...

[jill5172]

Thank you! I will be really interested to hear whether this port day thing you speak of is true elsewhere. I am on a port-intensive cruise this summer and was planning to stay onboard the first day. Might have to rethink that if the kids can't take advantage of all of the amenities!

[SpartyOn813]

Cruised Liberty with you last week.

 

 

RCCL still leads for us as compared to Princess, and especially Disney. We sincerely hope RCCL does not cut too much to increase margins at the expense of quality. Loyal customers notice the details.

 

Yours in Cruising!

 

We embark on our first RCCL cruise on Liberty this Saturday. We have done Princess (loved MUTS) and were underwhelmed by the food. We have been loyal Disney cruisers - I think 4 time Disney cruisers? The food is exceptional on Disney I think. Do you really think RCCL is hands down better than Disney? Can't wait to find out. They are certainly cheaper. We booked a JS and a balcony next to it for our kids and it was the same price for 2 cabins and 8 days as it was for the Deluxe Family suite on Disney for 7. We have a 10 yr old and 13 yr old and thought this ship seemed to have more going on for teen kids. Any recommendations? Thanks!

[Puffinater]

Thanks for taking the time to post your review.

 

Don't forget the ice rink is also used for show practice. They also have to keep the ice in as good a condition as possible for the show skaters. It cannot be made available for open skate as often as we may like it to be. Seems the Mariner had at least one full day of open skating and several other days with open sessions last time we were on.

[2boyzmom]

Thanks for taking the time to post your review.

 

Don't forget the ice rink is also used for show practice. They also have to keep the ice in as good a condition as possible for the show skaters. It cannot be made available for open skate as often as we may like it to be. Seems the Mariner had at least one full day of open skating and several other days with open sessions last time we were on.

 

The shows were only offered on two days out of eight....

[2boyzmom]

Thanks for the great review...we totally agree with you about the ice skating. I don't know why RCCL has such a great "extra" and doesn't get maximum use of it. It would also keep some of those "bored teens" occupied. We had a different experience with the kids clubs, but we went in August. All of our kids (all ages) loved them.

 

Just so you know...we are going on the Explorer in April. It is my understanding that the Explorer isn't much different than the Freedom. It is almost as big as the Freedom. The major difference being no Flowrider, we will certainly miss the Flowrider!

 

We also hope they do more with the MUTS, although we don't want to see sports.

 

Noticed you also went on the Zenith...we went on it for our Honeymoon. We have such great memories of that one.

 

Loved the Zenith!! I just miss the atmosphere of a smaller ship. I think as the boys get older we will try a big ship again but am definitely scaling down after this cruise...

[2boyzmom]

Cruised Liberty with you last week.

 

Port of Miami sucks - they won't see me again. I'll cruise out of FLL or Canveral in the future. No excuse for making 300 people wait in line at security while the check-in lobby clears. Shame on you Miami!

 

Yes, kid's club staff in the older group was no energy, but my 10 yr old loved the Gaga Ball during late night.

 

Staff in the 7 yr old group were fantastic! We, and our son, love Tina!

 

Agree that deck staff were not watching the pool area at all - very disappointing. So many bad things can happen while at sea, plus many pre-teens were disturbing other pax. They need to fix this pronto.

 

Regarding bar staff, I never had a problem getting a drink. However, is it my imagination, or have the drink prices gone up and the serving sizes gotten smaller? Best "drink of the week award" goes to the Labradoozie - YUM!

 

Also, what's up with removing the "buy one get one" bar coupon from the C&A booklet? Other offers were either underwhelming or insulting, c'mon, 10% off a $3 drink!

 

Princess showed NFL football during the day on their jumbo screen and great movies at night. I'd like to think RCCL will figure out what to do with theirs very soon.

 

Food was disappointing on this cruise. They rolled out a new menu last week, which was a bit underwhelming as compared to past crusies. Out waiter, Erol, was top shelf!

 

All service staff were top notch for us - we were very lucky, but I think RCCL has put a large emphasis on taking care of the customer.

 

RCCL still leads for us as compared to Princess, and especially Disney. We sincerely hope RCCL does not cut too much to increase margins at the expense of quality. Loyal customers notice the details.

 

Yours in Cruising!

 

Our waiter Sommai was fantastic too! I noticed quite a bit of Carribean Island Staff which is a change from the large Indonesian Staff which has been the majority on most of our cruises?

[sadie8]

I can relate to your post. We sailed on the Navigator of the Seas in 2007 and just happened to hit President's week. Now I know to watch out for that week and never cruise then again! Lesson learned.

[mclaire]

we were also on the 2/19 sailing and i agree with the op. soooo many unruly, rude, unsupervised kids/teens. do the parents just get onboard and say have fun and check in from time to time? once i was on the elevator with several adults and there were two teens sitting on the floor and when the doors opened there was a crew member waiting for them and told them to get up and get out (yeah!) and then apologized to us.

 

a chair at the pool? forget it! did the pool staff enforce the 30 min rule? never that we saw. we asked an officer why nothing was being done and he replied that people just don't follow the rules and shrugged his shoulders.

 

food in the mdr was ok. two selections every night that you couldn't understand.

 

the staff was as usual very friendly, cabin steward was wonderful! weather was fantastic. staying onboard in san juan was great, actually got two chairs together at the solarium pool. wonderful ice show, great beatles show (revolution), the juggler was funny and very talented. pool band was great.

 

we did have a good cruise but i think we will go back to the smaller ships and definitely cruise prior to president;s weekend.

[Clubber]

We were on the same sailing and had a great time. It was definitely a packed ship with lots of young people. Tough to get a bunch of chairs together. Our biggest problem was their entertainment schedule after 10pm. We love to dance shortly after dinner, but only on a few nights did the Catacombs actually open at a reasonable time. We struggled to stay awake and didn't have many options. We enjoyed the Karaoke, but the hours were odd and limited as well. We are not "show" people so we didn't go to any of the productions. We tried to enjoy the singer in the Hoof and Claw, but the smoke was intolerable. In fact, I was surprised at how much smoking there was on the ship. I don't recall any bars that didn't allow it. We talked to one of the waiters and he said they used to limit it to only a couple of bars, but the second hand smoke got so bad for the waiters that they opened it up completely again. The do have nonsmoking sections, but usually away from the bar/band area.

 

The climbing wall, sports court, miniature golf, and flowrider was a big hit. We rented the flowrider for an hour one morning just for ourselves.

[reallyitsmema]

food in the mdr was ok. two selections every night that you couldn't understand.

 

Could you explain what you mean by this?

[2boyzmom]

We were on the same sailing and had a great time. It was definitely a packed ship with lots of young people. Tough to get a bunch of chairs together. Our biggest problem was their entertainment schedule after 10pm. We love to dance shortly after dinner, but only on a few nights did the Catacombs actually open at a reasonable time. We struggled to stay awake and didn't have many options. We enjoyed the Karaoke, but the hours were odd and limited as well. We are not "show" people so we didn't go to any of the productions. We tried to enjoy the singer in the Hoof and Claw, but the smoke was intolerable. In fact, I was surprised at how much smoking there was on the ship. I don't recall any bars that didn't allow it. We talked to one of the waiters and he said they used to limit it to only a couple of bars, but the second hand smoke got so bad for the waiters that they opened it up completely again. The do have nonsmoking sections, but usually away from the bar/band area.

 

The climbing wall, sports court, miniature golf, and flowrider was a big hit. We rented the flowrider for an hour one morning just for ourselves.

 

I couldnt agree more with the lack of early entertainment. I am not into shows so between 8-10PM there was not much going on other than the show. I mean- they cannot expect to cram everyone into the showroom so why dont they spread out the evening music? We love the great beer at the hoof and claw but could not hang out there due to all the smoke...

[funfamilyof6]

We embark on our first RCCL cruise on Liberty this Saturday. We have done Princess (loved MUTS) and were underwhelmed by the food. We have been loyal Disney cruisers - I think 4 time Disney cruisers? The food is exceptional on Disney I think. Do you really think RCCL is hands down better than Disney? Can't wait to find out. They are certainly cheaper. We booked a JS and a balcony next to it for our kids and it was the same price for 2 cabins and 8 days as it was for the Deluxe Family suite on Disney for 7. We have a 10 yr old and 13 yr old and thought this ship seemed to have more going on for teen kids. Any recommendations? Thanks!

 

I can give you my opinion on this one. We are huge Disney fans. We go at least once a year, before the kids started school we would go 3 or 4 times a year to take full advantage of our Disney annual passes. We drive straight (stopping only for gas, food and bathroom breaks) to Florida from New York (about 20-21 hours), my husband and I take turns driving...kids never complain. To us, Disney cruises are way overpriced for what you get. The only thing they have on other cruiselines, which can be objective depending on who you talk to, is the nightly shows.

 

Disney cruises are great for families who have young children (under 10). When we went on our last Disney cruise (2 1/2 years ago) our 3 older kids (13, 11 and 10) were very bored. They did not enjoy the Disney kids clubs, only our youngest (5) loved it. We have 3 girls and 1 boy. The boy was 10. The older ones were too tall to go on the slide and they felt a lot of the activities were babyish.

 

When we did our last RCCL Freedom cruise (1 1/2 years ago) all of our kids (then 14, 12, 11 and 6) had the time of our life. They loved it so much that they keep asking to go on another. There is a lot to keep the older kids busy, the Flowrider is a BIG deal. Also the prices are a lot better. We also like the Western Itinerary better for kids but again this is just our opinion and experience. Our kids do not like spending a lot of time on the beach. We are very fair (blond and redheads) and burn very easily. If we do go to the beach, we constantly have to put on waterproof lotion (very high number) so we don't burn.

 

In our opinion, although food quality has come down a lot on cruiseships in general, the food is a lot better on Royal Caribbean. The good thing about Disney is that they give you free soda which isn't big for us because we all drink water.

 

Taking into account your kids ages, I would think your kids would love a Royal Caribbean Freedom class ship. Are you comparing it to one of the new Disney ships? The new Disney ships do look nice but I have read the pool area is small. The Freedom never felt crowded to us. Since we have went on it, they are also adding some new stuff which will make it more interesting. My youngest is very excited about the cupcakes.

 

I hope I don't get bashed by Disney cruise lovers. Again, we do love Disney, we just feel you get more for your money when it comes to cruises with Royal Caribbean.

 

Even on the Disney cruise that we were a little bored, we still had a great time. Good luck and have fun.:)

[mclaire]

there were two asian or indian or some othe culture of food items each night that you have never heard of and our waiter never really had a good explanation of what they were and suggested we order something else.

[reallyitsmema]

there were two asian or indian or some othe culture of food items each night that you have never heard of and our waiter never really had a good explanation of what they were and suggested we order something else.

Gotcha, thanks for the explanation. Too bad the waiter wasn't able to explain the dishes to you. We have always found cruises to be a great place to try something different since it won't cost you anything additional if you have to get something else if you didn't like it.

[Cruzface]

Just off the 2/19 sailing. One night we were intrigued by the Thai Curry Eggplant (called something else on the menu) offered on the menu and our waiter brought it as an extra. It was probably the best thing we had all week.

[12marshall]

I think we had roughly the same experience in our back-to-back in June/July 2010 but somehow they weren't talking points for me and I think it just says that people have different things they feel are important about a cruise.

 

The MUTS wasn't there and quite frankly I hope I manage to avoid it. I know it's fun for some people but I don't want to be connected to ESPN or anything else from the mainland while on my cruise.

 

The ice shows, however, we loved and I don't think it's realistic to expect to have the ice show every day or have the rink open every day. It's a huge undertaking and they need time to maintain the ice and practice their shows.

 

The two things that really bother me are the rowdy kids and the smoke around the ship. We experienced very few problems with smoke or rowdy kids in two weeks previously. The pub had two days where we didn't stick around long because of smoke but we had no problems otherwise. I hope it's not changing for the worse.

 

Our kids like to spend a lot of time with us and I hope that they behave when they are not with us but I assume there is going to be some rowdiness when you get a bunch of kids together. It seems that no matter how many things you throw at some kids, they are going to find a way to be bored and disrupt someone's day.

 

We had a few occaisions where teens were piled along sides of the hallway and after a few encounters with this I would just rather loudly say "IN (pointing to the nearby room) our OUT (pointing to the lift) but not in-between!" and they would move on.

 

I knew about Puerto Rico and as I recall they have some rules in Puerto Rico that actually forces the ship to close the MDR. They have inspections and they have to even throw large amounts of food away (hopefully someone else more knowledgeable than me can add to this). On top of that you have taxes that kick in and we found that it seemed to be one of the few days a large number of crew were able to take a break and leave the ship. It's just another reason why (in my opinion) Puerto Rico should be removed as a port (unless leaving from Puerto Rico) and I do like PR very much.

[CruisinDawn]

The shows were only offered on two days out of eight....

There wasn't 2 daytime shows? Just looking at the Campasses from the 8 nighter before yours and they had two matinées back to back on the 2nd day as well as two shows in the evening the 4th night and once on the 7th night? :confused: Did they change that?

 

BonVoyage

Dawna