Freedom of the Seas Review

Freedom of the Seas - Western Caribbean

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Freedom of the Seas
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Antropos
First Time Cruiser • Age 40s

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Sail Date: Sep 2007
Cabin: Interior Stateroom

BACKGROUND We are a married couple from The Netherlands, aged 31 (myself) and 29 (my wife). We cruised twice before; last time was a roundtrip from San Diego to the Mexican Riviera in november 2006 with Celebrity's Mercury. We had a great time and wanted to sail with Celebrity again, this time to the Caribbean. However, we were very late with booking and couldn't find a suitable itinerary for an affordable price. We then decided to take a look at what RCI has to offer in the region at this time of the year and quickly made the decision to book the largest cruiseship in the world as of today: Freedom of the Seas. So, this review will mainly be a comparison between 7-nights-on-FOS-in-the-Caribbean and 11-nights-on-Mercury-in-Mexico: a very large ship vs. a mid-size ship; RCI vs. Celebrity. Maybe it will help those who can't decide between the two cruise lines.

THE PACKAGE The cruise started in Miami on Sunday September 30th and lasted until October 7th. The itinerary was: day at sea, Labadee (Haiti), Ocho Rios (Jamaica), Georgetown (Grand Cayman), Cozumel (Mexico) and finally another day at sea before returning to Miami. To us such an itinerary - with a day at sea as the very first day and another sea day at the end - is perfect. Since we live in Europe and flying to the US can be quite expensive we liked to see some of Miami as well before we boarded the ship. Spending a couple of days sightseeing can be tiresome sometimes so a day to relax on deck is then more than welcome. The same can be said for the last day before disembarkation: after spending four days in different ports and doing a lot of activities we like to fill the last day with leisure before flying back home (which takes a whole day traveling). We booked an inside cabin on Deck 10. Up until now we have always booked inside cabins. We like to spend time in the ports and in the ship's public areas so we are hardly ever inside our cabin and when we are, we have our eyes closed... Initially we had also booked a pre-cruise hotel with RCI: two nights in the Radisson Downtown Miami, transfers to the port included. We did not book the flight with RCI simply because it's a lot cheaper to book that yourself. Big mistake... We booked with MartinAir since that is the only airline that offers direct flights from Amsterdam to Miami. Four weeks before our vacation began we received an email from MartinAir stating that the flight was cancelled. We would now fly on the Wednesday before embarkation instead of Friday. The good news was that we could spend two extra days in Miami; the bad news is that you cannot book four hotel nights with RCI; three is the maximum. So, we had to cancel the hotel which costed us 50 euros cancellation fee. It was only then that we stumbled across the here well-known website Priceline.com. And within two days we had booked the exact same Radisson for four nights costing us even less than the two nights that we booked earlier through RCI.

FLIGHT and PRE-CRUISE HOTEL We flew in on Wednesday September 26th. After a 9.5 hour flight we arrived around 6:00 pm at the airport and were in our hotel room in the Radisson around 7:30. A taxi ride costs you a little over 20 dollars. We asked for and got a room with view on the port of Miami; and that view is awesome. All hotel rooms have floor to ceiling windows that provide a wonderful view on the bay and the skyline of Miami. The bed was nice (King size). For the rest it was an ordinary hotel room, although a bit old and worn-out; the bathroom door wouldn't even close. The location of the hotel is perfect for those wanting to visit downtown miami and the bay area. It's located right next to Omni Station where the MetroMover stops: the free, automatic public transportation system that rides high above the ground at very regular intervals. When we woke in the night of Saturday to Sunday around 5:00 am because of thunder and rain, Freedom was already lying in port.

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Interior Stateroom

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