Cheapo dad's trip report on Freedom of the Seas

[harryfat1]

Loving your trip report Harry! I love all the detail and all the pics!! We aren't sailing on Freedom until next year (I can finally say next year, LOL)! :p

 

I think that planning and researching is part of the fun of the vacation! For our Alaska cruise in 2012, I researched for probably about 3 years! I planned every detail and had a spreadsheet with multiple worksheets going! I do this for all vacations we've taken! We've only been on 3 cruises but we try to do one big vacation of some kind every year or every other year. In 2016 we cruised on Adventure and that's where we booked our 2018 cruise on Freedom. The detail in your report and your pics are very helpful!!! Thank you very much for taking the time to do this!

 

I am looking forward to the rest of your report :)

 

Carol

 

Hi, Carol,

 

Thanks for the compliment.

 

Wow, 3 years of pre-planning. That’s impressive. The ADHD in me drifts in and out of pre-planning more than 12 months out. It’s good you can focus that far out. Hopefully you can find some useful info in the report for your cruise.

Edited January 2, 2017 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

OK, back to the Days of Our lives – so we headed off to deck 4 to check out our table 467 placement. Had to explain the workers that are blocking the people from walking in that we are just looking to see where our table is.

 

 

Here is the clean view of the MDR without anyone in it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For aesthetics purposes, my wife thought the MDR of the Freedom was prettier than the Allure. Being a guy, I am not good at these judgement comparisons (us guys need number comparisons like horse power or megabytes to form comparisons but women have a more “feel” about things when they compare products). Don’t know, but I do know the Freedom has staircases in the back of MDR missing from the Allure.

 

 

Since I already have the allure MDR pic uploaded from 2 years ago, I’s simple enough to grab it for people to see the difference

 

 

[harryfat1]

More MDR pics:

 

 

 

 

Since many folks have commented on our pictures, here is a typical scene whenever we encounter a new environment – my wife and I will take pictures and my son will videotape. If it’s a really wow situation, then my older son and the in-laws break out their cell phones as well to take pictures.

 

 

One would think we are on assignment to work for the Travel Channel rather than just being on vacation…

 

 

 

 

Finally leaving the MDR:

 

 

 

 

Getting ready to walk the gauntlet on deck 5 to tell the workers we are not buying whatever they are selling

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Having been on the Mariner years ago, we know what the RP of Freedom would look like. However, having been on the Allure in the previous cruise, the RP looks more confined and narrow. Besides the physical feature of being narrower, the RP on the Allure has a more curve look and feel with various shops’ front curving out so it doesn’t have the tunnel/gauntlet effect.

 

When taking pictures of both, I think the RP of the Freedom looks better in photos afterward but in terms of walking around and overall feel, I prefer the Allure (remember my bias is toward big). For quick comparison, here is the Allure RP:

 

 

 

 

At any rate, back to the Freedom:

 

 

Café Promenade where you can get basic water/coffee/tea for free as well as other basic munchies for free.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Selling booze

 

 

 

 

And other stuff like lanyard to put your sea pass card in

 

 

[harryfat1]

The Christmas tree is at the other end

 

 

 

 

Speaking of Christmas tree, you see how they plop the tree right in front of couple of RP cabins’ windows? Now I am pretty sure the people staying in those cabins have no idea that their “view” would consists of looking at the tree and ornaments. I have study all the deck plans online as part of my 9+ analality research and I have never seen any deck plans with Christmas tree on RP and letting people know their view might be obstructed during the 5+ weeks of Holiday sailings.

 

Other words, on certain ships, they have “obstructed” ocean or balcony view when there are lifeboats or other equipment right outside to block your view. Those are spelled out on the deck plan. As far as I know, nobody spells out the Christmas tree blockage for these RP cabins.

 

So if you are booking a RP cabin for 2017 during the holiday period, be sure to check if your cabin’s view isn’t blocked by the tree. Can’t speak for where the tree is for other ships, but for Freedom, at least for 2016, it was outside of Sorrento pizza place so look at your deck plan closely.

 

Actually I am surprised that the RCI marketing department haven’t come up with a “special holiday cabin” where similar to the Ben and Jerry suite, they could market these Christmas tree blockage cabins as a special holiday cabin with Christmas theme pillows inside the cabin and so on…

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Here are few pics of the Star Lounge. We never attended any activities that were held here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artwork along the staircase

 

 

[harryfat1]

Few pics of the casino area. We don’t gamble so have no knowledge of the operations here:

 

 

 

 

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

In my previous trip report, I associate the picture taking/purchase on the ship as having a crazy aunt in the basement that’s locked up for her own good. We all know she is down there in the basement as we have to feed her daily but nobody talks about her during any of the family gatherings. That’s how I feel about pictures on board. They exists but seldom discussed during other folks’ trip reports.

 

For the most part, these ship photographers are in your face everywhere. Starting from getting your onboard picture taken before you even get on the ship to getting off at every port and they are there at the gangplank waiting for you. Not to mention them invading your MDR dinner almost nightly with photo requests.

 

That brings me to the next digression point – I know, I have way too many of these. But that’s what keeps more interesting, no? Well, at least for me it is more interesting. As if I just list what we did daily similar to writing a timesheet for work purposes, then it’s about as interesting as watching the grass grow. These digression point helps to add twist and turns in a long and windy road I called a trip report.

 

Anyway, I believe this is my 15th cruise per my quick count of the cruise history and we bought at least 1 ship based photo from every cruise as part of the memory collection. However, I have never come close to wanting to buy any formal night dining room pictures when I'm in the middle of stuffing my face, some photographer shows up and wants me to pose for them either by moving over to the other side or have to literally stand up so he can take a picture of 6 of us.

 

Most of the time these pictures suck as the MDR is not that bright even with a flash and then you are being photo bombed by the waiter or folks in the other table behind you. That’s assuming you have no food in your teeth like a green salad as you try to smile. I would be really interested to see how many cruisers actually bought pics taken at the MDR? It’s one thing to buy the pics of everyone dressed nicely at the photo stalls at RP when you are ready versus the impromptu MDR dinner pics.

 

Oh, yeah, then there’s the pictures of the fake pirates. I can’t imagine why anyone would pay $24 to have a picture taken with a pirate just for a souvenir pic. I would do it for free but not to pay for it. Nowadays we avoid the pirate pics as much as possible.

 

 

 

 

I guess this trip report is getting to where I compare what the Allure has versus what the Freedom has. Difficult not to compare as we don’t cruise often so we only remember the last time we cruised, which happened to be on the Allure.

 

But I miss the good facial recognition software on the Allure photos where they can track the many pictures we have taken as well as having our own photo binders. Freedom is still using the old school way of trying to find your photos from the wall of thousands of pics nightly. I tried using the sea pass to access our account but it has less than 25% of our pictures in there. Not useful at all.

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

This is where the sports crowd can track their favorite teams. We watch various sports events back at home but when on vacation, I don’t want any real life connections if at all possible. That meant not watching sports or CNN or even checking my email (and certainly not reading CC while on vacation). Just 100% vacation focus it at all possible. Cheapo dad wants to maximize value in spending the thousands of dollar spent for vacation – don’t bother me with real life issues when I’m on vacation.

 

 

 

 

This is studio B where they have the ice show and free individual ice skating – if you can get in. We tried to ice skate but they were all full on day 6.

 

Now this begs the question I need to ask - so if this place is called Studio B, where is Studio A on the ship? Doesn't B come after A? Never did find Studio A the entire cruise...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Huge windows/portholes in this area

 

 

[JamesEM]

Harry, hope you are feeling better, that cruise crud can be though to shake. Some random thoughts, when I was on Freedom in Nov. the crew was in the possess of changing out the loungers, surprised to see the old ones still on board. The RP looked like across between a flea market and a bazaar and it was task to get to your destination. DW and I switched to backpacks this year and found they are much more practical. We are Diamond members and as such we each get a free photo, so one of us gets (me) a photo taken with the fake pirate each trip, stupid I know. Also, Bob Newhart started out as an account, so there is hope for the comedy thing.

[sg1phileshipper]

Hope you got rid of that nasty cold by now. Not a funny way to end the old year and start the new. Still reading thisgreat review and excited about every new post. You Sir, you crack me up every time. [emoji3] Thanks, Harry.

 

 

Cindy

[Craving A Cruise]

great report Harry! Loving every minute of it!

 

~Karen

Aka Craving A Cruise

[micmacmissy]

We sailed on Independence back in 2013 and the sales pitches were SO annoying. The worst was when you were trying to leave the ship at each port- there were several women whose job it was to stuff fliers in your hands with "shopping opportunities" at each port.

 

My mellow husband, after passing the gauntlet of these people, finally lost it and shouted at the last woman: "Thank goodness! I only had 12 of these fliers!!!"

 

We are headed on Allure in April and hoping it isn't as bad! I agree it's one thing to get accosted in the promenade but another story when you're trying to eat in peace!

 

Loving the trip report!!!

[bobmacliberty]

However, I have never come close to wanting to buy any formal night dining room pictures when I'm in the middle of stuffing my face, some photographer shows up and wants me to pose for them either by moving over to the other side or have to literally stand up so he can take a picture of 6 of us.

 

Most of the time these pictures suck as the MDR is not that bright even with a flash and then you are being photo bombed by the waiter or folks in the other table behind you. That’s assuming you have no food in your teeth like a green salad as you try to smile. I would be really interested to see how many cruisers actually bought pics taken at the MDR? It’s one thing to buy the pics of everyone dressed nicely at the photo stalls at RP when you are ready versus the impromptu MDR dinner pics.

 

 

 

We actually HAVE purchased a formal night picture taken in the MDR. I'm not a big fan of the photographers in general as it seems like they prefer quantity over quality, but a photographer on Explorer caught a great picture of DW and I dressed up, with perfect smiles on our face (very common for DW, not so common for me). I'm one of the few who still wears a tux on formal nights, and my wife and daughters always look stunning, so we don't mind the dinner intrusion, hoping that we'll get a good picture out of it. I actually complained after our last Adventure cruise that we could not find a photographer during formal night in the MDR. :D

[harryfat1]

Harry, hope you are feeling better, that cruise crud can be though to shake. Some random thoughts, when I was on Freedom in Nov. the crew was in the possess of changing out the loungers, surprised to see the old ones still on board. The RP looked like across between a flea market and a bazaar and it was task to get to your destination. DW and I switched to backpacks this year and found they are much more practical. We are Diamond members and as such we each get a free photo, so one of us gets (me) a photo taken with the fake pirate each trip, stupid I know. Also, Bob Newhart started out as an account, so there is hope for the comedy thing.

 

Hi, James,

 

Yes, having just backpacks is essentially for us since we take so many pictures, we cover a lot of ground after boarding and it’s not convenient to lug a carry-on with us. Especially if you have to go up and down the stairs given the first day’s elevators are slow and full on people coming on board around 12 noon.

 

I think you said the key word “free” in the pirate photos. If they give it to me, then it’s different story. As the lowly gold level, we only get the BOGO at 50% off. So at best, it’s a small discount. At worst, it’s $24 per picture. Too steep for me.

[harryfat1]

Hope you got rid of that nasty cold by now. Not a funny way to end the old year and start the new. Still reading thisgreat review and excited about every new post. You Sir, you crack me up every time. [emoji3] Thanks, Harry.

 

 

Cindy

 

Hi, Cindy,

 

Thanks for the kind words and well wishes. Just slowly getting better.

 

Need to go to work soon. Just trying to catch up on the posting replies before taking off.

[harryfat1]

We sailed on Independence back in 2013 and the sales pitches were SO annoying. The worst was when you were trying to leave the ship at each port- there were several women whose job it was to stuff fliers in your hands with "shopping opportunities" at each port.

 

My mellow husband, after passing the gauntlet of these people, finally lost it and shouted at the last woman: "Thank goodness! I only had 12 of these fliers!!!"

 

We are headed on Allure in April and hoping it isn't as bad! I agree it's one thing to get accosted in the promenade but another story when you're trying to eat in peace!

 

Loving the trip report!!!

 

Tell your husband that it’s good to have 12 copies as you never know that you might lose the first 11 copies somewhere.

 

Speaking of extra flier, this brings me full circle back to my comment on boarding at the port in not having day 1 daily compass. Since the ship is certainly not adverse in printing a gazillion extra copies of whatever ad they want to sell to you (think of all the daily stuff you get in the cabin) on top of all the port shopping info, they could easily have printed 4,000 copies of Day 1 compass and carted that off the ship to hand out to people waiting at the pier.

Edited January 2, 2017 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

We actually HAVE purchased a formal night picture taken in the MDR. I'm not a big fan of the photographers in general as it seems like they prefer quantity over quality, but a photographer on Explorer caught a great picture of DW and I dressed up, with perfect smiles on our face (very common for DW, not so common for me). I'm one of the few who still wears a tux on formal nights, and my wife and daughters always look stunning, so we don't mind the dinner intrusion, hoping that we'll get a good picture out of it. I actually complained after our last Adventure cruise that we could not find a photographer during formal night in the MDR. :D

 

You have the good fortune in getting a nice MDR dinner picture. We never had any luck with it. Maybe it’s because we are a party of 6 and at any time, someone might be blinking or we have glare /reflection with our glasses. Maybe because at $24 per pop, we are super picky and only want the artificially posed ones at the photo stands.

[harryfat1]

I really like the stair cases of the Royal ships.

 

 

 

 

As I have always stated, the photographer of the family is my wife and she has us standing in a row on the staircase.

 

 

 

 

Interesting red sofas

 

 

[harryfat1]

So the captain came on the PA to announce due to some late arriving passengers (I assume they booked air via RCI’s web engine?), the muster drill will be pushed back 30 minutes. Guess that’s another reason to book through RCI is if you are flying in the day/afternoon of the cruise and your flight is slightly delayed, the ship may be willing to accommodate you. Not sure how they got in contact with the ship but they must have somehow to let the ship know they are coming in later.

 

Regardless, we now have a delay. Instead of 4:30 muster drill, it will be at 5.

 

OK, onward and forward to the 3 PM port talk. I know most veteran cruisers scoff at the infomercial stuff. For me, it’s pretty useless as well as I had already booked all the port tours ahead of time but my wife and kids don’t read CC and they really don’t have too much clue on what’s at each port and this info helps them. So we went to it just to bring them up to speed on what’s what. I really don’t care. I’m good. I’m on vacation. Either I chill out here or elsewhere, as long as it’s on the ship with AC, I’m down with that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the big news at the meeting was that they informed us since there will be 3 RCI ships docking at Cozumel on day 5 of the cruise and the International pier can only accommodate 2 ships, the Freedom will be docked at downtown at Punta Langosta. WTH?

 

 

I booked a private tour to meet with them across the street at Hard Rock Café as with all my research (and read at least 158 of Bob’s postings – I should know as I counted each one and tag the pages) says all RCI ships dock at International Pier and the Hard Rock Café is just across the street from the port.

 

Supposedly with Harmony and Rhapsody taking the 2 berths, the Freedom odd ship out and is taking over the berth in downtown where Disney ship typically docks. The guy was all happy in saying people don’t have to take taxi and can just walk into downtown to see his beloved Diamonds International store.

 

 

 

Ehhhhh, not so good for those of us with private tour and specific location meeting already pre-set thinking we are docking at International Pier. Went back to cabin after the meeting to double check the email instruction on meeting place. Then tried to email them to let them know we might have a change in docking pier. Of course, the 4G connection inside the RP cabin is nil. Actually my phone was showing 1G and snail download speed. Not good. So took the elevator up to deck 11 to get a better signal to email them.

 

By time I finally get a decent cell signal up on top, the muster drill was almost ready to begin so I rushed back to the cabin to meet up with the family and went to deck 4 for the drill.

 

 

[Miryam1234]

Well, you can’t use “We don’t speak English” as an excuse – we know from firsthand experience, they will try and find someone on the ship that speaks your native language in trying to upsell you whatever.

 

 

I will most certainly try to draw that card!

I know one of Freedom's captains is from Finland and from Turku (our hometown) but he most probably won't be onboard during the Transatlantic. But the odds are not good that any other crew member is able to speak Finnish. I bet well win this upsell battle with our cryptic language.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

[WhiteSoxFan]

 

 

 

At the muster drill, they announced there are 4,416 passengers on our sailings. Given the standard double capacity of the Freedom is around 3,782, we are sailing at 117% of normal capacity. This is higher than the 105% fleet wide average sailing rate for 2015 as reported on their 10K. They also announced there were over 1,000 kids under age of 17 on the cruise – we contributed 2 to that number. But that makes the ship feels more crowded when it’s within 98% of the theoretical max of 4,500+.

 

 

Not to be anal but I'm sure you meant the ship feels more crowded AT 98% of the theoretical max of 4,500+ or within 2% of the theoretical max. ;)

 

Thanks for the pic of the luggage drop area. Between your pic and Google Maps I know exactly where I'm going when I drop off the family before returning the car to FLL in a few weeks. (Uh oh, I may must be at least an 8 on your AS index)

[dani negreanu]

Well, you can’t use “We don’t speak English” as an excuse – we know from firsthand experience, they will try and find someone on the ship that speaks your native language in trying to upsell you whatever.

 

I'll try saying "only Hebrew" next time :D

[fletch1027]

 

 

 

Hey Harry! Other Harry here - loving the trip review so far! Unfortunately I am way behind getting mine wrapped up, but it should be done in the next day or two now that our DD is flying back to college this afternoon.

 

Anyway, I had a technical question. We both use Flickr to share photos on trip reviews. I noticed you do like me and try to use only the minimum info as possible. Do you have a way for Flickr to only show the info between the "img" tags?

 

I have always copied the output of the "share" option, then I have to paste it into a text file and shave off the "url" tag sections that I don't want to include in my posts, which gets old and tiring. :)

 

Just wondering if you have a better way?

[Carlymegsmom]

Harry, thank you for your detailed review! We are first time cruisers, leaving on the 15th on the Western Caribbean itinerary that includes Grand Cayman, Cozumel and Costa Maya. So not the same ports as your trip, but I appreciate all the photos and the tips on embarking! Hoping you finish your travel log before I leave the 13th. :)