Freedom of the Seas 06/30/18 - 07/07/18 Semi-live review

[ATC cruiser]

I was on the same cruise and was following your review. I was going to ask yesterday what happened to the live reports. By technical issues, did you mean crummy internet? They shouldn’t advertise Voom, surf and stream, when they can’t provide it. They really should have a different price point for ships that don’t have the newer internet.

[SDQTraveler]

I was on the same cruise and was following your review. I was going to ask yesterday what happened to the live reports. By technical issues, did you mean crummy internet? They shouldn’t advertise Voom, surf and stream, when they can’t provide it. They really should have a different price point for ships that don’t have the newer internet.

 

 

 

A combination of ultra-slow internet connection and my iPhone not connecting to the Forums app.

[LBumb]

cant wait to read about your cruise

[DISFANS3]

Cool pics...

[SDQTraveler]

Sail away party was nice, and the views of San Juan while leaving the port were beautiful.

 

First dinner in the main dining room was great, everyone from the group liked their menu choices. The waitress and assistant waitress (Lourdes and Edson) were also really nice and we looked forward to have a great week with them.

 

After dinner, we decided to go to Boleros where they had live Latin music and dancing.

 

[SDQTraveler]

Day 2: St. Thomas

 

We woke up with a beautiful view of the bay as the ship docked on port side and we were on starboard side.

 

Windjammer was very full, almost impossible to find where to sit. Giovanni’s table was used as an overflow area but even there it was hard to find a seat.

 

After gathering the 11 of us, we took a taxi to the “downtown” area where we wondered for a few hours, then ran into a driver who gave us a full island tour for a very good price.

 

 

 

 

The last stop of the tour was secret beach, unfortunately I was not able to take a picture.

 

After the beach, we returned to the ship where we had lunch at the WJ and then enjoyed the swimming pool and other various activities.

 

It was formal night, and I was surprised with the amount of people who dressed up nicely. I saw quite some tuxedos, suits and ties, button-down shirts, but also the usual shorts and flip flops. The main dining room looked like an elegant banquet. We also attended the Captain’s welcome, which didn’t seem as popular as in the previous cruise, since not a lot of people were there. I also remember that on my previous cruise there were complimentary glasses of champagne, but I didn’t see those this time.

 

 

Dinner was very good, but forgot to take a picture of the menu. Different from the first night they had:

 

Lobster bisque, seafood vol-au-vent, beef carpaccio.

 

Seafood linguini, duck a l’orange, pork shank (really good), almond crusted cod.

 

Chocolate bar, shortcake.

 

After dinner, we decided to go to Olive and Twist for some dancing, where we had a great time. Then went to the casino to have some fun (we are not serious gamblers so didn’t decide to invest a lot of money). Started with $10 in the slots machine, and after 20 minutes or so and many winning/losing, we ended up with $10.75 :)

 

Day 3 was sea day so we decided to stay up until very late.

[EeyoreFan1967]

Loving your report. Wondering if you noticed any seaweed at any of the ports? I've read many Western Caribbean ports are inundated with it and I hope it's not also an issue in the south.

[SDQTraveler]

There were no seaweeds in the beaches we visited, which was very surprising. On the other hand, the Atlantic shore of St. Kitts was inundated while the Caribbean coast was completely clean (some pictures coming up).

[ATC cruiser]

I will confirm this. I did a day pass at the Marriot on St Kitts. They were using an excavator and a dump truck to try and clean up the beach. It was a losing battle. It was piling up faster than they could scoop it up. It smelled like rotten eggs too. The pool was still very nice, we had a lovely day there.

[SDQTraveler]

Forgot to mention : Weather on day 2: Very hot and zero clouds.

[SDQTraveler]

Day 3: At sea

 

Since most of us stayed up until late, we didn’t wake up early for breakfast, but still managed to go to the Windjammer before it closed (around 10:30 am). Surprisingly, it seemed that a lot of people had early breakfast as the WJ was empty and a lot of choices were available.

 

After lunch, we went to the pool area, where plenty of chairs were available on the H2O zone, the other side was very crowded due to the soccer match (Brazil vs. Belgium) but once it was over it was not very difficult to find where to seat. Watching the match on the ship was really fun!

 

 

After the match, they had the belly flop contest. It was our first time watching it since we missed it on our previous cruise.

 

 

 

 

Windjammer for lunch was extremely crowded, something we expected, but the food choices were good. Overall, we found the Windjammer food quality and variety better on FOS than on the Adventure.

 

Afterwards, we went to the Dreamworks parade. We really enjoyed it, despite many criticisms we read here in cruisecritic.

 

 

Then we went to the helipad and spent sometime enjoying the nice view. We had the place for ourselves.

 

Dining choices were very good, especially the poblano pepper soup, the seafood cake and the short ribs.

 

 

Weather on day 3: Nice and sunny.

[SDQTraveler]

Day 4: Curaçao

 

Docked port side so did not have a good view of the city from our balcony.

 

After having a quick breakfast at the Windjammer, we joined our guide from Peter Tours to take us on a private excursion I reserved a few months ago. It was a full island tour with beach, and we all thought it was very good and worth the cost ($75 / hr for 11 passengers).

 

While touring around the city, we learned a comprehensive historical background of the island and the guide also spent some time discussing the current economic and social situation and the effects of the trade embargo Venezuela imposed several months ago. Then we went country side to see the different island landmarks and finished the tour at Knip (Kenepa) beach after visiting the turtles sanctuary.

 

 

 

We returned to the ship to have lunch and then went back to the city to walk around.

 

[SDQTraveler]

More pictures from Willemstad

 

 

After wandering around for a few hours, we returned to the ship. We loved the late departure as we had a lot of time to get to know the city, return to the ship on time, and continue to do other things before sailing away.

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner was again very good, but forgot to take a picture of the menu.

 

Weather in Curaçao: Overcast, a few rain showers while going back to the ship from Knip beach. Other than that, some clouds here and there, but good temperature.

[loves2cruise07]

Could you say when approximately you booked and whether the price for a balcony went up or down since? Also when did you book your air and how did the price compare to flying to Florida?

 

Thanks!

 

We were on this sailing, as well. We booked in April of 2017, and the price for both our balcony and our sons' interior rooms went down several times. The cost that we paid for the balcony was less than the prices RCCL was quoting for interior rooms in the spring of 2018.

[Ajrobey]

Glad you enjoyed the belly flop contest. I was the second place contestant. While the ports were nice, I really had a problem with the rudeness of some groups on the ship . I mean groups or family's blocking stairways and walkways and not moving even if you asked , the line butters and the elevator blockers seemed off the hook . On my previous 3 cruise I never had these problems or others . I liked the ports again ,but will not be cruising out of Puerto Rico again. Just to much rudeness for me , or maybe I was just in the wrong place on the ship at the wrong time always. And the topper was our wait staff at dinner (3 rd floor MDR)6pm they were just plain horrible. The last night at dinner it took 35 minutes to get drinks ,just ice tea and cokes. I a lot of other bad service the rest of the week to .

[SDQTraveler]

Glad you enjoyed the belly flop contest. I was the second place contestant. While the ports were nice, I really had a problem with the rudeness of some groups on the ship . I mean groups or family's blocking stairways and walkways and not moving even if you asked , the line butters and the elevator blockers seemed off the hook . On my previous 3 cruise I never had these problems or others . I liked the ports again ,but will not be cruising out of Puerto Rico again. Just to much rudeness for me , or maybe I was just in the wrong place on the ship at the wrong time always. And the topper was our wait staff at dinner (3 rd floor MDR)6pm they were just plain horrible. The last night at dinner it took 35 minutes to get drinks ,just ice tea and cokes. I a lot of other bad service the rest of the week to .

 

 

 

I agree with you. There were just so many groups / family rude around the ship and this is something we noticed from the moment we checked in. The lack of manners was evident. It was common to see a full group taking over an entire area of the WJ without using it. We were 11, and the only time we sat together was at the MDR because we had our own table, other than that, at the WJ, pool area, and even using elevators it wasn’t a big of a deal for us to separate into small groups to not cause any inconvenience to other guests, but sadly this was not the case for most large parties. This was our second cruise out of San Juan, and while the first one had some rude people/groups, I think this one was definitely worst.

 

We had an extraordinary waitress team at our seating (8:30 pm on the 3rd floor) so we cannot complain about them, but the same way we had a great team I am sure others were not so lucky.

[SDQTraveler]

Glad you enjoyed the belly flop contest. I was the second place contestant.

 

 

I assume you are in these pictures then. Good job, it was a lot of fun!

 

[Ajrobey]

Yes I'm the one on the right in the American flag bathing suit. And know what you mean , we were a group of 13 . We sat at table 205 at the 6 PM dinner and our waiters were doig and anup not very good . One night the asst waiter served ranch dressing on some of our bake potatoes . The funny thing was the head waitress came back with the same dish of it ,realized it was wrong went and got the sour cream dish and put it on the rest of bake potatoes. Didn't even bother to fix earlier potatoes until we complained.

[Bigbluegal]

We were on this cruise as well and oddly are in some of the pics. At the belly flop contest we are standing on the rail of the bottom tiered section. Also, your pic from Curacao with the yellow building contains my mom and son as they are crossing the road. What were the chances of that?

[Ajrobey]

Did anyone else find it strange also there was no love and marriage game show? On this cruise

[ATC cruiser]

Did anyone else find it strange also there was no love and marriage game show? On this cruise

 

 

 

I was on this cruise too. We were told they no longer do it. Not sure if that’s on all ships or just Freedom.

[SDQTraveler]

We were on this cruise as well and oddly are in some of the pics. At the belly flop contest we are standing on the rail of the bottom tiered section. Also, your pic from Curacao with the yellow building contains my mom and son as they are crossing the road. What were the chances of that?

 

 

 

Wow [emoji50] This happened to us on our first cruise, we were in many pictures that other cruisers shared. If you want me to remove them, just let me know and I will take them down.

[SDQTraveler]

I was on this cruise too. We were told they no longer do it. Not sure if that’s on all ships or just Freedom.

 

 

 

We were looking forward to it and were surprised that they didn’t do it. We did enjoy the quest.

[mchin]

I was on this cruise too. We were told they no longer do it. Not sure if that’s on all ships or just Freedom.

 

This is the first cruise I've heard of them not having the Love and Marriage Show. They had it on Anthem this past April and on Oasis last June.

[MA cruisers]

Hello Everyone and welcome to this semi-live review. We are very excited to share our cruise experience with all of you.

 

This is our second cruise, our first one was the Adventure of the Seas 2 years ago. While last time we were celebrating our first wedding anniversary and went by ourselves, this time we have 9 other family members joining (2 of them are not expected and will surprise the rest on departure day). My wife and I will be traveling from Washington, DC, while the rest of the family (in-laws, uncles/aunts, cousins) will be traveling from Santo Domingo. Dominican Republic.

 

Please feel free to ask any questions along the way. I will also try to upload cruise compasses and dining menus.

 

I will also be posting live pictures/videos on my instagram account (same username as here in CruiseCritic).

Can you please let me know if they offer the 10 drink card for $75 on the cruise. Thanks