First Timer's Review of 7/3 Freedome of the Seas

[maileenm]

I just got back from our family's first cruise on Freedom over the July 4th weekend and thought I would post some of my thoughts.

Embarkation:

I saw more porters standing around holding their hands out asking for tips than I saw porters moving or dealing with luggage. I have no problem tipping people who deal with my luggage and I planned for it but I was shocked at how many guys were just standing around with hands open and asking for tips. For the time I was there these men did not touch a bag. I gave my tip to the man who moved my bags but still was pestered for tips by 2 others (who weren't near my bags let alone dealing with them) as I walked away from the bags. I found this outragous and I can see why people have issues with tipping them.

I know there is controvery about taking alcohol and soda on board. I decided to try taking a 12 pack of Pepsi on board. I slapped a luggage tag on it and let it go with my bags. I figured if it made it fine, if it didn't I was out $5. It made it to my stateroom no problem. My sister in law has cruised Carnival and didn't realize that you couldn't take wine on board. She packed two bottles in her checked bags. They were wrapped in t-shirts for protection from braking not to hide them. The wine made it on and we were surprised.

Once we got on the ship we wandered, booked spa appointments, and fixed our dining room assignment. Our group of 9 was accidentally split to different tables and we were supposed to be together. The two children of the group enjoyed the pool.

First night dining: Most people on the boards made a big deal of dressing a certain way for the MDR. So I made sure we put our khaki pants (for the boys and my husband) and my sun dress in our carry on bags. We were one of the better dressed people on the first night of dining. My guess is that many people didn't get their bags in time. So the first night of dining there are a lot of people in shorts.

First day cruising:

Pretty uneventful in a good way. We spend the time playing in the pool and checking out Adventure Ocean. I can't really remember anything other than my 8 yr old son was amazed that he could get free ice cream at the pool.

Cocco Cay:

We got off the ship early and found a great spot under a tree that was still very close to the water. It was perfect with shade and breeze. I noticed you must get to the beach early to get these type of spots. When I got up to wander around the island, it was definitely hot, but I never noticed it in our shady spot. Had a good time. The cocco locco drink was too sweet for me and my husband, we stuck with Coronas in odd little plastic bottles. We brought cheap beach toys, Nerf football, and few other small things for the kids to play with. They enjoyed playing with that stuff a lot and didn’t take up too much room in our bags. My oldest son went sailing with my brother in law and he loved it. I know this sounds obvious but if you decide to sail, you really need to know how to sail. There is nobody to really help you. We saw one group who never could get out of the cove because they really didn’t know how to sail.

We tried to eat lunch on the island and it was a disaster. The lines were long and it was nothing more than some BBQ, burgers, and hotdogs. That wouldn’t have been so bad if it were for the militant seagulls. They swarmed anybody with a plate. I saw somebody sitting at a table bend down to pick up something 3-4 gulls swooped down grabbed her burger and then a whole flock of 20+ birds swarmed the entire picnic table to fight over the burger. It was so bad the family ran away from the table and which made things worse because even more birds came and fought over all the food.

My advice get to Cocco Cay super early get a great seat and leave around 12:30-1:00 and have lunch on the ship without the crazy birds.

Sea Days:

Kids (boys 8 and4) LOVED the Adventure Ocean program and would rather do that than play in the pool on sea days. The face painting was a huge hit with the boys and thankfully it came off with a wet cloth (didn’t even need soap).

Flowrider was fun. I kept falling trying to surf but boogie boarding was a lot easier. The flowrider people need to come up with a better way of managing the line of people. Everybody got a chance but depending on your skill level your time varied. Experts would surf around for a long time on it while novices like me would crash immediately. Sometimes they gave the early crashers another shot before they had to go back in line. I think there needs to be a timer and each person gets a certain allotment of time regardless of whether they are great or crash every time. If you crash and you have more time on the clock you should be able to get back on and have as much time as the expert surfers. For me that was the reason I didn’t try surfing more than twice because I got tired of crashing and waiting in line for 20 minutes only to crash and have a 30 second turn.

St. Thomas:

We took a cheap taxi $4/person from the port into Charlotte Amelie. We walked back to the ship and it was an easy 20-30 min walk (don't know exactly b/c we didn't hurry and we stopped to take pictures along the way). We are not into jewelry shopping and so much of Charlotte Amelie is dedicated to that type of shopping. We did enjoy shopping among the street vendors.

My brother and sister in law took a boat to St. John and did a St. John beach excursion (booked through the ship) they loved being on the beach at St. John and they said the person on the boat told them lots of interesting facts about St. Thomas and St. John.

St. Maarten:

We took Bernard’s Tour and it was ok. However that is not Bernard’s fault because it rained the entire time in St. Maarten and when the tour consists mainly of shuttling you from beaches to outdoor shopping, a rainy windy day is going to kill a lot of the tour. They tried to do the tour in reverse by going to Maho to watch the planes first with the hope that things would clear up later and we could enjoy shopping and other beaches then. It didn’t clear up, it just got rainier. We ended the tour in Phillipsburg around 12:30. Since we went to Maho early we only saw one small plane land. I understand the reason for trying to do the tour backwards, but I wish we could have gone back to Maho to see the big planes land. The van was full of wet grumpy people. I don’t think they were grumpy at the tour, more just grumpy because it was raining.

Ice show:

We had a conflict of activities here. We had tickets for the 9:00 ice show but the kids had a pirate parade at 8:45. My husband went to the parade and took video and pictures and I went to the ice show. The ice show was very interesting and good. Our division of activities between our family was perfect. I thought the ice show was amazing, especially what those skaters can do in that tiny rink on a moving ship. I know my husband would have found it to be a bit too froo froo and my young boys would have found it too be too long and would have gotten bored fast.

Formal nights:

The men and boys in our group dressed in khaki pants, button down shirts and ties. The boys wore sneakers. The women in our group wore dresses, something that was more than a sun dress but nothing elaborate. We felt totally comfortable. Personally, I think formal night is a little over blown. My husband summed up my thoughts perfectly when he said, "I feel like it is Prom night." There were quite a few teenagers AND women in prom type dresses. The prom/formal dress attire is not my thing, but I was completely comfortable in a little black dress and heels.

Debarkation:

We did the express debarkation. We hauled our bags off the ship. I would rather do that than put my bags out the night before. I liked being able to gradually pack that night and having access to the bags. We got up at 6:15am, ate breakfast in the MDR, left the ship at 6:45 and was on our shuttle van back to the airport at 7:45. It was quick and easy.

Other observations:

Our family of 4 packed everything in 3 carry-on luggage pieces, one checked bag and 2 backpacks.

Things I should have packed:

Jeans or pants for myself, it gets cold at night and the a/c in the public areas of the ship is cranked. More t-shirts for me and the kids. We used 50 sunscreen but still ended up putting one on the youngest who kept getting pink in places. Crayons and coloring book for the kids to draw on while waiting for dinner. They give the kids a kids menu with some games on it but they didn’t give them any pens, pencils or crayons. We asked our assistant waiter (who was phenomenal) and he brought crayons for the next meal.

Things I am glad I packed:

Shout wipes! Those were perfect for dealing with all of the ketchup stains on the boys dinner pants which were worn repeatedly. Cheap beach toys. Freezer bags, we used them to carry snacks from the ship to the islands and to put wet/damp clothes in when we packed our bags the last night.

Things I should have left at home:

We never used our water bottles. We didn’t even use the mugs from the soda package beyond the first day. I never used my gym shoes. I intended to work out every day, but I couldn’t get used to working out in the gym on a rocking ship.

Johnny Rockets: :mad:

I was completely unimpressed and actually quite annoyed at the service. We waited in line for them to open at 11:30 (I had no problem waiting in line) and we were among the first group of people to be seated. They only have booths and room to sit people in groups of 4. We were the 3rd group of 4 to enter the restaurant at opening and be seated. However we were the absolute last of the first seated groups to get our shakes and food. We also had the youngest children who were hungry and thirsty and getting tired quickly. The people seated at the same time as us got their drinks, food, bill and left before we got our burgers. The next wave of people were getting their shakes as we got our burgers. Service was horrible. It was the one place on the entire ship and the entire cruise where I felt that service was lacking. Just go to a Johnny Rockets on land and have a better dining experience, don't bother with the ship.

Spa:

Wait to book your spa treatments. This being my first cruise I was amazed at how often they dropped the price of treatments as the cruise drew towards an end.

Costco Travel Agent: :D

We booked our cruise through Costco and I have to say I will definitely look at them for more travel bookings. Because we booked through Costco we got $360 on board ship credit, 2 free Sea Pets, free soda packages, one free 8x10 photo, private lunch (not personal private, but open only to Costco bookings) with Dreamworks characters, 2 free cupcakes at the cupcake shop, a Dreamworks DVD, and a few other things I can’t remember. We knew about the ship credit, pets at sea, photo, and character lunch prior to boarding. We didn’t know about the free soda package or else I wouldn’t have brought the 12 pack on board.

It was my first time cruising ever and I enjoyed it. I will definitely consider cruising again for a future vacation.

[cruisebabe50]

Very nice review! We are cruising on Freedom in only 18 days! Now I know what to look forward to! Thanks!:)

[sailingawaysoon]

Thanks for the review. Love the Freedom. That was an awesome ship for your first cruise. We've been several times on the Freedom and never tried Johnny Rockets, except for breakfast on the Oasis,, it was okay for me....I prefer the dining room over other areas for breakfast. Happy future cruising!

[brianabrad]

Wonderful review. It sounds like you had a blast!

[Woodmnky]

Glad to know that you had a good time. If you don't mind me asking - what were the ages of your children and did they use the kids clubs? If so, how did you/they like it.

[Nanatopiper]

Thank You for posting your review. Especially the tips about the gulls. Think we'll eat lunch onboard now. LOL....and the freezer bags..gonna pack some of them too.

 

Enjoyed reading your review! Can't wait till its our turn.

[boaterette]

Glad to know that you had a good time. If you don't mind me asking - what were the ages of your children and did they use the kids clubs? If so, how did you/they like it.

 

 

This is what she said in her review.

 

Kids (boys 8 and4) LOVED the Adventure Ocean program and would rather do that than play in the pool on sea days. The face painting was a huge hit with the boys and thankfully it came off with a wet cloth (didn’t even need soap).

[sungifts]

 

 

We had a conflict of activities here. We had tickets for the 9:00 ice show but the kids had a pirate parade at 8:45. My husband went to the parade and took video and pictures and I went to the ice show.

 

 

For the pirate parade - did the kids dress up or wear hats, etc? We'll be on FOS July 31 - our first time with Royal. For pirate night on Carnival, my son wore his pirate hat, eye patch and shirt. I'm just wondering if I should pack them for this cruise.

 

Also - do you know if they had a pajama night for the kids?

 

Thanks for any info! Glad y'all had a good time!

[SpeedsterX]

Just got off the Freedom 3 weeks ago on my very first cruise!

 

Loved the ship and the shows. Did you like Graham Seymour, the Cruise Director? I thought he was great!

 

My review was much longer (boring ;)) but you may find it interesting to compare our experiences. My first and last day wasn't the greatest either but I will definitely cruise again!

 

A link to my review is below in my signature.

[maileenm]

For the pirate parade - did the kids dress up or wear hats, etc? We'll be on FOS July 31 - our first time with Royal. For pirate night on Carnival, my son wore his pirate hat, eye patch and shirt. I'm just wondering if I should pack them for this cruise.

 

Also - do you know if they had a pajama night for the kids?

 

Thanks for any info! Glad y'all had a good time!

 

They had a pj night, both kids liked it.

Pirate parade: They face paint the kids. One had an eye patch and scar face painted. The other kid had an elaborate Asian themed dragon pirate face, hard to explain but it was really cool. The kids also got their own pirate bandanas that they decorated. So I don't think you need to pack the hat and patch unless you think he might really want it.

[sungifts]

Thanks for the quick reply! Sounds like lots of fun with the face painting! I think we'll leave the pirate garb at home.

[Cruzin RN]

Thank You for posting your review. Especially the tips about the gulls. Think we'll eat lunch onboard now. LOL....and the freezer bags..gonna pack some of them too.

 

Enjoyed reading your review! Can't wait till its our turn.

 

 

We have visited Coco several times..Our last winter cruise, The gulls were fine, no problems, we hardly noticed them... I asked an employee if they had drugged them ;)... he told us that during mating season, the birds are more aggressive..I thought he was kidding..

But when we visited Coco in June, the gulls were attacking our food again!

Any bird experts out there to confirm this theory??

Does sex cause aggressiveness?????:D