I knew this new ship was going to cause "FREEDOM FRENZY" :-)

I am a CLIA Certified MCC. (Master Cruise Counselor) While on a Royal Caribbean Seminar at Sea, each person on our winning Team WON a stateroom on the Freedom of the Seas as our Reward! WOW! AND we could take our spouse or whoever else we wanted! I was thrilled to be able to take my honey! We are Diamond Members with Royal Caribbean and are booked on the Sept 24th sailing so we were REALLY excited to check out 'OUR SHIP'!

We live 20 minutes out of Boston so we drove our car in. RCCL had complementary Event Parking for us. From the parking lot they shuttled us over to the Black Falcon Pier. (3 minutes?) I LOVE cruising out of Boston as they always have dozens of people there to check people in! After showing our ID's we were given out SeaPass Cards which were inside a nice 3-D Pocket folder. The cards were marked Inaugural Celebration 2006. We were appointed an Aft Inside Stateroom on Deck 9. We were onboard early. They announced that the Staterooms were not ready but we were invited to explore the ship. So we immediately headed up to Deck 5 to see The Promenade. We walked across the lighted walkway that we had seen so many time on the RCCL website! To our right was the Guest RElations Desk, to our left the elegant Champagne Bar. Our first stop was up ahead on our left, the Cafe Promenade for a chance to get our bearings and grab a quick bite, but first I walked our to Guest Relations to get a copy of the 'Compass' to see what was going on for the Days Events. There were not many people on board yet so I walked around and got a few photos of the barber shop, A Clean Shave (there was already someone getting a cut!) and Ben N Jerry's. We walked the promenade taking photos of the pubs and headed up one deck(6) to check out the Schooner Bar, then the Crypt, the Gothic two level Dance Club. Continuing on Deck 6 we approached the Casino. IT IS HUGE! I was really surprised as I had not heard a word about it's size! A BIG SURPRISE! Lots of machines, pennies and up. Plenty of Tables, Roulette and one Craps. Read more