RCCL Liberty OTS w/ 19-month old and 3 yr old, questions?

[s318830]

I just got off the Liberty OTS (Freedom Class) with my 19-month old daughter and 3 yr-old (fully potty trained) son. I'll be happy to answer anyone's questions.

 

Some quick stats: We had two connecting D1 balcony cabins, my son used Adventure Ocean, we used in-cabin babysitting for dinners

 

--Debbie

[isk8]

Hi, We are considering taking our son on a cruise next summer. He'll be 4 when we cruise. How were your kids with the balcony? How did the connecting rooms work out for you?

 

Thanks!

[s318830]

The kids were fine with the balcony. We made sure we were with the kids when we let them go out there if there was furniture. The railing is probably about 4 ft high. The connecting balconies were great. A few times we put all the furniture on the second balcony, closed the sliding door, and manipulated the lock with our fingers to lock it and keep our son from being able to open it. Then we let the kids play on the empty deck without worrying.

 

I loved having the connecting cabins. The room is surprisingly sound-proofed with the connecting door closed, so I was glad I brought a baby monitor for my daughter. My son would wake up from naps and in the morning, and would just open the connecting door when he was ready.

 

The benefit of having the two connecting cabins rather than a large one-room suite is that my husband and I had privacy and we didn't have to tiptoe around after the kids went to sleep. Both of our kids took naps, so it was really nice to be able to put them in their room, close the door, and have freedom to do what we wanted to -go into and out of our room without risking waking any one up, talk in normal voices, hang out on the balcony, etc.

 

The only real issues with having the connecting cabin is that I had to create a 'lock' for the balcony door in the kids' room. It was easy for my son to learn how to open and close the balcony doors. I used duct tape on the handle and door jam from the outside to prevent him from sliding the door open if he unlocked it. I never did actually wind up creating a 'lock' for the main cabin door. We just never used it, so he got used to the idea that in and out of his room was through ours. But I expect I could have come up with a duct tape method if I'd needed it. I do wish they'd implement some sort of swinging door latch like they have in hotels. That would solve that problem instantly.

 

The only problem with having two balcony cabins is that it's expensive since you pay full price for the second cabin rather than the reduced price for extra people in the single cabin. But it's very nice having two bathrooms and a door in between the two bedrooms. And having that balcony was awesome while the kids were taking naps or had gone to bed and I had to stay in the cabin. A double-wide balcony was also great.

 

--Debbie

[MomtoCCC]

We are thinking of going on Liberty this Fall with 4yo dd. How was AO? Did your son play there alot? How did it go in the dining room with the kids?

Did he love the H20 Zone? That is one of the main reasons I want to sail this ship with dd.

 

Thanks.

[s318830]

Our son used Adventure Ocean daily from day 3 on. He loved it. Every time I dropped him off he went without fuss and then when I picked him up he was always fully engaged. He was always proud to show me the art work he'd created. I wasn't sure how he'd do before we went on the ship because he went through a stage recently where he wasn't happy about us leaving him at preschool at home. So I was concerned he wasn't going to like it on the ship. We prepared him ahead of time by calling AO "Preschool on the boat". We told him he was going to meet new teachers and friends. He was pretty psyched by the time we got on board.

 

On the 4th day, my sister was babysitting him while we did a SCUBA dive in Grand Cayman. When I got back I asked her where he was. She told me he'd requested to go to "preschool". I was pleased to hear that.

 

We only did dinner in the dining room once with our kids. That was the first night. They did surprisingly well. But they did start to get antsy before dinner was over. We left before dessert.

 

I had arranged to have a babysitter cover all dinners after the first night. That had been my plan all along, and I'm glad we did it. There were other kids in the dining room, and they implemented a range of tactics from DVD players to leaving early if the kids needed to leave. But I absolutely loved the time we had to enjoy dinner as adults since it's not something we get to do at home.

 

The H2O zone was a huge hit. Our son usually doesn't like to have water splashed in his face, so it took some easing into with all the statues shooting water. But he did enjoy it a lot once he got used to that part. It's a lot of fun running around in there. But what he loved the most wound up being the pool in the H2O zone. His favorite thing to do was to jump from the side into the arms of whoever was waiting for him in the pool. Unfortunately, the pool is at a constant depth of 5'7". I'm 5'6", so I was on my absolute tip toes every time he jumped in. But it was absolutely worth it. We had so much fun. He would do that over and over without getting tired of it.

 

I am so glad we were on Liberty because of that H2O zone. I wish more of RCCL's ships had it rather than just the Freedom class ships. That was a truly terrific addition for the kids.

 

I submitted a pretty detailed review of Liberty from the perspective of parents traveling with little kids. They haven't posted it yet, but hopefully they will in the next couple days.

 

Debbie

[dan and becky]

Sounds like you had a wonderful time with your children. Did your 19 month do any of the programs? Is there a pool on LOS that is designated at all for the children not potty trained? We will be on LOS with a 14 month old. Thanks .

[s318830]

We didn't do any of the scheduled programming with our daughter. It's Mommy and Me/playgroup type stuff and that's just not what I'm looking for on a cruise. If you are interested in participating, they had different themes each day. I do remember one of them was "Animals and the sounds they make." Our stateroom attendant was actually bummed we didn't want to participate.

 

Yes, there is a baby pool in the H2O zone for the kids in swim diapers. They keep the potty-trained kids out of it, and they keep the diapered kids out of the rest of it. It's a shallow 2-inch pool next to the circular current pool. It has a statue of a flamingo gently spraying down into the pool in one corner. It's on a separate filtration system from the rest of the pools on the ship. As a result of this, it gets pretty warm from the sun, so it tends toward very warm and definitely isn't chilly at all. If you step into it after having been in the cooler water of the rest of the H2O zone it can feel like you just stepped into a hot tub. But I never noticed it bothering any of the little kids, so I stopped being concerned. I do recommend bringing some water toys for your son and the other kids in the pool to play with. We had a shovel, rake, seive, and a little plastic dragon a waiter gave her in the Windjammer. She and the other little kids traded back and forth.

 

I wasn't sure how long she'd be willing to stay in the baby pool when there's so much excitement going on next to it, but she stayed happily in that pool with her toys for 2 hours! She also enjoyed playing with all the other little ones in there.

 

Here are photos of the baby pool. It's the round triangular area with the flamingo. My daughter is the little pink one in most of the shots. If you notice the two brown spots on the floor of it, no one had an accident - it's just a couple little worn spots on the floor.

 

--Debbie

[s318830]

They posted my review of Liberty...

 

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=37210