swabby76

03FEB to 11FEB 2018 Freedom of the Seas cruise was a B+ in our book ... we do agree that the MDR staff levels are not optimized and on our 1st night the waiter had to do everything on his own as his assistant was ordered bed rest by ship's doc. Food, while not spectacular was much better than on the Emerald Princess last August .. so that experience has brought us some perspective :) Our stateroom attendant and MDR waiter were both top-notch.

Being a former sailor I appreciated the maintenance accomplished on this 11 year old ship, regular paint jobs and renovations have made her a pleasure to cruise on again (our 1st Freedom cruise was in 2009).

While the bigger ships have all the wiz-bang things for the 20/30-somethings .. I still love this ship and its crew.

"... She may not be the youngest girl at the ball, but she'll turn a head or two..." Lt. Cdr. Dodge ('Down Periscope' 1996)

We cruised on Freedom of the Seas back in 2009 when it was less than 2 years old and again a couple of weeks ago. The ship has held up well, not sure how often the carpets get changed but they were clean and the beds .. well .. we saw them donate over a dozen mattresses in Haiti and our bed was nice and firm .. BUT my wife needed it a little softer so our stateroom attendant placed a mattress topper on the bed .. and it was "just right" :)

I would take another cruise next week on Freedom of the Seas .. but duty (i.e. work) calls ...

We dropped the car off at the Park-N-Go Port Everglades on 03FEB2018 and they had complimentary valet and had a shuttle waiting at 10:45am, shuttle departed at 11am and we were on the ship by 11:30am .. that was fantastic!

We cruised almost the same itinerary on Freedom of the Seas a couple weeks later and we had different Big Screen movies each night (two showings of the same movie each night 7pm and 10pm or so). Sometimes during the day another movie would show at noon or so .. and I agree the Solarium is a great place to hang out for sun or shade.

I do believe the dispenser in the shower is a multi-purpose shampoo/bodywash .. worked for me :)

As far as the drinks, we also had no drink package and yet we enjoyed a $6 fruity rum drink (minus the rum) from the bar that was great (drank my quota of rum in the US Navy).

Glad you liked the ship and crew ...

Back in 2005 I chose not to pack a tie (ties are IMHO of the devil :) ) or a sport coat and I did not attend formal night until we got a call from our friends saying the MDR waiter wanted to make sure we were welcome even if I wore a polo shirt. My wife was not impressed (she says I stand out as a rebel in the picture of our group of friends) but I applaud Royal to allow those who want to make formal night a big deal and allow others who could care less to attend the MDR as well.

I say a policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering, ( Laissez-faire ) is refreshing these days!

(Your millage may vary)

Having cruised on Freedom of the Seas back in 2009, I could tell that she had some age on her, but we love her layout and anticipated that she would not have the same technology as the newer ships in the fleet.

We also cruised 03FEB-11FEB2018 and found the changes to be fine ... the stateroom attendant John was exemplary , the MDR waiter Ryan was as well. Head Waiter for deck 3 MDR was Romeo and he was very entertaining. We found that all we had to do was ask if there was anything we thought we were missing (bath robes, lotion and even a specific bread).

Maybe we found a new appreciation for this ship, the galley's food and this crew after our experience on the Emerald Princess in Aug 2017. Eight night cruise was our longest to date .. looking forward to even a longer one in 2019 with Royal Caribbean.