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Liberty of the Seas - WAY too detailed EPIC review - March 5th-12th, 2017 sailing

gekko1980
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gekko1980

gekko1980

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BACKGROUND

 

My wife and I live for vacations. We don't have a house, kids, or pets, and we don't make that much money, but we take a trip every February or March, and we plan every detail for months ahead of time. This is our second cruise after the Carnival Magic, also out of Galveston in 2015. We went to Tokyo for a week last year, which was the adventure of a lifetime, but nearly bankrupted us, and we needed a little more scaled-back this year. We also decided to bring my wife's mom. We were most excited about that because she's never been on a real vacation, works incredibly hard, and lives in New England where it's still snowing. Soon, 4 of my friends decided to tag along. I hope this review is of some benefit because my wife and I have been trolling the Cruise Critic message board for months, and I've read dozens of helpful reviews, but they're mostly based on the experiences of families and older couples. I thought it would be helpful to provide the viewpoint of a younger, slightly more raucous group. Bear with me. This might get really long and pretty personal. I really enjoy epic reviews and thorny details. They get me even more excited about vacation.

 

DAY -1: Driving to Houston

We live in Austin, and drove to Houston on Friday, attempting to wind down from our stressful jobs before we started our vacation in earnest. I was raised in Houston, but my wife is from New England, and there's lots of stuff I wanted to show her in my old stomping grounds. We left about 7:30am. We spent weeks curating a 80+ tracks Spotify playlist of yacht rock, road songs, and good travel music. Even after stopping for breakfast at Whataburger in Giddings, we made great time at were in central Houston by about 10:15. We spent a few hours walking around the museum district located in midtown. I like modern art. We went to the Rothko Chapel. I thought about my mom on what what would have been her 54th birthday. We explored the Menil Collection, and saw all the cool Warhols, Ernsts, Twomblys, and one the largest collections of Rene Magritte paintings in the world. We went to the Byzantine Fresco Chapel to look at the new Fabiola Project installation. It really has to be seen to believe. Houston has an amazing and often overlooked collection of free museums and art pieces. If you're looking for a quiet respite and a place to find some sort of tranquil center before a week of splashing, drinking, partying, and playing, I highly recommend it.

 

We next headed into bustling downtown Houston around 1pm and checked into our room for the night. We stayed at the Magnolia Hotel located at the corner of Texas and Fannin. The Magnolia is my favorite hotel in Texas. It was built in 1926 as headquarters for Shell Oil. When I was a kid in the 80's, Houston had two major newspapers, the Chronicle and the Post. The Post went under 1995, but was headquartered in the building throughout the 50s. It was later a radio station, and a multi-purpose office building before the Magnolia finally opened in 2003. Everything in the hotel is beautiful, and it feels much homier than the downtown monolithic business hotels that surround it. They have free cocktails at night, milk and cookies at bedtime, and a really good breakfast. My favorite part is the rooftop pool and hot tub. You can see the whole city, and until recently could even watch Astros games at neighboring Minute Maid Park. Unfortunately this is now obscured by the scaffolding for a new condo being built right in the sight line.

 

After checking in, we commenced my favorite vacation activity, day drinking! We walked down the street to La Carafe, the oldest bar, and one of the oldest buildings in Houston, built 170 years ago. This post is already getting unruly, and we haven't even gotten to Galveston. I'll spare the history lesson, and if you want you can read more about it here. I was in college for 9 years, and came close to becoming a professional student. But my first time as an undergrad I worked graveyard dispatch shifts for a local cab company just north of here, and would come hang out with my friends in this area, so it felt a little like, as U2 would say, a sort of homecoming. We had a few beers, and a few more at the other bars surrounding Market Square.

 

 

We then hopped on the light rail and took it down Main St. a few stops west back to midtown for the first evening of our ten sweet, consecutive days off of work. We spent an hour or two hanging around Sig's Lagoon, the best record store in Houston. My wife and I both love spending all day digging through old records. My family still lives in town, so my dad and stepmom met us for dinner next door at Natachee's Supper 'n Punch. All the food was great. I'm Catholic, and try to observe Lent, so I got the catfish. My wife's not, but she had the catfish too. She always supports me because she's cool like that. The four of us then headed across the street to The Continental Club to see a local Kinks cover band, Picture Book. We had the greatest time, played a thousand games of shuffleboard, and headed back to the hotel for the night. We picked up some free milk and cookies from the lobby, headed to the roof to eat our snack and look out at the nighttime Houston lights. After a jam-packed first day, we headed back downstairs and to bed.

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How's the review going so far? Is this all too much information? I want to give an impression of who we are and what we like to do, so as to inform our impressions of the cruise. Also, for people who aren't from Houston who fly in for Galveston cruises, I know the city can seem a little gritty and industrial, like a place people just move to for jobs. There's a rich and diverse culture just beneath the surface. I want to provide a little taste of what you can explore there beyond NASA and The Galleria.

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ldl05

ldl05

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Loving your review!!! You had me at Whataburger... That's my hubby's fave, he went to school in Texas!! And I've been on the Liberty 4 times and love that ship, so please tell all!![emoji3]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

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Lordnlkon

Lordnlkon

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Just because I am a transplanted Floridian in Texas, I want to throw fuel on the Whataburger fire. In and Out Burger > Whataburger. Looking forward to the rest of the review. We will be on Liberty for the 3rd time in 31 days.

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Scottee25

Scottee25

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Please keep it coming! We sail on the Liberty at the end of April. I have been on this ship before but it was out of Miami so a completely different itinerary.

 

And I wouldn't worry much about the new condo building blocking your views of Minute Maid Park. The roof is closed during games to make the experience more comfortable for those attending the game.

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gekko1980

gekko1980

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DAY 0 - GALVESTON (I STILL HEAR YOUR SEAWAVES CRASHING)

 

On Saturday we woke up early, grabbed the breakfast buffet, and brought it back to the room to eat in bed. We drove around town, and I showed my wife Rice Village, the waterwall, and the University of Houston campus (my first alma mater). We went to the closest Target we could find from UH (in Pearland!) for a few items we forgot, along with bug spray, since on Friday we both received terrifying Zika warning e-mails from Royal Caribbean. We've been trying to start a family this year and are a little extra paranoid about that. Mostly we just killed time until 1pm when my wife's mom plane arrived.

 

We got to Hobby Airport a little early. I was famished and bought a cup of potato salad from Papa's BBQ in the terminal to tide me over for a few hours. Soon the mother-in-law, (let's call her MIL), arrived, as excited as I've ever seen her. After a brief 45 minutes nightmare stress which is Hobby's luggage retrieval system, we were back on the road.

 

I really love Galveston. I have lots of good memories here as a kid with my family. As I got older I grew a little jaded by it. There's a general prevailing attitude around southeast Texas that Galveston is a gross, dirty tourist trap. There's some of that, but Galveston also has history and charm. My wife had only been here once before for our Magic cruise, and my MIL had never been. It was fun to play tour guide, and see everything through their eyes. For the last few years, around my wife's birthday we fly up to her hometown for a long weekend and drive up the coast of Maine to York Beach where we stay for a few days. There they get to be the tour guides. The rocky beaches of Maine are all boardwalk arcades, fortune tellers, lobster shacks, bed & breakfasts and breweries. It's amazing to me. The seawall of Galveston is all tiki huts, souvenir shops, and chain restaurants and hotels. It's the Times Square of the gulf coast, and it's amazing to them.

 

Our awesome vacation playlist was still blaring, and Christopher Cross's "Ride Like the Wind" kicked in right as we hit the Galveston causeway. This was already the closest MIL has been to anything remotely tropical, and we weren't even on the boat until the next day. We basically drove directly over the ocean for two miles before we got to the island. We cruised down Broadway looking at all of the cool old mansions, the only ones to survive the 1900 storm, and then around the San Jacinto memorial we hooked a right toward my favorite restaurant, one of my favorites anywhere...

 

Shrimp n' Stuff! This is one of those places I loved as a kid that I love just as much at 36. My MIL had never had a po' boy before, and she was amazed. (This will be a recurring theme throughout the review). We chowed down on fried oyster and shrimp po' boys, and crab balls (sort of a hybrid crab cake and hush puppy). We cruised along the seawall and looked at all of the big hotels and tourist traps. We passed the "historic" Pleasure Pier (even though, as a point of reference, it's newer than the first Hunger Games movie). The three of us stopped at Spec's to pick up our stateroom limits of wine, and then headed to the industrial side of the island to check in to our hotel. It still Saturday afternoon, and the Carnival Freedom was in port getting ready to embark. MIL couldn't believe how big it was. I told her to wait until she saw our ship.

 

We checked in to the Harbor House, the same hotel where we stayed for our previous cruise. I had tried to book a room here for 6 months prior, but couldn't because all of the travel websites required a 2 night minimum, so I settled for the Hampton on the seawall. Luckily, I checked on a whim the Wednesday before the cruise, and there was single-night availability. I love everything about this hotel, but the best part is that the room windows face the ship channel, and you can wake up early and watch your ship come in!

 

We strolled two blocks south to the Strand, a few blocks of stores and attractions in the historic district. We looked in all the little shops at antiques and curios. (Guess from my sudden lack of detail how much fun this was for me). It started drizzling slightly. Finally we arrived at my favorite store on the strand, LaKing's, a massive barn of a candy store/ice cream parlor/soda shop. My wife and MIL grabbed floats, and I guzzled a limeaid as we explored the rest of the Strand and headed back to the hotel.

 

We spent the rest of the evening resting up, and getting more hyped up that we would be on the boat in a few hours. I looked out at the big oil drilling museum out in the harbor, and watched the rain start to really come down. My wife and MIL were too full for dinner from their massive ice cream floats, but I was getting kind of peckish, and was so excited, I knew I couldn't sleep tonight unless I was really full. I ordered a margherita pizza from Nonno Tony's downstairs, and devoured it in bed. There's something really fun about eating take-out food out of to-go packaging in hotel beds for me. Finally, I was able to go to sleep knowing the real adventure would start the next day.

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I know I talk about food a lot. I try to loosely stay toward a simple nutritarian diet most of the time, but cheat several times through the week. On this vacation I made the decision that I would eat like an absolute jerk. I hope everyone is still enjoying the review. I promise in the next one to actually get on the ship. :)

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Bandboxer

Bandboxer

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Hello from the UK love the detail you provide gives an insight to what it's like over there especially interested in Texas. Looking forward to all the rest.

You mentioned the kinks is that the Sir Raymond Douglas Davies Kinks, "the taxmans taken all my dough, kinks great sounds of the 60's !

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BecciBoo Great Review Rare

BecciBoo

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I am also an amateur historian, so you're not bothering me at all....lovin it with all of its historical charm. Native Texican but never took the time to tour Houston. Thanks for the observations!

 

Waiting for more...we leave April 23rd for our 5th Liberty cruise. If your interested and do her again, I have a poem up on one of her walls just outside Rbar.:halo:

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wolfganghowell

wolfganghowell

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You had me at "we live in Austin". Been way too long but I still bleed burnt orange.

 

Looking forward to a rowdy review. We aren't so young but we pretend we are on cruises so we tend to enjoy the party aspect. We've been on Liberty twice, last May and last November, so interested to see how she's doing.

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kernow "Live from...." Rare

kernow

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Following along, this is my kind of review, love your style.

 

I'm from the UK, never been to Texas or thought about cruising from there but now I'm thinking why not one day.

 

Julie

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OKCcruiser8

OKCcruiser8

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Loving the review! Will be on Liberty in 3 weeks. I actually love both Whataburger & In-N-Out. I can have Whataburger anytime I want, though. I have to drive to Dallas to get In-N-Out. So, it's more of a treat. Can't wait to hear more!

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