We travelled on Royal Caribbean’s ‘Freedom of the Seas’ cruise ship with our 8-year-old Kidsetter departing from San Juan, Puerto Rico in the Caribbean over New Year’s Eve.
After boarding the ship, locating our cabin, attending the safety induction, it was time to kick back and relax !
We checked our Kidsetter into the Explorers Kids Club each day which is for ages 6 – 8. Open from 9am to 12pm, closed between 12 – 2pm, open 2pm – 5pm and reopens at 7pm until 10pm. There is also a ‘Late Night Party Zone’ from 10pm – 2am charging $7 USD per hour. They have busy schedules of activities set out for each day.
Gagaball, Crazy Tag, Clean your Room or Trash your Room; Wild Wild West; PJ Night; Science Experiments; Dance Mummified; Movie Night; Ring Toss; Soccer Shoot Out; Face Painting; Carnival Fun; The Wow is Now; Lego Challenge and Mind Benders; Decorate your own Guitar; Party Like a Rockstar; Freeze Dance and Musical Dots; Meteorology Madness; Flags and Mummy Wrap; Environmentation Station; Draw a Whale; Muffalo Potato, Follow the Leader; Ship’s Captains Commands; Doctor Dodgeball; Liferaft Challenge; Science Night; Meteor Showering; Space Ship Racing; Staggering Through the Stars; Secret Agent; Fossil Fever; Popsicle Stick Puzzles; Minefield; Tribal Banners; Survivor; Show Tower Challenge; New Year’s Crazy Fiesta; Pull a Vine; Scrabble Scramble; Sculptorades; The Body Shop; King of the Court; Balls Bonanza; Build and Battle; Sounds of the Sea; Model Magic Food; Pizza Ball; Draw a Turtle; Germ Jungle; Fireball; Gravity Fillers; Rooster Tag; Bingo Night; Gender Wars.
There is always plenty of activities for us too, however we tend to use the time to relax, swim, enjoy the live music and excellent dining experiences.
The restaurants and dining facilities are world class. Various options are available; Café Promenade, Windjammer Café, Main Dining Room, Sabor, Mystery Dinner, Sprinkles Ice Cream, Sorrento’s Pizza, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Johnny Rockets, Cupcake Cupboard, Izumi, Chops Grille, Chef’s Table and Giovanni’s. We enjoyed a fun NYE dinner at Giovanni’s Restaurant and collected our Kidsetter from the Explorer’s Club to party the night away in the Promenade until count down.
We love taking our Kidsetter to live theatre and find cruise shows a fabulous way to expose him to the artform. They are included in the cost of your cruise fare, usually short in duration and easily accessible making it ideal for Kidsetters. Anytime our Kidsetter is becoming tired we can leave and not feel like we have been cheated of our tickets. We watched Freedom of the Seas productions starring the Royal Caribbean Singers and Dancers in “Marquee”, “Once Upon a Time” and an ice-skating show called “Ice Spectacular”.
We enjoyed the upbeat atmosphere of Royal Caribbean’s ‘Freedom of the Sea’s, especially with the Puerto Rican’s on board. They are such a vibrant people and love life. An excellent option to spend NYE without the hassle of having to arrange overpriced tickets to NYE functions, it is all taken care for you.
