Review of Freedom of the Seas (7/27 - 8/3)

[DorothyMantooth]

We just returned from the Freedom of the Seas July 27 – August 3 Eastern Caribbean Cruise … and we had a fabulous time!!!:D

 

I’ve read a bunch of trip/cruise reviews that were witty and funny, and included beautiful photos. I am not creative enough to write one of those kinds of reports, nor do I have the patience to fight with uploading photos (I’ve been through that before on other boards for Disney Vacations). Sorry. But … I feel as though the cruise reviews are so enlightening. They really did help me to know what to expect and plan for when I read others. So, I thought I’d share my experiences too.

 

I am a cruise novice, having taken only one cruise ever before this, ten years ago on the Monarch of the Seas. I realize I have little to compare to FOS. Keeping that in mind, here we go:

 

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

The cruise was wonderful. :) There was so much to do and see both on the ship and on the islands we visited. We were very pleased and had a great vacation. It truly was an escape from reality.

 

I thought the Freedom of the Seas was just grand. I mean it. Completely beautiful and impressive. All of the common areas and venues seemed taken care of well, lovely, and sparkly clean. (We noticed particular care was taken to clean common areas. There was NOT a time when I didn’t see somebody wiping down handrails, etc. There was no denying their commitment to cleanliness).

 

The staff was friendly and accommodating, especially our Head and Assistant Waiters. We were lucky enough to be seated with Albert and Daniel in Galileo’s (Deck 5) and received unbelievable service. Albert had magic tricks for us every night and my youngest DD especially loved those, wanting to know his secrets, etc.

 

One thing about the dining that was odd was the host/hostess stand and where to check in. We had My Time Dining and made our reservations ahead of time. At meal time, there were two stands, one on each side of the main doors with signs indicating that was the place to go for My Time Dining Guests WITH ressies. There was no information for where to go if you did not have reservations. So every night, and I do mean every night, the line was held up for at least one person who was in this line without a ressie. It did indeed hold things up. And walk ups NEVER got in. Why am I bringing this up? I guess to give the simple advice to make your ressies before your cruise date if it is a full ship/popular time of year to travel.

 

We had a mid-ship ocean view room on Deck 3. (Yes … the “cheap seats” so to speak :rolleyes:). It was fine. We knew what we were getting into regarding room size and we made it work. The girls liked the pull-down bunks, and nobody fell out on top of us, so it was all good. It was a connecting room, but we traveled alone so that door was always locked. However, because of the door, we had just a chair and not a loveseat/sofa. It would have been nice to have a loveseat/sofa, but really it wasn’t a big deal. Our room steward was Diogo. He was good too. He was certainly friendly, and our room was clean. Nothing remarkable, but not bad either. He made a towel animal a few nights which the girls got a kick out of. I read some reviews here and there about how some people never saw their room steward or the stewards were absentee somehow. We had the exact opposite problem: he was always there. Every time we came out of the room. Literally. I don’t know if he was new or what and needed extra time to get his stuff done, but it was kind of funny. Not an issue, just kind of humorous.

 

My DD’s loved the Adventure Ocean kids club … my youngest was an Explorer, my older a Voyager. We signed them in for the first time, not sure what to expect or if they’d want to go back, and when we picked them up they were disappointed to leave! They spent at least some time in the kids most days by their request. Each made friends and had a great time.

 

While the entire ship was really impressive, my kids (daughters 10 and 8) did not love the pools and H2O Zone. I really don’t have any specific reason why. They can’t seem to put their ambivalence to this area into words either. But, I can hazard a guess as to why they could literally take or leave the area: they felt out of place as if they were a little too “old” for the H20 Zone as they’ve outgrown the thrill of running through sprinklers, and a little to “young” for the other pools with everyone sitting on the sides, sipping rum drinks and sunning. Mind you, not that they couldn’t play in either – they did. And they had a good time, but neither loved it. (Quite honestly, now that I sit down and think about it, it might also have something to do with the fact that we have a truly awesome community pool we go to several times a week here at home, so they might be a little jaded). I am quite sure my DD’s opinion is probably the exception to the rule, just sharing.

 

Sunday, July 27, 2014

 

We used the RCI-approved shuttle service to and from the ship. That was a rookie mistake.

 

Sign in was chaos. People everywhere. I don’t know how the service wasn’t prepared for the arrival of all of these passengers since this is a reservation-based thing, but they weren’t. We waited an hour for a bus. I wasn’t pleased. At all. I wasn’t thrilled with our return service after the cruise either, for a completely different reason which I’ll include in my departure day recap, so I don’t think we’ll use this service in the future.

 

We get to the pier, and go through all the motions. Everything moves along in an orderly fashion. Yes, there are lines, no big hold ups or waits though. When we actually “check in” for lack of a better description, we step up to the counter and see signs posted that there will be no available upgrades as this is a full sailing. Yowza. We are prepared for a large crowd.

 

Honestly, I don’t really have much about this day to tell. We get onto the ship and into our room, drop our stuff and get to lunch at the Windjammer. Crowded, yes, but we got a table easily and had a nice lunch. This day we had fun exploring the ship, walking the decks, checking out the different amenities – the kids’ clubs, the Fitness Center, etc. and just getting our “sea legs” in general.

 

 

Monday, July 28 – CocoCay

 

We made it!!!!

 

I was getting a little nervous about missing this stop as I had read quite a bit about how this is skipped often since it is a tender port and not a dock. But, we lucked out I guess.

 

The boat docked at 7 a.m., I believe. We didn’t get to the island until about 9:30.

 

I didn’t pre-book any activities here and that was a mistake. I thought about pre-booking some time for my DD’s at the Aqua Park. However, I had been advised that rarely does that stuff sell out and it is a decision I could make while there. Guess what? By the time I got to the desk to purchase admission, it was sold out (this was before 10 a.m.). My youngest DD was disappointed. I spoke to another cruiser later who was interested in renting a Jet Ski. She told me she got to the island before 9 a.m. and the jet ski rentals were sold out for the day then. So, my advice, if you are going on a full ship: reserve ahead. (Unless you want to do the water slide … that had a bunch of availability, and didn’t seem like much interest).

 

But, the island was wonderful. It was like a post-card for Caribbean paradise. We swam and made sand sculptures, tried out hammocks, had a CocoLoco or two. Just a beautiful, tropical beach day.

 

The last tender was scheduled for 2 p.m. So at 1ish we decided to make our way back to the tender and have lunch on the ship, so I can’t comment on the island lunch. But there were two lunch buffets opened (One was obviously at Blackbeard’s Grille and the other was closer to Water Sports Beach – don’t recall the name) and both were packed when we walked through the area around 12:30 to get a beverage.

 

I thought CocoCay was the perfect Caribbean slice of relaxation and fun. I am so glad the ship was able to tender here this day.

More to share … but not enough time right now …

[Yorkvillain]

Nice review. Looking forward to the rest.

[ang73]

Excited to read more! We are going on freedom for the first time in October. Our 2 youngest kids are 7&11 so I'm glad to hear your kids loved the kids clubs. Also really glad you shared about the aquapark being full on coco cay! I dont think I would've reserved ahead of time if u hadn't said that!

 

Thanks for sharing!!

 

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Forums mobile app

[karin5]

Thanks for sharing your trip report. Looking forward to read more.

[Sail2k]

Like the review so far... what shuttle service did you use? We are headed out on the Freedom this Sunday and we reserved a parking/shuttle service from the Radisson. We have never used them before, but heard it was a good service. Also what time did you arrive there?

 

Thanks again

[BillOh]

Thanks for writing, l always say I can find value in any review and your's is no exception,. The RC shuttle may be a rookie mistake, lesson learned, but I see that hasn't changed in 9 years. It took almost two hours to get from the airport to the ship when I did the RC shuttle on my first cruise in Miami and the airport is only a few miles away.

 

I've been to Coco Cay 3 times, all on smaller ships so your point about things being sold out is a good lesson for others. Freedom is the largest ship that stops there, but on occasion two ships may be there.

 

Nice job, keep it up..

[Nickymjw1]

May I ask what time your dinner reservations were for? We are late eaters and normally do my time dining on other cruiselines and never made reservations. It kind of beats the concept of my time dining. But at the same time I don't want to wait more than 20 minutes for a table

[casinostreer]

MUST HAVE MORE!!! :-)

 

I'm leaving in just over a week on FOS - and love soaking it all in. So glad you seemed to have a great time! Hope we have a similar experience!

[DorothyMantooth]

Thanks everyone. Hopefully I get to write more this afternoon/evening.

 

Like the review so far... what shuttle service did you use? We are headed out on the Freedom this Sunday and we reserved a parking/shuttle service from the Radisson. We have never used them before, but heard it was a good service. Also what time did you arrive there?

 

Thanks again

 

Our shuttle service was not through the Radisson. (I have heard good things about the Radisson as well). The transfer service we booked was directly through RCI, although once we arrived, it was clearly a third party contractor and not actually part of RCI. We checked in with shuttle service by 10:15 a.m. and got to the port around 12:30.

 

 

May I ask what time your dinner reservations were for? We are late eaters and normally do my time dining on other cruiselines and never made reservations. It kind of beats the concept of my time dining. But at the same time I don't want to wait more than 20 minutes for a table

 

Our dinner reservations were at 5:45 on sea days, and 7:30 on port days. It didn't matter which time, we saw first-hand that the issue of reservations and walk ups happened every night at our dining room. (There are 3 dining rooms on the FOS, Leonardo's, Isaac's and Galileo's).

Edited August 7, 2014 by DorothyMantooth

[beshears]

We were on the FOTS the end of April, going the western route. I always like to read what people think of the cruise ships I have been on. :)

[njmomof2]

When you say walk ups NEVER got in, what did you mean, really? That in the time period you were standing there waiting to make your way to the hostess stand, they were not seated, or that you saw them turned away or told to come back in an hour or 2?

 

We were on Oasis in April, and have sailed Freedom 3 times. We do MTD and unfortunately since I book after final, getting dinner ressies at 6;30 (our preferred time) is not available. On Oasis, my mom contacted the D+ concierge and asked for help. He got us in touch with a particular person at the desk who worked us in at the same time at one of 2 different stations. Both wait staffs were lovely.

 

This trip (8/24) I have us booked for whatever was available (maybe 7:15?). We are going to do specialty dining the first night to take advantage of mom's BOGO as a D+ with older DS and I will take younger DS for the $8 fee and hopefully get 20% off mine for booking on the first night. If we decide our time is too late, she'll speak to the concierge again to see if he can help.

Edited August 7, 2014 by njmomof2

[dcgrumpy]

When you say walk ups NEVER got in, what did you mean, really? That in the time period you were standing there waiting to make your way to the hostess stand, they were not seated, or that you saw them turned away or told to come back in an hour or 2?

 

We were on Oasis in April, and have sailed Freedom 3 times. We do MTD and unfortunately since I book after final, getting dinner ressies at 6;30 (our preferred time) is not available. On Oasis, my mom contacted the D+ concierge and asked for help. He got us in touch with a particular person at the desk who worked us in at the same time at one of 2 different stations. Both wait staffs were lovely.

 

This trip (8/24) I have us booked for whatever was available (maybe 7:15?). We are going to do specialty dining the first night to take advantage of mom's BOGO as a D+ with older DS and I will take younger DS for the $8 fee and hopefully get 20% off mine for booking on the first night. If we decide our time is too late, she'll speak to the concierge again to see if he can help.

 

 

Thanks. I was going to ask the same question.

 

I have read a lot of people say they have never waited more than 5 minutes with MTD. It was the only thing available when we booked our cruise. I wasn't planning on making reservations.

[LBumb]

good start

[LizzieandLuke]

Love your review.

 

We leave on the Freedom in 17 days - my DD is 11 and DS is 9 - so almost the same age.

 

I didn't prebook the Coco Cay Aqua Park either. I have read here where it was unnecessary (I started that tread). I think I may change my mind. Did you feel you got there too late (although I don't think 9:30 is very late).

 

Can't wait to read more :D Would love to hear more about the kids clubs.

 

17...................

[DorothyMantooth]

When you say walk ups NEVER got in, what did you mean, really? That in the time period you were standing there waiting to make your way to the hostess stand, they were not seated, or that you saw them turned away or told to come back in an hour or 2?

 

 

To clarify, I don't really know how long they had to wait. I suppose they eventually got in to eat, but not at the time they walked up. I could only guess that it wasn't just a few minutes, because the people I saw turned away left the entire area. I can assume they came back later, but it was a long enough wait that they didn't stick around.

 

One night a man on his way out of the dining room stopped back at the desk to ask about how to handle his My Time Dining for the following night. The person at the desk recommended that he make a reservation earlier in the day for a suitable time as the ship was full and they could not guarantee accommodating any walk-ups at the exact time they show up.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

[DorothyMantooth]

Love your review.

 

We leave on the Freedom in 17 days - my DD is 11 and DS is 9 - so almost the same age.

 

I didn't prebook the Coco Cay Aqua Park either. I have read here where it was unnecessary (I started that tread). I think I may change my mind. Did you feel you got there too late (although I don't think 9:30 is very late).

 

Can't wait to read more :D Would love to hear more about the kids clubs.

 

17...................

 

Maybe 9:30 was too late and if we did rise and shine earlier we would have had a better chance. I did chat with the attendant at the reservation stand and she said that the water park regularly books up in advance and that most reservations are done via the website. This again is according to one person, but that is the information she shared.

 

Either way - CocoCay was great and I hope you love it as much as we did.:D

Edited August 7, 2014 by DorothyMantooth

[DorothyMantooth]

Tuesday, July 29 – At Sea

 

This was our first of three entire days at sea. My DD’s spent a good part of this day in the Adventure Ocean Kids Club. For those of you who have never used this service, the club is broken down into sessions – morning, afternoon and evening. For a fee kids can participate in the late night party zone until 2 a.m. (we never did the late night session, but they must “sell it” to some degree because the girls asked to do this several times). The sessions have a theme and a bunch of activities, games, art projects at least loosely based on the theme. It seems like there was always something fun going on and the girls always had fun things to report.

 

There was never a dull moment, and our days were filled with fun and sun. The details are all starting to get a bit scrambled for me as to what we did which day. But I can tell you that the highlight of this day was the FreedomIce.com show. We booked the show in advance on the RCI website and arrived a half hour before show time (as advised) to get good seats. The show was really fun and entertaining and solidified the girls’ desire to ice skate on the ship.

 

Wednesday, July 30 – St. Thomas

 

After breakfast we started the day with … ice skating. The girls had already expressed interest, and yesterday’s show was inspiring, so we started the day with the morning open ice session. They provided helmets, elbow, knee pads and of course skates (ALL must be worn). It wasn’t overcrowded and we didn’t even have to wait for ice time, we showed up, signed the waivers, got our stuff and went right to the ice. Lots of fun. So much so that the girls skated again later in the week.

 

We arrived in St. Thomas early, but our shore excursion didn’t leave until 1:30. We were in a weird time crunch in that we didn’t think we’d have time to do anything else before the excursion without feeling rushed, so we stayed on the ship and had some lunch in the MDR. On our sailing Leonardo’s on Deck 3 was the MDR open for lunch. The meal was enjoyable. There was a problem with my youngest DD’s grilled cheese in that it wasn’t grilled or melted at all and was more of a cheese sandwich. The chef delivered a double decker amazing replacement grilled cheese right to our table – talk about service! Really impressive.

 

We booked our excursion (FastCat 2 Island Snorkeling Safari and Beach Getaway) through RCI. It was well-organized and upon leaving the ship we found our contact right away. After a little waiting to insure everyone was accounted for, we walked to catamaran. We were on the Cruzan. We snorkeled and saw giant turtles, were served drinks (really good rum punch!), and were taken to a nice little beach. It was a really nice outing and we all enjoyed ourselves.

 

The sun and surf took all of our energy for the day, so afterward we returned directly to the ship even though I believe we still had about an hour or so of time before we had to board. But it was a lovely day in St. Thomas ….

[DorothyMantooth]

Okay things are getting a little long here (and certainly tedious and boring without photos). So perhaps it would be best if I just summed things up in a few bullet points:

 

• St. Martin: We took the Bernard’s Tour of the Island. This could have been the best decision made for the entire trip. Can’t say enough good things about our tour guides Collin and Jon and the tour itself. We saw a little bit of everything on the island and they really took care of this. I would recommend this tour without hesitation to anyone.

 

• Shows: we saw a handful of shows in addition to the FreedomIce.com show. We saw VOXAudio, “Once Upon a Time,” “Now You See It” with Drew Thomas, Farewell Show with Ildiko and Peter and Comedy by Al Romas. The shows were all really different and appealed to all different tastes, and some were better than others. I could list my favorites, but don’t see the point because it all is a matter of perspective and what type of entertainment you like. I can say I never sat in the theater and thought, “what a waste of time.” We liked the little routine we found ourselves in with dinner and a show every night.

 

• Ship activities we participated in or watched, etc. included various trivia contests, Scattegories, family feud (or friendly feud technically), family quest and – oh my – I can’t remember all the stuff we found ourselves doing. Obviously, just like anything in life, some of these activities were more fun than others, some of the hosts of these things were better than others, but you never really know until you participate. We mini golfed, skated, watched a 3-D movie, karaoked … I can say this, if a person is bored on this ship, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

 

• Departure day was an early awakening as we were scheduled to leave the ship at 7:30 a.m. I tried to get this moved by an hour or two, but was told I could not because of the shuttle. The RCI crew member I spoke to at guest services said that the shuttle service booked through RCI is not their own and RCI is told when the shuttle will be available for which passengers. She could not move my disembarkation time. Had I made my own arrangements she absolutely could have. So, we left the ship at 7:30 a.m. and were at the airport at 9 a.m. So early for our flight that we couldn’t even check our baggage! Reason #2 why I will make my own shuttle arrangements in the future.

 

Our family had a great vacation of the FOS. I wouldn’t hesitate to do this trip again. However, this was so awesome, now I am intrigued to try other ships in the fleet … maybe Oasis Class next???

 

I hope everyone reading this enjoys their cruise vacations as much as we did.

[njmomof2]

You had lunch in the MDR on a port day? In my experience, the MDR is closed on port days and everyone is up in the Windjammer. Unless you arrive later in the day, they are usually closed.

 

If they are open while in St. Thomas, this is great for us as we are not planning on doing much of anything on the island, and I'd rather eat in the MDR than the WJ anyway.

[Otterman34]

Dorothy Mantooth is a Saint!

 

I couldn't resist :D:D:D

[pitz0005]

In my experience they do not accomadate walk ups for MTD on Freedom of Liberty. I know it sounds crazy, but we tried on both and were turned away each time. We were told we needed to have reservations which were available at 6:00 or 8:00 each time. This was a couple years ago in January and February, so things may be different now.

[DorothyMantooth]

You had lunch in the MDR on a port day? In my experience, the MDR is closed on port days and everyone is up in the Windjammer. Unless you arrive later in the day, they are usually closed.

 

If they are open while in St. Thomas, this is great for us as we are not planning on doing much of anything on the island, and I'd rather eat in the MDR than the WJ anyway.

 

The day we were in St. Thomas the MDR was open. It was not open for lunch on our other port days (CocoCay or St. Martin) We were not scheduled to be in port at St. Thomas until 1:00 p.m. (although we arrived earlier). Perhaps that is why.

 

Dorothy Mantooth is a Saint!

 

I couldn't resist :D:D:D

 

:D:D:D Love when the reference of my screen name is caught!

[kahcarre]

• Departure day was an early awakening as we were scheduled to leave the ship at 7:30 a.m. I tried to get this moved by an hour or two, but was told I could not because of the shuttle. The RCI crew member I spoke to at guest services said that the shuttle service booked through RCI is not their own and RCI is told when the shuttle will be available for which passengers. She could not move my disembarkation time. Had I made my own arrangements she absolutely could have. So, we left the ship at 7:30 a.m. and were at the airport at 9 a.m. So early for our flight that we couldn’t even check our baggage! Reason #2 why I will make my own shuttle arrangements in the future.

 

That is so weird! I wonder if you were misinformed - I took the "official" RCI shuttle from Canaveral to MCO and I was in the very last disembarkation group. They were filling up shuttles and leaving as they were full. My flight wasn't until 1:30pm. We made it to the airport by 10:30am easy, so there was no stress :)

[njmomof2]

The day we were in St. Thomas the MDR was open. It was not open for lunch on our other port days (CocoCay or St. Martin) We were not scheduled to be in port at St. Thomas until 1:00 p.m. (although we arrived earlier). Perhaps that is why.

 

 

 

:D:D:D Love when the reference of my screen name is caught!

 

That's probably the reason. If you were not scheduled to arrive until 1 PM then it makes sense that it was open.

 

It's too bad that so many people report problems with MTD without reservations on the larger ships. Since many people see MTD as the option to eat whenever the mood strikes (or you're done with shows or excursions) the idea of getting to the podium and being told that they cannot be accommodated is very upsetting. I can see a 15 minute wait; heck I wait longer than that at a local restaurant sometimes.

 

But I don't use it to dine at random times. The early seating is too early, and the late seating is too late. We like to eat between 6:30 and 7 PM. And of course, when you book after final, they block those times out as options so unless I take a later time, I have to do walk up. And I have gone to the podium trying to make reservations inside that time window for later days on the cruise, and were told that they could not fit us in so either they don't hold back a certain percentage of times, or they overbooked.

[DorothyMantooth]

That is so weird! I wonder if you were misinformed - I took the "official" RCI shuttle from Canaveral to MCO and I was in the very last disembarkation group. They were filling up shuttles and leaving as they were full. My flight wasn't until 1:30pm. We made it to the airport by 10:30am easy, so there was no stress :)

 

I certainly could have been. When I asked at Guest Services for a later disembarkation time, and the crew member I spoke to said she couldn't move my time because of the shuttle service, I thought that was strange.

 

But then again, maybe it is simple supply and demand? It was a full ship, and if they had lots of cruisers using the shuttle they probably only had so many buses ... they needed somebody to get off the ship first essentially. Just disappointed it was us. We gave them our flight times, etc. It would have been nice if that was taken into consideration. In the long list of things that could have gone wrong ... this was a small issue I realize.