Long Review: Freedom of the Seas – 6 night Western Caribbean

[capsoncc]

March 9th, 6-night Freedom of the Seas WesternCaribbean

 

 

Warning this is a very long review and I apologize ifthis review is too long, but I have tried to put as much details as I can.

 

 

We have done many cruises before on Royal Caribbean,Celebrity and Princess cruises. My son would be celebrating is 8thbirthday on board the cruise. It just so happens we generally always cruiseduring our March Break in Canada since my wife is a teacher, and his birthdayalways falls on a March Break, so lucky kid. He has been on a cruise for allexcept for one of his birthdays. This time my sister would be joining us forher second cruise, her first on Royal Caribbean and my niece (24), nephew (14)and niece’s boyfriend (25) were joining us for their first cruise. We pickedthis cruise because we wanted them to go on a bigger ship like Freedom becauseof some of the amenities, unfortunately it was only 6 nights, which is theshortest (by 1 day) cruise that we have been on and were worried it would betoo short. We have a balcony cabin on deck 7, and the rest of my family had aninside cabin down the hall on deck 7. I was worried since there would be fourof them in one cabin, but it all seemed to go OK.

 

 

Pre-Cruise -Arriving

Because we never know what the weather will be for on inMarch leaving Toronto we always like to go down at least a day early. We werelucky since my son’s school started March break on the Friday so we took a lateflight from Toronto to Fort Lauderdale and stayed a few extra days exploringFort Lauderdale. We picked up the rental care late and then went to our hotelfor the night. My sister, niece, nephew would fly in on the Friday, since theywere flying in from Moncton, New Brunswick and required a stop over in Montreal.Everybody and their luggage all arrived on time, and that is when I sayvacation can start since the only remaining piece for the cruise to start isfor the ship to show up. Everybody was excited to be wearing shorts and be inthe nice warm sun. We weren’t going to be boarding the ship until Sunday so we linedsome things up to do Friday night and Saturday.

 

 

Pre-Cruise - Activities

My nephew is a big hockey fan so we decided to go to aFlorida Panthers game on the Friday night. It was easy and relatively cheap toget tickets, unlike Toronto. We had a good time but it was hard to believe howthe stadium seemed only half full.

 

 

I had previously done an everglades airport ride andliked it and the rest of the group decided they would like to try this andeverybody enjoyed it. We went back to Everglades Safari Park and enjoyed ourtour there.

 

 

Later in the day some wanted to go shopping and the restof us hung out at the pool and hot tub at the hotel. I tried to drum up supporton Saturday afternoon to go eat dinner down around the port and watch the shipssail away, but unfortunately not everybody has my excitement of watching shipsas they sail away so I got voted down and didn’t want to do it alone, and weonly had 1 car.

 

 

Embarkation

One of the most exciting days to me is embarkation dayand seeing the ship as you pull into the port and are ready to get on. Our embarkationday was on Sunday. We decided we wouldwait and board the ship a little later, since we knew the rooms would not beready until around 1pm. We went and dropped off our luggage at the port andeverybody got their first glimpse of the ship and then the excitement levelstarted to go up. We decided to kill some some time and drove down to FortLauderdale beach, which for some was the first time they had seen it. Theweather was amazing so we just took some pictures and walked along the beach.We then returned the rental car and returned to the port. The lineups were not very long so we were onboardafter about 15 minutes and we were able to go straight to our cabin. First stopwas signing my son up for kid’s club (one of his favourite part of cruising,along with the free make your own ice cream), followed by reserving time fordinners, and making sure our all-inclusive photo package was registered at thephoto studio

 

 

Dining

I was very disappointed that even though I booked thecruise a year in advance, we were notable to get early fixed seating. In the past we have enjoyed fixed time diningand having the same table and wait staff every night since they get to knowwhat your likes and dislikes are. As well,you can have conversations with them as time goes on and get to know them. Ifound out that fixed seating was at 5:30, which I find too early, as it makesgetting back to the ship and ready for dinner too rushed sometimes. We gotstuck with my time dining and the earliest time I could get before trying wellin advance on the website was 8:15pm. I must say I enjoyed when early seatingused to be 6 or 6:15pm previously on cruises. Now it seems that everybody is moving this up much earlier, except on Europeancruises. After we boarded the ship I went to the dining room to try and get anearlier time. We ended up with not many choices and ended up getting 5:45pm forthe first night of the cruises. We got a great table with great wait staff namedRuel and June - They were great!!! Some of the best dining room staff we havehad in a while. We then requested to be placedat their table every night and everybody had a great time. One thing that doesn’tbother me as much as some is that they were not enforcing any sort of dresscode in the dining room. Lots of peoplewearing shorts, even on formal nights. Some were in t-shirts on the formalnight.

 

 

 

 

Sea Day 1

On the first sea day, my son received a lesson on theFlow Rider from his grandparents for his birthday. The only times available when we booked(about 6 weeks before the cruise) was Sea Day #1 @ 7am or Sea Day #2 (the lastday of the cruise) at 7am. We picked SeaDay 1 as we felt that it allowed him the chance to learn it, and then applywhat he learned if he went on the Flow Rider during the recreationaltimes. He is tall for his age, but was just a bit toshort to do the stand up boarding. So hedid the boogie boarding on his knees. The lesson was great at is was 45 minutes in length, and there was only1 other person getting lessons. He hadthe attention of 2 staff members helping him. They rotate between teaching my son, and teaching the other person. This was great as it allowed my son a chanceto have a break and catch his breath before beginning to try again.

 

 

After the lesson was over we headed up to the pool to getdeck chairs to use for the day. We wereglad that we did this as by 9am all of the chairs were spoken for. People were very annoyed that they couldn’t geta chair, and one woman even accused another person of moving her stuff (whichwe did not do as my sister was the person who was in the chair in question andhad only left the chair to go and get something from the buffet.)

 

 

Grand Cayman

We have been to Grand Cayman many times and we love itjust as much every time. We have done avisit to String ray city a couple times on previous cruises, but since we weretravelling with my family and this was their first-time cruise we did theTurtle and Stingray excursion and everybody had a good time. The only thing I didn’tlike about it was I wished it would have started earlier in the morning. Wereturned and we on one of the last tenders returning to the ship. We go intoGrand Cayman before 8am, but our excursion didn’t start until around 9:30am.

 

 

Cozumel

We have been to Cozumel many times in the past. This timewe returned to Paradise beach. My son loves this place since they have allthese inflatable slides there to play on and he makes a full day out of it. Paradise beach is very reasonably priced, asit cost $3 USD per person to enter, and that includes use of the pool, toilets,showers and you get a beach chair, table and umbrella. All they ask is that you spend $10 more infood during your stay. That was easy todo as they have a great menu, and you do get thirsty in the sun. To purchase the pass to use the inflatables(There are about 15 of them) it only costs $20 USD per person. You do not need to purchase one for everymember of our group – Only the people who wish to use it. The cab ride to this beach is about $15 USDand takes about 15-20 minutes.

 

 

Costa Maya

This was the first time my sister, niece and Nephew werehere so they decided to the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins and appeared to have a good.I must say this is my second time to this port and I am not a big fan. Last timewe went there and we went to a beach. After visiting other ports I found thebeach area not very nice. This time we decided to stay on the ship and swim inthe pool areas and my son played in the H20 zone. After others were done their excursion we gotof the ship to enjoy a nice cold drink with them since they wanted their bigsouvenir cups J

 

 

Sea Days 2

On the final sea day, there were no chairs available, so webusied ourselves with other activities instead of basking in the sun. As alwaysthe last of the cruise people were a little on edge about the lack of chairs. Wedid trivia and then explored some other areas on the ship we really never spenta lot of time with.

 

 

Disembarkation

We got back into Fort Lauderdale early on Saturdaymorning and our flights didn’t leave until noon on Sunday. As in in the past wedecided to walk off early (around 7am) with our own luggage and that way getoff before the made rush and enjoy another full day in Florida. The lines werea little long for Immigration, but it wasn’t too bad. I think they could havemore people working there in order speed things along. Not sure how slow thingswould have been when all of the other groups would be getting off.

Overall

Overall everybody has a great time, and we had greatweather during our pre-cruise and cruise so you can’t complain too much and thenewbies want to cruise again in the future. The embarkation process anddisembarkation process is relatively painless, and as usual we enjoyed our timein Grand Cayman and Cozumel. On a very positive note Our dining room staff Juneand Ruel were amazing!!!

 

 

Overall Negative#1 – Food

I am not trying to be a snob here and know that food opinionscan be subjective, but I do find overall in the MDR and windjammer that thefood quality and variety continues to be below expectations for me. I had timesin the MDR where I could not find anything that really enticed me to order it. Where as, when I first started cruising I hadthe opposite problem - each night itseemed like there were 3 things I wanted to order. I also find they areproviding what they like to call comfort food choices, which are really lowcost alternatives. One positive is that I was able to order my escargot everynight and everybody seemed to enjoy pizza in the evening every night at Sorrento's. Even with these negatives I didn’t walk always hungry any night, andcertainly didn’t lose any weight J

 

 

Negative #2 - FreestyleSoda Machines

We had problems where some Freestyle machines didn'trecognize our cups were there. I asked one of the staff that were selling themand they told me others had some problem, but just use a different machine.This wasn't convenient sometimes is there was only 1 machine in the Arcade andwe would fill them up when picking up our son from the Adventure ocean area. Isthis a common problem people are having, where they don't work in somemachines? In addition to the 1 machinein the Arcade, there were 4 machines in the Windjammer (two on each side) andthe remaining two were located beside Sorrento's on Deck 5. You needed to plan your beverage drinking tohave time to get up and get your refills.

I was surprised there was not any freestyle soda machines, unless I missedthem, in the Pool area. You had to enter the Windjammer area to fill it. Thisisn't convenient when you are wet from swimming in the pool. Yes, we could havegone to the bar, but they didn't appear to offer Coke Zero to drink there, andthis is what we wanted. Did we miss the machines in the pool area does anybodyknow? Or is windjammer the closest? Aswell, due to the all-inclusive drink packages, it seems that there are lessstaff to serve you at the bar, and more people wanting drinks.

We also had times where the machines were out of coke zero. I must say i wasn'tfully satisfied with the service we got from the machines. This was our firstexperience with them, in the past we generally got Soda packages but they wouldhave cans of Coke Zero at bars so it was easy to fill up anywhere.

 

 

Negative #3 – Photos

Since we were travelling with a large group we decided topre-purchase the full digital and print packages. This is supposed to give youall the digital and printed photos that are taken onboard and when gettingon/off the ship in different ports. If you do want to purchase this I suggest buyingbefore boarding since it is much cheaper. We have done this in the past andhave had good experience with it, but this time not so much. The photo area washaving problems with printing after the first couple days of the cruise andwere slowing in getting the printed photos out. We had to leave without some ofour prints, although they did promise to send those to us after. It is a bit stressful,since if you don’t get those photos there is no way to take them again. I am willing to give them the benefit of thedoubt so far and let’s see if we get them. We thought when we left at least wehad all the digital photos, but they were very late getting some of the DVDsprinted for people, so there was no time to verify that all prints were therebefore getting off the ship. We verified when we got home some the photos fromclose to the end of the cruise weren’t there and we have emailed them and theyare looking into all this for us. Fingers crossed.

 

 

If anybody has any questions I can do my best to answerthem.

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.