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Independence vs Freedom


DunwoodyDad

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We are booked on Freedom out of Miami two days after Christmas this year.  When I priced options and booked in June, i was looking at both Independence out of Port Canaveral and Freedom and they were very similar prices for basically the same 4 day cruise on very similar ships. I chose Freedom only because it was amplified more recently. But now, prices have significantly changed and it looks like I could save almost $1,000 in total for my family’s 3 cabins. So, question is .. assuming I can somehow switch, is Freedom a much better ship?  Or are we essentially talking about the same experience.

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It's probably going to be more of a hassle, and cost you more money, to switch ships than to just stay with freedom. To change ships, you would need to pay a ship change fee which I recall is ~$100pp. You could also cancel the cruise for a future cruise credit and rebook, but by the time you get the credit, the offer/discount would probably be gone. And, we all know how frustrating the FCC process is. 

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Suggestion:  Goggle each ship's deck plans and you will see the offerings each ship has.

Some examples of new features according to these deck plans:

Both ships have Playmakers.

On the pool deck, Independence has Fish and Ships while Freedom has Loco Fresh;  

Diamond has Lime and Coconut while Indy still has the regular bars near the pool   ...   ... ...  ... ... 

  Both are great Freedom class ships!

We will sail away on Indy this Sunday from Galveston. Can't wait!!!

 This will be our first cruise since we sailed on Oasis the week before shutdown in March of 2020. 

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First, to answer your question, the amplification is very nice. While the ships are similar, the experience will be somewhat different. Only you can know if it is different enough to justify a price difference. 🙂 Personally, if this was us, I would keep watching prices on the cruise booked. 

We recently cancelled Odyssey for December, because we weren’t taking a pricy cruise with all the restrictions. It took 2-1/2 weeks to receive our FCC. We watched pricing for Oasis class ships for the same week in December, and booked an OV balcony on Oasis for less than $1500, mid-ship. Lower than the other ships that week by $600!  We were able to use our FCCs for this cruise because we waited until we received them. 

If you cancel and don’t receive your FCCs before final payment, you MAY be able to get a short extension on final payment. BUT, if you can’t use them, you are looking at having to book another cruise for each person with those FCCs before next September, or lose them. 

Personally, I would watch for decreases on the ship you are on.  Who knows what might happen? 🙂
 

 

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3 hours ago, steverk said:

I'm on Indy right now. I haven't seen any mention of laser tag in the daily program, but I haven't asked either. 

The escape room is operating. The Sky Pad is down for maintenance.

The flow rider and perfect storm water slides are operating on a pretty normal schedule

Do you know how many they allow in the escape room at a time?

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All great input everyone.  I think overall I would prefer the differences of Freedom but not sure it’s worth the significant difference at this time.  I have checked air and can get a similar or cheaper fare going into Melbourne which is about 45 mins away and I think is easier to deal with over Orlando.  However, that’s still a 45 min drive vs 20 or so in Miami. 
 

The issue is do I want to deal with fees to change ships, or FCC, etc. And will whatever the change costs be reduce the savings with Indy to where it’s definitely not worth it.  As barbeyg suggested, I might watch for a little while and see what happens with Freedom.   

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If you end up switching to Independence, don't miss Grease.  Great production.

We were on Indy and loved it. We were supposed to go on Freedom this past August but had to cancel.  Was looking forward to the amplification.  Pool seemed to have similar changes to Navigator which was really nice.

Can understand you wanting to avoid the hassle of switching and I'm sure either will be an amazing cruise.

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