Review Of A Fantastic Week On Freedom Of The Seas (Western) - October 13-20, 2013

[bigque]

After the Meet & Mingle we went to have lunch at the Windjammer

 

Windjammer Greeter

 

then back to the Promenade and then up to the Pool deck to hang out for a while and have a couple of margaritas and drink of the day.

 

The wife and our new friends

 

The wife & I

 

It was then time to go to the Freedom Ice.Com Ice Show in Studio "B" We had a reservation for 2:30pm and did scan your sea pass card for this show. We arrived at 2:00 and the place was already just about full. We sat at the back in the bar stools with the table and they weren't bad seats. We could have sat close up but we decided to just sit back there.

 

The Ice show was fantastic! If you have not been on a ship with a Studio "B" then this is a must see as I think folks would really enjoy this very much as we did! A Ice Show on a ship....Who would have thought! I don't know what all other cruise lines have on their ships but Royal does it up big!

 

Ice Show - A+

 

With Puss n Boots outside Studio "B"

 

Freedom Ice.Com

 

[lr657]

Mike, I am loving your review! I am also enjoying your songs. :D We will be cruising on the Freedom for the second time in March. Your pictures and review are reminding us why we loved it so much the first time we sailed her. Can't wait to read some more.

 

We will be sailing with you on the Jewel next year and looking forward to meeting you.

[bigque]

More Freedom Ice.Com

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was then time to go back to the room and relax a little bit with a glass of wine we had on ice before we get dressed dinner for formal night. We do get dressed for formal night by the way. The wife brings a couple of dresses for formal nights and I bring one suit with two different shirts and two different ties. The six of us at our table dressed for formal night (Not planned, cause as you remember we all just met).

 

Afyer Dinner while walking around just enjoying the ship we ran across these two friends of our!

 

 

After the walk around and going up to Olive or Twist for a little bit to enjoy some musice we headed back to the room and thus ending our sea day.

 

Next Up...Day 3 - Labadee

[bigque]

Mike, I am loving your review! I am also enjoying your songs. :D We will be cruising on the Freedom for the second time in March. Your pictures and review are reminding us why we loved it so much the first time we sailed her. Can't wait to read some more.

 

We will be sailing with you on the Jewel next year and looking forward to meeting you.

 

Thank You and we will be looking forward to meeting you and the rest of the gang over there next year also!

[alaata]

Every entertaining .. can't wait for more..

 

new to cruising. ♥ FOS 3/16/14. carnival victory 8/23/14 ♥

[familycruiser01]

Mike J.,

 

What a wonderful review. We are cruising on Freedom in January and hope that we have experiences that rate a fantastic review also!! I am also hoping we meet some great people and make some new cruising friends!!

 

If you happen to have your cruise compass - there are a few of us on here that would LOVE to have the Freedom Western Cruise Compass (and copy of planner if you have it) posted for printing/review. Thanks again - it's wonderful to see that fantastic ship we are going to be sailing on to start our new year!!!

 

Pam

[AllaGeorge]

Really nice review Mike! Keep it coming.

[harry0]

It was nice meeting you and everyone else. The Activity manager who did the emceeing at the M&M was hilarious. Thanks for keeping the cruise going.

[Sinppu]

What a fun review from the mighty cruisin' man :D:D

[atlgants]

Subbing!

[bigque]

Mike J.,

 

What a wonderful review. We are cruising on Freedom in January and hope that we have experiences that rate a fantastic review also!! I am also hoping we meet some great people and make some new cruising friends!!

 

If you happen to have your cruise compass - there are a few of us on here that would LOVE to have the Freedom Western Cruise Compass (and copy of planner if you have it) posted for printing/review. Thanks again - it's wonderful to see that fantastic ship we are going to be sailing on to start our new year!!!

 

Pam

 

Thank You! I have the cruise compasses from the cruise. I will probably post them at the end of the review.

[bigque]

What a fun review from the mighty cruisin' man :D:D

 

:D Thank You!

[bigque]

It was nice meeting you and everyone else. The Activity manager who did the emceeing at the M&M was hilarious. Thanks for keeping the cruise going.

 

Will be posting the next installments after work today. It was nice meeting everyone!

[bigque]

Really nice review Mike! Keep it coming.

 

Thanks AllaGeorge! I'm ready for the Jewel next year!

[LisaGoeke]

Great review so far Mike. We were on this cruise too. I got to the M&M late because of waiting on the younger kids but when they asked my daughter, who was already there with my parents, what my CC name was she didn't know, LOL. Loved your comment about the Michael Kors store and big sale. No, I didn't buy anything but my 18 year old daughter thought it was the best thing ever and was standing in line waiting for them to open the doors (and bought the best ever purse and matching wallet ;) ). Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[bigque]

Day 2 - Sea Day

 

One thing about Freedom is that there is always something going on day and night. You can always find something to do. When you look at the daily cruise compass, it is overwhelming...sometimes you just don't really know what you want to do with yourselves. That is however how we like it. Wow Me and entertain me! Make me feel like this is the cruise line I want to keep coming back to again and again. Freedom of the Seas didn't fail in this area. I feel that if people say they can't find anything to do, they just don't really want to do anything. In addition to the ports and excursions, Royal do a really good job of making their ships a destination in and of itself. We had fun and were thouroughly entertained! We have said until Royal does something really bad or we have went on all their cruises they have to offer (Not just the Caribbean) to we will stick around for a while. I am not a Cheerleader but just give credit where credit is due.

 

Entertainment - A

 

 

A couple of more comments concerning review of the entertainment. We did not attend the musical production shows as they are not our cup of tea from what we saw on our last cruise, so I will not make comment on how they were on Freedom. I think if there was a show like Chicago, Hairspray, or Satuday Night Fever as on some of the other ships, we might have attended those. I went to see the Headline Comedian and from what I saw during the brief time I was there, he was funny....not fall out your seat funny...but just funny. You really can't go by me however cause I like my standup comedy "Raw" with the likes of Kevin Hart, Chris Rock, or Eddie Murphy type of comedy. I didn't go back to see his late night routine, so it could have been raunchier but I don't know. With that said, it still does not take away from my overall (A) for entertainment on Freedom and I have a couple of more entertainment reviews coming up.

Still to come later - Day 3 - Labadee

Edited October 28, 2013 by bigque

[bigque]

Great review so far Mike. We were on this cruise too. I got to the M&M late because of waiting on the younger kids but when they asked my daughter, who was already there with my parents, what my CC name was she didn't know, LOL. Loved your comment about the Michael Kors store and big sale. No, I didn't buy anything but my 18 year old daughter thought it was the best thing ever and was standing in line waiting for them to open the doors (and bought the best ever purse and matching wallet ;) ). Looking forward to the rest of your review.

 

Thank You! I never seen purses go out of store that fast in my life! :eek: I don't know if I ever want to see it again! :D

[ContessaK]

Great review so far. We enjoyed being on that cruise and meeting a few people. Wish we could have done more with people. We enjoyed the M&M, gift exchange and the slot pull.

[bigque]

Day 3 – Labadee

 

Woke up on this day and did my usual early morning sunrise walk then went back to the room to prepare for the first stop on the cruise.

 

Also on the cruise we would watch Kevin and Katie’s morning show on the TV and they were always hilarious as were some of the other shows Kevin produced on his “Space Channel”. If we didn’t catch it all in the morning it would repeat throughout the day and we would catch them at some time or another. I now can say that I have been on a ship with a Cruise Director I can remember by name. He was very good and so was Katie the Activities Manager. They really worked well together!

 

 

Kevin Spacey, Katie & The Wife

 

Spacey, Katie & I

 

We went for breakfast in the Windjammer and then prepared to get off the ship early. We were really looking forward to this day as we had a cabana reserved on Nellies Beach and wanted to get there early to get a prime location for the day.

 

Before the cruise, I had read here on Cruise Critic that there would no longer be an upgraded buffet or bottled water provided for cabanas at Nellies Beach and that concerned me as that was one of the selling points of renting the cabana. As it turned out one of the people in our roll call (DQ) who had reserved one also emailed RCI and received a reply back that said if it was reserved before October 4th, you would still get everything as promised, so that was a good thing!

 

Well we got off the ship and rushed on over to the Cabana Concierge, showed him our ticket and let him know that we would like the best hillside cabana with the best view. He issued us our wristbands and had the cart operator to drive us over to our cabana. No what happened next wow’d me for our time on Labadee, something I did not know right off at first. We were given an upgrade to a Barefoot Beach Hillside Cabana. We had full access in and out of Barefoot Beach on our own. Whenever we would leave out to go somewhere else the Concierge would call the cart to come pick us up and bring us back. Our Cabana Attendant for the day was fantastic and was always available. When we went for lunch he held a table for us till we got our food and sat down. He was really great. We are not really big hangout on the beach people thus the reason for getting a Hillside Cabana. We also brought along on the cruise an Ipod/Iphone docking station just to be able to listen to music while spending the day in the cabana.

 

After meeting our attendant and getting settled into our cabana, I walked around the area a little bit seeing where everything is and to take a few pictures.

 

I had one excursion planned on Labadee and that was the Jet Ski’s! The wife didn’t want to take part of this, and actually I was glad because I love jet skiing and when I do it I like to go wide open and as fast as I can go and she wouldn’t even go for that. The water was flat and calm on this day so we were able to go full throttle and I was first in line behind the guide to do so. This was a great hour of fun….I loved it. One particular thing I did not enjoy was the guide taking us to a stop close to shore where some of the locals rushed out in little row boats with souvenirs for sale. There must have been about 8 to 10 boats out there and they would row over to you to sale their wares. They were mostly handmade items. If you didn’t have money on you (As I didn’t), you were able to some kind of way to pay when we got back, but I didn’t really know how this work or how they would get paid with this method. I know how the poverty is over there in Haiti and I actually found myself feeling sorry because I couldn’t purchase anything and as I said I wasn’t sure of this pay when you got back to shore thing. Besides that however it was a good ride!

 

 

The Jet Ski's

 

After the Jet Ski I caught as ride back to Barefoot Beach and we decide it was time to get some lunch. We thought the lunch upgrade was very good. The steak wasn’t the most tender in the world, but it was not tough neither. The shrimp skewer was delicious and the side items were not bad. They kept everything nice and hot and enjoyable.

 

After lunch our attendant got the cart to come to take us down to the Market Place and this was quite an experience. As many people have mentioned in previous reviews and threads, the market area can be intense as far as the vendors trying to sell you their goods. As long as you walk along the path and do not cross over into their vendor spot you will be alright. Once you cross the line you are free game. While walking the path they will call out to you to come have a look. The line they use was usually “ Hey Mon or Hey Lady…Come let me show you something you never seen before”! Just about all of them used the same line. I would usually yell back….” I just saw the same thing over there”! There was only one place we saw that we definitely would not venture into and that was a walk through area that they were lined up in, in close quarters. We saw it and I told the wife that it would like going through a gauntlet in there…so not today. The best place to go at the Market we found was in the inside the building area if you do not want to be hassled. I bought a Haiti hat in there as I buy I hat at all of the ports (I like collecting ball caps from each place). We also watched a dance performance by some of the locals. After the Market trip we got a cart back to the cabana and spent about another hour there then closed up shop, said good-by and tipped the attendant and went back to the ship.

 

This was a good beach day of relaxing in the cabana with beers and drinks of the day. Oh and Haiti is smoking HOT! We thought this was the hottest place we visited all week.

 

Labadee (Barefoot Beach) – A / Cabana and Attendant – A+

Docked In Labadee

 

The Entrance Into This wonderful Oasis

[bigque]

More Of Labadee

 

Barefoot Beach

 

A View Taken Next To Our Cabana

 

Looking down at Barefoot Beach Rom Our Cabana

 

Nellies Beach

 

More Nellies Beach

 

A Canoeing Excursion Going Out

[bigque]

And Yet Some More Labadee

 

Our Hillside Cabana

(To get to the hillside cabanas on Barefoot Beach you have to walk up stairs,

but it's not bad unless you have mobility problems)

 

The Wife laying out on the cabana

 

Another beautiful view we had from the cabana

 

The price of the cabanas are a little pricey but well worth it, unless you are going to

just stay in the water all day. If you just want to chill and be waited on all day....It's Da Bomb!

 

The Entrance To Barefoot Beach. There is a Concierge at the gate to the right.

No Barefoot Cabana or No Gold Card....You will be denied entrance!

 

Which Way Do I Go???

 

View From The Ship. Our Hillside Cabana is the one on the left.

That is a Over The Water Cabana below.

[bigque]

Another of Labadee

 

A View Of Barefoot Beach From my Balcony On The Ship

 

I do not know why didn't take any pictures of the Market (Vendor) area. I had my camera, but I did not take any pictures. I have many more pictures I took on this cruise but it is just too many to post them all so I just picked out some I thought you all might like to post in my review. In any particular port if there is something you heard of that you would like to see and I have a picture of it, I will post it. There was some things that I took videos of rather than pictures such as the dancers down by the Market Place. I will be making a DVD as I did on my last cruise with still pictues mixed with video to music that I like. Youtube, etc will not let me post my DVD's because of the music. If anyone knows of Video Hosting Site that will let me post the DVD I make with no restictions, please let me know.

 

On this day we were kind of tired when getting back to the ship so we actually showered and took a little nap until dinner. After Dinner we did a little walking and people watching with our friends and then went to see the Magic Show. We were right down in the front row center (First Time I lucked out on that. This is one show where there was no restictions on pictures or shooting video. The Magician Drew Thomas was pretty good. He was on America's Got Talent a couple of seasons ago and remember seeing him on there. I just think that it is amazing (I love Magic Shows but never been this close up) that you can sit right in front of the stage and watch intently and still can figure out how these illusions are performed!

 

Edited October 29, 2013 by bigque

[bigque]

After The Magic Show we went to The Crypt (Disco)!

 

 

Inside The Crypt!

 

After all this posting of pictures I just figured out how to post my pictures bigger through my hosting site! LOL!.......Oh well I had already downloaded to post in the smaller versionand it would be a lot of trouble to have to do it again....Sorry! These were downloaded in the bigger version tonight. If you see anymore during the review that are bigger it will be because they were downloaded later.

 

In The Crypt

 

In The Crypt

 

In The Crypt

 

The Crypt

 

The Crypt was hit or miss with a crowd being there. This is a late night venue for the late night into the early morning partiers. The DJ who performed at diffrent venues on the ship including the parties outside at night, in between set of the bands outside, and the DJ for events on the Promenade. We like good dance music, but here at The Crypt we both thought that he wasn't good at all. He played a lot of "Techno" type dance music and didn't really play any of the dance hits that are recent or have been the hot dance hits of the summer. We thought he played a lousy variety of music! You would have some people dancing a couple of songs and that would be it. The dance floor was never really full.

 

One night there was this young lady who obviously had a little to much to drink. Any man (or woman) that was close enough to grab or venture onto the dance floor she would grab them to dance with nad dance very provocatively, Twerking and all. She had a friend with her who would dance like her a little but was much more reserve. I will bring them up again in my Falmouth review. After hanging out there for a little while and having a drink, we decided to call it a day.

 

One more thing about Freedom Of The Seas is that if you like to party, there was always a party going on somewhere at night in one of the clubs or lounges or out doors on the pool deck! A lot of people consider Carnival the Party Cruise Line, but there was a lot of partying going on on this ship! You just had to find the kind of party atmosphere and music that you like!

 

The Drew Thomas Magic Show - A / The Crypt - A / DJ - F

 

Next Up - Day 4 - Falmouth Jamaica

Edited October 29, 2013 by bigque

[jndsilver31]

Mike,

 

We love your review. Looking at all the wonderful pictures you took makes us wish we were back on the Freedom, but alas it isnt to be.

 

Hope we get to cruise together again in the future.

[bigque]

Mike,

 

We love your review. Looking at all the wonderful pictures you took makes us wish we were back on the Freedom, but alas it isnt to be.

 

Hope we get to cruise together again in the future.

 

More of the review to come later in the day. I can only add to it after I get home from work.

We had blast with you all and we cruise together again also!