This was a special cruise for me since I got to spend time with my daughter who is now in grad school out of state. Our thanks again to my sweet husband for letting us have "girl time". I gave my daughter a choice of cruise options and she picked a week on the Liberty because of all the ship offered. This "Vision Class" mom wasn't sure how she'd like cruising on a big ship, but we both had a wonderful time.

Embarkment: We flew into Miami on the day of the cruise because DD's school schedule didn't allow us to fly in a day early. We used Royal Caribbean transfers to get us to the ship. The Royal Caribbean greeters got us off to a cheery start and our bus driver gave a great narration as we drove to the ship. We got our Sea Pass cards very quickly, but went from there into a very long line to actually board the ship. Evidently, only one set of the machines that are used to take the pictures for the cards were open at the time. As we neared the end of one curve, the other set was opened and things went very quickly from then. We were on the ship about 12:45, hovered around on Deck 9 until the cabins were available and dropped off all the stuff we'd been carting around before we went to the Windjammer for lunch.

Cabin: We were in corner aft 9704 - an E1 cabin. This is configured slightly different from the normal E1's in that it has a single door with a window and a large (large enough to sit in) round window instead of the normal sliding doors. The cabin was a little snug to me (I usually cruise in D1's or an occasional Junior Suite), but had plenty of storage space. I think others agreed with me because I saw a couple of coffee tables in the hall the first night. After we'd bumped into ours a couple of times, we realized why they were out there. I really booked the cabin because I thought it would have a sunny balcony with a wake view unimpeded by the aft super structure. This proved to be correct and we spent many pleasant hours out on the balcony. Our cabin attendant, Alvan, was very nice, unobtrusive, and kept me supplied with Diet Cokes. We were on the cruise to rest and slept in most mornings. The Ship: We had a wonderful time exploring the Liberty. I think our favorite area was far forward by the helicopter landing pad. We saw a school of porpoises while we were out there. We played miniature golf and enjoyed watching people on the flowrider. DD didn't try because she hadn't brought snug enough swimwear/clothing - something she'll definitely do next time. People seemed to be having a great time on the Sports Court and Rock Wall. We easily found chairs on Deck 12 around the pools a couple of times, but it was so windy that after a while, we gave up trying to be sociable and retreated to our balcony. We hot-tubbed late one afternoon around the main pool and found chairs easily then. We never got a chance to try the cantilevered hot tubs. I loved wandering the Royal Promenade and bought a cute bathing suit my last night on board. Neither of us were up for partying on this cruise, so I can't report on any of the nightclubs/bars. Read more