Just off 2/14 Liberty sailing...

[SA Traveler]

[quote name='clarea']Price that keeps going up, cuts of meat no longer available without additional charge, poor service.[/QUOTE]

I agree. We no longer enjoy Chops for the same reasons. We don't like the pretzel bread either. Steak is just as good IMO in Giovanni's and everything else is better. Cheaper too.

I am curious about the Windjammer french fries. On the repo to Galveston they were not the same good crunchy ones but just plain old soggy ones. We are on the Liberty on the 13th and my grandson is going to be very upset if they don't have those good french fries.

[decker12]

[quote name='SA Traveler']I am curious about the Windjammer french fries. On the repo to Galveston they were not the same good crunchy ones but just plain old soggy ones. We are on the Liberty on the 13th and my grandson is going to be very upset if they don't have those good french fries.[/quote]

My Liberty Windjammer french fries were sadly nothing to write home about. I tried them a couple off times and they were just basic french fries, I'd say about the same quality and thickness you'd get at Wendy's. They didn't taste particularly homemade. The tater tots they served at breakfast were better even though they clearly were not homemade.

Part of the problem is that everything I had over at the Windjammer (other than the coffee and the omelets they make on request) was basically lukewarm. My entire family noticed this, at no time did we get anything from the buffet that was steaming hot.

[Clarea]

[quote name='SA Traveler']I agree. We no longer enjoy Chops for the same reasons. We don't like the pretzel bread either. Steak is just as good IMO in Giovanni's and everything else is better. Cheaper too.

I am curious about the Windjammer french fries. On the repo to Galveston they were not the same good crunchy ones but just plain old soggy ones. We are on the Liberty on the 13th and my grandson is going to be very upset if they don't have those good french fries.[/quote]
Can't speak for Liberty, but they were crunchy on Vision and Brilliance recently.

[DM_KidAtHeart]

[quote name='decker12']Part of the problem is that everything I had over at the Windjammer (other than the coffee and the omelets they make on request) was basically lukewarm. My entire family noticed this, at no time did we get anything from the buffet that was steaming hot.[/QUOTE]


This here is the reason we always have breakfast in the MDR.

[chukli]

Thanks for the Compasses!

[Lynn1179]

[quote name='WilsonFamilyNRH']Thank you. We will not be happy if TW not up and running.

Forgot to ask, did you catch Derek Lewis at the Hoof & Claw pub?[/QUOTE]

I saw Derek on our Alaskan cruise in 2009. He was amazing. I'm super excited to see him next week

[Wilson]

[quote name='Lynn1179']I saw Derek on our Alaskan cruise in 2009. He was amazing. I'm super excited to see him next week[/QUOTE]

Awesome. We don't get to see him until April 24 but happy to learn that he has already agreed to return to Liberty after a couple summer months off. His second round on Liberty begins on Oct 16 and just in time for our group party cruise Nov 13.

[Lynn1179]

[quote name='SOUTHTEXAS GAL']My uncle works for Coca-Cola in Houston and says that the Freestyle Machines for LOS are crated and ready to be loaded something next month for installation. They will do this on three consecutive Sundays. They should all be up and running by the end of March. Drink up Coca-Cola lovers!!!!!!!![/QUOTE]

I'd love it if the end if March timeline was true. I cruise Sunday

[porky37]

We just came back from the March 27th sailing onboard Liberty. Tidal Wave slide was not operational during the whole cruise. Internet was terrible!! We could connect, and within a minute it would drop us again, so we were forced to reconnect, only to find out it takes about 10 minutes to load a text only page. We were able to get a small amount refunded back to us, but we still paid nearly $100 for the week, and it was pretty useless. Giovani's was excellent. We did not like Sabor. We had tried it on Oasis of the Seas, where it was a la carte, so it was nice just having everything included in the cover charge, but the food was not very good. The rest of the cruise was great.

[Clarea]

[quote name='porky37']We just came back from the March 27th sailing onboard Liberty. Tidal Wave slide was not operational during the whole cruise. Internet was terrible!! We could connect, and within a minute it would drop us again, so we were forced to reconnect, only to find out it takes about 10 minutes to load a text only page. We were able to get a small amount refunded back to us, but we still paid nearly $100 for the week, and it was pretty useless. Giovani's was excellent. We did not like Sabor. We had tried it on Oasis of the Seas, where it was a la carte, so it was nice just having everything included in the cover charge, but the food was not very good. The rest of the cruise was great.[/quote]
Sorry to hear that you were disappointed in Sabor. This restaurant has gotten pretty good reviews, and Royal seems to be rolling it out every dry dock. Hopefully your experience was an anomoly.

[ARCruisinNana]

[quote name='clarea']Sorry to hear that you were disappointed in Sabor. This restaurant has gotten pretty good reviews, and Royal seems to be rolling it out every dry dock. Hopefully your experience was an anomoly.[/QUOTE]


I was on the 3/20 LB and we were really looking forward Sabor because we loved it on NV. We were very disappointed and changed our 2 additional reservations to other restaurants. Some of our favorite recipes have been changed, specifically the Queso Fundido, always our first dish. There was hardly any cheese and it was more like a dip. The good cheese was also missing on the quesadilla. The bacon wrapped chicken appetizer and the Barbacoa tacos were good. The guacamole and dessert box were also good. Edited April 4, 2016 by ARCruisinNana

[Clarea]

[quote name='ARCruisinNana']I was on the 3/20 LB and we were really looking forward Sabor because we loved it on NV. We were very disappointed and changed our 2 additional reservations to other restaurants. Some of our favorite recipes have been changed, specifically the Queso Fundido, always our first dish. There was hardly any cheese and it was more like a dip. The good cheese was also missing on the quesadilla. The bacon wrapped chicken appetizer and the Barbacoa tacos were good. The guacamole and dessert box were also good.[/quote]
Thanks for the feedback. I hope they are not extending the cost cutting to this restaurant that was very good at the beginning.

[ARCruisinNana]

[quote name='clarea']Thanks for the feedback. I hope they are not extending the cost cutting to this restaurant that was very good at the beginning.[/QUOTE]


I fear that is the case. Our server was excellent and was brought in to help with the opening. He said the recipe changes came from Miami. We asked him to relay our dissatisfaction and also commented on the post-cruise survey.

[porky37]

We too had the Queso Fundido, but ours was just an oily mess. The flour tortillas that came with it, had a very burnt taste to them. My Pollito chicken quesdilla was dark meat that was tough and stringy, had no cheese and big onions. The waitress was so sweet, and the guacamole as always was excellent. They also made changes to Giovani's menu fleet wide. They removed our favorite, the lasagna, and the waitstaff told us that many people have complained, about the menu change. Because they make their pasta fresh daily, the restaurant manager allowed anyone who wanted a previous dish, like lasagna, to request it a day in advance, and he would have the chef prepare it for you. Same with Caesar salad, that is no longer on the menu either. I can not say enough good things about Giovani's, it's our favorite specialty restaurant, and we have cruised with Royal 14 times now. :) Of course we are from Texas, so maybe we are just more accustomed to Tex-Mex, and that is why we didn't care for Sabor's.

[DM_KidAtHeart]

Hmmm, all these comments are making me re-think my plans about eating at one or more of the specialty restaurants.

[glamourpup]

[quote name='porky37']We too had the Queso Fundido, but ours was just an oily mess. The flour tortillas that came with it, had a very burnt taste to them. My Pollito chicken quesdilla was dark meat that was tough and stringy, had no cheese and big onions. The waitress was so sweet, and the guacamole as always was excellent. They also made changes to Giovani's menu fleet wide. They removed our favorite, the lasagna, and the waitstaff told us that many people have complained, about the menu change. Because they make their pasta fresh daily, the restaurant manager allowed anyone who wanted a previous dish, like lasagna, to request it a day in advance, and he would have the chef prepare it for you. Same with Caesar salad, that is no longer on the menu either. I can not say enough good things about Giovani's, it's our favorite specialty restaurant, and we have cruised with Royal 14 times now. :) Of course we are from Texas, so maybe we are just more accustomed to Tex-Mex, and that is why we didn't care for Sabor's.[/QUOTE]

Funny, we were on the 3/13 sailing. We loved Sabor and did it for 2 nights, we didn't think we had a bad dish and got exceptional service. Meanwhile, we were very disappointed in Giovanni's: the service was lackluster and while my pasta was excellent, nothing else stood out as particularly good. We cancelled our second night in Giovanni's and replaced it with Sabor. Different tastes have a lot to do with it.

[OuterLimits]

[quote name='Goodtime Cruizin']Anyway, here are the cruise compasses. I do NOT have Day 2. I've had to take pics and load them photo bucket. I'll be posting each page of each compass on a per post basis. [/QUOTE]

I took your images and compressed them down into PDFs that would fit in the upload requirements here. Check them out if you want over in the [URL="http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showpost.php?p=49626895&postcount=206"]Sep 25, 2016 roll call post 206[/URL].

These are useful so you can sync them with an iPad/iPhone/etc via Google Drive/Dropbox/etc so you can have them onboard easily. I grouped them by day/set.

[decker12]

[quote name='porky37']We just came back from the March 27th sailing onboard Liberty. Tidal Wave slide was not operational during the whole cruise. Internet was terrible!! We could connect, and within a minute it would drop us again, so we were forced to reconnect, only to find out it takes about 10 minutes to load a text only page. We were able to get a small amount refunded back to us, but we still paid nearly $100 for the week, and it was pretty useless. Giovani's was excellent. We did not like Sabor. We had tried it on Oasis of the Seas, where it was a la carte, so it was nice just having everything included in the cover charge, but the food was not very good. The rest of the cruise was great.[/quote]

By Tidal Wave slide do you mean the very tall metallic looking water slide, or the wave generator where you can surf/boogie board? If you mean the water slide, that's really disappointing because it wasn't functional when I was there in February, and it sounds like they still haven't ironed out the function of it if it's still broken in March.

I do hear that they are planning on upgrading the Internet to the high speed satellite tech like some of the other RC ships have. I found it to be practically unusable when I was there, plus they charge extra for additional devices. We were expecting some important news from home so we had to check email at least a few times a day and fortunately due to the Diamond club status we at least didn't have to pay for a portion of it. It was however pretty miserable checking simple Gmail. There is no way you could even hope to stream anything like Youtube or visit any media rich sites.

As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't too bothered because it was kind of nice with the whole boat not having Internet access, so you didn't see people with their noses in their phones all the time at dinner and at the pool.

[wernew2cruising]

I saw a post that said LOS was going to get the Freestyle machines by the end of March. Did this happen?

[Paul65]

[quote name='wernew2cruising']I saw a post that said LOS was going to get the Freestyle machines by the end of March. Did this happen?[/QUOTE]

It did not. Someone asked about it at the M&M last week, and the answer was they they're working to resolve issues with the machines. Apparently, they've had a tendency to develop syrup leaks, and the leaks are often not noticed until it slowly oozes it's way to the deck below.

[LivinOnLido]

[quote name='Paul65']It did not. Someone asked about it at the M&M last week, and the answer was they they're working to resolve issues with the machines. Apparently, they've had a tendency to develop syrup leaks, and the leaks are often not noticed until it slowly oozes it's way to the deck below.[/QUOTE]

Encouraged. Maybe the issue will be resolved by the end of May for our cruise

[tonyweir]

[quote name='bfoxey1949']We will be on Liberty with a group that will have several balcony rooms together. We were wondering if RC will allow us to remove partitions between balconies? We have always been able to do this on Carnival. If you have more pics of the updates, I would love to see them!
Thanks,
Bfoxey[/QUOTE]

The balcony separators can be opened, ask your cabin steward. We're going to do the same with our group in July. RCI says they frown on it, but they'll do it. Their concern is an unsecured door banging in the wind. We're going to bring a few bunjie cords to hold the partitions open just in case they don't latch open.