Liberty Review 11/17-11/22

[mariapd719]

Ok so this is MY OPINION and not how maybe others onboard felt. I am not only going to compare this cruise to other cruises but Im also going to compare it to past Liberty cruises.

 

Embarkation - Easy, Quick, Efficient and Friendly

 

Porters - Again Efficient and Friendly

 

Ship- What can I say its the Liberty, to me it is the best ship ever built. It was SPOTLESSLY clean. The pool/deck attendants worked their butts off. They were constantly cleaning and picking up cups, plates and towels. The bartenders kept their bars clean and free of dirty cups.

 

Entertainment - WORST entertainment of All my Liberty cruises - Id go as far as to say the 2nd worst of any ship I have been on ( Brilliance being the worst). There is NO Quest, No Love and marriage and the Ice shows were at 2pm and 4 pm :confused: Who wants to go to the Ice show at 2 pm? There were no Ice Shows at night, so we never got to go to one. We weren't leaving the pool deck to go to a show. I thought it was rather absurd.

 

Do NOT go see the juggler/ magician/ comedian who CLAIMS to have been in Batman, Austin Powers 2 and I think Tonight show. OMG He was horrendous. Left halfway thru. So Corny. We were laughing at him not with him.

 

Saturday Night Fever - great singing and dancing but I learned that I do not like plays or musicals. LOL Sorry left halfway thru that too. Not saying it wasn't good but during the acting parts I found it hokey and the yelling and arguing with the family gave me a headache. Not my cup of tea but again the actual performers and set design was amazing. If you are into plays or musicals and like the Bee Gees it is a MUST SEE!

 

Another Reason I found entertainment to lack is the Compass was badly done. Instead of say like before how it use to be listed like this

9:00 - Reggae music in Spinx - With Men of Culture

9:30 - Dance Music with "so and so"

 

10:15 - Guitar Music with Dallas at Hoof and Claw

10:45 Club Music with DJ at Catacombs

 

It had like a box under it and listed where music was, times and who but if you didn't notice that you wouldn't know where to look. I like it in chronological order right on the compass list like it had always been. I think a lot of people missed this also because every time I walked by the PUB expecting to go in and hear the guitar player no one was in there and no one was playing the guitar. My last Liberty cruise you couldn't even get in the Pub because it was so packed. Three different nights we went in sat down for 20 mins and no one ever played so we left. It was empty.

 

The movies - OMG same tired movies they play on every cruise. The Help and My Fair Lady. Sheesh come on How about Hunger Games or even X-Men- appropriate for all ages. They just kept showing over and over hundreds of times a day the same RCCL Propaganda. Spa treatments and buy another cruise and Quantum.

[mariapd719]

The White Party - Dislike! There was nothing wrong with the good old fashioned Regular Deck Party. I didn't know so many men owned white loafers. LOL I thought only Cousin Eddie from Vegas Vacation had them.... No shortage of men wearing white linen pants either...haha Past 2 Liberty cruises the deck party was sooooo much fun, this time it was so so. May have also been the people onboard

 

Crew- AMAZING The crew was just fantastic. So friendly and personable. Love love love David and Oswayne from the Sky Bar and Lesego from the Casino Bar. Great friendly crew and I have to say the Passengers were RUDE RUDE RUDE to them and they just kept on smiling. I could never do it.

 

 

Food - Didn't NOT go to MDR so cannot comment

 

Windjammer - ehhhhhh its edible but that's about it. I think Im just sick of the same old tired food cruise after cruise. Cold pancakes, hard rice , dried out potatoes..LOL However with that said the Indian on the last night was great and I loved the assortment of cheese and olives

 

Desserts - I hate literally every dessert I have ever eaten on every cruise..hahah except for the ice cream in Windjammer

 

Johnny Rockets - Good like always - fast, friendly and clean

 

BBQ in Haiti - Disgusting. Food was horrendous. There was a stray dog my husband tried to give a rib to and the dog wouldn't even take it..... :eek:

We waited in line 30 mins haha and ended up throwing most of it in the garbage. Oh well who cares we don't cruise for the food. And we didn't starve

 

Café Promenade - Not very good either - Same exact sandwiches every single night. NO Tuna wraps or egg salad wraps or mozzarella balls or yummy pasta salads. One slice of salami and cheese..lol The bread was good that the sandwiches were on. I am a vegetarian so I took the meat off ad just ate the cheese. The mediteranean sandwich was pretty good but by night 3 I d of liked something else.

 

Sorrentos - Same pizza like all the other cruise. Pretty much lived off of it all week. I don't want Pizza for a long time :)

[Lilyrosemum]

Maybe the cruise underwhelmed you because it was a 5 night instead of a 7 night? They may have cut some of your favorite things due to time restraints vs 7 night.

 

Just a thought.

[mariapd719]

Haiti - besides the yucko BBQ it is the most beautiful place on earth, In my opinion. It is my favorite stop every time on every cruise and this time was no different. Got a beautiful spot on Nellies Beach under some Palm trees and it was heaven. Water was perfect, staff was wonderful and the view is like none other.

 

Jamaica - We never got off in Ocho. Ended up falling asleep and woke up at 2pm by that time it was late so we grabbed Johnny Rockets and sat outside and admired it from a far. We were only going to go to Margaritaville anyways. Ive already done a city tour and I am pregnant and didn't want to do any of the excursions due to that. From what people onboard that did go told me, we didn't miss much. But I guess after Haiti no beach could compare

 

Debarkation - we did self carry and were off the sip by 744 am. Painless but a bit confusing. First they said deck 2 so we went there then they said sorry gotta go up to 3, did that then they were like sorry go up to 4 because people were lined up on the stairs already. (this was 15 mins before they were allowing us off so no we weren't late). We ended up getting annoyed took the elevator back down to 2 and just walked off...no one said anything to us.

 

 

Now I KNOW I will get FLMAMED for this but I don't really care and Im entitled to my opinion and I was onboard and saw this first hand. Americans were the minority on this sailing. There were probably 300 or more people from a group that only spoke Spanish. Ok fine, everything all the announcements had to be done in both. Ok, I get it but I felt some activities catered to them a bit. My opinion again.

 

Besides them there were TONS of Europeans onboard. Laying on a lounger Id say as people walked by maybe 1 in every 10 to 15 conversations I heard as people passed were in English. Ok Fine not a big deal can also deal with this, however it does make it hard to meet people.

 

So picture all these people...Now picture Muster....Now picture Noone was on time( worse than normal ) I have heard the term "Ugly American" um and I myself believed that term to be true, UNTIL this cruise. OMG I have never encountered so many rude, impatient and jerky people in all my life. I can name atleast 20 instances where the behavior I witnessed was unacceptable. I witnessed on 10 separate occasions people being so mean and impatient to the staff, it made me sick. About 7 times alone at the SKy Bar the bartenders would be literally putting ice into a cup, pouring liquor into a cup or swiping someones card (obviously taking care of a customer) and a foreigner would come and YELLL EXCUSE ME!!!! or just Shout out a Drink order. COKE, CIGARETTES, HEINEKIN. Wow really were you raised by wolves in your country? How about you (A) Wait til the bartender is done (B) acknowledges your presence and © Say Can I please have a coke? and (D) Say f'in Thank YOU. Even if you don't speak English you can still be patient and no matter what language you speak everyon knows Please and Thank you Just as much as I know Por Favor, Grazi or Merci. I couldn't imagine just walking up to a bar and demanding a drink while someone was taking care of someone else

 

 

ANother example in Haiti waited 30 mins in line for the crummy BBQ as were approaching where the plates are people started cutting in fron of us and pushing us to grab plates and jumped in front of us. We kept saying the line is back there and pointing but oh how convenient they didn't understand...apparently pointing at a line of 100 pissed off people didn't get the point across, yup ok, ignorant.

 

Again in Haiti I am now standing behind a girl filling up her cup with water. I am next in line, no one else behind me or anywhere. Woman comes out of nowhere ( again, not American) grabs a cup and stands next to the girl pouring her drink, obviously cutting me in line. She grabs the water bottle:eek: Id had enough. I took the water bottle right out of her hands and looked at her, filled up my cup and yelled MANNERS at her and then walked away. She gave ME a dirty look..:rolleyes:

 

They apparently didn't understand at all that you let the people getting out of the elevators out first before mad dashing into it. Where were they all rushing too? Isnt a cruise relaxing? What was the rush to get a drink or food or get on the elevator. Sheesh take it easy

 

Another thing too, Id see people not paying attention at all where they re going, staring at the food at the buffet while walking or at the slots or looking everywhere but in front of them. Id be like hmm they re going to walk in to me, yup here they come , yup still not looking in front, yup let me get out of THEIR way and when I did they would maybe still bump into my shoulder or my arm then have the nerve to give me a dirty look. Really??? Pay attention and oh Slow the hell down, its a vacation.

 

 

 

All in all I had a great time. I loved the ship and the crew. Did not love my fellow passengers, food or entertainment. I was happy there was a reggae band and the sky bar stayed open til 8pm. Those were the most impt things to me

[mariapd719]

My other Liberty cruise was a 5 night in Feb 2013 and it was probably one of the best cruises I ve ever been on. Definitely top 3. Another one of my fave cruises was a 5 night on Explorer to Bermuda. I think the cruise staff just did a horrible job with the planning. Instead of 2 diff juggler/ magician/ comedians , maybe have one and an evening Ice show. Makes more sense to me

Edited November 24, 2014 by mariapd719

[threekidsandadog]

My husband and I were on the same sailing as you, and I have to agree with some of you comments.

 

We too were underwhelmed about the entertainment. I did enjoy the singer, Marcus Tyrell, but I would call the other shows mildly entertaining. Not bad enough to say that my trip was ruined, but could have been better. I have only been on 2 cruises before this one (one of them RCI, one Disney), but felt that the Liberty was lacking in comparison, in this area.

 

More than that, we felt the lack of different types of entertainment, I really missed the game shows - only 2 of them the entire cruise.

 

Food - we thought the food was good. We ate in the Windjammer one night when we didn't like the look of the MDR menu (cilantro) and wasn't impressed with the quality or selection of food. All of our nights in the MDR were quite good. Maybe not gourmet, but we aren't picky. We usually skipped desserts because I absolutely loved the Cheesecake Lollipops in Cafe Promenade, so we saved room for those.

 

I didn't encounter it myself, because my husband was the usually the one at the bar, but he commented on the number of people who felt it was okay to yell at the bartender and cut in front of others. But it didn't seem specific to any nationality.

 

We talked to some of the people from that large group - there were actually 760 people with the same company there on a sales incentive trip. They were from all over, but the majority were from Mexico. I think with the amount of money they were spending of the ship, RCI did the right thing to make sure that the announcements were in Spanish too. I would be quite peeved as a company to spend the money, then find out that most of my trip winners couldn't understand what was going on. I wouldn't be surprised if the Spanish announcements weren't included in their negotiated contract with a group that size.

[nivek82]

All the bad reviews of the Liberty have me concerned now. Seams almost worse than when the Vision started the short cruises.

[Clarea]

All the bad reviews of the Liberty have me concerned now. Seams almost worse than when the Vision started the short cruises.

The ships always seem to take a few cruises to get used to cruising out of the US after being in Europe for the summer.

[jules815]

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience on Liberty. I'll be sailing on Liberty for the first time in March.

 

We experienced the same things as you did on Labadee with our recent cruiseon FOS. Someone at the picnic table next to ours was trying to feed one of the dogs that was wandering around, and the dog wouldn't even take the food. :eek: I didn't think it was bad though; pretty typical and what we expected. What we didn't expect though were the people who had no problem cutting right in front of us at the buffet line. Like there wasn't even a line, just walked right in and grabbed a plate in front of us like they were entitled and lines didn't apply to them. This happened to be the second half of a B2B we were doing, and from the first to second week it seemed like a completely different ship.

[sauvichick]

I hope things are different by the time LOS sails her 5 day Bermuda/9 day Caribbean sailings. I've heard many positives, and will look forward to Bermuda. After sailing on the Allure twice I am happy to go on a smaller that offers fewer options.