Long, Detailed Review with Photos of Carnival Freedom, 6/13/10

[pcrum]

Ok, here goes my second attempt at a cruise review. For those of you who have read my first review, you know I put a lot of detail in, so if you just want the bare facts, you are advised to skip this entirely!! The first part doesn’t have a lot of photos, but I took over 600 photos on the cruise, so they will show up in later installments!

 

I also write about the pre-planning stages because I enjoy reading how other people plan their vacations, so if this is not your thing, just skip to the cruise part. Ok, here we go, on with the review!

 

We are a family of four, myself, DH, both in our mid-40s and 15 year old boy/girl twins. We have cruised a lot (see my signature for details), but Carnival is our favorite line.

 

Pre-planning

 

Pre-planning for this summer cruise started over last Christmas break when I got my 2010 calendar and started adding events. I quickly found that due to the kids’ many other summer commitments we had one week only that we could take a vacation as a family. Furthermore, we had to be back home on Father’s Day, June 20, so a Sunday to Sunday cruise would not work for us. We live in FL, the land of the cruise ports, but finding a Saturday to Saturday cruise for the week proved harder than one might imagine. Since we live in Orlando, Port Canaveral is the closest port to us, but they were only offering the Carnival Dream, which at the time I checked was more than I wanted to spend, plus that week was the western route, which we are not thrilled with. DS has a school trip to Scotland in August, which took a chunk out of our vacation budget so we were looking for something a bit more economical. Oasis of the Seas was also offered Saturday to Saturday, but a call to RCL shot that down pretty quickly when I found out that it would be over $5,000 for the 4 of us. Now, we are all big Broadway fans and I have to admit the idea of the Hairspray show on that cruise was pretty tempting, but not tempting enough to spend $5,000 on inside cabins!! The other option for a Saturday to Saturday cruise was the Carnival Liberty out of Miami, which would have been a good option, but again was higher priced. In fact, all of the prices I looked at for inside and ocean view cabins were higher than we had paid in 3/09 for 2 balcony cabins on an 8 night cruise on the Miracle. It certainly seemed that Carnival was raising their prices for the summer of 2010. Although we usually cruise for a week, as a last resort, I looked at shorter cruises and came across the 6 night Freedom cruise out of Fort Lauderdale. My son liked the idea of the Key West stop and I liked the price. I should have booked then, but I dithered for about 6 weeks. During this time, the price for inside cabins went up about $150 a person. When I logged onto Carnival’s website in March and saw the announcement that Carnival was doing a price increase on 3/22/10, I decided it was time to book. Yes, I was one of those taken in by this announcement, but I had seen prices increase so much since early January that I just decided to go ahead and book. In fact, I booked three upcoming cruises at one time to try to be assured of getting the lowest price. On this Freedom cruise, I booked two inside cabins on the Riveria deck for about $125 a night per person, including all taxes and fees. Usually, my price threshold is about $100 a night a person, so this was definitely higher than we were used to paying, but it seemed to be what the going rate was!

 

Cruise Day: 6/13/10

 

We live in Orlando, so it’s just a 3.5 hour drive to Port Everglades. We left our home a little after 7 am and with a couple of stops on the FL Turnpike islands for food and restroom breaks, we arrived just before 11 am. We dropped off our luggage with the porters and then parked in the parking garage for the rate of $15 a day. As we walked into the cruise terminal it seemed that the air conditioning was not working very well, as it was very warm! In fact, the entire Port Everglades cruise terminal area seems to be under construction. Just as in the Princess terminal, the Carnival terminal was very austere, with exposed air ducts and straight backed chairs. It certainly looked like it was under renovation and certainly not a very festive start to our vacation. The order of processing was also different here...we are used to going through security first, then the cruise check-in. Today, the first stop was to show our passports, then we went through the security line and finally to the desk to obtain our Sail and Sign cards. I don’t mean to put down older people, but has anyone noticed that Carnival seems to hire a lot of elderly people to process passengers? The lady who checked us in had to be in her late 70s and seemed very frail and a bit bewildered by the computer. It took a while for her to scan our passports, but soon we were processed and had our gold sail and sign cards in our hands. We were given number 7 for embarkation and sat down and waited about 15 minutes until we were called. All in all it was about an hour from the time we entered the building until we boarded.

 

It has been a year since we had taken a Carnival cruise. We had strayed a bit with a trip to Alaska on NCL and our spring break trip on the Emerald Princess, so there was a feeling of “coming home” to Carnival as we walked on the ship. It really is our preferred line and I find it hard to put into words just why that is. Maybe it is just more “fun”...certainly the larger cabins and better food quality don’t hurt!! Although much has been written about the over the top decor, I personally like it. I am on vacation, after all, so something a bit fun and different is definitely welcome!

 

We entered the ship and they had crew directing people to the Lido deck for lunch, but we had a stop to make first. We decided to go directly to the Purser’s Desk (now called Guest Services) to get our room keys switched, since when we booked, we had to put an adult in each cabin, but we wanted to the kids to share one cabin and for the adults to be next door in a cabin. We were able to do this with a minimum of wait and I was also able to get a key card (colored blue to distinguish it ) for the kids’ room.

 

With our proper keys and sail and sign cards in hand, we headed up to the Freedom Restaurant for lunch.

 

 

DH and DD went upstairs, where it was far less crowded to the fish n chips area. DS was looking for the Chinese food, but I had read it had been taken away and all they had was the Mongolian stir fry station, so we just went through the grand buffet line and got some carved roast beef and salad. The Mongolian stir fry is nice, but DS really misses the Chinese station they used to have!! We returned upstairs to find DH and DD eating fish and chips and some kind of seared tuna/sushi thing. I tried the fish and chips and I have to say that they paled in comparison to those served in the Wheelhouse Pub on Princess. These were heavily breaded and soggy, whereas Princess’ were crisp and light. Also Carnival serves the string fries, like McDonalds, whereas Princess serves the large steak fries. For fish and chips, Princess definitely wins! I also tried the fried oysters. Having never eaten fried oysters or any other type of oysters for that matter, I don’t have anything to compare them to, but the ones on Carnival were very fishy tasting. One bite was quite enough for me!!

 

A waiter came by and soon we had drinks: Funship Special for me, Long Island Iced Tea for DH, virgin banana daiquiri for DS and diet coke for DD. Ah, the first funship special of the day...now the vacation has begun. I do think that the Funship Special is good value for all of the various kinds of alcohol they put in it. A couple of those and soon you won’t have a care in the world!! DH did notice that the drink prices had increased since our last Carnival cruise in June, 2009 on the Glory. I think his Long Island Iced Tea (the signature one with the premium liquors) had gone up about $1 and they no longer offered the free $5 match/play coupons for the casino with the drink, as they had last summer on the Glory.

 

By now it was 1:30 pm and we could enter the rooms, so the kids went to check out their room and DH and I went to the maitre’d to check on our table assignment. After our experience on the Emerald Princess with “anytime dining”, we were so happy to go back to the traditional dining and happy to have late seating. We just wanted to make sure we had a 4-top. My kids joke that I am “antisocial,” but we have so little time during the year for family with the kids’ various activities, that I like to have dinner on vacation with just the four of us. Finding out that our request for a 4-top had been granted, DH and I went in search of a wine package for the week.

 

 

This is a photo of the Posh dining room.

 

 

We found a table set up with various wine packages offered for the week. They had three different packages for 5 wines: one priced at $95, one at $110 and one at $160. DH was a bit panicked that it was a 6 night cruise and they only offered packages for 5 bottles. Maybe some people re-cork their wine and drink it later, but we’ve never been ones to leave dinner as long as wine remained in the bottle!! I assured him that one night we would be eating in the Sun King restaurant, the speciality steakhouse, and that they had a much more extensive wine list, so he could order a bottle there! We liked the wines in the mid-priced package (it included Korbel champagne too), so purchased that and were told that our wine bottle coupons would be delivered at dinner that evening.

 

Our next stop was to make dinner reservations for the Sun King Steakhouse restaurant. When we checked with the maitre’d about our table assignment, we asked him about the menus for the week and which night he would recommend eating in the Sun King restaurant. He recommended Wednesday, which was the day we were to be in Grand Cayman. “Cruise Elegant” nights were Tuesday and Thursday nights. Wednesday night was the turkey farfelle night and the rack of lamb night, so we decided it was a good night for the Sun King, so we made a reservation for 8:00 pm.

 

Next stop was to the room. We had rooms 1242 and 1246 on the Riveria Deck. They were next door to one another, but without an adjoining door. The kids were already in their room.



 

 

We checked out our cabin, which was a bit larger than the inside we had on the Emerald Princess in March. We were impressed by the fact that the rooms were made up properly, with ours as a king bed and the kids’ as two doubles. We had thought we might have to ask the steward to change things around since we had originally booked DS and DH in one room and DD and myself in another. We surmised that when we went to Guest Services to change the keys around that somehow they alerted the room steward to change the room configuration. In any event, we were happy it was the way we wanted.

 

 

 

The cabinet to the left by the chair houses a refrigerator/mini bar. Ours was unlocked , while the children’s was locked. We emptied the refrigerator of the mini bar contents and just put them on top of the cabinet and put our own sodas in the refrigerator. We left the kids’ refrigerator locked and brought them sodas from our room when they needed them.

 

 

 

The hairdryer is in the first drawer. The TV is a flat screen and has the capability to let you book shore excursions, check the dinner menu and check your bill. It’s wonderful being in the 21st century and we really missed this feature on our last cruise on Princess.

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The bathroom featured a magnifying mirror and shelves along both sides of the mirror.

 

 

 

As for amenities in the room, we had the little basket of goodies in the bathroom with the shavers, a sample of body wash and some toothpaste samples, and a Carnival pen. Neither room had the Carnival pad of paper we are used to.

 

This would be our first time on the Riveria Deck. DH had some reservations about this, but I thought it would be fine. Well, let me just say it is “a whole new world” down there, or at least it was this sailing. I have always been a fan of Carnival and defended the line when people tried to infer that it was a bit less posh, shall we say, than other cruise lines and as such, attracted a less sophisticated clientele. Well, I have to say that on this sailing we encountered more rude, obnoxious people than on any other sailing. Our neighbors across the hall were traveling with a large group and regularly held long, lengthy discussions in the hallway outside our cabin at early morning and late night hours. The neighbors on the other side of us seemed to only eat in their cabin and rather than leave their dirty dishes outside their own cabin door, they stacked them up outside of ours. I don’t know how many people they had in that cabin but they would routinely stack about 7 dirty plates outside our door. I will get to the dining room behavior later in the review, but suffice it say that if this had been our first Carnival cruise, it might well have been our last. Since we have traveled the line so many times before, we didn’t let this one sailing change our opinion, in fact we have several future Carnival cruises booked. I am hoping that this sailing was the exception rather than the rule!! I do know that the shorter cruises often attract a different crowd, but I did not expect the difference from a 6 night to a 7 night cruise to be so drastic. We did enjoy the trip, but it was somewhat less enjoyable due to our fellow passengers.

 

Anyway, the kids wanted to nap, so DH and I walked around the ship. I like to take photos the first day, when you can get a lot of photos where things are relatively empty. Here is the Victoriana Lounge. Notice the couch seating with little tables on the first level. Such an improvement from the movie theater type seating of NCL and Princess.

 

 

 

Here is the casino. We don’t gamble, so didn’t spend much time in here.

 

 

This is Club O2 for the 15-17 year olds. It looked like fun, but my kids have never been interested in any of the cruise clubs for kids or teens.

 

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Inside Club O2

 

 

 

The Wine Bar. We never made it here to have a glass of wine! I have to say that the Emerald Princess’ wine bar was larger and seemed to have a bit more ambiance This is really just along Deck 5, kind of stuck along the hallway.

 

 

 

The piano bar. We did spend some time in here.

 

 

 

Pianos hanging on the walls!

 

 

 

Swingtime Lounge, Deck 5, Aft

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Havana Cigar Bar

 

 

The bar stools have cigar bands around them!

 

 

This was a Chinese themed room that looked like it was used for weddings. I guess if you wanted an Oriental themed wedding, this would be the place to have it!

 

 

 

Internet Cafe:

 

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After our tour of the ship, we came back to our room. I first checked in on the kids to find them both sound asleep. We rested in the room a bit, hoping for some luggage, but it did not arrive until later. The hallways were piled high with luggage carts with luggage on them, but we did not see ours and even if we had, it would have been a bit cumbersome to dig it out from the filled luggage carts. DH theorized that the Riveria deck would be the last to receive luggage, as it had to make it’s way down to us. I don’t know if this is true, but we did not receive any luggage until after 5 pm, much later than we are used to!

 

At 3:30 pm, the call for the muster drill came and we made our way (without our life jackets) to our station. My family did not let me take many photos, but I did get one of DS:

 

 

After the muster drill, DH went back to the room to await luggage and rest, while the rest of us went to the Lido deck for sailaway. We found some chaises in the shade.

 

 

 

 

Deck music was with Ron. For those interested, I have in my notes he did “Moonshadow”, “Twist and Shout” and “Margaritaville”. It took DH to find his name in the Fun Times. I am not a fan of the new Fun Times. While it is much less crowded and maybe better visually than the old Carnival Capers, it does not contain nearly the amount of information that the Capers did. I never saw any Spa Specials mentioned and it just seemed rather bare to me!

 

 

 

Soon, the entertainment staff started the usual line dances. How is it everyone in the world, including my kids, knows how to do these dances??? I know they kind of tell you in the song, but it just seems if you want people to get up and dance, play one of these line dance songs and soon your dance floor will be full!

 

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DD had stripped to her bikini by now and both kids were in full cruise fun mode!

 

 

Yes, that’s the face of someone having fun!

 

Love the line dances:

 

 

 

 

When the dancing ended, we went back to the room to find our luggage! Yay!! I begin the process of unpacking while DH rested. There was plenty of room in the rooms for all our stuff and the suitcases fit easily under the bed. I travel with an over the door shoe hanger for our cruise trips and it is wonderful for putting the various chargers, sunscreen, evening purse, etc. Since we drive and don’t have to worry about luggage weight, I also pack some things still on hangers, so we have extras and it makes unpacking easy!! As mentioned before, we also bring our own sodas on board for the room. I prefer the small bottles with the twist off lids, so you don’t have to waste an entire can if you just want a bit. We brought on a six pack of the 24 oz. bottles of Pepsi Max and an 8 pack of the 12 oz. diet coke bottles. I put these in our rolling duffle and they always arrive just fine in the room.

 

After unpacking, we got ready for dinner. First stop was to the bar on the LIdo deck for soda cards for the kids. By waiting until we had already sailed, we saved the tax on the soda cards. Carnival now does stickers on the sail and sign cards, just as Princess does, rather than the separate soda card. It’s nice not to have the kids carry an extra card!

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Here are the kids on the Lido deck.

 

 

 

 

Our dinner was at 8:15 pm and we had lunch at around noon, so we stopped in the Freedom Restaurant for a snack before dinner. They had the same sweet and sour shrimp and tomato soup that was on the dinner menu, so we had an “appetizer” to hold us over!

 

We then went to the Posh dining room to our 4 top table.

 

 

 

Our waiter and assistant waiter were very good. They were Filipino, but the head waiter’s name was Alfredo, go figure!! They had our wine coupons for us and we chose a bottle. We also told them that we liked to start each night’s dinner with the cheese and fruit plate from the dessert menu: DH and I would like our own cheese and fruit plate and the kids would share one. Well, something got lost in the translation and what we received were 3 fruit plates from the dessert menu and one cheese plate. I take full responsibility for the mix-up. I remembered there being fruit on the cheese plate, but apparently it is just called “cheese plate” so when I said “fruit and cheese plate” it confused the waiters! We made do with what we were served the first night, but got it cleared up for the rest of our dinners. For some reason, I do not have photos of tonight’s dinner, but for the rest of the cruise, I do have food photos, so you will have something to look forward to!

 

Tonight I started with the chicken tenders, had the sweet and sour shrimp as my entree and the creme brulee for dessert. It was all very good, but the creme brulee was much more watery than usual, like it had been sitting out for a good while. DH also had the chicken tenders as an appetizer, the pasta with Italian sausage as his entree and the creme brulee for dessert. DD started with the tomato soup, had the sweet and sour shrimp as her entree and orange sherbet for dessert. DS started with tomato soup had the pasta with Italian sausage for his entree, and the cheese plate for dessert. All in all, the food was wonderful and again, made us glad to be back on a Carnival ship!!

 

DS went right back to the room after dinner because the Tony awards were on and he is in a theater magnet school and a big Broadway fan. DD, DH and myself walked around a bit, but decided we were worn out and were in the room by 10 pm. We had a 9 am wakeup call for our day in Key West tomorrow. On this first night, there was no towel animal in either room, although we did receive chocolates with the next day’s Fun Times. We did have towel animals every other night.

[pcrum]

More to come...will work on day 2 tonight and tomorrow!

[Cushing985]

Outstanding review! Looks like your kids were having a blast!

[LizaMM]

WHat a fabulous review so far! I am loving all the pics!!

 

Looking forward to more!!!! Thanks!

[renza]

thank you for the review so far. My hubby and I are looking forward to our cruise on her in Feb. Kids are staying home though YAAAAAA

[QueensChick]

Wonderful review. Love the details & the photos.

 

Thank you for taking the time to share.

[mississauga]

pcrum, once again a brilliant review. Loved your Emerald Princess one too. Looking forward to the rest of your review.:)

 

FYI: Don't be surprised at the names of the Filipino crew staff. Here in Canada, we have a lot of Filipinos who immigrated here and in conversations with them, have learned that there is a large Spanish influence/background in the Philippines. Many have Spanish last names.

[alreadypacked]

Wonderful!!! I am so enjoying your review. Hubby and I did this cruise back in Feb. We had a great time! Can't wait to read the rest!:)

[AryMay]

I love reviews with pictures...thanks for taking the extra time to include them.

 

This time last year we were in Ft. Lauderdale ready to board the Freedom on July 4th. We had Cabin #1238 so were right in your "neighborhood"!

 

Looking forward to more...

[mosaic_mom]

I am really enjoying your review. Thank you so much for taking the time to post it. You write so well.

[ExcitedCruzer]

Can't wait to read more...I'm not even going to be on this ship, I think I just like reading reviews :D

[pcrum]

6/14/10:

 

I had a 9 am wakeup call scheduled for today, but I woke up shortly after 7 am and got dressed and walked around. I love the ship in the early morning, before a lot of people are up.

 

 

 

I should now take the opportunity to say that the Freedom is in excellent condition. She looks brand new and we saw absolutely no signs of wear at all. Crew members were always cleaning something and the loving care the ship receives shows. We saw one crew member up on a ladder in the Freedom restaurant polishing all the Statue of Liberty heads. Everything was immaculate and in working order!!

 

I went up to the Lido deck for a cup of tea and made some notes about yesterday. By 8 am, the ship was docked in Key West and fortunately we were docked not at the navy pier, where we had last docked on our HAL Veendam cruise in 2007, but we were in the center of town!

 

 

This is the area on deck 10 just outside of the second floor of the Freedom restaurant. This area was never crowded during the entire cruise and it is where the kids and I would spend the sea days while DH preferred a table in the shade on the Lido deck.

 

Shortly before 9 am I went back to the cabin to wake up the rest of the family, bringing them some chocolate milk to get them up and started.

 

I watched some of the morning show on TV with cruise director Ryan Fitzgerald as the rest of the family got dressed. Ryan was our cruise director last summer on the Carnival Glory and at first I found him really annoying in the same way I find David Letterman or any other midwesterner comic annoying, but unlike David Letterman, Ryan grew on me. I certainly feel that he is hard working and does a good job in order to make sure everyone is having a good time.

 

We much prefer breakfast in the MDR to the madness of the Lido buffet so we went to breakfast in the Posh dining room. We asked for and received a table for 4 and ordered: DH, DS and myself all had eggs benedict and DD had pancakes, bacon, and the stewed banana with half a grapefruit to start. If you have never had the stewed banana, let me tell you it is marvelous. It really is more like bananas foster, half of a banana in a sweet, brown sugar sauce. I first read about it on Cruise Critic and we first tried it on our MIracle cruise and it is delightful, but definitely sweet!!

 

Pancakes and Bacon:

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Stewed banana:

 

Eggs Benedict is another favorite on Carnival and we really missed it on our last Princess cruise!! Carnival does it wonderfully and it did not disappoint.

 

DH’s eggs benedict, with a side of pork sausage (he made the mistake of ordering chicken sausage once and it was horrible!) and hash browns:

 

Now the staff, on the other hand, was hit or miss during MDR breakfasts. I almost wonder if it is a punishment to have to work the MDR for breakfast (one day we did see Alfredo, our waiter there and he spoke to us and was very nice) because for the most part, the waiters seemed surly and like they would really rather be somewhere else. Whether we were offered breakfast pastries or refills for orange juice really depended upon the day and the mood of the staff. One thing I will say is that we were always offered was coffee upon sitting down. The waiters must be trained that Americans must have their coffee first thing! Which is a really good thing if you are a coffee drinker, but we are not. DD and myself drink English breakfast tea and DH, if he has anything other than orange juice, drinks either a cappuccino or expresso in the morning. DS just has juice.

 

After breakfast we disembarked the ship. We were docked by the Westin Hotel, near a museum with a lot of statues. Our plans for the day were loose, but we knew we wanted to go to the Southernmost point, sample the pie either at Kermit’s or the Blonde Giraffe or both and perhaps hit Hemingway’s house. Before we left home, DH had printed out walking maps and highlighted what we wanted to see. We felt confident that we could walk to all of these places as they were all off of Duval St, which is not a very long street (about a mile and a quarter). Now here is where our reasoning was a bit faulty. I am a FL native; DH has been here since 3rd grade, the kids were born in FL. We know what FL summers are like where the “feels like” temperature is over 100 and the humidity is 99%. We purposely stay out of the theme parks in Orlando during the summer because it’s too darn hot (and because they are full of tourists). Why we thought we could do a 2.5 mile roundtrip walk in the middle of the day in the heat and humidity is beyond me, but I plead temporary insanity!

 

Anyway, off the ship we went ignorant of the fate that awaited us that day. See our smiling faces, we just have no idea:

 

 

The red brick house is some kind of museum and all around the museum were these very life like looking statues

 

 

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In front of the house are some very large statues. DS is standing next to them to give you an idea of the height.

 

 

Along the way we passed the infamous Sloppy Joe’s Bar. It was pretty empty this morning, but would become more lively as the day went on.

 

I think it was Gay Pride week in Key West that week because a lot of the buildings had rainbow colored flags:

 

 

Duval St is really divided up into sections. At the north part, it is full of bars, Sloppy Joe’s, Fat Tuesday’s, etc. Then you come to the shopping part, with a lot of retail shops, then you reach the artsy part with a lot of art galleries. As we passed the shopping part, DD realized she should have worn better walking shoes than her “fashionable” American Eagle flip flops. We came across the Kai Kai sandal shop and I remembered reading about them on Cruise Critic. They are supposed to be really comfortable flip flops that mold to your feet. I suggested we go in and DD tried on some and deemed them more comfortable than her AE flip flops, so we bought a pair. I tried them on and while I found them comfortable I didn’t think they compare to the Sketchers Tone Up flip flops or the Fit Flops, both of which I swear by. They are like walking on a cushion of air and are about the same cost. I had a coupon from the ship which gave us a free tote bag supposedly worth $20 if we bought 2 pairs of shoes, but we just bought the one. When we paid, the manager asked us how we had heard about the store and I told him Cruise Critic. He then asked if we were in town on a cruise and I told him we were on the Freedom. He said he did not know there were any cruise ships in port that day (I think we were the only one). It seemed odd to me that a business that makes it money on tourism would not keep up with such things. He professed to have never heard of Cruise Critic either. Again, if you make your money on tourism, I’d think you would keep up with what the tourists are reading, especially since so much is written on the Key West boards about the kai kai sandals!

 

 

So, with DD in more comfortable shoes, we continued our journey. We passed these landmarks:

 

 

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Along the way we went in a few more shops. There was a t-shirt shop with a lot of cute sayings on the shirts and in that store my son found a Sarah Palin bobble-head that he just had to have. Don’t ask...I think our children choose political figures that directly go against their parents’ beliefs! That’s the only reason why I can understand his fascination with her!

 

Well, it can’t be far to the southernmost point now. Finally, we had arrived. What did we find, but a neat, orderly line of about 20 people waiting to have their photograph taken in front of the Southernmost point. Or rather I should say, we found a line of hot, tired, sweaty people who were wondering why they had walked so long in the heat!! The kids were complaining about the heat and I had perspiration in places that don’t normally perspire. It was uncomfortably hot. Some enterprising person had set up a cart selling water and snow cones and DH was dispatched to pick up 4 water bottles while we waited in line. Surprisingly the water was selling for just $1.00 a bottle. I am surprised they did not take the theme park approach and sell it for $2.50 a bottle since they had a captive audience and they were the only vendor around!!

 

Next to the front of the line stood a homeless looking man who was offering to take photos of people in front of the sourthernmost point. I assume he wanted a donation after he took your photo. No one was using him though and the couple in front of us asked me to take their photo. I think he would have done better if he had showered and cleaned up a bit, as I think people were scared to trust him with their cameras. So, note to homeless guy or any other person wanting to make a few bucks: first impressions count, clean up a bit and you may get some business!!

 

By this time we were so hot and bothered that I didn’t even think to ask the people behind us to take a photo of the 4 of us. In hindsight, I wish I would have, but when you have sweat dripping off you in unmentionable places, you are really not thinking about a perfect photo for next year’s Christmas card!!

 

 

 

While waiting in line we saw lots of people drive by in these cute little electric cars you could rent. The problem was they juste seated two people and I have idea where you would park them when you came to something you wanted to stop and see. In fact, as the people rounded the corner for the Southernmost Point, they kind of looked like they would like to stop, but did not know where to park. In fact, parking in the downtown area of Key West really seems to be at a premium. What we have in Orlando is a free trolley that goes the length of International Drive, a street filled with hotels and tourist attractions. Now International Drive is much longer than Duval St., but I still think Key West should do something similar. We did the Conch Train on our last trip and while it took us by the landmarks, it really only stopped at a few places on Duval St. A trolley type thing that stopped every few blocks would be wonderful in the FL heat!

 

Ok, we had seen the southernmost point and what awaited us was the long walk back up Duval St. to Hemingway’s house and the pie shops. But we were hot, tired and really just wanting to get out of the heat. Most of the bars and restaurants are up on the north end of the street, but soon appeared before our very eyes a wondrous place, an air conditioned place, a place to sit down and have a cool drink. It was a Denny’s!! Yes! It was air conditioned, offered seating, cool drinks and we would not get strange looks taking our 15 year old children inside.

 

 

DS is done with photos and just wants to get inside:

 

Our waitress was wonderful, even when we just ordered drinks and DS an order of chicken tenders because he had worked up an appetite!! I think the rest of us were too hot to want to eat. Hey, maybe we should do this more often...nothing kills the appetite like a mile and quarter walk in the FL heat!! The waitress was very free with the refills and after some refreshing glasses of iced tea and a rest we felt up to braving the heat again!! Sometimes Denny’s is a wonderful thing!!

 

Next stop was Hemingway’s House. Now, with being so hot, the kids were really reluctant to go into what they viewed as a museum and an unairconditioned one at that! However, I told them the story of the famous 5 and 6 toed Hemingway cats and being the cat lovers that we are, that sparked their interest. However, we were still dithering as we walked up to the ticket booth and it was only when we saw a cat inside the gates, that we decided to go ahead and buy the tickets and go inside. In fact, we asked the ticket clerk what the chances were of seeing the cats. He said to go in the garden and we would see some. Ok, sold! We’ll take 4 tickets, please. BTW, you can get a dollar off each ticket if you order ahead of time online, but we were not 100% sure we would make it that day, so didn’t order ahead of time.

 

 

 

Ok, I need to warn you at this point that the next section is about cats, cats and more cats. If cats are not your thing, you should probably skip this part. We are cat lovers and have two at home, so basically once we entered the Hemingway garden and saw all the cats, we were in heaven!! DH, an English major in college, was mumbling something about being in the home of a literary giant and only being interested in the cats in the garden, but by this time we were too far gone. We were in search of the large footed cats!!

 

We were not disappointed and upon entering the gates, DD soon found a cat doing the sensible thing and sleeping under a bush.

 

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Now in an era where there are so many stray, starving cats, it was indeed a pleasure to find a place where the cats are so obviously well fed and well cared for. These lovely felines were so tame it was obvious they had been shown nothing but love in their lifetime. We were told by a guide that all the cats at the house are direct descendants of Snowball, Hemingway’s cat, whose photo is in the house. Well, I may not like Hemingway’s books, but for his love of cats, I can appreciate the man!

 

The garden area was very nicely decorated and reminiscent of Monet’s home in Giverny, France. Here is a bridge over a pond with lily pads:

 

 

This is a photo of the kids outside the home. It’s amazing what seeing some cats will do to revive you:

 

 

The bobble-head in front of a sleeping cat. It’s better not to ask!

 

 

Although Hemingway did not have a/c, he did have the sense to build a pool. The guide said it was the largest pool built in FL at the time it was built.

 

More cats, again doing the sensible thing and napping:

 

 

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DD is in heaven:

 

 

 

We were told that over 50 cats live in the house. DS, who as mentioned previously is big into Broadway, said he could cast the entire show of Cats from what we saw!

 

Rum Tum Tigger:

 

 

Finally, we found one of the large footed cats:

 

 

There is a cat cemetery:

 

 

And, a wedding area:

 

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Closeup of the foot of a large footed cat:

 

 

The “cat condo:

 

 

And, the sticker on the gift shop door: “Dogs have owners, cats have staff”. Yes, I had to have one of those. BTW, the gift shop is air conditioned. Hemingway’s staff are not dumb!!

 

 

There are more cats inside the gift shop:

 

 

Just look at that face:

 

 

Now, I must say that the gift shop seemed to be selling more cat related merchandise than works by Hemingway. I’d say his estate is making more off of the cats than from his writings judging by what was in the shop!!

 

There is also an area where they isolate cats when they need to

 

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Photos of newborns who are kept separate until they are ready to join the others:

 

 

Another big footed cat:

 

 

We did make it inside the house, eventually. Except for the cat photos, it was a bit anti-climatic.

 

After spending a good couple of hours at Hemingway’s house, we were in search of some key lime pie, so we continued our walk up Duval St. On the way we passed this:

 

 

My son, who is doing The Wiz play this summer loved this! It is Dorothy’s house on top of the witch, with the red shoes sticking out.

 

Walking north on Duval St., when you get to Sloppy Joe’s take a right and both the Blonde Giraffe and Kermit’s Pie shop are on that street. Along the way we saw this mailbox:

 

 

Kermit, will stand outside the shop and pose with the patrons. DS had first heard about Kermit’s on the Food Network, so he had to have a photo:

 

 

Here is DS with is last Kermit photo in 2007. My, how we have grown:

 

 

DD declined to have her photo taken so in we went for some pie!