Liberty of the Seas: Sanitation Record & Health Report

Liberty of the Seas just pulled off the kind of glow-up that makes you side-eye the "before" photo. Launched in 2007 and freshly refurbished this year, the Freedom-class ship posted a latest CDC score of 97 — comfortably above the fleet's already-tough median of 98 and right in line with the 96.7 average we track across 162 ships. What makes it a story worth telling isn't just the 97, though; it's the climb. Her two inspections show an 89 in August 2025 followed by that 97 in December, and Ship Tea officially clocks that as an improving trend. An 89 still clears the 86 passing line, so nobody was ever in outbreak-movie territory, but it's the difference between "fine, I guess" and "actually impressive," and the ship picked the right direction to move.

At 154,407 tons and carrying over 3,600 passengers with a 1,360-person crew, this is not a boutique operation — it's a mega-ship holding mega-ship standards, and a 97 on that scale means a lot of galleys, pools, and public spaces are being run tight. We don't have outbreak history to weigh in here — CDC's outbreak data is currently unreachable — so consider that column blank rather than a clean bill of health; we're just not able to say either way right now. What we can say: two inspections is a thin sample size for a ship that's been sailing since 2007, so treat "improving" as a real signal, not gospel carved in stone.

Who it's for: anyone chasing a big, brassy Royal Caribbean experience out of Galveston (the ship's clear home base with 45 sailings, versus a modest 5 out of Southampton) who wants recent hygiene numbers trending the right way on a freshly refurbished hull. Who should skip it: passengers who get twitchy about a ship's very first inspection on record being an 89 — even a passing one — and who won't rest easy until there's a longer inspection history to point to. For most of us, though, a 97 fresh off a refurb is exactly the kind of receipt that makes Smooth Sailing feel earned.