Is Freedom or Oasis For You?

My friend Katherine and her family just got back from their annual Spring Break cruise.  This year they went on Oasis of the Seas out of Ft. Lauderdale.  I was excited for her to get back so that she could tell me how she liked the ship.

They have been doing these Spring Break cruises for at least 3 or 4 years now.  Their first one was on Freedom of the Seas.  They have cruised on Freedom once or twice more beyond that.  They love Freedom.  It's their ship.

A few years ago, I went on a Celebrity cruise and loved it.  So I recommended it to Katherine and they tried it out.  Apparently Celebrity isn't for everyone.  While she agrees that the food is better on Celebrity, she felt the ship was small and with having two young girls, it was missing a lot of the things that kids love on Royal Caribbean.  You know, there's no Rock Climbing Wall, no FloRider, no Promenade, no Ice Skating.  There are just a lot less things that kids or adventurous adults for that matter can do during a day at sea.

On Celebrity for me as a 40-something single woman, I was in heaven.  Of course part of that might have been the lack of kids on board.  But also, as I mentioned, the food on Celebrity is spectacular.  The other guests seemed a little less into themselves and what could be done to make them happy and more into just relaxing and having fun.  Maybe it's because your every wish was granted before you knew you had it....  I don't know.  When that happens, it apparently takes all the fun out of complaining for those whiny people for whom nothing is ever good enough.  I also liked the pools on Celebrity more than any other cruise ship I have ever been on.  They are quiet, relaxing and you don't have to jockey for position.  Chairs just open up and you can sit in them.  I spent more time at the pool on Celebrity than any other ship I have been on.

But getting back to Katherine's Spring Break cruise.  For me a ship can get too big and I have always known that.  I like smaller ships although I have been on Freedom before and absolutely loved it.  It's larger than the Voyager class ships that they send us here in Texas, but I like it a lot more.  Not only is there more to do for families, but it seems like they segregate activities very well or something so that the people who are all about jumping up and down and being loud and active are sort of separate from those of us who want to be undisturbed slugs while on vacation.  Take my word for it, you never want to mix a slug with an over active person.  It's ugly.

Not having been on an Oasis class ship, for my money the Freedom class ships are the best large ships at sea.  But I was anxious to get Katherine's opinion.  After visiting with her last night, I think Katherine would agree.  While there were a lot of things about Oasis that they liked, they are still Freedom cruisers.  With over 6,000 passengers on board apparently, there can become an attitude among some of the crew of just hurrying up and getting things done so that they can take care of the next guest.  When this happens in any service industry while you might appreciate them quickly getting to you, when they are with you it would be nice if they took their time and gave you a more thorough and otherwise perfect service.  Then when they get to the next schmuck than can speed things back up.  Right?  I know that's what I'm looking for in life.  Apparently, when you have 6,000 guests to pamper on a daily basis, everybody is the next schmuck.

I was on Freedom during it's inaugural season and haven't made it back on that ship since.  But I can tell you that other than on Celebrity, I felt more catered to on that ship than any other I have ever been on.  Even though it is huge and they have a ton of guests, the crew on board seems to take a lot of pride in making sure that you feel like you are the only person on vacation and everybody else is just props for your "me" time.

FloRider on Freedom during my cruise

Katherine did say that her daughter did the zip-line on Oasis.  I'm sure that was a big hit with her daughter.  They liked Central Park a lot.  One of the big things about this ship is that it has two FloRiders and two Rock Climbing Walls.  But apparently as a guest, you don't care about the number of FloRiders or Rock Climbing Walls as long as you can do that activity when you are ready to.  So in reality to the passenger, the claim should be no long waits for Rock Climbing and Surfing rather than we have two of each of these things for you.


The one negative that they apparently experienced was that it was pretty rough the entire cruise.  I guess the winter storms that have been affecting the northeast swoosh down the coast in the Atlantic after they leave the northeast and that made for a choppy cruise.  On a ship as big as the Oasis you wouldn't think you would have to worry about getting tossed around, but I guess even a ship that size is no match for Mother Nature.

Freedom Kids Pool

So all in all, they enjoyed the cruise, but they will go back to Freedom Class on their next one.  The really nice thing for me about this is that Royal Caribbean is dry-docking each of their ships one at a time starting last year and going through 2015 to make updates to all the other ships to get more of the Oasis Class amenities on board smaller ships (and also for maintenance).  So, some of the things that are great on Oasis are making their way to the other ships.  Obviously they can't add a Central Park, Boardwalk, Aquatheater and those things to smaller ships.  But some of the things that can be added are already available or are becoming available on other ships in the fleet.


Have a great Thursday!  Happy Sailing!