Just off Freedom of the Seas 2-4-17 to 2-12-17

We just got off the Freedom of the Seas! Had an excellent cruise!

Some things of interest:

Driving with arrival at pier 29. I was pretty worried about how this would go. Here is how it went for us. When we arrived we first went to the ship to drop off our checked luggage. Then we followed the signs to park in the garage. Our garage ticket was stamped 10:23. Found a spot and got an elevator down easily. Only had a very short wait for our shuttle to the ship. Went thru security with no waiting and had to wait like 5 or 10 minutes to get to a desk for check in. (Our first RC cruise so no priority line). Once we checked in we proceeded directly to the ship! Could not believe we did not have to sit and wait.

Upon arrival on the ship we needed to make our first & second night specialty dinner reservations. We got sent to the wrong place 3 times before finally going up to deck 11 and walking into Chops. They were happy to make the reservations for us!

We got lunch at Windjammer and started using our drink packages! I had the deluxe package and DH had the refreshment package.

We were able to get into cabins at 1pm. We had an inside and I was happy with the location and the size wasn't as bad as I thought it might be as our last cruises have been in Aqua class balcony on Celebrity and a Haven spa suite on NCL.

The first day was at sea and the solarium was packed. I was WAY to late to get a lounger but we were able to get a table and relax.

Second day was Labadee. We got one of the new bungalows on Columbus Cove and absolutely LOVED IT!! It was just the two of us and we really enjoyed the comfortable space. My DH has a couple pics on his phone that I will post later!

Third day was San Juan with an afternoon arrival. We did a old and new San Juan tour that was nice. We had a great tour guide.

4 th day was St Marteen and we stayed on the ship and had an Amazing uncrowded day at the Solarium. The pool water temperature was perfect and I HATE cold pools!!

Day 5 was St Kitts. We were supposed to go to Discovery Beach Bar and had arranged prior to departure for A private transfer that the owner of the bar had arranged for us. I had too much wine at the Chefs Table the night before and there was no way I could go lay in the sun or drink so we messaged the owner of the bar on FB and he replied within minutes. I also emailed the contact he gave me for the transfer and she also replied and thanked me for not being a no show.

Day 6 and 7 were sea days to get back to Florida. I was up early and in what appeared to be the last pool chair at 08:10 for day 6. Shortly after this a pool attendant started clearing chairs he had marked with times! I was so happy to see this and took a picture of his name tag and gave him a good job at guest relations and will also mention him on our post cruise survey. I posted this in a thread while on the ship also. Day 7 we slept in and never made it outside the entire day!!

Disembarkation also went well. We had number 3 and they called us about 7:45. When we got luggage and thru customs there were shuttles lined up to take us to the garage. No issues getting back to the garage that was not by our ship.

More in a bit!

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Glad you enjoyed the Freedom. Great ship, great crew!

Food:

We ate at Chops the first night. It was good but not out of this world. I thought my steak was better on NCL at Cagney's Steakhouse. My Caesar salad was really good.

We ate at Sabor the second night. We absolutely loved it!! We also had lunch one day too! We had guacamole with chips, queso fundito ([emoji171][emoji22]❤️️[emoji177]), calamari for starters. I had the three cheese quesadilla for my main meal both times.

Monday and Tuesday we ate dinner at Windjammer as we did not feel like changing for dinner. It was good. I had a salad!

Wednesday we ate at the Chef's Table and it was a meal to remember! I plan to do a separate post about it with pictures. The wine [emoji485] manager gave hubby a discount because he does not drink any alcohol at all. So ask if you are in a similar situation. His name is Ben and the bartender Lovely in Vintages called him over to discuss whether he could do it for less without wine.

Thursday we ate dinner at Johnny Rockets. It was really good!!

Friday we hit Windjammer again. I was too full from eating a late lunch at Sabor! This was the second formal night. Hubby had NY strip steak and lobster cooked to order. I made a separate post about this, here is a pic of his plate.

Saturday was our final night and we ate at Giovanni's. My filet was better than the steak in Chops! Great meal.

We never made it to the dining room for dinner. We did have two lunches in the dining room and I really Loved the salad bar there. The second time we ordered from the menu and both enjoyed our food. We ate several breakfasts at the dining room and I did the bar that had granola, yogurt and fruit.

Over all we were very pleased with our food on our cruise!

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I had the deluxe drink package. It included water, soda with a cup to use on the Freestyle machine, coffee drinks at Cafe Promenade, and alcoholic beverages up to 12 dollars. I had some concern about many drinks or wine not being included in the package after a recent price increase. I asked at bars for the drinks or wine to be within the package and other than the wine lists at Chops and Giovanni's I was able to get what I wanted even if nothing was on the menu. For instance the bar menu (posted elsewhere before we left) that is used in a lot of places has no sparkling wine that fits in the package (they are both $14) but they had a sparkling wine that was included every where I asked (mostly plaza bar by Windjammer). I took pictures of several wine lists and will post them at home (we are driving home now) with wifi when I get a chance.

I also brought all our cruise compasses home but someone has also posted they have them so they will likely get them up faster.

Our cruise did offer valet luggage and I got a copy of that handout if any one needs it.

They also offered the 10 drink card on Thursday night. This was on an insert of our cruise compass.

I loved our bed, hubby did not!! They had a foam topper on them when we arrived. We had them separated as the space to get up to the top was very tight and I am a BIG blanket hog so having them separate worked well for us.

Hubby has a C-Pap. No problem having a long extension cord but it only has one plug so we could not have plugged anything else into the cord, not sure if that was why they let us bring it. The cord was in a pocket of the C-pap and we carried it

On board with us. We did also have a three plug splitting thing that also was not a problem. That was packed in checked luggage. It did not have a surge protection.

We bought 4 magnet clips that we hung all the various paperwork left by the steward. They worked really well to help with clutter. We ordered some magnet hooks but they never came from Amazon and they refunded our money. Thought of them only a few days before we left so no time to order more!!

That's all I can think of for now!!

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Glad you enjoyed the Freedom. Great ship, great crew!

Have to agree 1 million percent!! We loved the ship and crew so much we plan to sail them again for our next cruise!!

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Awesome!!! We are on the "Twin" Cruise of this one in March. March 4th - 12th. So excited... 20 days to go.

Do you know what any of the entertainment was? Curious to know what the current lineup is.

Will wait patiently for the cruise compass.

-Sean

... Do you know what any of the entertainment was? Curious to know what the current lineup is. ...

Headliners will be different for your cruise. You can request your entertainment info from web_reservations@rccl.com.

Great review, Thanks

Awesome!!! We are on the "Twin" Cruise of this one in March. March 4th - 12th. So excited... 20 days to go.

 

 

 

Do you know what any of the entertainment was? Curious to know what the current lineup is.

 

 

 

Will wait patiently for the cruise compass.

 

 

 

-Sean

Sorry, we are not big on seeing the shows so we did not pay much attention. I was surprised that the big show that I had read was done did appear in our cruise compass. I can't remember the name but someone recently posted they had the last showing of it. Still on the way home and the compasses are packed. I have to work tonight so I will be going to sleep when we get home. Not sure how soon I can answer your question with more details!!

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Great review! Thanks so much Dawn.

Less than a month to go for our ride on Freedom.. in this review just helps us get more excited!

:D

Cheers,

Brandon

My DH and I are on this itinerary next month. Thank you for your review!

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Just completed back to back (1/29-2/12) on Freedom OTS and couldn't have been happier. Crew members were so helpful it made us think these were among 2 of our best RCL cruises!

Glad to report "old menus" have now been returned and prime rib and duck are once again available. On the whole food in the MDR was very good to almost excellent. Even the Windjammer food has improved greatly since our prior sailings on Freedom in 11/16.

Always nice to run into staff members and other passengers that you've met on prior RCL cruises.

Food:

We ate at Sabor the second night. We absolutely loved it!! We also had lunch one day too! We had guacamole with chips, queso fundito ([emoji171][emoji22]❤️️[emoji177]), calamari for starters. I had the three cheese quesadilla for my main meal both times.

Was there an uncharge for the table side guacamole? If so, how much was the guacamole with chips?

Was there an uncharge for the table side guacamole? If so, how much was the guacamole with chips?

On Freedom of the Seas there is one charge for all the food at Sabor. The guacamole unfortunately was not made Table side and I also never saw them make any margaritas table side either.

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We will be on this same cruise 3/4/17-3/12/17. So excited.

Thank you for the review....

Headliners will be different for your cruise. You can request your entertainment info from web_reservations@rccl.com.

Thanks for the link. Just emailed them about our June cruise.

Thanks for the link. Just emailed them about our June cruise.

Might be too early for them to have info for June. I usually try around 3 weeks before the cruise.

Just completed back to back (1/29-2/12) on Freedom OTS and couldn't have been happier. Crew members were so helpful it made us think these were among 2 of our best RCL cruises!

Glad to report "old menus" have now been returned and prime rib and duck are once again available. On the whole food in the MDR was very good to almost excellent. Even the Windjammer food has improved greatly since our prior sailings on Freedom in 11/16.

Always nice to run into staff members and other passengers that you've met on prior RCL cruises.

So glad to read this about the food. RCL has gotten a bad reputation recently for the decline in food quality so maybe they realized that people were unhappy.

Thanks for doing this review. I'm doing the 14 night TA in April. Glad to see that everything was so good.

Thanks for the report.

Thanks for the review.

dizneydawn,

I know you said you'd get to a separate report on the Chef's Table but I want to ask one specific question. Where did they hold it? Your's seems to be the most recent review while past reviews say it was held in the Windjammer, Chops or Giovanni's. I've gotten 34 people from my Roll Call who want to do CT but I assumed we would need to do 3 separate nights. I think it would take away from the experience if it is in the WJ with all of us together. I'm anxious to hear about your experience.

Joan

Thank you for your thoughts. We are boarding this Saturday! :D

Glad to hear you think the food has improved and that some of the old favorites are back. That has been quite the complaint in the last few reviews I have read. :eek: We are doing the BOGO the first two nights and really hope I'm not missing out on MDR prime rib! Oh well, we won't starve. Looking forward to Sabor now as well.

They also offered the 10 drink card on Thursday night.

Do you have the details about the 10 drink card? I have seen it mentioned a few times on this forum but no details as far as how much, what it type of drink it includes, etc.

Thank you!

Mary