Review of Freedom of the Seas - 3/17/13 (Western) - Of All Things "so nice"

[918baker]

Lol, you have NO IDEA :eek: how many people that you have probably just taught! :D Now, FINALLY, I can remember!

 

Taught me too! :D

[KLB57]

I'm reading everything I can about the Western Ports before our cruise in May. Thank you for sharing your trip with us.

[RocketMan275]

What a fantastic thread. You have my undivided attention. Wifey and I are on FOS in July. We will be celebrating our retirement and my birthday. It's our first cruise and I can't wait to read more.

[RCI Cruisers 004]

Great start, we are on the same cruise in 34 days, but who's counting ! 4 th time for Freedom, we love her !

[RCI Cruisers 004]

My dad is a Navy man and that's how he taught me to remember also :)

 

Also anxiously awaiting the rest of the review, we are on the Freedom Western itinerary in three weeks!

 

Off subject I know, but had to jump in.......Air Force man here, on jets, the green marker lights are on the right of the jet......green5, right5. Red marker lights on left!

Edited March 26, 2013 by RCI Cruisers 004

[Venom]

Just subscribed to the thread... I will be on FOS in the end of the year, looking forward to the ports of call review.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Jsim2011]

This review is making me smile too.

 

We also bought into DVC, love all things Disney and are sailing on Freedom in 4 weeks (Eastern not Western Caribbean but what the heck).

[StarSong2001]

Count me in as a subscriber and having gained knowledge about port/starboard (thanks!) Reminds me of righty-tighty, lefty-loosey. I think I'll use my screenname as a reminder, since we will be on the STARboard side ;)

 

I'm on this same cruise in a few weeks, so looking forward to your review.

[RoyalFan2011]

Looking forward to reading more.

[DisnyMik]

Can't wait to read the review! We are on FOS in May and can't wait!

 

We are also Disney-holics and loved seeing the pics too! I've been trying to get DH to get DVC for many years to no avail:( He gave me the go ahead about 2yrs ago until I realized I could have a desperately needed new kitchen or DVC....for the first time in my life I went practical and got the new kitchen!

We also love Kidani Village and the Savannah view! One of our favorite places to stay.

[fletch1027]

My dad is a Navy man and that's how he taught me to remember also :)

 

Also anxiously awaiting the rest of the review, we are on the Freedom Western itinerary in three weeks!

 

Our son is enlisting in the Navy in a couple of months so I'm glad I learned a way to keep those straight! :)

[fletch1027]

Props to Styx for a great song that sums up the day to come. After many weeks of planning and probably over-planning, the day was here. It was a beautiful morning on the savannah as we headed for Port Canaveral:

 

 

 

It was an interesting drive across the "Beachline" highway between Orlando and Port Canaveral. I never realized how many toll booths there are. Somewhere between three and four stops. We later speculated that this was good practice for the tips that would come later at our various stops. :-)

 

We got to Port Canaveral a little before 11:00, and this is where I need to put in a plug for Park N Cruise (http://www.parkcruise.com/). Based on recommendations from the CC boards, we saved around $60 on parking compared to the parking deck at the port. They run a great service there. We were at the port within 15 minutes of pulling into the parking lot.

 

For our cruise, getting to the port before 11:30, it was very crowded already:

 

 

 

There were decent sized lines at the "VIP" entrance, and the regular entrance had a line wrapping around the little building to the left and switch backing once in the building. There was a RCL person walking the line checking SetSail passes, and for some reason my 1 previous cruise Gold C&A membership got me bumped to the "left" line which was ahead of about 95% of the people in line. Lesson there is to make sure you activate your C&A as soon as possible if you haven't yet because you never know when it will com in handy!

 

We were on the Freedom by 12:15, woo hoo - it's official!!

 

 

 

Things kept on the normal ship schedule. The WJ buffet was up and running and we were allowed to our rooms right at 1:00. We had a Promenade View room on Deck 8 (8577). We took some time to wander the ship and I took a few photos:

 

Promenade from our floor looking down:

 

MDR from Deck 5. Deck 5 is the MTD portion area of the MDR (Deck 3 and 4 are Traditional)

 

 

 

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[fletch1027]

This section could also be called "something funny happened on the way to the bow". Our plan was to head to the bow with the other CC'ers from the roll call board, but even after the muster drill, the bow access from Deck 4 was closed off on both sides of the ship, so we settled for the view from Deck 12. Here are some photos we took from up there:

 

 

Mini-Golf course and rock wall from the Flowrider seating area:

 

 

 

Disney Magic behind us:

 

 

 

Carnival Sensation across the way:

 

 

 

Coast Guard ships on call to help any Carnival ships that need them (sorry, I couldn't resist) :-)

 

 

 

We're off about 4:45 and by the time we get back to our room our luggage is there waiting for us! We unpacked and wandered about until our 7:30 MTD reservations. The MDR menu for Day 1 was "Mojo".

 

After dinner that night, there was a Dreamworks parade on the Promenade. Below is a picture I got of Shrek & Fiona from our room looking down. I like them but Puss-N-Boots is my favorite. He was hard to get a good photo of. May have been a hairball issue...

 

 

 

 

Next day is a day @ sea as we chug towards Labadee.

 

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[PattyG12]

We also tried to get to the helipad for sail away ... I believe they opened it right after the crane was lowered but we had also established on deck 11 by then.

[lauraeb71]

We leave on FOS 3/31/13....we cannot wait, I am loving your review...:)

[Bribrittmom]

Great review so far. We're on the Freedom next May.Our first aft balcony out of 12 cruises on Royal.:D

[dthogue]

great review - can't wait for more - we sail on FOS on April 21st

 

Tammy

[DrD]

Off subject I know, but had to jump in.......Air Force man here, on jets, the green marker lights are on the right of the jet......green5, right5. Red marker lights on left!

 

Same on ships.

 

An interesting fact I learned, usually the vessel on the right has right of way when crossing.

 

So if you see a boat's red (port) light you yield right of way, if you see green (starboard) you have right of way, so it's like red stop green go.

 

That's how I learned it along time ago anyway.

[fletch1027]

On our previous cruise on Monarch a few years ago, we had an impromptu day @ sea because we had to skip Coco Cay. This, for me, was the cruise ship equivalent of going stir crazy. With my short attention span, I quickly run out of things to do on a boat of that size. It's very hard to believe that it was once the largest cruise ship in the world!

 

A day at sea on the Freedom however, was a totally different experience for me. We started off with breakfast in the MDR. Over the course of the week, we ate most meals (bfast and dinner) in the MDR. It is a more laid back atmosphere and with the smaller (normal) portion sizes, it was a good way to regulate the food intake during the week. It is still all-you-can-eat, but it takes a more conscious effort to order extras as opposed to wandering up to a Windjammer steam table. :-)

 

One issue I had with the MDR breakfasts was the lack of variation on the menu. What they had was good, but after the 3rd or 4th day, we ended up going up to the WJ and also tried Sorrento's for their breakfast pizza (more on those experiences later).

 

We headed to the Olive or Twist for the CC meet and greet. It was a lot of fun to put names to most of the faces on the roll call thread for the cruise!

 

Our next destination was up to the sun deck on Deck 12 (above the main pool). This was the weather report according to the Compass:

 

Mostly Sunny

High: 92

Humidity: 67%

Wind: NE @ 13 mph

UV Index: 11 (extreme)

 

This was a very deceptive day which ended up roasting people that were not careful. Yes, the high was over 90, but the wind was much more than 13 when taking the ship movement into account. Because of the extra wind, it felt AWESOME up there laying out. Because of that, people that were not prepared with sunscreen got SCORCHED, and we saw a lot of lobsters walking around very gingerly that evening. Nothing can ruin a vacation more than getting roasted on the first day, and battling that the rest of the trip. We laid out for no more than about 45-50 minutes and we both had a couple of small spots of sunburn where we missed the sunscreen. That's all it took, less than an hour and your goose could be cooked!

 

I thought it would be fun to show different days of what my perspective was for that day. Here is today's up on Deck 12 looking out over the Atlantic. I probably had just finished a Sprinkles cone (BTW, for this cruise the soft serve machine was only up and running on one side of the pool):

 

 

 

After a late lunch at the Windjammer, we prepped for the first of two shows we budgeted for today, Freedom-Ice.com, down at the ice rink on Deck 3.

 

TIP: For those who do not already know, this is the ice show and is the ONLY show on Freedom that you need to book ahead of time. Although you can "reserve" shows in the online planner, this is the only show that they scan SeaPass cards at. It is much easier to take care of this online before you leave. Do the planning before you are on vacation! :-) Also as a tip, at 10 minutes before the shows scheduled start they allow standby people to come in, so if you have a reservation, get there more than 10 minutes beforehand.

 

We had reserved the 3:00 show. Here is a pretty poor photo of the ice rink taken before the show started:

 

 

 

It was fun to get there a little early, because they scroll through the skaters on the LCD monitors with their backgrounds. We recognized one of them (Justin) who was our muster drill section leader. They did a good 50 minute show that was broken up into 7-8 sets where they changed costumes and music genres. They mention it at the end, but it is worth repeating - the ice rink is very small. I believe they said it is either 1/6 or 1/8 the size of a "traditional" rink that you would see for hockey or the Olympics. These guys are pretty skilled to be able to do a lot of the same jumps, lifts, and throws that you would see at a regular arena in that small confined rink and in a moving vessel on top of that! They even have a tiny scaled down Zamboni to clean the ice with!

 

Just about all of the shows (Ice show and Arcadia Theater) are budgeted for 50 minutes + a few minutes of Drew (cruise director) at the end, which is likely to give the folks with 8:00 traditional dining the chance to go to the 7:00 shows...

 

We did an early dinner at the MDR. The 2nd nights menu was "Saffron" and it was the first of two formal nights. I did not take pictures of the menus, but there are plenty of places where you can see the new menus based on the theme of the day (like Saffron).

 

That evening, we changed out of the formal stuff and went poolside to watch Skyfall (James Bond) from 8:00 until we went to our second show of the night, the 9:00 performance of Marquee in the Arcadia Theater on Deck 5. The Marquee show is billed as the greatest hits of Broadway. I assume it is there as the Freedom version of Broadway since there is no Hairspray or Chicago. There was several good numbers (the highlight for me was the Phantom songs they did), but also several that felt "dated" to me. The other numbers I can remember were selections from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, A Chorus Line, Cabaret, Sunset Blvd, and I think La Cage Aux Folles.

 

I had not been to a Broadway play until I was married, and since then my wife has gotten me to several. To give an idea of my taste, here are my top three:

 

1) Jersey Boys

2) Spamalot

3) All the rest of them I have seen tie for 3rd :-)

 

After that we called it a night, and went back to our rooms to find the first of many creatures in our room - this first one was a rabbit on the bed:

 

 

 

At this point before the week goes on and I talk more about the ports of call, I wanted to share some general observations that hopefully will be helpful to some:

 

- Beverage Plan (Coke) - We both got this and it was well worth the price. I am an avid Diet Coke drinker and I probably came out ahead. :-) Seriously, if I didn't do the beverage plan, the other option is water, tea (which I don't drink), or watered down OJ and lemonade.

 

- Freestyle Machines - The two we frequented the most were the pair next to Sorrento's. These two also seemed like the ones that were maintained the most with ice and flavors. There are 4 in the WJ, and by Friday morning two of the four were out of commission. I found out later in the week that there is also a Freestyle machine up in the arcade that I had not heard mentioned before on the CC boards! There is also a traditional fountain bank near the main pool.

 

- Bottled water - We bought a 24 pack of bottled water, taped a luggage tag to the top with clear tape and checked it with our luggage. It was delivered to our room with no problems.

 

- Sorrento's Pizza - In my opinion it is much better than the pizza in the WJ, and overall about on par with chain pizza at home. They usually have 4 types (cheese, pepperoni, 2 other rotating types). They also have 2-3 types of dessert cups (always 1 sugar free) which are pretty good. Sometimes if we had a late dinner planned we would come by around 5 for a slice.

 

- My Time Dining - I know there are widely varying opinions on CC regarding Traditional vs. MTD. We did MTD this trip and fell in love with it. For us, it's the only way to go. The best part is that even though we had reservations, we showed up as much as 45 minutes early (7:15 for an 8:00 reservation) and were seated with no wait. We were even able to keep our wonderful wait staff (Fidella and Bulelwa) every night! It was the best of both worlds for us.

 

- Television stations - I work for a big broadcasting company here in Atlanta, so I am very familiar with TBS, TNT, TCM, and TRU-TV. However, I was not familiar with what I saw on those channels. I think it is either "canned" programming that repeats through the week or it is the feed from Latin America. The only "live" channels I noticed were CNN, ESPN, and Fox News. Not that I layer around watching TV anyway… :-)

 

- The Olive or Twist Lounge is a great place to go for some peace and quiet as well as an awesome view of the ship and ocean. My wife was also able to get a "real" Cherry Coke (w/ grenadine) up there.

 

 

Next stop Labadee!!

 

 

 

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[goNDmay9]

cannot wait to hear the rest! My parents are going this weekend so I was doing a little research. I want to get them a giftcard or pay for an excursion - so I am super interested in what you all did.

 

PS: love looking at those pics. It was snowing here in ATL when i left for work!!! #jealous (And by snowing i mean small teeny tiny snow flurries or course)

Edited March 26, 2013 by goNDmay9

[DrD]

My parents are going this weekend so I was doing a little research

 

Me too.

 

just had to say it.

[fletch1027]

Weather Report:

Partly Cloudy

High: 92

Humidity: 76%

Wind: NE @ 14 mph

UV Index: 11 (extreme)

 

 

This was the only day of the four port days that we did not have any excursions planned, but between walking around, observing, and talking to folks during the cruise, I have some opinions of several of the offered excursions.

 

The morning was beautiful and I achieved my goal of being up on the bow / helipad for a sunrise @ sea. It was very peaceful with just me, another guy, and the worker that came out to raise the RCL flag. Some photos I took:

 

 

Playing with the "frames" on my digital camera:

 

 

 

A few minutes later, Haiti got closer & closer:

 

 

 

 

View from the MDR as we ate breakfast:

 

 

After breakfast, we got packed up with beach gear and headed down to Deck 1 to "bing-bong" our SeaPasses and head out on my first trip to Haiti (at least RCI's scrubbed, gated version of it) :-)

 

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

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[gopher_grad]

 

After dinner that night, there was a Dreamworks parade on the Promenade. Below is a picture I got of Shrek & Fiona from our room looking down. I like them but Puss-N-Boots is my favorite. He was hard to get a good photo of. May have been a hairball issue...

 

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What time did the parade actually start? We have MTD reservations for 8:45p but I also really want to see the parade

[Ginamarie]

Thanks so much for sharing! We are also cruising on the Freedom this year, with a week at Kidani beforehand :) I can't wait!

[fletch1027]

What time did the parade actually start? We have MTD reservations for 8:45p but I also really want to see the parade

 

You will make it. The parade started at 10:45. Our MTD dinners never took more than 80-90 mins.