Just Back From Liberty OTS

[carkosh]

First off, I'm not the greatest of reviewers so this will be kind of a "semi" review. This was only our 2nd RCL cruise (the 1st was the Sovereign many yrs ago); however, this was our 21st cruise; the others on various lines. We were a little nervous about the size of this ship as we had never been on a "giant" ship. Shouldn't have worried; we thought that "crowd control" was great! (And, a gorgeous ship, to boot!) And, after 21 cruises, I can count this one in our first top 5!

 

Some highlights:

 

1. Staff was great; very friendly & helpful!

 

2. Our M&M group was also great! Very friendly group; we saw many of them at various times throughout the cruise; usually we never see anyone again after the meet-up.

 

3. We stayed in an OS this time (yes, we were very lucky this time). Fabulous suite, large balcony (4 lounge chairs, 2 regular chairs next to table), large living area with table & chairs, fabulous bathroom with separate jacuzzi tub & shower. Anyone able to book one of these is lucky indeed! (Only complaint was our attendant; she tried but we think she had too many cabins, including all the port side suites by herself; a couple of nights we didn't even get nightly service, which is 1st time that's ever happened to us, no matter what kind of stateroom we were in. However, we certainly "survived" lol.) Concierge Lounge: fabulous room with great Concierge (Anthea)! We used this room for our morning coffee, juice & on several nights for "happy hour"...great bartender here!

 

4. Ice Show: don't miss! Best show I've ever seen on any ship! We didn't go to any other shows so I can't review those.

 

5. Hoof & Claw Pub-located on the Promenade. We thought it was the best looking bar/lounge; it had a definite English Pub feel & the nightly entertainer was great! It is a smoking bar (and, yes DH & I do smoke; please no flaming LOL) but there were alot of non-smokers there every night & the smoke didn't seem to bother them. But, then again, the entertainer was so good that I think that the non-smokers didnt care.

 

6. Casino Bar - DH loves to gamble on ships (& yea, he won this time!!!) so we spent alot of time here. The 2 bartenders were the best, we thought, on the ship. Sorry, can't remember names but they definitely got a big "Kudos To" from me on the survey. I hope they're still assigned to this bar! We met so many great people here too!

 

7. Rembrandt DR - beautiful! Had 2 great waiters, (Late Seating), both from Turkey (sorry, I've gotta start writing down names lol...I've always had a hard time remembering names). They got a big "Kudos To" on our survey! Next cruise we're going to try anytime dining just to see what its like.

 

8. Specialty Restaurants - Portofinos, very nice, good food altho we really liked Chops much better! I will only mention this one complaint for future diners: I made these reservations a couple of months ago online. A couple of days after sailing I noticed (finally lol) that we had gotten no reminders. Went to Anthea, our Concierge, turned out our reservations were "lost"; fortunately, she was able to rebook them after alot of work! Please take your confirmations with you in case this happens to you; I will from now on! Not the restaurants' faults; I think there was definitely a computer glitch here although it also happened to us on a Celebrity ship last year. I've definitely (finally) learned to take those confirmations & check on the reservations as soon as we board!

 

Ok, dryer is screaming at me lol! I think I got to most of the highlights of our cruise; any questions I can help with ask away. I'll try to answer as many as I can! And, btw, embarkation & disembarkation (boohoo lol) were the easiest we've ever encountered!

 

Carol

[cincicruisers]

Thanks for posting review. I was on the ship 5/2 and loved the ship. That ice show was amazing. Did you have the guest performers from the circus with the hoops?? They were amazing!

[carkosh]

We did have 1 guest performer during the ice show. He performed on a contraption called a "Moscow Circus". It was a circular kind of thing (kinda hard to explain) where he rolled across the ice in different positions...pretty spectacular!