Freedom of the Seas

DH and I had the opportunity to cruise on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas on a 7-day Western Caribbean itinerary. We were part of the OSSN (Outside Sales Support Network) Seminar at Sea program.
In this post I'll talk about the ship and our experiences. In subsequent posts, I'll talk about the ports we visited and activities.

The Freedom is a huge ship, carrying about 3600 people at max capacity. It's 1100 feet long and 158,000 tons. It was one of the largest cruise ships until Royal Caribbean introduced the Oasis of the Seas last year. It was launched in 2006, so it is a fairly new ship.  It has similar features to the Navigator of the Seas (earlier post), including the Rock Climbing Wall and ice skating rink, similar food offerings and on board activities. This ship has extra stabilizers because of its size, and the ride was extremely smooth. We did have extraordinarily calm seas this week, so that really helped.

Being a larger ship, Freedom has the Flowrider, a boogie-boarding/surfing wave pool, a large basketball/volleyball court, and 2 specialty restaurants. We tried Portofino, a $20 pp upcharge, but enjoyed a cozy table by the window, excellent service and a dinner similar to an expensive night out at home. The other specialty restaurant, Chops Grille, focuses on meats and is a $25 pp upcharge.


Shadows of people on deck for sail away from Port Canaveral.

We also enjoyed the ice show, called Freedom On Ice, and I thought this was a better show than the one on the Navigator.

We saw the "Headliner" show with the magician Drew Thomas. You may remember him from "You've Got Talent" . I thought it was more show than magic, but the illusions were interesting.

The funniest show is called "The Quest." It's held on the last night and attracts more of the 20s -40s crowd. They put a wooden floor over the ice rink and the theater is standing room only. The audience is divided into teams and each team has 2 representatives that have to complete each "quest" or challenge with help from their team in the shortest time possible. Near chaos reigns as the quests get more and more, shall we say, interesting. Only attend this show if you have a sense of humor, and you don't have to participate. Observers have fun, too!

We had an inside cabin for this trip (read: special price for the seminar group) but we were on Deck 10, the highest of the cabin decks. The Freedom has 15 decks, more than 20 stories high. The buffet is on Deck 11, but the dining rooms are on decks 3, 4 and 5, so we did a lot of walking. The elevators are all glass walled in the middle decks, but I always walk the stairs. The stair wells all have interesting art work, so that is a plus. Our cabin steward, Orlando, was excellent, and we really got used to twice daily cleaning service and the cute towel animals. The halls were always really quiet all the time.

The Royal Promenade has shops, bars, and eateries galore, even a Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream shop. Two different cafes serve free food all day, changing menus according to the time: muffins in the am, sandwiches in the afternoon, salads and tapas in the evening. Also pizza almost 24 hrs a day.  On the pool deck there is a self-serve soft ice cream machine open most of the day and into the night.

On the last sea day, I saw the kids all dressed up and having a circus themed activity. I don't think there were hundreds of kids on board, due to the time of year, but they seemed to be having a lot of fun.


With such a large ship, you would think there would be long lines and no free deck chairs, and people everywhere. We didn't find that to be the case. The adults only Solarium pool area was usually full, but many other chairs were always available on several decks. We also found a very quiet place on deck where we liked to go for the sail away from each port. It's on Deck 4, at the aft of the ship, either port or starboard side (on this ship the starboard side was the smoking side).

We had to try some of the specialty drinks, here are 2 frozen lemonades with lemon flavored vodka. The Schooner Bar is a quiet place and the spot to go for the trivia contests.



There were a lot of places we never went to: The Crypt disco for one. And we bypassed the art auction this time. I think there were 3 different auctions on this 7-day cruise. I made use of the fitness center and the spa, especially when it was too windy or hot to walk the outside track. This ship is so large that the track says 4.5 laps is one mile.

I was pleasantly surprised by the amenities and service on this ship. They were excellent.
Next post: The ports of call.