Time for part 2 of my review of our cruise on Liberty of the Seas. If you haven't already seen it, feel free to check out part 1.
The Ship:
When I left off in part 1 we had just boarded in Miami. We were onboard early and the cabins were not ready yet so we headed up to the pool area with our carry on bags in tow to sit and wait for the cabins to be ready. Once we were able to get to the cabins and drop off our stuff we had some lunch and set off on our usual tour of the ship winding up at Boleros for our first cocktails of the week.
Liberty of the Seas, like her sister ships, is a big girl - second largest class of ships in the world behind the Oasis Class. I am still amazed by the size of the ship and the variety of stuff to do onboard. She is a fabulous ship. Anyone familiar with the Freedom Class or even the Voyager Class ships will feel right at home onboard Liberty of the Seas.
Liberty entered service in 2007 and she is still in very good condition considering in those 3 years she has easily seen more than 500,000 guests come and go. She is scheduled for a drydock in January 2011 for some minor work and upgrades. We did notice that there are some areas where she could use a little freshening up but, all in all, she is in wonderful condition.
Our cabin was an E1 outside balcony cabin on deck 7. It's a fairly spacious cabin but it did feel a bit cramped with the three of us now that my son is 16 and taller than both my wife and I. The balcony is nicely sized and offers wonderful views of the ocean, ports and the starry night sky. I love the balcony's on the later Voyager Class ships (Navigator and Mariner) and the Freedom Class ships as they are bigger and less claustrophobic than the earlier ships in the Voyager Class. No real issues with the cabin aside from an amusingly noisy faucet in the bathroom that changed pitch sounding like a very bad musician practicing.
The Entertainment:
There were tons of daytime activities as you would expect on a ship of this size. There was the flowrider, mini golf, ping pong, ice skating, as well as line dancing and water volleyball at the pool, rock climbing competitions, adult dodgeball, and an adult soccer tournament between the crew and passengers, all fun to watch even if I didn't participate. We did participate in some afternoon trivia contests and we managed to win the movie theme trivia session in the Schooner Bar thanks to my son knowing the music from Harry Potter (the wife and I were clueless on that one). Our prize was a set of hologram Royal Caribbean luggage tags. Sweet!
One of the things we enjoy most about our trips on Royal Caribbean has been the nighttime entertainment. Unfortunately, this trip left us a bit disappointed. The production shows were so-so and the entertainment staff was just OK. Our cruise director was Kirk Detweiler and I just didn't take a liking to him. Nothing personal, I've just seen better cruise directors. Maybe he was having a bad week. We did like the first late night adult comedy show but we missed the second as it was on the last night and we had an early departure for our drive home.
The big win as far as the entertainment for the week was the Quest adult scavenger hunt that takes place in Studio B. We've seen a few but this was by far the most hilarious one yet thanks mostly to the outrageous passengers who took part in it. Lots of fun.
Even though the entertainment was just OK, there is still so much to do onboard it didn't really take away from our enjoyment of the cruise. We certainly managed to keep ourselves entertained.
The Food:
What would a cruise review be without talking about the food? For this cruise we decided to do something we had only done once before, we skipped the main dining room completely. We had all our dinners either at the Windjammer/Jade buffet or in one of the specialty restaurants.
The specialty restaurants, Portofino and Chops, were wonderful, as usual. We have never had a complaint regarding the food at either restaurant. From the appetizers to the deserts, everything was very, very good as was the service. For the cover charge they get for these venues, I would expect nothing less. Though, when you consider the fact that you can basically order everything on the menu for that one price, it really becomes a great value. I don't know who would eat it all, but you could try.
The bigger surprise, for me at least, was the quality of the food at the Windjammer/Jade buffet. I felt that the selection and quality of the food at the buffet had improved since our last cruise in 2006. In my opinion, it was much better than I had remembered it from previous cruises on Royal Caribbean. Previously, I would have described it as above average, catering hall type food, but not anymore. Everything seemed better and the choices were much more varied. The thing I enjoyed most was the sushi. I had never even tried sushi before this trip and I was very pleasantly surprised. The sushi was a big hit on this trip and that poor sushi chef was working his ass off keeping up with the people just loading up their plates with obscene amounts of his creations.
As usual there was also pizza, antipasti, and deserts available at Sorrentos and sandwiches and other snacks at Cafe Promenade, both of which hit the spot in the event you were actually hungry and needed to eat something. I have to admit, by the end of the week, I didn't want to even think about food I was so full all the time. I gained at least 5 pounds during the week and I've had to move up one belt size. If that's not a ringing endorsement of the food, I don't know what is.
That's it for part 2, keep an eye out for part 3 of my review. I'll touch on the Itinerary, some miscellaneous stuff and sadly, going home.
No comments:
Post a Comment