Our newest podcast episode is out to help give you a quick "audio escape" to a Royal Caribbean cruise!

Episode 163 is available for downloading featuring a LIVE review from onboard Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas.

Our latest group cruise has just wrapped up and we recorded this week's episode onboard Freedom of the Seas, sharing our stories and tips for anyone going on Freedom of the Seas.

Here’s the podcast page for Episode 163. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast via RSS, Stitcher or on iTunes!

Take a listen and as always, let us know what you think! Please rate and review the podcast on iTunes and leave your comments below!

Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas is nearing her arrival to the South Florida area later this year, and Royal Caribbean has posted billboards around Miami to advertise the world's largest cruise ship.

Royal Caribbean Blog reader Victor Sacal shared these photos from around Miami, and we wanted to give our readers a "taste" of the excitement this new ship is bringing.

Royal Caribbean is stacking an extra instant savings offer for a few days only that is combinable with the current promotion that offers up to 30% off your cruise.

The Fall Flash Savings will save up to $100 off the cost of the cruise. Cruise must be booked 9/14/16-9/18/16. Offer applies to all sailings on or after October 15, 2016 through March 31, 2017. Offer excludes China departures

• Cruises 5-nights or less
  • Interior / Oceanview Staterooms: $25
  • Balcony / Deluxe Staterooms: $50
• Cruises 6 nights or greater
  • Interior / Oceanview Staterooms: $50
  • Balcony / Deluxe Staterooms: $100

Additionally, for eligible Caribbean and Bahamas holiday sailings, offer includes a per stateroom savings based on stateroom category. For eligible holiday sailings 5 nights or less departing December 22-31, 2016 and 2017, savings are $50 per stateroom for interior and oceanview and $100 Savings per stateroom for balcony and suite categories., For eligible holiday sailings 6-nights or longer, departing December 15-31, 2016 or 2017, savings are $75 per stateroom for interior and oceanview and $200 per stateroom for balcony and suites. 

Additionally for new bookings made September 1-17, 2016, offer provides for free cruise fare of third and higher guests who are 12 years or younger as of cruise departure date, booked in the same stateroom as the first two Offer qualifying guests in a triple or quad occupancy stateroom on a 5 nights or longer Caribbean, Bahamas, Bermuda, Dubai, and Europe sailing that departs October 2, 2016-May 15, 2017. Kids Sail Free Offer excludes sailings departing between 11/17/16-11/24/16, 12/15/16-1/05/17, 2/16/17-2/23/17, 3/10/17-3/20/17, 4/06/17-4/16/17, Harmony of the Seas, Star class and Sky class suites on Quantum class and Oasis class.

Instant Savings Offer is combinable with adjoining Save Now –Sail Later Savings, Kids Sail Free, Holiday Offer, and NextCruise offers. Instant Savings and Save Now – Sail Later Savings are not combinable with Canada Resident Sale or restricted rates (for example, seniors, Residents, and Military). Instant Savings is not combinable with any other offer or promotion, including, but not limited to, Crown & Anchor Discounts, Standard Group, Interline, Travel Agent, Travel Agent Friends and Family, Weekly Sales Events, Net Rates, Shareholder Benefits. Save Now –Sail Later Savings and Kids Sail Free are combinable with Crown and Anchor Discounts.

The largest entertainment producer in the world, Royal Caribbean International, operates a 132,500-square-foot facility that produces world-class entertainment for its fleet of ships around the world. The Royal Caribbean Production Studio, located on Florida International University's Biscayne Bay campus in Miami, FL, includes three-story studios, a 300-seat theater, a 20,000-square-foot costume-making facility, 10 rehearsal studios, audio rooms, a gym and residences for its singers, dancers and choreographers.

One crew member died and four other crew members were injured on Royal Caribbean's Harmony of the Seas earlier today.

During a lifeboat drill that was conducted in Marseilles, France, an accident occurred when a lifeboat, with five people on board, broke free from the vessel and fell. 

Royal Caribbean confirmed the injury totals via social media.

Sad news to share that a #HarmonyoftheSeas crew member has died of injuries suffered during a lifeboat drill conducted in Marseille, France.

— RCLcorp (@RCLcorp) September 13, 2016

Four other #HarmonyoftheSeas crewmembers received medical treatment. We're keeping our colleagues & their families in our thoughts & prayers

— RCLcorp (@RCLcorp) September 13, 2016

Local news in France are reporting the accident occurred this morning when the boat detached from the fifth deck while it had five people on board.

Harmony of the Seas is cruising the Mediterranean and departed Rome on September 8.

Royal Caribbean is adding additional time for guests to enjoy two of the premier attractions on Anthem of the Seas.

In an effort to enhance the overall guest experience, Royal Caribbean is adding support staff onboard to accommodate expanded hours of operation at Ripcord by iFly and North Star attractions.  This will allow more guests to experience these popular attractions than ever before.

The expanded hours for these attractions will be in place for sailings beginning November 27, 2016.

Royal Caribbean is also adding more convenient line-up of show times that complement the evening dining options. For guests in the early dinner seating at 6:00pm, their evening show will be at 8:30pm.  For guests in the late dinner seating (8:30pm), their show time will be at 10:30pm.

The additional hours are part of the changes Royal Caribbean is making to Anthem of the Seas that were announced this week, including a notable change to dinner.

Royal Caribbean will be discontinuing its Dynamic Dining program on Anthem of the Seas, beginning with sailings on November 27, 2016.

The reason for the change is feedback from guests indicated a preference for a dining program that combines traditional seating with the option for flexibility.  As a result, Royal Caribbean will offer on Anthem of the Seas My Time Dining program, with traditional and flexible options, as well as introduce new, upgraded dinner menus. The four main restaurants – Chic, Grande, Silk, and American Icon – will now become the main dining venues to support the My Time Dining program and will all feature the same upgraded dinner menu each evening. My Time Dining flexible venues will be located on Deck 4 in American Icon and Silk, while Chic and Grande will be designated as the early and late seating restaurants on Deck 3. The name and décor of each venue will remain unchanged.

All Anthem of the Seas sailings departing on-or-after November 27th, 2016, as well as sailings departing November 23rd, 2016 through April 14th, 2017 onboard Ovation of the Seas, will be impacted by this change.  In addition, beginning November 27th, 2016, Anthem of the Seas will offer either one or two formal evenings per cruise, dependent upon sailing length.

All active bookings on-or-after November 27th, 2016 on Anthem of the Seas will automatically convert to the new dining program, respecting all pre-selected times, party sizes and other reservation features.

Traditional Dining will occur in The Grand and Chic restaurants and choose between early (6:00pm) and late seating (8:30pm).  Traditional dining includes a fixed dining time, fixed venue, fixed table assignment and same table companions each evening.

Flexible Dining will occur in the Silk and American Icon Grill restaurants. Guests in Flexible Dining choose a preferred dining time and are seated on a first come, first served basis and include a variable dining time with fixed venue and flexible table assignments.

Families with small children can take advantage of My Family Time dining benefits while sailing onboard Anthem of the Seas. This is available as part of the traditional dining experience during the early seating time and can be reserved pre-cruise via Cruise Planner or once onboard. My Family Time dining allows children ages 3-to-11 to enjoy their meal within 40 minutes of seating before heading to the evening’s Adventure Ocean activities.

New, upgraded dinner menus will be introduced each evening in all four main dining restaurants. 

The decision to change how guests dine on Anthem of the Seas marks a tremendous reversal in fortunes for the Dynamic Dining program, which at one time was arguably heralded as the future of cruise ship dining. 

Back in March 2014, Royal Caribbean had previously announced its Quantum-class cruise ships would usher in a radically new dining program called Dynamic Dining, where there would be no main dining room and instead would offer a combination of complimentary and specialty restaurants for guests to choose from.  Then in August 2014, Royal Caribbean announced Dynamic Dining would spread to Oasis of the Seas and Allure of the Seas.

Guest feedback changed Royal Caribbean's plans, and Dynamic Dining was postponed indefinitely for the Oasis-class ships and a more traditional Dynamic Dining option was added.

The last day of any cruise is bittersweet and waking up today, we all felt a sense of tempered happiness knowing our 7-night cruise was nearly over. Still, we have a full day onboard to enjoy.

We all slept in after a few days straight of waking up early, and did not get up to the Windjammer until 10am.  It was quite refreshing never having much issue with crowds in the Windjammer on this cruise.

My oldest daughter went upstairs to Adventure Ocean for part of the morning session, while the rest of us strolled the Royal Promenade before taking time to record a live podcast episode with everyone in the group cruise.

It was fun sharing stories from our week together and I think it is safe to say we all had a lot of fun on this cruise together.

For lunch, we all had something different, with my wife and youngest eating in the Windjammer, my oldest daughter having take-out Johnny Rockets and I opted for a couple of sandwiches from Cafe Promenade.

The take-out Johnny Rockets was a new experience, and I walked into a very busy restaurant and placed a take-out order. Twenty minutes later, my food was ready to go in a bag.

In the afternoon, the weather improved and the sun came out and turned into quite a nice day.

I also noticed this one day drink package option.  And for those wondering, no drink card spotted on this sailing.

I also noticed in the casino that Royal Caribbean has its own brand of scratch-off lottery cards for $5 each.

To wrap up our cruise, I will share some final thoughts on the experience based on different aspects of the cruise.

Crew

The crew were outstanding.  Truly great all around and offered the kind of service Royal Caribbean is well-known for.  Many thanks to them for making us all feel like part of their family.

Specialty Dining

I managed to dine at 2.5 specialty restaurants (take-out Johnny Rockets counts as a half) and greatly enjoyed it all.  Sabor was my favorite of the lot, but Chops Grille is a solid experience all around.

The Izumi Express was a good option to have, although they seemed to run out of the popular rolls quite quickly. Do not wait if you want to enjoy some yourself.

Entertainment

My wife saw most of the shows onboard, but I thought the activities and shows were quite good. The Cruise Director (Cuddy) had a great personality and I enjoyed hearing and seeing him around the ship.

The top two shows on Freedom of the Seas remain Once Upon A Time and the Freedom-ice.com skating show.

Ports

We visited four ports and other than Falmouth enjoyed them greatly.  Falmouth suffered from bad weather (rain), so not much that be done about that.

While I love Cozumel, our private yacht in Grand Cayman made that day my favorite day of the cruise and we had a blast onboard!

Drink Package

The question I have been asked a lot is if buying the drink package was a good idea.  I feel I broke even financially in terms of drinking enough per day, although that number is skewed by the fact that having the drink package I would order more drinks than I might have had otherwise.

That being said, I really enjoyed not having a bar bill at the end of the cruise and I think the real value of any drink package is pre-paying your drinking tab ahead of time. I will strongly reconsider the drink packages for future cruises because of that reason.

Conclusion

Overall, we had a great time onboard and I really enjoyed this cruise.  Enjoying a Royal Caribbean cruise with friends from Royal Caribbean Blog was a lot of fun I cannot believe how quickly the week went by.

Freedom of the Seas offers so many great things to do that I really believe it is one of the best ships in the fleet and an equally great value.

Thank you to everyone that followed along with this live blog and I cannot wait for my next cruise already!

Today is our last port stop and it is in Cozumel, Mexico.

We were scheduled to dock at 10am, so we took it easy this morning and got ourselves going and to the Windjammer for breakfast prior to our arrival in Cozumel. 

We dropped both kids at Adventure Ocean and then my wife and I went to see Cozumel. 

Immediately, we took notice of the weather because it was very hot and humid, with little to no breeze.  Unlike any other port stop on this cruise, it was plain hot outside without much relief.

We took a taxi downtown and had breakfast at a bakery just a few blocks from the main street area. We each had a pastry for $1 total.

Next up, my wife went to get a massage and I opted to grab a bite to eat and beer to drink. 

Usually I do more exploring while my wife gets her massage, but it was so hot and humid, I could not even think of walking around.

Eventually I had to leave to meet up with my wife, and we tried to do some walking around but again, the heat was so tough on us that we decided to eat lunch and return to the ship.

We wanted to try a new spot for lunch but they were not open for lunch, so we ended up returning to our favorite restaurant in Cozumel.

After lunch, we took a cab back to the ship and bid farewell to Cozumel until next time.

Back in the wonderful embrace of Freedom of the Seas' air conditioning, we got the kids and decided to enjoy an afternoon ice cream break at Ben & Jerry's on the Royal Promenade.

We returned to our staterooms to relax and get ready for our evening.

Following a well-deserved nap, we got the kids dressed (it was PJ night) and up to Adventure Ocean just as our ship departed Cozumel.

The pre-dinner entertainment for this evening was in the Schooner Bar, trying out the take-out guacamole from Sabor.  The other day, we spotted that guacamole was available from the Schooner Bar, so I wanted to try it out. For "research."

All you have to do is go to the Sabor desk and order guacamole and/or margaritas. Believe it not, this was a single serving of guacamole and salsa and it was $10.

Our dinner plans for the evening were to try out Chops Grille.  I struggled to remember the last time I ate at Chops, so we made a reservation earlier the cruise.

Chops was packed, and deservedly so.   The food was terrific and I really enjoyed everything I ordered.  Another lovely meal at Chops!

It was 70's night tonight, but we were all tired from our Chops adventure (Chops Grille is an adventure), so we called it a night.

Tomorrow is our last day and it will be a sea day.

Stray Observations

• Best bet for a taxi in Cozumel when there is any kind of line is to walk next door to El Cid resort and pick one up there.  Done that twice now and no waiting.
• If you want to find great restaurants in Cozumel, walk at least 2 blocks away from the main street along the ocean. In my opinion, if you can see the ocean, you are too close to it.
• Debarkation was very quick, despite the late docking time. The crew really has debarkation down to a science and it makes things very efficient.
• Saw this on the elevator randomly today
  
• I noticed this deal on future cruise excursions. Other than this, I am not aware of any discounts on Royal Caribbean shore excursions
  

Drink Count

2 drinks and 2 coffees