Freedom of the Seas 8/18/13 Western--VERY LONG & DETAILED PHOTO REVIEW

[mets550]

Looking forward to what you do in Grand Caymen. I'm considering going back on Freedom again in 2015. The only disappointment of my Freedom cruise was they canceled my Grand Caymen Excursion the night before we went so we just walked around the port. How was tendering there? Did you have to wait long to get a shore?

 

Tendering was not bad at all. We left at around 9:30 a.m. and got right on a tender. We waited just a few minutes for it to fill up and then took off. Coming back was more of a pain, since there was a 15 minute line to get on a return tender, but we were also coming back at prime time.

 

Thanks for the review! Looking forward to more, as we're doing this route on Oasis in a FEW days!!!!:):D

 

Thanks! So jealous of you! :cool:

[soccerdad72]

Enjoying the report -- we're doing the same cruise for Thanksgiving week and we're cruise newbies, so I'm reading everything I can right now about FOS. :)

[jadehouse]

Great trip report, loving every line.

We are doing our very first cruise on 29th Sept on Freedom.

 

Thank you for taking the time to share your cruise with us :)

 

Lynne

[ContessaK]

Keep up the great review. We're going on Freedom in 29 days so I'm loving getting a sneak peek at what you do. Helps us make our choices as well.

[SherriZ366]

Really enjoying your review. We sail on FR next on Jan. 12, 2014 with friends but eastern itinerary. In fact one couple has your stateroom (unless they get upgraded as they are Pinnacle). Love JSs -- we have only been booking them since we got hooked. Good luck on your Bar Exam -- went through that with D SIL about 9 years ago.

[SherriZ366]

Glad you posted about the Cocoa Beach Courtyards by Marriott as we are staying there before our Oct. 28 cruise. We were "walked" to the Hampton last May by the Residence Inn and that hotel was great but the folks at the Marriott when we went there for lunch were so welcoming that we wanted to give it a try.

[SherriZ366]

Glad you posted about the Cocoa Beach Courtyards by Marriott as we are staying there before our Oct. 28 cruise. We were "walked" to the Hampton last May by the Residence Inn and that hotel was great but the folks at the Marriott when we went there for lunch were so welcoming that we wanted to give it a try.

Saw that you could see the Saturday cruise ships leaving from the beach.

[TheGaDawgFan]

We're cruising on the Freedom for Spring Break, so I'm loving your review!

 

We only want to do a specialty restaurant 1 night and think we'll choose Portofino over Chops (our Big Green Egg grills a mean steak), so I'm curious if you go there.

[mets550]

Glad you posted about the Cocoa Beach Courtyards by Marriott as we are staying there before our Oct. 28 cruise. We were "walked" to the Hampton last May by the Residence Inn and that hotel was great but the folks at the Marriott when we went there for lunch were so welcoming that we wanted to give it a try.

 

Yeah, the Courtyard was very enjoyable for one night pre- and one night post-cruise. Its proximity to the beach is also great, and the hotel itself is nicer and has more amenities than a typical Courtyard.

 

Saw that you could see the Saturday cruise ships leaving from the beach.

 

Yes, we did see the Saturday ships heading out to sea from the beach! I definitely recommend doing this if you have time. It was fun to see the ships literally sail by.

[mets550]

We're cruising on the Freedom for Spring Break, so I'm loving your review!

 

We only want to do a specialty restaurant 1 night and think we'll choose Portofino over Chops (our Big Green Egg grills a mean steak), so I'm curious if you go there.

 

We did go once on night six. I have plenty of food pictures from that night too. Portofino was very good--definitely an upgrade from the MDR. Overall, we enjoyed the food choices at Chops better, but everything we had at Portofino was flavorful and delicious.

[BillOh]

After the show, we headed to bed and found this waiting for us. Our cabin attendant said it was a “walrus,” although he was not all that convincing. I’ll say no more.

 

 

.

 

No body else has said anything, so I won't either . :eek: Looking forward to Grand Caymen, some friends are contemplating Oasis on the Western, but I want to go on Freedom again and the extra port is a big difference to me.

[vrock]

I would love to hear what you did in cozumel. I love your photos. Thank you for posting.

[evelyn51]

Can't wait!

 

Same here in Canada! :)

[Yorkvillain]

Nice job Mets. I love this review and I love the Freeddom!

[evelyn51]

Enjoyed this review so much. In one photo of the staterm I noticed the balcony door ajar. Is this to insure you were not locked out? How do the doors on Freedom work? :)

[mets550]

Enjoyed this review so much. In one photo of the staterm I noticed the balcony door ajar. Is this to insure you were not locked out? How do the doors on Freedom work? :)

 

The door was able to close all the way without locking. Thus, we could shut the door completely and still get back into the room. I believe that, if the door is left open, then the air conditioning turns off, so we actually made it our business to keep it shut when we were out there. If it was open in the picture, it was entirely unintentional.

[evelyn51]

The door was able to close all the way without locking. Thus, we could shut the door completely and still get back into the room. I believe that, if the door is left open, then the air conditioning turns off, so we actually made it our business to keep it shut when we were out there. If it was open in the picture, it was entirely unintentional.

 

Great thanks! ;)

[BillOh]

Great thanks! ;)

 

If I remember correctly, you could pull the door closed and then secure it from the outside so that the air stayed on, and you could use the handle to get back in, but there is an additional catch on the inside to lock it. If someone activated that latch you could be locked out. Rare, but not unheard of.

[nickthecruiser]

Great review and photos. Thanks for doing this.

[mets550]

DAY FIVE: Thursday, August 22, 2013

 

GEORGE TOWN, GRAND CAYMAN

 

We woke up to an overcast but nonetheless warm morning in Grand Cayman.

 

 

 

 

We had never been to Grand Cayman before, so we were excited to be here and experience Seven Mile Beach, which I’d read was one of the most beautiful beaches in the Caribbean.

 

We ordered a few things from room service (e.g., fruit, pastries, coffee, juice) and then met the rest of our group at 9:00 a.m. Grand Cayman is a tender port with the last tender returning to the ship at 3:15 p.m. Thus, this is a rather short day, especially after you build in time for tendering. However, the tender experience was relatively painless. We didn’t have to wait to board our tender, and it left shortly after we were on it. The ride was short and uneventful. They do, however, load and unload the top deck of the tender first, so—if you’re in a hurry to get off—it is best to try to get a seat on the top.

 

We saw the Carnival Magic on our way in on the tender.

 

 

The water here is absolutely beautiful.

 

[mets550]

Once we got off the tender, we found the taxi area (just outside the secure port area) and had the driver take us to the Royal Palms on Seven Mile Beach. We decided not to do a ship excursion here because all of the beach excursions just take you to Seven Mile Beach anyway and we didn’t feel unsafe whatsoever taking a taxi in Grand Cayman. Thus, I did a lot of research on the best place to go. Almost all of my research indicated that Seven Mile Beach (which is actually only about five miles long) is by far the best beach to go to. I wholeheartedly agree with this, after having experienced it for myself.

 

While my research turned up a few good beach bars to go to where you can rent chairs and order food and drinks, I was most impressed with the reviews of the Royal Palms. This place is one of the closest spots to the port and cost $4 per person in a taxi to get there. Once there, we paid another $2 per person to the Royal Palms, which really just entitled us to walk through their property to get to the beach. However, they also had a nice, warm pool that we went into, which definitely made the $2 worth it. They also had beach volleyball, which we played. Chairs were $5 to rent. We also got some floating beach mats for $10 per mat. Overall, with roundtrip transportation and a chair, the cost is only $13 per person, which is much less than any of the cruise ship excursions. Also, the Royal Palms seems to be in a great location: it was not really crowded at all and it had plenty of beach space. The food and drinks were also great as well, although they were on the pricey side. In sum, I would highly recommend going to the Royal Palms for an easy, relatively inexpensive beach day in Grand Cayman.

 

Here are some shots of the beach on Seven Mile Beach. Absolutely beautiful. Several people in our group thought that, despite the overcast day and occasional periods of thunder we had while we were there, this was the best port and the best beach day we had.

 

 

 

We spent most of the day in the water. I never even sat down in my chair. So much for the $5. If you think this might happen to you, it might be worth it to only rent one chair for every two or three people at first and then just add more if and when others decide to sit. We probably only used two or three of our nine chairs for sitting.

 

The Royal Palms website has a webcam, which I waived at. If anyone happened to be watching some time on August 22nd, you might have seen me! After a few hours in the water, we decided to check out the pool. The water in the pool was even warmer than in the sea, and it felt so nice. The waitress told us that it is not heated at all, aside from the sun’s natural warmth. We ordered some wings, fries, and a pizza, all of which were absolutely amazing and far exceeded my expectations. Highly recommend. After lunch we played a few games of beach volleyball. It is amazing how people just gravitate towards this sport. Within a few minutes of us playing two-on-two, we had a full game of a dozen people.

 

Around 2:00 p.m. we decided to head back to the ship. It was no problem getting a cab back from the Royal Palms—there were several cabs waiting there, and two drivers almost got into a fight over who would take us. Some of our group shopped in the port area, but we headed straight back to the ship. There was a bit of a line to board the tenders coming back, but the ride was quick and we got off shortly after reaching the ship.

 

Despite the excellent bar food at the Royal Palms, we had all been craving Johnny Rockets throughout the day. We only had two sea days and wanted to eat in the MDR both of those days, so this was the perfect time to have a late lunch and get Johnny Rockets in.

 

The food was excellent here, but our waiter was absolutely terrible. Probably the worst service we have ever had anywhere onboard a cruise ship. He had great difficulty understanding us, and when we would ask for a few, pretty basic things, he would either not come back at all or bring only one of the things we requested. We had to ask other waiters repeatedly for more fries and onion rings, barbeque sauce, or other simple things. Every other waiter we asked brought our things over very quickly. I’m not sure why it was such a problem for our waiter. He even rang up our bill wrong, since we were paying with three separate Seapass cards. However, the food was great and we enjoyed ourselves.

 

Milkshake. Yummm!

 

 

Fries and onion rings. Yummm!!!!

 

 

DF got chicken tenders.

 

[mets550]

I got a cheeseburger and a hot dog. (I’m a light eater :D.)

 

 

After lunch, I decided that I hadn’t eaten enough and went and got my first cone of frozen yogurt from the Sprinkles machine on the pool deck. People seem to love this machine, and I do too!

 

Everyone else was tired and went back to the rooms to rest. However, I’m not much for “resting” while on a cruise, so I played a few games of ping pong was DF’s dad. Again, the wind is annoying, but two of the three tables are relatively shielded from the wind.

 

After playing ping pong, I decided to take a solo venture out onto the helipad. Everyone else was still resting, and I love going out to this part of the ship. To get there, you have to go out onto the deck on deck four and walk all the way forward. There are steps before you reach the helipad, so technically I was on deck five; however, you can only access this area by going outside on deck four. It started to rain, so I was the only one out on the helipad. However, I still got my Titanic moment and even got one of the officers on the bridge to waive at me.

 

I then headed back to the room and hung out with DF for awhile. I sat on the balcony for a bit and then changed and showered for dinner. Tonight was the second formal night, and my suit was already a bit tighter than before. :D

 

I made a quick pit stop at the casino prior to dinner and left another deposit. I don’t mind losing in the casino, but I would have liked for my money to have lasted me longer. It seemed like almost everytime I went in, I just lost right away and never even had a chance. I know this is part of gambling, but it was very frustrating to not even have one positive session.

[mets550]

Tonight was lobster night. My previous record was ten lobster tails, and I was gunning for eleven. I know what you’re thinking—why not set my heights higher? LOL.

 

I ended up eating six lobster tails—the late and highly gluttonous lunch at Johnny Rockets really did me in. However, the tails were all excellent.

 

I’m not sure why I took a picture of the menu tonight but not any other night, but here it is.

 

 

I limited my starters to just a caesar salad.

 

 

I also got a glass of white zinfandel.

 

 

 

[RavaRiles]

Love the towel animals, the walrus is especially good...........

Hope you had a great holiday

Kind regards

Ian

[mets550]

 

Here was the finished product:

 

 

The waiters sang to us again tonight.