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Liberty of the Seas - Sep 18 - 25 (not live, sorry)


Bowen

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If there's a better place for this review, feel free to pull it on over there. 

We sailed out of Galveston on the 18th for our first trip in almost three years (our last was November of 2019 on Explorer). We traveled with myself (45 YO Mom, two teen boys, 68 year old grandma, and 19 year old niece). We had room 8500 at the very front of the ship.

We're only about 45 minutes from the port so we met up at my place around 9:30 to hit an 11 a.m. check in time. We took our COVID tests the day before (four of us did not take the COVID shots) and just used the pictures on our phone. 

Parking was easy, we used the Express lot right next to the port so it was a 60 second walk for me once I dropped everyone off at the drop off point. We had The Key so we carried our own luggage aboard and did not use any luggage lumpers (that's what my kid's summer camp calls them, so it's just what I think of now). The line was smooth and fast, probably 20 minutes in line, but I was surprised that there was no differentiation between classes as far as getting in line. We're Diamond, and we had The Key, so I thought for sure we'd be able to bypass some of the line, but no.  It was only when we got to the top of the stairs after going through security that we saw any signage for Key guests. We didn't use it though since all of the lines were so short, there wasn't any point. 

My youngest realized he had his pocket knife in his pants right as we were going through security. I took it from him, let security know, and they said it was fine. It's not a large knife, probably a 2" blade or so, but he always carries it so he didn't think about it. Anyhow, it was no big deal, they handed it back to me and just told me not to take it off the ship into the ports, no problem.

We showed our test pictures once, our vaccinated group member was not asked for her card, and that process was less than a minute long for the whole group.

We got some great boarding pictures and then headed to the MDR for our lunch with other Key guests. It was delicious, just a fantastic meal all around, zero complaints. They took our luggage from us at the MDR, put wrist bands on our wrists, and tagged our bags, easy peasy. We left those tags on all week long so we had them this morning at 7:30 already ready to go when we walked off the ship the moment they announced self assist could go. We were given extra tags on Day 6, but we just left them in the room since we'd kept the first ones.

The room was ready before our lunch was finished so we headed there and scoped it out. It was a nice room, a section with a bunk bed, a living room with a pull out couch, a small seating area near the closet and bathroom, and then a master bedroom. Plenty of space for the five of us, we never felt cramped and only had to scramble a little bit when we were rotating bathroom schedules. 

Our room attendant was Iwayan, he was great! He told us that we'd probably see a lot of people with his name all over the ship because in their culture the first born male is named Iwayan. He was right, there were quite a few Iwayans and it was neat to have that little bit of information.

We ate dinner in the MDR every single night, but the kids only joined us once, which was fine for me. I did get a great picture of the three of us that night and they got the freedom of Fuel, Sorrentos, and the Windjammer the rest of the cruise. The MDR food was amazing. I only had two dishes in there that I thought were less that spectacular, the Chicken Parmesan (which was good, just not great) and the gnocchi at lunch one day. I would have sent the gnocchi back if I weren't me, but I am and I hate doing that, so I just pushed it around and then had some pizza later. Everything else though was awesome!

We played BINGO three times out of four, did not win anything, boo'd everyone who stood up and shook it when they were down to one number, and clapped for the winners, except on the last day when we were told that we could boo the winners as well since we'd never see them again. We always got to BINGO an hour early to save a table, we'd play cards or dominoes while waiting for the BINGO cards to go on sale. If you want the big package (the electronic tablet thing) get there early, they sell out every time.

We went to the folding towel class, that was so much fun. You didn't get to fold towels, but the guy running it (Michael) was so funny that it was basically like a comedy show. He also gave us a passcode to tell the BINGO people so we got an extra card at the next two games. 

We saw every single show except the adult comedy on the last night, I was just too tired. 🙂 My niece went though and said it was hilarious! Alvin Wiliams was so funny! My boys went to the first show, which was family friendly, and while most of it went over the head of the youngest, the oldest laughed more than a few times. 

El Gaucho was the second show, a comedian, musician, etc. He was also hilarious. I highly recommend all of the shows if you can make it to them.

Encore was the ice show, you do need to make reservations for that so be sure to do it in your phone when you get on board. I wasn't able to make any reservations at all on my phone, but my mom was able to so she took care of it. If you don't have a reservation you have to wait in line until all of the reservation people go through, then they let you in ten at a time.

In the Air was also fantastic, I loved the way they made it look like the performers were under water, flying, etc. They all did a great job and I cannot say enough about the featured ballroom couple, just WOW! 

Saturday Night Fever had a glitch the first time we tried to see it, one of the props wasn't working and couldn't be moved off the stage so they rescheduled the show for the next day. It was great, well worth the 90 minutes, though I do see why some reviews mentioned that it could have been a little shorter. It felt a tad long after sitting through 50 minute shows all week, but still it was great.

The ship itself is in good shape, very clean. The places that need refurbishing are the textiles, room furniture, etc. The carpets are stained in much of the ship, the curtains in the rooms feel very outdated, the carpet in the room was literally threadbare on at least 10% of the entire floor, just shiny patches of weaving where the carpet used to be. All of the tile, stone, etc. is still in great shape and the staff do a fantastic job of keeping everything clean. 

My kids loved the kids club, we hardly saw the oldest at all, and the youngest would pop in and out all day on sea days and when it was open on port days. They had a lot of activities for the kids, rock wall climbing, flow rider, mini golf, dodge ball, just tons of stuff. At one point it got commandeered for a "boomer party" (this is what my 15 year old called it), so they were bummed that they couldn't use the foosball table for that time frame, but I think that only happened once. My kids told me that almost every kid in Fuel was homeschooled, that was kind of cool. We've homeschooled since the start of their education, but most of the cruises we've been on were not homeschooled kids, so it was neat to see homeschooling being so much more prominent. He told me that most were prior public school kids that started homeschooling when COVID closed the schools and they just never went back. I don't know how many were on board this time around, but probably in the area of 15-20 that were constantly hanging around with my kids and all but a few were homeschoolers.

The Windjammer food was great, very good selection and the tables weren't too hard to find. We'd walk around and find a table (people would flag you down if they were about to leave) and then one of us would sit while the others went and got food. The wait staff was excellent, always coming to refill drinks, clear your plates, etc. Sorrentos was also great and I ate second lunch in there many times. 🙂 I didn't realize they had cold food in addition to pizza. The watermelon was super tasty, as were the marinated olives. 

We didn't do any specialty dining.

We did visit Next Cruise to book a cruise out of Galveston for November of 2023 on board Harmony. We didn't make an appointment so it was about a ten minute wait, but that was no big deal.

The shops on board were great, we bought a few things here and there, sunglasses, hats, a light jacket, stuff like that. The prices didn't seem crazy and the staff were very helpful. 

On the last night I needed more envelopes for extra tipping, they keep them in little holders on the counter at Guest Services so they're very easy to get to without waiting in line. 

We didn't do any excursions, just in case you were wondering why I didn't mention any. We did get off the boat in Grand Cayman, but we just walked around for a few minutes before heading back to the boat.

We did ride the water slides! Tidal Wave was so much fun! The body slides were not for me, I don't know what the deal was but I could not lay down and make it down the slide. I had to sit up and push myself down, so I just rode the one time. 

Debarkation was also very easy. We carried our luggage down to four instead of trying to take an elevator and it was no more than five minutes from the time we left our room to the time we got off the ship, another five after that and we were in the car headed home. My mom had to stay back to pay $3 for some rum she'd purchased in Cozumel.

It was a fantastic cruise, we would definitely go on Liberty again, and I hope they refurbish her soon because she's certainly earned it. 🙂

The Bad: The internet was terrible, just awful. It was frustrating to have paid money for it. You could not stream, no way, they shouldn't even sell it for anything other than surfing.

Update: My oldest son started running a fever last night. I tested him for COVID this morning, but that's not it, so it's something else. He says it doesn't matter, he had a great time and he'd do it again. 🙂 It's like old times! 

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@Bowen I am so VERY happy that it all went smoothly for you and that you had a fun cruise !  I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you came back with a good report on the embarkation process, being unvaxxed.  It sounds like it was painless !  Yippee !

Were you aware of any unvaxxed doing a B2B ?  I’m wondering how the turnaround process went for testing for cruise #2.  I was told by 2 different CSR on the phone (for which I generally have a very low confidence level) that they will simply allow you to do another unproctored self-test in your room the last night (or so) before the turnaround and then present that at check-in #2.  I would love to have that intel confirmed by someone who actually did it…

Anyway, welcome back and congratulations on getting through all of this and remaining unvaxxed !  That is quite an accomplishment. 

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I don't know of anyone who was unvaxxed doing a B2B. I met one couple doing a B2B, but it sounded like they were vaxxed since they'd been on a few since the start of the year. I would think it would be exactly the same as a vaxxed going though, like whatever those rules are? So if vaxxed have to test at the start of a B2B then maybe there are special rules for unvaxxed as well, but if not then I'd think you'd be able to just take another self test in the room right before or a few days before.

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