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A Slightly Late, but detailed review....Liberty of the Seas March 2012

av8tr21

By av8tr21,
in Royal Caribbean International

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av8tr21

av8tr21

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This morning, I was reading through an old review I wrote, and thought I might see if you all would be interested in a review from my Liberty cruise last March. I know it's late, but I'm in the process of booking/planning a New Year's cruise on Enchantment with a bunch of friends and the cruise bug is getting to me! Thought it might be fun to re-live this particular cruise with all of you! Let me know!

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av8tr21

av8tr21

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I have taken a bit of a break from Cruise Critic…mainly posting. Most times I simply read and lurk ;-) Anyway, I was able to take some really awesome trips last Spring/Summer including: Cruise on Liberty of the Seas, a few days in St. Maarten in May, and a trip to Iceland in June. Let me say this, if you ever have an opportunity to travel to Iceland, GO! Most beautiful place I have ever seen! I would love to stop there on a cruise…..one of the days I was there, a P&O ship was in port in Reykjavik. Throw in work amongst other things, and it ended up being a pretty busy year!

 

Normally when I write a trip report (whether FlyerTalk or here), photos tend to be snapshots and nothing more as I am focused on quantity and not so much quality. So by my photos on here, you’d never know I was a photographer! My specialties are weddings and portraits. Typically, I don’t take my “gear” on vacation, instead a small point and shoot. Maybe some of the other photographers can chime in, but there are times when I’m on vacation where I just feel like grabbing a point and shoot and not lugging everything around. Sorry I had to take you on that tangent, but I figured some small talk will make you feel like you get to know me a bit better!

 

At the time of booking, I was still going to USC (Go Gamecocks!) and had taken a cruise with a few friends in May of 2011. I of course, being the travel nerd I am, made all the arrangements and chose Carnival. I’m not going to bash Carnival, but let’s just say they’re not my top choice and I wouldn’t choose to sail with them anymore. However, my first cruise was with Carnival, so I am grateful for that first experience. After going on Royal Caribbean with my family over Christmas in 2011, I decided I wanted to stay “Loyal to Royal” and eventually become a Pinnacle Club member….well, someday ( I can dream, right?) So, I was able to convince my friends once again to cruise. They may have been a bit apprehensive at first (trying a new line), but I assured them Liberty would exceed all of their expectations! Ha, me saying that having never sailed Liberty….I felt like I had with all of the awesome reviews! I have also cruised once on Holland America, and the ships are top-notch as well as the food. Little things like teakwood everywhere and more “ocean liner” décor really provide a “sailing” experience vs. a “cruise”. I wouldn’t call it boring, but the fact that the only food choice after 10PM was room service was disappointing. HAL is great for others, but not me.

 

Originally, I had booked the Jewel out of Tampa, but there was an incredible price drop on Liberty and I switched sailings. Now, if we had stayed on Jewel we would have been upgraded to a Balcony just because of all the price drops that particular sailing had…oh well! I’m one of those cruisers that prefers to book Interior staterooms and spend the money saved elsewhere. I do check for price drops often, sometimes far too often. Sometimes I drive my family nuts…apologies to my future wife :-D When we were docked next to the Jewel in Cozumel, it seemed pretty empty….maybe bookings were way down?

 

Back to the trip….so I switched sailings to the Liberty in January and was able to choose cabins on Deck 8 (great location, mid-ship). You all might be jealous after hearing this, but I live about 1 hour and 10 minutes from Port Canaveral, and 3 hours and 30 minutes from Port Everglades! Some of you might wonder why I don’t cruise more…I definitely could, but I choose not to. Mainly because I don’t want cruising to ever become boring because I live so close to so many ports. That and I like to travel to other places as well. Also, let me say this….the people you cruise with make a huge difference about how the cruise will go!

 

The cruise left on March 22nd (Thursday), and my friends were due to drive down from SC the day before. I then decided the best thing to do would be to do two one-way SUV rentals. Otherwise, we would have to have taken two cars. By the time you figure in parking and gas, it was cheaper to rent one vehicle we could all fit in. I got an incredible deal through my CC’s travel agency, and would up paying $65 for both rentals! My friends arrived around 5PM, and we then drove to pick up our vehicle from Budget at Daytona Beach International Airport. It’s about a 10-15 minute drive from my house in Ormond. We were given a 2012 Dodge Durango (NICE!), and then proceeded to grab a late dinner at Tijuana Flats. I’ve never had such a slow agent renting a car before! This woman had two paces, snail and turtle! Anyway, it didn’t really matter because we were leaving on a cruise the next day!!! I love the day before a cruise, the busyness of getting everything finished up, last-minute packing, half-days at work, etc.

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av8tr21

av8tr21

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Day 1

 

After a late night of catching up, laughing, and not enough sleep…alarms began going off at 5:30. We had decided to leave right at 7, allowing us to arrive at Port Everglades by 11-11:15. There is a Budget car rental office near the 17th St. bridge, and they provide free shuttle service to the port. Bags were loaded in the back of the Durango, and we pulled out of the driveway only a few minutes behind schedule! My house is only 3 miles from I-95, and there happens to be a Dunkin Donuts just before the left merge lane to get on 95. Naturally, we stopped and stocked up on coffee and a few donuts to wake us up. The drive down to Ft. Lauderdale is pretty easy, and seemingly goes by more quickly than you think. We all of course played various games like Catchphrase (TRY IT IN THE CAR, AWESOME!), license plate game, and generally acted like a bunch of kids instead of the adults we are..hehe :D. Here are a few photos...

 

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Our trusty steed after the 3.5 hour drive

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av8tr21

av8tr21

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I wasn't able to get as much typed up as I wanted, but I figure a little is better than none! Here goes...

 

So we left off with the drive down to Port Everglades...There was a bit of traffic, and we ended up getting to the entrance to Port Everglades around 10:45 or so. My first thought of the port was, "Sheesh, what a mess!" Liberty was the only ship in port that day (Thursday), but I forgot what terminal. I was not impressed when we pulled up to drop off our luggage either, as the chaos continued to ensue. There were people everywhere dropping bags here and there, and I wondered if ours would even make the ship. Fortunately they did, but this had to be the most disorganized port I've sailed out of. We decided to drop off our bags, drop the rental car off, and take the free shuttle back to the ship. Let me just say, this is the most efficient way. It would have been so much more of a hassle to drop the car off, unload everything, load it all on the shuttle and then unload it again. Much easier to manage just the carry-ons.

 

After arriving back on the shuttle, we proceeded to the terminal where we had our first document check. There are makeshift barriers to help form orderly lines, and fortunately they had one for gold members. The actual security check was also utter chaos. There must have been 5 or 6 lanes, we all ended up getting separated and of course someone got stuck in the slow lane.

 

Rant....I'm used to sailing out of PC, and the flow of things is SO much smoother there. The layout of the terminals, seating areas, etc. makes the experience much more pleasant. It appears the terminals in Port Everglades are nothing more than glorified "warehouses" with a bunch of "dividers" and "barriers" to separate everything. I'll say it again...chaos. :mad: End Rant

 

Check-in took a long time, and one person in our party was getting over a bad cold. The port employees were passing out those health forms, and my buddy was trying to make his bouts of coughing as least noticeable as possible. Fortunately, there was so much noise that no one even noticed! Finally we made it to an agent who checked us all in (5 total in 2 cabins). This was the only efficient process of the whole embarkation! After receiving our SeaPass cards, we proceeded to yet ANOTHER line where we waited for a good 25 minutes. By now it was after 12PM, and you could tell everyone was getting restless and just wanting to get on the ship. So, we're standing in this line thinking we're going to be boarding the ship at the end of it, but no....it's a line to sit down. I guess because there were so many people, the actually had to board by zones. We finally to the seating area (hardly big enough), and ended up sitting for another 25 minutes before we were able to board. When we finally set foot on the ship, it was just after 1PM! At PC, you usually end up walking right on after check-in! Patience is a virtue, and something we all can continue to learn ;)

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Danish

Danish

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Thank you for your review. I will sail at Liberty at May 5th, and look forward to hear more about the ship.

I agree with you around Iceland. It's amazing. I have been there several times and have good friends living in the Reykjavik area. The only problem about Iceland is the weather. As I am not living in an area with a climate, as the one you have in Florida, I want to go at vacation a place, there I am sure to get some heat and a lot of sun. But Royal does have a few cruises going to Iceland this summer.

 

Keep the review coming.

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av8tr21

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I'm uploading a bunch of photos to post as we speak! Most of these were taken after we boarded and were exploring the ship. Stopped for lunch at Windjammer, and of course had some Honey Stung Chicken. Seemed to be much better than on Monarch a few months earlier. The layout of Windjammer on the Freedom Class ships is excellent! Enjoy the photos while I work on typing up more of the review!

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av8tr21

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After finishing lunch in Windjammer, we all decided to explore a bit then eventually we all split up and agreed to meet for dinner at 6. Let me say, the crew in Windjammer were awesome! One server kept stopping by our table to see if we needed refills, kept clearing away plates, napkins, etc. I wish I could remember his name, but this was a little over a year ago ;) After we split up, I ventured off and started taking as many pictures as I could. I hadn't looked at these in a while, and I forget that the quality is truly lacking. Apologies, and I have no excuse! I was truly amazed at the sheer size of Liberty, however everything is so well laid out you begin to forget you're on a 160,000 gross-ton ship! I spent a little time watching people on the Flowrider....oh, btw who the heck owns that house in Ft. Lauderdale with the Flowrider in the backyard!?!? I seriously would like to become friends with that family! Anyway, it was great watching people wipeout and in general have fun! I wound up on the Flowrider on the second sea-day....more on that later :cool:.

 

The Royal Promenade is a great place to hang-out and people watch, or eat! Sorrentos quickly became my favorite lunch spot. Pizza=great, antipasti=awesome, dessert=amazing! Catch my drift? Also, loved being on Deck 8. We had 8357 and 8367. It was great being higher up and close to all the action. Here are two cabin photos....just for you folks!

 

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How am I doing so far? Anyone have questions? Please ask! I'll do my best to answer them!

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