jticarruthers

That email makes to much sense ....
Pics sent ;)
 
Quick recap, nobody on board is talking about it. Best guess is that they are putting in an expanded nextcruise area.
The space being worked on goes from the R bar to the service counter in promenade cafe. Missing all the seating as it was a nice spot to sit, snack and people watch.

Onboard freedom, rear balcony dividers are openable

Onbord fots now, not sure what is being built but a construction crew has half of the promenade cafe torn apart and appear to be building walls to split the space into something else. Update you if I learn more this week.
Happy thanksgiving all !

Ours has been ordering off the adult menu on the cruise since he was about that age. He has learned he likes escargot, tiger shrimp, lobster and several other things from cruise dinner menus :)
 
Its funny he looks forward to dressing up and being "served" at the dinner table since it is so different than the modern casual dining restaurant.

To diverge slightly further from the group, not a major fan of the Oasis class boats but have enjoyed the Voyager and Freedom (near sister) class boats and would highly recommend the Navigator as a start point.
 
I do agree with Scott's point that going straight to the best of the best can make it tough to like anything else, plus its cheaper (almost always), plus its a day longer, plus its plenty big enough not like its a small ship with nothing to do :)

They have added a 5 nt before the THanksgiving cruise (yay, someone else can be the guinea pig) but still show her as out of service from mid-October to mid-November ....

Dammit Matt, you made me go and look at some great sounds menus and now I have food cravings at 8 am , 6 months away from the cruise still !!
 
I have heard that NCL is more nickel and dime, but I figure the savings on the free alcohol package more than covers any nickel and diming from a "lets try it" standpoint.
 
I talked with my TA for a bit before booking and she said most of their clients that have liked Royal don't have a big problem with NCL except for those that don't care for the flexible dining options ... all I know is they have a free pub with some good sounding food to go with my free beers so worst case I can just live there or at Margaritaville for the cruise :)

Just to be contrary, I would say Chops was really, really good the first couple of times we did it, over the years it has dropped to being better than the MDR but not by enough to make it worth paying for IMO.
 
Its good but no longer great.

I just added a 6th to a family cabin, no reprice or anything like that just added a 6th at the "extra" person rate.
 
However, I also asked about removing a third from a different cabin at the same time and that was a whole different animal. That would have resulted in me only having 2 people in a triple cabin which would require that I move to a double cabin and trigger a reprice (in addition to losing the aft balcony) and would end up costing me more for the double than the reservation for the triple .... so I will have a phantom third person along for the cruise in order to keep the lower price ;)
 
I would definitely do it over the phone though so that you can determine what impact (if any) there will be before you pull the trigger.

Not naked is pretty much it I think ;)

Last time we were on Freedom our almost teenage boys very clearly noticed her ...

To expand on the tipping ...
 
It sounds like your gratuities are prepaid for your waiters and cabin attendant (that's your $72), you may tip them additionally if you wish but it is not required.
 
For any drinks/food that you buy on board you will automatically be charged a gratuity of 18%, there will also be a line on the receipt marked tip where you can fill in additional tips if you wish, again the 18% is automatic and cannot be changed, you may tip additional amounts if you wish. Some people indicate tipping an extra $1 gives them better repeat service, others that it has no impact, your choice as to whether you want to / need to.
 
As Doc indicated there is a mix of pay and free venues for food/snacks.
 
The Café Promenade and Sorrentos are free and are really more walk by and pick something up than sit down and eat a meal restaurants. They do not have table service and have a limited number of small tables.
 
The Windjammer buffet is also free but is only open for specific hours of the day (think 6-10 for breakfast, 11-3 for lunch, 6-11 for dinner ... times vary by ship/day but something along those lines). The Windjammer is self-serve but has a lot more tables as it is intended for sit down meals.
 
Main Dining Room is open for breakfast and sometimes lunch, in both cases it is free and it is open for a block of hours come when you want and you will be seated at the next available table. For Dinner you will either have an assigned table and time (Traditional Dining) or if you have My Time Dining then you can choose to show up when you wish or make reservations, your choice. MDR for dinner is free but there can be additional "upcharge" items available, clearly marked on the menu.
 
I believe Independence has the Jade section of the Windjammer that has a selection of free premade Sushi, but as a non-Sushi person, I wont swear to it.
 
Cupcake Cupboard is an additional charge and I think you have to make a reservation, on the couple of occasions that I have walked by it seemed to be full and turning away "walk ups".
 
Pretty sure Indy has a Johnny Rockets, additional minor fee for a better burger experience than the free ones at the Windjammer.
 
Chops Grille is a staple, decent steakhouse for an additional per person fee, I used to highly recommend it but the price has gone up, the experience has come down and I no longer recommend it unless you are in the mood for something more.
 
Cant recall whether Indy has Portofinos or the other Italian restaurant but it should have one or the other, never tried either one so I cant comment from personal experience but again an upcharge per person to eat there.
 
For Chops and whichever Italian restaurant reservations are available and are probably a good idea if you really want to visit one or the other.

Could be Doc, I have only ever seen anyone in there when it was crowded so I had assumed it was only the cupcake decorating classes and might have missed that you can just walk in and buy cupcakes .... hmmm .... quite possible :(

To expand on the tipping ...
 
It sounds like your gratuities are prepaid for your waiters and cabin attendant (that's your $72), you may tip them additionally if you wish but it is not required.
 
For any drinks/food that you buy on board you will automatically be charged a gratuity of 18%, there will also be a line on the receipt marked tip where you can fill in additional tips if you wish, again the 18% is automatic and cannot be changed, you may tip additional amounts if you wish. Some people indicate tipping an extra $1 gives them better repeat service, others that it has no impact, your choice as to whether you want to / need to.
 
As Doc indicated there is a mix of pay and free venues for food/snacks.
 
The Café Promenade and Sorrentos are free and are really more walk by and pick something up than sit down and eat a meal restaurants. They do not have table service and have a limited number of small tables.
 
The Windjammer buffet is also free but is only open for specific hours of the day (think 6-10 for breakfast, 11-3 for lunch, 6-11 for dinner ... times vary by ship/day but something along those lines). The Windjammer is self-serve but has a lot more tables as it is intended for sit down meals.
 
Main Dining Room is open for breakfast and sometimes lunch, in both cases it is free and it is open for a block of hours come when you want and you will be seated at the next available table. For Dinner you will either have an assigned table and time (Traditional Dining) or if you have My Time Dining then you can choose to show up when you wish or make reservations, your choice. MDR for dinner is free but there can be additional "upcharge" items available, clearly marked on the menu.
 
I believe Independence has the Jade section of the Windjammer that has a selection of free premade Sushi, but as a non-Sushi person, I wont swear to it.
 
Cupcake Cupboard is an additional charge and I think you have to make a reservation, on the couple of occasions that I have walked by it seemed to be full and turning away "walk ups".
 
Pretty sure Indy has a Johnny Rockets, additional minor fee for a better burger experience than the free ones at the Windjammer.
 
Chops Grille is a staple, decent steakhouse for an additional per person fee, I used to highly recommend it but the price has gone up, the experience has come down and I no longer recommend it unless you are in the mood for something more.
 
Cant recall whether Indy has Portofinos or the other Italian restaurant but it should have one or the other, never tried either one so I cant comment from personal experience but again an upcharge per person to eat there.
 
For Chops and whichever Italian restaurant reservations are available and are probably a good idea if you really want to visit one or the other.

With you guys, I have a pretty good feel for which ships are where around the US and what some of the key features are. I would say probably more Florida centric and slightly less RCI centric for me. Have cruises planned already for NCL Epic and Carnival Vista and I would say I am close to being able to find my way around the ships already just from having studied floorplans looking for the "right" cabin, etc.
 
My wife is always amazed when we board the ship and I already know where I am going to find food/drinks/our cabin/the pool/book excursions and she is still at the looking around wanting to take pictures stage. Unfortunately this has led to a couple of "disagreements" on boarding when I have a plan and she has a plan and they aren't the same plan. My plan now is too follow her plan, I have compromised ;)

All OTS for me, didn't really start cruising until about 2009 so they were all OTS branded by then.

I believe it was confirmed as Freedom only, for September only.

One of the rare decisions in life that is a choice between the good option or the also good option, congrats on picking a good option and enjoy it :)

Freedom is the name ship of the class and seems to get all the goodies first in addition to being fresh out of drydock.
 
Have sailed both and they are almost identical, but if you are sailing primarily to experience Freedom class I would go for the full Freedom experience :)

No joy for me as per usual. Looks like my parents can pick up a $100 OBC for next Thanksgiving though.

No joy for me as per usual. Looks like my parents can pick up a $100 OBC for next Thanksgiving though.

I would add to my earlier comments Mattt that we very much enjoyed both excursions, but would definitely recommend booking through RCI if you are headed to the mainland.
 
On both excursions we were cutting it close getting back, in particular on the second one we were boarding the ferry on the mainland at the same time as the all aboard was being sounded on the ship ... luckily we had about 300 passengers on our "dedicated" ferry so we weren't worried.

I had problems springbreak last year ... kept getting called down to Guest Services (voicemails left on the cabin phone the last few days of the cruise) and every time I went down I would stand in line for 20 minutes then explain to the person behind the desk that I had no idea why I was there, they had called me and told me to come to Guest Services. They would spend 20 minutes looking at the account and tell me everything was fine and send me on my way.
 
Finally disembarkation day the phone rang at 3am, I took it off the hook. Then the voicemail light lit up again .... Ended up going at Guest Services bright and early in a fairly foul mood to be told once again that there was nothing wrong.
 
Had breakfast, packed everything up, went to walk off the ship and security would not let me off because there was a problem and I had to go to Guest Services .... I lost it pretty good with the security guy and debated strongly whether to just blow by him or not, ultimately decided it wasn't worth it and headed off to Guest Services for the 5th or 6th time .... the person I had spoken with a couple of hours earlier was still there and recognized me so she called me out of line to ask what was going on.
 
I ran her through the story, 30 minutes later they finally were able to figure out that my credit card was declining the charge for some reason ... the best part was that it was my Royal Caribbean Visa card declining the charges because they were concerned that the cruise activity might be fraudulent.

The meals are not actually served in the kids club (at least on the times my son did it), instead they "rope off" a corner of the windjammer and take the kids there.
 
As noted not all meals are available, I thought it was lunch only on port days and you have to pick up the kids at lunch time on sea days but I cant swear to it so Doc may be right on that one.
 
As noted the meals are a very limited menu basically pizzas, I think they had hot dogs/burgers as an option, fries with everything.
 
Our son really enjoys the MDR so he rarely partakes but when younger he would usually do it once or twice per cruise especially if he had made friends with other kids that were doing it.

I think the perks are definitely real, but for me I would rather take 2-3 cruises for the same money that pay for the suite upgrades.
 
Of course that's my personal preference and I am sure there are many people who view the value the other way around for their circumstances.