We last sailed with RC out of Bayonne NJ on the Explorer in 2013 and enjoyed every facet of that particular cruise but, sadly, our experience on the Liberty was not the same. We just disembarked this morning after five nights and walked off the ship thoroughly disappointed.

Let's start with the boarding process - it takes forever to get up to the counter to obtain your SeaPass and it left us feeling sympathetic for the many seniors and people with small children who had to endure the 1.5 hours standing in line. The current practice is dysfunctional and needs to be rectified. On the bright side, parking at the Bayonne facility is super simple and adjacent to the pier for only $19 per day.

Dining - mediocre to simply bad in the all-inclusive, non-premium restaurants. It seems that quality has taken a real backseat here. The Windjammer Cafe, a buffet where we twice had lunch, was geared towards children and take-out food lovers. The main dishes were primarily cut-rate fast food fare - pizza, hamburgers, hotdogs, greasy stir-fry and casseroles. Seating was tough to find and there were not enough employees to keep the tables tidy. The main dining rooms are not much better - the food quality is far below what they were serving just two short years ago. Our server was excellent but he had to deal with inexperienced bus boys and inattentive barmen, embarrassingly apologizing to us and diners at adjoining tables each night. Read more