Freedom of the Seas Review

4.0 / 5.0
2,405 reviews

Loyal Celebrity cruisers try Freedom of the Seas

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Freedom of the Seas
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lysolqn
First Time Cruiser • Age 70s

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Sail Date: Aug 2008
Traveled with children

We're loyal Celebrity cruisers (32 X cruises under our belt, with 33 and 34 between now and year's end) who were looking for a quick end-of-summer getaway with our children and grandchildren. We had exactly one week during which all our schedules jived, thus no time for a cruise in Europe; and since we've all been on multiple Alaska cruises, this time we were left with only Caribbean cruises from which to choose. Since Celebrity has no ships in the Caribbean during the summer months, we had to look to another cruise line; and with Carnival and NCL never a consideration, we were left to choose from one of Royal Caribbean's ships, ultimately deciding on Freedom of the Seas. This was our fifth cruise on RCCL but our first time back on the line since a cruise on Explorer of the Seas some eight years ago. We are well aware that RCCL's product is quite different from X's and wanted to avoid making comparisons between the two - which, admittedly, was difficult to avoid. I've tried to be as objective as possible and want to remind anyone who bothers to read further, that this review is based solely on our own experiences and observations.

Even before boarding, the first thing one notices about Freedom is how huge and how pleasing to the eye this ship is. Once onboard (embarkation was a breeze and took all of fifteen minutes, including waiting on line for security picture), it's clear that unlike Celebrity ships which are more traditionally and more elegantly appointed, Freedom definitely excels in the "wow" factor. Whether it's the Royal Promenade, the H2O Zone, the three-story dining room, the Flow Rider, the ice rink or any place else for that matter, on Freedom of the Seas you're always surrounded by some kind of structural or entertainment eye candy that grabs your attention. A major plus is that the ship stops short of being an overbearing, glitzy assault on the senses and despite being a vast feast for the eyes, is tasteful in appearance. What Freedom lacks, besides the quiet, intimate places that can always be found on X ships, is the large fine art collection on X ships. There are some prints sporadically placed in the hallways but the artwork on Freedom is the ship itself, and it doesn't come close to that on any X ship.

The other thing that is immediately obvious on Freedom is that you're sailing with 4000+ other passengers. To RCCL's credit, we never felt particularly crowded, never had to wait on long lines and never had to wait for an elevator (including on the morning of disembarkation!). The only time we ever really took notice of the vast number of people on the ship was on the pool deck on sea days - and even then, it wasn't so much the number of people as it was the noise generated by the large number of people. Since Freedom is more than one-and-a-half times the size of X's M-class ships (our favorites), we were concerned that we would find it much too big for our liking and had visions of having to allow for "travel" time when moving about the ship. Again to RCCL's credit, the design is such that everything seemed to be comfortably within reach and even when walking from one end of the ship to the other, we never felt we were walking great distances to get where we were going. With very few exceptions, the ship was absolutely immaculate and showed no signs of any wear and tear that we could see.

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