Liberty of the Seas Review and Commentary
hi I'm jerry and I'm jill and today we're here to talk to you about our seven-day cruise we took on the royal Caribbean liberty of the seas out of Galveston, TX. This is a ship that was built in 2007 and it holds 3 800 people up to 5000 depending on the occupancy which is I believe probably the largest ship we've ever been on, and on top of that, there's 1300 crew that's also staying aboard. Liberty was refurbished in 2016 and so it'd been refurbished a couple years before we've been on it, and we took this cruise in august of 2019.
So when we got on Liberty of the Seas in Galveston - what was your first impression? By the way was our first Royal Caribbean cruise (at least my first ever), it was your second and our first together in North America. So what did you think when you first got on the Liberty of the Seas? It was very large for sure - I felt the size of the ship. It was very well decorated; lots of different things to look at and see. It was a little overwhelming maybe for our first one for sure. It was my first experience of the 'inside a ship' concept. I'm used to ships where everything is on the outer edges, and there's rooms - this was kind of interesting to walk into that that promenade, and see what that looks like on a Royal Caribbean ship. It was my first experience
of that, and my first experience obviously with a ship this big with all the bells and whistles. So it was overwhelming for me trying to figure it all out. The layout is different than other ships I've been on - so it was very you know interesting to explore the ship and check it out. So how did you find the decor and the furnishings compared to other ships? I mean it depended really on where you were on the ship. They had some really fancy bars and lounges, and then they had some pretty
normal - you know seating elsewhere, but i thought overall the dining room was very pretty elegant looking and Ii really loved the layout of that. There were a few specific bars that we frequented that we thought were very classy and done up nice. They had a very nice vintage bar for wine. There were lots of different places for different folks depending on where you want. The layout is very interesting (at least to me), you had the top deck that had all the activities. Your water slides your pools - you know all the areas you lounge out in the sun, and then you went all the way down towards the bottom of the ship, and you had this main promenade. So it was kind of broken for me into two different pieces. You're either inside the ship with no view of the
outside, and there was either then there was the top deck where you were exposed to the typical cruise life. So different layout for me. So we're going to talk a little bit about the layout a little bit later on. We're going to talk about the promenade specifically and our experience there, and what's there to explore. We'll talk about that a little bit after we talk about food and
entertainment. Then we're also going to talk a little bit about the top deck and the pool, and how busy that is on a sea day, and the activities that we did up there as well. So first of all - our favourite thing about cruising is the quality of food and there are several different options. I think we ate at the main dining room every night. We did I think...well we did do the buffet one evening for dinner. Okay, so six out of seven nights we did the main dining room. We didn't do any specialty restaurants - but at the main dining room how was it? Did you miss the specialty restaurants or what? It was a good experience the food quality was there um yeah it was a it was we had great waiters we had a table for two so we were relatively quick at getting our food because we weren't waiting for a large group of people so we had great service and the food was good they have their staples that you can order every single night and then they switch up and have a different variety throughout the week so if there was ever anything on one night that didn't suit my fancy i knew that they had some some everyday items that i enjoyed yeah for sure i would say the quality of food was comparable to other major cruise lines for sure it for me i'm a picky eater but i still was able to find vegetarian options of different types of meals other than just straight steak seafood type of big meals and i guess the only thing that that and i remember that caught my attention was how the dress code in the dining room i was really surprised that the ship was very classy and beautiful newer ship and uh and i saw people in like sportswear and and outfits that i would have considered not cruise casual that i'm used to seeing in a dining room and it kind of surprised me a little bit i guess a lot of families a lot of families a lot of people from all walks of life on this type of a cruise so i guess that's why you have a you know you don't have your classic cruise dining room experience i would say there were more families and especially more children than any cruise we've ever been on and not saying something because we've been on 20 something plus carnival ships which normally are supposed to be for families but i would say more kids on this ship than i've ever experienced yeah for sure yeah without a doubt yeah so so the dining room was a was a good experience we look forward to that every night for sure we always do uh other eating venues so breakfast for example we did a lot of again main dining room we did we also did the um cafe yeah we did the promenade cafe that's the name yeah we also did the buffet promenade cafe was was really nice because i had a variety of things for breakfast and lunch there's little sandwiches and snacks and your coffee tea and and all that was a really nice place to kind of stop in and grab things and go so it was quick and it was a lighter fair it wasn't a big heavy meal yeah we have one of those inside rooms that overlooks the promenade and it overlooked the cafe so i was non-stop hungry looking down there to see what was available and sneaking down for a snack all the time so and uh and stay tuned we're gonna have a video as well on their room that inside facing what they call inside inside window inside prominently yeah no i don't like the exact name of it but it was it was a fantastic room so definitely check out that video that we're going to do a little more detail in the room itself so also on the promenade for options we had um for free options there was the pizza yeah sorrento's pizza really good pizza i think amongst my favorite of all cruise lines for pizza so pizza place was really good i think about what else there was there were some pay options there as well there was like a ben and jerry's there was a cupcake place those were both pity options yes so so there was a few places you could grab nibbles all on the promenade as well so overall food oh there was also the johnny rockets we didn't we didn't go to johnny rockets it's up on the top deck up where the pools are and it is a pay option as well for lunch you pay a flat fee and then you order whatever's on the menu i believe so we didn't try that at all but overall food i i would say it was it was enjoyable i had no complaints at all for food lots of selection especially at the windjammer a very large buffet lots of different stations and i mean your plate is full before you get through looking at all the food that they have there there was a huge variety yeah it's not your type of buffet where you're lining up in long lines because everything's broken into these different stations which was really handy the only downside it was it was very busy everyone else also enjoyed it as such a message we did because it was packed all the time at all meals and we struggled to find a table at times and it was that was the only negative to the buffet was just how busy it was all the time the next thing we would talk about is entertainment and entertainment what do you think i loved the entertainment on the royal caribbean the main theater shows were top notch uh just phenomenal some of the best shows i've ever seen on a cruise line uh they also had the uh on ice the shows on ice capades or that type of thing yeah phenomenal really enjoyed that the venue um yeah we're canadian so we're kind of used to that type of entertainment and it was still was really impressive to us yeah yeah the show was the shows were really good and they had performers we enjoyed listening to live music in some of the lounges with great great performers there was a one band that we danced to many nights in one specific room so yeah i would say that the entertainment was on the upper end of the best we've ever had but entertainment for me also was a was a highlight i would say you know as loyal as i am to you know some other cruise lines we've really enjoyed the entertainment i would say this was a little bit of a step above even that that it was from the performers to the the stage shows to uh the ice shows everything was it was you know you were never disappointed if you sat down to be entertained on the liberty so i think we're going to do next is so we're going to break the ship into two pieces as far as how it was for traffic and people and what to do so we'll start in the promenade first and when you walk along the promenade you have options everything from the um the location that you can book future cruises for the name of that but next cruise next cruise that's what it's called and i've never seen a place where you booked future cruises as busy as this one yes there was noise it was people all they had some loyalty customers like every booking because they were it was never not a group of people yeah there was people definitely booking more royal caribbean cruises on this yeah and then you'd have your guest services as well in the same area and you'd walk down and there'd be stores for buying souvenirs and royal caribbean swag and your your promenade cafe your ben and jerry so there's a little bit of everything as you went down it and there was a pub there there was a pub the uh hoof and claw i think it was called and there was a there was a lot to do there for me the only downside was there was so much to do there that you know if you're not up on the decks in the evening because the pools are pretty well shut down and it's cooling off then everybody's down there all at once so it can get pretty busy in the evening soon yeah in the evenings it was very crowded for sure yeah for sure and i would think my my favorite thing about the promenade was well of course the food the the cafe was fantastic that was on the promenade um and this rentals pizza was really good they didn't just have pizza they also had you know salads and little things like that it was a nice spot just to sit down as well lots of seating there even the cafe a nice casual spot to sit there and it was kind of like being on like a main street somewhere where you'd sit there and you sat down almost on the equivalent of a patio and overlooked and watched the people go by and there was sometimes shows going on they have a parade that went through there as a pirate parade one day through the promenade so for each other yeah yeah i would say it was it was a really good experience i just i didn't like being on a cruise ship in the promenade not being able to see outside my thing is i'm on a cruise ship i want to see the waves once in a while going by or see what's going on you know i feel like i'm on the ocean i felt like i was in a shopping plaza yeah really you definitely had to sort of make sure that you were going outside like make an effort to do it if you were going to see and maybe that's we felt that a little bit more because we didn't have an ocean view or a balcony we had an inside uh window overlooking the promenade but yeah definitely there were times where you're like oh i haven't been outside in hours i don't even know what it's like out there right now yeah for sure yeah so and then the promenade is not just one level there's a couple other levels as the main level that has all the things we've just discussed but there's also another level right below that where you find your casino and i guess what's impressive with this layout is there are stairwells that go down to the casino but uh you don't get the smoke as much we kept walking around thinking we can we'll see if we can find the smoke and smell the smokes we're very sensitive to it i never had one issue with smoke though i loved where the casino was located because unless you wanted to go to the casino you didn't have to walk through the casino to get to the main dining room or to get to the main theater or any of that so if you didn't want to be around it you didn't have to be around it so that was that was really nice for in my opinion for sure yeah for sure and then down at the casino uh there was also the the spinnaker lounge the schooners bar so there's the the lounge down there uh there's also their specialty restaurant down there there's sabre and the sabres down there as well as the art gallery i believe or the photo galleries down there there's two levels below the main promenade and the casino's the main part down there you go down one more level and get to a place called the on-air bar and that's the access to where the ice skating is as well and i believe that's where the art is is on that third level dude oh we went there for an art auction yeah you're right it is yeah so there's lots to do there and i guess my biggest complaint to all of that is the movement of people yeah i would say my biggest concern on the ship all times was getting from spot to spot because there's only two banks of elevators that was a challenge for sure when we were on this cruise i was in the middle of dealing with a pretty significant illness so i wasn't probably at my most uh energetic level and so i was wanting to take the elevator more often than i normally would on a cruise ship and we had to wait for sure and we were never in an elevator where we weren't crowded and that there wasn't a lot of children generally playing elevator games pressing every button so yeah that was a the elevators were definitely probably the biggest downside to the whole cruise for me yeah royal caribbean if you're watching put in a second or third bank of elevators in the middle of the ship there was times that i definitely took the stairs simply because i had no other option i wanted i saw food out the window i had to have a muffin and so i had to go down the stairs to get the muffins to the elevator well one flight of stairs isn't bad but when you're you know trying to go yeah tens place it was a bit of a challenge and then i guess we'll talk about the top deck at the pool area all the activities you know the perfect storm water slide and so i guess first of all how busy did you find the pool deck on especially sea days very busy very busy um the pools were constantly being used we probably enjoyed it the most when we went there on a port day and most people were off the ship and we were able to enjoy it the most but on sea days it was definitely uh packed and it wasn't that it felt like there was too many people there but they're definitely you weren't able to get a chair there was a lot of towels on a chair sometimes all day long and you never saw anybody at it so that i think was a bit of an issue there we often tried to get a chair around one of the three pools and we're unsuccessful yeah there's two pools kind of side by side in the center of the ship there's a smaller adult's pool it's a little bridge towards the forward part of the ship and then between those two there's kind of a kid's splash pool area tipping bucket and water slides for children as well so and then what about the perfect storm area i loved it well unfortunately for me fortunately for you the pools were so busy we couldn't sit around the deck chairs that jill dragged me up some of the water slides and rides are not my thing but she dragged me on this one so we were able to find loungers in in that area and a lot of a mixture of shade and sun ones so that worked out well for us so yeah that we we enjoyed the water slides probably more than the pool just because it was a quick way to cool off if you were out and it wasn't as busy as the pools for some reason against my will i went on the tidal wave many times four five times at least and this you you you carry up your own inflatable slide for two people and you all the way up to the top you get in it goes kind of starts out like a water slide like okay this isn't too bad and then it shoots you down this big hill and you're thinking okay this is me the final part of it and then you start going back up and you start going back up to the point where you're going to shoot off the top of the ship and you're going to be left in the caribbean sea luckily there was a a metal barrier at the end of this thing that stopped us from getting off the ship and then we come slide back down backwards back into this other pool and swirl around and then finally you regain consciousness and you're back up in the water and going again for the next time for some reason so that was my experience that was it the same for you no you're a little melodramatic it was a fun ride what's been kind of fun because i did it more than once and i survived barely but and then of course there's the um there's the surfing was they call that the wave rider no flow rider flow rider the flow riders there as well as well as a couple other water slides that was impressive just to even watch we didn't try it but they had demonstrations that staff would do it and it was pretty impressive to watch them and it was also kind of nice to watch and cheer on fellow guests who were attempting it for the first time and were able to do it it was a lot of fun that was entertaining that was a great way to spend an hour or so in the afternoon just being in a observation area there yeah yeah and there's also there's another deck above the pool area that overlooks everything the name of that the the crown and this area overlooks uh i believe the adults pool and the kids pool and it kind of overlooks the front of the ship i guess so that's what's up top yeah a little bit busy on sea days for sure especially the adults only area had a real tough time finding any space there might have been you know two or three dozen chairs there around the pool and they are either covered with towels or people sitting at them and well in those pools were generally like a few times we went there thinking we'd just jump in the pool and not need a chair but the pools were definitely the busier of the pools was that adults area yeah without a doubt so so i guess to wrap it up then um our liberty of the seas um my first royal caribbean and yours first uh north america what what stood out for you what was your favorite part of the ship my favorite part of the ship was entertainment for sure i felt like the night shows were phenomenal the live music was really good really enjoyed it we got to experience a mixture of entertainment throughout the whole cruise and so i looked forward to what was on every night for the for the next night and my favorite part of the ship would be i would say the room oh yeah i would say that this was the best undoubtedly the best room that i've had on a cruise ship and it wasn't even a balcony room i think that there was so much seating it was large uh the bathroom was nice the decor was really nice the location was fantastic that i think the room made it for me we wouldn't have had that room it might not have been the same experience for me like the rest of the ship was was a lot of fun and a lot of new things for me to explore for the first time but the room still to this day sticks out is the one thing yeah i really liked about that but all in all really good first experience for royal caribbean i i definitely see why they're so popular especially with families you could really get the vibe the family vibe it was kind of everybody was having a good time it wasn't kind of the over-the-top crazy you know march break crowd it was more just enjoy a summer vacation family cruise and i think that's their sweet spot perfectly yeah i think you know if i had to do it over again it would have been a cruise like when we had teenagers would have really appealed to teenagers there's a lot of sort of adventurous things that they can do and yeah it you can be as busy as you want on this ship for sure there's always something happening yeah for sure so well thanks for joining us for our uh tour of the liberty of the seas and uh if you have any questions definitely post them below here in youtube and we will uh check them and help you out and subscribe if you haven't already done so but any last words deliver the seas you gonna go to another royal caribbean absolutely loved it i think that they had great customer service they they had great entertainment it was something that i would highly recommend to anybody yeah me too thank you very much for watching today and uh and check out our channel there'll be lots more videos coming and now that cruising started up again we will be doing lots of vlogs and things to come so take care take care bye
2021-06-26 22:04
