I promised a report from the Freedom Of The Seas and here it is, five days into the cruise.
First of all, I’d rate this cruise an 8.5-9.0 overall. And I’ve been on nearly a dozen cruises with Holland-America, Norwegian and others although this is our first RCCL cruise.
This has been our most enjoyable cruise thus far but I’ll have to admit we “lucked out” a bit. And I’ll explain that later.
Cruise Negatives:
1. The ship has 4,100 pax this week. And there haven’t been a lot of lines or waiting but when everybody does try to do something at the same time, i.e., get off the ship, eat breakfast, etc., it can be a real zoo.
2. The high-speed wireless is neither high speed nor is it cheap. I didn’t really expect cheap but I was hoping it was faster than dial-up. Best price you can get is $.33/minute but the upside is you can log-on from your laptop anywhere on the ship.
3. They do nickle and dime you a lot on this ship with upcharges for nearly everything outside of the scheduled meals. Again, not surprising but it gets kind of old after a few days.
4. I can’t blame RCCL for this but it is incredibly hot and steamy down here. Not sure where I thought we were headed but I don’t remember it being this uncomfortable from past Caribbean cruises.
Maybe I’ve lived too long in humidity-free Southern CA.
Those are really the only negatives thus far and it’s not too long of a list.
Cruise Positives:
1. Every single RCCL person has been incredibly friendly and helpful. The first day we boarded the ship, our cabin attendant spent 20 minutes showing us all over the room and explaining how everything worked. And she‘s been delightful ever since, leaving little surprises in our room every night like chocolate-dipped fruit, cheese/fruit trays, towel “animals” she designs, etc. We’ve got a towel monkey hanging from our ceiling, a pair of towel swans on the back of our couch and a towel duck in one of our chairs. We’ve run into this from other cruise lines on rare occasion but this lady is determined to fill our room like a zoo.
Our dining room waiter is very, very friendly and efficient and everybody from the bus boys to the head waiter has bent over backwards for us.
2. The food has been better on this ship than on any other ship we’ve sailed. We’ve yet to move up the feeding chain to Seabourn, Crystal or SilverSeas but with the cruise lines we’ve sailed, the food at all the venues here has been superior. And we have some great table mates. We’re sharing a table for eight with couples from Finland, Ireland and England and we’ve all become instant friends.
3. We’ve had dinner at both of the specialty restaurants thus far and both were primo. Chops is the steakhouse and Portofino is their Italian upscale restaurant and both were as good as anything I’ve had landside. And I’ve had 30+ years of fine-dining experience worldwide.
4. We booked a mid-scale suite on the ship as we simply wanted more room to spread out. But we didn’t realize the bennies it came with. We are able to use the private concierge lounge 24/7 and when I say private, I mean it. We’ve been in there a couple times a day and we’ve yet to see more than 3 or 4 people in the lounge at any given time. After 5 PM, cocktails are served free in the lounge and they also serve an excellent variety of hot and cold hors d’oeuvres. Plus we’ve gotten to know the concierge, Francois, like family. He’s been very helpful and has answered every question we have had about the ship.
5. The ship is striking in it’s beauty and it dwarfs anything and everything around it. The shopping promenade is laid out like a boulevard and is reminiscent of an upscale shopping mall. The main dining room is three stories tall and is exquisitely decorated. And as the ship is only 6 months old, everything is crisp and new.
6. Probably the highlight of the cruise thus far was in invitation to dine at the Captain’s Table on the first formal night. AFAIK the captain only dines at our seating once a week and we were very happy to be included. We met the captain at a bar for cocktails prior to dinner and then moved to dinner as a group. Wine flowed freely at dinner and we were served by both head waiters who don’t normally serve meals since they run the dining rooms.
We had a group picture taken of our table from a balcony and the picture was framed and in our room after dinner. Plus we got an invitation to tour the bridge Saturday afternoon and this is a very tough invitation to get post 9/11.
All in all, we’ve been very, very pleased with this cruise and are already planning our next RCCL cruise.
When we get back I’ll post again on this ship if there is anything noteworthy that occurs over the next few days.