Having sailed on the innovative and spectacular Voyager class ships I was hoping to be dazzled by the size and innovations aboard Freedom.
However, if you've sailed a Voyager ship, pretty much everything about Freedom will be very, very familiar. Almost all the decorative details were identical and it was difficult to see where the extra size of Freedom was noticeable. Granted there are a few more shops on the Royal Promenade, the Flowrider and the brilliantly-executed H20 Zone, but otherwise it's hard to tell the ships apart either from the inside or the outside.
This was our first member cruise (I am a Platinum, my husband a Diamond) so we were also prepared to be given plenty of extra attention as a result. Apart from a few promo gifts left in the cabin, a couple of shore excursions and shipboard events in which we had no interest at all we came to the decision the member cruise is not that big of a deal. In addition, we'd heard enough of people braying about how many cruises they'd taken and which ships they'd been on during the first hour and a half in line for embarkation to last us the whole cruise. (There were also WAY too many people running around in matching t-shirts for our taste although that's not Royal Caribbean's fault).