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Royal Caribbean International

MV Freedom of the Seas

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Reviewed by: Kathy (KansasK)
# previous cruises: 7
Date of Trip: April 6, 2008
Itinerary: Caribbean - Eastern

The Freedom of the Seas is a beautiful ship. This was a family cruise for my husband and I and our two adult children and their spouses.

RCI got us to the pier from our hotel about 11:30 a.m. The check-in procedure to get our Sea Pass card was very efficient and went quickly. Be sure to fill out your Sea Pass form on line and print it. We had to wait to actually board the ship, but once you are on board, you forget the wait.

Freedom was the largest cruise ship in the world when it was launched in 2006 and we did plenty of walking on board, which was not a problem for us. There are many bars and food is always available somewhere. The Royal Promenade is fun to explore and is the center gathering place on the ship.

The H2O Zone is for kids and is a fun and creative water park. It made me wish I was a kid again so I could go there. The Flowrider on the stern of the ship is extremely popular and is fun to watch, too. There are endless deck chairs around the pool deck and surrounding decks and there is a walking/jogging path for exercise. The hot tubs that hang off the sides of the ship in the Solarium were a new experience. The ice skating show was wonderful and the nightly entertainment was good. Everyone loved the cruise director, Richard Spacey, who is an entertainer in his own right. The crew on the ship was polite and helpful. The dining room is beautiful and we all enjoyed the food. There are specialty restaurants for those who enjoy them.

If you enjoy a large, modern ship and don't mind walking, you will enjoy a cruise on this ship. We all had a wonderful cruise.

There are many public areas and you will find one you like. The library is very quiet and comfortable. The Royal Promenade offers the Book Nook, which is a good place to sit and watch people pass. There is an adjoining bar and pastries are available. There are several other places along the Royal Promenade to have a drink, taste wine or snack. The Royal Promenade is a good gathering area on the ship. We liked the Olive Or Twist Bar in the Viking Crown. On other RCI ships, this was the Viking Crown Lounge. It offers big windows and views of the ocean and ship. There is music in the evening. In the daytime on a sea day, it was usually a quiet place to cool off in the afternoon, have a drink and enjoy the view. We also liked the Schooner Bar on deck 4.

There is a walk around promenade on deck 4. However, on one end of the ship, you have to walk up steps to the next deck and then walk down again to get to the other side of the ship, or I walked through the ship to the other side. I don't know if I missed the door to open to complete the circle. This is a much shadier place to walk than deck 12 on the exercise path. The exercise path circles the deck. A mile is 3.5 laps and 1K is 3.8 laps, if I remember correctly. It is divided for walker and runners. Early in the day, the exercise path on deck 12 is easily available. Later as the sun lovers fill the pool deck and decks above it, the path gets blocked by deck chairs and both lanes are no longer available. The crowd on deck uses the remaining lane to move about. Use this path early in the day to exercise.

There are two pools and four hot tubs on the pool deck, and a pool and two hot tubs in the Solarium. The hot tubs hang off the sides of the ship in the Solarium area. The Solarium pool is for adults only, and this area is not covered, as on other ships. There is no cover that retracts. The pools are chlorinated pools, not salt water. The pools were not crowded, but the pool deck was. The casino is very large and it was smoky a lot of the time. I don't gamble much and don't like smoky areas, so I walked through the casino, but did not stop. It was a popular place, though.

We had traditional dining and had a round table for six in the Leonardo Dining Room on deck 3. The dining room has three levels and is a beautiful room. The second level dining room, and maybe the third level, had My Time dining. People who opt for this are not scheduled for dinner and are seated for dinner when they come. Our waitress was Kazi from S. Africa and our Assistant Waiter was Rogelio from the Philippines. Both did a very good job for us and we enjoyed them. The service was good. Kazi was concerned about this and asked us more than once to let her know if we thought the service could be better or was too slow. We all enjoyed the food. There were enough choices to find something each of us liked. Kazi also wanted to take back anything we did not like and bring us something else. Our one very picky eater was very happy with the choices he could make. We bought the five bottle wine and dine package and this worked out well at dinner.

The Windjammer is the buffet. On this large ship on sea days, the Windjammer could be crowded at breakfast and especially at lunch. They did a good job of keeping the serving lines supplied with food, but it could be hard to find a table. Also, the number of people moving at one time from island to island was a bit chaotic when crowded, especially with lots of children on board. The Staff did a good job of clearing off tables and providing extra drinks in the Windjammer. The dining room is open for lunch on sea days and we finally tried this late in the week and found it to be a good choice. We had lunch one day at Johnny Rockets and enjoyed the food and the music and dancing. They accidentally gave our food to someone else and then fell over backwards to make this up to us . free dessert and lots of attention and apologies. I could not complain. Get there when it opens to avoid a wait. We did not try the specialty restaurants.

We had an inside cabin overlooking the Royal Promenade on deck 8, on the port side and center forward on the ship. We had a large picture window that overlooked the promenade. There was a sofa with a low back under the window to sit on to watch what was happening on the promenade. We watched both parades from our room. The large window also made the inside room seem less closed in. The drapes blocked out the light at night. Noise was not a problem most of the time. We could hear if they announced over the speaker system in the promenade or played music. This happened during the parades and the Captain's cocktail party. Otherwise, it was quiet. There was another sofa with a small glass table. We had a desk/vanity area with a chair. The cabin was pretty with the teal and white bed covering and pillows. We had enough closet space and had plenty of hangars. There were four shelves in the closet under the safe and four drawers under the flat screen television. There were three shelves for storage above the TV and three shelves along the side of the vanity. We had two small end tables with one drawer and a cubby for storage. There was adequate storage for us to unpack what we brought.

The bathroom had a rounded shower door, which was nice. A full size person would fit in the shower, but I am too tall to bend over to pick up the soap. Our cabin attendant was Soma from the Philippines and he did a great job for us. I asked for extra towels the first day and got them the rest of the week, which I appreciated.

We went to the ice skating show and it is worth seeing. There were 10 -12 skaters and all were professionals. The Freedom.com show they performed was really great. Studio B is very high tech with the production of the show. We got tickets the second day in the Royal Promenade. There were four people giving out the tickets for all the shows and very little time was spent waiting in line. The show is free, but you need tickets. One person can get tickets for your entire party. We attended several shows . a comedian, a magician and the Royal Caribbean singers and dancers. The comedian was funny enough . nobody walked out, anyway. The magician was intriguing. His show was different in that it involved the RCI singers and dancers. The RCI singers and dancers show was Cinderella and set to modern music and dance. This was one of the best numbers I have ever seen them perform.

I did not use the health club, but it is awesome. It is huge and filled with state of the art equipment, looking out over the ocean. The boxing ring is there. They have an area with hardwood floors for their aerobics, etc., classes. I mentioned before that the Solarium is for adults only and with the H2O Zone for kids, there were fewer children in the main pools and hot tubs. The Flowrunner is a huge draw on deck 13. Children have to be 52. tall to use a boogie board and 52. tall kids to gray haired adult kids enjoy the Flowrider. Women and girls in bikinis or strapless swimsuits should wear a t-shirt over their bathing suit. The water comes at you at 30 miles an hour and readjusts clothing. There are boogie board times and surfing times. You have to sign a release and can wear a band on your wrist all the time and sign it once, or go back daily for a wrist band and sign the waiver again. They divide the Flowrider in half with a short mesh fence and feed people from both sides. There are stands in the sun and stands that are covered around the Flowrider and people come by to watch someone they know, or just come by to watch. At the beginning of the week everyone crashes and is washed up to the top by the water to a shallow pool. Later, people last longer and start doing tricks. Four of the six of us tried it.

My husband took a lesson to learn to surf the Flowrider, but did not exactly master it. He needed more practice time.

There is a miniature golf course on deck 13. Lots of families used the miniature golf course. It was not hard and was not overly creative in design, but we played and had fun. The climbing wall is on deck 13 and was also popular. My husband waited in line for a while the last day of the cruise and finally got to climb the wall and ring the bell. They run several climbers at one time. Kids of all ages do this, too. I did not use child care or babysitting, but I know that there were children's programs available to enroll your kids in.

We stopped at San Juan and enjoyed the ship's arrival as it approached the El Morro Fort at the start of the harbor. We had toured El Morro before, and took a cab to see the other fort, San Cristobal. We found out that we could have easily walked when we reached the upper level of the fort and saw the ship just down the hill. We did walk back to the ship and took a detour to walk around Old San Juan. We saw the large library and the capital building that looks like the White House, the statue of Christopher Columbus and stumbled on a Hard Rock Cafi and stopped to see it and buy t-shirts. I liked the walk through Old San Juan. Our daughter and son-in-law took the walking tour ship's excursion, but were disappointed because the churches they had hoped to see were closed by the time they arrived. Our son and his wife had a tour book and did a walking tour on their own. They ran into the ship's tour several times. They had a better tour than my daughter did. Buy a tour book at home if you want to do a walking tour.

The next port was St. Thomas and my husband and I took a snorkeling excursion on the Sea Blaster, a 71 foot boat. It was not what we expected and the ride out was really rough. We had to wear a snorkeling mask to protect our eyes from the salt water and put anything that would get wet in plastic bags. The boat would hit waves and they would wash back over the people. We would see a sheet of water coming and it would smack into us.

This hurt and the water was cold. Not really fun at all or maybe it was just us. Maybe in the summer it would be better. The captain was a fun guy who wanted everyone to have a good time. Everything was absolutely soaked when we stopped, not that this mattered since we were dressed for it. The snorkeling was good and the ride back was slower. They had a pitcher of rum punch and served rum punch steadily on the way back, which was good. Our daughter and husband went to Megan's Bay and really enjoyed their time there. Our son and his wife did Blackbeard's Tour and also liked it. They also shopped and took the gondola up to the top of the mountain. They walked from the ship to the gondola. In St. Marten, we again snorkeled, and we all went took the Tiki Hut Snorkeling Excursion. This was a floating raft with a grass covered roof area with food and drinks and where our bags were stored.

There were tables and chairs out on the raft part and it was a pleasant, relaxing excursion. Inexpensive rum punch and food were available to buy. You need cash. The snorkeling was just OK; we just did not see what they said we would. You see what you see when you snorkel, and since we don't get to snorkel in Kansas, we still enjoyed it.

We had always cruised in the summer and there were always lots of kids, which worked out fine. This time, I thought going in April would be different, but they told us there were 4,200 passengers on board and 1,000 were children. We found out that this was spring break week in a good part of the United States. Where we live, spring break was in March. So this cruise was typical for us in that there were lots of kids. Luckily, I like kids and have never had a problem with children being on the cruise I am on.

With so many kids, there were a lot of younger people on board who were their parents, and younger people like our children and spouses with no children. There were middle aged people like my husband and I, and elderly people, too, but fewer elderly people that usual. There were, of course, people that we would invite to dinner. This review was probably too long. We had a great time on this ship!