Review of Freedom of the Seas - 3/17/13 (Western) - Of All Things "so nice"

[fletch1027]

Day 7 (FOS Day 6) - aka "Cozumel - a lot of traveling to see cool old stuff"

 

 

First off, I have a correction to make. After looking over the compass for Day 6 I realized that it was today that we had watched Brave after dinner at the pool and not night 5. I can't believe the memories are slipping already! I guess I need to use a NextCruise and plan another one!

 

I remember thinking Friday morning that I couldn't believe how quickly the week was speeding by. I also remember how blessed we were with perfect weather all week. Not a drop of rain all week! Along those same lines, here is the daily weather report courtesy of the compass:

 

Partly Cloudy

High: 82

Humidity: 61%

Wind: SSE @ 15 mph

UV Index: 11 (extreme)

 

Here are the details of the excursion we booked for the day:

 

Vendor: Royal Caribbean

Tour Name: Mayan Ruins and Beach Break

Size: about 50 people

Cost: $112 pp (included ride to Playa del Carmen, Tulum entrance, and lunch)

 

This was the third of three excursions we had planned, and it was by chance that they had progressed from the smallest group to the largest. This was also the only excursion that we booked through RCI. We did it online before leaving and by the first night the excursion tickets were delivered to our room. We preferred to book our own excursion to Tulum, but changed our minds and booked through RCI mostly due to things I learned on the CC boards. Because getting to Tulum involves getting to the ferry port, then meeting the tour in Playa del Carmen, going down there and making it back. There is security in booking through RCI in that you will not get left behind if anything goes wrong. Never having been to Cozumel before, we opted for the peace of mind even though we would have preferred a much smaller group.

 

After a quick breakfast in the WJ, we were instructed to meet in Arcadia at 9:40 (10:00 off the ship). There was the meeting place for all of the tour groups for Cozumel. They made an announcement that an excursion called Sea Turtle Snorkel was cancelled. I'm not sure what those folks did instead. We had priority to get off the ship first up at the front exit, but I believe people that went out mid-ship did not have to be help up by RCI tour folks.

 

Photos of the morning:

 

Pulling into Cozumel. We were one of the first ships to port, but definitely not the last!:

 

 

Transfer from big ship to jet boat for ride to Playa del Carmen:

 

 

Playa del Carmen beach from the jet boat dock:

 

 

Luchador masks (I used to watch a lot of WWE):

 

 

 

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[sundancekid79]

Great play by play! Lot's of good info, may hit you up for more later. Wife and I are going on the same cruise in May, our first. Mother's day and wife's "birthday month" as she likes to call it. She went to Provo, I graduated from BYUH. Can't wait to get back on the beach! Thanks for the post, keep it coming!

[fletch1027]

Great play by play! Lot's of good info, may hit you up for more later. Wife and I are going on the same cruise in May, our first. Mother's day and wife's "birthday month" as she likes to call it. She went to Provo, I graduated from BYUH. Can't wait to get back on the beach! Thanks for the post, keep it coming!

 

Thanks! If you want more details, send me an email. I have some thoughts and ideas, especially about the Tulum trip we took...

 

 

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[fletch1027]

After getting off of the jet boat, we headed down the pier and up the road into town. There along the road were the various ship tours with signs for each. The ones I remember seeing were ours (Tulum w/ Beach Break), Tulum Express, and Coba. Once the number of us in line matched the tour guides manifest, we followed him through the streets and to the bus.

 

When deciding the right tour to do, keep track of the costs. Our tour cost $112 per person, but that was all inclusive. Some of the costs remember when planning is the jet boat ferry ($13 USD each way) and admission into Tulum (about $5 USD). Tulum also charges an additional $5 if you want to bring a video camera in to film. Smartphones and other small things that can do video are not charged - just the bigger "camcorder" types of camera.

 

I was keeping track of time because next time we will do a private tour. So here are the times so far (staying on ship time). By 10:15 we were off the ship, and at 11:30 we were on the bus heading for Tulum. It was a 50 minute ride down to Tulum on the bus. The guide did a good job giving us a brief history of the Mayans (he was of Mayan descent), and telling us what to expect down there. We were all given wireless headsets to wear, so that the guy doing the walking tour could communicate with us in our large group. Did I say I prefer a smaller group? :-)

 

We get to Tulum, and there is about a 1/2 mile walk from the parking area to the ruins site. It is flat terrain and lines with shade trees so it's not too bad. I discovered that I had let the battery die on my new waterproof camera, so I had to rely on my iPhone for all of the pictures I took today :-( (although it did a decent job)

 

Here are some of the photos we took at the site:

 

This is a world tree we passed on the way in - also known as the "tree of life" by the Mayans:

 

 

This is the entrance into the ruins area. Tulum is one of the only ruin sites that is surrounded by walls (3 sides + cliff to ocean):

 

 

El Castillo which is the centerpiece of the site:

 

 

A closer view of El Castillo. There are three notches at the top, which some say represents the Godhead (God, Jesus Christ, Holy Ghost):

 

 

Temple of the Descending God to the left of El Castillo:

 

 

It got its name from the carving above the door showing a depiction of a bearded man upside down (descending):

 

 

 

To be continued...

 

 

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[Georgiagolfer]

Did anyone happen to watch Brian Williams "Rock Central" Friday nite. Quite the story on Carnival and how they are a multi-billion $$ company and pay .06% taxes. The Miami Heat owner claims that is all he needs to pay. Port taxes are paid by the cruisers. Go into the Rock Central site, very eye opening !!!!!!!!

 

No different on taxes than RCI, or NCL.:confused: The story just happened to be about CCL. They could have used any cruise line or probably any major corporation for that matter.

[dmcdo]

Thankyou for sharing your trip, I will be going on the Freedom on July 21, 2013 with my daughter, sister and brother in law and a few other people .This will be my daughter and I first cruise !!!!! We have the 3 stop trip snorkeling and stingray thru Captain Marvins .July can not get here quick enough :)

[IrishDMBF]

Thankyou for sharing your trip, I will be going on the Freedom on July 21, 2013 with my daughter, sister and brother in law and a few other people .This will be my daughter and I first cruise !!!!! We have the 3 stop trip snorkeling and stingray thru Captain Marvins .July can not get here quick enough :)

 

We will be on that July 21 cruise too!!! I can't wait at this point!!!!! This review is making me excited!!!

[kccrzr]

Great review. We also love Disney World and just bookended our March Spring Break cruise on Liberty with 19 y.o. daughter at Disney World. We ate one evening at Sanaa in Kidani Village. It was excellent, especially the bread service with a choice of 9 breads (naans, flatbread, etc) and 5 accompaniments, such as mango chutney.

 

You are inspiring me to plan a short cruise for our 30th Anniversary this summer.

[fletch1027]

Here are some more photos from the walking tour or Tulum. We were there for a little over 2 hours total. The first half was guided and the second half we could walk around on our own. It was odd to hear the guide say that we would meet back up at the Dairy Queen. I bet the Mayans never thought future civilizations could someday buy a Blizzard down the path from their temple… :-)

 

 

Gran Palacio - the guide described this as the "White House" of Tulum:

 

 

 

This is the Temple of the Frescoes, which was used as an observatory for tracking the movements of the sun.:

 

 

Closeup of red hands on the Temple of the Frescoes (left of the window):

 

 

A cool pair of gringos exploring Tulum:

 

 

View of the Caribbean Sea from Tulum (stairs going down):

 

 

Looking down the coast:

 

 

Next: lunch at the beach…

 

 

 

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[fletch1027]

After gathering up the big group and leaving Tulum, we headed to the beach and lunch portion of the excursion. It was about 4-5 miles from the ruins site, down a side road and in a guarded out of the way area of the beach that had several small beach houses and cafes.

 

Lunch was very good, consisting of marinated pork, broiled fish, corn tortillas, rice, pico de gallo, chips, etc. The cafe where we were was sort of an open air pavilion with an awesome view of the ocean:

 

 

 

After lunch, we had beach access for about an hour. There were also bathrooms adjacent to the lunch pavilion. Many of the cruisers brought swim suits, but we sat out in some beach chairs, listened to the crash of the waves and soaked up some sun (and shade). The pictures I posted to not give the beach justice. It is an awesome beach! Between the pure white sand and the deep blue water, it was beautiful!

 

My view during the beach break:

 

After the hour, we gathered up on the bus for the hour drive back to Playa del Carmen. One annoying thing is that where we were dropped off required about a mile walk to get down to the pier. I'm not sure why we were so far away. The guides walked with us, but the walk itself was annoying, especially after all of the walking we had already done.

 

We boarded the waiting jet boat and had a wild ride back to Cozumel. The water was a lot choppier in the afternoon than morning, and there were several times that we caught a little air off of the waves. I know several people were feeling twinges of seasickness, but I thought it felt like an amusement park ride and enjoyed it. :-)

 

All aboard time was 6:30, and we got back to the ship by 6:15. I know the Coba excursion was on our same boat, so I'm pretty sure the ship wasn't late leaving port. One thing we noticed upon our return was the large number of ships in port. At just the International Pier (which has two piers), there were 5 ships docked. Two Carnival ships at one and us, the Oceana Riviera, and NCL Pearl at the other one. I had never seen two ships "parallel parked" at one pier before. The pictures below show just how close they were. I wonder how the NCL captain knew when to stop? :-)

 

 

Freedom on the right, Oceana Riviera and NCL Pearl behind it

 

 

The Riviera and Pearl sharing the same side of the dock looked very close together. Before getting on Freedom I had to walk down and see how close they were. I was right - tight fit!

 

Back on the ship, we got cleaned up, then went to the MDR for dinner. The menu theme was "Basil" (not the character from Austin Powers) :-). Dinner was good as usual, and then we headed up to the pool deck to watch Brave (yes it was this night).

 

We returned to our room to find our towel creation for the night - "Dial M for Monkey"

 

 

 

Tomorrow: last day at sea

 

 

 

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[Twibes]

Great review, ejoyed the humor and photos. Welcome back to fall, I mean Spring :cool:!

[gadawg1979]

Great review, ejoyed the humor and photos. Welcome back to fall, I mean Spring :cool:!

 

We love all things freedom.

Twibes great body :-)

[fletch1027]

Hi there, we were also on the same cruise as Fletch sorry we didn't get to the meet & mingle, in fact we "forgot". We got so caught up in the days activities and showing the ship to my step-daughter, by the time I remembered it was over:(

We used Mobey Dick tours, very, very good as well. They have a website. No C.C required just send them an e-mail and they will confirm. We paid cash at the pier. We met the operator at 9:15 ship time and they dropped us off wherever we wanted to go at the end of the tour. We decided not to go to 7 mile beach as we were pretty sun burnt already, even with 50 SPF! The stingray city tour and snorkeling the coral reef tour was $50 for each person.

 

We almost forgot the meet and mingle, but made it up there. :-)

 

I'm not sure if we could cruise again and have better weather than we had that week...

[Luv06012012]

fletch - all worked out well w/Captain Marvin's...I got my confirmation. Thanks again for this info!

 

I love your review and pictures...also amazed at how close those ships are docked....holy cow! It's just crazy how they can do that so accurately without a bad outcome!

 

I'm so excited for our trip to get here and hope we get the same weather as you!

[NorbertsNiece]

I've posted a link to the Compasses and children's activities on the last page of my blog (currently) #224.

[StarSong2001]

Thanks for your review, I found it to be helpful and interesting. Also, thanks for so many cool pictures :)

[fyrfyterwife]

Thank You so much for a great review. My husband and I are taking this same cruise in October for our 35th anniversary. This will be our 4th cruise. I can hardly wait it can't get here soon enough.

[PattyG12]

I really have enjoyed re-living this cruise. Thanks for all the wonderful pictures! We really did have wonderful weather, huh?

[fletch1027]

Thank You so much for a great review. My husband and I are taking this same cruise in October for our 35th anniversary. This will be our 4th cruise. I can hardly wait it can't get here soon enough.

 

It was definitely a great time! No matter if it was a land or sea day, there was always plenty to do - or not do... :)

[fletch1027]

Cruise week goes exceptionally fast. Especially when the last day is a day at sea. Everywhere you look, it seems like there is a feeling of transition. Like the crew is starting to prep for the Sunday turnover. The Freestyle machines start to run out of flavors, the cursed disembark fairy arrives the night before to deliver luggage tags and schedules for when and where to meet to be evicted from the ship. :-(

 

Anyway, I titled today the "Freedom Bucket List" because there were several things that we had planned to do around the ship and all of a sudden it was out last chance to do it! He attacked the Compass with a highlighter and planned out our last day of Freedom (figuratively and literally) :-)

 

First on the list was ice skating. There was a 10:00-12:20 open skate session, so after sleeping in a little and a quick breakfast at the WJ, we headed down to Studio B. The open skate sessions are staffed (helmet and ice skate fittings) by the Freedom-Ice.com ice show. It was cool to see them "off ice" and chat for a few minutes. The guy working was also our muster drill section leader, so he kind of bookended our cruise. The girl working ended up being a distant cousin to my wife. I think everyone with Doty for a last name is related to the Edward Doty from the Mayflower. :-) The people staffing the skate and helmet handouts will take your picture if you ask - they will also ask you to not take your camera out onto the ice. :-)

 

Jen and I. This was a great photo as I had just finished my triple axel jump:

 

 

 

Next up was the rock wall. My 19 year old son loves climbing. I have gone with him a few times, so I had to give it a shot. It looks a lot higher from the top than the bottom. :-)

 

I had read in a few forums that they installed auto belays to use, but today there were three staff members out doing manual belaying. They were extra cautious. Each persons harness had two carabiners on the rope. It was a popular activity, but the wait was less than 10 minutes.

 

Is that Spider-Man up there?

 

 

 

 

After the rock wall adventure, we headed to something that was right up both of our alley's: a 1:00 TV theme song trivia get together at the Schooner Bar. Drew liked to pick on people that got too many right answers by saying we watched too much TV, but I like to think that we just have good memories. :-) We joined up with another couple from Georgia and a fifth person sitting by us. To our surprise we totally dominated it and got 35 out of 40 right! Im not sure how much we dominated. That sounds good, although no one else had more than 30 besides us. It made up for us getting throttled at Scatergories. :-) I won't give away any answers in case they are re-used, but here's a clue. We have watched every episode of Lost and I didn't know there was a theme song for it!

 

Us posing with our RC victory hats!

 

 

 

After that, we rolled by the WJ for a victory lunch since we didn't want to change into MDR clothes, then change back again for the pool.

 

 

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

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[Luv06012012]

fletch - I hope you don't mind if I ask one more question. Sorry! I usually purchase a cheap disposable water camera and then have my regular one. I think for the captain marvin's I would be able to take both since my good camera can stay in my bag on the boat. My dolphin swim/dunn river's falls excursion I will only be able to take the waterproof one because I wouldn't be able to store my regular one anywhere at the falls correct? I just don't want to miss out on good pictures with my better camera, but I also don't want it getting ruined either. Oh the dilemma's.....

[fletch1027]

fletch - I hope you don't mind if I ask one more question. Sorry! I usually purchase a cheap disposable water camera and then have my regular one. I think for the captain marvin's I would be able to take both since my good camera can stay in my bag on the boat. My dolphin swim/dunn river's falls excursion I will only be able to take the waterproof one because I wouldn't be able to store my regular one anywhere at the falls correct? I just don't want to miss out on good pictures with my better camera, but I also don't want it getting ruined either. Oh the dilemma's.....

 

 

If your good camera is not waterproof, then you are correct. Take nothing with you to Dunn's River that you cannot afford to get wet. We even left our towels in the van. There are companies that make watertight containers for different cameras. Check around Amazon if that is of interest, but use caution if looking into something like that.

 

Also, have pockets or straps of some way to secure the stuff you are carrying, because when moving up the falls, you will need both hands free. There are tons of places to take pictures when the group stops.

 

Will your whole group be going up the falls? If not someone who doesn't go can get some great pictures. There is a paved (with wood steps) trail that follows the falls where some one can use your good camera.

 

I wore board shorts that had 2 deep pockets on the sides. I had a small waterproof case that held my seapass, drivers license, and cash. I also had my waterproof camera and my iphone that I had a waterproof case for. All of those things (including us) came out unscathed. :)

 

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[fletch1027]

After lunch we blocked out a few hours to lay out and absorb our last rays of the trip. As expected on a sea day, the nice chairs in the Solarium out in the sun were all occupied, but there were plenty available on the deck above the pool.

 

At this point (for those of you that didn't get the meaning of my trip report), I will explain where the "so nice" originated. I'm not sure if it is something done on other ships, or even if it is something done with all of the guys that sell those $10 fruity rum drinks on the trays by the pool, but there is at least one guy that is constantly walking around saying "Soooo Niiccee" as he tried to get folks to max out their Seapasses. :-)

 

By Day 7, it was a running joke with us as well as others. We heard a lot of people sitting near us imitating him as he made his rounds. It was pretty funny, although the gag goes stale quickly when I try it at home. :-)

 

 

 

My last kicked back picture of the trip. This time with my back to the ocean looking across the pool deck to the other side:

 

 

 

After the last bit of sunning, we headed back down to get ready for dinner, and begin cleaning up a bit in regards to (dare I say) packing. Nooo!

 

On the way to dinner (not really on the way because we went up from Deck 8 to Deck 14, then back down to Deck 5 for dinner - but who's counting), we went up top to get some pictures of the final sunset of the cruise. The card room up by Olive and Twist offered a great view:

 

 

 

And one more from the MDR before it went away for good:

 

 

 

We had a good dinner. The MDR theme for the night was Pomodoro. It was sad saying goodbye to our great MDR wait staff (Fidella and Bulelwa). One funny thing about the dessert menu on Day 7: I am a lover of key lime pie. Every night I scanned the MDR dessert menu looking for it, and the first six nights I was denied. Tonight before I was handed the menu, I said "Please tell me that there is key lime pie tonight!", to which Fidella replied "How did you know that?" Woo hoo, that made my dinner! I guess I am easy to please. :-) As an aside, Sorrento's always has 2-3 different kinds of dessert available - usually in a small plastic cup (like mousse). Two or three times they had a key lime style of mousse which was very good as well!

 

After dinner we did a casual wander around the ship enjoying the night breeze and peacefulness. At that point the ship was in full transition as just about all of the deck chairs were stacked and out of the way in anticipation of the new lucky cruisers.

 

We also went up to Johnny Rockets to use our buy one get one free shake coupon before it was too late. There were only two or three other tables besides ours occupied, but the staff was still in full party mode up there. That is probably one of the funner places to work if doing food on the ship. JR's is up and kind of tucked away, so things are probably a little bit looser up there. :-)

 

After that, we went back down to finish packing and put our bags out for pickup.

 

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

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[Jim M]

... It was an unexpected but very enjoyable part of the tour as there were facts about these that I had never heard before (besides not knowing that breadfruit and ackee existed).

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Never watched Mutiny on the Bounty??

[fletch1027]

Never watched Mutiny on the Bounty??

 

 

I haven't seen it - but looking at IMDB if I had I would know all about breadfruit... :)