Bon voyage, wish we could …

Our cruise friends Brenda and JoAnn hosted a big bash at their place recently because, well, the bunch is getting ready for another trip. Of course they welcomed even those of us who can’t make it this time around to the festivities. That included my dear wife Karen and I. We appreciated their sense of…

We wind up our Freedom of the Seas journey with a photo potpourri

I hope you’ve enjoyed cruising along with my dear wife Karen and I from Port Canaveral and back. I the last two weeks, I’ve attempted to bring you the best of Freedom of the Seas, inside and out, including our stops at Coco Cay and St. Thomas and St. Maarten/St. Martin. We watched with wide…

Not all the ice on Freedom of the Seas is in the drinks

The Freedom of the Seas has an ice rink. It’s only, oh, a third of the size of a professional or collegiate ice hockey rink. Only, I say. On a ship in the middle of the ocean. And Royal Caribbean hires a figure skating staff for a show that’s Ice Follies-quality. My dear wife Karen…

A great cruise on the Freedom of the Seas for my dear wife Karen and I

There were plenty of reasons to smile during our seven-night cruise on the Freedom of the Seas. My dear wife Karen had her great moments. Food made her happy. Drink made her happy. Being with the gang in the Arcadia Theater made her happy. I had my fine moments. After drinks at the high point…

At dinner time on Freedom of the Seas, mostly I ate

Our scheduled dinner time on the Freedom of the Seas was 5:30 p.m. We got there on time. We ate our table. Mostly, we enjoyed our appetizers, entrees and desserts. Yes, sometimes plural on the same night. Every night, we had the choice of eating either a buffet at the Windjammer Cafe or extra-charge meal…

A mix of the high and tight in St. Thomas

For our excursion in St. Thomas, my dear wife Karen and I decided upon a cable ride up the mountain that would land us on the highest spot on the island. It sounded in the brochure on the The Freedom of the Seas as if it would offer an exciting vista. Our friend Joe was…

Royal Caribbean can’t quite drop you off at Cocoa Cay, the island it owns

There are more than one cruise vacations on the Royal Caribbean International lineup in which Cocoa Cay is a port of call. Except I wouldn’t exactly call this tiny island off the Florida coast a port. The waters are too shallow to dock Freedom of the Seas. Any ship on the cruise line that owns…

Dance, dance, dance on Freedom of the Seas

I’ve been known to break out into the happy dance. You’d think I’d be a natural on Freedom of the Seas, where dancing is a big part of their regularly scheduled programming. My dear wife Karen found that out again, and again, and again. And as it turned out, I’m not so much a mover…

A theater big enough for all sorts of shows fits Freedom of the Seas

The Arcadia Theater is a busy room on Freedom of the Seas. Our happy group went there after dinner every night. Royal Caribbean International made sure to put a fitting exclamation point of a showroom on this big ship of theirs. To me, it looked like the nicely decorated joint holds around 1,000 people in…

A balcony room brings the really great outdoors to my dear wife Karen and I on Freedom of the Seas

If we were going to take the big ship Freedom of the Seas to St. Thomas and St. Martin, my dear wife Karen said, we were going to go for it big time. She told our cruise buddy leaders JoAnn and Brenda to book us a balcony room when they were putting the gang together…