Review Freedom of the seas vs. Disney Dream a detailed comparison

A little back ground first. We (me and DH age mid 30's) have sailed on both these ships in the last 4 months. First on Dream in Dec. 2011 and then FOS just last week. The first cruise Disney was with our boys ages 7 and 9. The second FOS was just us. This does hurt some for the family with kids comparison and I will try to be as fair as possible on that topic. Just know that we have no first hand experience with our children on FOS.

It seems that there is a lot of interest in comparing these two lines and I will give my honest opinion of these two ships. I know this does not make me an expert in all things Disney or RCI so just take it for what it is worth. This is simply our opinion of both ships in hopes that it helps someone out there who is deciding between the two. I used these boards alot for research prior to both trips and this is my attempt to give back. I am posting this on both boards (Disney and RCI) since it should help both groups of cruisers.

I will try to answer any questions as I go along so feel free to ask. I will post a little at a time as I have a lot of notes (we drove down from WV to Cape Canaveral so we wrote down our thoughts in the car as a way to kill some time). Some of this will be just general recomendations about FOS and ports/excursions but most is in comparison with Disney so bear with me on those notes.

I am going to try to write this in a somewhat logical order starting with boarding and ending with disembarktion.

Any interest?

Yes please!

We are taking our second DCL cruise on Friday, and have Freedom booked for NEXT year over spring break. To be honest, I'm more excited about the SHIP with Freedom, but wondering how much I will miss DCL service, and of course my friends Mickey, Minnie, et al.....

Yes please. I am due on freedom in a few months and went on disney magic last year.

Yes please. I am due on freedom in a few months and went on disney magic last year.

Any interest?

oh, lots of interest... we have Freedom booked for September but are also considering the newer Disney ships - having been on the Wonder.

Well to start with let me just say that me and DH have fun no matter where we go, so please don't think that when we critic something that it implies that we did not have fun. We had a blast on both ships. Just some things stood out as better to us on RCI and some things better on Disney.

So here it goes.

Arrival to port/portmen

The cool thing about comparing these two ships is that they both sail out of Port Canaveral. We loved this port and area. Of course you have Disney, Universal, sea world and all kinds of great dinning and a beach all near by. What more could you ask for.

For both cruises, we ate at Fish Lips the night before and watched the ships sail by at 4:00 to 5:00. great food and atmosphere. they had a live singer there both times we went and the place is just fun. a lovely way to start a cruise. It was St. Patrick's day this trip and the green beer was flowing freely. LOL.

We parked at the port for both trips. the first was not planned. Holiday Inn express cocoa messed up our shuttle. We stayed at holiday inn express cocoa beach this trip and it looked like their shuttle service was working better. However, we liked walking off to our car after the cruise so much the first time that we decided to pay the price and do it again this trip. In my opinion, it is worth it but I hate waiting around for shuttles and buses.

Parking

I liked the location of the covered parking better for disney. It was right across from the port exit and was an easy walk across after the cruise to our car. RCI has outdoor parking across from the port entrance but the covered area is a bit of a walk (about 500 yards walk from doors of port). Not a problem for us since we are fit ;), but not as easy access as Disney.

Porters

Ok. I will try to describe the difference between the two lines without sounding like a snob. please excuse me if I do. The Disney porters are dressed professionally (sort of like a doorman for a nice hotel), they were very friendly and talkative, and gave us a warm welcome on board right out of the car. They gave us a great first impression of Disney. RCI was not so much. The porters were all seated together and seemed bothered to get up and help us when we pulled in. They did not great us and sort of just grabbed our luggage and tossed it onto the luggage carrier. I would not even have noted this had it not been such a glaring difference from the Disney experience. Not really a big deal just something of note.

Embarkation

A breeze with both lines. We arrived at 11:30 for both even though both told us to arrive at 1:00 pm and we were on board by 12:00. Very pleasant staff checking us in for both lines.

First impression when walk on board

Wow. RCI could take some pointers from Disney on this. I don't know if they do this with every ship but we walked outside onto a gangway and onto deck 4 of FOS and then entered into a hall way that led to the casino. No wow factor at all. Disney had you inside a closed hallway across the gangway and then they annouce your family as you walk into the grand atrium with the huge chandiler and staircase. (I admit it. I cried a little when we walked into the disney ship) It was very impressive. Again does this make or break your cruise? no but it does set the tone nicely on Disney.

Staff

The staff for both ships were great. Our room stewards were amazing on both. RCI brought us 2 containers of ice daily and was always very friendly in greating. Our Waiter on RCI was better than on Disney actually. He was friendly and always brought more things than we ordered to the table to try and see if we liked. However, Disney shines in the staff in other parts of the ship. For example, it seemed like if you ask someone for information about something outside their department they were clueless on RCI and actually gave wrong info alot. Disney staff seem to know their ship inside and out every department details not just their specific department. Again not a big deal just small details.

Kids club

I can't really compare from personal experience on RCI but looking at the facilities for the 9-11 year old group did not impress me at the open house. there was one counsilor roaming around and a few kids looking at the computers (about 5 along one wall) and a 60 inch tv playing kung fu panda. the room seemed very small. Disney combines all kids age 3 to 11 (i think) into one very large area with over 70 workers. They seemed more high tech with multiple computers (over 30), video screens, art rooms (4) magic dance floor (2) andy's room and monsters inc room. the RCI room just looked dull and I am not sure that my kids would have been impressed. but again i can't say and i am looking at with adult eyes. There seemed to be more teenagers just wondering the ship where disney seemed to engage them more with activities. judging strictly on facilities disney wins and that is the only way i can judge rci since we left kiddos at home this trip. They did love disney kids club though. FYI my kids are not big mickey mouse fans. they actually prefer shrek and kung fu panda but on the disney ship they turn into big fans of the mouse. it is that disney magic i guess. i mean who can resist the mouse. The other thing about disney is that the characters are part of the passengers in some ways. For example, you may be getting on the elevator and there is goofy and he starts playing with the kids or walk around the corner and there is chip and dale and they prank around with you a little and pose for pictures without a specific meet and great time. we enjoyed that. it seemed very layed back and not too in your face.

Pools

RCI wins by a land slide on this one. the H2O zone looked like fun for every kid i saw play in it. there were multiple hot tubs and they were open 24 hours a day for the most part. I loved this. we could run early and still get in the hot tub. disney did not even open the adult only tubs until well after 7 or even 8 some mornings. and the late night hot tubs were great after a long day. very nice touch. i don't see why disney could not do this. the pool decks were a mad house on sea days on RCI but still could find a chair all the way aft or forward even late in the day. The pool games seemed silly to me but to each his own. I did miss the Aqua duck though. that thing was fun for adults and kids alike. but the flow rider was also fun. it seemed more difficult to enjoy though because they were always doing private sessions. we did it at 1 pm the first day on board and loved it. they did not have the divider up that day and only a few people in line. we rode it 5 or 6 times and never rode it again due to large line and divider up.

Towels

Disney wins. why can't i just walk up and get a towel out like the adult i am on RCI. Disney had multiple towel bins with hot fresh towels available 24/7. no idea why RCI doesn't do this if disney can. we brought our own cheap towels on RCI and that worked out well. just kind of annoying.

Soda

we loved the "free" soda on Disney. guess you are paying a premium but it is a nice touch. especially the soda and drink dispensers around the pool deck on disney. We actually took our own bottled water (a case of aquafina) and soda (a 12 pack of diet coke) on board RCI. we put it in a duffle bag with a luggage tag and hoped for the best. it made it to our room though not completely intact. the soda case was shredded but no cans had burst. just pack it seperate from clothing just in case. we had them clear out our fridge and enjoyed these sodas all week.

Well that is it for tonight. will update more tomorrow.

great review so far. i'm in agreement with most of what you've said so far, though I haven't been on FOS.

we are just off of LOS this morning, and we did the Disney Dream in October, and Allure in September. I'm working on compiling some of my thoughts. We did all three cruises with our 4 kids, ranging in age from 2 to 10.

One note about the kids area on the Dream vs. LOS (or FOS, etc.). Yes, the Dream is really mesmerizing - there is SOOOO much for the kids to do. However, my kids actually preferred the kids programs on the Allure/Liberty. The kids rooms definitely "look" more boring, but since the kids are grouped by age, they end up playing more with kids their own age, and they do more games with the counselors and other kids, not so much electronic-fancy-stuff (not sure if that's the right way to put it). On Disney, it's so massive and there's so many kids all mixed together, it's harder for the kids to bond with the counselors and other kids.

My kids made friends that they still keep in touch with on Allure (we'll see about Liberty!). They also clearly remember the counselors they had. But with Disney, there weren't any kids or counselors that they remember.

On the other hand, it's nice to be more 'freestyle' on Disney, where the kids can pick and choose what they want to do. It's especially nice if you have 2 kids that want to stay together and they'd have to be in separate groups on RCCL.

Thank you sooooo much! Looking forward to reading more. We loved our FOS cruise last year and have Disney Fantasy booked for next year. We had DS with us for FOS (age 4) and of course we will for Disney (age 6). I agree about the FOS kids's club, DS wasn't crazy about it but we had nothing to compare it too at that point and it was his first experience with any cruise kid's club. He liked it, just would rather spend time with us. He enjoyed going this year on NCL Epic and I know he'll love Disney.

I agree with PP. My kids, age 9/10, preferred RCI over DCL Dream. RCI had more of "low tech" old fashioned games--both board and active, coloring/crafts (design your own postboard guitar and then play in the rock band). DS is a tech junky--but RCI kept him engaged with low tech--MOM much preferred RCI for that reason.

We'll be on the Freedom in June and am looking forward to reading your review. Having sailed both lines, but several years apart, I can already see several comments you made that I agree with. We are on the smaller DCL Wonder again in September, just three months after our FOS cruise and just one year after our previous Wonder cruise. We feel like that will give us a real good feeling on which line we really prefer.

Looking forward to reading more!

I'd love to hear more! I was on the Dream in September, and I fell in love. Boyfriend and I (in our 20s, no kids) vowed to never cruise on a non-Disney cruise again, but a few nice couples we met at the adult pool raved about RCL and said they alternate between RCL and Disney, so we decided to try RCL, and we will be sailing on the Freedom in May.

Thanks for the comparison! We have cruised Disney 6 times and we are sailing the Oasis for our next cruise (this Oct). I was wondering what you meant about the towels on RCI? I am so used to Disney (cruise and World) with all the towels I need when swiming.

Thanks!

dizneydawn, on RCI, they make you check out towels using your key card. on LOS, we were only allowed 2 towels per card, but I could have sworn on Allure we could check out 4 towels per card. You can change them as often as you want for dry/clean towels, but there's no main bin of towels like on Disney where you can just grab what you need. I can understand why Royal Caribbean does it, but frankly, it's a little annoying.

 

Embarkation

A breeze with both lines. We arrived at 11:30 for both even though both told us to arrive at 1:00 pm and we were on board by 12:00. Very pleasant staff checking us in for both lines.

 

First impression when walk on board

Wow. RCI could take some pointers from Disney on this. I don't know if they do this with every ship but we walked outside onto a gangway and onto deck 4 of FOS and then entered into a hall way that led to the casino. No wow factor at all. Disney had you inside a closed hallway across the gangway and then they annouce your family as you walk into the grand atrium with the huge chandiler and staircase. (I admit it. I cried a little when we walked into the disney ship) It was very impressive. Again does this make or break your cruise? no but it does set the tone nicely on Disney.

 

 

Towels

Disney wins. why can't i just walk up and get a towel out like the adult i am on RCI. Disney had multiple towel bins with hot fresh towels available 24/7. no idea why RCI doesn't do this if disney can. we brought our own cheap towels on RCI and that worked out well. just kind of annoying.

 

Thanks for the comparison, never been on disney and probably won't but like to know what's out there.

A question, when we sailed on Freedom we entered on Deck 5, right into the promenade. I had thought I saw others say the same. Was it windy or maybe some other reason the gangway was brought down a deck? I agree coming in by the casino does not give that WOW like the promenade does.

As for the towels, here again I agree with you, it is a pain to have to check them out. We checked ours out the first day, then just exchanged wet ones for dry at the end of each day, checking in the last few on the last day. Unfortunately too many people used them as "place holders" for their chairs or souveniers so they were forced into it.

Looking forward to the rest of your review/comparison.

A question, when we sailed on Freedom we entered on Deck 5, right into the promenade. I had thought I saw others say the same. Was it windy or maybe some other reason the gangway was brought down a deck? I agree coming in by the casino does not give that WOW like the promenade does.

Freedom will almost always board (at Port Canaveral) on deck 4, on the promenade deck. From there you'll enter the ship proper either through the forward or the aft centrum, depending on which direction you went off of the gangway.

The only public entries on the Freedom class (and Voyager) class ships are on deck 4 or deck 1.

Parking

I liked the location of the covered parking better for disney. It was right across from the port exit and was an easy walk across after the cruise to our car. RCI has outdoor parking across from the port entrance but the covered area is a bit of a walk (about 500 yards walk from doors of port). Not a problem for us since we are fit ;), but not as easy access as Disney.

No way it's 500 yards. Looking at the google map it looks like the covered garage for Terminal 10 is about 500 feet away, whereas the Disney garage is about 300 feet away from the terminal. It's a wash when you consider how much you walked getting off the ship and through customs. Probably seemed farther away because you didn't really want to leave :p

Disney had you inside a closed hallway across the gangway and then they annouce your family as you walk into the grand atrium with the huge chandiler and staircase.

Is this not embarrassing? I really don't need my name announced when I go onboard.

Disney had you inside a closed hallway across the gangway and then they annouce your family as you walk into the grand atrium with the huge chandiler and staircase.

 

Is this not embarrassing? I really don't need my name announced when I go onboard.

If I choose to cruise on Disney, this won't be embarrassing at all. I like it.

Disney had you inside a closed hallway across the gangway and then they annouce your family as you walk into the grand atrium with the huge chandiler and staircase.

 

Is this not embarrassing? I really don't need my name announced when I go onboard.

Honestly, I kinda like the idea. If I ever go on Disney, I'm bringing a crown and scepter for that moment. :D

A little back ground first. We (me and DH age mid 30's) have sailed on both these ships in the last 4 months. First on Dream in Dec. 2011 and then FOS just last week. The first cruise Disney was with our boys ages 7 and 9. The second FOS was just us. This does hurt some for the family with kids comparison and I will try to be as fair as possible on that topic. Just know that we have no first hand experience with our children on FOS.

 

It seems that there is a lot of interest in comparing these two lines and I will give my honest opinion of these two ships. I know this does not make me an expert in all things Disney or RCI so just take it for what it is worth. This is simply our opinion of both ships in hopes that it helps someone out there who is deciding between the two. I used these boards alot for research prior to both trips and this is my attempt to give back. I am posting this on both boards (Disney and RCI) since it should help both groups of cruisers.

 

 

I will try to answer any questions as I go along so feel free to ask. I will post a little at a time as I have a lot of notes (we drove down from WV to Cape Canaveral so we wrote down our thoughts in the car as a way to kill some time). Some of this will be just general recomendations about FOS and ports/excursions but most is in comparison with Disney so bear with me on those notes.

 

I am going to try to write this in a somewhat logical order starting with boarding and ending with disembarktion.

 

Any interest?

So looking forward to seeing what you think! We took our girls on the Dream last year (they were 2 and 6) and will be taking them (4 and 8) on FOS next year!

Thanks for the info!

dizneydawn, on RCI, they make you check out towels using your key card. on LOS, we were only allowed 2 towels per card, but I could have sworn on Allure we could check out 4 towels per card. You can change them as often as you want for dry/clean towels, but there's no main bin of towels like on Disney where you can just grab what you need. I can understand why Royal Caribbean does it, but frankly, it's a little annoying.

Disney had you inside a closed hallway across the gangway and then they annouce your family as you walk into the grand atrium with the huge chandiler and staircase.

 

Is this not embarrassing? I really don't need my name announced when I go onboard.

It is really hard to explain how truely wonderful this little detail makes you feel. Everywhere else when boarding the ship I feel like it is a bit of a cattle call. Guests just streaming in, some getting photos and others heading straight over to the front desk. It is a bit overwhelming.

When you board a Disney ship for the first time there are more crew standing around than guests (it seems) and they are all there to greet you. You sort of feel like royalty at that point. Then they announce your name and someone comes over to explain to how how the next few hours are going to work. Whether or not your rooms are ready, how to find the buffet, when your luggage might be ready, how to read your KTTW card to find out where to be for dinner, and any other question you might have. Seriously. For every single guest.

Some have been real creative and give names like the Christopher Columbus family or some such. You tell them what you want announced. If you really don't want it, just say no thank you and they will welcome you aboard silently.

i never really thought much about the announcing of your names. part of me felt like it was corny, but another part felt that it was cool for the kids. however, when we were on the dream, i'll admit it was a little more special than i'd remembered...and i don't even think the kids noticed!!! but i did!

fast forward to LOS a few months later, and walking onto the ship was actually underwhelming for me. there wasn't anyone greeting us, obviously no one announcing our name. we just walked on and were like, "where are we?" we had a great time on the ship, but embarkation is best with disney.

and plus, their terminal is much prettier :)

Thanks for posting your comparison. I think your opinions align With mine for the most part. Disney really sets the stage when you board, the balcony staterooms are nicer on the Dream, and the kids clubs are also better on Disney.

However, our kids (boys, aged 9 and 11) actually prefer the Freedom class ships. There is so much to do outside the kids clubs (rock climbing, flow rider, ice skating, H2O zone, mini golf, etc.). On the Dream they have mini golf, shuffleboard and the overcrowded pools, which were intolerable for us. I've got to give it to Disney, though, the Aquaduck is the main selling point of the whole ship.

I forgot the convenience of getting towels, but you're right, it's a nuisance on RCI.

The thing that surprised me most was that the Dream just didn't seem to handle crowds as well as the Freedom class ships. Maybe it's because the Dream was at capacity when we sailed her, but I've been on LOS and FOS at near capacity.

We're returning to the LOS in June to sail the Western Med (can't wait). I don't think we'll return to the Dream.