First time cruise for my wife and I, and I'll start by saying we paid a lot for this cruise. The ship itself was pretty nice. There were 4 days where the ship was at sea, I was expecting activities or such to keep people engaged, but it was either laying in the sun on the overcrowded decks, or shopping. The entertainment was pretty lame if you don't like Lawrence Welk type stuff and Ice Capades. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I could have slept at night. There were kids running up and down the halls and yelling. Complaining about them didn't seem to make any difference as this continued throughout the cruise. It was arranged seating for dinner. The food itself was really great, but we had to sit with some rude, snobby retirees. We took 2 shore excursions that were both train wrecks. I paid $90 to take a picture taking trip at St. Martin. It turned out that the bus only stopped one time and you were expected to take your pictures from inside the moving bus. The other excursion we took was at San Juan (Bacardi distillery). You were given tickets for a couple free drinks but you had to wait in a long line to get them, by then the tour was starting so you had to drink them real fast. The excursions were not as presented, and way overpriced. At St. Martin we were docked next to a Carnival ship that seemed to be going on the same route we were taking. Hearing them talk about their cruise made me appreciate being on the Freedom. I would cruise again but do things a little differently next time. No shore excursions and try not to book over a holiday when there would be so many kids around. Ships crew were nice, and the specialty restaurants were really upscale. Even the buffet area called the Windjammer was clean, and the food was really good. The onboard gym was nice, but too small for the amount of people wanting to go. They had a 3 man band playing at poolside but the sound system was really poor. So was the speaker system where they made the daily announcements. You cant hear them inside your room, and if you're on deck you cant understand what they're saying. All in all, it was just OK. For what we paid, I was expecting much more.