This was the second cruise for my sister and I.  First time we went with a group of 12 and followed the advice of experienced cruisers.  This time we decided we would try it on our own

Booking : I searched the internet and we got our 8 day cruise with balcony room for less than we paid for previous 7 day.  We were on the Valor before and it was nice but I wanted to see a newer ship so I picked the Freedom. It was clean, clean, clean, well maintained - not a speck of dust anywhere!  Everything was shining. 

Let me back up a minute.  We like to go a day early and stay overnight so there is no chance of missing the ship since we are coming from the North. We flew into Fort Lauderdale from NY and stayed overnight at the Hilton Garden.  They have a free shuttle from the airport so that was nice.  Driver was sort of grumpy and seemed reluctant to help with bags until we started pulling out money to tip him and discussing it.  As we were checking in we met several people who were going on the same cruise. Read more