Here's a review of our 12/31/12 5-day Liberty of the Seas cruise. This was our 8th cruise, our 5th on Royal Caribbean. We turned platinum C&A members one day into the cruise (not that it makes any difference). We are a married couple cruising with our teenage sons.

We live in Florida so we drove to the ship and arrived at Port Everglades about 11:30am and had no problem getting to the pier since the traffic was light. After dropping off the bags, parking the car, and checking in we were in the Windjammer by 12:15. The lines moved quickly and the staff was efficient. The Windjammer was busy but not packed when we arrive but by the time we were done they were begging people to leave the tables and go somewhere else to wait for the staterooms to open. We had been on the Independence of the Seas a few years ago so we were familiar with the layout of the ship and didn't need to do much exploring. The only updates I noticed were the big screen tv by the pool and the interactive screens around the ship, both of which I thought were really great.

We went to our cabins after they opened at 1pm. We had two Promenade cabins on deck 6 next to each other but not adjoining. We booked this cruise only a few weeks before departure and didn't have much choice on cabins. This was our first inside cabin and while it felt more like being in a hotel then being an inside cabin on a cruise ship I don't think we would do it again. First, both cabins were very noisy and not just from the Promenade. The only Promenade noise you get is from the parties and usually those are at decent hours. However, if you are an early-to-bed person you definitely don't want to be in one of these cabins because the music is loud. New Year's Eve the party lasted until almost 1am and the 70's Disco party lasted until almost midnight. My kids had a cabin with a persistent squeak that kept them up the first night. They finally put some towels under the bed which muffled it but it never went away. The worst part was the noise from cabins on either side. We were lucky and only had girls partying until 2am the last night of the cruise but my kids had two young men on the other side of them who played music loud every night (one night my son had to go knock on their door at 4am and ask them to turn it off). These young men were part of a larger group on board and had a knock-down fight with their mom on the last night so loud that my kids could recount every detail of the family history and my younger son said he had no idea there were so many creative ways to use the "f" word. We have never had so much noise from surrounding cabins on any cruise we have taken. Read more