Liberty 10/1/2017 - Some Thoughts

[will work to cruise]

My wife and I just completed our first cruise with out our children. We are from Colorado and chose this cruise for the price and not the ports of call. We are Loyal to Royal, but we haven't cruised in over two years. So it was time for a getaway.

 

This was our first time cruising out of Galveston.

 

Here are a few of our observations:

 

Passengers: No shocker here, there were many Texans onboard. With that said, they were some of the most down to earth, pleasant, and friendly people we have ever cruised with.

 

Food: Chops was very good, as usual. MDR was good. The Windjammer was subpar with scant choices and bland food for breakfast and lunch (we ate there twice for each)

 

Staff: Exceptional

 

Entertainment: Liked Up in the Air and the Ice Show. We found Saturday Night Fever to be boring. Comedians were okay.

 

Cruise Director: Drew Divine was awful. We had him on a previous cruise and he hasn't gotten any better. The Cruise Director never makes or breaks our cruise, so no big deal.

 

Ports of Call: Roatan - Did an island tour. No need to go back. Costa Maya - Did the Mayan Ruins Tour and enjoyed the excursion very much. Cozumel - TS/Hurricane Nate caused us to miss this one. Better safe than sorry.

 

Ship: We've done this class before (Indy) ,but enjoyed the addition of the slides. Overall the ship was in pretty good condition. Some carpet wear and tear, some paint needing touch-up. Nothing major that we saw.

 

Embarkation/De-embarkation: We arrived at the terminal at 10:15am and were on the ship around 11:10. It would have been sooner, but they were having some computer issues. We did self carry off and arrived in the theater around 7:00am. There were many suitcases lined up already and we figured it would take awhile to get off the ship. They started to allow us off around 7:30 and we were through Customs by 8:00. It was so easy!

 

Overall, we had a great cruise and would definitely cruise out of Galveston again in the future.

 

We will gladly answer any questions.

 

Mike and Valerie

[HicksRA]

I was one of those Texans on that cruise and could have written the same review.

This was my 4th cruise on the Liberty following an earlier one on Sept 3rd.

As you, the thing I disliked the most was CD Drew Devine. His morning shows were almost unbearable. I believe he thinks he’s Howard Stern with his juvenile comedy and his sidekick Theresa there to laugh hysterically at every word he says.

We really liked Jeff Arpin who preceded him and wish he’d come back.

All in all, it was a great cruise with just the right mix of people and an excellent staff.

[Clarea]

Why was Drew Devine awful? We've seen him many times on Mariner, Monarch, and Oasis and thought we was one of the better ones.

[JimAOk1945]

Thanks for your review. We were on the Liberty last December over the Christmas holiday. We enjoyed it so much, we are doing it again this December. Cruising is a great way to travel!

[Skippy]

You are totally right about the friendly people. We sailed back in August, and we ended up chatting with so many people on the ship. Nearly everyone was from Texas and maybe a small handful from out of state/country. We met a nice family from Canada and our kids were fairly close in age and ended up hanging out together. On our cruise out of Miami the previous year it seemed like everyone stuck to themselves and there wasn’t much small talk among strangers.

[OSUZorba]

How could you not like Drew?!

 

Would you mind scanning the cruise compasses? How was Cafe Promenade's dessert selection? Did they have the mudslide cookies?

 

I'll be on Liberty for Halloween, starting to get excited.

[internetwhiz]

Oh my, we had Drew on the August cruise and he did a great job. He had been our CD before and we liked him even better this time. He sure did yeoman's work on the extended cruise, helping everywhere. We have had Arpin several times on Liberty. He is seasoned, and does an adequate job, but we are repeat cruisers in Galveston. We got tired of him, and sounds like he was fine for others. We all like different things.

[internetwhiz]

How could you not like Drew?!

 

Would you mind scanning the cruise compasses? How was Cafe Promenade's dessert selection? Did they have the mudslide cookies?

 

I'll be on Liberty for Halloween, starting to get excited.

 

 

Email me about compasses!

Internetwhiz52 at gmail dot com

[blackshirt]

We were on the same sailing and had a totally different disembarking experience. Since our shuttle to the airport was not until 10, there was no need to do the self disembark. We exited the ship at 9:15 and it took us over an hour to clear customs. The line was unbelievable. We missed our 10am shuttle but thankfully Galveston Express moved us to an 11am shuttle. Worst disembarkation port we’ve ever encountered.

 

We thought Drew was fine. He was actually pretty good MC’ing the Love and Marriage game show.

[OSUZorba]

We were on the same sailing and had a totally different disembarking experience. Since our shuttle to the airport was not until 10, there was no need to do the self disembark. We exited the ship at 9:15 and it took us over an hour to clear customs. The line was unbelievable. We missed our 10am shuttle but thankfully Galveston Express moved us to an 11am shuttle. Worst disembarkation port we’ve ever encountered.

 

We thought Drew was fine. He was actually pretty good MC’ing the Love and Marriage game show.

I noticed last time I was at Galveston that if you get off early it isn't bad, but it'll back up like crazy. There were still people flooding out, when I got to the port at 11:30 and the ship had been boarding for awhile. We self carried off in the first ~30 minutes, and were out very quickly, though. I was very unimpressed with the terminal situation, but that was 90 minutes out of my week, so not a big deal.

[uncannyvalleys]

We were on the same sailing and had a totally different disembarking experience. Since our shuttle to the airport was not until 10, there was no need to do the self disembark. We exited the ship at 9:15 and it took us over an hour to clear customs. The line was unbelievable. We missed our 10am shuttle but thankfully Galveston Express moved us to an 11am shuttle. Worst disembarkation port we’ve ever encountered.

 

We thought Drew was fine. He was actually pretty good MC’ing the Love and Marriage game show.

 

Same here; hubby and I sailed on Oct 1 as well. Got in line to disembark self-carry around 7:30; did not get thru customs until almost 9:00. Extremely disorganized; if we ever do Liberty again I will make sure to account for this.

[easyboy]

Glad you had a great cruise. Too bad you missed Cozumel.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[Sky616]

Did your kids do Adventure Ocean? If so how old are they? Did they like it?

[Ladysilver]

Thank you for your thoughts on the Liberty! :)

[mt82]

My wife and I just completed our first cruise with out our children. We are from Colorado and chose this cruise for the price and not the ports of call. We are Loyal to Royal, but we haven't cruised in over two years. So it was time for a getaway.

 

This was our first time cruising out of Galveston.

 

Here are a few of our observations:

 

Passengers: No shocker here, there were many Texans onboard. With that said, they were some of the most down to earth, pleasant, and friendly people we have ever cruised with.

 

Food: Chops was very good, as usual. MDR was good. The Windjammer was subpar with scant choices and bland food for breakfast and lunch (we ate there twice for each)

 

Staff: Exceptional

 

Entertainment: Liked Up in the Air and the Ice Show. We found Saturday Night Fever to be boring. Comedians were okay.

 

Cruise Director: Drew Divine was awful. We had him on a previous cruise and he hasn't gotten any better. The Cruise Director never makes or breaks our cruise, so no big deal.

 

Ports of Call: Roatan - Did an island tour. No need to go back. Costa Maya - Did the Mayan Ruins Tour and enjoyed the excursion very much. Cozumel - TS/Hurricane Nate caused us to miss this one. Better safe than sorry.

 

Ship: We've done this class before (Indy) ,but enjoyed the addition of the slides. Overall the ship was in pretty good condition. Some carpet wear and tear, some paint needing touch-up. Nothing major that we saw.

 

Embarkation/De-embarkation: We arrived at the terminal at 10:15am and were on the ship around 11:10. It would have been sooner, but they were having some computer issues. We did self carry off and arrived in the theater around 7:00am. There were many suitcases lined up already and we figured it would take awhile to get off the ship. They started to allow us off around 7:30 and we were through Customs by 8:00. It was so easy!

 

Overall, we had a great cruise and would definitely cruise out of Galveston again in the future.

 

We will gladly answer any questions.

 

Mike and Valerie

Thank you for the nice compliment, I personally think us Texans are the friendliest...😀

I was on liberty a week before you and I agree about the food in the windjammer.

As far as embarkation and disembarkation we had absolutely no problems we did not do carry off. I personally did not like having to wait till after 10 to get off though. We did not use a porter so we were able to do customs and everything with no wait at all, I noticed a VERY long wait for the porters

[Skippy]

Our disembarkation experience back in August wasn’t bad at all. We were in group 15 called at 9and back to our car by 9:30. Our experience in Miami was a lot worse.

[DebJ14]

We were on the same sailing and had a totally different disembarking experience. Since our shuttle to the airport was not until 10, there was no need to do the self disembark. We exited the ship at 9:15 and it took us over an hour to clear customs. The line was unbelievable. We missed our 10am shuttle but thankfully Galveston Express moved us to an 11am shuttle. Worst disembarkation port we’ve ever encountered.

 

We thought Drew was fine. He was actually pretty good MC’ing the Love and Marriage game show.

 

Because the ship called on Roatan, they do a more thorough Immigration and Customs inspection. It always takes longer to get through Immigration when the itinerary includes Honduras or Belize.

[Skippy]

Because the ship called on Roatan, they do a more thorough Immigration and Customs inspection. It always takes longer to get through Immigration when the itinerary includes Honduras or Belize.

 

 

 

Ahhh, interesting. We went to Jamaica, grand cayman and Cozumel. Is that why we didn’t have to fill out the customs paper?

[internetwhiz]

Ahhh, interesting. We went to Jamaica, grand cayman and Cozumel. Is that why we didn’t have to fill out the customs paper?

 

 

Neither route has been filling out a customs paper lately.