Mellowjourney

My first ever cruise was on LOS in February 2017. We got to the cruise terminal at 10:45 and were on the ship at 11:15 AM. The Windjammer was super crowded, so we grabbed a table out by the pool and brought our lunch outside. They are on the same deck, 11.

Have fun!

Update on my party of 16 switching from My Time Dining to Traditional 5:30 dining. We all got switched. Royal Caribbean confirmed this on Friday. Fingers crossed for your situation. There is a lot of time fortunately.

I agree with Liberty. The kids splash zone was AMAZING. Even though my SO and I don't have young children, we would get memorized just watching it all. They have small water slides in the splash zone for young children. I'll bet a kids could spend all day there and never complain.

Hi CreativeCruiser. It appears that we will be on the same cruise with our family of 16. We booked well over a year in advance and were told that MTD was all that was available as well. We all want to eat together and it was proving difficult to make reservations for such a large group, so I requested a change to traditional 5:30 dining which will be better for the 2 grandchildren. It looks like part of our group has been changed. Still waiting to hear about the others. Since we did a group booking, all paid for by my SO, I'm hopeful it will work out. Fingers crossed. :)

There is a fantastic resource on the Royal Caribbean Blog site, but I can't post that link here. If you google Royal Caribbean drink prices, you should easily find it.

Booked 8 balcony cabins for a six-day family cruise for March 2018, prepaid all the gratuities, and we are picking up the hotel room the night before in Fort Lauderdale as well.

We are fortunate and excited that we can take all of the kids, their significant others, and a couple of strays who grew up in very hard circumstances. It will be so much fun!

I feel like I'm watching an episode of Border Security. :) Worrying about it would totally ruin my vacation.

i've found that when using Chrome, RC's website more often than not would lock up during bookings over the last 3 weeks. As much as i hate IE, once i switched over to that, problems seemed to go away.

I have just the opposite problem. RC website only works in Chrome for me and never in MS Edge. I have not tried with Firefox.

Sailed Liberty in February and loved our balcony on Deck 12. Very convenient to pools and super quiet. I personally, would not want more than two people in a cabin, but there is a pull out bed for an additional person.

We booked about 1 month out for a Superbowl Sunday cruise and had no problems. We were several hours late getting off the ship on disembarkation due to fog and they were there waiting for us; having kept track of the situation. I would definitely use them again.

Galveston Limo has good prices and schedules on line. That's who we booked with for our cruise in September.

 

 

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I second using Galveston Limousine. We booked round trip in February from IAH to hotel and from cruise terminal back to airport for $50 per person if you book online. Can't beat the price and the service was great.

http://www.galvestonlimo.com/airport-shuttle.asp

Freedom will still be based out of San Juan through April 2019...

Not accurate since she is currently in the Mediterranean, and I booked my 8 cabins for March 2018 sailing out of Fort Lauderdale.

I booked 8 cabins on Freedom for our family of 16 for March 2018, Western Caribbean. I'm guessing she'll be in Mediterranean for summer and back here for winter.

I had the same thing happen to me after getting our party of 16 scheduled for My Time Dining. In our case, the My Time Dining reservations were canceled because we were switched to Traditional 5:30 dining. When I then emailed RCI at rcldining@rccl.com to request that our 8 cabins be seated in the same section for dinner, they wrote back saying "Please forward the request at 50 days prior to sailingas the sailing has not been loaded"

Another thread regarding this issue.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2496153

We are coming from Ca so driving is out of the questions. We have some friends in the Houston area so we are going to see if anyone is willing to help us out and drive us to/from the airport (since its only 40ish miles) and keep the car seat for us until we get back. If not we are thinking of taking Uber or renting a car (depending on where we can return near the port).

Many of the people I met back in February had challenges with transportation to the cruise terminal either night before or day of. If your friends can't help out, then look into scheduling with Galveston Limousine Service. We were very impressed with them and it's the cheapest service out there.

http://www.galvestonlimo.com/airport-shuttle.asp

The kids splash zone is the best I've seen anywhere. Even though I don't have kids, I would get memorized just watching all of it.

We all end up paying more to allow cheaters, sigh.

No judgement for what other people do, but this is kind of how I feel. Those who don't cheat pay for those who do by making everything more expensive.

We had one drink package on our cruise in February. Significant other had the package. I brought wine and bottled water onboard for myself and purchased my few drinks during the cruise with my onboard credit. My drinks were around $8.50 each and I was able to stay under $100 for the week.

This might help:

In February, it was performed on Saturday night only. My second favorite show of the week.

We were also fortunate to have the Texas Tenors perform for us on Friday night night and that show was fantastic!

I'd try to switch to traditional (fixed) dining if possible.

That is what I was afraid of.

We are taking the ENTIRE family on Freedom next year. First cruise for 12 of them! :)

Anyone have any experience using My Time Dining with a large group? It appears that I can't book a reservation for more than 10 online.

Thank you for any wisdom you can impart.

I was on LOS out of Galveston back in February. We had no problems on embarkation day, but were delayed on the return and was not able to get off the ship until a little after 1:00 PM. Add the time it took to get through customs and we made our 4:00 PM flight with only 5 minutes to spare. Many others were not so lucky and had to reschedule their flights.

I would just say that if you are cruising during the winter months be prepared for possible delays. Plan on a late flight or an overnight on the return.

We've decided that since we have to fly to our ports anyway, we won't cruise out of Galveston any longer. Too stressful for us winter cruisers.

BTW, the ship was great! We loved Liberty and had a fantastic cruise until disembarkation day.

the one thing we always bring in our carry on is lysol wipes. We wipe down all handles, switches, tv remote, phone u name it. Even the inside of drawers because i don't know who's dirty underwear where in the drawers. Lol

yes!!!

Poopouri

I brought Poopouri on a cruise but found that it did not work due to the nature of ship toilets. They don't have water in them to float the essential oils.

The travel size Febreze air freshener worked better on the ship.

LED tea light for the bathroom at night

I brought six of these on my first cruise and loved them for ambiance at night. I set up three in the bedroom and three in the bathroom.

As some mentioned in posts above, I also appreciated having:

Pop-up hamper

Towel clips to clip wet clothes and water shoes to balcony chairs for drying

$300 in small bills for tips and small purchases on shore ($100 each 1s, 5s, 10s)

Post-it notes and pen

A highlighter for cruise compasses

Strong magnetic hooks to hang bathrobes, and lanyards on

Waterproof lanyard to carry Sea Pass and to carry a few bucks for around the ship and on beach days

Hanging toiletries bag for bathroom with own shampoo, conditioner, bar soap, etc.

USB charging hub

Binoculars for mornings on my balcony with my coffee

My kindle for alone time on my balcony

My own hair dryer

Packing cubes (made organization and unpacking super easy)

A few small garbage bags to pack dirty clothes in for return trip