Freedom of the Seas Western 5/10/15 Mini Review

Overview

This will be mostly short and sweet and review, no pictures, there's plenty out there! It was our first time sailing with RCCL, had sailed Carnival four times before (Legend x2, Valor, Victory). My parents are loyal RCCL customers and finally convinced my wife and I to give them a try. They are in their early 50's and we're in our mid 20's so we broke apart for most of the day and reunited for dinner and the shows at night.

Positives

We purchased 3 nights at the specialty restaurants (Sabor, Giovanni's and Chops) and received 20% each reservation, a great idea if you want to try different places

Giovanni's Table- Absolutely amazing dinner for $20 person, we all got different entrees and shared, everyone was stuffed! Excellent service!!

Chops- Everyone else got the filet, I did the 12 oz. NY strip, everyone's steaks came out perfect, excellent service even though they were busy on the final night of the cruise.

Cabin Attendant- We had Siri as our room steward, easy name to remember! He was extremely pleasant and attentive to our needs. We gave him an extra tip at the end of the cruise and he couldn't have been more appreciative.

Clientele- We had not grown weary of the customer service by Carnival but our fellow guests somewhat and the cutbacks in entertainment also. It seemed every cruise the behavior became more and more mob-like whether it was for food, lines for comedy, anything. Maybe it's the midwest in us, but we seemed like the Freedom guests were a lot more courteous to others, children were well behaved, etc. It was definitely an older clientele from what we noticed, if you've ever sailed out of Tampa it seemed very similiar. We had one incident of intoxicated people in our hallway at 3am that woke us up but that was it for the week.

MDR Service- Very very good, prompt but courteous. Usually in and out with all courses in less than an hour and half, usually about 1:15.

Negatives

My Time Dining- The first night was absolute chaos at the check-in counters. We had made reservations earlier in the day and the reservations lines were 20-30 people long, yet people with no reservations were walking right up to their desk and getting in to eat, just not organized well at all. Carnival's system for flexible dining times just seemed better run, being able to choose a specific time is the reason why we chose this option. Being told it was 5:30-5:45 or 7:15 or later kind of defeated the purpose of the program in our opinion. The only thing it was nice for was on the later port departures we were able to stay off the boat later.

Drink Prices- This became our running joke for the week, we never did figure it out! Miami vices ranged from 9.50 at Sorrento's one night to $12 at the pool bar. Margarita bought at the Solarium pool bar was $2 more than than main pool bar. I understand there are drink of day specials, but publish your prices and what is actually available!! The only place I found an actual drink menu with prices was in On Air. Carnival has a basic drink menu with prices in every bar, its not that hard RCCL, unless you really are trying to confuse everyone.

Sports Entertainment- Being from Ohio, we're big Cleveland Cavalier fans and wanted to watch the game. How does a huge ship like this not have a sports bar or a place to watch? We literally got kicked out of On Air the one night for karaoke that had maybe 15 participants max. We asked if they could just keep it on the tv's above the bar and were told it was controlled remotely and we could watch it in the rooms. It got a bit awkward when the activities director happily said we could watch the games in our rooms and about a dozen of us walked right out. I understand the clientele may want it, but karaoke can be done anywhere.

Customs- I understand that this isn't directly Royal's fault, but customs was absolutely brutal. 40-45 minutes of standing in line when maybe two-thirds of the counters are manned, I guess that's our government at work! It's not like we magically came in a day early, it's sad because you've had a great vacation and the last taste in your mouth is standing in line forever to hand a CBP a card. If the RCCL employee wants to send you to the far right CBP counter, DON'T GO!!! We all joked that it was the line of death; RCCL lets all wheelchair bound passengers go into this line, ahead of you standing. You literally don't move. The parents were a good 100 people behind us, went to another line, and beat us by ten minutes.

Ports of Call and what we did

Labadee- beach day, the farther you get away from the boat the less the crowds, in the "market" area you will get haggled, just a fyi!

Falmouth- walked around and shopped, enjoyed a Red Stripe and went back to the pool

Grand Cayman- Royal Palms Beach Club- AWESOME! Definitely recommend!

Cozumel- Playa Mia beach break, expensive but beautiful and plentiful and strong drinks!

Conclusion

We overall truly enjoyed both the Freedom and RCCL and all would gladly do the same itinerary again. I would definitely rate this cruise a solid 8.5/10 where our previous ones with Carnival were slowly degrading into 5-6/10 range.

If you have any questions please just ask, hopefully this gives a Carnival customer a good comparison between the two companies and what to expect if you make the switch!

Going on Freedom in August after doing 10 Carnival cruises. Noticed the same thing on Carnival and glad to hear of your observations on Freedom. What kinds of cabins did you have?

We were in rooms 7386 and 7392, right side very close to back of the ship. Decent walk to the closest elevators but we did the steps a lot of the time up to windjammer and the pools or down 2 flights of steps to the Royal Promenade.

Thanks for your quick review! It's nice to see some upbeat comments coming through.

I'm sailing Freedom again in August and haven't read too many positive reviews come through lately. However, I feel I'm quite easy to please on vacation, just let me relax and enjoy the view, how much could really go wrong!? :) However if I'm unable to get a cocktail in a reasonably timely manner it might impinge on my relaxation factor.

Thanks again!

Was Royal Palms a cruise line excursion and do you recall the cost?

What beach did you go to on Labadee. Our sailing goes there in a few weeks and we have never been to that port. I'm trying to decided between a cabanna or just being on the beach.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

We took a taxi ($4/person) to Royal Palms, $2/person to get in, $8/chair. We each had 3 drinks apiece and split a margarita pizza. They automatically add 18% tip on so it came to about $70. All in all it was about a $100 day, Carnival had people coming in on an excursion around noon, no idea what they were paying. We were the second boat into GC that day so we got there pretty early (9am) and were probably in the first 20-30 people there, it did get busy in the afternoon. Clean restrooms and showers also.

We were at Adrenaline Beach in Labadee, had restrooms, food hut, and bar nearby.