DragonOfTheSeas

I did not see it either on my Jewel planner.

This walk concerns me too. We visited in March during the construction. We were berthed a good distance from the entrance. They told us on the ship there was transport back and forth. But at the port when we asked, they said no. Maybe it was just that day--but, it was a long walk for DH.

What does the thermal suite consist of on this class. I have a B2B on Jewel in Oct/Nov. I have been to thermal suites on Celebrity. I love the heated loungers. I am not much on the sauna.

Generally speaking, you can drop off bags first and then park off site and come back--if you want to do it that way. However, it is often more trouble than it is worth to do that. There can be a long line getting into the port. You would then be in that line twice. It would help to know which port you will use.

It has been my experience that the top tier parties are now a sit-down event in the theatre. The waiters pass drinks as people enter and the band plays on stage. Some staff is introduced and sometimes the Captain has spoken. Top cruisers and new Ps are introduced and pictures taken. They are not parties at all. DH never attends anymore.

I second the promenade and the solarium. Both areas will be quiet and each has its own positive. The Promenade will be warm and feel tropical. I enjoy that to quietly look at the ocean. Before we booked balconies we used this spot afternoon and evenings. [can be windy] The solarium is a good spot to read. I use a Kindle, so the light is not a problem for me. Since the Vision is sailing from Baltimore I will mention that I find the pool deck too cool in the evening on the trip to and from Baltimore most of the year. [not sure about your sail dates or itinerary] Also, they often have a movie on the big screen and it can be loud. JMHO

Our cruise was from Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore. A number of passengers were successful in getting appointments using this number. This was true for some on our cruise. Some of them got help from their congressional reps. The whole passport situation is a big issue for travel. I hope it is resolved soon. Our DS's family will take their first cruise in October. They just applied for passports this month. Fingers crossed they arrive in time. They can cruise with birth certificates + ID but would rather not go that route.

FYI I was on a reposition cruise in May that required a passport. [I have mine] Many of the passengers did not know they would need this. They had cruised [some of them] many times with ID and a birth certificate. A few months before the cruise passports became a topic of conversation and that is when many realized they needed them. This was a huge topic on FB and CC roll call for months. Some called RCL and were told they did not need a passport. [but they did] This delayed those further. In the end all of the non-passport book holders applied and expediated the applications and paid for rush shipping. A few passengers did not get the passports by a few days before the cruise and cancelled because they had pre-cruise air travel/hotel reservations and wanted to cut their losses. I really felt sorry for them. Others got them within a week or two of travel. They also mentioned the status online never changed. As it became near our travel date there were a few tactics that were used. Calling a congressional rep seemed to really speed things along. There is a number to call on the online passport site, but you must be within 2 weeks. It was reported they really did not want to hear from you until 1 week before travel. Others called arranged in person visits to an official passport office. Some drove several hours to do this. In the end, almost everyone got a passport except those that were traveling before the cruise and would not be home to receive a last minute mailing of the passport. I will say that at least one person used a passport card to board the ship and was not stopped. i am not suggesting that. It is not supposed to be acceptable for an open loop cruise. However, he posted that it worked for him. YMMV It was taking at least 12-14 weeks to get the expedited passports.

HaHa! It was not my favorite cruise. Love the Liberty ship. It was large enough to have lots to do but smaller than the Oasis class. However, the 3-day weekend cruise had way too many unsupervised kids and passengers getting their money's worth out of their drink package. Only booked this to be a B2B with a Vision cruise leaving the day we got back. The first group was 16 women all dressed in New Years Eve worthy glitz and glamour. The second group arrived not even 5 minutes later and they looked like a large family/friend group. The 2 groups did not appear to be together but were seated side by side. [These tables could always be reserved for big parties].

Here is a thread with an email. Cruisegus gives good advice.

We were on the Liberty last month. We had My Time dining and we seated at a table for two in an alcove near the entrance to the kitchen. [table location was fine--not complaining] There were two very long tables made by pushing several rectangle tables together. Shortly after we arrived two different parties of about 15 passengers arrived and were seated at those tables. So, this can be done. It depends on the ship if it will be done. Does anyone in your group have status? I know it shouldn't matter; however, suites and pinnacles sometimes get better results.

We had a one-day strike happen, too. [lots of drama last summer--pack your patience if you are flying] Last July we arrived at Dulles International Airport for our flight to Stockholm via Munich. We went to the United lounge to wait. the agent there told us they could not let us fly out to Germany. What we said? they told us Lufthansa was having a one-day strike and they could not fly us to Germany and leave us stranded. After all we had been through [cancelled and rescheduled flight] and the many flight issues last summer we could not believe it. However, we were lucky. they called Lufthansa to see what they could do. Since our flight arrive the next morning in Munich and it was only a one-day strike we were OK. We had scheduled 4 days in advance to see Stockholm, so we felt we would not miss out cruise if we were delayed. These one-day strikes show the powers that be what would happen if they had a real strike to deal with. I will say that Lufthansa did not have a longer strike. So, maybe it worked.

We had our flight for our Baltic cruise cancelled last July, also. Air2Sea rescheduled and gave us an upgrade. It was a very stressful times. But, they made it work. Good luck.

I did not have a coffee card. But, I will say there is not any official Starbucks kiosk onboard. It was Cafe Latte-tude. They were selling coffee cards. If they are selling them in your planner, you should be able to use them. Otherwise, why sell it to you? 🙄 JMHO

What is the question? We disembarked on May 11. I think that would qualify.

We went out on the Promenade deck almost every day. But I did not try to walk around it. Sorry.

Yes, we had a tropical/Caribbean night. Almost everyone had on Hawaiian shirts or tropical clothes. There was also a white night later in the cruise. Maybe 25 percent of passengers did that. We had two dress your best nights. Passengers mostly dressed up. Women wore dresses or pants and nice tops. Men had on dress pants and dress shirts or polo type shirts. I did not see a single man in a tux. There were some women in long dresses with lots of bling. There was enough of a variety that anyone would feel comfortable in whatever they wore.

Thank you all for your kind words and encouragement. Cruising is my favorite way to vacation. We have a couple of land vacations scheduled for this summer, so our next cruise is in October from Cape Liberty [Bayonne, NJ] to Canada. We did a similar cruise in late 2019 just before the Covid break in cruising. [I now relate everything to "before Covid" and "after Covid." 😊] There is one additional port on the Canada trip. I always look forward to new ports. We booked this cruise while onboard the ship. I like the onboard credit and the reduced deposit you get. Some people say why bother? You are going to pay the same price eventually. I say I would rather keep my money until final payment. We booked another cruise on the ship. This one is for March 2023 on the Anthem from Cape Liberty, NJ. We have not sailed that class of ship before, and this will be our adult DD first cruise. Here are just a couple final thoughts. I liked the Liberty of the Seas as a ship a great deal. It had most of the bells and whistles of the oasis class without being quite as large. I did not really like the 3-day cruise atmosphere. I would book that ship again for a longer cruise. Doing a side to side was not difficult. Having the Royal Caribbean shuttle was an added bonus. However, we were prepared to just take a taxi. I would book one of these again. It was a good way to get two different experiences for one air fare. I look forward to sailing on the Vision while she is in Baltimore. We enjoy the quiet atmosphere of smaller ships. Small ships generally have an excellent crew and great service. We found the service on the Vision to be good, but, a couple of things were just fair. They will need to up their game. Passengers from Baltimore are generally veteran cruisers that go there because they do not fly or it is close to home. They are used to the service on Grandeur and the Enchantment.

We have My Time Dining and have had the same waiters/head waiter each night. We liked the service the first night and asked to be seated in their section for the cruise. . . and we were. I miss the added variety of the old menus. However, we always found something we wanted and the food taste was good. I do feel there are some cutbacks, especially veggies. Note the size of broccoli and carrots serving. 🙄 I am not going to post the various menus. They are available in the app from anyone's phone [even from home]. This was the Caribbean menu. There were a few new things--for example, this goat cheese tart. It was small but had a very nice flavor And of course, the French onion soup is a favorite. Here is the shrimp dish from Caribbean night. It was very good. The only dessert I ordered that I did not care for was the Sticky pudding on UK night. We did not find that there were no substitutions as some people had reported. I had asked and gotten baked potatoes twice and DH asked for mashed potatoes on a night they were not on the menu at all. However, they are available with the extra cost filet and the waiter got him some of those. DH also got fruit salad from the kids menu. So, I do not feel the wait staff is not allowed to make changes. We found dinners to be good. Some dishes were excellent and only a couple were not to my liking. That happens at some land-based restaurants. So, I considered dinner a positive experience. YMMV Food is a very personal.

Lunch: We ate lunch in that Park cafe 3 times . . . Once I realized they were open. They have a small but nice salad bar. With one protein each day. The pizza is thin crust and was not bad. Not as good as on land, but DH was happy. They had some pre-made sandwiches that looked good and other people were ordering them. But I didn’t have any. I did try one of the beef sandwiches. And I found the beef to be very tough. I didn’t order it again. They had a nice selection of fruit, desserts, and 2 soups each day. I am a big soup fan. The windjammer have the usual hamburgers, hotdogs, salami, cheese, and sandwich, spreads along with various breads and soups. There was also a salad, bar and fruit opposite the hamburger and hotdog stand. There was a pasta bar each day and a couple of the day as they had stirfry. There is one thing I noticed about the Windjammer. Those who are familiar with the Windjammer know that it has a circular center section and it used to have serving stations around the perimeter of the circle and then a smaller section in the center of the circle. Now the perimeter food stations are all gone, and there is a line of tables inside what used to be a serving area. The center of the circle is mostly breads and desserts with a few food items. I found they were less hot food items offered at lunchtime. DH said the hamburgers are better than they were. We found lunch food. They are to be mostly good, and we eat in the Windjammer most days for lunch. we went to the main dining room on the second day for lunch. And while the food was good, it took us an hour and 45 minutes to get our food and eat. That was just too long. But, we tried it again today to see if the service was better. Today it only took an hour and a half, but we feel that still too long for lunch. They were long lags between courses. this was today’s menu The variety is good, and the food was good. This is the steak frites and here’s the spaghetti Bolognese I think desserts are generally better than they were in the past. I often felt they looked better than they taste it. But many of these desserts were really very good. But the service is just so slow. we were seated at a table with two other parties. And our headwaiter from the evening came by. By chance he was also the head waiter of one of the other parties. We discussed the service with him and he said he wasn’t sure what they were going to do on the next cruise. That we only had 1800 passengers on this cruise and there would be 600 more on the next cruise. We asked if there would be any additional staff once they got to Baltimore and he said no, that likely they would increase the length of time for breakfast and lunch by 30 minutes. The Tutti salad used to be my favorite on sea days. But that’s no longer available.

I am going to start my discussion about food. That is always a big topic on cruises. . . and Royal Caribbean has just launched their new menu in March. I will start with Breakfast. Breakfast has always been a favorite meal of mine. I like almost all types of breakfast food traditionally eaten in the US. Although, I usually just have yogurt or an English muffin at home. So, on the ship I look forward to breakfast. I was not disappointed. Ate three breakfasts in the windjammer, 2 in the Park Cafe and the rest in the main dining room. We liked the food in all three places. In the Park Cafe The premade sandwiches [eggs + ham, breakfast burrito, etc] were not the best. But, the yogurt parfaits, fruit, pastries, etc were a good light breakfast. The windjammer served pre made items and had an egg-to-order station. [omelets, etc] The days we were there did not have corned beef hash and I missed that. The main dining room had the same menu everyday--but, plenty of variety. Breakfast service was pretty fast. But, I must admit we usually arrived within the first half hour of service. I did not take many pictures of the food because I am not awake in the morning. 😉 This was DH omelet the first morning. It was too well done. But, the other days it was fine. Everything is served with the hash browns.  My favorite breakfast was the market vegetable breakfast bowl. It was two fried eggs served over sautéed veggies. I could have eaten those veggies each night for dinner. My one disappointment at breakfast was the raisin bread--or as I thought of it, the no raisin bread. The sweet bread was tasty, but it is nothing like the raisin and cranberry bread they used to serve. We tried about half the items between us in 10 days. If breakfast is a hit, lunch is a bit of a miss.

🤣 🎈 that’s a good analogy, but it was still a lot of fun.

I’ve never seen this activity before on the ship. It’s kind of a fun fair in the center on the children are having a great time. there are games like golf, Jenna, etc. and demonstrations. They’re even demonstrating how to make beds using cots. That’s something that I’ve got down pat. Ha ha ha. Magic tricks balloon animals for children this was a good way for crew to showcase their skills And for guests to have fun.

I have been looking for ducks around the ship. But I am obviously not a very skilled observer. But one of our Facebook members gave me this duck. 🦆 Thank you!!

The ship serves Lavazza coffee in the restaurants, and I find it is pretty good. The coffee shop onboard is called Cafe Latte-tudes. These coffees are not free. I am fond of their Americano and the iced caramel macchiato. 😁☕ Here is a price list. They are no more expensive than on land. Cafe Latte-tudes shares a counter with the Ben and Jerry's ice cream. [There is a soft serve machine outside the windjammer available all afternoon and ice cream is on the menu each night in the dining] room.