My Royal Caribbean Cruise!

Since most of my blog readers follow me on some form of social media, most of you already know that I went on a 7-day cruise a few weeks ago. But for those of you who don't, I'm finally getting around to updating my blog about it!

Quick blog housekeeping update: In case you haven't noticed, I've added another tab. If you are interested in reading (or re-reading) any of my previous vacation/road trip posts, you can find them all under "Rachel's Travels". 

Okay, back to my cruise. First of all: I. Had. A. Blast! This was my first cruise and I was NOT disappointed. There is SO MUCH to recap that I'm going to divide it up over multiple posts (otherwise you will be scrolling FOREVER through pictures). We won't mention about many pictures I took over the seven days (1430). Don't worry, I'm not going to post ALL of them. :)

I saw so many wonderful places and made some new friends while I was on vacation. Today's post is going to focus on the cruise ship- Liberty of the Seas. Like I mentioned earlier, this was my first cruise so I can't compare Royal Caribbean to any other cruise line, but in my opinion, I think they are fantastic. The ship itself was beautiful. Honestly when you were walking around, you would forget you were on a ship. There were stores, restaurants, shows, swimming pools, putt-putt golf, and water slides. The crew and employees were so nice and helpful. Anytime you passed one (even if you were just walking around), they made a point to say hello to you. They are all from different countries so their name badge not only had their name, but what country they are from. I loved meeting people from all over the world!

We were in one of the cheaper smaller rooms on the ship (think the level that Leonardo DiCaprio's character was on in Titanic) BUT it didn't matter since we were really only in our rooms to sleep. My sister and I shared a room and my folks had their own room. 

The floor of the elevator always had the day of the week listed so you knew what day it was!

The first day I ventured out by myself before supper (dinner, whatever) and took some pictures of the sunset. This picture does not do it justice.

Day 2 we were at sea all day. It was kinda weird to look out a window or walk on the deck and see NOTHING but water around you. I had this unrealistic fear that I was going to fall overboard. Fun fact: I refused to get near the railing at night. Something about total darkness freaked me out. I kept thinking we would hit a bump and I would fly overboard and become shark food (no, I don't know what kind of bump we would hit in the middle of the ocean, it's just how my brain works).

I wasn't kidding when I said you could forget you were on a ship. We saw a FANTASTIC ice skating show that first day. In fact, we saw it again a few days later because it was so good. These skaters were not only on a small rink while twisting, spinning, flipping, and turning at speeds I could never reach while on skates, BUT, they were on a moving ship. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but I did snap a few at the end when they were taking their bows (get it- bows...ship...nevermind, it was a corny joke to begin with).

The second night we got all dressed up fancy for supper and then caught a show afterward. The show had four wonderful singers and they were performing random musical hits.  

The had professional photographers taking pictures around the ship all week

The fifth level of the ship was the shopping level (and my mom's favorite part). There were so many stores: Jewelry. Clothes. Souvenirs. They had a general store that sold items you might have forgotten to pack (toothpaste, razors, sunscreen, Twix bars, you know, important items). There were also a few food places on this level, including a cafe and pizza parlor, all that were free (well, it was included with your ticket). If you wanted a slice of pizza at midnight, you could get one at no extra charge. I possibly ate a lot of pizza at random hours of the day/night. Lol.

This is Jovan, he's from Montenegro. He worked mainly in the general store. We had conversations about American football and basketball. He promised me that he would try and watch baseball at some point (doing what I can to convert people to baseball). :) And yes, I told him to become a Rangers fan.

There was an art gallery on the third level and most of the paintings were for sale or up for auction. My folks enjoyed the Thomas Kinkade exhibit the most, BUT we didn't buy any of them (I think the cheapest one was going for $500. Just a LITTLE out of my price range).

On days we were just at sea we spent time on the 11th and 12th level. That is where the pool, putt-putt golf course, water slides, and free ice cream were located. :) Although we didn't actually swim, we just relaxed in a chair and read. Oh, fun story about the picture on the top left of the collage below. I told you how I had this unrealistic fear of falling over. You will never know how much courage it took to have my feet practically dangling off the edge. Some of the decks had shuffleboard so my dad and sister decided to play a few games of that while my mom and I read.

My parents relaxing in a swing (that faced the water). I know, they are adorable. :)

There was a buffet type place on the 11th level called the WindJammer. It had every type of food you could think of. We ate lunch there a few times, but we usually ate in the main dining room (they served breakfast, lunch, and dinner). The main dining room was divided into three levels. We ate in the Rembrandt level (on the third level of the ship). The WindJammer and main dining room were all included in the price of the ticket- so it was all you could eat. For those wondering, I have started my post cruise diet to lose all the weight I gained on the ship. Lol.

No, I didn't take a picture of every meal. But I did have steak more than once. :) And I did pretty much have sherbet each night for dessert. Except the night that they had white chocolate mousse. 

Like I mentioned before, the staff was amazing. Starting on Day 3, our dinner reservations were at the same time so we ended up with the same wait staff each night. We loved them!

This was Daniel- he is from Romania. He was the maître d and he mainly walked around and told people they looked beautiful. He was always so sweet to my mother. One night she didn't really want anything on the menu so he said he would fix anything she wanted. He made her a chicken Caesar salad.

This was our head waiter Krisna and he's from Indonesia. If one of us couldn't make up our mind what we wanted for dessert, he would bring extras so we could try them all. He loved to make jokes too. 

This is Ping, she's from China. She was so sweet. One evening I started to feel bad during dinner so I left without eating my food (it was on a day where I had spent the whole day out in the sun without eating, so I had heat exhaustion). The next day she asked me how I was feeling (she remembered I had left early). She gave us all a hug on our last night. 

Every room had a stateroom attendant and they would make our beds each morning and then would turn down our beds in the evening. They also left the next day's agenda for us. Our attendant was a man named Dwight- he was so sweet. He was from Jamaica and anytime we saw us, he asked if we were heading out to party all night. He also left amazing towel animals for us each evening. 

On the second to last day, my dad, sister, and I got up at an ungodly hour early to go out on deck and see the sunrise (I had already seen a sunset). At first it was super cloudy and we were afraid we were going to miss it, but the sun broke through the clouds and we saw an amazing sunrise. 

It was SUPER windy that morning. I was convinced I was going to blow overboard. Lol.

I know, this was a lot of pictures today (now you see why I'm dividing my posts up). We stopped in Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica, where yes, I took a lot more pictures. I'll try and do a individual post for all of them. Tease for an upcoming post: I GOT TO SWIM WITH A DOLPHIN!!! :) 

101 in 1001 update: I can now cross off #1. Travel outside of the United States. 

XOXO!!