We drove down the day before the cruise departed and stayed at the Radisson in Cape Canaveral. This hotel offers a hotel stay, cruise parking, and transportation package. The hotel is conveniently located about 5 minutes from the port and runs shuttles constantly back and forth.

The port itself is pretty nice and is well laid out. We arrived at the terminal at about noon and the line was already out the door and 500 feet down the sidewalk. For some reason, one of the port staff pulled us and a few others out of the line and put us with the priority boarding guests. We noticed later that all of the people he pulled out of line were holding passports instead of birth certificates or other documents, so that may have been the reason. So we ended up skipping ahead of hundreds of people in line. Once inside the building, the lines merged back together to go thru the port security checkpoint. The line moved pretty slow and seemed to pause occasionally for no reason. Once through security, you join another line upstairs where you checkin and receive your card. In total we probably waited a little over an hour from arrival time to boarding the ship, not bad considering we were sailing with over 4000 guests.

First impressions of the Freedom of the Seas is that it's massive. The interior promenade gives it the feeling of being like a mall with a hotel attached rather than a ship. Rooms were not ready when we boarded so we had to keep our carry-on luggage with us for an hour. The Windjammer buffet was crowded but not without empty tables. They also had ample staff placed throughout the buffet to clean and direct passengers to empty tables. Read more