No More RC for us: Liberty Review

[Zou Bisou Bisou]

First off, I want to thank the OP for her review.

 

So I read (almost) every comment on this thread over a period of several days. We have sailed the Liberty 3 times. Once in 2009 out of FL to the Caribbean when she was pretty new and had no real complaints. 2nd time was out of Barcelona in the fall of 2013 for 7 nights in the Meditteranean. Was one of our favorites overall not just for the itinerary but for the service. Most recently we sailed Liberty in March for spring break with our kids and grandkids, 10 of us with five cabins.

 

I have got to say, something is a little "off" with the employees we came in contact with on the Liberty 2 months ago. We had some awesome servers as usual and compensated them generously, but for some reason the crew doesn't seem very happy on that ship anymore. I can't quite put my finger on it. Food was ok overall in the MDR. Our servers in the MDR were great (but overworked), again we compensated them generously. Specialty restaurants were very good, Sabor being excellent in service and food, we ate there twice. Just wonderful. We really enjoyed our dinner at Giovanni's and Chop's was very good but they are getting more pricey than they are worth in my opinion. Been on more than 25 Royal Caribbean cruises where I have eaten at Chops so not a biased opinion.

 

Our experience with Guest Services wasn't too bad. We rarely complain but had just a couple of small issues and they seemed to always have someone work the line, which is smart to easily deal with people with simple issues. So that worked out.

 

Derek Lewis as the Entertainer and the whole British Pub staff were awesome. We enjoyed many of the other entertainment offerings.

 

Port of Galveston needs work, but we embarked fairly easily and quickly and disembarkment is ok as long as you get a porter who were being rationed when we debarked. I was told to "step aside and wait for a porter" while I watched people coming after me, especially in wheel chairs who got porters. I took matters into my own hands after a point and flagged down a porter before they got to the "line keepers" (I have another, not politically correct name for them). He was more than happy to help us and off we went. As far as the wheel chair people getting to jump the line pretty much continuously ahead of many of us (we were a family of 10 and my husband and I are seniors), I really hate to be so critical but I will tell you I have never seen so many wheel chairs in line for porters certainly more than I ever saw on the ship. Just saying. Blast me if you will, but just because you order a wheel chair doesn't mean you get to cut in a waiting line of over 20 people.

 

Overall we enjoyed our cruise. But after 2 years of doing the Navigator out of Galveston with the ten of us for spring break (2014 and 2015) and then the Liberty in March 2016 we are planning something else for 2017.

 

Just for info, we are Diamond Plus, two of our kids are Diamond Plus and the rest of the kids and grandkids are Diamond. We have always been happy with Royal Caribbean but some things are slipping and that is just a fact. We get the Premium drink packages for the 7 adults and have been very happy with that.

 

Enjoy the Liberty out of Galveston, but take everything with a grain of salt and hopefully a Margarita from Sabor. Cheers!

[Ocean Boy]

 

I have got to say, something is a little "off" with the employees we came in contact with on the Liberty 2 months ago.

 

I am beginning to think that ships have cycles just like the economy. Indy seemed to go through this same issue a few years ago. Having sailed the ship several times there was period where something just seemed to be "off" with the ship. Whatever it was seemed to have corrected on our last couple of cruises on the ship. The first time we sailed Oasis it seemed like there were issues with management of the ship that were "off". That was corrected on our subsequent sailing aboard the ship. We have never had an "off" cruise on Navigator or Adventure.

 

Those are the ships that we have the most repeat sailings on so I can't really comment on the other ships.

[cruiselvr04]

Boarding Liberty in the morning. Spmehow even though the food is not great (which I agree with) I seem to gain at least five pounds each time I cruise. Service issues bug me more then food.

 

We shall see......I have good not great expectations.

[Clarea]

Boarding Liberty in the morning. Spmehow even though the food is not great (which I agree with) I seem to gain at least five pounds each time I cruise. Service issues bug me more then food.

 

We shall see......I have good not great expectations.

The salt air shrinks my clothes too.

[Margy23]

Lost interest when the OP mentioned the height of the peep hole as a complaint.

 

 

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I guess to people tall enough to see through the peephole it's not an issue, but I'm always just a little apprehensive when I have to open the door to find out who's there. Nothing bad has ever happened so I don't obsess over it, but I would feel safer if the peephole were low enough for me to use.

 

Margy

[TigerLady]

To me it seems that it was confusion was on your part for most of the issues you mentioned.. We had NO issues with any of the things you mentioned. We were a party of 10 with an 18 month old.. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your cruise. Hopefully you can find a cruise line better suited to your expectations/desires.

[kruzerci]

First off, I want to thank the OP for her review.

 

So I read (almost) every comment on this thread over a period of several days. We have sailed the Liberty 3 times. Once in 2009 out of FL to the Caribbean when she was pretty new and had no real complaints. 2nd time was out of Barcelona in the fall of 2013 for 7 nights in the Meditteranean. Was one of our favorites overall not just for the itinerary but for the service. Most recently we sailed Liberty in March for spring break with our kids and grandkids, 10 of us with five cabins.

 

I have got to say, something is a little "off" with the employees we came in contact with on the Liberty 2 months ago. We had some awesome servers as usual and compensated them generously, but for some reason the crew doesn't seem very happy on that ship anymore. I can't quite put my finger on it. Food was ok overall in the MDR. Our servers in the MDR were great (but overworked), again we compensated them generously. Specialty restaurants were very good, Sabor being excellent in service and food, we ate there twice. Just wonderful. We really enjoyed our dinner at Giovanni's and Chop's was very good but they are getting more pricey than they are worth in my opinion. Been on more than 25 Royal Caribbean cruises where I have eaten at Chops so not a biased opinion.

 

Our experience with Guest Services wasn't too bad. We rarely complain but had just a couple of small issues and they seemed to always have someone work the line, which is smart to easily deal with people with simple issues. So that worked out.

 

Derek Lewis as the Entertainer and the whole British Pub staff were awesome. We enjoyed many of the other entertainment offerings.

 

Port of Galveston needs work, but we embarked fairly easily and quickly and disembarkment is ok as long as you get a porter who were being rationed when we debarked. I was told to "step aside and wait for a porter" while I watched people coming after me, especially in wheel chairs who got porters. I took matters into my own hands after a point and flagged down a porter before they got to the "line keepers" (I have another, not politically correct name for them). He was more than happy to help us and off we went. As far as the wheel chair people getting to jump the line pretty much continuously ahead of many of us (we were a family of 10 and my husband and I are seniors), I really hate to be so critical but I will tell you I have never seen so many wheel chairs in line for porters certainly more than I ever saw on the ship. Just saying. Blast me if you will, but just because you order a wheel chair doesn't mean you get to cut in a waiting line of over 20 people.

 

Overall we enjoyed our cruise. But after 2 years of doing the Navigator out of Galveston with the ten of us for spring break (2014 and 2015) and then the Liberty in March 2016 we are planning something else for 2017.

 

Just for info, we are Diamond Plus, two of our kids are Diamond Plus and the rest of the kids and grandkids are Diamond. We have always been happy with Royal Caribbean but some things are slipping and that is just a fact. We get the Premium drink packages for the 7 adults and have been very happy with that.

 

Enjoy the Liberty out of Galveston, but take everything with a grain of salt and hopefully a Margarita from Sabor. Cheers!

 

This basically echoes our experience last week. Our 2009 cruise on Liberty is probably the best cruise we have taken. I've always used it as a benchmark for a great cruise, so I was so excited to be back onboard this year. It wasn't a terrible cruise, but I was disappointed.

 

There were no major issues or complaints, but it just felt off. I wasn't thrilled with the new addition to the front of the ship, which covered more of the solarium, didn't match the old part of deck 12, and took away that great forward view and deck chair space. The crew wasn't terrible, but again, just seemed off. Food quality had declined to the point that we dined in specialty restaurants 5 of the 7 nights.

 

I think if this was our first Royal Caribbean cruise I would have been turned off to cruising. Unfortunately, this was the first cruise in probably seven years that I haven't booked anything onboard. I have two short cruises booked later this year, hopefully this isn't the new norm.

 

Like I said before, Liberty always held a special place in my memory so it was so disappointing to see her decline.

[scorpluvsdolphins]

I don't gain any weight on the cruises anymore nor do my clothes "shrink".

I eat and drink whatever I want!

I drink my "pink drink" and take my block.

Email me Bob and I'll give you my secret. :-)

 

 

 

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[Clarea]

I don't gain any weight on the cruises anymore nor do my clothes "shrink".

I eat and drink whatever I want!

I drink my "pink drink" and take my block.

Email me Bob and I'll give you my secret. :-)

Misplaced your email, sorry.:o

[QA GUY]

Well said Wolfganghowell - I ditto all you said!!

 

Lerin, believe me there have been times when we have been very frustrated with happenings on the Liberty and I feel bad for some of the things you had to endure.

 

But, I would like to explain what may have caused some of the problems - I'm not saying this is an excuse but just that may have contributed to some of the mix ups.

 

The Cruise Director is responsible for the content of the Compass and scheduling of activities. It just so happened that the week before your cruise, the CD had fallen ill and was out of sorts for several days, then she had to leave the ship for personal reasons and didn't return until the ship left Cozumel on Tues, therefore, others were filling in. Also, this itinerary was a new itinerary for this ship and there was confusion ship wide as to when things would take place. Formal nights had to be changed from the previous Mon and Thurs nights and all the shows had to be switched to different days. Probably a lot of copy and paste going on with the Compass, which is not an excuse, but the CD staff is human and errors do happen.

 

We are still on the ship and just completing your itinerary again and I will say this week things have gone smoothly and the staff seem to have figured out the best days for scheduling all activities by trial and error.

 

Like I said, this is not an excuse, just an explanation of why things may not have gone smoothly.

 

We cruise a lot on the Liberty and the more we cruise the less we eat in the MDR, mainly because we are bored of the menus and have found we like to be flexible on where and when we eat. Food is so subjective and we have even found is different from week to week.

 

So sorry your vacation didn't turn out the way you expected. The Liberty, a beautiful ship, is a very family orientated and child friendly. Just sorry that you will miss all the good things RC has to offer with all their new innovative ships.

 

Happy cruising,

 

Carla

 

Just curious...is the second formal night still on Friday?

[golfpccc]

Just curious...is the second formal night still on Friday?

 

Last week formal nights were Mon and Thurs.

 

Carla

[out2c]

This should be interesting. I could only handle 1 Carnival cruise. I would pay more to not cruise on Carnival or Princess. I have been on 14 RCCL cruises and they have all been wonderful. Could never eat breakfast in the buffet on Carnival because the lines were too long.

[chrisb74]

So aside from what I've already written nothing TERRIBLE happened on this cruise, but enough things went wrong that we simply have no reason to cruise RC again.

 

This was the executive summary of our last cruise too. Lots of little bad things adding up and the complete lack of big WOWs to offset it.

 

For the first time in a while we don't have any cruises booked and no real excitement to do it.

[cowboycruiser]

This was the executive summary of our last cruise too. Lots of little bad things adding up and the complete lack of big WOWs to offset it.

 

For the first time in a while we don't have any cruises booked and no real excitement to do it.

 

Well said. This sums up our Liberty cruise as well. Promised we'd take the kids, so we will see if its any different next month.

[cruiserssandr]

I didn't know NCL had ice rinks. :confused:

They did for a very short time have a temporary outdoor rink on the Pearl. Had to put it down and take it up everyday. Hardly ever was used so the CEO, at the time, Kevin Sheehan had it removed. They haven't tried it on any on the new ships since.

[1interpreter]

I'm currently on LOS and this has been by far our best cruise we've ever been on. What ever it was that was so bad don't let your first be your last. We are very loyal to Royal and will be back for many more to come.

[cowboycruiser]

I'm currently on LOS and this has been by far our best cruise we've ever been on. What ever it was that was so bad don't let your first be your last. We are very loyal to Royal and will be back for many more to come.

 

How was getting off the ship today?