Freedom of the Seas March 15 Overly Long Review

[davidtheusername]

This is my first review, and I guess I got excited and wrote way too much. Oh well, you can't expect someone to actually work when they come back from vacation can you? :)

 

 

Who We Are: This is our third cruise, all three have been with royal Caribbean. The first was about 10 years ago, the second about 6 years ago. We're in our 30's and have a 5 year old daughter.

 

 

Embarkation: Embarkation was an absolute breeze. I don't remember the details of embarking on our previous trips, but I remember being annoyed. Not the case here at all. We dropped a rental car at AVIS and got the shuttle to the port. That was easy and fast, although catching the shuttle means standing in the sun and asking each shuttle that comes by if they are your ship. Not the most organized process, but it was over fairly quickly. The ride was quick, and the porters were friendly and helpful with our bags. We breezed right through security, went to the line for previous cruisers, and walked straight on to the ship. I really think we were on the ships ten minutes after arriving and that includes the porters and a few pictures. It was way better than expected.

 

 

Windjammer: Windjammer is what it is. It’s a buffet. It’s perfectly fine as a buffet, but don’t expect the world. We ate there one lunch and four breakfasts. We thought about eating there two other times but saw the lines and quickly lost interest. My daughter wakes up early which was great for breakfast. At 7 it was empty, at 8 there were enough tables to find one easily, at 9 the line looked awful and stretched out the door. Lunch seemed similar. We went once at an off time and it was empty and nice. We went by several other times and were like “forget this. I’ll get a sandwich from the promenade café.” That’s a good piece of advice actually. The crowds clump up at windjammer like crazy when people first board. That wasn’t how I wanted to start my vacation, but once we went down to deck five instead it was quiet and tasty.

 

 

Promenade café: I swear I remember it having different sandwiches every day on our previous cruises. My wife and I both remember making a point of going down there to see what was new every day. Maybe I’m making that up. No idea. The selection didn’t change but they had a variety of tasty sandwiches and desserts, free coffee, etc. We went there every night before bed to grab a bite to eat on the balcony after my daughter went to bed. (Being back in the real world and not eating 6 times a day is a drag. Although, if I ate like I did this week many weeks I’d probably explode like that guy in the old Monty Python skit.) This is a great place to eat if you are fleeing the lunch lines elsewhere. They make specialty coffees and teas there too. We had the ultimate drink package so we went there a lot. Service was always fast and good. They ran out of chai by like day 5, but that wasn’t a huge deal. They had food for breakfast, but it was all sweets and I don’t like sweet stuff so early so I don’t know how that was.

 

 

 

Sorrentos: The pizza here was just okay, but my daughter loved it. The seafood pizza was the best one I tried. My wife liked the vegetable panini. I liked the salami and olives. Basically, it’s like the promenade café with different items available and on the other side of the promenade.

 

 

MDR: For dinner it was excellent. My daughter has a tree nut allergy. It’s annoying, and I’m sure a pain to the wait staff but they treated us great and let her pick food from the next night’s menu ahead of time so they could make sure it was safe for her. I love that, because she likes to try new things and didn’t want to be stuck with the kid’s options of pizza/mac and cheese/etc. every night. The wait staff and bartender were great. The food varied. The appetizers were almost always great. We went overboard and got 2 appetizers per person each night and shared. Every night we thought this was the best part of the meal. There wasn’t an appetizer I didn’t like, although the lobster bisque and one other seafood thing weren’t the best. Most of the appetizers were absolutely wonderful. The entrées were ok. They were what you’d expect. Think corporate banquet event type food. Which isn’t really an insult. That food is perfectly good. It’s not great, but it’s good. That’s really as much as I expect for as many people as they serve as fast as they serve them. The deserts were similar to the entrees.

We had one breakfast here. It was better than the windjammer, but nothing special.

 

 

Room Service: We had one breakfast from room service on our Grand Cayman morning. It looked like the entire ship had the same idea that day so room service was way behind schedule. It tasted fine and eating on the balcony was lovely. But if you are crunched for time, don’t expect room service to be the faster option.

 

 

Sabor: We went here for one lunch. It was amazing. Totally worth the cost. We all loved our dishes, our drinks, and our service. They kept bringing us extra dishes that they had suggested but we didn’t order. I was glad they did. I loved them. We will come back here.

 

 

Giovanni’s Table: We booked lunch here. Then they called and said they weren’t doing lunch, but they were doing a cooking demonstration with a specific meal and a tour. That worked fine. The demonstration was nice. The food was pretty good, but not like Sabor. I think that may have been partly because we couldn’t order off the menu. Not one thing in the meal they prepared was what we would have ordered off the menu so I’m not sure we really got a fair idea of how much we like the restaurant. We skipped the tour so my daughter could nap. I think this cruise is the first time she’s napped in 2 or 3 years. Cruises come up with lots of reasons to keep kids up way past their normal bedtimes. I want to try the menu here, but just going off what I ate alone I wouldn’t bother booking it. However, I think that might change if I ordered what I wanted. I'll give it one more try.

 

 

Drink Package: We got the ultimate drink package. It was completely worth it. We have a small child so we obviously weren’t partying like spring breakers, but we still managed to get more than our money’s worth without the hangovers of our less moderate youth. The package isn’t for everyone, but if you drink think about it. It only takes about 6 drinks to break even. I’m 6’2 so of course it makes sense for me, but even my tiny wife got her money’s worth. When you start the day with a bloody mary and a specialty coffee and end it with scotch or wine on the balcony it reaches the point where it makes sense to get the package quickly. We used the freestyle coke machine every day, but not nearly as much as we thought we would because carrying around the cup was a pain. If you have a kid in adventure ocean, remember that there’s a freestyle coke machine in the arcade right beside the kid’s program. That one never had a line for us. I didn’t think the drink package caused any decrease in service. Bartenders were friendly enough and quick enough.

 

 

Bars: The bars were fine. They were friendly enough and fast. We tried most of the bars around the ship at some point. I like the look of the schooner bar a lot. The Pub was nice, but I was extremely disappointed in the selection. They were out of a lot of beers on the menu. A pub without a single stout available? For shame!!! It wasn’t a huge deal really, but still, it seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to have a pub with decent beer selection. The olive and twist was sort of a nice secret parent’s bar to grab a drink from just before you pick up your kid from adventure ocean.

 

 

Adventure ocean: I don’t know what they do here, but we joked that they fed the kids drugs because my daughter ALWAYS wanted to be here. We didn’t mind grownup time, so we love this place.

 

 

 

Characters: There was no line at all for characters. It was great. My daughter loved them. The parade was cute, although after coming straight from Disney it wasn’t exactly amazing as far as cartoon parades go.

 

 

 

Character breakfast: Don’t do this!!! It costs 10 dollars for adults. It is so not worth it. Characters are super easy to meet without the breakfast. The breakfast said it was at 730 on the first morning. We got up when we wanted to sleep in and got there a few minutes early. It didn’t manage to get started until like 7:50. The service was rushed and not friendly like most of the cruise. They said the characters would come to our table but there wasn’t room for the characters to come so the kids had to go to the front. The guy leading the activities was fun and energetic but he kept asking waiters to join him to sing and dance and kept getting no waiters willing to come up with him. That was actually kind of funny though. Shrek was supposed to come, but there was a delay for a bit then they brought Kung Fu Panda up as a replacement because something went wrong with shrek. It was too early, too rushed, too expensive, and not special since we ran into characters wandering the ships all the time.

 

 

 

Photo Package: We ordered the photo package before hand. We got the cd and prints, and I'm glad we did. We had like 200 pictures, and love a ton of them. We rarely end up all in a picture together back home since one of us has to take the picture, and I never get around to scheduling a photographer so this was nice. Their were photographers everywhere and no real lines. The only downside was the last night getting your pictures. It was a chaotic mess down there.

 

 

 

Cleaning: The ship is cleaned amazingly well. I don’t know how they keep everything so clean all the time.

 

 

Stateroom: The room is small but fine. Same for the balcony. The balcony is a lifesaver as a parent. Having to put her to bed in an inside stateroom would have been so boring. But being able to go have a drink and snack and chat on the balcony while she slept was wonderful. My daughter enjoyed sleeping on the Pullman bed above us, but if she was any younger I’d have been worried about her falling. The bathroom is microscopic. I’m 6’2, 200 pounds so I absolutely despised the tiny shower the first day. I got used to it, but if you’re big at all you will hate it. Also, hanging the washcloths directly over the toilet seems asking for those things to get accidentally flushed. As for the stateroom attendant, he was absolutely amazing and seemed to always be right outside our door working hard. He kept our room great.

 

Water stuff: The kids' pools were great. My daughter loved the water park, the lazy river, and the non-hot hot tub. We enjoyed the adult’s only solarium.

 

 

 

Shows: We only saw a few, but Once Upon a Time, the ice show, big band music, and the pub singer were all good. I walked by several other bars before putting my daughter down that sounded like their music would be fun, but, alas, parenting…

 

 

Labadee- Nice easy beach day. The roller coaster is fun for kids too. The food is meh, but you’ve eaten too much by then anyways. I sooooooo want one of those cabanas.

 

 

Grand Cayman: The Turtle Farm with the add-on park is a great day with a child. She loved “snorkeling” for the first time and seeing the animals.

 

 

Jamaica: Do an excursion if you go here for sure. We previously enjoyed river tubing and the canopy tour. The port area is practically nothing but diamond shops and tshirts and has no personality. The market spot is nice at least. It's pretty bad when Margarittaville seems about the most authentic thing in a place.

 

 

 

Cozumel- We love Nochi Cocum here and Tulum. This time we just wandered and shopped a little and my daughter looked for crabs in the water. We ended up sharing a taxi with one of the figure skaters which was neat.

 

 

 

Disembarkation: We took the swamp boat tour with airport transfer. Aside from having to meet at 7 am, this is the way to disembark. It was super easy.

[Cruisingthesuitelife]

Brilliant review, thank you for taking the time to write it. :)

[TominNC]

Thanks for the detailed review.

[Woodmnky]

Thank you for the review. You said much of what I was thinking about the character breakfast. I originally had it booked for myself and my 4.5 yo, but the idea of having to be up at 7am on a sea day was not exciting (even though my son is usually awake by then it doesn't mean that I have to actually be out and about then). If the characters were fairly easy to see during a Spring Break cruise we will skip the breakfast while on an off time cruise.

 

By chance do you have any of the AO programs that you could post? As of right now my son swears that he is not going to the kid's clubs (he is very shy), but I am trying to make him excited for the clubs so that I can relax a bit.

[Big_G]

Thanks for the review. For a first time it was very well done and fair. As for the Windjammer, it cracks me up that some long time cruisers can't figure it out as well as a third time cruiser. I'll probably gets some grief for saying that but nice job. ;)

[spiegeje]

Fantastic review-very helpful. I am glad we booked a 7 night Eastern Caribbean itinerary on this ship next year. This will be our second cruise.

[davidtheusername]

Thank you for the review. You said much of what I was thinking about the character breakfast. I originally had it booked for myself and my 4.5 yo, but the idea of having to be up at 7am on a sea day was not exciting (even though my son is usually awake by then it doesn't mean that I have to actually be out and about then). If the characters were fairly easy to see during a Spring Break cruise we will skip the breakfast while on an off time cruise.

 

By chance do you have any of the AO programs that you could post? As of right now my son swears that he is not going to the kid's clubs (he is very shy), but I am trying to make him excited for the clubs so that I can relax a bit.

 

I will see when I get home if I have any of the programs. If he is shy the room is open to register the first day and kids were playing in there during that time. He may be more comfortable if he stays there with you for a little bit the first day when the kid's program isn't open anyways.

[davidtheusername]

Thanks for the review. For a first time it was very well done and fair. As for the Windjammer, it cracks me up that some long time cruisers can't figure it out as well as a third time cruiser. I'll probably gets some grief for saying that but nice job. ;)

 

The Windjammer line is the perfect advertisement for wanting to be diamond. Every time I saw that line and the people who got to waltz straight in, I started mentally counting how many cruises it would take to use that line. Same thing when I walked by a long guest services line and saw that the diamond and suite people literally had a red carpet for their line with no people. haha...

Edited March 24, 2015 by davidtheusername

[bobmacliberty]

Thanks for the great review. I haven't seen much on these boards about the picture package that you mentioned. I'm the family photographer and I'm almost never in any of the pictures. :) What was the cost? Is it a flat price for all pictures taken? Thanks.

[davidtheusername]

Thanks for the great review. I haven't seen much on these boards about the picture package that you mentioned. I'm the family photographer and I'm almost never in any of the pictures. :) What was the cost? Is it a flat price for all pictures taken? Thanks.

 

I don't have it in front of me so I can only give roundabout. I think I paid the higher end of 300 dollars for all the prints and a cd with all the pictures taken. You can get just prints or just the cd as well. There are also packages to pick ten pictures, etc.

[davidtheusername]

Thank you for the review. You said much of what I was thinking about the character breakfast. I originally had it booked for myself and my 4.5 yo, but the idea of having to be up at 7am on a sea day was not exciting (even though my son is usually awake by then it doesn't mean that I have to actually be out and about then). If the characters were fairly easy to see during a Spring Break cruise we will skip the breakfast while on an off time cruise.

 

By chance do you have any of the AO programs that you could post? As of right now my son swears that he is not going to the kid's clubs (he is very shy), but I am trying to make him excited for the clubs so that I can relax a bit.

 

I can't take a picture of it or scan it right now, but I can tell you one day's worth of activities for 3-5 year olds.

 

Morning: Circus on the seas

Circus transformations

Pin the nose on the clown

Circus Acts: Tigers, Clowns, and more

Creative Creations: Under the Big Top

Acrobatic Aquanauts

Sail into storytime

 

Afternoon: Carnival afternoon:

Balloon stomp

face painting

challenges

balloon volleyball

Creative creations: world cup flags

adventure science: gummy candies

 

Evening: Pajama-rama movie night

Creative creations: teddy beats

sail in story stime

creative creations: pillowcases

wear your pj's for movie time!

[acstall]

We are going on this same itinerary in May and can't wait for the getaway. Which nights were formal nights? Thanks.

[davidtheusername]

We are going on this same itinerary in May and can't wait for the getaway. Which nights were formal nights? Thanks.

Day 2 and 5 I think. The first sea day and one of the port days. Grand Cayman I think?

[acstall]

Day 2 and 5 I think. The first sea day and one of the port days. Grand Cayman I think?

 

Thanks!

[griffy116]

This was a fabulous review. Loved the order you used to post it and your honest evaluation. While we don't have a child going anymore (all grown up) it's nice to see what a great time you had on the cruise. We've been to all the ports more than once and agree completely with your review of each.

[dabstudioFL]

Thanks for the great review. We are booked for the July 19 Western Caribbean cruise on the FOS.

[chukli]

This is my first review, and I guess I got excited and wrote way too much. Oh well, you can't expect someone to actually work when they come back from vacation can you? :)

 

 

Who We Are: This is our third cruise, all three have been with royal Caribbean. The first was about 10 years ago, the second about 6 years ago. We're in our 30's and have a 5 year old daughter.

 

 

Embarkation: Embarkation was an absolute breeze. I don't remember the details of embarking on our previous trips, but I remember being annoyed. Not the case here at all. We dropped a rental car at AVIS and got the shuttle to the port. That was easy and fast, although catching the shuttle means standing in the sun and asking each shuttle that comes by if they are your ship. Not the most organized process, but it was over fairly quickly. The ride was quick, and the porters were friendly and helpful with our bags. We breezed right through security, went to the line for previous cruisers, and walked straight on to the ship. I really think we were on the ships ten minutes after arriving and that includes the porters and a few pictures. It was way better than expected.

 

 

Windjammer: Windjammer is what it is. It’s a buffet. It’s perfectly fine as a buffet, but don’t expect the world. We ate there one lunch and four breakfasts. We thought about eating there two other times but saw the lines and quickly lost interest. My daughter wakes up early which was great for breakfast. At 7 it was empty, at 8 there were enough tables to find one easily, at 9 the line looked awful and stretched out the door. Lunch seemed similar. We went once at an off time and it was empty and nice. We went by several other times and were like “forget this. I’ll get a sandwich from the promenade café.” That’s a good piece of advice actually. The crowds clump up at windjammer like crazy when people first board. That wasn’t how I wanted to start my vacation, but once we went down to deck five instead it was quiet and tasty.

 

 

Promenade café: I swear I remember it having different sandwiches every day on our previous cruises. My wife and I both remember making a point of going down there to see what was new every day. Maybe I’m making that up. No idea. The selection didn’t change but they had a variety of tasty sandwiches and desserts, free coffee, etc. We went there every night before bed to grab a bite to eat on the balcony after my daughter went to bed. (Being back in the real world and not eating 6 times a day is a drag. Although, if I ate like I did this week many weeks I’d probably explode like that guy in the old Monty Python skit.) This is a great place to eat if you are fleeing the lunch lines elsewhere. They make specialty coffees and teas there too. We had the ultimate drink package so we went there a lot. Service was always fast and good. They ran out of chai by like day 5, but that wasn’t a huge deal. They had food for breakfast, but it was all sweets and I don’t like sweet stuff so early so I don’t know how that was.

 

 

 

Sorrentos: The pizza here was just okay, but my daughter loved it. The seafood pizza was the best one I tried. My wife liked the vegetable panini. I liked the salami and olives. Basically, it’s like the promenade café with different items available and on the other side of the promenade.

 

 

MDR: For dinner it was excellent. My daughter has a tree nut allergy. It’s annoying, and I’m sure a pain to the wait staff but they treated us great and let her pick food from the next night’s menu ahead of time so they could make sure it was safe for her. I love that, because she likes to try new things and didn’t want to be stuck with the kid’s options of pizza/mac and cheese/etc. every night. The wait staff and bartender were great. The food varied. The appetizers were almost always great. We went overboard and got 2 appetizers per person each night and shared. Every night we thought this was the best part of the meal. There wasn’t an appetizer I didn’t like, although the lobster bisque and one other seafood thing weren’t the best. Most of the appetizers were absolutely wonderful. The entrées were ok. They were what you’d expect. Think corporate banquet event type food. Which isn’t really an insult. That food is perfectly good. It’s not great, but it’s good. That’s really as much as I expect for as many people as they serve as fast as they serve them. The deserts were similar to the entrees.

We had one breakfast here. It was better than the windjammer, but nothing special.

 

 

Room Service: We had one breakfast from room service on our Grand Cayman morning. It looked like the entire ship had the same idea that day so room service was way behind schedule. It tasted fine and eating on the balcony was lovely. But if you are crunched for time, don’t expect room service to be the faster option.

 

 

Sabor: We went here for one lunch. It was amazing. Totally worth the cost. We all loved our dishes, our drinks, and our service. They kept bringing us extra dishes that they had suggested but we didn’t order. I was glad they did. I loved them. We will come back here.

 

 

Giovanni’s Table: We booked lunch here. Then they called and said they weren’t doing lunch, but they were doing a cooking demonstration with a specific meal and a tour. That worked fine. The demonstration was nice. The food was pretty good, but not like Sabor. I think that may have been partly because we couldn’t order off the menu. Not one thing in the meal they prepared was what we would have ordered off the menu so I’m not sure we really got a fair idea of how much we like the restaurant. We skipped the tour so my daughter could nap. I think this cruise is the first time she’s napped in 2 or 3 years. Cruises come up with lots of reasons to keep kids up way past their normal bedtimes. I want to try the menu here, but just going off what I ate alone I wouldn’t bother booking it. However, I think that might change if I ordered what I wanted. I'll give it one more try.

 

 

Drink Package: We got the ultimate drink package. It was completely worth it. We have a small child so we obviously weren’t partying like spring breakers, but we still managed to get more than our money’s worth without the hangovers of our less moderate youth. The package isn’t for everyone, but if you drink think about it. It only takes about 6 drinks to break even. I’m 6’2 so of course it makes sense for me, but even my tiny wife got her money’s worth. When you start the day with a bloody mary and a specialty coffee and end it with scotch or wine on the balcony it reaches the point where it makes sense to get the package quickly. We used the freestyle coke machine every day, but not nearly as much as we thought we would because carrying around the cup was a pain. If you have a kid in adventure ocean, remember that there’s a freestyle coke machine in the arcade right beside the kid’s program. That one never had a line for us. I didn’t think the drink package caused any decrease in service. Bartenders were friendly enough and quick enough.

 

 

Bars: The bars were fine. They were friendly enough and fast. We tried most of the bars around the ship at some point. I like the look of the schooner bar a lot. The Pub was nice, but I was extremely disappointed in the selection. They were out of a lot of beers on the menu. A pub without a single stout available? For shame!!! It wasn’t a huge deal really, but still, it seems like it wouldn’t be that hard to have a pub with decent beer selection. The olive and twist was sort of a nice secret parent’s bar to grab a drink from just before you pick up your kid from adventure ocean.

 

 

Adventure ocean: I don’t know what they do here, but we joked that they fed the kids drugs because my daughter ALWAYS wanted to be here. We didn’t mind grownup time, so we love this place.

 

 

 

Characters: There was no line at all for characters. It was great. My daughter loved them. The parade was cute, although after coming straight from Disney it wasn’t exactly amazing as far as cartoon parades go.

 

 

 

Character breakfast: Don’t do this!!! It costs 10 dollars for adults. It is so not worth it. Characters are super easy to meet without the breakfast. The breakfast said it was at 730 on the first morning. We got up when we wanted to sleep in and got there a few minutes early. It didn’t manage to get started until like 7:50. The service was rushed and not friendly like most of the cruise. They said the characters would come to our table but there wasn’t room for the characters to come so the kids had to go to the front. The guy leading the activities was fun and energetic but he kept asking waiters to join him to sing and dance and kept getting no waiters willing to come up with him. That was actually kind of funny though. Shrek was supposed to come, but there was a delay for a bit then they brought Kung Fu Panda up as a replacement because something went wrong with shrek. It was too early, too rushed, too expensive, and not special since we ran into characters wandering the ships all the time.

 

 

 

Photo Package: We ordered the photo package before hand. We got the cd and prints, and I'm glad we did. We had like 200 pictures, and love a ton of them. We rarely end up all in a picture together back home since one of us has to take the picture, and I never get around to scheduling a photographer so this was nice. Their were photographers everywhere and no real lines. The only downside was the last night getting your pictures. It was a chaotic mess down there.

 

 

 

Cleaning: The ship is cleaned amazingly well. I don’t know how they keep everything so clean all the time.

 

 

Stateroom: The room is small but fine. Same for the balcony. The balcony is a lifesaver as a parent. Having to put her to bed in an inside stateroom would have been so boring. But being able to go have a drink and snack and chat on the balcony while she slept was wonderful. My daughter enjoyed sleeping on the Pullman bed above us, but if she was any younger I’d have been worried about her falling. The bathroom is microscopic. I’m 6’2, 200 pounds so I absolutely despised the tiny shower the first day. I got used to it, but if you’re big at all you will hate it. Also, hanging the washcloths directly over the toilet seems asking for those things to get accidentally flushed. As for the stateroom attendant, he was absolutely amazing and seemed to always be right outside our door working hard. He kept our room great.

 

Water stuff: The kids' pools were great. My daughter loved the water park, the lazy river, and the non-hot hot tub. We enjoyed the adult’s only solarium.

 

 

 

Shows: We only saw a few, but Once Upon a Time, the ice show, big band music, and the pub singer were all good. I walked by several other bars before putting my daughter down that sounded like their music would be fun, but, alas, parenting…

 

 

Labadee- Nice easy beach day. The roller coaster is fun for kids too. The food is meh, but you’ve eaten too much by then anyways. I sooooooo want one of those cabanas.

 

 

Grand Cayman: The Turtle Farm with the add-on park is a great day with a child. She loved “snorkeling” for the first time and seeing the animals.

 

 

Jamaica: Do an excursion if you go here for sure. We previously enjoyed river tubing and the canopy tour. The port area is practically nothing but diamond shops and tshirts and has no personality. The market spot is nice at least. It's pretty bad when Margarittaville seems about the most authentic thing in a place.

 

 

 

Cozumel- We love Nochi Cocum here and Tulum. This time we just wandered and shopped a little and my daughter looked for crabs in the water. We ended up sharing a taxi with one of the figure skaters which was neat.

 

 

 

Disembarkation: We took the swamp boat tour with airport transfer. Aside from having to meet at 7 am, this is the way to disembark. It was super easy.[

 

Just wondering if the turtle farm was good for swimming and snorkeling with the turtles?

Some travellers commented that the water for snorkeling is dirty??

[cdoobiest]

Thanks for review. Taking the Eastern route in a few weeks. Wondering if the buffet always has line for dinner. Hoping to take the family there a few times when it first opens. Is there a line usually at 6?

[LeCricket]

Your review was very helpful. We're heading out on Freedom (Eastern) in a few weeks, and I've taken some notes from your review. I appreciate it.

 

Cricket

[davidtheusername]

Chuckli, I wouldn't go for the snorkeling specifically. Grand Cayman is full of much, much, much better places to snorkel. However, if you wanted to go for the more zoo-like aspects and snorkel a little too or had kids that might want a super easy way to snorkel for this first time the turtle farm was good for that. It wasn't that dirty. I mean, it's not crystal clear beautiful water or anything by a long shot. But it wasn't bad really.

[davidtheusername]

Thanks for review. Taking the Eastern route in a few weeks. Wondering if the buffet always has line for dinner. Hoping to take the family there a few times when it first opens. Is there a line usually at 6?

 

I never went to the buffet at night because we always went to the main dining room at night. However, we walked past there to go to the kid's program nightly and never noticed a line at night, unlike breakfast and lunch. I expect that lines are way better there at night because so many more people do that MDR and specialty restaurants for dinner than do for breakfast and lunch. I'm mostly guessing though because we didn't eat there then.

[davidtheusername]

Thanks for all the appreciation. I know how much I was wanting information when we were about to go so I'm happy I can return the favor.

[RLM77]

Thanks for the great review; we will be on Freedom in May.

 

Was Sabor priced a la carte or one set price for lunch?

 

Marlee

[davidtheusername]

Thanks for the great review; we will be on Freedom in May.

 

Was Sabor priced a la carte or one set price for lunch?

 

Marlee

 

One set price for as much as we wanted. It was 15 each for the adults. My daughter was less, but I can't remember if she was free or 8. I think she was 8.

[chukli]

Chuckli, I wouldn't go for the snorkeling specifically. Grand Cayman is full of much, much, much better places to snorkel. However, if you wanted to go for the more zoo-like aspects and snorkel a little too or had kids that might want a super easy way to snorkel for this first time the turtle farm was good for that. It wasn't that dirty. I mean, it's not crystal clear beautiful water or anything by a long shot. But it wasn't bad really.

Thanks for the information.