Freedom of the Seas carries up to 4500 passengers and is the 6th largest cruise ship in the world.  It has a rock climbing wall,  miniature golf, wave simulator, an ice skating rink and even a Johnny Rockets restaurant. Here are assume scenes from the ship as we sailed down to Haiti.

Departing from Port Canaveral, Coco Beach coastline

Inside stateroom. Yeah, it is small but it is totally functional and we only use it to sleep in at night so no big deal.

Library

Private karaoke booth

Stairs to the indoor promenade

Miniature golf

This is what we did for most of the day

Mmmm, cookies and Rice Krispy treats

Dining room

Since we are in the cruise ship with no cheap and reliable Internet access,  here are a few more fun pictures from Universal Studios Orlando…

Hey, that's me!

After a whirlwind week of road tripping and theme parking, Lisa and I take a short vacation from our vacation while on board the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas.

We were up bright and early at 6:30am and returned our less-than impressive Jeep Compass rental car back to the airport by 8:45am.  There we caught our shuttle bus, which dropped us off at the Port Canaveral Cruise terminal by 10:15am.  After the check in process, we were on the ship by 11:00am.  Though our room wasn’t available to get into until 1:30pm, Lisa and I just hung out in the observation lounge reading and listening to podcasts.  This is pretty much what we will be doing for the next week — just lounging and relaxing and doing absolutely nothing.

Here is our itinerary:

Sunday – leave Florida
Monday – day at sea
Tuesday – Labadee, Haiti.  Royal Caribbean has rented out the beach areas for the exclusive use for their passengers.  So we’ll be lounging on the beach on this day
Wednesday – Falmouth, Jamaica
Thursday – Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
Friday – Cozumel, Mexico
Saturday – Day at Sea
Sunday – return to Port Canaveral and we’ll shuttle back to Orlando

Friends and family know how much we love to cruise.  We unpack once for the entire week.  We get a well-appointed stateroom.  We have a ship full of great amenities.  We get all that we want to eat.  We get to go to new places and explore at our leisure.  And it is a great bargain for all that we get.  So yeah, we’ll be super lazy this week, updates to follow as we get Internet access!

In the meantime, my starting weight is 147.5 pounds and I have been fasting since the end of dinner last night. I predict that I’ll gain at least 5 pounds by this time next week…

Daily Expenses Ledger:

Back to Universal Studios for more rides and shows…

First ride of the morning: Despicable Me Minion Mayhem … a very popular ride that has limited guest capacity, so the line gets long pretty quickly.

One more look at the roller coaster Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket; we rode it twice yesterday but skipped it today in order to get to some other rides

This Transformers ride had frequent delays during the day, and unfortunately we experienced a glitch during the ride where the audio cut out and we were returned to the start with no full ride experience. We had to return a few hours later to get the full ride experience

Diagon Alley — more scenes from today!

We finally had the Butter Beer, and it was delicious, as Lisa shows her approval. We went with the frozen version. Maybe next time we’ll try the original drink or the ice cream.

Curious George Goes to Town area

Hey, it’s E.T….that’s me!

Daily Expenses Ledger