Clever Nomad

We recently went on a family cruise on the Freedom of the Seas, a Royal Caribbean ship based out of Port Canaveral. Our party consisted of me, Mr. Nomad, the two Wee Nomads (16 mos and 3) and my mother. My husband's parents also joined us, but they stayed in a separate cabin. We chose a Western Caribbean itinerary, which visited Labadee, Haiti (private beach), Falmouth, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel, Mexico. The only port I'd visited prior was Jamaica way back in 2000. We have focused our island traveling on the Eastern and Southern Caribbean. I was pleasantly surprised by two of our ports, underwhelmed by two others. But you'll just have to wait for that detail!

This will mostly be a picture based review, due to heavy work schedule and small boys that requires lots of attention. We originally booked a regular aft balcony and an inside for our group of five (our family of four plus my mom). Nine days before sailing Royal Caribbean called and asked if we'd like to upgrade to a Royal Family Suite. Yes please! It was Room 8714 on the back (aft) of the ship, and it was nice and big for five of us:

 Master bedroom with porthole. Looked out onto balcony. The door led to the hallway and living area.

 Master bath with tub. What gives with the skimpy shower curtains, RCI?

 Inside bedroom, on the left as you enter the suite hallway. There are two pullman "bunk" beds in the ceiling that can be pulled down for more people.

Living Room.

 Another shot of master.

The balcony!

 More.


The view looking up. Not very private but we never noticed all that many people, unless we were coming into or leaving port.

This was a free upgrade, so I really have no complaints. Had I paid for this suite, there are a handful of things I would have liked to see done differently:

1. There is a lack of drawers in this cabin. One less refrigerator (there were 3!) and one more dresser would have been nice.

2. The shower curtain was way narrow for the opening in the master. I mean, it's an extra five inches for plastic! Some people pay $10K for these cabins and to have water all over the floor is unacceptable when the solution is so simple.

Overall I liked the cabin and would book it again. I do think I prefer the side balcony to the aft (this is my second aft, the other was on the Celebrity Summit in 2011).

More pictures of ports to come later!