The Good, The Bad, The Ports and the Ugly of inter-porting on Liberty Of The Seas

[nomad098]

The Good, The Bad, The Ports and the Ugly of inter-porting on Liberty Of The Seas

Family 2 adults and 3 children aged 9, 5 and 5

 

We chose to book this ship departing from Toulon instead of Barcelona based purely on price and cabin availability.

 

The Good

 

Junior Suite’s were fantastic; we had two of them, loads of closet space, comfy beds, large rooms and good sized balconies with 2 chairs a table and 2 loungers (rooms 1670 and 1378)

 

Room stewards were fantastic, especially mine helpful and friendly the kids loved her

 

The food I know can be very subjective but we ate in MDR, Windjammer, Jade, Sorrento’s, The Cup Cake Factory and the Promenade Cafe and as a family of five we never went hungry, something’s we liked some we did not

 

Drinks expensive but large measures no need to ask for a double and a good variety of alcoholic beverages but lacking in the non alcoholic department on the menu

 

The ship it’s self is huge and we had great fun exploring it

 

We made reservations to see different shows but cancelled as we were having so much fun being on the ship time keeping proved nearly impossible

 

Cannot praise the Adventure Ocean staff enough great with the kids, the kids wanted to be there all the time

 

Pools though cold at first you got use to it very quickly

 

There was a large mix of nationalities on the ship which we found to be very good

 

Muster drill quick and efficient, we were in the Sphinx lounge for about 10-15 minutes while they gave the safety drill very painless

 

Booking Smartcruisetours for Rome

 

 

The Bad

 

As far as the ship goes we could not fault it no complaints

 

Some of the French custom officials lived up to the French stereotype rude, obnoxious and arrogant or maybe they are just civil servants

 

Inter-porting RCI has still not quite come to grips with inter-porting though we never felt badly done by but it was the little things they need to get on top of, charging for towels 2 days before we were due to leave a quick phone call resolved the issue, having to chase down our official photos because they took them all away on Barcelona morning, my wife’s room steward thinking we were leaving in Barcelona, getting back on the ship in Barcelona the staff wanted us to go queue with those embarking in Barcelona they did not seem to grasp that we had already gone through the process once a quick word with a supervisor and we were ushered through to the ship, the rooms being closed off Barcelona morning and guest relations not sure if we could have access spoke to deck security and no problem getting to our rooms, trying to find our bags on disembarkation spoke to staff outside and they had no idea and did not seem to understand that we were leaving, final found them in the arts and craft marquee.

 

I guess you could put it down to a lack of communication and understanding on the behalf of the staff that their ship was inter-porting

 

The Ports

 

Toulon a working French port and the French navy’s main base in the Med our starting point

 

Villefranche the prettiest port we stopped at as it was a tendered port it was very scenic to look out from the ship to see a pretty French town we chose to stay on the ship and enjoy it.

 

Livorno an Italian working port not pretty but the jump off point for Florence and Pisa took the shuttle into town and then a bus for Pisa total cost for a family 2 adults 3 children 70 Euros money well spent.

 

Civitavecchia the jump off point for Rome again the port it’s self is a working port so not very pretty, though they are working hard to beautify the promenade. Here we took an excursion with Smartcruisetours the best money we spent on the cruise the driver was brilliant, knowledgeable, prompt and efficient. He took us everywhere we had asked to go on our itinerary and showed us a lot we had not considered asking for.

 

Naples again another working port but slightly prettier than the previous 2. Unfortunately this is when the weather turned against us though still warm it turned wet and windy we forgo our planned trip to Pompeii and stayed on the ship and had fun. That night we were treated to a lightning storm of in the distance and choppy seas.

 

Sea day bright and breezy would be the best description had lots of fun on the ship

 

Barcelona the prettiest of the working ports spent the morning walking round the city and along the harbour until it got to hot then back to enjoy the ship

 

And finally the ugly and that would be me if I cannot go on another cruise again soon

[ebonybee]

It appears the GOOD outweighed the bad or the ugly.

[jessicalorene]

We boarded at Valencia instead of Malaga last year for a cruise and I agree with you about inter-porting - the small details we a bit lost on us. IT was depressing to have all the farewell stuff going on when we still had another two days ahead of us

[T.O.cruisers]

Thanks for a great review. I'll be on the LOS next week. Our Villefranche stop has been replaced with Cannes, a little disappointing. Glad you all had a great time. Hope you'll be cruising again soon.

[lakelorain]

Enjoyed your candid review. Nice to know what to expect as we enter each port on our LOS cruise next month.

Thank you.

[LBumb]

great job

[nomad098]

Thank you for all the replies