Liberty of the Seas emerges from drydock

Just read the latest blog post from Royal Caribbean's CEO, Adam Goldstein, about the changes made to Liberty  of the Seas during her recent drydock.  The post is from guest blogger Lisa Bauer and it details all the work that was done in just one week.

Several features from Royal Caribbean's latest ship Allure of the Seas are being rolled out to some of the rest of the fleet and Liberty was the first to go under the knife.  Added to the ship were the Cupcake Cupbord, a poolside movie screen, 3D movie capabilities in the main theatre, and new interactive digital deckplans and signage.  Enhancements were also made to the nursery, Vintages wine bar, and to the shipboard WIFI system.

There are also some details of the upcoming changes to Radiance of the Seas during her next scheduled drydock.

Check out the post here - “Lady Liberty” is back at Sea and Showing off her New Enhancements!

Liberty of the Seas August 2010 Review - Part 3

Time for part 3 of my review or our Liberty of the Seas cruise from August 22nd.  If you haven't read the previous installments, check them out -
Part 1
Part 2.

The Itinerary:
The itinerary has never really been a huge determining factor in my cruise decisions as I'm much more interested in the ship.  Let's face it, after 7 cruises to the Caribbean, we've pretty much been to all the major stops more than once.  This particular cruise made calls to St. Maarten, San Juan, and Royal Caribbean's private stop, Labadee.  I liked the itinerary mainly because it gave us more ship time with there being only 3 stops.

After 2 days at sea we arrive for our first stop in St. Maarten.  The smallest island divided among 2 countries, we docked near Philipsburg, on the Dutch side.  Arrival was at about 9:00 AM and we stayed until 6:00PM.  I had wanted to take a taxi to Maho Beach near the airport.  If you haven't heard about this beach, it is right at the end of the runway and planes coming in for a landing pass overhead so low it looks like you can reach out and touch them.  There is also a practice of holding onto the fence and trying not to get blown away as planes taking off throttle up their engines.  Sadly, we didn't go as there really is nothing much else to do except for a couple of bars, one of which gives free drinks to topless women - not good since we would be bringing our 16 year old son.  It was also hot....very hot.  Instead we took a water taxi to Philipsburg which is a 5 minute trip and costs $6.00 per person for unlimited rides.  There we wandered around, did some shopping, and had lunch at one of the many restaurants and cafes in the area.

There is great shopping on St. Maarten, especially the Dutch side.  Electronics like cameras and computers can be had for low prices.  There is also plenty of dining available on the island.  The Dutch side seems to have more Caribbean type eateries while the French side has, you guessed it, more French cuisine.  There is also the island of Anguilla just off to the north of St. Maarten that can be accessed via ferry service from Marigot on the French side.  I have read that Anguilla is less crowded and popular with the rich and famous.  You will also find that there are many fine restaurants on the island as well.  We didn't go but if you do, take your passport, Anguilla is a British island so you will have to pass through customs.

San Juan, Puerto Rico was our second port of call and we were excited to check it out again.  We had only been to San Juan once before and had always talked about coming back.  Unfortunately, our stay was short as we were only in port from 7:00AM until 2:30PM so we had to make the most of our time.  Before we left I did some research on what to do and see in San Juan and I found a blog with a self guided walking tour of Old San Juan.  There were two parts Part 1 and Part 2 so I printed them out and took them with us determined to do our own tour of the historic part of the city.

The day didn't start great as it began raining as soon as we stepped off the ship, but that ended and it cleared up about a half hour later.  By then, we were kind of wishing it would cloud up again as it was blistering hot.  We started on the walking tour and we saw La Casita, Paseo de la Princesa, San Juan Gate, San Juan Cathedral, and finally El Morro which completed part 1 of the walking tour.  El Morro took up most of the time as it is a large site with lots to see.  We were already pretty tired and sweating profusely after that so we kind of cut part 2 of the tour short.  We did see Christo Chapel and hit the shopping district on Fortaleza Street.  We ended the day in San Juan by having a nice lunch at the Parrot Club, a popular local restaurant on Fortaleza Street.  The food was great and so were the Mojitos.  Maybe some day we'll take a cruise that leaves from San Juan so we can fly in a day or two early to spend more time checking the place out.

Our final stop was at Royal Caribbean's private destination of Labadee, Haiti.  This is the sixth time we've been to Labadee and it has changed each time.  The first time we were there it was basically a beach with some areas to eat and that was about it.  The ship anchored in the bay and guests tendered to a small pier near the beach.  Since then there have been continual improvements to the beach and amenities as well as additional shore activities like jet skis, kayaks, a small water park and other Labadee based excursions.  Since the last time we were there in 2006, they have add a whole array of new stuff to the area.  They have built more permanent structures like bars and grills, paths have been added throughout the area, new activities like a huge zipline that soars from the top of a mountain over the beach just feet above the water, a roller coaster of sorts that also runs from the top of the mountain, more bathrooms, lockers for your stuff, and many more excursions exclusive to Labadee.  Most importantly, they also added an actual pier for the ship to dock.  Passengers no longer have to tender to Labadee, they can now just come and go as they please by stepping off the gangway to the pier.  I would say that is the biggest improvement they have made and I imagine it was built with the Oasis Class ships in mind as it would be a nightmare to shuttle 5000+ passengers back and forth via tender.

Even with all those improvements, we didn't really do much on Labadee.  My wife didn't even leave the ship as she decided to take advantage of the empty ship to relax and get some spa treatments done.  My son and I went ashore and walked around, exploring some of the new stuff there but it was really too hot to sit out on the beach so we had lunch and headed back to the ship to take advantage of the mostly empty pools.  We had thought about doing the coaster but it was booked for most of the day.  We should have bought tickets ahead of time.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Going Home:
After a final day at sea, we arrived back in Miami on Sunday morning at about 5:30AM.  We decided to do what we did last time and take part in the express departure option which allows you to be the first off the ship as long as you handle all your luggage.  So instead of putting the tags they give you the night before on your bags and putting them outside your cabin, you simply keep them with you and show up at the gangway first thing in the morning and you are allowed off.  We were on line by 6:00AM and we were off the ship and in our car headed home before 7:00AM.  If you pack light, this is the way to go.... if you're in a hurry to get home.

The drive home was pretty uneventful and we made good time.  We arrived home at around 4:00PM on Monday, kinda glad to be home but a little depressed that another cruise had come and gone so quickly.

The Verdict:
What can I say, it was another great cruise vacation.  I can't say that I've ever had a bad time on any of  the 13 cruises that I've been on.  We've been on some with very bad weather, some that have skipped ports, some that have had so-so entertainment and some that were on old outdated ships, but they've all been fun and enjoyable in their own way.  That's why I love cruising so much and why there will be many more in our future.

Now, I'm off to check pricing for Allure of the Seas for next year.

Liberty of the Seas August 2010 Review - Part 2

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.

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.

Countdown to Liberty

25 days to go until we're onboard Liberty of the Seas.  Getting pretty excited now.

A bit of a letdown though today as we found out some unfortunate news.  We are unable to book reservations at the specialty restaurants until we get onboard.

Let me explain.......

We thought it would be a great idea to go ahead and book our reservations ahead of time via Royal Caribbean's website to save some trouble and get the days and times we wanted.  Unfortunately, Royal Caribbean feels that when you book a "reservation" you should have to pay for it immediately.

I was completely unaware of this until I had everything selected and the website asked for my credit card info.  Now I've never tried this before so I was both a bit surprised and confused.  A quick call to a Royal Caribbean pre-cruise planner confirmed that any reservations for specialty restaurants or excursion bookings are charged immediately to a credit card and not put on your onboard account.  So there you go....a quick FYI for anyone who didn't know this already.

Now this wouldn't be a big deal normally but we have a nice big bunch of onboard credits we want to use for things like this so it looks like we will have to take our chances and wait until we get there.  I don't know why it can't just be added to your booking and show up on your onboard account.  Oh well, not going to stress about it.  It's not like we're going to starve.

Enough procrastinating

Well, since my previous post Decisions Decisions, I've been mulling over which cruise to pick.  After much discussion and weighing the pros and cons we have a winner.  Today I booked August 22nd on Liberty of the Seas.

No this cruise was not my first choice but, unfortunately, due to my own bad judgement and laziness, Oasis of the Seas was never a real option by the time I decided to get off my ass and look into booking for this year.  I completely underestimated the popularity of this new exciting ship and how fast she would sell out.  The result was that there was nothing available on Oasis within our budget once I got around to getting quotes.  So it fell to the other choices I outlined in my previous post and the option to use our substantial RCI Visa points on another RCI cruise was a big factor.  On top of that, we just love Royal Caribbean.

Then there is the price........more on that in a minute.

It's not all bad news though.  I received several quotes via Cruise Compete about a month ago all of which were around the same price (RCI does not allow agents to offer discounts) but each agency offered different extras like onboard credits and prepaid gratuities based on which cabin you pick and the total price.  That was a lot to go over and after about a month of wasting time and contacting some of the agents to find out the exact extras they offered I decided to book through Crown Cruise Vacations.

Now I'm certainly not what I'd call a lucky person so I was ecstatic to find that the prices had dropped in the last month for this cruise.  Sometimes it pays to procrastinate...Happy Happy.  In all we're saving almost $400 over the quote from just a month ago (and almost $2,000 below the cheapest available balcony on Oasis) for 3 people in an E1 balcony cabin plus we're getting an onboard credit and a free spa treatment for my wife......nice!  We'll also be cashing in a bunch of points on our credit card for additional onboard credits so hopefully we'll not have to pay for a thing once onboard.

Now I've just got to loose about 15lbs so I can fit into all my nice clothes.