FREEDOM OF THE SEAS
Freedom of the Seas Review: Why She’s Still One of Our Favorite Ships
By Rod & Melody — we’ve sailed Freedom more times than we can count, and we keep coming back.
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. We’ve sailed her enough times now that walking up the gangway feels like coming back somewhere we know by heart. She isn’t the newest ship at sea, and she stopped being the biggest a long time ago — but she sits in a sweet spot a lot of the mega-ships miss. She’s big enough for a surf simulator, twin waterslides, a working ice rink and a four-deck shopping promenade. 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 — what’s included, what’s worth paying for, how to think about cabins, and where she goes. We’ve also made a whole stack of Freedom videos over the years: cabin tours, the Royal Up bidding gamble, a week-long drink-tracking experiment, the teenagers’ dining verdict, and a lap of every bar onboard. 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 introduced the FlowRider surf simulator to cruising — something every Royal fan now takes for granted 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, a redesigned pool deck dotted with casitas and daybeds, a refreshed adults-only Solarium, and the two-story Lime and Coconut bar. 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 interior boulevard lined with shops, cafes, bars and the parade route. It’s the heart of Freedom, and it’s where you’ll keep ending up between activities. The Promenade-view interior cabins look straight down onto it through a bay window, which is part of the Freedom-class personality.
✈ PRO TIP: Learn the layout fast.
Decks 4 and 5 hold most of the indoor action (Promenade, theater, casino, dining), deck 11 is the pool and Windjammer level, and decks 12 and 13 are the slides and sports. Once those three zones click, you’ll stop checking the map by day two.
Up on deck — the thrills
This is where Freedom earns her keep with kids and adults who don’t want to sit still. The FlowRider surf simulator runs most sea days for both boogie-boarding and stand-up. The Perfect Storm duo — Typhoon and Cyclone — are the racing waterslides added in the refit, and there’s a rock-climbing wall at the back of the ship, a full sports court for basketball and pickleball, mini-golf, and the 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 — worth booking even if you skipped ice shows elsewhere. For the grown-ups, the Solarium up front is the adults-only retreat with its own pool, whirlpools and bar, and it stays calm even on busy days. Splashaway Bay handles the little ones 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 on a 3- or 4-night itinerary there’s only one. Check the times the moment you board and plan around them, or you’ll miss them entirely.
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 rooms if you want to upgrade a night or two. Start with the included spots:
Main Dining Room — the three-deck centerpiece, table service for dinner every night and breakfast on sea days. Set time or My Time dining.
Windjammer — the big buffet up on deck 11, open for breakfast, lunch and dinner, 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, burritos and a salsa bar. This is the casual lunch sleeper hit of the ship.
Sorrento’s — Promenade pizza, open late, the move after a night out.
Café Promenade — snacks, sandwiches 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 — white-tablecloth service, prime cuts and shareable sides.
Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen — our easiest recommendation for a relaxed date-night dinner: handmade pizza, the famous meat-and-cheese board and lasagna worth the calories.
Izumi Hibachi & Sushi — tableside teppanyaki dinner-and-a-show plus a full sushi menu. It sells out first — book it before you sail.
Playmakers Sports Bar & Arcade — a la carte wings, nachos and that ridiculous five-scoop sundae, with every game on the screens.
We put the specialty rooms to a real test in our “Unlimited Dining at every specialty restaurant” video — we used the package to hit each one in a single sailing and worked out whether it actually pays off (and which nights to use it). And because we travel with teenagers, we let them rank every dining venue onboard in “Favorite dining of the teenagers” — their picks surprised us, and they’re a useful tell 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’re eating specialty most nights. On a short sailing where you’d hit one or two restaurants, individual reservations are cheaper — and the Chops +1 combo is often the better deal than the full package.
The bar scene
For a ship her age, Freedom has a deep bar list — we counted fifteen of them and made a whole video walking the lot, 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, swing seats and a rooftop sun deck that turns into a moonlit lounge. Inside, the Schooner Bar is the nautical piano bar (trivia by day, 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, the Solarium and pool bars, 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 — coffees, sodas, cocktails, bottled water — and added up what we’d have paid a la carte versus the package price. The number that makes it worth it is lower than most people think, but it isn’t automatic.
➡️ We Tracked Every Drink on our Cruise and Here’s What we Found
➡️ We Visited Every Bar on Freedom of the Seas | Here’s What We Found
✈ 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’re a few-cocktails-and-a-coffee person, 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 — and they aren’t the same thing in the way the names suggest.
A Junior Suite gets you noticeably more room, a bigger balcony, a walk-in closet and a proper bathtub — but it does not come with suite-class perks like the Suite Lounge or priority everything, which start at Grand Suite and above. So the question is whether you want square footage or status. 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 worth a look if you’re torn before you book.
➡️ We Stayed in both cabins - Here is the Real Difference | Freedom of the Seas
➡️ Cabin Tour of 1356 | 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, what cleared, and how we’d bid differently next time.
➡️ 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; winning bids often land near the low end. Start low, and remember that a successful bid is charged immediately and is non-refundable — only offer what the upgrade is truly worth to you.
Where she sails
These days Freedom runs short Caribbean and Bahamas getaways out of Miami — mostly 3-, 4- and 5-night sailings, which makes her a great first cruise or a quick reset without burning a week of vacation. Nearly every itinerary includes Perfect Day at CocoCay, Royal Caribbean’s private island in the Bahamas, with the big freshwater pool, the waterpark and the beach club. 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, but if you want a cabana or the Thrill Waterpark, book it the day your cruise planner opens — the good spots sell out months ahead, not weeks.
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. These are the items we reach for again and again — you’ll find them all on our Amazon Gear List:
Magnetic hooks — cabin walls are steel, and these hang lanyards, hats and wet swimsuits off the wall to reclaim space.
Carabiners — to keep the bags off the floor and organized.
Hanging Toiletry Bag - small bathrooms need help staying clutter free.
A cruise-approved power cube with USB — no surge protectors (they’re confiscated at the terminal), so bring an outlet-free or cruise-safe charging block.
Reef-safe sunscreen and water shoes — for the slides, the sports court and the rocky bits 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 actually pack.
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 and the teppanyaki tables sell out before sailing. Reserve in the app the week before.
• Don’t buy drink or dining packages onboard — prices are almost always higher at the gangway 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. Bring a cruise-safe power block instead.
• Don’t overschedule a 3- or 4-night sailing — there’s one sea day, and the FlowRider, ice show and slides all compete for it. Pick your two must-dos and let the rest go.
• Don’t overlook the Promenade-view interior if balconies blow your 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: enough to do that nobody’s bored, 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.
