Freedom of the Seas

This was my 5th cruise on Royal Caribbean. The Freedom of the Seas ship was a big improvement over my other ships. I chose this cruise for the destinations and was not disappointed. The WaveRunner was amazing to watch. Very nice to have a basketball/soccer court plus the min-golf.

One of the best vacations we have been on. The ports are intersting and offered many beautiful choices. It is hard to just pick one thing to do, knowing you will miss other things. there are far more excursions available ship board than the ones offered on line. I recommend grabbing a few before you go and booking the rest as soon as you get on board Sunday.

This was a really disappointing cruise, and we will likely not be sailing with Royal Caribbean again. It felt like the people on the cruise are overworked, or something... they did not treat us as though this was a special vacation or like they had any pride in their work. I felt like I was the one trying to cheer them up.

It is always nice to have a suite (this was a jr suite). Spacious suite & veranda. Bed was comfortable. Not enough electrical outlets however for a room that holds 3-4 people. Only had 1 outlet and we had 2 tablets, a phone, 2 camera with batteries, a curling iron, & a hair straightener, all needing that one outlet! Typical big ship-too big when you need to disembark or get back on, elevators insufficient, ridiculous 2 hour taxi stand wait. Food was pretty good. Had 2 formal nights but never had the semi formal evening. Could not hear the announcements in our room which was annoying. Did not care for the onboard activities-not suitable for seniors or people with mild physical challenges (rock wall, ice skating, wave riding). Mini golf was nice & shuffleboard. However, we love table tennis and could not use any of the 4 tables because they were all within the children's area & were being used by children who did not even tall enough to really be playing ping pong on a normal sized table. Made no sense. The pools were adequate. Our veranda was disappointing because it had an obstructed view off the rear of the ship. This had not been disclosed. There were a lot of pillars and beams so that we could not take nice photos. And if we looked down, all we saw was the huge veranda of the suite below us. And the occupants of that suite were unhappy because people on an upper public deck were throwing cigarette butts down onto their veranda (fire hazard? unsightly). We had paper airplanes landing on our veranda- not really a problem but weird. The rear verandas have no breeze at all- a bit disappointing. And the distance to any elevator is extreme. The service was good, but it is usually good when traveling with attractive older teenage girls! 

We had a great cruise experience. Our room attendant, Ralph, was extremely pleasant and kept our room looking great. The cruise director, Mercedes, was awesome. We loved the various shows and her sense of humor. 

 

Our only complaint was about the food, especially in the dining room. It was well below expectations in quality and the service was poor. We gave up on the dining room after a few days, as the food was not worth the long wait each night.