Freedom of the Seas - Photo Review - 3/30 to 4/6 - Western Caribbean

[Poorplaya]

This must be one of the funniest reviews i have ever read on here. Thank you for posting, the pictures are awesome, and your sense of humor has me falling off my chair half the time laughing, can't wait to read the rest of this review.

[ummgood]

I am loving your review. I have never sailed RCCL before so I am hoping it is ok I read it. I wasn't sure if it was just for Diamond or Suite people alone ;). If it is any assurance I have visited people who have stayed in the Walt Suite on DCL so I have about 45 minutes of suite experience. Plus our last stateroom was next to a 1 Bedroom suite so we were able to pier onto their balcony from ours.

Edited April 17, 2014 by ummgood

[DrD]

But no. It's not that. The really BAD thing about visiting Jamaica is the fact that every shore excursion involves a visit to the insufferable Dunn's River Falls. Even if your main goal of the day is to do something completely unrelated. That's what's really wrong with making a port stop here!

 

 

Or you could go to the Blue Hole.

Edited April 17, 2014 by DrD

[beej]

Pictures, wit and whimsy, Bob, you've got it all. Keep it coming

[1northstar]

Still cracking up. We are sailing May 18th and wish you would come along. As we would be worthy of your company .. Diamonds meeting/ mingling with Diamonds also sailing GS.

[szdiver]

come back Bob ..... we miss you.....need another fix......

[Robinola]

HILARIOUS! You two rock!

I am going to spend the day at Hilton Rose Hall in Jamaica.

Sounds and looks great on the website. I love those beach

days as much as the at sea days.

[WinksCruises]

I am going to spend the day at Hilton Rose Hall in Jamaica.

That's going to be excellent! Just be sure there's no surprise "exclusive bonus" visit to Dunn's River Falls added onto the itinerary at the last minute. I'd check with the tour guide first, just to be triply sure.

 

Also, if you get a chance, disregard the "advice" of the paramilitary guard at the front gate - who'll strongly suggest, with a casual wave of his AK-47, that you not venture off the hotel property - and see about checking out the actual Rose Hall mansion. It's on a gorgeous estate... albeit much more hardcore than Bob Marley's sad excuse of for a gated sanctuary for tourists to get high on (sorry Robert).

 

If you go to Rose Hall, you defs wanna be into the history, the occult, and abused slaves (Sort of like watching the last season of American Horror Story) and not be high. It's a stunning place.

 

Truth be told, we hadn't had that much fun off-ship since we visited the Torture Museum of the Spanish Inquisition in Cartegena (which is also an excellent attraction that's inexplicably absent from the pages of the RCI shore excursion booklet)

 

Good luck! (it is Jamaica after all)

[WinksCruises]

Diamonds meeting/ mingling with Diamonds also sailing GS.

Finally! Someone on here who "gets" it! Wish we could be hanging with you in the CL. We could have laughed ourselves into a stupor swapping stories about "the less fortunate" we'd run into.

 

Next time!

 

Stay carbon

Edited April 19, 2014 by WinksCruises

[WinksCruises]

Or you could go to the Blue Hole.

Point taken.. for sure, it doesn't involve a stop at DRF. Sadly tough, it's just a little bit beneath us. And I hope you. At least until they do something about the name.

[WinksCruises]

I am hoping it is ok I read it.

Harumph... I suppose it's okay. It's not like I can do anything about it - at least until CC finally figures it out that they need a Diamonds Only posting section. (Knock knock, Hello!!!)

 

But quite candidly, Walt Suites don't cut the mickey mustard here. And I DESPISE adjacent stateroom balcony peering freaks like you (which is why we always book buffer Grand Suites - or at least mini's - to either side).

 

Concierge!!! Concierge!!!

 

(Please stop reading this trip review, okay? You obviously don't get any of this, so there's no point. Thanks!)

[WinksCruises]

For those of you who question the whole postcarding thing, here's some photographic proof.

 

 

This is actually the most dangerous activity we engaged in while in Jamaica. Here's why. Procuring the postcards is the easy part; no danger at all - that is, if you disregard the risks involved in elbowing (ok, sometimes lightly body checking) your fellow passengers to secure a decent position on the cash register cue. And let's face it, that's really nothing more challenging than getting a shot at the scrambled eggs warming tray during the daily breakfast fiasco in the Windjammer every morning. So we're all pretty much accustomed, if not downright comfortable, with that level of socially engaged ferocity.

 

After getting off the ship, you can buy postcards at any number of the shops located safely within the confines of the gated community. I suggest the Trading Post where they have the most selection, even if the sales team is a little miffed when you're not showing interest in anything with a larger mark up than a t-shirt - and it's true, the per-card price is a bit of a gouge - but the shop's easy to locate and they'll even offer to mail the cards for you if you fork over an additional 2$ a card. (Which, as you'll soon see, was way too easy, and expensive, for us!)

 

Why buy postcards? Uh.. have you seen the unGodly cost of internet connectivity on the ship? It's a few bucks a minute - which might be tolerable - accept that the mbps through-speed is slower than Jersey bound rush-hour traffic over NYC's George Washington bridge on a sunny Friday afternoon in July. It's gridlock city!

 

In our journeys, we've found mailing postcards, even from Caribbean ports, is a significantly faster and cheaper way to get messages back home than using the ship's slow as molasses Internet Cafe. Especially when you need to stay in continual touch with a stock broker, which is something I know all my brother D-Class members here will empathize with. Internet at sea is costly and sucks. The reality is, even at $100 a stamp (see above), postcarding from Jamaica (w/ commemorative Bob Marley postage - so your business associates will still think you're cool) is really the only way to go.

 

The dangerous part of postcarding? You need to exit the security of "the cruise compound" in order to mail your cards at the local Falmouth post office. Egads! The first time we attempted this postal adventure, a year ago while on another cruise, we made the cultural faux pas of wearing Bob Marley t-shirts (my wife's idea of being cute) while strolling around Falmouth in search of a mail box. Big mistake!

 

Here's a glimpse hitherto of that more innocent time - courtesy of the way back machine...

 

 

Let's just say, when you're a pasty white American rube wearing a Bob Marley shirt in Jamaica, the locals are all CERTAIN AS THE SUN RISES TOMORROW that you're advertising your fierce desire to score marijuana from them. Yes, that day a year ago, Mr and Mrs RCI Cruiser were everyone's best friend on the sidewalks of Falmouth... and for once, it had nothing to do with our elite Diamond class status (even though we were probably still just Emerald back then; thank goodness, they probably had no way of knowing that).

 

Pictured above, the stilt-standing giants, who separately offered us a dime bag each of what they assured us was the best herbal medicine mother nature had ever harvested (and this was while we were still within the approved shopping area of the cruise port!) and then to right, the friendly fellow who offered to guide this pair of American idiots two blocks up the main road into the town proper to reach our goal of the Falmouth post office - but only if we agreed to hang out with him afterwards at an herbal tea cafe where he could get us higher than kites and then place us into a cab headed for a quiet Montego Bay beach where he explained we would spend an enlightening afternoon getting closer in touch with his ethereal God and life force, Jah.

 

It's an offer we eventually declined, not because of the pot, but because he insisted a trip to Dunn's River Falls was bonus part of the taxi tour - and there was no way we going to ruin a perfectly good high subjecting ourselves to a buzz kill like that. In the end, it also had nothing to do with any fear we might have had that he was going to take us down a dark alley (there are none in Jamaica, anyway) and jack us.

 

Anyway, that was a year ago, and after he delivered us to the post office (which was actually totally hidden in the back of a bookstore where we would never have found it) and continually tried to get us to get high with him on our way back to the cruise area, we slipped him 20 bucks and said thanks. He was a real cool dude and we never felt in danger or in harms way.

 

Thanks to our friend back then, for this current stop in Falmouth on the Freedom, we knew exactly where the post office was hidden, what to expect there (mostly people signing up for driver's licences and paying taxes) and how much postcard stamps would cost.

 

We spent time in a local cantina (with FREE wi-fi), sucked down a couple of Red Stripe beers and filled out our sell-orders on the backs of marijuana lifestyle promoting postcards. 10 minutes later, we had posted all our Ganja referencing cards and were headed back to the ship for late lunch. No hassles at all, other than the typical street vendor hawks and group taxi ride offers. Although, I was grateful, this time, that I had left the Bob Marley t-shirt at home.

 

Upshot: The people in Jamaica are very cool and friendly - if a tad aggressive. You just have to be firm and friendly back to them and they totally get it. Falmouth is a port town that still needs a little more development, but there's no reason to sequester yourself on the ship because of some unwarranted fear of lawlessness and pillaging. Just use your common sense at the port, as you would anywhere. Take a shore excursion. Stay within the confines of the gated community. Or, to have a real thrill of a lifetime, try to mail a postcard.

 

 

Making friends with out very cool waitress at the local cantina.

 

[WinksCruises]

 

Back on board, we discovered our cabin steward was up to her usual hijinx...

 

 

Earlier that day, we had joked around with her that we were going to bring her back "a little something" from the island, and now, leaving the cabin for dinner, we left her our own little towel sculpture in response:

 

 

Oh fun and games on the high seas...

 

Tomorrow, Grand Cayman...

[TigerCruzin]

I didn't realize suite guests received a special menu...:p Lucky!

[WinksCruises]

I didn't realize suite guests received a special menu...:p Lucky!

Yes, every morning the cabin steward leaves out a copy of the evening's Main Dining Room dinner menu when she makes up the room.

 

Suite guests have the privilege of ordering off it as a Room Service choice. Though we never took advantage of that feature, it was always nice knowing what they were serving for dinner before hand - and it's useful when deciding whether or not to make it a Specialty Dining night.

 

A copy of the evening's menu is also available for review in the Concierge Lounge.

[WinksCruises]

 

As one of the more civilized ports on our itinerary and one of the largest banking capitols in the world, you'd think the powers that be, or at least Diamonds International, could have sprung for a cruise ship docking pier at this port. Heck, even outlaw Roatan bothered to pony up the funds for one. What gives Cayman?

 

As a result, every day, each of the several cruise ships in port have to go through the laborious exercise of tendering passengers off the ship. As much as I'll complain about the cheapskate banksters in Grand Cayman, I will admit the private tender businesses they hire to perform the task do a decent job at it. But that's no excuse for not having a proper dock and I'm probably not the first to say I refuse to shelter many of my assets here because of it.

 

As Suite stateroom guests, we take full advantage of our concierge who has the power to commandeer elevators and line-cut the rest of you trying to get a jump on your day.

 

But in the end, Grand Cayman is a strange little place. Especially for an island that's really just a downtown Little Rock. Basically, if you're not into petting wild stingrays or caravaning it off to an overcrowded beach, there really isn't much to do here. Except shelter money.

 

 

After the obligatory picture with the pirate (I counted, we did a total of 5) we hopped a group-share taxi off to infamous 7-mile beach where we paid our stupid 10 bucks to pop our asses down into a beach chair for 2-hours, sitting in the same sun that was basking the Freedom of the Seas several miles away, and then waiting for a taxi van to fill up before we could make our way back to the ship.

 

Having repeated this inane ritual countless times, over the course of several years, across the Caribbean, I have begged, gotten down on my knees, self-flagellated and even offered cash to my wife - all in a vain attempt to convince her to stay on the ship just one day while we're at port. Just one friggin' time. And in over 10 years of cruising, despite visiting some of the same ports ad nauseam, she has never once been able to resist the call to get off the ship. This has led to countless horror stories - the isolated beach from which there was no cab back - the torturous 12-mile moped ride to a south shore beach (while I was hungover) when there were comparable beaches within walking distance of the pier - the top ten rated beach (according to Discovery Channel) that we just had to seek-out only to find they'd failed to mention that their criteria for Top-ten didn't require amenities like food, shade, port-a-potty or even a measly postcard for some reason.

 

One of these days, I will make good on my threat to book a surprise cruise - entirely on my own - on which I will bring along some bondage gear, a house-arrest ankle bracelet and a cattle prod to prevent my wife from leaving the cruise ship at port - in order to show her there is no reason to endure tender hassles, group-grope shared cabs and questionable service providers when we could just as happily hang out on the ship and enjoy it like it was a private yacht.

 

Do you think that dream will ever be realized?

 

 

Okay. So admittedly, hanging out pool side isn't EXACTLY the same as the scene above. And with the loss of Suite-Only seating on the levels around the pool, the beach may offer a tiny edge. But to me, it's not worth the expense and hassle. Especially since the same sun shines on both Deck 14 and 7-mile beach. It just seems to me the ship experience, while in port, would be the shore excursion of my dreams.

 

Am I climbing up the wrong coconut tree here. Or does anyone agree?

[WinksCruises]

 

 

 

[WinksCruises]

This topic comes up regularly here on the CC discussion boards so we figured we report what our experience was on Freedom.

 

On this ship, C&A "coupons" were automatically associated with our Sea Pass card. IE... there was no coupon book. They just toss this sheet of paper (see below) in with the countless other sheets they throw at your on embarkation day.

 

I'm not a fan of this paperless coupon thing. I'd rather have a physical book to reference with an actual coupon that I can stash into my pocket - rather than try to remember what my all my glorious Diamond level entitlements are.

 

I'm sure RCI is banking on the fact that you, like I did, will forget what you're entitled to and fail to redeem the discount because of that. Crafty devils. Of course, their next logical move is to state that passengers no longer seem to be using the coupons at all, so they're going to discontinue the program and replace it with something even better! (read more up-sells). Thanks Adam!

 

Here are the "coupons" that were associated with our Sea Pass cards. (Diamond level, but of course)

 

 

Another issue that comes up on these discussion boards is what list of drinks is available for enjoying in the Diamond Lounge. That list is below.

 

Also note: this is one of those cruises where RCI gave us three complimentary drinks a night to enjoy at "any" lounge we wanted (before 8pm). Again, it was a perk tagged onto our Sea Pass card. We didn't end up doing this. We chose to go old school and hung out at the Concierge Lounge most nights and the Diamond Lounge on nights when the ship was departing port. DL has the view, located as it was up near the Viking Lounge on the top deck of the ship.

 

 

Next Cozumel, Bridge Tour, Galley Tour and Disemebarkment.

 

[ummgood]

Harumph... I suppose it's okay. It's not like I can do anything about it - at least until CC finally figures it out that they need a Diamonds Only posting section. (Knock knock, Hello!!!)

 

 

 

But quite candidly, Walt Suites don't cut the mickey mustard here. And I DESPISE adjacent stateroom balcony peering freaks like you (which is why we always book buffer Grand Suites - or at least mini's - to either side).

 

 

 

Concierge!!! Concierge!!!

 

 

 

(Please stop reading this trip review, okay? You obviously don't get any of this, so there's no point. Thanks!)

 

 

 

I have stopped I promise. I have requested my wife read it and summarize it for me. Unfortunately that means she agrees with your wife about the shore excursions. And I am guessing that if the tender had a designated diamond or concierge cushion for you to rest upon it wouldn't be such a hassle. Bankers will never approve of a pier because they have control of gas futures and those tenders use lots of gas.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[beshears]

I'm looking forward to checking out Falmouth, Jamaica, no matter whether large or small. Yes, I have seen Dunns' River Falls and it is beautiful, but did not climb it, and definately for myself, would not. I heard a couple people say they broke a toe or finger while doing the climbing on the falls.

[mac2041]

I am just off the Freedom 4/13 (Eastern) and couldn't agree more with your assessment of the never ceasing up-sell! It was everywhere and a little aggravating! It made the spa experiences not very enjoyable because you had to endure a pretty hard up-sell of products at the end every time! Thanks for your review. Enjoying it!

[purplethorn]

I've been following since the beginning but wanted to chime in here that I totally agree with you about Jamaica .. i don't know who started that bad hype but people there are super friendly

 

Oh and I am loving your writing cannot stop laughing

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[retird]

Interesting review, did you happen to mention your Crown and Anchor Status or they type of cabin you had? Maybe I missed it:)

[DrD]

Point taken.. for sure, it doesn't involve a stop at DRF. Sadly tough, it's just a little bit beneath us. And I hope you. At least until they do something about the name.

 

But a blue hole by any other name would be just as wet.

 

We enjoyed it, and although it was beneath us for much of the time it wasn't after we jumped in.

 

You do have to be on the younger side though as it's quite active, so perhaps you may not be interested.

Edited April 22, 2014 by DrD

[Cruise_Christy]

Really loving your review, you have a fantastic writing style.