ukintheus
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2009
Welcome to anyone that might follow along. This is our first RCI cruise after 14 DCL cruises and I enjoy doing trip reports (mainly as a reminder to myself of our vacation) and luckily enough the DIS has a Royal Board so here goes!A little background on us - skip this if you already know us.
We are DINKS (double income no kids) and have precious few vacation days to use each year. We typically cruise when kids are in school, and we typically don’t utilize many of the things available on the cruise other than our cabin, the pool, the dining rooms and the various bars. We had been mulling around the thought of a RCI cruise out of Galveston and originally booked one in April 2017 but an offer came out for this sailing and so we booked it. Liberty of the Seas is a Freedom Class ship on RCI and had gone through a fairly extensive dry dock at the beginning of 2016 adding several features, such as water slides and FlowRider as well as other things that I didn’t really pay attention to. For $400 more than a typical 7 night for the two of us on DCL out of Galveston in a 5B verandah, we got a Junior Suite, all inclusive premium drink package (Ultimate Package which includes beer, wine, cocktails, bottled water (still and sparkling), specialty coffee and juices), and 4 nights of specialty dining. 
Trip insurance was also included but that's a wash as we also do trip insurance on DCL. A Jr. Suite doesn't have any real suite perks other than priority boarding and double points. There is no concierge included with it unlike all the other suites, but it was $1,000 cheaper than the concierge suites. So, with background over, it's time to sail and here's a bonus picture of us so you know who you are looking at. 
We are particularly happy in this photo because we had just got back onto the Wonder as part of our first back-to-back last year. 
I have to add some pre-cruise stuff in here as there were a few things that were different and I may as well get all the boring text over with.
One thing that I immediately loved was that I could pre-purchase a drink package and a dining package online, and have it paid for months before our cruise. I also liked that the booking window was the same for everybody (at least it appeared that way to me) and I didn’t have that pressure of the “gotta check in and get my reservations” this time, which was nice. The other difference pre-cruise is that you don’t get a nice little packet in the mail with RCI like you do with DCL. You print your own luggage tags and your cruise packet is downloaded from the internet. It was easy and not a big deal, but the fun of finding those luggage tags in your mail box is really nice.
The first big difference was that once we boarded we were immediately approached, just like you are on DCL, but this was to try and sell us the beverage package instead of trying to help you figure out what's open for lunch etc. 
It wasn't over the top, just different. 
We went up to Deck 5 and took a look at the Promenade area which was a hive of activity - again with quite a few sales pitches for upgraded dining and drink packages, but not so pushy that it was annoying. 
The main pool was much larger and the splash zone was also very large. 
). I had read that we would be assigned our restaurants and times and that we could change them once we got onboard. This wasn’t the case for us though. I asked about it when we boarded and was told that there weren’t any reservations and that we could make them for whenever we wanted. Before we entered Windjammer for lunch, there were people from Chops and Giovanni’s outside and so we booked Chops for Monday and Giovanni's on Wednesday night. I still needed to make the other two reservations (we had a 4 night package) but we decided to see what we felt like doing later in the week. The Mexican restaurant, Sabor, was the third available option and we were going to double up for the fourth night once we figured out which one we liked the best. 
The bar tender up there was called Hugh and he was from Falmouth, Jamaica and so we chatted to him about our trip there last year. We ended up at the Solarium, which is the equivalent of Cove area, and found a couple of comfy loungers until the announcement was made that the staterooms were ready just before 12:30 pm. 
We went off to find our home for the week, deck 9 forward. 9234 was our cabin number and we had stuff in our "not a fish extender" thingy already! 
so we elected to watch from our verandah. 
Ha ha.
You can also see all the tankers that are lined up to get into the Houston ship channel. It's a busy place out there!
I know this is one of those times when you really needed to be there....but we must have looked really funny trying to figure out where this music was coming from. 
It was getting a bit chilly sitting by the ice so we walked up to the Promenade and found our way into the Hoof and Claw pub where we enjoyed a cocktail (or three). 
We watched a little TV before calling it a night. The seas were very calm and there was very little movement. It also struck me how quiet the cabin was compared to DCL. There was no creaking, banging or any noise of any kind. 
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