This was our third cruise and first ever on RCCL. The previous trips were on Holland America and Celebrity. This is a very detailed review and hope is helpful to all CC readers.

Liberty of Seas - March 21-28, 2010 My Wife and I decide to splurge and take a big family Spring Break vacation this year with our teenagers. Our children are 16 and 14; so needless to say, they were very excited for this outing. After much research, we settled on RCCL and Liberty of the Seas for our Spring Break trip. The Western Caribbean itinerary was very appealing as we tend to like active water activities and we wanted to see lots of sun after our gloomy PNW winter. We arrived in Miami on schedule and after about 40 minutes, our entire luggage arrived on the carousel. Yeah! First major milestone was completed without incident. We piled in a minivan and headed over to our hotel. We selected Spring Hill Suites for our hotel as I am a frequent business traveler and have many Marriott points from all my stays. It was nice to have a freebie room for this trip. We tend to like the larger suite format when we have the whole family and this location also offered free shuttle service as well as complimentary breakfast. The hotel itself is nice and newer, clean as advertised. HOWEVER, it is located in a rather inconvenient area of town next to a very marginal neighborhood. In addition, there are no restaurants within walking distance and very limited shopping nearby if you are in need of any last minute goodies or onboard treats. The other real hassle about the location was that you needed to take a cab everywhere and they are VERY hard to find in Miami. We wanted to try a local place in little Havana and settled on a Mexican place called Mi Riconcita. Wow, great choice. The food, service and prices were exceptional. Dinner in Little Havana was great, but again the hassle to get a cab back to the hotel put a damper on the long day. We actually had to wait for nearly an hour to find one. We would NOT recommend this location for folks taking a cruise out of Miami. My son and I went on a field trip, walking to Winn Dixie (several blocks) and then 30 minutes (!) to a liquor store On Sunday morning, embarkation was smooth and in about 35 minutes we were onboard. The ship is truly amazing. The first impressions are really spectacular. We walked through the Promenade and looked around in some other areas before heading to our cabin. Our cabin, an E1 balcony, was great. It felt nice and roomy. The luggage arrived in about 2 hours. We met our room attendant, Heather, who was very friendly and welcoming. A few gripes: no bathrobes! Maybe this is noted somewhere, but we missed it in any case. Having bathrobes to slip on is nice in this small space; we always have had them on our previous Holland America and Celebrity cruises. We would have packed lightweight robes had we been aware. Also, my wife was not pleased at all with the hair dryer - you have to hold down a button while using it. There was a slight sewage odor in the hallway and stair areas for the first couple of days, but then it seemed to disappear or we didn't care anymore! Coffee onboard did not thrill us. We met the restaurant manager over dinner one evening (lovely gentleman) and he explained that all coffee on board is the same from Seattle's Best. We mentioned to him that we thought some restaurants/areas had better tasting coffee than others. He explained that although the coffee is the same everywhere on board, each area/restaurant has a different machine/brewing process. The bottom line is that the best coffee onboard is the Cafe that is open 24 hours and comes from this really high tech machine that grinds that beans and brews each cup fresh. We really did prefer this over the MDR and Room Service coffee. Can you tell we like our coffee and are from Portland? First port was Costa Maya. We had booked a day for the family at Maya Chan Beach Resort based on some comments and reviews from both Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor. Wow, did this exceed our expectations. Maya Chan is a small resort located about 30 minutes from the cruise port. We were met and greeted by a lovely young lady in the exact location we had been instructed. She promptly guided us to a taxi and off we went. Maya Chan was recently built and opened in October 2009. Maya Chan is all inclusive and includes all your food and drinks for the day. Just show up with your sunscreen and towel. It is owned and operated by an American family from San Diego. After many years of cruising and visiting resorts all over the Caribbean, they decided that they wanted to build and operate their own resort based on the things they liked from their own travels and personal experiences. They keep daily guests to 40 max per day and really offer amazing personal service. Focus is on couples and families. No wild or loud spring break crowds and no beach vendors to constantly hassle you to buy something. We were impressed by the whole staff, the great lunch and activities (biking, kayaks, snorkeling) included. Transportation to and from your ship is also included. We didn't have a great weather day (very windy and some clouds) so snorkeling didn't happen, but we had no regrets. My family LOVED it! Should our travels ever bring us back to Costa Maya, we will definitely have this on our list. These guys felt like family by the end of the day and we had a big smile on our face all the way back home. We arrived back at the cruise port with enough time to purchase a couple of trinkets and make our departure time. Highly recommended! Second port was Belize. Tenders were getting started shortly after 8AM. After gathering up all of our gear and making sure we had everything, we made our way downstairs for the tender at about 8:30AM. We hit a dead stop on the third floor and crawled for the next 45 minutes to the tenders. The lines and crowds were HUGE. The crowd (myself included) was getting a bit unruly when several passengers decided that they didn't want to wait on the stairs any longer and took the elevator the first floor and "hole shot" all of us waiting patiently in the stairwells. They were greeted with a hearty boo, but didn't seem to care as no RCCL staff stopped them or to direct traffic. Apparently they felt that their shore excursions were more important than ours. This episode kind of made me pissy first thing in the AM. This was one of those experiences where you go "wow, there are a lot of people on this ship". We hadn't really felt this way since the first afternoon on the Windjammer. Once on the tender, we arrived in Belize City at about 9:30AM. The pier area was NUTS. There were four cruise ships arriving nearly simultaneously and it was tough to move around on the pier area from all the tender traffic and the various shore excursions getting lined up. We had booked in advance with Explorebelizecaves.com to go both cave tubing and zip lining. We were greeted by Dennis and his staff in the exact location he told us to walk and were promptly escorted to our shuttle van. The drive to the park where the cave tubing happens is a full one hour each way and takes you right through town. In our case, we were fighting rush hour and school traffic and this made for a long AM. The cave tubing experience was a BLAST and very enjoyable for the family. The river and caves are very beautiful and should not be missed if you are an active/outdoors person. It is a good 45 minute walk through the rain forest on a dirt path and stairs before you enter the water. You don't need to be a world class athlete, but certainly could not imagine taking elderly parents or grandparents along on this day. The staff/guides do an excellent job of keeping things lively and showing sights along the route. The zip lining was a real blast as well. It is located very close to the cave tubing area. There were a total of 5 platforms from 75 to 400 feet in length. My family loved it! We had a minor hassle as we needed to move vehicles and "swap" with some other cruisers from another ship. Some on both vans were tubing only and need to consolidate to one vehicle to head back to port while those of us zip lining got into another rig. We had a misunderstanding regarding our booking/price paid and needed to settle that with Gilbert and Dave before moving on to the zip line. Fortunately I had printed out all my e-mails and documents and was able show the guides what we signed up for and was promised in my booking. No bad feelings or ill will and everything were professionally handled by Dennis and his staff. My suggestions and comments from the day. • Try to group people in vans based on activities for the day. I realize that this may not be possible based on arrival times, but would avoid lots of hassle for the guests. • Cave tubing was great fun, but wow was it crowded. Spring break! • Some of the other operators seem to have better equipment (tubes, lights and vests). Not sure if they paid more, but as a "gear geek" I must admit that I was a little jealous. • The staff was GREAT and will bend over backwards to ensure your safety and good time. This in my opinion wins out every time. I appreciated their service even when we had an issue to resolve. • Last suggestion. Eat a big breakfast and pack some snacks/water with you. We did not get a chance to eat until we got back to Belize City at 4PM. Wow, were we hungry. First time all week?

Johnny Rockets - Given our high level of hunger when we arrived back on the ship about 5PM, we decided that a visit to Johnny Rockets was in order. The staff and food was excellent. We really enjoyed the view from the 12th deck and watching the sun start to set as we departed Belize. I don't really like the extra charges ($4.95 PP) for these specialty restaurants as I'm in the camp that would rather pay a little more upfront and be done with extra fees while onboard. Oh well, it was a great meal and we left very satisfied. Read more