My "Freedom" Feb 3-11

Before sailing I had read some negative review re: ship and service. Several people were worried so thought I would throw in some of my thoughts and experiences. Not doing a whole review as many have been done

We have cruised a lot on Royal and not high maintenance.

Our stateroom attendant was fantastic.

The waiters in the MTD were great. The maitre D's had attitudes. The first night was chaotic but have found that to be typical of first nights. The menus had changed since October. Some people didnt like ordering dessert with starter and entrees but did not bother us. And really makes it more efficent. Some will be estatic that Pepper Mill service was offered. Now they set bread baskets on table with a sliced brown bread and roll du jour selection. Hubs unhappy with this as he wants sour dough every night and it never was served. I would have been unhappy had we not had a 2 seat table, being a germophobe, would not have liked to shared with others digging thru basket with unknown hand santitization. (yes, I have a problem:rolleyes:) Food is subjective so not going there. But exciting find for lunch one day they had pick your ingredients and made for you Pad Thai.

Bar service was good. Diamond lounge at night is just diamond lounge room with room key entrance. Small, loud , crowded. Not a big deal , we got drinks went to adjoining Olive or Twist and relaxed ordered rest of freebies there.

The ship is in great shape. However, Carpets and drapes in staterooms do need replaced.

The movies , tv and shows (my tastes only) were meh.

Spa sales verrrryyyyy pushy. upsell on Specialty dining verrryyy pushy. Some passengers got irrate.

Luggage valet fantastic. On form it asks if you are exempt from luggage fees if not you will be charged for them. Random info. cab to FLL $14.00. Airport packed no seats , people laying sitting everywhere on floor. Allure and about 5 other ships in port that day

I just wanted to ease some minds that not everyone was upset with attitudes and service on the ship. Please excuse typos, puncuations and spellings. Hard week back to work. :(

Hello! Thanks for posting! On any review, we as humans tend to post the negative and tell anyone that they can. Positive posts, not so much. Shanks for your quick review, we are sailing on her in a few weeks. Looking forward to spending time with my best friend (my bride) and enjoying each other without disruption of daily life. Expecting to enjoy much on board as long as nobody fondles the bread on the dinner table looking for that perfect piece! Thanks again!

Good to hear some positives about Freedom.

Was this the 6 or 8 night cruise? What time did you disembark and or time to start disembarking? We cruise in March and have an early flight.

Thanks.

I just saw the dates, please forgive me?

Was this the 6 or 8 night cruise? What time did you disembark and or time to start disembarking? We cruise in March and have an early flight.

Thanks.

I just saw the dates, please forgive me?

I believe 7 am.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

But exciting find for lunch one day they had pick your ingredients and made for you Pad Thai.

Was the Pad Thai in the dining room at lunch? Or the Windjammer?

Thanks for the info. Headed that way soon. I will have to speak with the waiter- my son might actually starve to death at dinner with out the sour dough on the table LOL. Very picky eater- but the rolls are always a definite hit!

Just a quick comment. We were on Freedom Jan.20-28. My wife loves the poppyseed roll. Night one, no poppyseed. She asks our waiter if they have them. They were in the basket every night after that. Don't know if that'll work for Sourdough, but never hurts to ask.

The pad Thai I had was Windjammer/Jade at lunch.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

I"m not sure which terminal you were in at FLL but I was there on Feb 11 coming off Allure and didn't encounter a line anywhere from arrival to getting on the plane.

Nice to read your opinion of Freedom as we will be aboard in April.

We were on Freedom the week before you. We had the same thoughts about the bread basket. The shape of it made it so that you had to move rolls to get to the ones on the bottom. We asked about the cheese rolls and they said they no longer have them.

We also found the service great. We didn't mind ordering dessert at the same time, it seemed to speed things up a bit.

Thanks for sharing. We are on starting March 11 with friends/family who have never cruised before, and I've talked it up quite a bit, so glad to hear that there were positives! Looking forward to it!!!

We were on Jan 14. Four adults. Had no issues at all. All of the staff were super nice I felt went out of their way to be accommodating. Our cabin attendant Haroldwas wonderful. It was our third sailing on Freedom.

I’m glad to hear your experience was great.

Our group of 4 were aboard this same week. Overall we had a great vacation but there is definitely some room for improvement on this ship.

Our MDR waiter and assistant were subpar. We were there every night when the doors opened yet one night it took over an 45 minutes to get our starter. 10 minutes just to get our water filled and 30 minutes for our drink order.

We were never offered drinks (had to ask), they never knew the “fish of the day” and never offered coffee with dessert.

We were probably the youngest table there and I honestly feel that they thought that since we’re young (20’s) that they assumed we wouldn’t leave a good tip. It got to the point that we did let Daniel, the head waiter, know how the service was. The rest of the week the service was very good however they kept saying to us “thank you for coming on time so we can serve you fast”. That really irritated us because we were never late to begin with. We are really leaning toward the speciality dining package for our next cruise.

Our state room attendant was great. She was very attentive.

The ceiling outside of our room was open the whole week. There were workers there multiple times, however the issue was never fixed. A few times I was entering our room and had some type liquid (hoping it was water) drip on me while opening the door.

In regards to the common areas of the ship- there were multiple times that there was a strong sewer smell outside deck 4. One day I had to go to 3 different restrooms because each was out of service.

Several staff members appeared to be worn out, however there were a few that made the week very memorable. Many seemed to be nearing the end of their contract because they were talking about wanting to go home.

I don’t like to complain however our expectations were high based on other RC ships we’ve been on.

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.

We are sailing on the Freedom this summer. I hope it’s wonderful! Thanks for sharing your observations.

Sent from my iPad using Forums