Freedom of the Seas Review
Family and Friends cruise with a party of 16
Rating by category
Additional details
My apologies in advance, this review is long and bounces around a bit....
This cruise was a school vacation cruise with four families. 8 adults and 8 children. Kids ranged from 8-15. All adults have cruised in the past, and 2 of the 8 children have cruised in the past. All adults have cruised on RCCL in the past, and my family took our two children on a Disney cruise in 2009 as well.
We all flew into Orlando at different times, some families extended their vacation prior and beyond the cruise. My family flew into Orlando the day before the cruise, and I highly recommend this. If you are flying in from any distance, there are too many things that can delay you and cause you to stress about not getting to the port in time. There are several options to get to Port Canaveral from the airport. We choose to rent a car. There are several car rental agencies in Port Canaveral that are close to the pier, and they offer very reasonably priced one way rentals. So you can rent a car, drive to Port Canaveral, turn the car in and catch a shuttle to the pier. On the last day, once you are off from the ship, you can catch a shuttle back to the car rental agency and rent again a one way rental from Port Canaveral back to the airport. They have this down to a science, and it went very smoothly for us and was by far the most economical way to get all four of us and our luggage to and from the cruise. The total cost for rentals, gas, and tolls was $124.00. I believe RT transportation from the ship was going to be $240, so we saved $116.00 and we prefer to have our own wheels. Getting from the airport to the cruise port was pretty much a straight shot, pretty easy. We stayed at the Country Inn and Suites the night before, which was right next to Hertz, so it made returning our car rental super easy. Then we rode the Hertz shuttle to the Port, again, super easy. The Country Inn and Suites is a bit tired, carpet on the stairs could use replacing, and overall it shows some wear and tear, but it was clean, comfortable and very convenient for us. And the price was right. Some friends of ours stayed just down the street at the Radisson, because they provided transportation to and from the airport for $35 pp roundtrip. They had a nice stay, and found the transportation to be reasonably priced and easy to use.
Cabin Review
Interior Stateroom
We were in cabin 7369, an interior cabin that had bunk beds. This cabin accomodated a family of four. It was a bit of a tight squeeze with all of us, but was fine. We put our luggage under the bed, and had enough closet and storage space for all of us.