Welcome to the Royal Caribbean Blog podcast, a weekly look into the world of Royal Caribbean cruising.

I'm your host Matt Hodgeberg, and this is episode number 67.

Let's go back to Europe this week as we welcome back our friend Donald, who recently returned

from his Liberty of the Seas, Western Mediterranean Cruise.

Let's discuss what Donald and his family did on Liberty of the Seas, what they liked,

and how their port adventures went.

Here we go.

Joining me once again on today's show is Donal Cavanon.

You may remember Donal because we talked to him back in episode 63, where we kind of talked about European cruises in general, and Donald was just about to go on Liberty of the Seas on a nice excursion on a seven-night Western Mediterranean cruise out of Barcelona. Welcome back to Royal Caribbean Blog, Donal. Thank you, Matt. And, of course, Donald, you're back from your seven-night Western. And this was on Liberty of the Seas. And, you know, Liberty Seas is a beautiful ship. And we were talking a little bit about it, previewing it on the last episode you were on. But that was, you know, kind of like I said earlier, it was a mix of talking about European cruises in general and then also your cruise. But this is all about your cruise, talking about your experience and sharing it with us. So let's talk about your time on Liberty of the Seas. Let's start with general thoughts. Good cruise, thumbs up.

What were your general thoughts going into it? And how did your expectations get met or not met?

Absolutely wonderful cruise, Matt. I would have to say our expectations were in fact exceeded.

We did know what to expect. As I said before, we had been on freedom. We have done a Western Caribbean run out of Port Canaveral on Freedom. So we were familiar with the Freedom Class. We knew it was going to be a good ship. Obviously, we'd research the ship. We'd looked up the YouTube videos. But as you well know yourself, as all our listeners will know, of course, no YouTube video, no reading a book, no looking at a

picture is going to match that wonderful feeling you get when you see and step on board a ship

for the first time. And Liberty is in absolutely top-notch condition. I saw a post on

Cruise Critic this week suggesting someone had said Liberty may be looking a bit the worse for

where absolutely not.

I have no idea where that idea came from.

That does not describe the ship I was on.

Absolutely wonderful.

That's great to hear.

You know, sometimes people see posts like that and they get a little worried,

and I can tell you, I saw the same things before my jewel to seas cruise,

...