Freedom of the Seas review: 2/12-2/18

So here is my attempt at a cruise review:

Embarking was a mess. The lines were long and it was a tiring process. But for me, all was forgotten when we got onboard. It definitely wasn't enough to rain on my parade.

We had an ocean view stateroom with a bed and pull out sofa for our boys, ages 5 and 7. It's tough to move around such a small space with four people, but we made it work. We spend so little time in our room while we are on vacation, that we typically don't care about that.

The pools were fun, clean, mostly warm. We didn't spend too much time in the solarium but I did visit one of the cantilever hot tubs there, just to say I did. The kids loved the H2O zone.

Our stateroom attendant, Linda, was great. Very helpful but not overbearing. She knew all of our names the first day. Loved Linda.

Adventure Ocean: can't say enough good things. My husband was worried the kids would be bored. He couldn't have been more wrong! Technically, our younger son should have been in the 3-5 age group. He will be six in two months, and is very active and very competitive. The girl at registration on the first day asked him "cooper, do you like to play dodgeball, or would you like to color?" When he responded that he beats big kids at dodgeball, she moved him up and that was that.

The girls who worked in Adventure Ocean were amazing. They definitely had their hands full, but never once did they lose control of the group. Kids had a great great time.

Dining: dinner every night in the main dining room. Lenny and Whinnie were our servers, and I wish I could have brought them home with me. They were the best! The food in the MDR was great. The cold soups were my favorite. I had one every night.

Windjammer for breakfast and lunch was ok. My kids loved having French toast every day. I'm a breakfast person, so I was in heaven. Ham every morning? Yes please. Grits? Gimme. Lunch was good. Nothing to write home about but I was happy. My younger son struggled during lunch and dinner (we fed the kids at WJ since we had the late dining. That way we dropped them at Adventure Ocean and were able to eat in the MDR without them). He's pretty picky, but I was still surprised. I guess he just wasn't happy with the lack of dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets ;)

So on our sailing, there were over 1,000 people from Taiwan. Some kind of dot-com company was having a conference. I'm assuming the WJ was trying to accommodate them, because the amount of Asian foods was pretty surprising. Maybe that is how it is on a typical sailing, but I doubt it. While it didn't bother me that there were so many Asian options, I did wonder what would have been offered if that group wasn't on the ship.

Cafe promenade is open 24 hours but they literally didn't have anything my family could enjoy. Just not our type of stuff.

Sorrentos pizza was open most of the day, but the pizza was pretty bad. Full disclosure: I'm a pizza snob.

Still, we definitely didn't go hungry.

My kids definitely indulged in the self-serve ice cream machine by the pools. I cannot confirm nor deny that they ice cream for lunch one day.

Entertainment: the ice show was the best. I sailed RC in 2015, and didn't think anything could beat that ice show. This one did.

The nightly shows were good. Tony Tillman was my favorite. He was on my previous cruise, and i enjoyed him just as much this time. The magic act wasn't great, just ok. My kids insisted on sitting in the front row, and I think we missed a lot of the "ooooh and ahhhh" moments because we were too close.

My seven year old loved the rock wall, and my five year old was obsess with miniature golf.

I was finally able to do the Quest game, which I missed on my last cruise. If you can make it, GO!!!! It was so fun. I literally cried from laughing.

My husband and brother were both recruited for the belly flop contest. So that was fun for all of us.

There really was something for everyone. It's impossible to be bored on a cruise.

The absolute worst part of my trip was the group from Taiwan. I don't know if it is a cultural thing, but they were incredibly rude. They took up entire stairways taking pictures, and no one could pass. Literally. I'm not exaggerating. They would do anything for a picture, including blocking foot traffic.

All that said, it wasn't enough to ruin our trip! We had a great time and Freedom is a great ship. Can't wait to sail with RC again.

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Nice review -- glad you enjoyed your cruise and the kids had fun. We'll be on Freedom in October for the first time, and looking forward to it.

Glad you and your kids had a great time. That was a nice family picture, and happy kids' faces!

Very nice review - Thank You. Good looking family too :-)

Thanks for the review, our cruise coming up on the 18th and our 1st. one.

Very nice review, thank-you.:)

Thanks for the review...we take our 6 year old with us next month for his first cruise...glad to hear your boys had fun....what types of activities do they have for the kids in the Adventure Club? Did you let them stay late into the evening? Curious about how all that worked....

I like and totally agree with one thing you said a couple times "wasn't enough to ruin my trip". You can always choose to be upset about little things but it doesn't get the time or money back. Too much money to spend time being upset over the little things. Glad you enjoyed the cruise. I'll be in April 1st.

Thank you for your review, we were onboard the same sailing. The large group was a bit of a challenge early in the cruise but they got better as the week went on!

You mentioned the Asian selection in the windjammer, that was pretty much Royal's standard fare, they didn't do anything extra for them at the buffet they didn't even try to correctly make the Congee or Miso Soup offered at breakfast!

Nice review -- glad you enjoyed your cruise and the kids had fun. We'll be on Freedom in October for the first time, and looking forward to it.

Have a great trip!!!

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Very nice review - Thank You. Good looking family too :-)

Thanks!!!

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Thanks for the review...we take our 6 year old with us next month for his first cruise...glad to hear your boys had fun....what types of activities do they have for the kids in the Adventure Club? Did you let them stay late into the evening? Curious about how all that worked....

Ok, so there are three sessions for kids club. Morning, afternoon, and evening. For us, we spent mornings and afternoons with the kids. Then we fed them at windjammer and sent them to kids club at 6:45 (start of evening session). We had the late seating at dinner, so we got to see our show at 7, and then eat dinner at 8....all without the kids. They would have been bored anyway. By the time dinner was over, it was time to pick up the kids at 10. We let them stay till ten every night. They go to bed at 8 when we are home, so that was a treat for them.

They did soooo many cool things in Adventure Ocean. There were tons of games: dodgeball, tag, those types of things. They did little science projects, which my kids loved. One night they had a pirate parade through the main promenade.

Your son will make a ton of friends and have the best time ever!!!!

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I like and totally agree with one thing you said a couple times "wasn't enough to ruin my trip". You can always choose to be upset about little things but it doesn't get the time or money back. Too much money to spend time being upset over the little things. Glad you enjoyed the cruise. I'll be in April 1st.

Exactly! You've spent the money, why sweat the small stuff??? And it really was small stuff. Nothing horrible happened. It only gets horrible when you let it get to you.

So my husband and I, instead of getting mad about the large groups blocking traffic to take pictures, we made a game out of photobombing them. There are a few dozen pictures of me with some Taiwanese people floating around somewhere..... ;)

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Thank you for your review, we were onboard the same sailing. The large group was a bit of a challenge early in the cruise but they got better as the week went on!

 

You mentioned the Asian selection in the windjammer, that was pretty much Royal's standard fare, they didn't do anything extra for them at the buffet they didn't even try to correctly make the Congee or Miso Soup offered at breakfast!

Thanks for the info! I really was wondering about that!!!

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Love that attitude!

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Thanks for the review.

Thank you for the review. Glad you all had a great time.

Ok, so there are three sessions for kids club. Morning, afternoon, and evening. For us, we spent mornings and afternoons with the kids. Then we fed them at windjammer and sent them to kids club at 6:45 (start of evening session). We had the late seating at dinner, so we got to see our show at 7, and then eat dinner at 8....all without the kids. They would have been bored anyway. By the time dinner was over, it was time to pick up the kids at 10. We let them stay till ten every night. They go to bed at 8 when we are home, so that was a treat for them.

They did soooo many cool things in Adventure Ocean. There were tons of games: dodgeball, tag, those types of things. They did little science projects, which my kids loved. One night they had a pirate parade through the main promenade.

Your son will make a ton of friends and have the best time ever!!!!

 

 

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THANK YOU...yes he is very excited !!!

Thank you Bluegirly for the review. Our daughter loved the kids' club much more than Disney's kids' club. She found much more flexibility by the staff.

Great review! Thank you!!!

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Thanks for the great review. I love the fact that you didn't let small things ruin your vacation. I sometimes get tired of the complaints about small things.

Was also on this cruise.

Getting on the boat took so long partly because none of the group of 1000+ Taiwanese filled out their CC info prior to checking in.

At times like these, this is where priority boarding comes in handy. Rack up those points! :D

Nice review. We'll be on the Freedom for B2B in January.

Freedom is my favorite ship. I am glad you had a nice time.

Was also on this cruise.

 

Getting on the boat took so long partly because none of the group of 1000+ Taiwanese filled out their CC info prior to checking in.

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