Cabin 9006 excellent!
Food average at best.
Disembarkation a mess.
Overall a great itinerary port-wise.
Embarkation
3 out of 5
Ship experiences
Food and Dining
2 out of 5
We had the ultimate dining / drink packages. Which should be "ultimate", right? Unfortunately even the speciality restaurant food was AVERAGE AT BEST. Service was hit or miss, and the staff actually seemed annoyed that we had the packages. (I assure you, we are VERY good tippers). Additionally, the fact that Freedom only has 3 specialty restaurants meant that we ate at the same places multiple times (Chops 3x, Gios 2x, Sabor 2x). Ironically Sabor (lowest cost) turned out to be the best! Chops (highest cost) was by far the most disappointing - food, quality, service and menu.
The funniest thing of all? Izumi... newer ships have a full restaurant, but Freedom is older so it is "take out" sushi. No problem, I love sushi, and don't mind eating it almost anywhere. So went in search of it, thinking there was maybe a sushi case in the wine bar, or pub. NOPE. Where did we find it??? Displayed in the cupcake shop literally interspersed between rows of cupcakes. I am seriously not kidding!!!! Chocolate cupcake / tuna roll / sprinkle cupcake / california roll / etc.
Admittedly I'm sure this was for display only, but the sugar small and display was far, far from appealing for sushi eaters. And I can't believe it was great for cupcake eaters either...
Obviously, we skipped sushi.
On the plus side (beyond Sabor) --- Vintages and the wine tasting in the dining room were both excellent!
Onboard Activities
3 out of 5
Pools were pretty good, but could be better planned out. Felt like they all ran together, which for the adults only section was annoying. Went to take the 40+ FloRider lessons and it was swamped with 20 somethings. Gym was EXCELLENT! Didn't go to the spa (crazy $... I think $169 for a 60 minute massage), but heard wonderful things.
Entertainment
2 out of 5
I'd give a 2 for the things I attended, but heard fairly good things from the older people in the group (ages = 70s).
DJ was OK... but seemed to be a bit too much into his mixing to where he would lose people who were dancing. Silent party was actually surprisingly fun / silly. Bartenders at Olive and Twist were excellent! So was Robert at R Bar.
Missed Quest gameshow... unfortunately. Our bad, but wished there were more options.
Worst thing was the "friendly feud". We were excited to participated, so got there early with a good seat. Signed up, and got a red raffle ticket. Teams were called randomly and it was fun. We thought they'd go through all teams, then have a playoff. Not so... They called maybe 8 teams and were DONE after 30 minutes. So crazy... they had a packed room, and lost 60% of the room. :(
Service and Staff
3 out of 5
As mentioned above, Roberta (R bar) and the staff in Olive or Twist (Cameron and ) were exceptional. Went out of their way to be attentive, friendly and informative. Roberta in particular should win awards!
Ship Quality
3 out of 5
Dated... but good given what they had at the time (and knowing a renovation is planned).
Cleanliness is where I had to downgrade a bit. Some areas worn, bathrooms always smelled as did the Studio B area... for some reason. Ick. Hairs left in the bathroom by staff (definitely not my hair color). We only saw our cabin attendant 2x. She was super nice, but not like present like what I've found in the past. (NOTE - she did apologize to my friend that the adjacent cabins were taking a lot of her time).
Cabin / Stateroom
4 out of 5
Quite good. Would give a 5, but - 1 for cleanliness. See above.
How is it that they do this every week??? Totally disorganized, no one in Studio B to answer questions. We had a 9:00 a.m. time, and sat there for over an hour. Noticed it said "already called" on the screens so finally just left on our own. Painful.
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