Liberty of the Seas August 2010 Review - Part 1

Liberty in San Juam - August 2010

Another cruise has come and gone.  Why do they go by so fast?

The family and I just returned this past Sunday from our cruise onboard Liberty of the Seas.  It's been 3 days and I'm still not hungry.  Now that the eating orgy has finished and I'm coming back to the reality of being back home and back to work, I figure I'll go ahead and give a quick (or not so quick) review of our cruise.

Getting There:
As has become a tradition with us, we decided to drive down to Miami from New Jersey to catch the ship.  We really don't like flying anymore and it's surely cheaper to go by car.  The drive isn't too bad and I actually enjoy it.  This trip however wasn't without it's challenges.  Driving almost 1,300 miles in just over a day and a half is not the easiest thing and it's made worse by the boredom of the U.S. interstate system.

We decided to get an early start on Saturday morning (the ship leaves at 4:30PM on Sunday) so we awoke at 4:00AM.  This shouldn't be a big deal but getting to sleep early on Friday was not easy because of just being used to going to bed late combined with the excitement of going on vacation in the morning.  So, unfortunately for me (the driver), I was only able to get a few hours of sleep and we had a long drive planned for Saturday.  I wanted to get most of the driving in on Saturday so we had ample time to get to the pier on Sunday.  The plan was to stop for the night in Brunswick, GA which was 873 miles or about 15 hours away.  And seeing that we booked and paid for the hotel ahead of time, we needed to make it.  Let's just say it wasn't a fun drive on that little sleep but it got worse.

I was starting to fade by mid afternoon Saturday when we stopped for lunch so I decided to get one of those 5 Hour Energy drinks......big mistake.  Let me tell you right now, they work....they really work.  They work too well in fact.  I don't know if it was the fact that I took it on a full stomach or if it was because I'm not a big caffeine drinker, but the 5 Hour Energy turned into about a 12 Hour Energy boost.  I took it at about 3:00PM and at 1:00AM I was still up pacing the hotel room, unable to get to sleep.  I finally did nod off for a couple of hours before the alarm went off at 4:00AM again and it was time to get going.  Sunday's drive was even worse since I was running on about 5 hours of sleep in the last 2 days and I couldn't continue the whole way.  My wife had to take a quick stint behind the wheel as I camped in the back and tried to get in a quick power nap.  I returned to the driver's seat after about an hour or so and took us the rest of the way to Miami.  We arrived at the terminal by about noon.  All in all, we made very good time and even with the issues I experienced during the drive, I'd still do it again.

The Terminal:
Those of you who have been to the port of Miami know it is large, one of the largest in the world but finding your way around and finding parking is not that difficult.  There is ample garage space and we selected the long term garage just across the street from the ship.  After unloading out luggage and crossing the street we were greeted by luggage porters who took our bags and we were on our way inside.

Check in went fairly smoothly.  There were surprisingly large lines as lots of people arrived early.  The security line was a pain and, of course, I had to be singled out for a bag check after going through the X-Ray machine because I had a pair of small scissors in my carry on toiletries bag.  The security agent at the bag search looked at them and gave the OK so we were allowed into the check in area. We had completed the online check in before we left home and we had the printouts and passports ready.  The line we were on, for Platinum Captain's Club members, moved pretty quickly and next thing we knew we were onboard.  From the car to the ship in total took us about 45 minutes.

So much for this being a quick review.  It's getting a bit long and I know I have a short attention span when reading blogs so I'll break this up into parts.  Part 2 will follow shortly and will include - The Ship, The Entertainment, and The Food.  Part 3 will be about the Itinerary and the saddest part, Going Home.

Stay tuned.