Attapooch

Addeundum to Bermuda and Fizz's First Cruise Tip for the Day: Make sure you get a Starboard side cabin if you are getting a balcony. That is where you can get the best view when arriving and leaving ports and in the case of Bermuda and later St. Martin, the ship does a fantastic "tour" around the island as it leaves for the next port. It's almost like getting a free excursion. Those free "excursions" were defintely a highlight of our cruise.

I believe that the side of ship that faces the port is essentially random.

We've had cruises where sometimes it's port and sometimes starboard without any real discernible reason.

Thanks Bob. Have you or any of your friends rented one? If so, which OW do you think is best to request?

Terri

OW1 is the best, imho. The wife and I had it on our Liberty cruise a couple of weeks back.

I kept seeing this gentleman on the flow rider many mornings. He was quite good at it. I normally only saw about 3-4 people in the early mornings that I went there. So each person had a lot of time on the flow rider.

In the mornings from 9-12 the Flowrider was only for stand-up surfing. From 12-3 they had boogie boarding and then switched back to stand-up from 3-5 when they closed.

I thought the boogie boarding was a lot more fun than the stand-up surfing but I was one of the few people who were there religiously in the mornings (and pretty much all day, to be honest) to try to get good at both.

Thanks so much! So far, we know our child wants to do the zip line in Labadee and we are going to do Horseshoe in Bermuda and maybe snorkel there. We are considering the yacht race in St. Maarten, but also want to have time for a beach visit. Might try the Flowrider, too.

If you think that your child will like the Flowrider even a little bit, I'd suggest that it should be moved to the top of the to-do list.

For the first couple of days of the 6/4/15 Liberty cruise the Flowrider was mostly empty except for myself and a couple of other guys and the lack of lines gave us a lot of time to get really quite good with both the boogie boarding and stand up surfing.

If I had to point to a single thing onboard the Liberty that was the real standout for me it would be the Flowrider. It's a huge amount of fun and despite how it might look it really isn't intimidating once you're on it - on the 6/4/15 cruise the oldest person I know of how successfully did the Flowrider was an 84 year old woman who had it on her bucket list.

Provided that you're either married or traveling with a significant other, use the $50 to pay part of the cost for Couples Rasul in the spa.

October 2013 on the way back to Cape Liberty from Bermuda on Explorer.

The wave crests were well enough above the railing on the outside walkway on Deck 4 that they ended up closing it for the duration of the storm. It's something to be on a cruise ship and have to look up to see the top of a wave.

Be sure to look for strange or unusual things at sea, i.e. a live chicken floating on a wooden pallet in the middle of the Caribbean.

 

It's for this reason we always bring binoculars.

The coolest thing we've ever seen from our balcony was on the Explorer en route from New York to Bermuda.

On the first sea day we sailed through quite a significant thunderstorm that whipped up waves that were about thirty feet and, as we were looking out at the storm from the balcony, a bolt of lightning hit the crest of a wave not far in the distance and then jumped across to other nearby waves. Very cool to see in person.

We've sailed from there many times and we've been off the ship and in our car usually by 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning.

That said, I'd push the flight back to reduce my own stress.

We've always gotten Cruise Care insurance for every cruise we've taken. We've only ever needed it once but had we not had it we would've lost every dime we paid for the cruise.

It's not cheap, but in our minds it's already demonstrated its value.

Since this is our first cruise, I'm assuming DH and I will attend the intro show. Don't know anything about the bars/lounges, so I guess it will be trial and error. I think we both would enjoy The Caribbean band, and I've read another of your posts about getting to Saturday Night Fever 20 minutes before and staying all the way through the final songs!

Since this is your first cruise, no one's else mentioned it but there's one word you must know: Quest.

It will be relatively late at night (11-ish or so) and is adults-only but is an absolute riot. The less you know about it beforehand the better but it's one of the few organized events that we've never missed on a cruise.

We'll be on the June 4th sailing out of Bayonne in 1278. This is our first time on Liberty since this is the first Summer that Explorer is gone from New York.

On all the Royal cruises we've been on, the passenger-accessible areas of the bow have always been pitch dark at night to allow people to stargaze. When I say pitch black I really mean it - you'll need a phone or other flashlight to navigate.

The last trip we were on I took my wife to come see the Milky Way and it was amazing. It stretched from horizon to horizon and looked almost as good as the time-lapsed pictures in Nat Geo.

You'll want to put a red-light filter on whatever flashlight you use or you'll be fumbling for her finger in the dark.

Others have covered what you can expect from the ship, but the one thing that a lot of people didn't plan for on our last cruise to Bermuda was just how late into the Fall you can actually swim.

Our last trip there was in the first half of October and the water was still great for swimming. If you're beach people, then I'd highly, highly recommend going to Horseshoe Bay.

As the father of a 2.5 year old, anything other than the beach would be money wasted.

It's a practical guarantee that our son will like sand, the water, and a pail/shovel combo, but it's anyone's guess how he'll tolerate going on any kind of excursion. In this situation, we'd make the conservative bet.

Grand Suites and above for us for a couple of reasons:

1.) The wife likes the bigger cabins.

2.) Access to the concierge lounge.

3.) The double C&A sea points.

4.) All the other perks of having the gold card like the reserved chairs on the pool deck, dedicated check-in line, etc.

It's all those little things that add up to make the extra cost worthwhile.

Just a guess: the Oasis class ships were designed to sail out of warm water ports year-round while the Quantum class were designed for colder water ports.

For instance, if you're sailing out of Bayonne in January you really don't want a ship with as much of the interior exposed as you get on the Oasis class.

Again, MDR good, but portion sizes very small - much smaller than the Mariner and Serenade.

I don't know if everyone knows this - or might just be too embarrassed to ask - but you're not limited to just one entree in the MDR.

My wife and I didn't know about it either until it was lobster night and one of our table mates asked for three servings of the lobster. Provided that there's enough for everyone to get at least one order, the remainder are there for the asking.

This was on the Explorer, too.

There's a nighttime event called The Quest.

If you haven't ever gone to it, make it a priority. I won't spoil it by telling you what it is but it's an unusual amount of fun.

Hope not. Probably the worst marketing snafu I've ever seen (well, since NEW COKE).

New Coke was only a failure if the real reason behind it was to actually sell New Coke and not completely reinvigorate sales of Coke Classic.

If it was the former, I agree that it was a failure. If the goal was the latter, however, then it was a stunning success.

EOTS is an older ship and if someone's looking for something to complain about they'll find it on her.

There is some wear and tear, the decor is certainly dated, and it lacks a lot of the bells and whistles of the newer ships, but we've sailed on her numerous times - most recently in October - and have never had cause to complain.

The one thing that I'd like to know about LOTS sailing out of Bayonne is whether or not it will extend past 2015.

Next year's cruise is already booked - June 4th on LOTS - but we're looking to start planning for 2016 and would prefer to avoid the premium for Anthem of the Seas if LOTS was an alternative.

91 until we're back on the Explorer.

I read the OP's original post twice and I honestly think that they forgot to mention where they told the whippersnappers to also stay off their lawn.

I think we've witnessed the birth of new HAL cruiser.

171 days. Our next is a 9-day Bermuda-Caribbean on the Explorer.