It was a fun experience, we will probably be sticking with Carnival, just for the food purposes. We love food guys! Nothing was wrong, nothing made it bad, just expensive once you get on board, after you've already paid for the cruise.
Embarkation
3 out of 5
It took us an hour an a half to get on board standing in the longest slowest line ever. It was warm in the building, and there were only 4 or 5 metal detectors open! After you got through that, it was a breeze!!!
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
2 out of 5
If you've ever been on a Carnival ship, the food is AMAZING and PLENTIFUL! On Libery of the Seas however, your choices were very limited. Either MDR or Buffet for big foods, and The Pizza Place or The Cafe. The main dining room service was 15/10 fantastic! Jonathan and Armiko! The food however was just okay. Deserts AMAZING! If you went to the MDR be prepared for at least an hour to hour and a half dinner. We missed so much as far as activities.
The buffet, basically the same foods every single day. Sub par Continental Breakfasts, plain Lunches, except one day we had tacos! The chicken fajita was fantastic! The dinner in the buffet was also the usual, same plain things, and if you wanted anything GOOD and sweet. You weren't finding it in the windjammer.
We went to Sabor which was just A step up from the other foods on board. Exceptionally pricey compared to Carnival as well. We bought 1 refreshment package, and just shared it the whole cruise. DEFINITELY got our money's worth there! We only got the soda/mocktails package because we brought Rum Runner on board. 👍
However had we not purchased a package I'm not sure we'd have been able to find free drinks anywhere except in the Windjammer, when it was open! Because they do lock the doors when it's not in use. Otherwise you're stuck buying water bottles which are like $4 a bottle! With our drink package we picked up a bottle at every bar when we passed, and stored it in our 55° fridge to take off for excursion!
Onboard Activities
4 out of 5
There wasn't a ton to do on board that wasn't covered up when open, or closed. We did get to ice skate, it was hard with all the people on the tiny rink, but fun watching my husband wobble on the wall with the kids!
ROCKWALL: N/A
FITNESS CENTER: 🤣 N/A
WATER SLIDES/PARK: N/A
SPORTS COURT: Played on it one time, got super nasty everything was covered in a black film, and it was always wet! But fun when you got to play basketball for a game, then quickly realize how out of shape you are.
Battle of the Sexes: Waste of Time, but the only thing going on at the time.
Shows: WOW WOW WOW! Blew us away! Way better than Carnival! However there were like 3 on repeat for 8 days! Get there at least 30 minutes early for a seat.
POOLS: Used one pool in the Solarium, it was packed full of drinks constantly. When it was open. I'm 5'4 and had to stay to the wall I was about 2 foot from the bottom of the pool! 🤣 my husband had to help me out! He is 6ft and it was even deep for him!
HOT TUBS: BOILING! I loved it, bit my husband said it would've melted his face. They were busy, but we only used them on port days after our excursion anyways.
CASINO: Incase you didn't know, like us, Royal Caribbean ships take actual cash not just your seapass cards. Also, it prints you a ticket if you choose to pull money out early. You can feed it into another machine later. The biggest winner on our cruise won like $300 after spending $500+. We lost like $200 in an hour, and didnt go back in there lol! The quarter machine was addicting as heck!
Entertainment
5 out of 5
As I said above WOW WOW WOW! The shows were beautiful, amazing, and well produced! Blew Carnival out of the water. But there were like 3 on repeat the whole time. And not much to do otherwise.
Service and Staff
5 out of 5
Our Main Dining room servers Jonathan and Armiko were Great! They were good conversation, and even showed us a few tricks onboard! Service was amazing!
Our room steward. We never saw her after the first initial meeting, our room was always clean and great! The strangest thing to me was, if we ever saw any staff in the hallway, we'd say hi, how are you, standard greetings and such. Never got a response from anyone, no smiles,nothing! It's weird to me because on Carnival we could talk to everyone in the hallways, they smiled, they greeted, super nice!!
It wasnt awful, I just thought it was strange.
Ship Quality
4 out of 5
The ship was clean, smelled some awful smells every now and then. The rails were not very taken care of. The stain and lacquer was off most of them, they were rough and looked sad...
Cabin / Stateroom
5 out of 5
Clean, never had any noise, never felt movement.
Ship tip
Take cash, Buy a refreshment package, make friends!
We self embarked, our ticket said be there at 8, we got everything packed and ready and decided to just leave our stuff in the meeting area and walk around one last time before we had to go. Well, we showed up to the Dining room on 4, our meeting place, at 7:30! There was a line all the way to the casino waiting to get off the boat! Needless to say we got in line immediately. It took about an hour to get off once we finally started moving.
I thought entertainment and activities were better on RC (love the flow rider). I like the food better on Carnival. The food also seemed more accessible on Carnival. Love Guys and the Blue Iguana.
My first RCCL cruise was my least expensive to date, barely spent any additional money. So I find it misleading when reviews state that you are needing to spend extra once onboard; it's not true. Yes, all mainstream lines push for additional revenue, but you can decline. I rarely eat in the buffet for the experience that I prefer at sea, but repetitive food is fairly common knowledge. Thanks for sharing your experience and enjoy your future Carnival adventures.
What expenses were extra on board? We travel with Royal Caribbean and other cruise lines all the time and rarely pay for anything extra other than the basic cruise fare and tips/service charges. The only things I’m aware of that are extra are things that you choose to do over and above the basic fare - soft drinks, alcohol, excursions, shopping, casino, spa, etc. None of these are required and we have a great time without any of those.
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