Freedom of the Seas Review: Why She’s Still One of Our Favorite Ships
By Rod & Melody. We’ve sailed Freedom three times, and we keep coming back.
Our Sailings: June 1, 2018, July 12, 2021 and October 24, 2022
Freedom of the Seas
We’ll say it right at the top: Freedom of the Seas is one of our favorite ships in the whole Royal Caribbean fleet. After three sailings, walking up the gangway feels like coming home. She’s older than the mega-ships and a lot smaller, and that’s the appeal. She’s big enough for a surf simulator, twin waterslides and a working ice rink. She’s small enough that you can learn her in an afternoon and never feel lost in a crowd of six thousand strangers.
This is our full walk-through of the ship as she sails today, from what’s included to what’s worth paying for, plus cabins and where she goes. We’ve also made a stack of Freedom videos over the years, from cabin tours and the Royal Up gamble to a week of tracking every drink. We’ll point you to the ones that go deeper as we get to them. You can watch them all here:
What Freedom is now
Freedom of the Seas debuted in 2006 as the first of Royal Caribbean’s Freedom Class, and for a couple of years she held the title of largest cruise ship in the world. She’s also the ship that brought the FlowRider surf simulator to cruising. Every Royal fan takes it for granted now, and it started right here. So even though newer classes have eclipsed her on size, she carries a bit of fleet history with her.
The version you sail today is the Amplified Freedom. In early 2020 she went through a $116 million refit that reshaped the whole top of the ship. That’s where the Perfect Storm waterslides (Typhoon and Cyclone) came from, along with the Splashaway Bay kids’ aqua park and a redesigned pool deck with casitas and daybeds. The adults-only Solarium got a refresh, and the two-story Lime and Coconut bar was added. Every stateroom was renovated at the same time. If you’ve read older reviews and the deck plans didn’t match what you found, that refit is why.
Down the middle of the ship runs the Royal Promenade, a four-deck-tall indoor street lined with shops, cafes and bars. It’s the heart of Freedom, and you’ll keep ending up there between activities. The Promenade-view interior cabins look straight down onto it through a bay window.
✈ PRO TIP: Learn the layout fast.
Decks 4 and 5 hold most of the indoor action: the Promenade, theater, casino and dining. Deck 11 is the pool and Windjammer level, and decks 12 and 13 are the slides and sports. Once those zones click, you’ll stop checking the map by day two.
Up on deck: the thrills
This is where Freedom earns her keep with anyone who doesn’t want to sit still. The FlowRider surf simulator runs most sea days for both boogie-boarding and stand-up. The Perfect Storm slides, Typhoon and Cyclone, race side by side. There’s also a rock-climbing wall at the back of the ship, a sports court for basketball and pickleball, mini-golf and a laser-tag arena.
Indoors, Studio B is the ice rink, and the ice show there is one of the better free productions in the fleet. Book it even if you’ve skipped ice shows elsewhere. For the grown-ups, the Solarium up front is the adults-only retreat with its own pool and bar, and it stays calm even on busy days. Splashaway Bay keeps the little ones busy, so the main pools stay a notch quieter.
✈ PRO TIP: Don’t skip the ice show or the FlowRider on a port-heavy sailing.
Both run mostly on sea days, and a 3- or 4-night itinerary has only one. Check the times the moment you board and plan around them, or you’ll miss them.
Dining: what’s free, what’s worth paying for
Freedom feeds you well without spending a dime extra, and then gives you a handful of specialty restaurants if you want to upgrade a night or two. Start with the included spots:
Main Dining Room: the three-deck centerpiece, with table service for dinner every night and breakfast on sea days. Choose set time or My Time dining.
Windjammer: the big buffet on deck 11, open all day, with a rotating Asian station that’s better than it needs to be.
El Loco Fresh: free Mexican by the pool. Build your own tacos and burritos. This is the sleeper hit for a casual lunch.
Sorrento’s: Promenade pizza, open late. It’s the move after a night out.
Café Promenade: snacks and coffee 24 hours a day in the middle of the Promenade.
On the specialty side, here’s where we’d spend the money:
Chops Grille: the fleet steakhouse and the classic special-occasion pick, with white-tablecloth service and prime cuts.
Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen: our easiest pick for a relaxed date night. Get the meat-and-cheese board and the lasagna.
Izumi Hibachi & Sushi: tableside teppanyaki dinner and a show, plus a full sushi menu. It sells out first, so book it before you sail.
Playmakers Sports Bar & Arcade: a la carte wings and that ridiculous five-scoop sundae, with every game on the screens.
We put the specialty restaurants to a real test in our “Unlimited Dining at every specialty restaurant” video. We used the package to eat at each one in a single sailing and worked out whether it pays off. And because we travel with teenagers, we let them rank every dining venue onboard in “Favorite dining of the teenagers” and their picks surprised us. They make a useful guide for anyone sailing with that age group. Both are in the playlist.
➡️ I Spent $$ on Unlimited Dining at Every Specialty Restaurant | Freedom of the Seas
➡️ We Let Teens Pick Every Meal on a Cruise Ship and THIS Happened
✈ PRO TIP: Don’t buy the Unlimited Dining Package without doing the math.
It only wins if you eat specialty most nights. On a short sailing where you’d try one or two restaurants, individual reservations are cheaper, and the Chops +1 combo is often a better deal than the full package.
The bar scene
For a ship her age, Freedom has a long bar list. We counted fifteen and made a whole video visiting each one, which you’ll find in the playlist as “15 bars.” The headliner is The Lime and Coconut, the two-story poolside bar from the refit, with DJs and a rooftop sun deck. Inside, the Schooner Bar is the nautical piano bar, with trivia by day and requests late into the night. Boleros brings the Latin music and dancing, and Vintages handles wine on the Promenade. Add the English-style pub, the retro R Bar and Olive or Twist up in the Viking Crown Lounge for late-night dancing with a view.
If you’re weighing a drink package, watch “We tracked all the drinks and here’s what we found” before you book. We logged every single thing we ordered across a sailing, from coffees to bottled water, and added up what we’d have paid a la carte against the package price. The break-even number is lower than most people think, but it isn’t automatic.
✈ PRO TIP: Don’t assume the Deluxe Beverage Package pays for itself.
Count your real daily drinks honestly. Specialty coffees and bottled water count too. If you have a few cocktails and a coffee a day, you usually clear the break-even. If you’re mostly by the pool with a couple of beers, you often don’t.
Cabins, and how to pick the right one
Freedom has roughly 1,800 staterooms across the usual ladder: interior rooms (including those Promenade-view cabins that overlook the boulevard), ocean-view, standard balconies, Junior Suites, and the full suites above that. For most people the real decision is balcony versus Junior Suite.
A Junior Suite gets you noticeably more room, a bigger balcony and a proper bathtub. It does not come with suite perks like the Suite Lounge or priority boarding. Those start at Grand Suite. So the question is whether you want more space or more perks. We laid the two side by side in our “Balcony vs. Jr Suite” video, and walked a full Junior Suite end to end in our “Cabin tour of 1356”. Both are worth a look if you’re torn.
➡️ We Stayed in both cabins - Here is the Real Difference | Freedom of the Seas
There’s also a way to chase an upgrade for less: Royal Up, Royal Caribbean’s bid-for-an-upgrade program. You name a price for a higher category and find out a few days before sailing whether it landed. We rolled the dice on camera in our “Royal Up Upgrade” video and broke down what we bid and how we’d bid differently next time. For the full strategy, read our Royal Up guide.
➡️ Royal Up Upgrade: We Bid THIS MUCH and Won the Jr Suite
➡️ We got the ROYAL UP! Embarkation & Jr Suite Cabin Tour | Freedom of the Seas Royal Caribbean
Want to compare cabin categories and pricing for your own dates before you commit? You can price out cabin categories on Expedia and line up the cost difference between a balcony and a Junior Suite for your sailing.
✈ PRO TIP: Don’t bid the maximum on Royal Up.
The slider shows a range, and winning bids often land near the low end. Start low. Remember that a winning bid is charged right away and can’t be refunded, so only offer what the upgrade is worth to you.
Where she sails
These days Freedom runs short Caribbean and Bahamas trips out of Miami, mostly 3- to 5-night sailings. That makes her a great first cruise or a quick reset that fits into a long weekend. Nearly every itinerary includes Perfect Day at CocoCay, Royal Caribbean’s private island in the Bahamas, with its big freshwater pool and waterpark. Other stops rotate through Nassau and, on the five-night runs, Cozumel.
✈ PRO TIP: Don’t treat CocoCay as a regular port day.
The free beaches and Oasis Lagoon pool are plenty for most people. If you want a cabana or the Thrill Waterpark, book it the day your Cruise Planner opens. The good spots sell out months ahead.
What we pack for a Freedom sailing
A few inexpensive things make a short Royal sailing run smoother, and we keep the same kit in our cruise bag every time. You’ll find them all on our Amazon Gear List:
Magnetic hooks: cabin walls are steel, so these hang lanyards and wet swimsuits off the wall.
Carabiners: they keep bags off the floor and organized.
Hanging toiletry bag: small bathrooms need help staying clutter free.
A cruise-approved power cube with USB: surge protectors get confiscated at the terminal, so bring a cruise-safe charging block.
Reef-safe sunscreen and water shoes: for the slides and the rocky parts of the island.
Some links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them, it costs you nothing extra and helps keep the guides coming. We only list gear we pack ourselves.
Before you sail: quick tips
A handful of things we’d tell a friend booking Freedom for the first time:
• Don’t wait until you’re onboard to book Izumi or Chops. The prime times sell out before sailing, so reserve in the app the week before.
• Don’t buy drink or dining packages onboard. Prices are almost always higher than in the Cruise Planner. Watch the Black Friday and Cyber Week sales.
• Don’t pack a surge protector or an iron. Both get pulled at security.
• Don’t overschedule a 3- or 4-night sailing. There’s one sea day, and the FlowRider and ice show both compete for it. Pick your two must-dos and let the rest go.
• Don’t overlook the Promenade-view interior if a balcony is over budget. It’s the cheapest room with a view, and the view is the liveliest part of the ship.
Freedom of the Seas keeps pulling us back because she gets the balance right. There’s enough to do that nobody’s bored, and she’s small enough that nothing feels like a slog. Start with the full video playlist to see her through our eyes, and use the guides above to plan a sailing of your own.
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