Freedom Of The Seas Cancelled for the month for Jan 2015

[kruzerci]

I hope they didn't add two weeks into the two week drydock for something major like adding additional cabins like on the Navigator. Freedom is one of the few ships that I feel is just about perfect as she is.

[Clarea]

I hope they didn't add two weeks into the two week drydock for something major like adding additional cabins like on the Navigator. Freedom is one of the few ships that I feel is just about perfect as she is.

I doubt that Royal can resist putting staterooms and a pay restaurant in the night club.

[kruzerci]

I doubt that Royal can resist putting staterooms and a pay restaurant in the night club.

 

We both know exactly what they're thinking ;).

 

I'm shocked they haven't converted Pharao's Palace (or similar on the other Voyager/Freedom class) into pay venues or staterooms. I should stop before they get any ideas!

[jonesy4life9]

I was just on freedom last week and they mentioned at a crown and anchor event that they will be putting in upgrades similar to navigator of the seas. Such as putting in a Japanese restaurant off of the Viking crown lounge as well as some other specialty restaurants and I believe some additional staterooms. This was my second time on freedom and the ship looked great. It seems like they are just adding some upgrades to make some space more useful.

 

 

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[A6cruiser]

Anybody find out any new info?

 

 

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[HB Cruiser]

We are on the same sailing 12/28/14 New Years Cruise. I was thinking the same thing that they may be prepping for dry dock and even crew will have their mind set on some time off while the ship is on dry dock.

 

Anyone sailed on a ship the week before dry dock?

 

I have nothing official to add to this thread.

 

Now, I have read on these boards about passengers being a bit aggrivated about RCCL starting some of the work prior to the drydock. I do remember reading about one ship the week prior to a drydock one of the pools was closed the entire week so they could start on the decking around that pool.

 

Again, I am NOT trying to start anything here. I know I have read this and wanted to pass this along. Hopefully for those sailing, I am wrong but if I was going one week prior, I would want to find out exactly what might hinder my using 100% of the ship.

 

Tim

[thegima]

We'll be on FOS this October and next Sept.. I'll have to make it a point to eat at Portofinos and get some pictures in the night club THIS year.. haha

 

I agree though, the ship is pretty great as it is... Looking forward to see what they are doing!

[Paulette3028]

They called me a couple weeks ago about my Jan. 18th trip on Freedom. They gave me 8 protected price points for other cruises if I rebooked by the 12th. At first I was kind of disappointed but with all the compensation it worked out great. In the end I just moved it to Feb so its the same everything except I'm coming out way ahead. I didn't even fight with them over the hassle of rebooking and walked away with $1500 obc between the couple of rooms I had booked. I'm actually glad it happened to me. I can deal with the hassle to move it two weeks back and save that much.

 

You definitely are taking what happened in stride....good for you. You could become sour over it, as if you were stuck sucking on a lemon or make good tasting lemonade....and you chose the latter....good -- as I would do.

[SherriZ366]

We'll be on FOS this October and next Sept.. I'll have to make it a point to eat at Portofinos and get some pictures in the night club THIS year.. haha

 

I agree though, the ship is pretty great as it is... Looking forward to see what they are doing!

We are on EX in December and will eat in Portofino's one night as it probably won't be on FR for our Feb. 22, 2015 cruise (the one we are taking as the 1-25-2014 cruise is cancelled.).

[counsdr]

We were on the May 3, 2015 cruise and had to move. We rebooked for May 17, 2015, got staterooms we wanted, and got a nice onboard credit. Glad it was a full ship charter and not a 1/2 ship. We sailed once with a 1/2 ship charter and it was awful -- Celebrity before RCI bought them -- they favored the group and treated the rest of us like second class citizens.

 

This happened to us last February on Freedom. It was a half cruise charter and the rest of us passengers were treated like second actually third class citizens. RCCL didn't even have the decency to tell us or offer us a different sailing. It was the worst cruise I have ever been on and will now research as much as possible to make sure it doesn't happen again!

 

Cheryl

[SherriZ366]

You definitely are taking what happened in stride....good for you. You could become sour over it, as if you were stuck sucking on a lemon or make good tasting lemonade....and you chose the latter....good -- as I would do.

We had 2 cruises cancelled within hours of each other a few weeks ago. First, our May 3, 2015 FR cruise was cancelled because of a large group so we are sailing 2 weeks later than I read on these boards that RCI was cancelling the whole month of Jan. so we re-booked for Feb. 22, 2015. I coordinated all these cancellations with our traveling buddies and we all got cabins we wanted and $400 onboard credit for each sailing. The only problems are that that when we drive down for the Feb. cruise, it is during the Daytona 500 weekend (the Daytona 300 on Saturday) so we will make sure that we pass Daytona while the race is on to avoid traffic (also have alternate routes). And the May 17 cruise is during the weekend of a big Cocoa Beach boat race - we were "walked" to another hotel when we sailed on that weekend in 2013. Got a free room anyway. So we are forewarned and forearmed.

[counsdr]

Come to think of it, our cruise on 2/9/14 was delayed for hours while divers went down under the ship to try to repair a propeller problem. I think we finally sailed around 9 PM and then they continued to work on it the next day in Coco Cay.

Just an FYI, I believe that 2/22/15 cruise is another big Rock & Roll cruises! If so, good luck as the usual customer service goes right out the window. :(

 

Cheryl

[SherriZ366]

Come to think of it, our cruise on 2/9/14 was delayed for hours while divers went down under the ship to try to repair a propeller problem. I think we finally sailed around 9 PM and then they continued to work on it the next day in Coco Cay.

Just an FYI, I believe that 2/22/15 cruise is another big Rock & Roll cruises! If so, good luck as the usual customer service goes right out the window. :(

 

Cheryl

Our May 4, 2014 FR cruise was delayed for the same reason.

[Retired LEO]

I wish someone would come along and charter some of my upcoming cruises. Throw a little incentive my way and I'll gladly switch dates. I'm flexible.

[MomtoCCC]

This happened to us last February on Freedom. It was a half cruise charter and the rest of us passengers were treated like second actually third class citizens. RCCL didn't even have the decency to tell us or offer us a different sailing. It was the worst cruise I have ever been on and will now research as much as possible to make sure it doesn't happen again!

 

Cheryl

 

We are booked on Explorer for Jan 18, 2015 and found out there is an "Irish Stars" group on board for this sailing (they got bumped from the Freedom). I don't know how large this group will be and can't decide whether to move our trip or not. What kind of group did you sail with?

[nbsjcruiser]

The worst part is that I changed it 9 days ago, had to change all hotels and rental cars and the worst part airline. You would have thought that Royal would have thought this threw the last time, so people don't have to change multiple times.

 

I think I'd look for a cruise that would fit in to the dates already booked instead of changing things. This happened to us on the Pearl a couple of years ago. We ended up doing the 8 day Indy instead which was a much better cruise.

[Paulette3028]

Come to think of it, our cruise on 2/9/14 was delayed for hours while divers went down under the ship to try to repair a propeller problem. I think we finally sailed around 9 PM and then they continued to work on it the next day in Coco Cay.

Just an FYI, I believe that 2/22/15 cruise is another big Rock & Roll cruises! If so, good luck as the usual customer service goes right out the window. :(

 

Cheryl

 

What exactly goes 'wrong with the usual customer service' just because you are on a ship that may have a large group on it.....I would love to hear.

[counsdr]

There were over 1000 Rocky and the Rollers on board as well as several shag groups. They had the entire dining room for early seating, so everyone else had to do late seating. We and many others who had reserved early seating were not informed until we boarded the ship and found a note in our cabin saying we had late seating. MTD was only available after 8 PM. The Ice Show time we had reserved was cancelled so "they" could have their "Prom" or a concert at that time. The upper tier Cocktail Party was changed to 10 AM at the same time as the CC Meet and Mingle as the groups were using all the large venues at the usual RCCL times for their meetings and parties. So those of us who were upper tier members and CC members had to choose between the two parties and cocktails and hors d'oeuvres were not served at 10 AM. I could go on, but this gives you an idea. They got priority on everything and there were a lot of unhappy passengers on board.

I will do my best to never sail again with a large organized group.

 

Cheryl

[Paulette3028]

There were over 1000 Rocky and the Rollers on board as well as several shag groups. They had the entire dining room for early seating, so everyone else had to do late seating. We and many others who had reserved early seating were not informed until we boarded the ship and found a note in our cabin saying we had late seating. MTD was only available after 8 PM. The Ice Show time we had reserved was cancelled so "they" could have their "Prom" or a concert at that time. The upper tier Cocktail Party was changed to 10 AM at the same time as the CC Meet and Mingle as the groups were using all the large venues at the usual RCCL times for their meetings and parties. So those of us who were upper tier members and CC members had to choose between the two parties and cocktails and hors d'oeuvres were not served at 10 AM. I could go on, but this gives you an idea. They got priority on everything and there were a lot of unhappy passengers on board.

I will do my best to never sail again with a large organized group.

 

Cheryl

 

Thank you for sharing this with everyone. It is better to have some details, as you provided, than just a 'blanket statement'.

 

I appreciate, for sure.

[CVU]

What exactly goes 'wrong with the usual customer service' just because you are on a ship that may have a large group on it.....I would love to hear.

We were OK with the Jonathon Coulton group of 800+ on board.

They did have the whole lower MDR on INDY and some of the upper for early seating. Since we were B2B we had our table selected from the previous cruise, so I guess it was lucky for us.

They had their own entertainment, it didn't have any impact on our shows and such.

They are booked Jan. 31/15 on Indy this year, so are we!

 

What the previous poster had though was not good!!! To give up your early dining for a group and then find out on boarding is not acceptable. They should give them OBC for specialty dining a few nights?

[counsdr]

We got no compensations, credits, nothing. When we went to Guest Services, we just got a shrug of the shoulders and were told there was nothing they could do, it was out of their hands. When we asked if it was because of all the rock and shag groups, they just rolled their eyes and said they couldn't discuss it. Many people wound up eating in Windjammer for the entire cruise as they had medical issues that didn't allow them to eat late. RCCL didn't seem to care about anyone else except this large group and they got an earful on many comment cards!

 

Cheryl

[uncle John]

We were on Freedom In Feb this year and they had a big Rock n Roll tour on the ship it was real nice even though we could not see all the shows since they were for that group only. Service and the ship was excellent as always with no problems except a few overlaps on parties. They did talk about future upgrades to propulsion systems as they were having some problems with thrusters which is the reasons for the delays in prior cruises leaving on time but no real problems. Maybe the extra time is needed for the overhaul of the thrusters used for docking. Will find out in October what they have palnned.

[counsdr]

John, you were on the cruise after us. Perhaps our words were heeded and you were treated better than us! I'm glad you had a good cruise!!!

I'll be anxious to hear what they will be doing to her in January!

Cheryl

[geocruiser]

We are booked on Explorer for Jan 18, 2015 and found out there is an "Irish Stars" group on board for this sailing (they got bumped from the Freedom). I don't know how large this group will be and can't decide whether to move our trip or not. What kind of group did you sail with?

 

Here is your group.

 

http://www.andycooney.com/2014/02/04/cruise-of-irish-stars-2015/

[Retired LEO]

I just changed one of my sailings due to a large group that will be onboard.