Very, very disappointed with the hard sell on Liberty of the Seas

We chose this cruise because I'd cruised Royal Caribbean twice before, loved it, and have eagerly recommended it to others. Now I'm genuinely embarrassed that I've influenced others to choose Royal Caribbean.

Here's what concerns me.

THE HARD SELL

On Royal Caribbean, here's the first impression. Passengers embark to find crew barking at them to browse tables of plastic do-dads and cheap water bottles. I was completely taken aback by this.

On Disney, passengers enter the ship to beautiful music playing. An announcer says excitedly, "Disney would like to welcome the SMITH family!" as uniformed crew members clap and cheer. The difference in the Royal Caribbean experience is jolting.

After our disconcerting onboarding experience, the hard sell got even WORSE. You could not take a step on the ship without crew interrupting your conversation with your spouse to loudly and aggressively hawk drink and dining packages. A terrible first impression for passengers.

Then it got worse. At the ship's "Welcome Event" in the Platinum Theater at 2:30 pm, the hard sell continued. There was no entertainment, no music, no comedy -- just a bare stage with crew in polo shirts hawking more things that passengers could buy. I'd brought a first time cruiser on this trip, and I was embarrassed.

The "hard sell" continued through the week, with crew members hawking their wares 12 hours per day from tables and storefronts on deck 5, where most passengers had to pass to get from one end of the ship to the other.

The saddest thing about the "hard sell," though, was that the fun daytime activities I remembered from previous Royal Caribbean cruises were nearly all gone. Instead, each day's "Cruise Compass" was filled with shopping presentations, art auctions, and sales events urging us to spend more money. Come on, RC. Even an informal get-together for moms of teens in the "On the Air" Lounge would have been an improvement over that, and could have been done at a low cost with zero crew involvement.

When I asked crew members when Royal Caribbean changed from a very classy vacation experience to the continuous, barking hard-sell, they told me sympathetically that it had happened "in about the last six months" (since approximately September of 2016) when the cruise line's top management began putting extraordinary pressure on those below to increase revenue at all costs. How many passengers will RC lose before they realize that this strategy will not work? One of the biggest topics of conversation among the passengers was: "What's a better cruise line for us to chose next time? Which cruise lines are not doing this?" Next time, I'm trying Norwegian.

PARENTS WILL NOT HAVE SEX

If you are parents traveling with a child or teen, be aware that you will NOT HAVE SEX the entire week you are on Liberty of the Seas.

Unlike Disney, which thoughtfully puts the kids' bunks on the other side of a curtain from the parents' bed, Liberty has your child or teen(s) sleeping in a bunk directly above your heads. There is zero privacy for parents in bed. In addition, every time a teen shifts his weight in the upper bunk parents are awakened by loud squeaks and bangs.

Stateroom privacy for parents, even in small interior rooms, is doable and should be an A-1 priority on every cruise ship.

In addition, and very annoyingly, the corners of Liberty's king size beds butt directly up against the stateroom's cabinetry and couch. This makes it impossible to walk around the bed to the left and right side. Adults must crawl into bed from the foot of the bed. How are elderly and disabled people able to do this?

POORLY DESIGNED WINDJAMMER BUFFET

The crowds in the Windjammer Buffet on Deck 11 were downright scary, even for a healthy adult woman. I can't imagine how it felt for the 1000 children on board, or for the elderly or disabled. The problem was especially troublesome at the end of the buffet, where steam tables were set at odd angles to the buffet. The buffet traffic caught and swirled around these steam tables in such a way that passengers were hard-pressed to even SEE the food, let alone get close enough to spoon some onto a plate. Crowds clogged the narrow areas between these tables during all open hours. Imagine waiting with a plate of cold eggs until four people in front of you help themselves to bacon. Then do the same thing at the toast station. Because of the crowds, every meal eaten in the Windjammer includes cold food that was supposed to be served hot.

This is the second 3,700 passenger ship I've cruised on. I much recommend 2,700 passenger ships, where crowding at meals is not such a terrible ongoing issue.

The saving grace of the Windjammer and the formal dining rooms was the dining staff. So friendly, so willing to serve, so prompt, so ready with coffee and whatever else was needed. I felt sorry for them.

BAD SHORE EXPERIENCE IN BELIZE

Imagine being told that tendering into Bellze takes 40 minutes, but you won't be allowed to leave the ship until 11:30 am. Do the math. If by a miracle there are no lines and you are able to arrive on Belize at 12:10 pm, you will still have to be back on the ship at 4:30 pm. You will have just about four hours to spend on Belize. But wait. You're told that the tenders are very busy between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm. So you'd better be back by 3:30 pm. Now you have just three hours to spend on shore in Belize, in a place with NO BEACHES and little scenery.

I hastily switched my day's plan to an expensive Royal Caribbean shore excursion so I could guarantee that the ship wouldn't leave me behind at 4:30 pm. You can see my disappointed review of my Royal Caribbean shore excursion below.

VERY BAD ROYAL CARIBBEAN SNORKELING SHORE EXCURSION

I'd dreamed of snorkeling in Belize my whole life, and I was excited to take my 17-year-old son along. Sadly, on our guided tour snorkeling excursion of Rendevous Caye, there was sandy bottom and coral, but only cloudy water and almost no fish to be found. The guides leading the excursion tried to act as though this was NORMAL. Snorkeling without fish was NORMAL. When I asked a sympathetic assistant guide what the problem was, he said explained that Royal Caribbean had sent three tours of 140 people each to Rendevous Caye that day, and of course all those crowds had driven nearly every fish away.

My advice is DO NOT take a cruise shore excursion that features snorkeling. Crowds are incompatible with seeing beautiful fish. My best snorkeling was in Roatan, Honduras, where I asked a local taxi driver to help me find beautiful fish. He took me to "Paradise Beach" where I negotiated with a private boat driver to take us to "the blue channel" for some of the most beautiful clear snorkeling of my life, all at a fraction of the price of the Royal Caribbean snorkeling excursion.

PIANO BAR PIANIST KNEW VERY FEW SONGS

Piano bar pianist Phil Anderson knows a few songs very very well. He must have been great in his Royal Caribbean audition. He can play Billy Joel's "I'm Moving Out" very well. We heard it over and over again. But Phil is obviously not a singalong pianist. He asks for requests, but he doesn't know any Beatles, no James Taylor, no songs from Grease, and very few other commonly requested piano bar songs. To nearly every request he replies, "Try again." When he did play requests he frequently did not know even a fraction of the words. Phil is clearly a gig musician who has memorized a small number of songs and is simply not interested in expanding his repertoire. Someone needs to tell him that it's possible to get a "fake book" for his iPad and just pound out any song anyone asks for, and that the words to every song ever written are readily available online.

This was a real disappointment to me, a person who loves to sing along in the piano bar.

TEEN ACTIVITIES STAFF WAS DISAPPOINTING

My 15-year-old daughter laughed at our dinner table about how enthusiastic and fun the teen staff was the night their supervisor sat in. That night, the staff were up and dancing alongside the kids, having a great time. The rest of the time, she said, they pretty much sat and watched the kids. A far cry from what Disney does for teens.

And the much touted flowrider, ice skating rink, and rock wall? My teens didn't even ask me to sign their liability waivers for those activities.

"MY TIME DINING" MEANS "NO TIME DINING."

I wasn't aware that I needed to make a dinner reservation in the main dining room for each night. By the time I figured it out, all the times were taken. The only times left to eat resulted in our party of 5 missing sunset up on deck and the headliner show each night. Our poor waitstaff ran frantically, but still took 2.5 hours to serve us our meal each night because of being so overwhelmed with diners. Don't get me wrong -- the servers were all WONDERFUL especially Dane Aaron in the Rembrandt Dining Room. It's the timing of meals that needs improvement on Liberty.

WHAT I LOVED ABOUT LIBERTY OF THE SEAS

The staff was consistently wonderful. Every server, the dining room captain, and my dear, dear stateroom attendant Willeed from Egypt were all fantastic. I also loved the gym and the sauna and showers, and the beautiful hot tubs and comfy brown chairs in the solarium on Deck 11. The Viking Crowne Lounge was beautiful, the food and decor was fantastic in the Rembrandt dining room, and the Cruise Director was very funny in the Love and Marriage Game Show.

But sadly, it's my last time on Liberty. And it's the last time I'll be recommending Royal Caribbean to my friends and family.

PARENTS WILL NOT HAVE SEX

If you are parents traveling with a child or teen, be aware that you will NOT HAVE SEX the entire week you are on Liberty of the Seas.

Unlike Disney, which thoughtfully puts the kids' bunks on the other side of a curtain from the parents' bed, Liberty has your child or teen(s) sleeping in a bunk directly above your heads. There is zero privacy for parents in bed. In addition, every time a teen shifts his weight in the upper bunk parents are awakened by loud squeaks and bangs.

Stateroom privacy for parents, even in small interior rooms, is doable and should be an A-1 priority on every cruise ship.

This is exactly why the wife and I always hit the shower together when we have the kids in the same cabin. ;)

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

This is exactly why the wife and I always hit the shower together when we have the kids in the same cabin. ;)

We have a lot of teens, there is NO WAY we are having sex a few feet away from them separated by a curtain! Plus, they go to bed after 1:00 am, and sleep until noon.

WOW!

I hope you find a more agreeable cruise line in the very near future.

Funny, in over 23 RCCL cruises, we've never had it that way and 4 of them were on Liberty.

This is exactly why the wife and I always hit the shower together when we have the kids in the same cabin. ;)

I assume you are in a suite and not of the pneumatic tube showers.

First of all, I've never cruised with anyone in my cabin aside from my husband as we don't have children. That said, if I ever had sailed with my parents I would have been absolutely mortified if they thought a flimsy curtain was "privacy" enough, especially if they are old enough to know what you are doing! I'm very happy for your teens sake that the beds were set up the way that they were. If you wanted privacy, book multi room suites or 2 separate cabins.

On the flip side, I'm also concerned about the up selling that I keep reading about so much recently. I know it's always been there and didn't really bother me on my last sailing (Allure last May) but the more I keep reading, the more I keep thinking it must be getting worse. I'll be on the Liberty in 2 weeks so I'll just have to see for myself. I would be annoyed to be interrupted for a sales pitch, especially during a meal or an in depth conversation.

I don't understand for a second why you would be embarrassed about that. Do you own Royal Caribbean? If that is the case then I could see why you would be embarrassed in front of your travel mates. Otherwise, they were probably just as annoyed w/ the sales pitches as you are...if they blame you for it then I think you need different travel buddies;p. We are bringing newbies with us on our upcoming trip and while I do feel the need to prep them for things, I will not be embarrassed if things aren't up to ours or their liking.

I'm glad to hear that the staff was good-that can really make or break any vacation and sometimes it only takes one or two bad ones to kind of tarnish the whole trip.

We have a lot of teens, there is NO WAY we are having sex a few feet away from them separated by a curtain! Plus, they go to bed after 1:00 am, and sleep until noon.

Seriously, a teen is going to know exactly what is going on!

Parents need to get creative, most parents have figured that out by the time their kids are teens.

I assume you are in a suite and not of the pneumatic tube showers.

No - it's usually a D1 balcony; we're both fairly thin.

In addition, and very annoyingly, the corners of Liberty's king size beds butt directly up against the stateroom's cabinetry and couch. This makes it impossible to walk around the bed to the left and right side. Adults must crawl into bed from the foot of the bed. How are elderly and disabled people able to do this?

...and you wanted to have sex in this tiny cabin while a teenager slept nearby???:o:o:o

We have a lot of teens, there is NO WAY we are having sex a few feet away from them separated by a curtain! Plus, they go to bed after 1:00 am, and sleep until noon.

We chose this cruise because I'd cruised Royal Caribbean twice before, loved it, and have eagerly recommended it to others. Now I'm genuinely embarrassed that I've influenced others to choose Royal Caribbean.

Here's what concerns me.

THE HARD SELL

On Royal Caribbean, here's the first impression. Passengers embark to find crew barking at them to browse tables of plastic do-dads and cheap water bottles. I was completely taken aback by this.

On Disney, passengers enter the ship to beautiful music playing. An announcer says excitedly, "Disney would like to welcome the SMITH family!" as uniformed crew members clap and cheer. The difference in the Royal Caribbean experience is jolting.

After our disconcerting onboarding experience, the hard sell got even WORSE. You could not take a step on the ship without crew interrupting your conversation with your spouse to loudly and aggressively hawk drink and dining packages. A terrible first impression for passengers.

Then it got worse. At the ship's "Welcome Event" in the Platinum Theater at 2:30 pm, the hard sell continued. There was no entertainment, no music, no comedy -- just a bare stage with crew in polo shirts hawking more things that passengers could buy. I'd brought a first time cruiser on this trip, and I was embarrassed.

The "hard sell" continued through the week, with crew members hawking their wares 12 hours per day from tables and storefronts on deck 5, where most passengers had to pass to get from one end of the ship to the other.

The saddest thing about the "hard sell," though, was that the fun daytime activities I remembered from previous Royal Caribbean cruises were nearly all gone. Instead, each day's "Cruise Compass" was filled with shopping presentations, art auctions, and sales events urging us to spend more money. Come on, RC. Even an informal get-together for moms of teens in the "On the Air" Lounge would have been an improvement over that, and could have been done at a low cost with zero crew involvement.

When I asked crew members when Royal Caribbean changed from a very classy vacation experience to the continuous, barking hard-sell, they told me sympathetically that it had happened "in about the last six months" (since approximately September of 2016) when the cruise line's top management began putting extraordinary pressure on those below to increase revenue at all costs. How many passengers will RC lose before they realize that this strategy will not work? One of the biggest topics of conversation among the passengers was: "What's a better cruise line for us to chose next time? Which cruise lines are not doing this?" Next time, I'm trying Norwegian.

PARENTS WILL NOT HAVE SEX

If you are parents traveling with a child or teen, be aware that you will NOT HAVE SEX the entire week you are on Liberty of the Seas.

Unlike Disney, which thoughtfully puts the kids' bunks on the other side of a curtain from the parents' bed, Liberty has your child or teen(s) sleeping in a bunk directly above your heads. There is zero privacy for parents in bed. In addition, every time a teen shifts his weight in the upper bunk parents are awakened by loud squeaks and bangs.

Stateroom privacy for parents, even in small interior rooms, is doable and should be an A-1 priority on every cruise ship.

In addition, and very annoyingly, the corners of Liberty's king size beds butt directly up against the stateroom's cabinetry and couch. This makes it impossible to walk around the bed to the left and right side. Adults must crawl into bed from the foot of the bed. How are elderly and disabled people able to do this?

POORLY DESIGNED WINDJAMMER BUFFET

The crowds in the Windjammer Buffet on Deck 11 were downright scary, even for a healthy adult woman. I can't imagine how it felt for the 1000 children on board, or for the elderly or disabled. The problem was especially troublesome at the end of the buffet, where steam tables were set at odd angles to the buffet. The buffet traffic caught and swirled around these steam tables in such a way that passengers were hard-pressed to even SEE the food, let alone get close enough to spoon some onto a plate. Crowds clogged the narrow areas between these tables during all open hours. Imagine waiting with a plate of cold eggs until four people in front of you help themselves to bacon. Then do the same thing at the toast station. Because of the crowds, every meal eaten in the Windjammer includes cold food that was supposed to be served hot.

This is the second 3,700 passenger ship I've cruised on. I much recommend 2,700 passenger ships, where crowding at meals is not such a terrible ongoing issue.

The saving grace of the Windjammer and the formal dining rooms was the dining staff. So friendly, so willing to serve, so prompt, so ready with coffee and whatever else was needed. I felt sorry for them.

BAD SHORE EXPERIENCE IN BELIZE

Imagine being told that tendering into Bellze takes 40 minutes, but you won't be allowed to leave the ship until 11:30 am. Do the math. If by a miracle there are no lines and you are able to arrive on Belize at 12:10 pm, you will still have to be back on the ship at 4:30 pm. You will have just about four hours to spend on Belize. But wait. You're told that the tenders are very busy between 3:30 pm and 4:30 pm. So you'd better be back by 3:30 pm. Now you have just three hours to spend on shore in Belize, in a place with NO BEACHES and little scenery.

I hastily switched my day's plan to an expensive Royal Caribbean shore excursion so I could guarantee that the ship wouldn't leave me behind at 4:30 pm. You can see my disappointed review of my Royal Caribbean shore excursion below.

VERY BAD ROYAL CARIBBEAN SNORKELING SHORE EXCURSION

I'd dreamed of snorkeling in Belize my whole life, and I was excited to take my 17-year-old son along. Sadly, on our guided tour snorkeling excursion of Rendevous Caye, there was sandy bottom and coral, but only cloudy water and almost no fish to be found. The guides leading the excursion tried to act as though this was NORMAL. Snorkeling without fish was NORMAL. When I asked a sympathetic assistant guide what the problem was, he said explained that Royal Caribbean had sent three tours of 140 people each to Rendevous Caye that day, and of course all those crowds had driven nearly every fish away.

My advice is DO NOT take a cruise shore excursion that features snorkeling. Crowds are incompatible with seeing beautiful fish. My best snorkeling was in Roatan, Honduras, where I asked a local taxi driver to help me find beautiful fish. He took me to "Paradise Beach" where I negotiated with a private boat driver to take us to "the blue channel" for some of the most beautiful clear snorkeling of my life, all at a fraction of the price of the Royal Caribbean snorkeling excursion.

PIANO BAR PIANIST KNEW VERY FEW SONGS

Piano bar pianist Phil Anderson knows a few songs very very well. He must have been great in his Royal Caribbean audition. He can play Billy Joel's "I'm Moving Out" very well. We heard it over and over again. But Phil is obviously not a singalong pianist. He asks for requests, but he doesn't know any Beatles, no James Taylor, no songs from Grease, and very few other commonly requested piano bar songs. To nearly every request he replies, "Try again." When he did play requests he frequently did not know even a fraction of the words. Phil is clearly a gig musician who has memorized a small number of songs and is simply not interested in expanding his repertoire. Someone needs to tell him that it's possible to get a "fake book" for his iPad and just pound out any song anyone asks for, and that the words to every song ever written are readily available online.

This was a real disappointment to me, a person who loves to sing along in the piano bar.

TEEN ACTIVITIES STAFF WAS DISAPPOINTING

My 15-year-old daughter laughed at our dinner table about how enthusiastic and fun the teen staff was the night their supervisor sat in. That night, the staff were up and dancing alongside the kids, having a great time. The rest of the time, she said, they pretty much sat and watched the kids. A far cry from what Disney does for teens.

And the much touted flowrider, ice skating rink, and rock wall? My teens didn't even ask me to sign their liability waivers for those activities.

"MY TIME DINING" MEANS "NO TIME DINING."

I wasn't aware that I needed to make a dinner reservation in the main dining room for each night. By the time I figured it out, all the times were taken. The only times left to eat resulted in our party of 5 missing sunset up on deck and the headliner show each night. Our poor waitstaff ran frantically, but still took 2.5 hours to serve us our meal each night because of being so overwhelmed with diners. Don't get me wrong -- the servers were all WONDERFUL especially Dane Aaron in the Rembrandt Dining Room. It's the timing of meals that needs improvement on Liberty.

WHAT I LOVED ABOUT LIBERTY OF THE SEAS

The staff was consistently wonderful. Every server, the dining room captain, and my dear, dear stateroom attendant Willeed from Egypt were all fantastic. I also loved the gym and the sauna and showers, and the beautiful hot tubs and comfy brown chairs in the solarium on Deck 11. The Viking Crowne Lounge was beautiful, the food and decor was fantastic in the Rembrandt dining room, and the Cruise Director was very funny in the Love and Marriage Game Show.

But sadly, it's my last time on Liberty. And it's the last time I'll be recommending Royal Caribbean to my friends and family.

First of all..the Disney welcome is perhaps the hokiest thing in travel. If that is a deal breaker for you then stay on Disney. Liberty is a fine ship. If you want to make more children in the presence of your children,get a bigger room.

I liked your review- that is your perspective, you were there, and you told it like it is ( or was for you)

As for the sex, made me smile- I love your honesty

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I am sure everything is perfect at Disney, but I do agree WJ on almost every ship is just bad, also hope Phil Anderson and his cowboy hat is gone before our next cruise at end of April, he seems popular but not my taste of music.

Seriously, I am aghast. Please stick with Disney as I'm not sure we would hit it off if we met on a Royal cruise. I truly cannot believe the having sex issues and would love to see the feedback forms you provided to Royal ( if they could retrieve them from the giggling staff).

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Some of the sales pitches you mentioned were on Navigator when we sailed out of Galveston two years ago, but it sounds like they have been upping the ante on that which will annoy me too, no doubt. I typically stroll past the mall kiosk trolls with a brisk 'no thank you', I intend to do the same on board this summer. Please people, complain about this in your post-cruise surveys. It is the only way they will listen.

As for the privacy issue, I'm a bit surprised that this surprised you. Seriously. Did you look at the floor plan of the cabin you booked? Did you look up photos? Have you never shared a room on vacation before? Exactly how old were your teens when you were on this magical Disney ship with them?! Book two connecting rooms next time. For their sake as much as yours.

I think that some of your concerns are legitimate, and I hope you report them to the appropriate people (i.e. post cruise survey), but some of them are also down to poor planning on your part. I'm sorry that your vacation wasn't as great as you were hoping it will be.

The sex thing?

OMG, are you serious?

Any parent who travels with kids should not be expecting sex during the vacation. True for a cruise, a land-based vacation, a camping trip, or ANY kind of travel.

Curtains, dividers, privacy screens, whatever - nothing works. Travel with kids = no sex. Get used to it!

(although creative use of bathroom time may be worth further consideration..........:evilsmile:)

Would suggest you stay with Disney and away from Royal. As they say, different strokes...

I have gone on a few cruises. I see them pushing the specialty restaurants and spa stuff. I don't mind them. If I want to chat I may stop and ask them questions about where they are from. None of this bothers me. Most of the time I am busy talking with my husband and taking pictures so I can scrapbook them. I must enjoy it since I keep going back! And I keep counting the days until I go again! Oh, and I truly love it so much I booked and paid for a trip for my three kids, their spouses and my grandchildren in August. I am beside myself with excitement. My husband and I live every single second! They can try to sell me on stuff all they want. It is up to me to buy it or not. I am hoping they are selling lanyards when we walk on the ship. I have four grandkids that need them!

I doubt it's something confined to Liberty of the Seas, but it did get annoying wandering through the promenade and having to proactively tell every rep I encountered that either I already had the drink package or already had a tux, et. al. Reminded me so much of Home Depot and solar panel salespeople.

It annoyed me much more how invasive all the setups for photographs got to be by the end of the cruise, since so many of them were blocking passageways or stairs for most of the night.

I assume you are in a suite and not of the pneumatic tube showers.

lol that's the same thing I thought. I can't fit in there by myself.

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The sex thing?

OMG, are you serious?

Any parent who travels with kids should not be expecting sex during the vacation. True for a cruise, a land-based vacation, a camping trip, or ANY kind of travel.

Curtains, dividers, privacy screens, whatever - nothing works. Travel with kids = no sex. Get used to it!

 

(although creative use of bathroom time may be worth further consideration..........:evilsmile:)

Exactly.....at least they won't have a "little souvenir" from this cruise!

***

Have a piece of cheese with your WHINE! It was obviously a sad, sex-free trip for you. Go back to Disney, please!

And the much touted flowrider, ice skating rink, and rock wall? My teens didn't even ask me to sign their liability waivers for those activities.

Sorry you didn't have a good time. I've been on Liberty twice, last May and last November. Sure, I see the tables and staff for upselling. I smile and walk by. None of them have ever tried to engage or been obtrusive and always accept a "no thank you" or "already booked".

But then, we avoid the WJ and the Promenade during the "sale" times.

As for nookie with the kids in the room, EEEWWWWWW. :eek:

Sorry you had such an awful cruise vacation. We have spent 4 weeks on the Liberty and have enjoyed each experience. Looking forward to September for our next cruise on Lady Liberty.