We chose Royal Carribean since we heard it was best for families. The Freedom of the Seas appealed to us due to its size and amenities. We had also read great reviews on it, and wanted to make sure our first cruise experience xperience was positive. We just returned from a 6 night Western Caribbean Holiday Cruise, and my family agrees it was a great experi nice. There were 5 of us, with 3 children ages 10-13-15. We chose 2 deluxe balcony cabins so we would be comfortable and not fight over the bathroom. We flew in two nights prior to the Christmas Eve departure, since our kids were out of school and we were anxious to start our vacation. We stayed in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale on the ocean...it was great! We took a $40 shuttle from hotel to the port and decided to arrive early in hopes of getting on ship early. Upon arrival at 10:30 am we were directed to the embarkation line and got right thru...no waiting! The service rep at the desk to check us in was friendly, and was training someone, so it took a bit longer. One snafu, which had me I never a panic, was that apparently I did not have my "official" birth certificate, (we opted to use birth certificates instead of getting passports). Even though mine had a seal on it, they said it wasn't an official copy and was more of a "family heirloom" copy. I was trying not to panic, picturing my family sailing away without me, but as my guy stepped away to get a supervisor to discuss it, the rep next to him assured me not to panic and that they would work it out. Sure enough,the supervisor ended up,approving it and we got on board! It was so amazing...a beautiful ship.

The buffet had just opened so we went there with our carry-on's for lunch, and the food was very good. We then walked around a bit while we waited for the stateroom hallways to be opened at 1pm. Our rooms were great...bigger than I expected. My daughter loved our stateroom attendant Susan, who made really cute towel animals. We enjoyed the pool for the afternoon, and in talking with others in the hot tub but, discovered that event though we received an email telling us formal night was the FIRST night and to pack our formal wear in our carry ones, that that was incorrect and the first formal night was actually on day two, Christmas Day, which was what we had hoped for. Not sure how or why that email went out with incorrect information, but it was a pain since our luggage didn't arrive until 15 minutes before our dinner. But we did have an amazing dinner in the dining room and looked forward to that every night. Our head server, Ralitsia from Bulgaria, was great, as was our assistant server Gerald. Food was excellent! We highly recommend Freedom of the Seas as the ship was beautiful. We enjoyed 4 of the evening shows in the Theater and they were top-notch! Especially the Illusionist Drew Thomas, The Alley Cats (an Acapella group), and the ice show. There was musical entertainment all over the ship, including Christmas Carolers, reggae bands, DJ's, etc. Since this was a holiday cruise they even had Santa arrive on the ship at 8:30 Christmas morning and he stayed for pictures with the kids for a few hours and handed out beach towels as a gift. My kids enjoyed the rock climbing wall and the arcade, as well as the ice rink. My hubby and I got the Royal Refreshment package and that was good for us, as we enjoyed several non-alcoholic drinks poolside, Starbucks coffees everyday from the Cafe Promenade, lattes after dinner in the dining room, and sodas throughout the day from the Coke Freestyle machines. Our kids had the soda package. Our biggest complaint was that there were not enough of the coke machines on the ship, and most of them were either not working, didn't have ice, or only had flavored water. Big disappointment there. For what they charge for the sodas, they should make more of an effort to have these machines working!

We booked 3 excursions thru Royal Caribbean, since it was our first time and we were not comfortable venturing off on our own. We had a bit of an issue with one guy at the Excursion desk who was not very helpful when I was trying to modify an excursion I had preBooked. He refused to put me on a wait list for the water park in Costa Maya saying that there was No Way spots would open up, even though another employee had offered to put me on it an hour earlier. Well, when I tried again later that night with another rep, guess what....there WERE spots that had opened up. Anyway, we did NOT enjoy Costa Maya and the Beach Break portion of our excursion was a joke. We felt very uncomfortable there and once I saw our surroundings I understood why they didn't post pictures of the beach break. It was like pulling up in the slums when our shuttle arrived. The back side of the hut was a bit better, but from the front it felt like the ghetto. We only stayed an hour and couldn't wait to get back to the ship. What a waste of three hundred dollars. Cozumel was nice and we enjoyed the dolphin swim we arranged, though there was a snafu with my son getting a bad reaction to some plant life in the water. Without going into too many details, we did report our dissatisfaction to the manager at the excursion desk on the ship and he did issue us a nice refund after we told him the whole story. We appreciated his effort to make things right. Grand Cayman was our last stop and it was much nicer than the Mexico locations, we just wish we had more time for our snorkeling excursion. It felt very rushed. Read more