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

[PattyG12]

I was hoping you would give us the name of the "So Nice" waiter .... it sounded like Ready Eddie the Jamaican server we saw all the time.

[fletch1027]

"Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up." - Inigo Montoya

 

 

Disembark was a sad day so I will sum it up quickly to get past it: :-)

 

• 
  Breakfast in the MDR - they were still offering the full menu and it was cool to eat on the bottom floor (Deck 3) of the MDR, as we were up on Deck 5 for MTD
  

• 
  Gold C&R are invited to Pharaoh's Palace to wait. I'm not sure how crowded Arcadia was, but Pharaoh's was not crowded at all and stretching out in a lounge chair had to be better than sitting in a theater seat
  

• 
  It rained hard all the way north out of Florida
  

 

Some other random thoughts and photos that didn't make it into my previous posts:

 

There are two contrasting songs that I have to comment on.

 

First off, unless you never watch TV, you have seen this commercial on heavy rotation. Think of the lady on the Oasis zip lining over Central Park with "Good Feeling" by Flo Rida playing. If you can't picture it,

: My comment is that after betting pounded with that commercial, I never heard the song once on the ship - ironic! :-)

 

Secondly, you couldn't enter the Arcadia without hearing

over and over. I think it is something that Drew Devine prefers to get the audience going before shows start. The title of it is "Love Today" by Mika and I am just now getting it out of my head. :-)

 

 

 

 

Good things:

 

- We both have high opinions of the new MDR dinner menus - although we don't have experience with the old menu to compare it to

- Portions were good in the MDR - helped contain my eating

- Our whole staff was excellent (MDR and Cabin Attendant)

- We love My Time Dining

- The ship was in excellent shape and looks like it is very well maintained

- Ports were great - I understand from the threads on CC that they can get repetitious after multiple visits, but to me cruising enough to find the Caribbean repetitious means I get out a lot more than others! :-) For us it was our first time, so we had a blast!

- Freedom is laid out in a way so that it is easy to get places and even though all cabins were sold, it didn't feel crowded at all (besides Solarium chairs near the pool)

- Drew Devine - he was a good cruise director with a good sense of humor

- Show quality - very high. Of the shows we saw, here is my preference order (Now You See It, Freedom Ice, Once Upon a Time, Marquee)

- Blaze of Glory (Bon Jovi cover band) - this was a great surprise as we were not expecting then to come and play specifically for our anniversary! :-)

- Future open booking - Putting down a $100 deposit in exchange for a $100 OBC (for a future 7 night) was an easy decision to make!

 

 

Not so good things (very short list):

- Static breakfast menu in the MDR. By Day 4 we were venturing to Sorrento's and the WJ for breakfast

- Sorrento's breakfast pizza - luke warm and not very tasety

- Tipping in Labadee - I mentioned this earlier in the review. It's not the tipping that bugs me, it's that Labadee is Royal owned and tips are requested everywhere. On top of that, if I hadn't studied the CC boards, I would never have known to expect it. A lot of first time visitors may get caught off guard, since it is an "extension of the ship". Maybe RCI should add 50 cents a day of extra pre-paid gratuities to go towards the chair guys and tram drivers for ships that stop in Labadee?

- My Flowrider skills are not so good :-)

 

 

 

Other Random Photos:

 

Cool perspective looking forward down the ship from a quiet corner of the WJ:

 

 

Purell - everywhere you look (not that there's anything wrong with that):

 

 

Royal Promenade on last night ready for the parade:

 

 

Here is a list of the internet rates on Freedom (I wish they would do the "all you can eat" rate like on the Allure):

 

 

Movies: I was impressed with the "newness" of the movies they were showing inside and outside. Here are the ones I can remember:

 

Outdoor (Pool big screen): Skyfall, Brave, Beyonce in Concert, Grease (sing-a-long isn't new but traditional)

 

Indoor: The Croods (same day as in theaters), Avengers, not sure of the others (most of the Arcadia movies are in 3D)

 

 

Recommended reading for excellent Freedom trip reports:

 

KansCocoa currently has a blog on a cruise she took on the Allure, but before she did that, she sailed on Freedom. I poured over this review, as she goes into great details (w/ tons of pictures) on every inch of Freedom. After reading it, I felt like I could make my way around the ship before I got there. :-) Since I knew I could not duplicate her effort, I tried to focus mine on the port excursions, but if you are planning a cruise on the Freedom for the first time, her review is a must read! Middle Aged Drama Queen's Eastern Carib Review: Fun on the FREEDOM!!!

 

 

In my review I mentioned what the MDR menu theme was for each night (we ate dinner in the MDR all 7 nights), but I didn't post any photos of the menus themselves. NorbertsNiece caught a lot of people by surprise by showing up on the Freedom that week! She also did an excellent blog that has some great information including: MDR menu photos, scans of the seven Compass', scans of the teen activities, and also a great account of the Freedom "Behind the Scene's" Tour that makes me want to save up $150 for our next cruise to do it myself! Bit of a (surprise) Blog – Freedom of the Seas – Western Caribbean – 17th March 2013

 

 

Also, the specific boards helped me out a ton as well. Things like the "Ports of Call", Camera, and Roll Call boards were excellent resources!

 

It's been a lot of fun to reflect back on our cruise by putting together this report. I remembered details that I would have otherwise forgotten. Post questions if you have any and I will do my best to answer them.

 

Thanks for all of the positive comments so far!

 

 

 

.

[DM_KidAtHeart]

Thank you for the great review. I enjoyed it and learned a few things along the way for my upcoming FOS cruise.

[MnMomW3Boys]

Thank you for all your insight, we are sailing in October same itinerary and ship so all your comments are so helpful!! I think I could duplicate all your excursions, I just need to check ages and height requirements since our little people will be cruising with us. We will be celebrating our 15th Anniversary on the ship and I hope that Bon Jovi performs for us too :D:D:D

 

~Karissa

[fletch1027]

I was hoping you would give us the name of the "So Nice" waiter .... it sounded like Ready Eddie the Jamaican server we saw all the time.

 

Sorry Patty, I never caught his name, but that was probably him... :)

[fletch1027]

Thank you for all your insight, we are sailing in October same itinerary and ship so all your comments are so helpful!! I think I could duplicate all your excursions, I just need to check ages and height requirements since our little people will be cruising with us. We will be celebrating our 15th Anniversary on the ship and I hope that Bon Jovi performs for us too :D:D:D

 

~Karissa

 

No problem, it was fun to do and hopefully helpful! The only possible issue I can think of would be any age or height restrictions for Dunn's River Falls. They have a website that may have details....

[Luv06012012]

Between your review and Linda's I feel like I went on vacation with the both of you! Thank you so much for all of the helpful information. Your review even simulated the depression of disembarking for me...bleh!

 

I will think of all of you when I board her in May....although I'm sure any review I could do would not be comparable to yours and Linda's!

 

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Georgiagolfer]

Thanks so much for your review. As we will be sailing FOS in September, your review has just added to our excitement. One of the best we have ever read.:D

[kee]

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…

 

 

 

.

On our first royal Caribbean cruise, there was a big Jamaican drink server on the pool deck. He had a large tray of umbrella drinks telling everyone..Very Delicious, Very Nutricious! Of course, we all were saying this the whole cruise! He was all over the pool deck, running up to the hot tubs..must of done well in tips!

[BrewsterCruiser]

Hi Fletch,

Thanks for the great review. It was a great cruise! Yes we set up an open booking, so looking forward to going again. I just popped on to finish reading your review and my DH asked if i was cruise shopping! "Not quite yet" i said....but certainly reminiscing. Thanks for great photos, felt like i was there again! Suffering a bit of the post cruise blues....maybe if it would warm up a bit!

[PattyG12]

We're looking at our spring cruise and our kids want to go out of NJ next March. Hello Explorer!!

[MrFunInTheSun]

Great review and pictures. Thank you for sharing your cruise adventure with us! I can't wait to board the Freedom in November!

[kee]

Would you recommend the trip to the ruins in Cozumel? Is it too long or too hot? Thinking of doing this in Cozumel. We are pretty active people. Thank you for your reply!

[fletch1027]

Thank you for the great review. I enjoyed it and learned a few things along the way for my upcoming FOS cruise.

 

Thanks! Hope you have a great time. I'm jealous!

[fletch1027]

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 :)

 

You will have a great time with Capt. Marvin's! I would suggest a waterproof camera for the snorkeling trips. The water is so clear in GC, you will get some awesome pictures. Especially when the Capt. Marvin's guys toss some squid in the water and all of the tropical fish come to nibble on it!

[msgiggles76]

Thank you so much for this great review. My family and i are leaving on the Freedom 4/14 and this was so helpful. I really enjoyed your sense of humor.:)

[dmcdo]

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

 

 

I know. Same here

[dmcdo]

You will have a great time with Capt. Marvin's! I would suggest a waterproof camera for the snorkeling trips. The water is so clear in GC, you will get some awesome pictures. Especially when the Capt. Marvin's guys toss some squid in the water and all of the tropical fish come to nibble on it!

 

Thank you, already working on getting a couple of disposable waterproof cameras

[danyelle]

This is my most favorite trip report ever!!!

 

Which is odd for me since it's totally devoid of food photos!!!!

 

I (literally) LOL'd at your "free range" joke.

 

Love the details thanks so much for giving such great info, and boy you don't even look spent after your triple lutz on the ice! ;)

[fletch1027]

Between your review and Linda's I feel like I went on vacation with the both of you! Thank you so much for all of the helpful information. Your review even simulated the depression of disembarking for me...bleh!

 

I will think of all of you when I board her in May....although I'm sure any review I could do would not be comparable to yours and Linda's!

 

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Thanks for reading along with it. It was fun to put together!

 

You should do one! If I can do it, than pretty much anyone can... :-)

[LBumb]

excellent review

[mtns2sea]

Thanks for the review. Will be on the Freedom in January. Lot's of good information, I'll have to go back and make some notes.

[2InfinityNBeyond]

This was a most wonderful review - you get "the prize" for the best one I've ever read! And how handy that it happens to be the cruise we are taking in a few weeks.

 

Your notes about ParkNCruise and Labadee tipping and beach options were most useful to us, and we've cruised Western Caribbean on other occasions.

 

Thanks so much.

[fletch1027]

Thanks so much for your review. As we will be sailing FOS in September, your review has just added to our excitement. One of the best we have ever read.:D

 

Thanks for the compliment. It was a great cruse, which made the review easier to do. :-)

[fletch1027]

On our first royal Caribbean cruise, there was a big Jamaican drink server on the pool deck. He had a large tray of umbrella drinks telling everyone..Very Delicious, Very Nutricious! Of course, we all were saying this the whole cruise! He was all over the pool deck, running up to the hot tubs..must of done well in tips!

 

Yeah those guys are very funny, although not very accurate when their rhymes include words like nutritious and medicine. Not sure what the nutrition content would be for a glass of sugary fruit juice with rum... :-)