Cheapo dad's trip report on Freedom of the Seas

[harryfat1]

Harry, thank you again for your excellent report with all the detours and side stories. I enjoyed it tremendously and it has helped me through the darkest winter months when waiting for our April Freedom cruise and sunny Florida before that. You have also given me lots of new ideas, should we ever feel tired of cruising (not likely to happen in the near future, though).

 

I will keep checking your signature for more reports in the future.

 

Sincerely

 

Miryam

 

Hi, Miryam,

 

Thanks for the compliments and for reading through another installment of our family travels.

 

You will like the Freedom. It doesn’t have the small wonders as the Allure but there are plenty of things to do on the ship to keep you busy.

 

In the future, you can think about visiting west coast USA and do an Alaska cruise instead.

 

Have 2 wonderful cruises this year.

[harryfat1]

Hi Harry,

Thanks so much for your highly entertaining and very informative trip report! I enjoyed every post of it, including the side journeys and rocks. I'm looking forward to my first RCI cruise in just over 4 weeks and although I originally joined CC to research reviews on Radiance OTS, I'm very glad curiosity made me open your report. Cheers from Down Under!

 

Hi,

 

Thank you for the compliment.

 

Glad you found some of the cruise info helpful as RCI certain standards fleet wide so even though it may not be your ship, you will have certain idea on what to expect for your cruise.

 

You have fun on your cruise. One day I will need to make my way down under.

[harryfat1]

Many sporting goods stores such as Big 5 also sell the passes. That might be another option for you. You can save the $10 administration fee that way.

 

My wife already has a Senior Pass. She turned 62 before I did. So I didn't get another one for me when I turned 62. (I'm cheap too!) But now I'm thinking of getting one for me too, before the price increase.

 

Sure, why not? For $10 and it's a lifetime thing. That way you can take your girlfriends on sidetrips for free...

[harryfat1]

I would if I were you Jasperdo. We are lucky to live in a city that issues the passes at a historical site.

 

And as a quick FYI for you all, sometimes at historical venues the pass allows the holder to get others in their party the same discount.

 

Off the top of my head: Ft. Vancouver the holder and four people get in free. Key West, Truman's Little White House only the card holder gets a discount.

 

You never know what kind of discounts you will get at historical sites.

 

Maybe something to break up the looking at rocks Harry?

 

I know the discounts apply to the entire car/van at places that charges by the vehicle. Other places that charges per head, like you said, the pass holder can bring few friends in for free.

[harryfat1]

Great entertaining review with great pics . I always look forward to your reviews. We did the Southern Caribbean out of San Juan in Nov. on Adventure OTS. It was the smallest ship we have sailed on but we enjoyed it very much and the crew was the best of any ship we have been on. Looking forward to your next installment!

 

Hi, Bobby,

 

Thanks for the kind words. Appreciate you reading the sequel as well as the original.

 

Good to know about the Adventure of the Seas. It'll depend on the airfare. Right now, the airfare is almost as much as the cruise at $650/pp from SF and 10+ hours of flight/layover time. Not looking forward to that.

 

If that doesn't work out, there's always Celebrity cruise.

 

You have fun on the Freedom. It'll be the holiday season by time you cruise. So it'll be festive. My favorite time of the year to cruise. Just make sure you don't get the RP view cabins that are blocked by the Christmas tree.

[Aerya]

I just want to say thanks for the greatly entertaining trip report. I very much enjoyed logging in every day to see what was next. We were on Freedom on our first cruise in 2012 for our honeymoon and of course it's our first love :) We're not yet looking at sailing on her again soon, too many ships to try, but it's definitely a great one! Thanks for sharing your family vacation with us.

[dani negreanu]

Hi, Dani,

 

I envy how you have the energy and stamina to fly from the Middle East to Caribbean. I’m already frowning on my potential flight at year end.

 

No, I don't -- I hate flying, and even an hour flight is way too much for me.:(

 

It's just that we're taking "advantage" of our eldest son being flight attendant, and, as long as he is not married, we [parents] get to buy reduced rate tickets. So, for the long flight to NY we can "afford" business class + a night flight + a sleeping pill.... Then, the 4 hours to San Juan seem like "peanuts".

 

He is also trying to schedule himself in our flight, and if not, his friends take very good care of us. It's a temporary job, limited to only 5 years -- 3 have already gone, we try to accomplish 3 more long distance trips -- another one to NY for a NE/Canada cruise, then the BIG one to Sidney, and another one (with X) to Singapore, Vietnam and HK.:)

 

Hopefully, we'll get to do all of them...

[joand452]

I would if I were you Jasperdo. We are lucky to live in a city that issues the passes at a historical site.

 

And as a quick FYI for you all, sometimes at historical venues the pass allows the holder to get others in their party the same discount.

 

Off the top of my head: Ft. Vancouver the holder and four people get in free. Key West, Truman's Little White House only the card holder gets a discount.

 

You never know what kind of discounts you will get at historical sites.

 

Maybe something to break up the looking at rocks Harry?

 

We used our senior pass twice only -- at both forts in San Juan. I was included in the entry both times. Wish it would get us in free or a good discount on tickets at Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts.

[Newby58]

Thanks Harry. I have read both your reviews in real time. I now want to explore all that the USA has to offer! Thanks for the diversions. Hope you enjoyed the parade. Happy New Year.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[harryfat1]

No, I don't -- I hate flying, and even an hour flight is way too much for me.:(

 

It's just that we're taking "advantage" of our eldest son being flight attendant, and, as long as he is not married, we [parents] get to buy reduced rate tickets. So, for the long flight to NY we can "afford" business class + a night flight + a sleeping pill.... Then, the 4 hours to San Juan seem like "peanuts".

 

He is also trying to schedule himself in our flight, and if not, his friends take very good care of us. It's a temporary job, limited to only 5 years -- 3 have already gone, we try to accomplish 3 more long distance trips -- another one to NY for a NE/Canada cruise, then the BIG one to Sidney, and another one (with X) to Singapore, Vietnam and HK.:)

 

Hopefully, we'll get to do all of them...

 

Very nice. That is a lot of traveling to be done the next 2 years. I still congratulate you on the stamina to get to the final destination. It’s not easy to be on the plane for so long.

 

So if your son meets that someone special, you would just tell them to live together but not be married until the 5 year time limit is up. Forget about love – we know what’s even more important…

[harryfat1]

I just want to say thanks for the greatly entertaining trip report. I very much enjoyed logging in every day to see what was next. We were on Freedom on our first cruise in 2012 for our honeymoon and of course it's our first love :) We're not yet looking at sailing on her again soon, too many ships to try, but it's definitely a great one! Thanks for sharing your family vacation with us.

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for the compliment. Glad I was able to bring back fond memories of your previous cruise. I always feel that way whenever I see a ship we have previously sailed on during our travels. Just that special connection you have with the ship.

 

You are correct in saying there are many different ships/cruise lines to try before even thinking about repeating.

 

Have a great cruise this month. Looks like you are going to the Southern Caribbean of the ABC islands. Very nice. That’s on my to do list also.

[harryfat1]

Thanks Harry. I have read both your reviews in real time. I now want to explore all that the USA has to offer! Thanks for the diversions. Hope you enjoyed the parade. Happy New Year.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for reading both trip reports in real time. That’s a lot of time commitment on your part. Appreciate you letting me share our travel story with you.

 

The Chinese New Year parade was in SF last night and already there are people that uploaded the videos on YouTube. This and many more videos on YouTube. Check out the dragon at the 42 seconds mark of the video:

 

[wilmingtech]

Hi,

 

Thanks for reading both trip reports in real time. That’s a lot of time commitment on your part. Appreciate you letting me share our travel story with you.

 

The Chinese New Year parade was in SF last night and already there are people that uploaded the videos on YouTube. This and many more videos on YouTube. Check out the dragon at the 42 seconds mark of the video:

 

Harry -

 

Saw a little bit of this last night. I didn't see you there though ;) Too many people!

 

Y'all sure know how to party!

 

-Sean

[cruisingbajan]

Great review and phots.

[harryfat1]

Harry -

 

Saw a little bit of this last night. I didn't see you there though ;) Too many people!

 

Y'all sure know how to party!

 

-Sean

 

We were in San Francisco last night to have dinner with the wife’s side of the family but we didn’t go to the parade itself. Just watched it on TV instead.

 

We used to go to them awhile back but now just watching it on TV is easier.

[harryfat1]

Great review and phots.

 

Thanks for the compliment. Glad you like the trip report.

[LilOleLady]

Checked out tour you referred to for St. Kitts and decided to book with them on our upcoming 8-day cruise on Freedom. Hope we both enjoy our tours!

[deladane]

So how anal are you? ...

Now the question is how many hours do you spend on CC researching for your cruise? Assuming you booked your cruise 6 months out and you read CC 2 hours a day everywhere to read trip reports/check excursions/hotel stay pre and post cruise/roll call. So we have 2 hours X 7 days/week X 180 days = 2,520 hours of cruise preparation. Now divide 2,520 of preparation time by 165 hours of actual cruise time = that’s 15 to 1 of research/prep time compared to actual cruise time (including sleeping).

 

 

 

Harry,

Thanks for writing such a wonderful review! I always love reading detailed photo reviews (even when it's not for a ship or cruise line I am planning to sail anytime soon), and I loved being along for the ride!

 

 

I do have one comment that I noticed from the very beginning of your review. Since I only found your review about a week ago, I wanted to read through everything before I made my comment in case you or someone else caught the mistake. I don't think anyone did though, so I think that makes me the most anal of all! When you calculated your number of hours spent researching the trip vs. the number of hours of actual cruise time, I think you made a slight error...

 

 

If you are calculating for 6 months of time, then yes, it would be 2 hours/day x 7 days/week, but then you wouldn't multiply that by 180 days. You already accounted for the days when you multiplied by 7! It should really have been 2 hours/day x 7 days/week x 26 weeks = 364 hours of research (not 2520 hours). Divide that by the 165 hours on the cruise, and it only works out to 2.2. Sadly, that doesn't look as impressive as a 15:1 ratio, but your point still stands that all of us Cruise Critic-aholics spend way more time researching for these trips than we spend on the actual vacation! haha

 

 

Sorry to call you out on that, but I couldn't resist (mostly because I know it shows that I am way too OCD to catch the error when no one else did lol). Ironically, I probably do spend closer to 15:1 hours researching my trips since I spend closer to 4 hours a night on Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor (while I watch all my prime time TV shows and the evening news), and I booked my next 2 cruises 1 year, 9 months and 2 years in advance, respectively. That adds up to A LOT of research time (sad, but true!)

 

 

In other news, thanks for mentioning that Chinese restaurant in Daly City! I live in San Jose and I love those push cart places so I definitely want to try it out next time I'm up that way! :)

[harryfat1]

Harry,

Thanks for writing such a wonderful review! I always love reading detailed photo reviews (even when it's not for a ship or cruise line I am planning to sail anytime soon), and I loved being along for the ride!

 

 

I do have one comment that I noticed from the very beginning of your review. Since I only found your review about a week ago, I wanted to read through everything before I made my comment in case you or someone else caught the mistake. I don't think anyone did though, so I think that makes me the most anal of all! When you calculated your number of hours spent researching the trip vs. the number of hours of actual cruise time, I think you made a slight error...

 

 

If you are calculating for 6 months of time, then yes, it would be 2 hours/day x 7 days/week, but then you wouldn't multiply that by 180 days. You already accounted for the days when you multiplied by 7! It should really have been 2 hours/day x 7 days/week x 26 weeks = 364 hours of research (not 2520 hours). Divide that by the 165 hours on the cruise, and it only works out to 2.2. Sadly, that doesn't look as impressive as a 15:1 ratio, but your point still stands that all of us Cruise Critic-aholics spend way more time researching for these trips than we spend on the actual vacation! haha

 

 

Sorry to call you out on that, but I couldn't resist (mostly because I know it shows that I am way too OCD to catch the error when no one else did lol). Ironically, I probably do spend closer to 15:1 hours researching my trips since I spend closer to 4 hours a night on Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor (while I watch all my prime time TV shows and the evening news), and I booked my next 2 cruises 1 year, 9 months and 2 years in advance, respectively. That adds up to A LOT of research time (sad, but true!)

 

 

In other news, thanks for mentioning that Chinese restaurant in Daly City! I live in San Jose and I love those push cart places so I definitely want to try it out next time I'm up that way! :)

 

 

 

Haha, very good in catching my mistake.

I realized I screwed up few days after I posted that calculation when I was answering another post as I was going to refer to the calculation and that’s when I realized I have a formula error but I was too embarrassed to admit it so I just let it pass. But as I said in my other posts, someone will always catch your errors on these boards. That’s the nature of posting here. You only have a hour or so to edit your post and after that, it’s on there forever – error and all.

Without getting too political in these boards – just call this my “alternative fact calculations”…

Maybe if you adjust the denominator for only waking hours of 17 hours per day X 7 = 119 hours, your ratio could be higher with a smaller denominator. With 18+ months to plan for your next 2 cruises, you will have a pretty big numerator for sure.

As for the food places, there are tons of dim sum places in San Jose. Just look up Yelp for “dim sum” and you have many hits:

https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=dimsum&find_loc=San+Jose%2C+CA

Have fun planning for your 2 cruises.

[hucifer]

Harry,

 

I finally finished reading. Like your other fans, I want to thank you for writing such an entertaining and informative report. Love your wit. Am so excited about my Allure trip in September...you have inspired me to write my own report, provided I have the time. I know how time-consuming it is to write these things.

 

I am off to read your Allure report now. Many thanks for sharing your family's vacation with us. Looking forward to your past and future reports!

 

 

Wendy

[harryfat1]

Harry,

 

I finally finished reading. Like your other fans, I want to thank you for writing such an entertaining and informative report. Love your wit. Am so excited about my Allure trip in September...you have inspired me to write my own report, provided I have the time. I know how time-consuming it is to write these things.

 

I am off to read your Allure report now. Many thanks for sharing your family's vacation with us. Looking forward to your past and future reports!

 

 

Wendy

 

Hi, Wendy,

 

Good to talk to you once again. Thanks for reading this trip report and also wishing to read the Allure report. Just keep in mind that some of the info is outdated such as the secret balcony is no longer there but at least you have an idea what life onboard the ship looks like. Due to better cell phone technology, the pictures on this trip report is much better than the Allure report but Allure has many more wow places to photograph.

 

As we have discussed previously, there are more entertainment options on the Oasis class ships but the venues themselves can’t accommodate everyone so a pre-planned schedule will enhance your experience onboard. Seeing that you have the Disney planning background, this shouldn’t be an issue for you.

 

I believe you and I are the more picky readers of the trip reports so just write the report as if you are writing for yourself – what would someone find interesting about my vacation? Provide them with pictures and informative info. Get an account with Flickr or Photobucket so they will host your picture uploads.

 

If you have any questions on your upcoming cruise, you can ask it here or over at the Allure report. Have a wonderful time.

[hucifer]

I downloaded your Excel spreadsheet from your Allure trip. I think it's such a good idea to keep track of activities. And you are absolutely right...I planned countless Disney trips using tables in Word (I am more of a Word nerd than an Excel expert) to keep track of park days, Fastpasses, and meals. I love to plan vacations! I think it is part of the excitement of the whole experience...the anticipation and knowledge gathering make the experience that much better.

 

I am on page 8 of your Allure report and I am loving that one too. VERY informative. I am sad that the "secret balcony" is gone, but still getting a lot of useful tips. Plus...your stream of consciousness way of writing is very honest and funny. I am grateful that you took the time to write these reports. Blah blah blah.

[harryfat1]

I downloaded your Excel spreadsheet from your Allure trip. I think it's such a good idea to keep track of activities. And you are absolutely right...I planned countless Disney trips using tables in Word (I am more of a Word nerd than an Excel expert) to keep track of park days, Fastpasses, and meals. I love to plan vacations! I think it is part of the excitement of the whole experience...the anticipation and knowledge gathering make the experience that much better.I am on page 8 of your Allure report and I am loving that one too. VERY informative. I am sad that the "secret balcony" is gone, but still getting a lot of useful tips. Plus...your stream of consciousness way of writing is very honest and funny. I am grateful that you took the time to write these reports. Blah blah blah.

As a Finance person, I use Excel for 101 things – 102 things if you count work. But you don’t have to use Excel, you can just print out the 7 day schedule from Outlook as well or use any blank daily organizer templates you can download online.

 

The main idea is you want to track your shows & events of your cruise because they are not always at the traditional time slots of a typical cruise so that you won’t have time conflicts. I was tempted to use the blah blah theme again on this trip report but also wanted to keep fresh instead of repeating all the old jokes.

 

I’m sure there are many people that will read this report while at work and wished I would get to the point quickly so they can go back to work…

[cbusbigred]

Harry - I just spent the last two days binge-reading your report. Thanks for the amazing photos and narrative.

 

I'm also a finance person (bank examiner specializing in AML/BSA), so I was giddy when I saw the KPMG / EY buildings in Grand Cayman. One can dream, right?

 

I loved seeing the photos from Cozumel - I vacationed in Playa del Carmen in a private villa years ago, and have very fond memories of the island.

 

Here's to the financially conscious (aka "cheapos")!

[CarrieAP]

Knee deep in cruise planning mode, soaking in the stories of fellow travelers, when I happened upon your trip report. So engaging and fun to read! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your adventures and commentary!! You've brought a smile to my face and my heart.