Freedom of the Seas Review
Not the best itinerary, but still a wonderful cruise
Rating by category
Additional details
My wife and I set out on our 7-night Eastern Caribbean cruise for our (belated) tenth wedding anniversary. We've sailed with Royal Caribbean before, and on the Freedom before, but this was our first venture into the Eastern itinerary.
We drove down to Port Canaveral the day before from our home in South Carolina, traveling with one of my wife's coworkers and his wife, pulling into our hotel (the Country Inn & Suites near the port) just before dinner. Checkin went easily enough, and the next morning we boarded the hotel's shuttle to the port to begin our cruise in earnest.
The whole cruise checkin and embarkation process is quick and easy enough. We arrived at the port around noon, and while the lines were much longer than on our last cruise (when the shuttle brought us before eleven), everything went smoothly and didn't take more than fifteen minutes or so despite both lines stretching well out the doors of the terminal. We booked a junior suite, though, so being in the suite/Diamond line cerainly had a lot to do with that. But everyone we saw was very friendly despite being in the middle of what must be an incredibly busy and stressful turnaround day for both port workers and cruise line employees.
Cabin Review
What a wonderful room. Nearly everything about it was just perfect. The location was the best we've ever had - deck 10, port side, just fore of the forward stairs. It was immediately below the Solarium, but not below an area with lounge chairs so we never had to worry about the noise of chairs being dragged around in the wee hours like I've heard some other deck 10 rooms suffer from. Even on the night when the Absolut twenty party was being held in the Solarium, I actually had to go upstairs to be sure it hadn't been cancelled. We heard or felt nothing, noise-wise.It's a junior suite, so it's roomy, but because its overall length was shorter than a standard JS, it was made wider to compensate, which made every bit of difference in the world. We had almost six feet of space between the foot of the bed and the desk/vanity, and as a result it felt roomier than our pre-cruise hotel room. This also made the balcony wider, though I don't think the depth was any different, resulting in (I think) a larger-than-standard JS balcony. At one point we had six people on our balcony, plus two chairs, two lounges, and a small table, and still had room to spare. I'm simply not accustomed to "cruise ship cabin" and "roomy" being mentioned in the same paragraph, but this one is.Something else I'm not accustomed to is storage, storage, storage. This was our first JS, and we simply were not prepared for how much space we had to put our things. The walk-in closet was enormous, and alone would have been more than sufficient. But we had that plus all the standard storage that comes with any cabin, and we half-jokingly wondered if we could subsidize our cruise cost by renting out unused closet space. We had enough room for twice as much luggage as we brought, perhaps even three times.The bed, though, may have been harder than the floor on which it sat. That was something of a letdown. I didn't love the pillows either, but I knew that and should have brought my own. One of these days I'll learn.If you're in the market for a JS, put this one on your short list. If you can procure an egg carton and bring some better pillows, you won't want to leave your room. Thanks to room service, you really don't need to.