skohrs

After we left Olive orTwist, we headed down to the Royal Promenade and came upon a question andanswer session with the ship's officers. Captain Toni Calne from Finland wasvery informative and seems like a really nice guy. He is so young too (I thinkthey said he was the youngest Captain in the fleet). He said he is from a longline of Captains and Chief Engineers on ships. His father was a Captain, andhis father was a Captain, and his father was a Captain. He said if he ever hasa son, he will be a Captain too. No pressure there....

I didn't know that Robin Leach now worked as an officer on a Royal Caribbean ship (2nd from the left next to the Captain). No more Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous for him... Actually, that is Hotel Director Gary Davies from Liverpool, England. So I guess this is the person to contact about the extremely hard beds. ;p

The most interesting thing about this question and answer session was the ridiculous questions people were asking. There were people asking about pounds of thrust and all kinds of other questions that were clearly being asked just to show everyone else how smart they are.

When we left there, we went to our appointment at the Next Cruise office to book our "Next Cruise". We have never booked onboard before. We usually book our cruises within a few months of sailing. This time, we actually booked a Mediterranean Cruise for next June in a balcony room on the new Symphony of the Seas!!!!! We are so excited. A brand new ship and our first trip to Europe.

After booking our Symphony of the Seas cruise, we got on the elevator. I guess some kids saw the movie Elf recently and decided to make the buttons light up like a Christmas tree.

We went to relax by the pool after that at the Solarium. We waited about 10 minutes to get a couple loungers in the sun (there are not too many chairs in the sun in the Solarium). After a couple hours, a band started playing Caribbean style music by the main pool, so we moved to there to listen to the music. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes later it started raining a little, so the band had to stop playing (the whole electricity + water = unsafe thing). Soon after, it started raining harder, so we headed down last minute to go see the ice show. It was pretty good. Hard to believe they can do that in such a small area on a moving ship. Here are some photos from the show.

Day 2 - Sea Day

We started out the morning with our first breakfast at Windjammer. We always get breakfast there. We have done the dining room on past cruises hoping we would find something amazing that is not available at Windjammer, but we are always disappointed that we didn't go to Windjammer, so we stopped trying to fix what isn't broken. We started out with the essentials for a good breakfast: Coffee and Tabasco (not together of course). If I have those two things, everything else will be great.

We went down to breakfast at about 9am since it was a sea day, and we had no problem getting a table by the window (even on this sold out spring break cruise). It was just me and the wife this time. The 14-year-old girls wanted to sleep in after a late night hanging out with other teens on the ship. Since we live in Orlando, there are a lot of other kids on this cruise that they already know from school.

Once again, the servers were all great. I don't remember getting this level of service from the buffet servers on any other cruise. We never had to get up coffee, juice, or pastries. Also, nobody tried to sell us any specialty dining during breakfast. What a beautiful view we had from our table.

After breakfast we went up to Olive or Twist for the Cruise Critic Meet and Mingle. There were supposed to be 83 people there, but I think about 40 showed up. That significantly increased our odds of winning a raffle prize. There was only one prize that they were giving away that we were hoping to get. It was a color changing beach bag from Del Sol with a color changing shirt, some color changing hair clips, and color changing nail polish that goes on clear, but turns red in the sun. We never win anything, but low and behold, when they got to the Del Sol bag they called out my wife's number. Yippee!!!!!!! Now, I need to closely check my nails when I wake up each day to make sure my wife did not paint them with the clear polish so they will turn red when I go outside. :eek: There was a beautiful view from Olive or Twist. We could see another ship not far away, but I couldn't make out what ship it was.

These photos are for Cheapo Dad if he is following this.

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I'm doing this 8 night itinerary (although it's backwards) next March! I'm really excited. It will be my first time on a Freedom class ship, I hope it doesn't seem old in comparison to her Oasis class sisters [emoji85]

 

Also, mother has asked whether you can take a photo of the ice cream choices in B&J's! Don't worry if you don't go back there! Thanks in advance :)

 

 

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No problem.

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Anybody notice on this cruise the island oasis blenders are gone. And there is a new frozen drink mix to go along with the new cheep blenders?

 

 

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I didn't notice, but I don't drink frozen drinks.

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I find it quite interesting that the regular price at Chops is only $30. We were on the Oasis end of 2016 and the Allure Feb. '17 and both are charging $42 at Chops. We did got to Chops the first nite on Oasis (had a lot of OBC) for $21; wouldn't do it again. I agree with your "meh."

I think the price onboard for Chops is $35. The Bogo us get two nights in specialty dining for $30 total. Giovannis is$30 and Savor is $29.

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Good morning Labadee!!! It was raining this morning, but the Captain said it is done for the day and should be nice for the remainder.

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I forgot to mention that we walked through Windjammer after dinner at Chops and I took a photo of the sushi that was available and the crepe station. We asked if the crepe station was there for the one night only, or every night. He told us that it was there "every other night." We hope to get some crepes one night if we can.

All four of us had the fillet mignon.

See what I mean about the slab of meat on a plate? We eat with our eyes first, and this does not make my eyes hungry. Mine was perfectly medium-rare. My wife's was supposed to be medium-rare, but came out closer to medium-well. It was still good though.

The desserts were good. The service was just kind of meh. Our server was nice, but didn't go out of her way at all. We were never offered coffee with our dessert, and we didn't know if they had coffee there so we didn't ask. We knew we could get delicious coffee at Cafe Promenade anyway. We did have SUPERB service at Giovanni's the next night (I'll get to that later). We also got awesome service in Windjammer for day one lunch and day two breakfast. The servers in Windjammer were so friendly and helpful, especially considering it was a buffet venue. There has been a lot of talk on these boards about the hard-sell tactics by the staff during meals at Windjammer trying to get you purchase specialty dinner packages. It really didn't bother us at all. A few people asked us at each meal so far, but when you tell them you are not interested or that you already booked, not one of them pushed us or continued to try to sell. I certainly didn't let it ruin my vacation.

Anyway, back to the dessert photos.

Cheesecake

some type of Chocolate Cake (delicious)

Carrot Cake (looks delicious, but was actually really dry for carrot cake).

While we were eating, a different server was trying to carry too many items at once and a shrimp cocktail fell off his tray dumping shrimp and crushed ice all over a woman (on her head and all over her clothing). Funny to see, but I did feel bad for the woman. The diners at that table took it okay and didn't let it ruin their dinner. Every time the waiter came near them with a tray, they would pretend they were scared and duck or cover up.

All in all it was a great dinner for $15 per person.

Dinner at Chop's was good, not great. If I had to pay full price, I would have been disappointed. At only $15 as part of the BOGO, it was well worth the money. It might just be that I am not a "Steakhouse" type of guy, but the presentation of a slab of meat on a plate by itself is just not appealing. The side dishes served "family style" in ugly containers that were not big enough for what was in them did not add any visual appeal. Also, all of the food was just kind of warm. Nothing came out hot. However, even at the warm temperature, the food tasted great. Here are some photos:

Goat Cheese Salad

Shrimp Cocktail

Lobster Bisque

Mushroom Soup

Crab Cake

Barbecue Peppered Bacon (It was a thick piece that actually didn't taste like bacon at all - tasted just like barbecue pork with too much fat. I was hoping it would be something crispy),

Next we went up on deck and saw the ocean on one side and the terminal on the other. Guess which side was prettier.

We also saw Harmony setting out to sea.

My daughter and her best friend decided to to the Flow Rider at about 2pm. There was absolutely no line!!!! There was a small wipeout as you can see from this photo (notice there is no board to be seen).

Here is something you rarely see. An empty H2O Zone when it is during open hours.

... and a daily empty Solarium.

After the Muster Drill at 4:30, it was time to get go to the Spa so we could NOT win anything in the raffle for the 12th straight cruise, and then to the cabin to get ready for dinner at Chop's Grille (we did the BOGO). By the way, the Captain announced during the Muster Drill that the Coast Guard completed their "Annual Inspection" and they received a perfect report. Not a single deficiency. So ... we did not have to sit in port for an extra 24 hours like the Majesty did last month. Whew!!!!

Here is the first sunset of our cruise on our way to dinner.

We are big coffee drinkers, so we headed for Cafe Promenade to check out the coffee offerings. We had read a lot of reviews for Freedom, but could not get an accurate answer to what type of coffee they use on the ship. On other Royal ships, we have had Starbucks and Seattle's Best. We were pleasantly surprised with the coffee on Freedom. For the espresso drinks, they use "illy" coffee (I think it is an Italian brand). It was delicious.

The "free" coffee was also really good. It's been 2 days, and I have probably had a gallon already. That coffee is "laVazza" brand. We cruised on Disney Fantasy last year, and the "free" coffee on Disney ships is horrible. I think it is made from a syrup or concentrate of some kind. This laVazza coffee was brewed and delicious.

Day 1 recap:

We got to check-in at 10:30am and we were onboard the ship at 11:10am. We walked up to Windjammer for lunch because the elevators were turned off (something to do with the Coast Guard inspection). Windjammer was empty because: 1 - it was early; and 2 - nobody wanted to walk up to deck 11 and chose to wait for the elevators to turn back on.

We finished lunch at about noon and decided to explore the Royal Promenade for a little while and purchase the soda package for my daughter.

At 1pm they made an announcement that the cabins would not be available until 1:30pm. At 1:29:59pm they opened the door allowing us to go to check out our cabin. We had connecting Royal Promenade Interior Staterooms (7561 and 7563) on the port side of the ship overlooking Sorrento's.

Here is a view of the Freestyle Soda machines from our cabin window:

Sailing on FOS in June in the Med. Just wondering if there are USB ports in the staterooms like some of the newer ships?? Have a great time!

Unfortunately not. There are only 2 standard 120 volt outlets. I have an Anker USB charging station that allows me to plug in 10 USB cords that works out great for charging 3 iPhones, 3 Apple watch chargers, 3 portable backup batteries for the iPhones, and my digital camera.

Hi, skohrs! It is strange that you have wifi problems... maybe it is related to your location on the ship? We are deck 7 aft and had very minimal problems. When we log out on one device and try to log on to another, it may say we cannot connect. We just hit cancel 1 or 2 times, then it works.

 

Sorry we did not get to meet you at M&M this morning! Did you attend? DH & I were there with our Rubik's cube shirts... Hope to run into you sometime. [emoji846]

 

We were there. My wife Erin the Del Sol bag.

 

We have had Wi-Fi problems all over the ship as have my sister and her family (completely different part of the ship).They said the problems were intermittent. They seem to have fixed it now.

 

 

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As for the Wi-Fi not working, I spoke with the tech people at the business center about it and they said that they were having server issues, and that IT techs were working on fixing all day. He said hopefully it will be working again by tonight. We got the Wi-Fi for us and our daughter so we could contact her onboard to meet up via iMessage and so we could FaceTime or other kids who stayed back in Orlando. I went to the front desk and asked if we would get credit back on our accounts for the time Wi-Fi was not working. The customer service guy (completely oblivious to how tech works) said he thinks the reason Wi-Fi is not working is because we are at sea. I told him that wet are on a ship, we are supposed to be at sea. I wouldn't have purchased Wi-Fi to use only in port. Anyway, I wasn't mad. I only mention it because I thought that may have been the funniest answer I have ever heard. Much funnier than the standard "Do the stairs go up or down?" and the "Doors the crew live on the ship?" questions the comedians always joke about.

At any rate, Wi-Fi is working again. Yay!!!!

Here is today's Compass.

If you have any questions or any photos you would like me to take/post, let me know and I'll do my best.

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Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. The Wi-Fi service has not been working since last night, and It just started working again about an hour ago.

I am uploading photos now to Google Photo, and I will post again shortly once photos are uploaded.

So it had been kind of a funny day. We woke up this morning and opened the window shades on our RP cabin window. My wife looked out, and directly across from us there was a naked guy standing there in his cabin with the shades fully open, completely oblivious. It was an old guy, and it brought back memories of the friends episode with the naked guy in the apartment across from them. Sorry, no photos (thought that might be a little creepy).

TIP: If you have an RP cabin, CLOSE YOUR SHADES WHEN GETTING DRESSED. YOU DON'T FACE THE OCEAN.!!! At least now we have a funny story to tell. Kind of like on our last RCCL cruise on the Allure, when there was an old guy sitting behind us by the pool, and he was completely unaware that his "jewels" were hanging completely out of his shorts. I mean, they were not encased at all. My wife and daughters all got unsuspecting views of that masterpiece. That image is indelibly etched into their memory, and they can't get it out. What is it with old men and their "junk" on the Royal ships. We have seen no nudity on Disney (we are only cruising Royal from now on - no correlation to the nudity, our kids are just too old for Disney cruisesnow and we live in Orlando with annual Disney passes anyway).

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So cool, following along... We are onboard April 23rd!! Any signs regarding the beverage packages sitting around? Have a GREAT time!!

Here is a list of drink packages:

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I'm looking forward to your review as we may be on FOS exactly a year from now. I'm curious about the number of kids on board due to spring break and what that means for pools, wait times, etc.

There are apparently over 4,200 on board. I'll let you know about pools, number of children, wait times, etc

as the cruise goes on.

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Can you post information on what the young teens have going on? 11-14? I would like to convince my daughter she should go there and hang out!

I posted the Teen Compass for the week in an earlier post. We have my 14-year-old daughter and her best friend with us. It is only 3pm and they are already riding Flow Rider. I'll ask them how they like it and let you know (if we see them again before the cruise is over).

They said there are over 4,200 onboard for this Spring Break cruise. Lots of kids and teens. My wife is a teacher and has already seen 2 former students in the first 2 hours onboard.

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... and the Adventure Ocean and Teen Compasses

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Here is the compass for day one.

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Are you at Terminal 29?

Yes. Terminal 29.

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We are on the ship already at 11:10 AM. Everything went really smoothly so far. Ready for a great vacation.

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We got our Sea Pass cards and have been herded upstairs to the platinum waiting area. It is 11 AM.

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