This was my second cruise, first with Royal. I booked the trip maybe 3 months ago and we decided to go for an inside cabin to get the price down as far as we could. We live in Ft. Lauderdale, so Liberty was a great choice, almost in our back yard.

Royal's website is not the best. While you can book many things and can find many reminders, ere are lots of holes for a new cruiser. I'm going to give you some tips and run down some main points about our trip.

Embarkation: we arrived at the port around 10:45 am. They were already allowing check-ins, but the ship was not ready to board yet. Getting here a bit early was a great move. We got to sit in the air conditioning after security and check in. About 11:20am and they opened the ship for boarding. We were told rooms would not be ready until 1 pm, so we made our way to Windjammer buffet for a bite. After lunch, we began exploring. We made it to the 7th floor about 12:30 pm and saw that our room was ready. Nice! Read more