Our group consisted of 10 family members, who had all sailed on Royal Caribbean previously (except the 14 month old). None of us had ever been on a freedom class ship before and were looking forward to trying it. We consisted of 2 seniors and 2 families of 4, which included 4 children ages 7, 5, 4, and 14 months.

We stayed with family and friends prior to boarding the ship so did not stay in a hotel in the FLL area. On departure day we arrived at the port at approximately 1:30 pm. There were no lines at the port security so we proceeded to our terminal (#25). We had used e docs, so we had to get baggage tags at the curb. It didn't take much longer than normally dropping off your bags but it was a pain to find a pen and make sure all the information was filled out properly. Next time I would request paper docs from the travel agent, just to get the tags. Getting through security in the terminal was only 5-10 minutes, then a short wait (less than 5 minutes) to check in. This is where we realized we had a problem....

The 10 of us were booked in 5 different rooms (it was much cheaper to book 2 to a room than to get a room for 4). Eight of us were in inside cabins all right next to each other. The other room was a D2 balcony (that they were able to get for only $100 each more than what we paid pp for our inside with their Diamond balcony discount!!). Well, to make a long story short, each cabin was assigned to a different table at dinner. I wasn't even in the same dining room as my husband! We asked the staff at checkin and they told us after boarding to head to the dining room to see if we could get it fixed. This was something that we had checked and double checked with the TA prior to sailing to make sure all our of reservations were linked and we all had the same seating. I had checked our reservations on the Royal Caribbean website and they had us all linked and at the same seating, but... you can't check table assignment online. Read more