Myself, DH and sons 20 & 22 on cruise as a graduation gift.  Sailed Eastern Caribbean last year on the Mariner and wanted to visit the Western Caribbean this year.  We like leaving from Port Canaveral.  It's a bit of a hassle with shuttling over, but FL Tours makes it so easy.  We flew in a day early and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Cocoa Beach.  Very nice, clean hotel.  Embarkation was a breeze.  We had a balcony stateroom.  We were dealing with cigarette smoke & ashes.  It's kind of disheartening to pay extra for a balcony and have to inhale smoke.  We got up early every morning and ordered room service breakfast.  Apparently, the smokers weren't early risers!  My husband smoked his cigar in the Cigar Bar and was not impressed.  He felt they offered inferior lighters and clippers.

The Freedom was a bit too large for me.  Figured out that I was paying extra for a cruise with amenities that I didn't use.  Staff was courteous and very accommodating.  We had a situation with our stateroom safe.  We had to call maintenance 3 times.  The last time, they told us they would be there in 15 minutes and could we stay in our stateroom and wait.  An hour later, we had to call again.  Then the person showed up with a faulty safe door.  Another ½ hour wait.  You would think that RC would have at least given us one of their expensive drinks for free for the inconvenience.  There weren't any shows that appealed to us.  We watched the comedian on TV and didn't find him that funny so we were glad we didn't go to the shows.  The highlight of the cruise was our dining room waiter, Imade in the Galileo dining room.  He was very entertaining and professional. 

Labadee:  A work in progress.  They are building the pier and the garbage from the workers is floating in the water and washing up on the beach by where the zip line ends.  They need to do a beach sweep before cruisers start coming to the island.  At one point I found a dead, bloated puppy washed up on the beach near where some kids were playing.  It smelled nasty.  Also, if you cross over to the bigger beach, make sure you have water shoes when you go into the water.  The coral is sharp and plentiful.  We would have liked to have gotten a raft, but they were way down at the other end and we would have had to carry them.  Our sons' parasailing excursion had to get cancelled because the boat broke down.  The island is beautiful and it is going to be a truly amazing port when they have completed everything. Read more