Terrible food

Freedom of the Seas Cruise Review to Caribbean - Western

Cruises: 4-6 cruises
Review: 1
Helpful Votes: 47

Overall rating:

2 out of 5
Freedom of the Seas

7 Night Western Caribbean (Port Canaveral Roundtrip)

Sail date: June 05, 2016

Ship: Freedom of the Seas

Cabin type: Inside

Cabin number: 9487

Traveled as: Large Group

Reviewed: 8 years ago

Review summary

This will be my last Royal Caribbean cruise. I feel like I wasted my money.

 

This was my 4th cruise and by far the worst. Other people in our group have been on  as many as 12 cruises. I am extremely disappointed in Royal Caribbean. 

The ship is nice. It is easy to get around. There is a lack of outdoor lounge/social areas that was disappointing.

The food on this cruise was disgusting. We had a group of 16 and we unanimously agreed that the food was garbage. Others on cruise also commented how bad the food was. It was bad everywhere. The pizza was unbelievably bad. Like 7-11 frozen bad. The dining room food was terrible too. We paid $100 to eat in the fancy restaurant called Chops Grill. Our filet mignon and lobster were awful. The lobster was the consistency of mashed potatoes and the steak could almost bend the knife it was so tough. It is almost impossible to serve food so consistently bad and we have never experienced this on other cruise lines. Even the ice cream and other desserts were bad. Dining room service was terrible. Our waiter hit my wife and I both on the head with plates. Getting a drink took 15 minutes. They had one guy and only one guy who was able to bring drinks other than water. WTF?

Royal Caribbean has gone downhill and they are more focused on cutting costs to appease stock holders than providing a quality vacation to their customers.

Service on the ship was also bad. They gave us incorrect information about getting towels for shore excursions so nobody on the ship was able to get a towel to go on shore. Unbelievable that they could screw up such a simple thing. The next day when said they had towels when getting off the ship to go on shore, they ran out! Again. Unbelievable! People were about to riot. This sort of thing is unacceptable and should never happen. 

The broke my daughters seapass card when they punched hole in it to put on a lanyard. When they replaced the card, they did not transfer the information from the other card and therefore her waivers for activities did not show up when she needed them. She missed her assigned time for the flo rider because of this incompetence. 

We have never had problems like this on any other cruise.

 

 

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

1 out of 5

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Children's Programs

3 out of 5

Service and Staff

5 out of 5

Cabin / Stateroom

5 out of 5
Cabin was fine and as expected.

Ship tip

This was my 4th cruise and by far the worst. Other people in our group have been on as many as 12 cruises. I am extremely disappointed in Royal Caribbean. The ship is nice. It is easy to get around. There is a lack of outdoor lounge/social areas that was disappointing. The food on this cruise wa

Ports of call

Port Canaveral, Florida

3 out of 5

George Town, Grand Cayman

5 out of 5

Coxen Hole, Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras

5 out of 5

Costa Maya (Mahahual), Mexico

5 out of 5
Get out of the port village and take a $2 cab ride into the village of Mahahual about 5 minutes away. It is wonderful.

Cozumel, Mexico

3 out of 5
Was this review helpful? 47

14 Comments

ritarn    8 years ago

I have cruised RC 4 other times and they all were exceptional. Never an issue with them.

jimnkathy    8 years ago

We've done that cruise three times. We really love Alaska. We also like Vancouver, BC.

rpachter    8 years ago

@jimnkathy How did you like the northbound Alaska cruise?

jimnkathy    8 years ago

My wife and I have cruised on Royal Caribbean seven times and we have had no negative experiences so far. We've thoroughly enjoyed all seven cruises.

snoopy1987    8 years ago

I went on a carnival few years ago that ported in GC. Getting back to the ship was awful. God bless the cute young couple that was selling snow cones in the middle of the horrendous line that snaked the entire port. I hope they are living the dream; and making a small fortune in paradise! Although it's a beautiful island, the port is a nightmare; regardless of cruise line.

rpachter    8 years ago

West Carib out of Canaveral works fine as long as the make the first stop at Labadee. Then they go to Gr Cayman from there. On this cruise, they went directly to Gr Cayman with an arrival of 11:30 and the last tender back to the ship at 6:15. We were the only ship there that day but only two exits to get on a tender. Each tender took 15-20 minutes to load and holds about 200 people. Trying to move 4,000 people off and then back onto the ship takes hours. They announced that you needed a tender ticket to get off the ship and not to get your ticket until you were actually ready to leave. We got our tickets just after 11:30 and were still on the ship at 1:00.

kknorr0320    8 years ago

I've wondered how well a Western Caribbean would work out of Canaveral. We've only done them out of Tampa. Sounds like they need to switch around some ports although they may not be able to.

kbduck    8 years ago

Thank you for clarifying rpachter. I would be unhappy too, but given it was a new itinerary I'd probably give benefit of the doubt.

abystron    8 years ago

Try NCL CRUISE

rpachter    8 years ago

I was on the same cruise and it definitely was NOT up to Royal's standards. It was their first time trying this itinerary and there were several issues. They didn't allow enough time at Grand Cayman so everything there was rushed. On top of that, the whole tender experience getting off the ship was an unmitigated disaster. We've been to GC many times and never has such confusion, disorganization and lack of communication been so blatant. Roatan was a little better only because it was a docked port. Again, they didn't allow enough time in port. Costa Maya was OK but I have no desire to go back. It was your typical small Mexican tourist stop. No RCL issues there or at Cozumel that I saw. I suspect this itinerary to be much more manageable out of Ft Lauderdale because of less time needed to get to Grand Cayman. One other thing I noticed was that their new VOOM Internet didn't live up to their hype about it. I got a consistent 500Kbps connection which is not exactly fast.

abystron    8 years ago

Not a fan of Royal So many better options Let me know send me a email Love to make your next trip amazing abystron@cruiseshipcenters.com Thanks Toni Try NCL

pambamandjohnny    8 years ago

I can't find it in the tips section, what happened?

kbduck    8 years ago

Tried to find your comments to read about what happened, but couldn't locate them. Sorry you had a bad experience.

loves88    8 years ago

Why? What happen

Other reviews of this sailing