Liberty of the Seas Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,647 reviews

Caribbean Dreamin'

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Liberty of the Seas
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pauldsteve
6-10 Cruises • Age 60s

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Sail Date: Dec 2015
Cabin: Interior Stateroom

Liberty of the Seas is the second of three (Freedom Class) ships. Her sisters are Freedom and Independence of the Seas. Liberty’s maiden voyage was 5/19/2007. She is going in to Freeport, Bahama, for a major Refit, Renewal and Refurbish in the second week of January 2016 where she will be in dry-dock for 4 weeks. The Jewel of the Seas will proceed her in dry-dock. The Catacombs Nightclub will disappear and be turned into luxury suites. They are going to add Water Slides and two new Restaurants among the refit.

Saying that the old girl was starting to look worn around the edges on this trip if you looked at the carpet and upholstery closely. The teak furniture in the Solarium, which I heard will be removed was starting to become worn out especially on the lounge chairs. If you looked around a lot of the lights did not work for one reason or the other. Especially those that are there for atmosphere. But saying that they keep her as clean as possible, painted and in good repair. The Sports Deck was going through some major renovation and maintenance and thus was closed 50% of the time we were on the cruise which is no big thing to me. I would have liked to play some miniature golf but the Rock Climbing and FlowRider were not of interest.

My largest surprise was that I printed out a list of their drinks and prices (for 2015), off of their website. Yet when we bought our first drinks we found out they had went up $3.25 a piece on all of the drinks. All mixed drinks (hard liquors) start at $9.75 per drink and up, unless it is the drink of the day which may be as low as $8.50. The Sky Lounge which they called Olive & Twist on this ship ran some two for $14.00 specials which was the best deal on the ship. They did not change the “Drink of the Day” every day either so several times it was the same drink back to back days.

Cabin Review

Interior Stateroom

Cabin K

About what I expect out of an inside state room. The TV mount was too short to pivet enough for comfortable bed viewing. The Public Address System did not work at all. Other than that I would say it was in good shape and clean.

Port Reviews

Cozumel

What you cannot do there needs to be forgotten about. I love Cozumel. For some scheduling thing they started off loading at 6:00 AM which is ridiculous. The Windjammer was not open until 7:00 for Breakfast and most of the shops in Cozumel were closed. We had to be back by 3:30PM. Now this was not the published or advertised time (8:00 am to 5:30pm) on anything but it was announced by Ann, the Cruise Director, the night before. This made me change my plans but we still had a great time.

Roatan

Roatan, Honduras was not a great place unless you take a tour. I had a broken toe, a separate story, so snorkeling or scuba diving, which is supposed to be beyond compare in the Caribbean was out of the question. But if you do not take a tour you get the typical Royal Caribbean licensed shops and that is about it. Prices on souvenirs are higher than what you can find in Cozumel so unless you just have to have the name, Rotan and Honduras pass them up.

Belize City

Belize City, Belize is not worth it. I first went to this sinkhole in 1997 and it has not changed. I think RCCL ought to just give up. When our Cruise Director Ann asked the audience that night at the show, how they liked Belize the only response with any enthusiasm at all was from the Tubing and Snorkeling tours. The rest of the tours were disappointing and even uncomfortable for those that did them. And Belize City itself has always been a disappointment. It is not worth the Tender time in my opinion. Just to put it frankly Belize is a waste of time.

Galveston

A comment on Arrival and Departure. Arrival went surprisingly smooth, in good weather and I compliment RCCL on that. However we arrived back at Galveston Cruise Terminal in the middle of a bad rain storm. We did not get in our car with luggage until 12:20PM.

The “Port of Galveston” has always been sitting on the fence, between total chaos and organized, on its best days. Add to that mix a severe rainstorm and the crush of 8,320 passengers (Carnival Magic plus Liberty of the Seas, together max. occupancy) trying to depart and another 8,320 passengers trying to arrive, at the same time, and you have pretty much total gridlock. Bad traffic patterns, only one entrance to both Cruise Terminals, no controlled traffic lights(therefore having to rely on Police Traffic Control), unorganized and poorly marked parking facilities and no clearly marked passenger stops are just a few issues that have been there since they started doing Cruise ships in the 1990’s and no one ever addresses them. Why the State of Texas and the “Port of Galveston” will or cannot do something about this is beyond me.

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