Review- Freedom 5/19-5/27 8 Day Eastern

[finoky]

This was our 12th cruise with Carnival. There were 8 people total in our group ranging in ages from 18 to 74. Overall, this was a fantastic cruise

 

Pre-cruise: We chose to drive an hour up to Richmond, Va so we could fly JetBlue. We love their one checked bag free plus they are usually the best price option for us as well. Our flight was set for 11:53AM, nonstop to FLL, and left the gate 15 minutes early. Arrived in FLL at 2PM and thankfully no lost luggage. Called the Hampton Inn Plantation direct as they were not listed at the courtesy phone bank. It took about 40 minutes for them to arrive. They towed a trailer behind the van so no trouble with 8 days of cruise luggage. After about a 20 minute drive we arrive at the hotel and was check-in went very quickly and smoothly. The Hampton Inn is nothing fancy but it has free shuttles, free breakfast, free wi-fi, nearby restaurants and a Target for last minute items, and indoor plumbing. Had dinner at TGIF and stopped at Target to grab some 7-up for the Seagrams I purchased from Bon Voyage. It was pouring down rain so we couldn’t enjoy the hotel pool area. Late in the evening it finally quit raining and we sat out by the pool for a while chatting. The pool was a nice size and clean. Wish we could have enjoyed it. The port shuttle begins at 11AM. We had signed up for that time during check-in. We were downstairs ready to go by 10:30 and within 10 minutes they announced that the first shuttle would be loading up and heading out. That works for us as we like getting to the port early.

[finoky]

Embarkation: Our shuttle arrived at the pier just after 11AM. There was a fairly long line outside already formed. Most of our group was platinum but I saw nothing indicating really important people go this way so we got in the regular folks line, haha. After about 10 minutes somebody from Carnival was yelling out for platinum to go over to this other door. Would have been nice to know this beforehand. Once inside it was still pretty unclear as to which direction to go. We were finally directed over to an elevator that took us upstairs to the VIP check-in desk. There was an issue with 2 people in our group having their cards at the wrong desk. Our daughter’s friend was handed her dad’s card. Her dad, downstairs with the regular check-in, was given his daughter’s card. Of course neither of us knew this at the time. The clerk was able to somehow get in touch with the exact person checking them in downstairs and got the situation resolved. During this process we heard boarding zones being called so we were all able to walk right on the ship by 11:40. No sooner than we boarded it began pouring down rain outside. More on that later.

[finoky]

Cabin: We were in cabin 2470, a category 6B on main deck, port side aft. It is a huge cabin compared to most and is over 300 sqft. It also has 2 windows, sofa, table, and 2 chairs. We have had this particular cabin before on the Valor and loved it so much we picked it again. There is some vibration and engine noise but nothing that would bother us. We were very happy with this cabin and will definitely book it again in the future. Our friends were in 2473 for the 2nd time. Our daughter was in 2471 and my mother in law was in 2347. No complaints from anyone regarding their cabin.

 

Sea Days: We love sea days and spend quite a bit of time up on deck enjoying the sun and festivities. The first sea day it was cloudy all day and the sun finally made an appearance on the second day at sea. We spent the first day in the main pool area up on the sides on deck 10. I have to say that I am not a fan at all of Seaside Theater. I don’t care about the news or the morning show. It quickly becomes annoyingly intrusive. The music duo wasn’t very good either. They had some type of equipment issue that made it sound like the speakers were cracked. We knew they weren’t though cause the only time it sounded like that was when they were playing. That was the last day we spent in that area and stayed aft in the adult section from then on. Much quieter back there. Of course there was a lot of chair saving going on. We never have a problem cause we are always up and in our chairs by around 8AM. Didn’t spend any time at all in the serenity area but did walk through it. I did notice that a lot of the cushions were ripped, torn, and need of being replaced. Hopefully, they will take care of this soon.

[finoky]

Dining: We ate all of our breakfasts and lunch on lido. It’s the usual Carnival fare and we always found something we liked. Lines were long if you went during peak times. We had ATD and ate all our dinners in the Chic dining room except for one night that we ate up on lido. We usually went at about 6. Our party of 8 never had any trouble being seated right away. We were sat in Suki’s section the first two nights. He is ok as a waiter but was way way overly friendly. Always smiling, laughing at everything, wanting to talk and talk, touching us, hugging afterwards. Just way too intrusive. That is far more than I ever want from any server. All I need them to do is get our order right, keep beverage glasses full, bread, condiments, etc. Purposely requested a different area after that and got Corinna. She was much better and a lot quicker. We had pizza a few times late at night. The guy back there had some sort of an attitude and was pretty crappy at preparing the pizza as well. Only 3 individual pepperoni on a slice and huge bare spots from him not popping the bubbles in the dough while cooking. I wish I could have red triangled him right then and there but I did mention him negatively in the survey Carnival sent me yesterday. The rest of our meals were pretty good. I especially liked all the hot soups and the crab cake they had as a starter the last night.

[SASA13]

Can't wait to hear the rest.

[finoky]

Entertainment: Lido deck band, not good. Rock band, average. Atrium duo, average. Caught the keyboard player in the duo fake playing during Beat It. We were standing up a few decks looking over the railing and saw him appearing to be playing the keys but wasn’t touching them at all. He was using mostly canned music from the laptop. If you were in front of him it would look like he was jamming away but from above it was 100% air keyboard. Pretty pathetic Carnival. Latin band on Promenade by the casino was pretty good. Both shows we saw were pretty good. Enjoyed The Big Easy more than the first one. We went to see all the comedians. The tall bald guy, can’t remember his name, was terrible. We walked out after 10 minutes. Not from bad language. Nothing any comedian can say will offend me. He just wasn’t funny. Macio was our favorite. He was a riot.

[finoky]

Casino: We are not huge gamblers but we do like to play some each day while on the cruise. My wife likes the slots and they were tight as usual. She has never once taken more out of the casino then she walked in with. But she likes to try her luck and I indulge her. I usually do pretty good on the blackjack tables but only came out $11 up for the week. At least I didn’t lose money. Came in 2nd place in the blackjack tournament with my free entry for being platinum. Also got a bottle of very expensive Brut champagne for being the top qualifier at $12,900. Our room steward brought me a bucket filled with ice to chill it and Corinna gladly opened it for us, no fee, and poured each of us a glass. The bubble was 4600 and I had 3800 after hand 5. Decided to make it a one hand game on hand 7 so I bet just 500 on hand 6. Figured if I lost and that hand and could double 3300 on the last one I would be in. Well I won that one so that game me 4300 which I shoved on the last hand. Hit blackjack which pays 2-1 during the tournament to give me my 12900. During the finals I wasn’t winning at all but quickly realized that everyone was being aggressive and could possibly bust out. That is exactly what happened as most started shoving by the 4th hand and losing. I was down to 600 but was better 100 a hand. There was 3 of us for hand 7. One lady at 2400, another lady at 1400, and me at 300. I had to bet first and shoved, The 1400 stack bet next and shoved. The last lady initially shoved all but 100 but changed her mind when asked by dealer if it was final bet. After over 3 minutes of deliberation and much help from her friends and husband, she held back 1200. I was the only one to win the last hand and would have won without all her help. She really had no clue. Oh well, still had fun and I congratulated her on her win.

[finoky]

Ports: We rarely book anything through the ship and most always just venture off on our own. St Thomas- Off the ship early and took a taxi to Red Hook to catch the 9am ferry over to St John. Enjoyed a beautiful day at Trunk Bay and then did a little shopping at Havensight when we got back.

Antigua- Took a taxi over to Long Bay and enjoyed the day there. The beach was beautiful, clean, gentle slope, and had ok snorkeling. Did some shopping back at the pier area. Tortola- Loved this port! Took a taxi to Brewers Bay and spent the day there. What a beautiful beach and had awesome snorkeling right off the beach. Dexter Tolbert was our driver and he was friendly and drove safe. The drive there was crazy with some very steep and winding roads. He said he replaces brakes 2-3 times a year. Dropped us off back at the ship and we did some shopping at the straw markets there. Nassau- It is what it is. Could skip it as far as I am concerned. Has gone way down hill IMHO since I first visited back in 1998. Just took a cab to Cable Beach for a few hours and then back to the ship. Carnival shorted us an hour at each port for some reason. We arrived an hour later than the cruise itinerary was advertised at St Thomas, Antigua, and Nassau. We left an hour early than originally advertised in Tortola. I think that explains the mystery $47 OBC we all received a few days before sailing.

[finoky]

Embarkation Rainstorm: Back to the huge amount of rain we had just after we boarded the ship. There were many that had their entire contents within their luggage soaked by that rainstorm. We heard from a lot of people regarding this issue and how Carnival wasn’t so helpful. Every time I ventured down to Guest Services I could hear people complaining about their stuff being ruined. Also heard of people having their stuff further ruined by Carnival trying to dry it for them. Lot of unhappy people. We somehow missed it even though we handed them our luggage less than an hour beforehand. When we were leaving the ship we noticed that they had built two new temporary tent canopies where you drop off your luggage. Guess they didn't want anything to happen again like it did to people on our cruise.

[finoky]

Debarkation: We chose to use luggage express for the first time and it made things so much easier. One little snafu was Carnival had trouble delivering everyone’s luggage tags and boarding passes the day prior. It took us multiple phone calls and trips to the deck to finally get them all. My wife and I got ours no problem as well as two others. My daughter got hers but her friend in her cabin did not. My mother in law and her hubby didn’t get theirs either. They finally got theirs around 10PM. My daughter’s friend never got hers. We had to get them reprinted at Guest Services at 11PM so we could set the luggage out. The rest of the process was smooth as silk. Our flight wasn’t until 1:15 so we decided to wait till around 9:30 to get off the ship. Self-assist began, believe it or not, at about 6:35. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. We hung out up on lido aft till 930 and easily walked off the ship as they were calling zones 23-24. Within minutes we were through customs and outside to grab cab to FLL airport. When you walk out the terminal there is a guy routing cabs much like they do in port. We split our group into two 4’s and easily got 2 cabs. The metered fare was $12.90 per cab.

Final Thoughts: Overall this was a wonderful cruise. There are always some type of snafus to deal with but we always just let them roll off our back and take them in stride. We are on vacation and the last thing we want is drama. We were able to use our FCC with no problems and the OBC was there waiting for us. They charged our friend for a Red Bull that she never ordered so watch your bills. We ordered Bon Voyage liquor prior to the price increase and it worked out great. Our room steward was very good. Kept our room clean and ice bucket filled. Brad Calabrese was adequate as a cruise director. I don’t care one way or the other how good they are anyway but he was fine. Cash Vault machine that has the Ipad is total luck. Some people did get some things out of there during the week. Every person I saw either barely missed at the top or by a lot at the bottom. Just like a slot machine it is all luck. Except for rain during embarkation and overcast first day the weather was awesome. How sunny for most of the cruise. Muster was quick and easy. No report anywhere that I heard of with any noro issues. It was reported that the previous couple of cruises had reported an outbreak. We are always diligent anyway in washing our hands. One morning while in line at the lido buffet the guy in front of me coughs three times into his right hand and immediately proceeds to continue getting food with the same hand. I got right out of line, told a few people behind me what I witnessed, and went to another section. They did the same thing. Bottom line, we loved the Freedom and the 8 day itinerary. We are now looking forward to our next Carnival cruise in October.

[chill6x6]

Enjoy your review!

 

I started to book this cruise and ended up going the Southern route!

 

Brad Calabrese... He was the cruise director on our first ever Carnival cruise...The Holiday in 2007!

 

Canned music... Probably my biggest disappointment from our last cruise. Fewer musicians and musicians faking it. Carnival used to have the best show band! I'm glad it's not just me noticing stuff like that....

[iheartpoco]

What a great report! We are booked on this cruise for Dec. 29, enjoyed reading your take.

 

Also, thanks soooo much for posting your report in digestible pieces, but all at once. I often end up not even reading the ones where people post periodically over a couple of days, as it becomes too much to slog through all the "thanks" posts like this one...LOL.

 

Seriously, posting like this makes it so much more enjoyable for your readers; I don't understand why more people don't do it.

[vivavegas]

Nice review! Thanks for sharing! Sounds like you had a good cruise!:)

[boaterette]

Thank you for taking the time to post this. I enhoyed reading it very much.

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for posting a review of your cruise, sounds like you had an awesome time.

[LindaJSteele]

Cabin: We were in cabin 2470, a category 6B on main deck, port side aft. It is a huge cabin compared to most and is over 300 sqft. It also has 2 windows, sofa, table, and 2 chairs. We have had this particular cabin before on the Valor and loved it so much we picked it again. There is some vibration and engine noise but nothing that would bother us. We were very happy with this cabin and will definitely book it again in the future. Our friends were in 2473 for the 2nd time. Our daughter was in 2471 and my mother in law was in 2347. No complaints from anyone regarding their cabin.

 

What a coincidence...we will be in this exact cabin in 2 weeks. It looks like a great cabin from the pictures; can't wait to see it. Thanks for the review; it was disappointing to hear about the music, but I think that's happening on all ships. We really like this class and have sailed the Freedom before, so we're looking forward to a great time!