After spending a week at sea on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas on my first ever cruise I can say without a doubt this certainly won't be the last. My husband and I and another couple, all in our 30's, had an amazing week full of many adventures, great food, professional service and lots of fun times.

Embarkation/Disembarkation We arrived to the port at about noon after a lengthy trip from Orlando via Coco Beach Shuttle. The shuttle service was great in price compared to others but we would probably chose a different company next time as they seemed a little disorganized both on the trip to and from the port that resulted in lengthy delays and overcrowded shuttle vans. Once we arrived to port, the lines were long but moved rather swiftly. Disembarkation also went very smooth with the luggage tag system, we had time for a leisurely breakfast before our number was called. Once in the terminal, we found our luggage pretty easily and sailed through customs without issue.

Food Our first meal on board ship was at the Windjammer. Despite the crowds, we were able to find a table for four rather quickly but ended up not eating a whole lot as all four of us were pretty disappointed with the food, with the exception of salads. We were worried this would be a preview to a weeks worth of disappointing food, but we were wrong. We just avoided the Windjammer for the rest of the cruise and were pleased with the overall food quality on board, with one other exception, which was at Chops, one of the specialty restaurants, where we were downright amazed. We booked Chops for the first night thinking the crowd would be less that night. My meal there, and my traveling companions agreed, was not only the best on the ship but among the best meals I've ever had. It was so worth the extra $25 surcharge to eat there, we ended up going back a second night. Not only was the food outstanding, but the service was impeccable. Most other meals, including breakfast, were in the main dining room. Since there is only a small window when the MDR is open for lunch and since we knew we didn't want to return to Windjammer, we made an effort to make it to the MDR each day during that window, although we did splurge on Johnny Rockets twice. The food in the MDR was certainly better than expected both at lunch and dinner. We were on a waiting list for My Time Dining for dinner which we were able to take advantage of after the second day. It worked out really well as some days we were ready to eat by 6pm, other days we didn't eat until 8:30. But regardless of when we arrived, we never had to wait more than five minutes and we had the same table and wait staff each night who provided us with good service. Read more