Freedom of the Seas May 15th - Eastern Review!

Hi all - Just recently off the amazing Freedom of the Seas which sailed the Eastern route May 15th through 22nd!

I am happy to answer any questions (if able) for interested future cruisers, and hope to get this review finished over the coming days! I will have pictures and I do think I have all compasses. Once I figure out uploading - I will get those up.

A few bits about the "victims" of this cruise. My 19 year old daughter and I are frequent cruisers - as frequent as we can afford the air fare from Omaha Nebraska! Allyson (DD) has been cruising since she was 2 and I have been cruising since my first cruise (on Premier's Big Red Boat in 1990). We are both Diamond on Royal and we do have a preference for Royal. We have done Carnival and Disney as well in the past. I do find great things on every cruise I have ever taken and while my preference is Royal, I am happy to try new things out.

We left Omaha on May 14th with a direct flight to Orlando. We also love everything Mickey Mouse so when we chose this cruise, we lined up a day at Magic Kingdom and hotel stay at Disney's Port Orleans Riverside. Our plane was on time and after picking up a rental car at Budget (seriously longest and slowest line at Orlando airport) we arrived at our hotel room at about 1:45. We took Disney's park transportation and were just in time to find spots for the 3pm MK Parade which is one of our favorite MK activities.

I hope you enjoy the review! Lets all grab a Pina Colada and relax!

You had me at hi all!

We are doing the eastern itinerary in July and also are Disney fans and doing time there after the cruise.

My daughter is 19 too....

I think we are twins!

Looking forward to your review - please type fast! :)

Also looking forward to your review. Will be doing this is September with my daughter - counting down the days! Is this a mother and daughter itinerary? It will be my first time in the Caribbean and first time on Royal, and it will be her first cruise ever, so we are grateful for all the information.

Can't wait to read...but hurry as I am on the next ship out.......

You had me at hi all!

 

We are doing the eastern itinerary in July and also are Disney fans and doing time there after the cruise.

My daughter is 19 too....

I think we are twins!

 

Looking forward to your review - please type fast! :)

I think we must be twins!

Looking forward to this. Can I grab a Corona instead of a Pina Colada though?

Nice start, Corona here too.:)

I love Freedom and Coco Cay. How was tendering to the island? Were there enough tenders to get people there at a reasonable time? I've only been there on Majesty.

I will do the best I can to get this typed up fast! I am not so good with the photos - so I will add those when I can!

My daughter and I chose this cruise because it was close to Orlando and the price was right! She just finished her freshman year in college. It was a very stressful year for her, so when we discussed vacation ideas, she just wanted a beach and pool vacation. So of course - cruise!

I am married, and my hubby loves to cruise, but this time, we left him at home. He didn't love that - but we have other travel plans this year and his vacation was a bit limited so it worked out. So for us, this was the perfect mother daughter trip!

Now a note - in our home, we do let our daughter have a glass of wine etc when we know she isn't driving and when we have one. So there are some times where you may see her in photos with a drink in hand. She was consistently supervised by me, and was not directly served by anyone on Royal. She did drink on the islands where the drinking age is 18 (again under my supervision.)

So we spent day one at the Magic Kingdom - but I will get to the cruise straight away since I know thats why we are all here! Also - its National Wine day so I am enjoying a nice Chardonnay on my deck at home while typing this review:)

We were up early Sunday morning (May 15) to eat, and drive the rental car down to the port. We did return the rental car to Budget by 10:45 and were on the shuttle bus to the ship by 11:00am. I felt bad for the people at Budget - they were dealing with 3 ships in port that day and shuttles back and forth with only 2 drivers. Our shuttle driver was frustrated because he couldn't get to the area where Royal had some of the people waiting. I do hope they worked that out, as he was trying to do the right thing by the customers. We were the first off the shuttle, and immediately went through security. Total time to get on the ship was minutes with no line in the Diamond lounge! We were onboard by 11:30 and headed straight to the Solarium, changed into bathing suits, got a couple of daiquiris and laid by the pool for the next 2 hours!

We ate lunch around 1:45 in the Windjammer. This is where I dissent from many reviews I have read on CC. I am not a buffet fan, and I really do come on a cruise to order off a menu for my meals. I feel the food in the windjammer is underwhelming and eat there sparingly. They did have some good Cuban chicken - so get that if you like a bit of flavor and spice!

We next headed to our cabin. Something you should know, we cruise cheap! We get the most inexpensive cabin we can because we really don't spend much time in there. I would rather have more money for other things on my cruise than spending it on the cabin. We were in Cabin 6217 all the way forward. This was a bit of an oversight on my part when booking - because of the Star Lounge right below on deck 5. Thankfully the music never lasted far past midnight and we are night owls.

Our bags were not in our cabin yet - actually the didn't arrive until around 5, which is the latest we have had them show. But we did meet our cabin steward who was wonderful to work with. We rarely saw him throughout the week, and I do enjoy getting to know the staff on the ship so that was sad, but I respect that he was busy doing his job and we had NO complaints about his service.

We had previously been on Liberty of the Seas and so were very familiar with the ship layout. We did receive our delivery of champagne and strawberries while were in the room. We changed back into our shorts and decided to walk around a bit to see what might be different before heading for the muster drill at 4. The muster station for this cabin is located right below in the Star Lounge so that was convenient.

After our muster drill, we stopped at the cabin to grab our Champs and strawberries and headed to the deck 11 solarium. It is our family sail away tradition - every single cruise to sip champagne as the ship sails away, and why not have chocolate covered strawberries with that! We had a nice table in the Solarium and we were so excited for a great week.

A quick note - we did have My Time Dining and had made a daily reservation for 8pm. We also planned to dine in Chops, Giovannis and Sabor - more about those later. We did not book any excursions through the ship - except the ones at Coco Cay. When we cruise, we do a combination of ship excursions, private excursions and on our own exploration depending on where we are going.

Ok - I must be having an issue with my photos because they didn't all load into my iPhotos - I hate computers sometimes! So you won't get to see my amazing strawberries and champagne Instagram worthy shot!

Looking forward to this. Can I grab a Corona instead of a Pina Colada though?

I am an equal opportunity drinker! Blender at home is broke - so its a wine night!

I love Freedom and Coco Cay. How was tendering to the island? Were there enough tenders to get people there at a reasonable time? I've only been there on Majesty.

Tendering was NOT an issue for us, but we are not early birds! We decided to eat breakfast at 8:30 and left the ship just after - so we were on the island and in our beach chairs by 10:15! We got right on a tender and were able to catch the tram quickly because we rented the beach loungers for $59 total on the quiet beach - highly recommend to get away from the music and chaos!

So I will continue on for now - after our Chocolate covered strawberries and Champs as we sailed away, we really enjoyed the relaxation of watching the water and ship sail away. We headed back to our cabin at about 5:30 to start unpacking, shower and get ready for dinner at Chops.

I have eaten at Chops several times, on all 3 of our Liberty cruises and enjoy the food there. The fact that they serve nice corn fed Nebraska beef helps. This Husker loves her steak! Periodically in my daughters 19 years she has decided to become a vegetarian. I can lure her back every time by grilling some steaks! And that is not a slam against any vegetarian - my girl is just a Nebraska girl too, and nothing beats a steak from here.

We had reservations at 8 and I did book this with the dining package deal on the RCL website. We also did have the Royal Replenish drink package. I feel like the dining package for 3 restaurants is well priced and would do that again. It saved us a few dollars. I am mixed on the Royal Replenish package. I don't feel a need to do one of the alcohol packages because of the Diamond drinks in the evening. If I want something, I can go to a bar or the lounge and get it. But for the Starbucks Coffee and bottled water - I drank more than my daily cost of the package. But remember - I drink approx 80 - 100 ounces of water each day! Yes I know many say the water on the ship tastes fine and it does, but its easier for me to measure how much I am drinking with the bottled water. And since our cabin was all the way forward, it wasn't the most convenient to get to the windjammer to get water, but it was easy to pop down to deck 5 and get something fast. My practice each night before heading to the cabin would be top stop at R Bar on deck 5 and get 4 bottles - 2 for that night and 2 for 1st thing in the morning. The bar staff there was wonderful and very accommodating after the first night when they asked for 4 sea pass cards for the 4 bottles. I told them it was all for me to get through until the next morning and after a good laugh - they got the bottles for me.

Sorry - I digressed - must be the 2nd glass of wine! Did I mention its National Wine Day!

So Chops- Ryan was our waiter and he was perfect. He flirted with us women just the right amount, was shocked that my 19 year old was already at Diamond level and the pacing of the meal was just right. I hate a rushed service especially when you are having a big meal!

We started our meal with salads - the Crispy Goat Cheese Salad with apples and Cranberries. Yes this was incredible. The goat cheese is mild and deep fried with a light breading. When you cut into this, the flavor pairs wonderfully with the balsamic dressing, apples and greens. I would eat this as a meal - like a larger serving! And I so wish I could find that Goat Cheese for our Charcuterie evenings at home. We both loved this dish.

Next I had the Pan Roasted Jumbo Scallops and Allyson had the Beef Carpaccio. LOVED this. The scallops are served with a light relish of bacon, apple and onion with a mustard au jus - the flavoring was perfectly light with the scallops. I did not try the Beef Carpaccio - but Allyson loved it. She is a foodie in training at 19!

My daughter got the 12 oz NY Strip - and she ate the whole thing. Did I mention she loves steak? I had the parmesan crusted Veal Chop. The crust was perfect. The chef perfectly prepared the sear and both of our meats were wonderfully medium rare - the only real way to eat meat! We shared Potato Croquettes and Asparagus. Yummy!

For dessert - I was so so full. I just had plain old vanilla ice cream, but Allyson had the red velvet cake which she said was perfect. I will take her word on that, as I hate red velvet cake (yea I know I'm weird).

After dinner we did go to the welcome aboard show, which was a comedian. He was very funny and we decided to try out his late night comedy show the next night. I will tell you now that we crashed early after our day in Coco Cay and we never made it!

We were still tired from our Marathon Magic Kingdom day the day before, so we were in our cabin by midnight. I will say our feet still hurt from walking over 17,000 steps the day before!

Until Tomorrow! Cheers!

Glad you enjoyed it.

One more thing I remembered people always ask about, then I really am going to bed!

The movies by the pool were disappointing for us, and we were looking forward to that.

The Finest Hours - now that one is about a storm and a boat sinking (I think) isn't that like showing Titanic or Poseidon on a cruise?

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - we saw it once at the theater, that was enough for us. Had my husband been with us, we would have never seen him between that movie and Flowrider.

Zoolander 2 - we did watch this one night. It was as horrible as I expected it to be

How to be Single - we watched this too - its not a great movie but that was the only option that worked for us

The Good Dinosaur - isn't this a Disney movie? I thought this was a Dreamworks ship?

Between the Finest hours, Star Wars and the Good Dinosaur - the Disney movies were well represented!

As for TV in the cabin, there were 4 or 5 english channels. I think we saw the same episode of the Big Bang Theory 8 times, watched more TruTv than we ever have in the past. And the TBS in Spanish station showed english speaking movies with spanish commercials. And that channel showed a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon which worked for us when we wanted cabin down time.

Star Wars The Force Awakens is also a Disney movie......

We never got to see the movies on deck, but it seems that they were not well attended.

Great review, looking forward to the rest.

Oh, thank you. We are sailing this same itinerary in July on FOS. I am looking forward to the rest of your review.

Hi there. I love your review so far. Great sense of humor along with the right amount of details. Keep it up!

So Monday morning (5/16 for those who care about dates, we arrived in Coco Cay. I have no idea what time and if we were on time or late, because we slept until 7:45, went to breakfast in the windjammer and then headed out on the tender. We were in our reserved beach loungers by 10:15ish.

As for the windjammer, this was the only time we ate breakfast there, and this is where I feel you can see some big differences in food quality. I do not think the scrambled eggs are even eggs - maybe some powdered concoction mixed with water? If you want eggs, I suggest sticking with an omelet which were quite good. Though I would have liked to see some additional vegetable options for that other than peppers and onions. I found the food I tried in the windjammer and dining room to be quite bland and lacking of any flavor. Now I know we are trying to please the masses, but the food is no better than a dining hall setting. The food options and quality used to be far better. With the fares we are paying, I know they can do better.

So on Coco Cay, for $59 you can reserve 2 lounge chair with beach mats on a semi private area of the island. They also include some lovely fresh fruit and bottled water for that fee. There is a bar right on that beach and service catered to you. It was perfectly peaceful and serene. To get there, you would take a tram from the main shop after you disembark the tender. The tram will take you back to the main area for lunch and if you would like to go to that area. We were quite content to stay on our chairs, sometimes in the sun, and sometimes back in the shade. For lunch, we did head over to the BBQ which was very similar food to the windjammer food from the day before, hamburgers, hot dogs and a mildly flavored jerk chicken. We then headed back to our beach, walked out the sand bar and enjoyed collecting shells along the way. My daughter gathers shells at every single beach she has ever visited, so its nice for this mom to see that some things are still the same!

About the beach loungers, we did try to reserve these online but missed that. When we boarded the ship, we asked at the shore excursion desk if any were available and were told no, but there are sometimes cancellations. We were put on a wait list. About an hour after we were told we would be on the wait list, we had a voice mail message in the cabin letting us know we had a reservation. So if you can't get into something before you cruise, I would always suggest asking onboard.

We had massages planned in the spa at 3:15, so headed back to the ship at about 2. We wanted to wash the sand off and get out of the sun a bit before the massages. After our massages (which were relaxing and needed after our Disney walking day) we napped and then got ready for dinner. We ate in the main dining room and since we had My Time Dining we were seated in the Galileo dining room on Deck 5. Our waiters were a great team, one from Turkey (I am so bad with names so don't remember his) and his assistant was Doug from Jamaica. Allyson was maybe feeling a bit dehydrated from the sun and her tummy was feeling queasy, but she still went all out for formal night. After eating, she felt good and we had a fun evening in the R Bar with the wait staff there. They are wonderful group of people!

The sun must have done us in - because we went to bed around 12 and woke up around 12 the next day! It was a wonderful peaceful sleep, and I can honestly say I haven't slept like that in a very long time. It was definitely needed sleep!

I decided to try lunch in the dining room to a great deal of regret. Not because of the food, lunch in the dining room was actually good. Unfortunately, at our table was a young man who decided it was his business to mix political and religious issues with lunch conversation. He didn't care if he was upsetting the rest of the table spouting off his viewpoints. A kindly retired gentleman at our table did his best to keep the rest of the conversation on the neutral "cruise appropriate" table talk. Thankfully I did not run into our "talker" again the rest of the cruise. I really prefer my meals to stick to safe subjects!

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the solarium pool reading my book. Allyson decided to head to the Starbucks to do some college class homework. Voom internet was very helpful to have and she was able to finish writing her paper and get that posted with no trouble. I know she even mentioned she was able to play a computer game she likes with no issues of buffering. We did get her the streaming Voom internet. I had the texting/social media version which was perfect for me and my needs.

Cheers!

Pictures didn't appear to come through on the last post!

Great review! Thanks! We are doing FOS Western in February with 7 other couples. I can't wait. So loved the pictures of the food.

On her in March for the 8 night Eastern. Thanks for the review.

You had me at hi all!

 

We are doing the eastern itinerary in July and also are Disney fans and doing time there after the cruise.

My daughter is 19 too....

I think we are twins!

 

Looking forward to your review - please type fast! :)

We are doing this in June. I too am looking forward to read this. So type even faster!:D:D

Hey sister from another mister...we truly must be twins....

I am really enjoying your review...

I love Coco Cay.. so relaxing and serene.

For the life of me I can't remember the name of the delicious island concoction that is the specialty there? I know in Labadee it tis the Labadoozie... Whatever it is, I am looking forward to sucking down a few....

Can't wait to read more.

Cindy

I love Coco Cay.. so relaxing and serene.

For the life of me I can't remember the name of the delicious island concoction that is the specialty there? I know in Labadee it tis the Labadoozie... Whatever it is, I am looking forward to sucking down a few....

 

Can't wait to read more.

Cindy

It's the Coco Loco, and since we are both having slow days at work, I searched for the recipe:

1 oz. Dark Rum

1 oz. Coconut Rum

1/2 oz. Cream of Coconut

1/2 oz Papaya juice

1/2 oz. Orange juice

1/2 oz. Pineapple juice

1/4 oz. Grenadine

Garnish Pineapple and Cherry

Instructions:

Mix all the ingredients and blend with ice. Raise glass and toast!

I think we found something we have to try this weekend, Love.

(For the curious, Mommags123 is my wife :) )