Review-freedom's just another word for a really decent cruise

After not writing a review for a few cruises due to getting sent to the principal’s office, I’ve decided it’s time to try one again. These are simply my impressions and experience on the Freedom of the Seas cruise to St. Thomas and St. Maarten from August 25 - September 1. Let’s see if I can get through this without another administrative ruler across my knuckles.

WARNING: DUE TO IMMATURE CONTENT, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

There are parts of this review that will mention controversial topics like dress, kids and smoking. If you are a PC cop or a member of the Society of the Perpetually Outraged (SOPO), I suggest you stop right here and move to another thread. We don’t want anybody’s head exploding now do we?

Arrival Day and our First "Ralphing" :

We are lucky enough to have both a terrific regional airport and JetBlue close to us so we don’t have to fly in the day before for Florida cruises. Our normal 7:00 AM flight had us in Orlando by 9:30 and our car service had us to the port by 10:45 AM. I have always loved RCI’s boarding process and we basically cleared security and were ready to board by 11:00. This was also our first ever encounter with a "brusque" Royal employee. Apparently it is a misdemeanor for a Platinum member to sit in the Gold seating area (the Horror). Who knew, but having been suitably chastised by a very officious woman, we dragged our carryons and slunk away to the priority area we were assigned.

Our first little hitch was caused by our traveling party which consisted of one of my closest friends, his wife and three (count ‘em) teenagers. My friend and the three teens drove to Florida while his wife flew with us. This worked fine until he was an hour and a half later than us getting to the port. NO problem you say? Well it’s only a problem if you leave ALL the tickets with your wife and then don’t show on time so that she has to sit outside security until you get there. In my circle, we call this getting "Ralphed" and I will leave you all to imagine the gentle discussion that ensued upon his eventual arrival.

A Tactical Error Gets Us Trapped in the Grazing Herd.

My crew usually favors small to mid sized ships so Freedom was gonna be a new experience to us. Still, Royal has handled crowds so well that we weren’t terribly concerned about having 4,500 people onboard. This proved to be a mistake and right out of the box we paid the price for my tactical error.

Our last two cruises have been on NCL (shhh - don’t tell anyone) and we got in the habit of avoiding the buffet on embarkation day in favor of the secret MDR that NCL opens up for lunch. Thus, after waiting for the first hour with my friend’s wife, and occasionally pouring water on her to cool her temper, we boarded on our own and went looking for the open dining room.

OOPS, RCI doesn’t do that so the choices are (a) the Windjammer or (b) nothing. So up to the Windjammer we go just in time to get in line behind an unknown force of serious glandular eaters. I am by no means petitie or delicate but I spent a lot of time amid bison sized bi-peds who could easily fit me in their pockets. Also, when you see a pile of french fries with legs walking toward you, it can be a bit disconcerting.

I don’t know what, but obviously there was a crew up of Carnival proportions somewhere because this lunch removed any need for a disaster drill. After several laps around the place, we finally begged two seats at a shared table with some really nice people from Boston. I didn’t mention being a Yankee fan so we actually had a pleasant lunch while we listened to RCI staff beg people to eat and get out.

In six prior cruises on RCI, this was the first time I ever felt that there might not be room on this ship for all these people. I originally put it down to embarkation day madness but, as we’ll see later, this was the triumph of optimism over experience.

More to come a bit later.

Your Cabin Is Ready and, By The Way, We Started Your Laundry For You.

Promptly at 1:00 PM came the announcement that the cabins were ready. It always amazes me that RCI can toss 4,500 people in the morning and get a couple of thousand rooms ready in 3-4 hours. We had hump cabin 8642 and initial inspection showed us the absolutely most capacious cabin we’ve ever enjoyed. We could walk around the bed without banging knees and there was so much room that I never stored my bag under the bed. The balcony was large enough for a table, 2 chairs AND the eventual recliner that we managed to secure as reinforcements.

In an exercise of female logic so alien to me, my wife developed a mnemonic to remember the cabin by the word "Appreciate". It appears that 8642 is merely 2-4-6-8 backwards and everyone knows "2-4-6-8 who do we appreciate" don’t they? Me, I just had to remember Deck 8 and look at my seapass. However, she graduated with honors and I graduated with only gratitude from the faculty, so I guess she wins this one.

Our luggage showed up about 2:30 with a very apologetic note that the RCI sprinkler system had sprinkled all over our bags. This caused me a moment of sheer panic since my wife had packed her "special" lingerie from the Victoria Secret Married 30 Years Collection. Flannel sweatpants and lumberjack shirts are notoriously hard to dry. In reality, only the top few items got wet and a few minutes on the balcony dried things nicely even if it did sort of resemble a hillbilly cabin in the woods for a bit.

Of course, I toyed with the idea of demanding a free cruise as compensation for the mental and emotional distress caused by a wet T shirt (which I truly love on certain women) but then I got distracted by the Pina Coladas on the balcony and totally forgot to let it ruin a whole cruise. I really must improve on keeping my outrage going longer term.

We also met our truly awesome Cabin Steward, Basil. We’re not overly demanding passengers. Honestly, a bucket of ice and the occasional towel animal keeps us happy, but Basil was omnipresent all week, always smiling and always asking if we needed anything else. Really a good representative for RCI and there were others I’ll discuss later.

Lines, Lines, Everywhere are Lines

There’s no need to discuss the mustard drill or sailaway since both were done with the relentless efficiency we have come to expect from RCI. If you’d like a story about Disaster Drill as true disaster, go read my Carnival Victory review.

As we maneuvered our way around the ship we did find something different on Freedom. Don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful ship and we saw more officers out and about than in all our other cruises combined. Even the Captain, who made daily announcements in a dead on Burl Ives voice, was more accessible than any I’ve seen. With that said, there were lines pretty much everywhere all week. Lunch in the Windjammer - get in line. Ice cream on 11 deck - get in line. Café Promenade for midrats at 2:00 AM - get in line. Nothing horrible and the lines moved rather well after the first day buffet but, as big as it is, Freedom felt more crowded than Jewel, Explorer or even Majesty.

While I’m on this subject, I should note that there were 930 "kids" aboard and, contrary to popular opinion, we had ZERO problems with any of them. At least on this cruise, rude was confined to adults and came in several flavors:

1) the group that apparently thinks an elbow in the ribs is a substitute for "excuse me";

2) the group that thinks all those lines were set up to keep lesser people out of their way;

3) the group that thinks mere staff are also lesser people to be castigated if their needs are not anticipated and met before being requested;

4) the group that apparently doesn’t recognize the law of physics that in order to get ON an elevator, you must first let people OFF.

5) the group that thinks having a door or an elevator held for them is a constitutional right not needing a thank you or even an acknowledgment.

Honorable mention also goes to a particularly deadly crew of (very) senior citizens who apparently formed some sort of gray beard motorcycle gang on the first day. Despite walkers, canes and other mine detection equipment, they moved like a pack of mongoose on speed and even my three score and ten years and white hair were not sufficient to protect me from their elevator attacks.

The Food Exper-I-ahnce

To quickly review our experience with the food and get it out of the way, the MDR dinner food was consistently the best of any of our cruises. In addition, we had a waiter Roberto and assistant waiter Maur (whom of course we nicknamed "or less") who were outstanding throughout.

The Windjammer for lunch was also pretty good, if somewhat repetitious but breakfast, aside from being exactly the same for seven days, too often resembled the enlisted men’s field mess at Parris Island. I fully understand the difficulty in feeding 4,500 people at a clip but if you’re going to use powdered eggs, at least cook the powder off them.

Midrats at Sorrentos and the Café Promenade are not quite as good as NCL but are really pretty decent. Those little sandwiches are good and small enough to keep even the most devoted drunk from hurling too much. However, the fact that there’s nothing to drink except alcohol or ice water anywhere on Deck 5 isn’t the best idea. C’mon Royal, you can do better than that.

 

OOPS, RCI doesn’t do that so the choices are (a) the Windjammer or (b) nothing.

We stop by the Cafe Promenade for lunch on boarding day, thus avoiding the crowds. Pizza is also available. To me, anything beats the Windjammer on departure day.

I am enjoying your review of FOS. I will be on her in Oct.. Can't wait.. Thanks

Loving your review and style of writing. Can't wait to read the rest! Subscribed.

Thanks all. There is more on the way.

We stop by the Cafe Promenade for lunch on boarding day, thus avoiding the crowds. Pizza is also available. To me, anything beats the Windjammer on departure day.

We actually tried that in desperation but no dice. WE were told everything would open at 11:30 but by 11:45 everything was buttoned up tight. Thus we lost all of our early boarding advantage.:confused:

subscribed and ready to hear more!

As a pilot for a major airline, how dare you acknowledge JetBlue. SLAP!

Just kidding. Great review and really look forward to the rest. We are doing our 3rd Fredom New Years cruise in Dec. I love the ship. So far I agree with all you have said except airline choice. :)

Getting Ralphed - Part Deux

This section proves that many people can cause you annoyance but only your friends can really screw you up.

Start with the fact that I detest the 8:00 PM dinner seating. Why is not important, but I do.

Well in keeping with this preference, I signed up online for My Time dining and reserved "my time" for all seven nights. In an exercise of true caution, I also signed up my friend, his wife and our teenage crew. Well we get on the ship and only my wife and I are reserved. WHY you ask? Because my friend’s idiot travel agent reserved them for late seating and RCI happily kicked them off my reservation. Okay, so my solution was Ocham’s Razor and I said we’ll hook up after dinner every night. Simple no? AHHH but I am male and therefore almost always wrong.

The two wives decide that this is unacceptable so a negotiated settlement was achieved whereby we would spend the two formal nights at late seating with the crew. Here I made my second tactical error and sent my friend off to arrange same. That afternoon we returned to our cabin to find a pleasant little note welcoming us to late seating at table 243 AND kicking US out of My Time dining. HUZZAH, another Ralphing and it’s only Day 2.

Before I get attacked by the Royal Carribots who so detest any criticism of RCI, I should note here that RCI did everything right. In fact, they were very accommodating. This was a joint snafu by (a) a travel agent, (b) my friend for not making clear what was requested and [c] me for letting him do it. For those readers not entirely familiar with the concept, this is called personal responsibility for our own mistakes. We messed up, it’s our problem and I don’t want so much as a key chain that RCI awards for absolutely everything. On the good side, we did end up with Roberto, Maur and Eva all week so it could have been MUCH worse.

A Bartender Who Makes Magic Drinks (and other things) Happen

With lunch out of the way and our cabin secured and various clothes now playing flags on our balcony, it was time to scout out the first drink of the day. I usually start out by the pools and then establish my "at sea" office later in the evening and it has always been the Schooner or the Viking Crown. However, this trip is now a historical precedent because we met Charmelito at the Solarium Bar and just never left.

I could rave about my new Fillipino BFF for an entire review but I’ll simply say he was always fun, knew everyone (and I mean everyone) by name and had appropriate medications prescribed and dispensed by the time I sat down. He’s also a magician (no really) and part of his gig is doing tricks behind the bar in his slow times. Since we were there in all times, slow, fast and everything in between we established a solid friendship that lasted forever in the space of a week. He also allowed us to abandon our normal text based system for finding each other since all that was necessary to find me was to report to the Solarium at any time before dinner.

Charmelito, all I can say is "salamat po" and hope you actually meet us on Explorer next May when I will indeed have Miss Phillipines with us for photo shoots.

While on the subject of my "at sea" office I should mention that the Solarium itself was a terrific hangout all week. Yes the bacterial incubators called hot tubs could get crowded and there were a fair number of bikinis that shouldn’t be (one elderly lady in a true anal floss thong had me wanting to wash out my eyes with acid), the crowds were really well behaved and even the kids who cruised through caused only minor consternation among the adult set.

On With The Show(s)

My crew doesn’t normally bother much with the on board shows ever since the first one we attended years ago caused another friend to go into diabetic coma. The productions from the Osmond School for the Musically Bland have never appealed to us.

However, we did go to see the "MoTown" show with a group called Spectrum and it was outrageously good. In a former life I was a musician (until the monkey died) and I tend to be critical of musical revues but this was truly excellent. It was so good that it led us to the next tactical error of seeing another show later in the week.

I don’t know what the actual name was but it should have been called "Disney on Acid". While all I know about dancing comes from watching the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, I think the performers might have been good and they certainly have some Broadway caliber singers, the whole concept of doing "It’s a Small World" as a rock song totally escaped me. On the bright side, the theater is hugely comfortable and one of the few places aboard with no line to get in (though there was a small one to get out).

Next Up - Ports of Call

Hello!

We were on this cruise as well, and were also on the previous week. The reason there was such chaos in the Windjammer that first day was because all the restaurants were going through an inspection that day and no one could go in until they were finished. I've never seen it like that EVER!! Luckily we had a special lunch that day in the MDR, but I went up to deck 11 around 11:30 to make my Chops and Portofino reservations for the week. When the elevator doors opened on Deck 11......I couldn't get off!! Wow!! The inspectors were down in the MDR when we were there. They were just finishing up in there.

Enjoying your review. Loving your comments. I hope to get started on one for both weeks later on today, so stop by and say hello!

More, more, more....I'm loving the review!

Enjoying your review! Love your style of writing. Sitting here giggling to myself and my husband wants to know what is so funny.

We will be boarding the Freedom on Sunday. Keep the review coming.

I too was on this week's cruise and I had no idea why the Windjammer was so "jammed" either; now that Max'smom told us it makes a lot of sense. In all of my cruises, the crowds were the worst I've ever seen in the WJ on boarding day.

I'm sorry you had issues with your dining, but I'm wondering how you were going to manage to eat at the late seating on two nights and then go back to MTD. I have not heard many success stories of moving back and forth, so I guess when your friend stated that you wanted to dine with them, they moved you out of MTD into late. Sounds like you got a great wait team at late so that's some compensation.

We had MTD and for some reason when I booked I was unable to reserve any nights for our preferred time. Thought I would do it when we boarded, but alas, there were no slots available in my preferred window then either. We winged it a few nights, then had some real issues with them wanting us to wait 45 minutes for a table (and it wasn't just for the section we wanted, it was for anywhere in the MTD room). Finally had to make a ressie for an hour later than I wanted just to be sure we'd get in. We found the great server team of Made and Richard, and Dennis the section head went out of his way to be sure I had Indian each night (even though I was only asking for one or two nights...he had it prepared and sent up for me on each evening). Plus the excellent bar server Sonia who was a delight and made sure she found me each evening for the "shot of the day" and the souvenir glass (my collection now totals 8).

Only made it to the Solarium once because I was with my kids and really didn't do much pool deck time. Kids spent the week on the flowrider (our normal location), rock wall (my other normal location) and ice skating rink. We were lucky enough to sail with two sports staff members we've sailed with previously, and they introduced my kids to the new staff so everyone was like old friends by day 2.

Sporadic flowrider breakdowns were a bit of a problem, and I heard that they were taking it down for three days of this week's cruise. So glad we were on the prior week and only missed most of one day and part of another due to the issues.

Looking forward to hearing the remainder of your review.

After not writing a review for a few cruises due to getting sent to the principal’s office, I’ve decided it’s time to try one again. These are simply my impressions and experience on the Freedom of the Seas cruise to St. Thomas and St. Maarten from August 25 - September 1. Let’s see if I can get through this without another administrative ruler across my knuckles.

 

WARNING: DUE TO IMMATURE CONTENT, READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

There are parts of this review that will mention controversial topics like dress, kids and smoking. If you are a PC cop or a member of the Society of the Perpetually Outraged (SOPO), I suggest you stop right here and move to another thread. We don’t want anybody’s head exploding now do we?

 

Arrival Day and our First "Ralphing" :

We are lucky enough to have both a terrific regional airport and JetBlue close to us so we don’t have to fly in the day before for Florida cruises. Our normal 7:00 AM flight had us in Orlando by 9:30 and our car service had us to the port by 10:45 AM. I have always loved RCI’s boarding process and we basically cleared security and were ready to board by 11:00. This was also our first ever encounter with a "brusque" Royal employee. Apparently it is a misdemeanor for a Platinum member to sit in the Gold seating area (the Horror). Who knew, but having been suitably chastised by a very officious woman, we dragged our carryons and slunk away to the priority area we were assigned.

 

Our first little hitch was caused by our traveling party which consisted of one of my closest friends, his wife and three (count ‘em) teenagers. My friend and the three teens drove to Florida while his wife flew with us. This worked fine until he was an hour and a half later than us getting to the port. NO problem you say? Well it’s only a problem if you leave ALL the tickets with your wife and then don’t show on time so that she has to sit outside security until you get there. In my circle, we call this getting "Ralphed" and I will leave you all to imagine the gentle discussion that ensued upon his eventual arrival.

 

A Tactical Error Gets Us Trapped in the Grazing Herd.

My crew usually favors small to mid sized ships so Freedom was gonna be a new experience to us. Still, Royal has handled crowds so well that we weren’t terribly concerned about having 4,500 people onboard. This proved to be a mistake and right out of the box we paid the price for my tactical error.

Our last two cruises have been on NCL (shhh - don’t tell anyone) and we got in the habit of avoiding the buffet on embarkation day in favor of the secret MDR that NCL opens up for lunch. Thus, after waiting for the first hour with my friend’s wife, and occasionally pouring water on her to cool her temper, we boarded on our own and went looking for the open dining room.

 

OOPS, RCI doesn’t do that so the choices are (a) the Windjammer or (b) nothing. So up to the Windjammer we go just in time to get in line behind an unknown force of serious glandular eaters. I am by no means petitie or delicate but I spent a lot of time amid bison sized bi-peds who could easily fit me in their pockets. Also, when you see a pile of french fries with legs walking toward you, it can be a bit disconcerting.

 

I don’t know what, but obviously there was a crew up of Carnival proportions somewhere because this lunch removed any need for a disaster drill. After several laps around the place, we finally begged two seats at a shared table with some really nice people from Boston. I didn’t mention being a Yankee fan so we actually had a pleasant lunch while we listened to RCI staff beg people to eat and get out.

 

In six prior cruises on RCI, this was the first time I ever felt that there might not be room on this ship for all these people. I originally put it down to embarkation day madness but, as we’ll see later, this was the triumph of optimism over experience.

 

More to come a bit later.

Just to clarify why the WJ was so horrific on boarding, the ship was in the middle of a USPH inspection when we boarded at 11am. There was no food or drink available anywhere until the inspection was finished. The crowd at the WJ was huge because they didn't open until just before noon. Normally there would have been food available at both Cafe promenade and Sorrentos but they were closed because of the inspection. Once venues were actually allowed to put the food into the cases and open, things did slowly improve but it was not good for a while.

The ship scored a 97 on its inspection by the way and none of the issues that were found were in the galley so that was great to hear. The Executive Sous Chef is the person who told us this while we were on a galley tour.

Thankfully I can catch your review this time...at least for now. :D

I'll finish up this little rant with the ports of call and a summary.

St. Thomas - 1500 Miles to the Jersey Shore

Part of the appeal of this cruise was to go places we haven’t been. We’ve done the Bahamas several time (mostly with models on shoots) and I can honestly say I’m done. We’ve seen everything we want to see in Nassau which is absolutely nothing.

Anyway, docking in St. Thomas is later than usual for us so we actually got to see the approach through non blurry eyes (also somewhat of a first for me). We had intended to do the zip line thing but with a total of seven souls on board our crew it was just a bit too pricey. Plan B was to ride the tram to the top but apparently the hamster union had called a strike and it wasn’t running. ALAS what to do now?

With no planned agenda, we strolled the ½ mile or so that it takes to get past the thousand shops selling ugly shirts and lacquered blowfish and hired a cab for a tour of the island. I should note that the $39.00 2 hour tour costs $25.00 if you simply walk out the other side of the plaza to the cab stand.

Safely ensconced in our luxury vehicle (a 1990s Ford Econoline van with marginal air conditioning) driven by a terrific local named Jen, we set forth on our tour which, apparently, meant stopping at every scenic overlook that had a bar and/or souvenir stand attached to it. I don’t know what, or if, Jen gets as a commission from the vendors, but if one were to judge by what this little trip cost me, she is worth a small fortune.

After several of these stops at shopping madness, I asked Jen to take us off the tursita routes and show us the actual island. Honestly, I wanted to see the St. Thomas Synagogue (?) just for the oxymoronic appeal. That’s when it started to resemble Atlantic City. Get two blocks away from the "beautiful People area" and there are a lot of ramshackle houses, semi-junk cars and businesses that look straight out of backwoods Georgia. All in all it was very enlightening and a bit sad.

I do have one more hint for those who have never been to St. Thomas. ALLOW PLENTY OF TIME to get back to the ship. I’m from New York and the truly impressive traffic jams on this Island had me homesick.

St. Maarten - A Special Kind of Stupid and the Death of Innocent Sunglasses

The primary mission objective of this cruise was to get blown into the water by a 747 at Sunset Beach. While the objective was not attained, we came darn close and proved that stupid is no respecter of age and maturity (or lack thereof).　

After docking at the usual 7:00 AM, we finished off breakfast and headed out to find our way. This came in the form of a cab driver named Victor who enthralled us with tales of the Island as we inched our way through the incredible traffic of Phillipsburg after rush hour. Our two 18 years olds left us at this point. Having done more research for this cruise than for an entire year of school, they had determined that the French side had more beauty, better food and, oh yeah, the occasional nude beach. I wish I had known about this back when I was young enough for it to matter but, as they say in Brooklyn, c’est la vie.

We arrived at Sunset Beach (confusingly also called MoHo by many) and it was GORGEOUS. I don’t like beaches over much (OK I hate them most times), but this was really terrific. It had very little crowding, a full bar and grill, people renting and selling anything beach related and Julianna Airport 50 feet away. The water was so clear we could see the bottom which would definitely NOT be an advantage in New York.

At about 11:00 AM the planes started landing. HUZZAH, here is our raison d’etre for the cruise. It really is something weird to stand in the water and watch a jet aimed seemingly at your nose until it starts it’s flare and passes over at approximately 50' AGL. We did this several times for an hour or so until the real excitement started. Those jets started taking off.

The custom in St. Maarten is that when a jet lines up on the runway, one can scurry from the beach right behind it and then hang on to the fence while it spools up the engines for takeoff. This results in an intense few seconds of high winds and being pelted by every stray stone on the runway. Yes, to my weird little group, this is called fun.

The first jet to take off was an Embraer 190, a smaller jet that posted about 150 feet from the threshold, blasted us for 10 seconds or so and then took off. It was actually fun and we learned right away that protective eye gear was a good idea in the midst of lunacy.

Having done so well, we decided to challenge the 737 that was # 2 for takeoff. The first officer actually waved to us as they lined up on the center line. Given what happened next he was probably thinking "bye bye chumps" and for good reason.

Takeoff in St. Maarten aims the nose of the aircraft square at a mountain range off the far end of the runway. Thus the larger jets take position MUCH closer to the threshold and spool up for much longer times. So we took our positions behind those huge engines, waited a minute or two and then

WHAM–hell’s own hairdryer.

With a larger jet, much closer to the fence, not only was the blast effect triple what we expected but the heat dried my wife’s hair. Along about 10 seconds in, my innocent sunglasses took leave of my face never to be seen again. By the time Mr. 737 started it’s takeoff roll I was well and truly convinced my personal bucket list did not need to be terminated by challenging the Air France A-380 that arrives every Thursday.

So St. Maarten is a beautiful place and I would return BUT, with my objective achieved and lesson learned, I think I may just go see the nude beaches next time.

HOMEWARD BOUND

Back aboard and looking at two full sea days was really great for my crew. My wife loves sea days because she can (a) lounge by the pool, (b) have 3 meals without cooking or cleaning [c] see a show, relax, have dinner served and hit the Casino and (d) never have to pack or unpack until we leave. I love them because my biggest worry is that no one steps on my fingers when I’m going back to my cabin.

Also, we met this terrific young couple from Norway who were demented enough to hang out with us all week. The lady half of the couple was heart achingly gorgeous and, despite the fact that this was not a photoshoot cruise, I offered her a shoot and she was thrilled to accept. We did one on our last sea day and she was a natural model. I apologize that I can't show (or even link to) the resulting images but last time someone from SOPO ratted me out to the principal and I was "warned" about inappropriate content. OF COURSE beautiful women in bikinis are inappropriate on a Caribbean cruise. Just ask that 90 year old in the thong that I mentioned.

Freedom really is a terrific ship but, honestly, Exsplorer remains my favorite of all ships on all cruise lines. It has pretty much everything that Freedom has but with 1,000 or so fewer people to contend with. In a cruise context I think Sartre was correct "Hell is Other People". Plus, Explorer’s home port is New Jersey and not even JetBlue can make me enjoy the present airport experience. It will hurt when she leaves Bayonne next year.

Overall, despite the nits and picks, this was a terrific cruise and the staff once again proved to be the difference for us. Every one of my travel party has agreed about both Princess and NCL that "It ain’t bad, but it ain’t Royal" (we no longer even discuss Carnival). While it may all be a well rehearsed act (like a lap dancer making you believe she really likes you) the fact is that Royal’s staff always makes us feel like they want us aboard more so than the other cruise lines. In the words of Mozart: "We’ll be Bach" (sorry about that one).

Great review... tagging along here.

I should also note that cruising in hurricane season is always iffy (obviously we can't blame Royal for the weather - or can we??) but the seas were dead calm the whole time. I get sick on a ferris wheel but I didn't need my scopolomine patch even once and had no need to remember the nautical definitions of Leeward (the side to throw up on) and Windward (the side not to).

This has to be one of the best reviews I've ever read! You had me crying at the hells hair dryer part. Thanks

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One of thee best reviews I have read in a long time.

You are so entertaining.

Freedom of the Seas always held a spot in our hearts.

Thanks

Sea Ya

Nice review. I certainly appreciate your writing style. I found myself LOL quite a few times.

I'll finish up this little rant with the ports of call and a summary.

St. Thomas - 1500 Miles to the Jersey Shore

Get two blocks away from the "beautiful People area" and there are a lot of ramshackle houses, semi-junk cars and businesses that look straight out of backwoods Georgia. All in all it was very enlightening and a bit sad.

 

Well, now I'm confused. I know where the Jersey Shore is (although I have never been there, and pretty sure I never WANT to go there), and I know where the backwoods of Georgia are (and I've gotten pretty close to them without actually stopping to enjoy the scenery); I wouldn't imaging that the two are anything alike.

So, would you say that St. Thomas is more like the Jersey Shore or more like the backwoods of Georgia?

Great review John, I love your writing style :)

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Thanks all. I'm glad the sense of humor is still present on this board.

Mrs Doc, that totally depends on where you are on the Island. The tourist areas resemble the Jersey shore but without the buttheads and with clean water. Unfortunately, when you force the driver to take you off the tourist showpiece paths, the rest can be a bit less than grand.

Enjoying your review! Love your style of writing. Sitting here giggling to myself and my husband wants to know what is so funny.

We will be boarding the Freedom on Sunday. Keep the review coming.