Cruise Review Freedom of the Seas !!!

RCI’s Freedom of the Seas – Apr 12th – April 19th 2009 – Western Caribbean

Hub – Steve (50) Me – Di (55) Our Son Nic (12)

This was our 1st Ever Cruise!!!

So we went with a completely open mind - although I did do a huge amount of reading as many CC posts and threads as I could before we went, which were extremely helpful with planning and packing !!!

We didn’t book any excursions at any of the Ports because we didn’t know how we were going to feel, so we thought it best to “suck it & see!”…………

Being from the UK, we flew from London Gatwick (LGW) with Virgin Atlantic into Orlando (MCO), collected our Hire Car from the Dollar desk and as we are Disney Vacation Club Members and have been since 1994, we stay at Disney’s Old Key West Resort (our Home Resort which is always wonderful) for 3 nights before driving down to Miami Airport on Sun 12th to drop off the hire car at the Dollar desk. They took us around to the Cruise Port and Freedom of the Seas was the first Ship we saw! – What a beautiful site, all the Cruise Ships lined up with FOS at the back, then Carnival Valor, then another Carnival, then NCL Pearl & NCL Jewel - we were so excited to see them all. We dropped our luggage off at the Pier and we were approached by one of the porters who told us to “just leave your bags with me and walk through that door”. We then walked into the Check-in area at 11:30am where the check-in process seemed very organised although the grumpy check-in lady who dealt with us, would have cracked her face if she had smiled – in our opinion….!!! We had ticked the OPTION B on the Charge Account paper “I choose to have my credit card issuer convert my onboard charges to the currency of my card in lieu of participating in the Royal Caribbean International Currency Conversion Program”– This was subsequently ignored by RCI when we got our final Sea Account on the morning of disembarkation, but more of this later on…

Day 1 – As we walked onboard (greeted every few yards by RCI Crew) and saw the inside of Freedom for the first time – it was a definite WOW moment for all 3 of us !!!! We were completely gobsmacked and unprepared for how beautiful and plush Freedom was! We made our way up to Windjammer, found a table and had some lunch, the food was excellent! We know we are going to love this buffet… Then at 1pm the announcement came that the staterooms were open, so we went up to Deck 9 and found ours - #9220 D1 Balcony Stateroom on Deck 9. We were really pleased with the look, size & storage space in the stateroom and the Balcony which gave us fabulous views to the front via the curved glass window, as well as out to the side … We hung up our first night Dinner clothes which we had in our hand luggage, worked out how to use the safe to lock away passports etc… and set off to explore the ship and take loads of photos and video before it was full of people… We went to have a look around the Teen Area of Fuel, the Living Room & the Arcade. Nic was VERY impressed because as he is 12 he was told that he can “come & go as he pleases!” joining whichever activities he wants and leaving when he wants… We didn’t make the pre-arranged “Pre-Sailaway Cruise Critic Meet” at the Pool Bar on Deck 11 as we were still exploring the Ship until just before Sailaway. We rushed back to our balcony for Sailaway and watched all the ships go off in front of us in a line ! What a Fab sight ! We passed the NCL Pearl which was still docked and we all waved and whooped at each other as we passed and they sounded their horn ! After sailaway Nic disappeared off to the Teen Area and we arranged to meet back at our room @ 5pm to dress for Dinner at 6pm. It was a good job I was told by CC members to carry our Dinner clothes in our hand luggage as our cases didn’t subsequently arrive until about 8:30pm! We had opted for Main Seating for Dinner and found our table #246, quite easily. Our lovely waiter Conrad and his Assistant May came to introduce themselves and we also met our tablemates, Geoff, Julie and their 14 yr old Son David, all Canadians but now living in Columbus, Ohio. Perfect! another boy for Nic to chat to! Our Waiter, Conrad and his assistant May were lovely and looked after us very well. After Dinner, the boys disappeared off into the “Teen Area” and we did some more exploring whilst trying to walk off our lovely Dinner of Steak followed by a superb Fruity cheesecake… it’s a huge ship and there was so much to see !!! We enjoyed a Bud sitting outside the Bull & Bear Pub on Royal Promenade and watched the Parade – Fabulous – our Cruise Director Richard Spacey (a fellow Brit) is a Hoot !!! We arranged to meet Nic, our Son at 10:30pm in Café Promenade where we just couldn’t resist taking coffee, hot chocolate and a piece of their excellent apple/cinnamon cake back to our room to eat before bed. We loved that we could tune into Channel 19 on our TV and see the constantly updated route map, and also the live cameras on the front and rear of the ship, it was so much fun sitting in our room watching everyone riding the Flowrider at the back of the Ship… We ordered breakfast from Room Service and finally went to bed just after 12! Couldn’t feel any movement or hear any noise so drifted off to a peaceful sleep…..

Day 2

This was a “Cruising at Sea” day, and as our lovely breakfast arrived around 7:30 consisting of juice, coffee, eggs, bacon, sausages, a healthy fruit plate and then not-quite-so-healthy pastries! we really enjoyed eating this out on our balcony.... After breakfast Nic disappeared off to meet his new friends including David, Connor, & AJ in the Teen Area where they joined in with the Quizzes, the Scavenger Hunt, Shot some hoops, played Dodgeball and enjoyed 1 hour’s FREE use of all the machines in the Arcade !! We did some more exploring of the Ship especially the shops in the Royal Promenade!! We met Nic in the Windjammer (briefly) for lunch and then spent a leisurely couple of hours sitting on the Balcony reading – This is definitely the life !!! Tonight was our first “Formal Dinner” – sooooo looking forward to it !!! This is the first time that Nic has worn a suit and my heart lurched when I saw him all ready to go and looking sooooooo grown up !!! Our Dinner was wonderful, the Filet of Beef was superb and the Souffle with Grand Marnier a fitting end to a fabulous meal !! Conrad (our Waiter) seems to enjoy mimicking my very English Midlands Accent, so I agreed to teach him a new “word of the day” Yesterday’s was “Lovely” and today’s was a good old ‘Black Country’ word “Bostin”… Conrad had a bit of trouble with the pronunciation at first, but got it in the end !!! After Dinner Nic went to get changed out of his suit and into his jeans ready for the “Teen Only” night in the Ice Skating Rink. We went with him to sign the waiver and ended up staying to watch him having fun on the ice with his new friends !!! We only managed to stay up until 10pm tonight as we were all very tired – could be all the lovely food methinks !

Day 3

I woke up just before 6am to the beautiful view of the mountains of Haiti!! We arrived at RCI’s own port of Labadee on the north-western side of Haiti around 7am and after breakfast in the Windjammer, we grabbed our rucksack and made our way down to Deck 1 on the Starboard side at the back to board the Tender Boat that would take us across to Labadee… Labadee was very hot and the guys in the pink shirts in the Haitian Market were very pushy, one even grabbed Nic’s arm and put a beaded necklace around his neck, Nic was a bit worried by this so we took him over to the Dragon’s Breath Beach to watch the Zipliners. We each found a Hammock under the Palm trees and watched the clusters of green coconuts above, hoping that none would fall on us !!! After another stroll along the Beach we had a lovely BBQ lunch of Ribs, Chicken, Hot Dogs & Burgers with Potato Salad & Rice and loads of big chunks of fresh Pineapple, 4 different sorts of Melon, Apples, Oranges, Grapes and loads of different sorts of cakes and pastries & cookies all washed down with Fruit Punch !!! RCI does seem to like to feed their Customers well !!! After lunch we tried to walk off some of the food but then gave up and had another gentle swing in the hammocks again instead !!! We got on the Tender to go back to the Ship around 3pm and headed back to our balcony to watch Sail-away from Labadee – What a beautiful place !!! Dinner in Leonardo’s MDR tonight was a fabulous Filet of Top Sirloin which just melted in your mouth. After Dinner Nic had a “Teen Pool Party” followed by a “Teen Only” session on the Flowrider, both of which we thoroughly enjoyed watching !! This was Nic’s first ever go on the Flowrider and he did really well managing to stay on for a few minutes – He loved it, so much so, that we booked a Private 1 hr lesson for him for tomorrow night (Weds) for 6:15pm… After this we watched the “Dancing in the Street” Party in the Royal Promenade and collapsed into bed at 11:30pm – really tired !!!

To Be Contd.....

I'm working on it - Honest !!!

Lovin it will be on the explorer next march and cant wait, a couple of ? did you book through rci or TA, trying to work out who we will be flying with as we are going from heathrow. will wait with baited breath for the rest

Lovin it will be on the explorer next march and cant wait, a couple of ? did you book through rci or TA, trying to work out who we will be flying with as we are going from heathrow. will wait with baited breath for the rest

Hi sandian !!

My friend just got back from her first trip on Explorer and she loved it, they went to the Southern Caribbean....

We booked through a TA but they were not very efficient, so for our next cruise we have booked directly with RCI in the UK...

Are you flying into Miami ? if yes then Virgin fly from LHR to Miami......

Hey Clio, can you increase the font size when you paste the review here? It's very difficult to read. Freedom is one of my favorite ships, so I'd like to read the whole thing. Thanks. :)

Great review so far, can't wait for more.

Thanks for sharing! Ill be waiting to hear the rest. :)

Hey Clio, can you increase the font size when you paste the review here? It's very difficult to read. Freedom is one of my favorite ships, so I'd like to read the whole thing. Thanks. :)

Great review but agree with request to increase font size. It is more readable if you click on "thread tools" and then "printable"

I actually had to stop reading it on day one because of 1) the font size and 2) it being all one paragraph.

If you can go to the normal font size and break it up into paragraphs, I'd love to continue reading!

Does everyone need new glasses? Maybe it is your browser but this trip report shows up here with the identical font as all your posts... Continue with this fine report please.. :-)

Does everyone need new glasses? Maybe it is your browser but this trip report shows up here with the identical font as all your posts... Continue with this fine report please.. :-)

Hey Rude-y McRudebags, Clio's review is coming out in a smaller font than every other post I'm looking at, including my own. Apparently it's happening with Aquahound as well. I CAN see the difference between, say, font 2 and font 1...

:eek:

I'm sorry if I was rude to everyone Amy. Truely, I am sorry. The Font here using IE looks perfect. Please again, accept my apologies. :-)

I'm sorry if I was rude to everyone Amy. Truely, I am sorry. The Font here using IE looks perfect. Please again, accept my apologies. :-)

Oh that's okay. You weren't THAT rude (just a tad) and I wasn't THAT upset. All good.

I'm using IE too. Weird!

clio, I love your thoughts.

Can I make a suggestion? Would you please put some paragraphs and a larger font so I can read it easier? That would be great.

Otherwise, what I could read so far looks good.

P.S. I was posting the same time as others who mentioned those things.

I found if I copy and print to a Word document and increase the font, it is better.

Great review so far Clio! I want to go now, now, now!!

Hi Everyone !

Just signed on to do some more work on my review and am horrified to see the small font and lack of paragraphs !!!

I typed up the review in MS Word in font 16 and with paragraphs, then I saved it to my stick, copied and pasted it into the CC reply box and its turned out like this - What did I do wrong?

I completely understand and agree with your comments - Maybe I should have just done it under the "Reviews" and not straight into this thread ?!?!?

What does anyone think ?

I'm going to have a look at how it looks under the "Reviews" - Maybe this will be better !!!

Thanks for doing the review. I'll be doing the W. Caribbean on Freedom next year...way too far away for me. A bit pathetic since I just got off a cruise 10 days ago.

Thanks for your quick response this is our first cruise with RCI and we are flying in to New York We booked flights through RCI as we did not know any better. We are also with a TA and we would never go down that route again. Once they have your deposit they dont want to know. Good to know your friends enjoyed Explorer as there are so many mixed reviews. Will go with an open mind and enjoy it to the full.

Thanks again Sandra

I hope this is better !!!

Day 4

We arrived at the Port of Ocho Rios, Jamaica at about 9am, and after Breakfast in the Windjammer (we just love this restaurant!) we headed down to Deck 1 to walk off the Ship as this was a “docked destination”.

Steve and I have been to Mexico once before in 1992, but only to Tijuana, so we expected the local to be a little pushy.

However when we came out of the dock area through the security gate we were not prepared for the number of local men – mainly Taxi Drivers – who wouldn’t take “No Thank You” from us… There was also a number of local men selling all sorts of stuff, copied DVD’s, copied Perfume and some other sorts of locally grown “Stuff”……???

Nic was very frightened by them as some walked along side us and continued to talk at us, even though we kept on saying “No Thank You”….. So we quickly made our way up to the Hard Rock Café shop and the Harley Davidson shop and then called at a couple of the small ‘shopping malls’ near to the Ship…

Nic was very uncomfortable and uneasy with the atmosphere and with all the local men standing around in groups and when they kept on talking at us, so at 12:30 we went back through the security gate (where they checked our SeaPass cards) and made our way back onto the Ship and up to the Windjammer for some lunch…

In retrospect – maybe we should have gone on an organised excursion……

We spent a couple of hours lazing poolside whilst Nic met up with his friends and at 2:20pm we wnt to watch them all on the Flowrider…

At 4pm we strolled over to the Café Promenade for an afternoon treat of Tea and a Cinnemon Bun. We then returned to sit on our Balcony and listened to the sounds of Reggae Music coming from the Beach & Resort below…

We watched ‘Sailaway from Jamaica’ from our balcony at 5pm – we agreed that we probably wouldn’t rush to come back again – maybe we have done this place an unjustice…

At 6:15pm we took Nic up to the Flowrider for his Private Lesson – which he absolutely loved !!! We then had another great Dinner in the Windjammer (I had previously called in at the MDR and told them we wouldn’t be using our table for tonight’s Main Seating so as our tablemates wouldn’t be kept waiting…) and afterwards made our way down to Studio B – The Ice Rink for he FreedomIce.com Ice Show which was Fantastic !!!

We called back at the Café Promenade after the Ice Show to collect Coffee and Hot Chocolate before going to bed around 10:30 ish after ordering Breakfast from the Room Service Menu…

To Be Contd......

I did this in Font size 20 and it has still gone back to this small font !!!!

Arrrgghhh.....

Think I'm just gonna put the whole review into the "Member Reviews"

I hope this is better !!!

 

Day 4

We arrived at the Port of Ocho Rios, Jamaica at about 9am, and after Breakfast in the Windjammer (we just love this restaurant!) we headed down to Deck 1 to walk off the Ship as this was a “docked destination”.

Steve and I have been to Mexico once before in 1992, but only to Tijuana, so we expected the local to be a little pushy.

However when we came out of the dock area through the security gate we were not prepared for the number of local men – mainly Taxi Drivers – who wouldn’t take “No Thank You” from us… There was also a number of local men selling all sorts of stuff, copied DVD’s, copied Perfume and some other sorts of locally grown “Stuff”……???

Nic was very frightened by them as some walked along side us and continued to talk at us, even though we kept on saying “No Thank You”….. So we quickly made our way up to the Hard Rock Café shop and the Harley Davidson shop and then called at a couple of the small ‘shopping malls’ near to the Ship…

Nic was very uncomfortable and uneasy with the atmosphere and with all the local men standing around in groups and when they kept on talking at us, so at 12:30 we went back through the security gate (where they checked our SeaPass cards) and made our way back onto the Ship and up to the Windjammer for some lunch…

In retrospect – maybe we should have gone on an organised excursion……

We spent a couple of hours lazing poolside whilst Nic met up with his friends and at 2:20pm we wnt to watch them all on the Flowrider…

At 4pm we strolled over to the Café Promenade for an afternoon treat of Tea and a Cinnemon Bun. We then returned to sit on our Balcony and listened to the sounds of Reggae Music coming from the Beach & Resort below…

We watched ‘Sailaway from Jamaica’ from our balcony at 5pm – we agreed that we probably wouldn’t rush to come back again – maybe we have done this place an unjustice…

At 6:15pm we took Nic up to the Flowrider for his Private Lesson – which he absolutely loved !!! We then had another great Dinner in the Windjammer (I had previously called in at the MDR and told them we wouldn’t be using our table for tonight’s Main Seating so as our tablemates wouldn’t be kept waiting…) and afterwards made our way down to Studio B – The Ice Rink for he FreedomIce.com Ice Show which was Fantastic !!!

We called back at the Café Promenade after the Ice Show to collect Coffee and Hot Chocolate before going to bed around 10:30 ish after ordering Breakfast from the Room Service Menu…

To Be Contd......

Please dont stop posting! What I did was quote your post and then go to size at the top of the message box - I am sure when you paste in your notes you can adjust the size. Your details are so helpful.

Wendy

Folks, it may be possible as well to increase the font size on your browser. This will increase the size of all the text on a webpage. In my browser (Safari), "Increase Text Size" is under the "view" menu. I (unfortunately) use this feature all the time. :)

I would suggest looking in the help menu of your browser, or perhaps try to google "Increase Text size" and then the name of your browser.

Hope this helps :)

Clio -- would it have been possible to avoid the pushy vendors on Labadee, or are they right there as you get off the tender? Thanks, I'm greatly enjoying your review!!