Devi8or

I don’t understand why people complain,your on vacation! Enjoy yourself. If I were to complain, it would be about the parents letting their children run wild. They don’t seem to get it (your on a ship for Pete’s sake, nothing but deep deep water around you. ) Parent watch your kids! It’s not our job or the staffs job.

thankfully we didn't have that problem on our trip, but with Spring Break coming up, it's gonna be a madhouse I bet. They actually condensed the kids clubs on our boat because there was only 400 kids.....which I guess is low? lol

How was your debarking process, what time did you get off?

As said, we had the 8:15 Debarking, I think the whole process took us longer to walk through the ship and port then the actual customs did. The guy checked our passports and sent us on our way....10-15 mins total and that was with our bags being dropped off in the lobby

Any tips on when to eat breakfast at Windjammer? I know earlier the better, but just trying to figure out when it gets nuts. Is 7:30 a safe bet or should we aim for even earlier?

 

Related to that... it seems that if people arrive later they all complain about it being crowded and food gets cold. Why fight it? Any reason to not just go to the MDR?

We never really went that early, with the 2 kids it was impossible to get them up and ready then lol. We always were able to find a table, just takes some times sometimes. Also if no tables are available, there is lots of high top counter space to use as well. I don't have any experience with the food being cold, even well after the peak times

Thank you for the response. I am trying to tell myself not to stress, it will all work out, but this is discouraging. I think the new "no check out" policy for towels is great but if people don't return the towels, there is no way to tell if a chair is taken or not. I am one of those people that always looks for a family without chairs or lets the people next to us know that we are leaving and clears all of our belongings. Why take up a chair that you are not using? Drives me crazy!!!

We are just off the Freedom on 3/3. The pool deck does get crowded, but we always found a chair or 2 together. As for the towels, you had to use your room key to check them in/out

Thanks for the review! Doing this cruise 3/11-17. Were there two formal nights? What day did the laundry offer happen?

 

Thanks!!

Formal nights were the second and fifth nights. The fifth night seemed to be wayyyyy less formal Seems like everyone used it all up on the first night lol.

Laundry offer was on the 4th day I believe. So here's the deal they do laundry everyday and have the form in the closet. The most basic service is wash and press and you pay per item. The deal later was $35 for all you could fit into a provided bag as wash and fold only...no press

Did the luncheon set up in the MDR, in addition to the menu, have the Tutti salad bar. Also, with the salad bar was there a separate dessert table with chocolate fountain. This was the set-up on out Anthem's Jan. 28th sail.

I can confirm that Freedom did have the Tutti Salad bar, A huge table of selections of desserts, and a create your own pasta station as well. I got off of Freedom this past Saturday, so very recent. Don't recall if there was a chocolate fountain though

Freedom had the same exact menus posted my Mark for our 6 day Western Caribbean. We had the exact first five, then we skipped to the day 7 menu

Cltncruisers - What is FOS? Can you ask where the person heard that RC was going smoke free in the casino? I am trying to track that down, to confirm that it is true.

 

Thanks, Jo

I think they're referring to Freedom of the Seas. I just posted my review about it and mentioned that I couldn't even go in the Casino because the smoke was so bad

Just curious, did you report the cig smoking? We would not be able to handle the smoke at all. Thank you for your review! We are on the same sailing in 2 weeks!! :)

no I didn't report it, I honestly wasn't sure of what was allowed in terms of smoking on the boat. Only places I was 100% sure was the casino and one side of the pool deck. From our stateroom deck wasn't super strong, but strong enough to let you know it was there....nothing like the casino bad

have a good time on your cruise, it was super fun!

Good to hear positive things about Freedom! Thanks.

Thanks! Yes, it was great getting off of the boat knowing that I would 100% do it all over again without a single doubt. Freedom lived up to and exceeded my expectations. It's hard to always have the same perspective as others, and I'm sure some people may have had a negative review of this sailing, but as a family of 4 (9 and 12 YO girls), we all had the time of our lives. We're not rich, we're not poor, we don't have picky eaters and we don't nitpick all of the small things. We go on these trips to have fun and enjoy ourselves, that's exactly what we did

Hey all,

We just returned home from our trip on the Freedom of the Seas from 2/25-3/3 and thought I would share my thoughts about our experience.

First off I was a little weary after reading some recent negative reviews of people have recently taken Freedom for a trip. Let me say, everything I had heard was nothing we experienced while on our cruise. Let's start with the good things

Good:

-Food in MDR was a lot better than I had read about. We ate every dinner in there and for the most part it was good. There was 1 or 2 things that we're just okay or meh. Our servers were excellent, shoutout to Najaeh and Slim Ben for their excellent service and being great guys! They we're very nice, polite, and took the time to remember what our preferences were and such. These guys made the dining experience pretty cool.

-Cruise Director Topi was AWESOME! Loved the energy he brought to the shows and boat in general. He was very funny and personable, seems like people loved him. My favorite part was at the Final show where he re-enacted all the dances he "saw" people doing on the boat. He basically nailed 20-30 different popular dances flawlessly......well done Topi

-Pools we're never really very crowded. There was a lot of people sitting in the chairs, but my daughter really only shared the pool with a handful of people.

-Our stateroom attendant Simplicio was EXCELLENT! Whatever we needed (which was not a lot) he was very accessible and always very courteous and polite. He remembered our names after the first night, which is pretty amazing considering how many people he sees over the months. He was able to get me Distilled water and an extension cord for my CPAP machine even though I never requested it, tipped us off on a cheaper way to do our laundry the night before it was advertised too. Thanks again for being awesome! Kids loved the towel animals too

Bad:

Honestly, my wife and I talked about it, there wasn't anything that really stood out as a bad for us aside from the slow elevators at times. We were in cabin 1534 on Deck 10. We ate on deck 3, shows were on deck 4. When those things would get out, the elevators got super slow. We would walk most, but we have a 9 year old daughter with heart conditions, so the trek up the stairs takes her a bit.

-Smoke from the Casino was very pungent. I've been to Vegas a few times and this blew it out of the water in terms of lingering smoke. The small area of casino was completely reeking of it and it would bleed into the surrounding areas. I went there for like 20 minutes then never went back the whole cruise, it was just too much

-Smoke from people while sitting ion our balcony was an issue too. There wasn't really that many times where we could sit out there and not smell cigarettes. While nowhere near as bad as the casino, it was noticeable

If I think of anything else, I'll post it here, but this is kinda off the top of my head. If anyone has questions, I'll try to answer to my best knowledge. I will admit, we didn't do a huge number of things since we had the kids with us. They didn't like the kids club, so we had a lot of family time. Being from Alaska, we tried to maximize our time in the sun, pool, and beaches lol

Hopefully everyone is okay, got me all worried since we depart on freedom tomorrow

Don't worry we are keeping her hopping. Wave to us when we are doing that sad walk off the ship. I think we should be at terminal 18.

 

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HAHA sounds good...I'll be the guy grinning from ear to ear getting ready to board :cool:

enjoy the rest of your trip....lemme know if there's anything I CANNOT miss

Keep the Freedom warmed up for us, we'll be on board this Sunday! YEA!!!!

We're on Freedom 2/25.......these reviews are not making me feel too great at the moment. It'll be our first RCCL experience, so hopefully it's ironed out by then

What's the best way to contact them? I went through the website last night, but have not received any response. I hate to attempt again, but our cruise just changed to this itinerary and we're 2 weeks out. I need to secure something and this is our first choice. TIA

when I contacted them, I did it in the evening and didn't hear back until the next evening. I'm sure you'll hear something from them today, but if not, I would probably check again tomorrow. They seemed to e-mail me mostly at the end of the day, so maybe they just haven't gotten to it yet.

Just put in our reservation for Feb 2018, so excited.

I'm assuming the natural style waters won't take away from any snorkeling or kayaking experience? Kids are looking forward to doing both there

I had thought about this too, we sail on Freedom in February with us and the 2 kids. I think we're just gonna go primitive and have a whiteboard in the room to write where we are incase anyone is looking for one another. The kids aren't old enough to wonder on their own, so they'll be with one of us at all times. I figure that should be good enough to at least give an idea where we are

My daughter was a Make-A-Wish recipient a few years back (she met the Seattle Mariners) but we have always been told the Disney is the most popular request. As someone else posted, maybe a Disney Cruise would be a better experience as I'm sure they've probably dealt with so many more requests. This is all assuming the child in question likes Disney etc, either way, MaW is a great organization and I'm sure they will help accommodate a request on any cruise line and make it a good one.

I check mine every few days, It's gone up about $1,100-$1,200 since I originally booked because I got kids sail free for my 2 girls. Looks like that promo is gone now, so unless it comes back, I think I'm set at what I've got currently

I just booked a Balcony Guarantee about a month ago. It took mine roughly 3-5 days to show up in my account as being assigned a room. We were happily surprised when they put us in the Supreme Ocean View with Balcony, got it for right around the same as an Oceanview with NO balcony if I had picked my room

I'm fairly sure we've all eaten at restaurants that score worse than these ships did but just don't know it

Devi8or great job. Enjoy the Freedom. We love her.

thanks! Was actually just researching about the Balcony Guarantees the other day when I saw it pop up as an option that wasn't there when I initially booked. Worked out to be a pretty darn good deal, got a bigger cabin, a balcony, a sofa bed for the kids versus the pull downs over my bed, and a happy wife....all for around $30. Can't beat that

Never Cruised RCI before, so we're looking forward to it. We took a Disney cruise a few years ago. it was only 3 nights, so this 6 night should be awesome since that last one felt so short

I just booked a Balcony guarantee the other day for a Feb 2018 sailing on Freedom of the Seas

Initially I purchased an Oceanview no balcony for 4 of us (2 kids free) and the total came to $1883. A few days later I saw the balcony guarantee, and my wife preferred a balcony anyways. If I was gonna book the balcony, it was gonna be between $2100-$2300 for the same trip.

I ended up changing to the balcony guarantee from the original Oceanview standard. The new price I'm paying is $1918. So in essence I paid around $30 for the balcony upgrade. They list it as either a Deluxe Ocean View with Balcony or a Superior Ocean View with Balcony.

Got my room assignment today after changing a few days ago. Ended up getting the Superior Ocean View with Balcony. Room 1534 on Deck 10. If I were to book that room straight up, it was just a hair under $2300, so in essence I saved almost $400 by doing the guarantee

Welcome to CC!

 

I have been able to see the pricing for Kids Sail Free but I have to hunt and peck to find the cruises that offer it. Theres a page on the RC site specifically listing all the cruises that offer it but that was the part that wasnt working.

Looks like there are 62 cruises that match the kids sail free option. I was able to click the kids sail free picture on the main page and it took me to the results. I see 7 pages of cruises and had no problem going to the second one.

Also take note, when it asks how many guests, there is nothing that says kids sail free (although I have seen it). It was still deducting the kids at the end though, at least that's what it did for mine

It definitely works, I just booked a few days ago and got the kids for free.

As someone said earlier, it's on certain dates and ships I believe

First post here too! :cool: