Freedom of the Seas Review
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Background Information - We are a family of four with kids ages 13 and 9. I researched cruises on Cruise Critic as well as the Internet for a year before selecting the Freedom of the Seas cruise. I have been on one previous cruise (Carnival) back in the late 1980's. This was the first cruise for our entire family. We had first thought about a Disney cruise but found that one room for four nights with a balcony (a bit larger size for four of us) was more expensive than two (promenade) cabins on Royal Caribbean for seven nights. We decided to book our cruise through our local AAA agency. They were great. They helped us with passports, printed and binded our cruise ticket booklets, and laminated our luggage tags for us. We got a special through them as well -$50 credit per cabin, champagne and VIP boarding (more about that below). We decided on two connecting Promenade cabins which we loved.
Travel To Port of Embarkation - We decided to drive from where we live in Indiana to Port Canaveral. We stayed one night on the way down and then decided to stay at the Hampton Inn on Cocoa Beach on Saturday night before our cruise on Sunday. We took advantage of the park and cruise package. For a family of four, we had a great room with a view of the ocean, four shuttle passes and parking for $205. They offered free breakfast as well. We thought the hotel was very nice. We have been in the Cocoa Beach area a few times before so we were comfortable and went to previous restaurants we liked (e.g., Sunset Grill on the Waterway). We were told our shuttle would leave at 11:00 am on Sunday morning so we should be in the lobby by 10:30 or 10:45. Sunday morning we started working our way down to the lobby around 10:20 and found out that the shuttle had arrived early, and if we hurried, we could get on sooner. Just a note here, we had WAY TOO MUCH LUGGAGE - 11 bags for a family of four. As everyone mentions on here, you can pack less than you think! The hotel used TravelLynx and I think they had two shuttles and about three or four guys loading up the luggage (more on this later). We were on our way to the port around 10:30 am. We arrived at the port in about 15 minutes and the guys unloaded our luggage and then the porters at the port took care of ensuring our luggage was taken to the boat.
There was a bit of a line going into the building to get on the boat but it moved quickly. We showed our passports and our seapass tickets and moved on. Because we had a VIP boarding pass through AAA, we were able to walk right up to the desk to get our seapass cards/photos and answer the health questionnaires without waiting in line. We then walked to another area where they took our pictures again and then it was on to the boat. We got on the Freedom of the Seas about 11:30 am. We had our carry on bags with us and went to the Windjammer for lunch. I had the honey stung chicken mentioned on the boards (it was very good). We then walked around the ship to take some pictures. We were told that an announcement would be made when our rooms were ready (around 1:00 or 1:30) but we were on the pool deck and didn't hear anything - finally around 1:30 I asked one of the servers and he said that we could go to our cabins. I went ahead and checked to see if they were ready.
Cabin Review
Promenade Stateroom
Staterooms - We had Promenade cabins 7615 and 7617 which connected. They are not far from the elevators and stairs which where great. Our kids had a room with twin beds and we had our own room. We chose these because we thought the window overlooking the Promenade would be better than an interior room with no view and they were less expensive than a balcony room. The rooms were just what I had expected (after viewing photos online). I did bring the extra power outlets but didn't need them because we had two rooms so we had plenty. I did bring the over the door organizer to put on the bathroom door which was handy. I brought extra hangers but found I didn't need them (especially with two rooms). We packed a six pack of bottled water in our luggage and it arrived as well. The rooms were very nice. As I was taking pictures of the rooms, our luggage arrived. We had all our luggage by about 2:15 pm! That was a nice surprise. By the way, the beds are extremely comfortable (we had trouble getting out of bed each morning). We heard NO NOISE from other rooms or the hallway our entire trip. There are two parades on the Promenade (one is late at around 11:15 pm and one at 5:15 pm and a Rock Party around 10:30 pm but they only last around 45 minutes and they would not stop me from booking one of these rooms. The music is somewhat muffled and really, we were SO exhausted on the night of the first parade, we fell asleep anyway. But in my comments to Royal Caribbean I did say that the first parade should be at 9:00 pm. It's geared towards kids and I bet most of them were asleep by the time it started! We really enjoyed our rooms and they were kept immaculate by our stateroom attendant, Emily.