Royal Caribbean Blog contributor Michael Poole is on Freedom of the Seas this week reporting all about his cruise experience.
Today was our last day of the cruise and boy was I starting to get sad.
This morning was the first morning I didn’t wake up early, and slept in until 11am. That’s okay I still had a full day ahead of me, I met my brother for lunch in the Windjammer.
I’m not sure if you have noticed from all my post, but I skipped breakfast everyday. Once we entered the Windjammer they had a beautiful cake in the entrance, saying thank you for sailing. Royal Caribbean really goes that extra mile the entire cruise to wow you time and time again.
My plans for today were to relax in the pool and soak up all the sun I could. It was shortly after noon when I finally made it to the pool and there was no hope for getting a pool chair. They had a noon line dancing class poolside, I didn’t join in but it was fun to watch.
An hour or so after the dancing they had water volleyball. They had seven teams go up against the crew, including our cruise director Jamie Fentiman.
Jamie was the most active cruise director I’ve seen in all my cruises. Every single event he was involved in, where most these days let their activity manager take a few over. Not only did the crew beat all seven teams, they last all the teams at the end take on the crew and still lost.
Yes, there were almost 50 people in the pool and still couldn’t take out the crew.
Pre Dinner
Before dinner we had some wine in their beautiful wine bar, vintages. I must say the bar was pretty empty every night.
If you look at my picture this was taken at 8pm on the last night.
Nevertheless, the service was always great and each evening they have free taps in a few trays to sample.
Dinner
Tonight for dinner the two main meals were the lamb and turkey and dressing. I went with the lamb and it was so tender, just fell off the bone.
My waiter overheard me talking about how much I missed the fresh green beans Chops used to serve, so he brought me a plate of them! I was so impressed he went out of his way to surprise me, but then again it’s Royal Caribbean, it’s what they do.
As dinner was winding down they started their farewell singing and dancing. They invite the passengers up to dance around with them to close out the evening. We didn’t join tonight because we were all saying goodbye to a few friends we met.
Post Dinner
Tonight we met one last time at the R Bar to say goodbye to all group. I didn’t take any pictures, since I’ve included them in a few other post. We stayed until 1am and everyone headed to bed.
I dragged my 15 year old sister with me tonight because I wanted to spend more time with her. She was pretty bored hanging with the adults, but I let her use my Internet access, so that made her happy.
I had talked about the helipad all week and how I used to hangout up there when I was her age. We started walking to our cabins and I said, let’s go out there we still have time! I turned around and off we went.
It was a little after 1am and passed the curfew for teenagers without adults, but it was pretty busy up there. If you have ever been up there at night it’s completely dark, but I had my flash with me on my camera.
I took my usual shot to see how many people are in the center and I spotted three. They were not too happy I near blinded them, but it was for the blog.
If you ever want to visit the helipad, you go to deck 4 forward and step outside (where you were day one for muster drill) There are 2 sets of steps, but just keep going forward and you can’t miss it.
Disembarkation
There are two options to get off the ship, express departure or a number system.
The express option requires you to carry all luggage you have and walk off as soon as the ship is cleared by customs. The other option is where you put your luggage outside the cabin by midnight and you see it once you get off.
I always do the express option because I usually book an early flight or long drive home. One more perk is little to no line getting off or in customs.
I met my group at 7:15am and we walked off with no one else or any line, as the ship was just cleared.
Recap
Overall this was a great cruise with absolutely no real issues to report of, other than slow Internet. My cabin was beautiful, the ship looks great to be 9 years old, and we had clear sky and sun for seven straight days.
All these years I’ve heard everyone talk about how much they love Freedom of the Seas and now I know why.
I hope you enjoyed my blog post and see you again this Fall, ship is still TBD.
