Carnival Freedom Review 9/22 - 9/30

[bythehex]

We just got off the Carnival Freedom yesterday and I'm still exhausted from travel, but I wanted to give you our impressions of this ship and cruise. This will be a long review so I’ll probably do it in parts. This was a Southern Caribbean itinerary that went to Grand Turk, La Romana Dominican Republic, Curacao and Aruba.

 

 

Part One:

 

 

On Saturday, 9/22 my husband and I flew United Airlines from Newark to Ft. Lauderdale early and arrived at the port around 10:50 in the morning. We got our sign and sail cards and were surprised to learn we were in boarding zone 7, there were already a great many passengers waiting. I don’t know how early they must have arrived but obviously earlier than us! After waiting for a large wedding party to board, they started boarding the ship by 11:30. By 12:00 we were sitting in the Lido buffet eating delicious corned beef & pastrami combo sandwiches on rye bread. Yum!

 

Our room wasn’t going to be available till 1:30 so we wandered the ship a bit after lunch. We were sitting in the promenade when one of the many crew that were cleaning walked over to us. It was a young gal from the Phillipines, and she recognized us from being on the Pride last October! She asked us where the rest of our family was, since we sailed with our son last time. It was really nice, this was the first time that any of the crew recognized us from a previous cruise.

 

 

The décor of the ship isn’t as neon gaudy as some of the other ships we’ve been on, but it’s not as sedately decorated as say, the Pride is. The décor is actually a bit jarring at times. For example, there are beautiful granite tile floors, in an array of granite colors. But then the walls don’t match the floor colors. This is significantly true in the Posh dining room. There’s granite flooring at the entry, then brownish carpeting with a sort of box pattern. The walls however are red and black snakeskin wall paper, and there are carved metal oranges on the partitions and in the ceiling as grates for the red, blue, and green lighting. Sort of a cacophony of styles and colors, which seems to be the theme everywhere in that nothing matches. It was interesting, to say the least.

 

 

A little before 1:30 we went to see if our room was ready. We were in cabin 6201, which is a 4J. Meaning we had a window that looked out on front onto the “secret deck”. This was the first time we hadn’t gotten a balcony and I had been a bit nervous about it, but once I saw the room I calmed down. It was really nice. No, before you comment it was NOT one of the handicapped accessible cabins, I made sure of that when I booked. It had plenty of storage space. There are two closets on your left when you first walk into the cabin, plus a desk with four drawers (the top one holds the hair dryer). Above it is the TV and the cabinet with the safe – my AARP card worked great for opening and closing the safe.

 

Across from the desk was the bed. The window was to the right of the bed. To the left of the bed is another large closet, and a small cabinet that held the mini fridge, which we never used. The bathroom was the standard sized cruise cabin bathroom, with plenty of storage on the shelves above the sink area. We had plenty of room to store our luggage under the bed. Looking out the window when we were seated on the bed we could see the sky but the deck wall obstructed our view. Standing at the window, however, we could see the ocean and the bow of the ship. It was actually a great view, and we truly enjoyed having that room. Perfect size for two people, plenty of storage, it was fairly quiet there with ONE big exception.

 

 

Sunday was an at sea day so we didn't notice it until the next day. Our first port was Grand Turk on Monday. We were there from 7am till 2pm. Before 7am we were awakened by the room shaking and a loud WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR motor noise which went on for quite a bit. We realized afterwards what it was from – it’s when they released those big ropes to tie off the ship to the dock. Having a sense of humor, I do have to say it really didn’t bother us too much, we saw the humor of the situation and just laughed it off. But if you’re planning on booking one of these rooms, be aware that you’re going to be hearing this.

 

 

If you've never been to Grand Turk before, be sure to get off the ship here. The beach is literally at the end of the pier, with plenty of lounge chairs and palm trees for shade. Margaritaville is right there too and you can use their pool as well. The water is gorgeous, we saw a lot of fish and had a really nice time there. After a few hours we went back onto the ship and went to the pool in the rear of the ship. This was our favorite area, we had spent most of our first at sea day there and met some nice folks. Returning from Grand Turk, we ate lunch and had a really nice afternoon at the pool. So far, we were having a lovely time.

 

 

More to come later...

[Love-to-ride]

Can't wait for the rest of your review, we are doing this cruise next year on the Breeze :D

[bythehex]

Part Two:

After a wonderful time in Grand Turk we were looking forward to going to La Romana the next day. We’ve been to all inclusive resorts in Punta Cana but we’d never been to La Romana and knew nothing about it. Well, it turns out that – there’s nothing to know about it. When you get off the ship there’s literally nothing there. To see anything you need to leave the port area. There are shuttles that can take you to the shopping area. We opted not to go, and afterwards we were glad we didn’t go. The couple we were seated with at dinner went and they said it was horrible. It was the same kind of straw market you see on every island, but the vendors were quite aggressive. They even got physical with the wife, trying to put necklaces and bracelets on her until her husband said “If you put anything on her we’ll consider it a gift and walk away with it”. Even people who had gone on excursions came back grumbling that La Romana was “a waste of time”. We, however, had a great day on the ship at our favorite pool. It was relaxing and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

 

The following day we docked at Curacao. We were there from 2:00pm till 11:00pm. We got off the ship and decided to take a tour from a tour operator named Dushu or something like that. The houses in Curacao are painted pretty colors but a lot of them are in disrepair. We had been looking forward to going to the Curacao liquor “factory” – which turned out to be a little building that they take you into, point to a diagram on the wall showing how the peel of some fruit is used to make it. Then you get little samples to taste, and there’s a shop to buy the liquor. And that’s it. On the way back to the ship some of the people asked if there was a beach near the ship. There is one called Holiday Beach, and they dropped us off there. It was about a six minute walk back to the ship.

 

The next day was our last port, Aruba. Based on information I read on Cruise Critic we went to the bus depot which is right up the street from the dock, and took the bus to Eagle Beach. What a GOREGOUS beach that is! White, soft, powdery sand and turquoise water make for a picture postcard view. We spent a few hours there and then went back to the ship. I would definitely recommend it. By the way, the round trip fare per person was $2.60 and they take U.S. Dollars.

 

The next two were at sea days. It was sad to pack to come home, but reality does tend to smack us in the face. LOL.

 

I’ll tell you more about the ship and some things we didn’t like in the next part. Sorry it's taking so long, but my boss actually expects me to do some work today. LOL :o

[bythehex]

Part 3:

 

Ok, so I think I mentioned that my husband is a TV addict. He loves to fall asleep watching TV, and just relaxing in the cabin sometimes watching TV. There are a lot of channels available. Except that most of them are the Carnival channels. Let me give you the lineup of what they are, I actually wrote it down:

 

11 - Funship Channel

13 - Guest information - you can view your folio, dinner menu, etc.

14 - Map

15 - Forward Camera

16 - TV Guide station

17 - Cruise Director's program

18 - CBS - available intermittently

19 - Funship Films

20 - NBC - available intermittently

21 - Fun Aboard

22 - ABC - available intermittently

23 - Discovery Channel - taped videos that they repeated

24 - Shore Excursions

25 - HLN - available intermittently

26 - TNT - intermittent

27 - Cruise Director's program (yes, again)

28 - CNN International

29 - Boomerang (a teen channel - with spanish commercials)

30 - Cartoon Network

31 - Fox - not even intermittent, on the first day and then never again

32 - Radio Channel - video of scenery and music

33 - Daily Movie

34 - Daily Movie

35 - Kids Movie

36 - Fun Shopping Channel

37 - Radio Channel again

38 - Audible Fun Times Channel. Read the fun times out loud

39 - Radio Channel - for the third time

40 - Lido Deck Camera

 

The daily movies were the same all week long. Alvin & The Chipmunks, and Sherlock Holmes 2. Over and over again. And no times as to when they start, so if you DID want to watch them from the beginning, good luck. The networks we were lucky to get at certain times. We couldn't get NBC one morning to watch the Today Show, it was all pixelated and breaking up. But when we went to the Lido they were showing it on the big screen with no problem, so I don't understand why we couldn't get it in our cabin. Pickings were very slim as to what to watch.

 

They hardly showed anything on the big screen during the day, and the few things they showed were the same. There was a Billy Joel concert, and Michael Jackson's documentary This Is It. At night one night they had two old Clint Eastwood movies, Fistful of Dollars and The Outlaw Josey Wales. One night they showed Singing In the Rain. And more than once they showed Back To the Future. I think they also showed Spiderman 3 and something else. I rarely saw anything because we didn't stay out there where the screen was.

 

Next....

[mimi'sgirl]

Really appreciate your review! We will be doing this itinerary in Nov. Can you please tell me more about Holiday beach in Curacao? Mostly concerned with how the water was and if there were vendors since my two children will be there. Right now I'm considering Seaquarium Beach. Thank you for any info.

[kaftigr]

I took this same itinerary on the freedom back in April. Aruba was our favorite port on the trip. I enjoyed reading your review.

[bythehex]

Really appreciate your review! We will be doing this itinerary in Nov. Can you please tell me more about Holiday beach in Curacao? Mostly concerned with how the water was and if there were vendors since my two children will be there. Right now I'm considering Seaquarium Beach. Thank you for any info.

 

Holiday Beach was through a casino hotel. It's a very very small beach, the water is really calm, almost motionless, because there's sort of a reef there that blocks the big waves. The sand at the water's edge and in the water is all broken up coral and shells, so you need water shoes or some kind of foot protection because it could be rough on bare feet. There were no vendors. We had originally planned to go to the Seaquarium and Seaquarium Beach but got sidetracked by our tour.

[mimi'sgirl]

Thank you for the info. I believe I have seen pics of the Holiday Beach. I'll stay w/our orig. plans. We love Aruba also. Glad you loved it.

[FloridaGram]

We just got off the Carnival Freedom yesterday and I'm still exhausted from travel, but I wanted to give you our impressions of this ship and cruise. This will be a long review so I’ll probably do it in parts. This was a Southern Caribbean itinerary that went to Grand Turk, La Romana Dominican Republic, Curacao and Aruba.

 

 

Part One:

 

 

On Saturday, 9/22 my husband and I flew United Airlines from Newark to Ft. Lauderdale early and arrived at the port around 10:50 in the morning. We got our sign and sail cards and were surprised to learn we were in boarding zone 7, there were already a great many passengers waiting. I don’t know how early they must have arrived but obviously earlier than us! After waiting for a large wedding party to board, they started boarding the ship by 11:30. By 12:00 we were sitting in the Lido buffet eating delicious corned beef & pastrami combo sandwiches on rye bread. Yum!

 

Our room wasn’t going to be available till 1:30 so we wandered the ship a bit after lunch. We were sitting in the promenade when one of the many crew that were cleaning walked over to us. It was a young gal from the Phillipines, and she recognized us from being on the Pride last October! She asked us where the rest of our family was, since we sailed with our son last time. It was really nice, this was the first time that any of the crew recognized us from a previous cruise.

 

 

The décor of the ship isn’t as neon gaudy as some of the other ships we’ve been on, but it’s not as sedately decorated as say, the Pride is. The décor is actually a bit jarring at times. For example, there are beautiful granite tile floors, in an array of granite colors. But then the walls don’t match the floor colors. This is significantly true in the Posh dining room. There’s granite flooring at the entry, then brownish carpeting with a sort of box pattern. The walls however are red and black snakeskin wall paper, and there are carved metal oranges on the partitions and in the ceiling as grates for the red, blue, and green lighting. Sort of a cacophony of styles and colors, which seems to be the theme everywhere in that nothing matches. It was interesting, to say the least.

 

 

A little before 1:30 we went to see if our room was ready. We were in cabin 6201, which is a 4J. Meaning we had a window that looked out on front onto the “secret deck”. This was the first time we hadn’t gotten a balcony and I had been a bit nervous about it, but once I saw the room I calmed down. It was really nice. No, before you comment it was NOT one of the handicapped accessible cabins, I made sure of that when I booked. It had plenty of storage space. There are two closets on your left when you first walk into the cabin, plus a desk with four drawers (the top one holds the hair dryer). Above it is the TV and the cabinet with the safe – my AARP card worked great for opening and closing the safe.

 

Across from the desk was the bed. The window was to the right of the bed. To the left of the bed is another large closet, and a small cabinet that held the mini fridge, which we never used. The bathroom was the standard sized cruise cabin bathroom, with plenty of storage on the shelves above the sink area. We had plenty of room to store our luggage under the bed. Looking out the window when we were seated on the bed we could see the sky but the deck wall obstructed our view. Standing at the window, however, we could see the ocean and the bow of the ship. It was actually a great view, and we truly enjoyed having that room. Perfect size for two people, plenty of storage, it was fairly quiet there with ONE big exception.

 

 

Sunday was an at sea day so we didn't notice it until the next day. Our first port was Grand Turk on Monday. We were there from 7am till 2pm. Before 7am we were awakened by the room shaking and a loud WHIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR motor noise which went on for quite a bit. We realized afterwards what it was from – it’s when they released those big ropes to tie off the ship to the dock. Having a sense of humor, I do have to say it really didn’t bother us too much, we saw the humor of the situation and just laughed it off. But if you’re planning on booking one of these rooms, be aware that you’re going to be hearing this.

 

 

If you've never been to Grand Turk before, be sure to get off the ship here. The beach is literally at the end of the pier, with plenty of lounge chairs and palm trees for shade. Margaritaville is right there too and you can use their pool as well. The water is gorgeous, we saw a lot of fish and had a really nice time there. After a few hours we went back onto the ship and went to the pool in the rear of the ship. This was our favorite area, we had spent most of our first at sea day there and met some nice folks. Returning from Grand Turk, we ate lunch and had a really nice afternoon at the pool. So far, we were having a lovely time.

 

 

More to come later...

 

I look forward to your review. We sailed this itinerary in August. I agree with your assessment of the Posh DR, I thought that snakeskin was really weird. I did think the ship was pretty gaudy. I am curious which ship you feel is more so, I may want to avoid those ships! While sitting in the lounge in the lobby, watching the glass elevators so looking up I noticed that was some pretty bizarre print and so orange...It looked so 70's to me.

[vivavegas]

Looking forward to reading more of your review! Thanks for sharing!:)

[erewhon]

Thank you for taking time to write and post your review.

[bythehex]

Part 4:

 

Ok, now while we weren't happy with the sports coverage or TV coverage, I have to say that the live entertainment was great! There were I think three production shows, they were all very good. The two main singers were fantastic. There was live entertainment all over the ship, we saw a singer who plays guitar in the Swingtime club, he was excellent. And there was a man and woman that we saw mostly at the lobby and they were excellent too, they did great duets. I thought it was interesting that she was reading the songs from a tablet on her music stand, rather than paper. Ah, the age of technology! LOL.

 

There was another group of four musicians. They were all Asian I believe, were fantastic musicians and they even performed in the production show Ticket To Ride, which was a tribute to the Beatles. We saw them perform a few times in the lobby area, and what was unusual was that on some songs, their accents made their interpretation kind of...interesting. They sang Brown Eyed Girl but it came out sounding like Blah Naid Gull. They were very entertaining, and like I said they were GREAT musicians. Especially the lead guitarist, wow he was amazing! We were very impressed by them, liked them a lot. All of the live entertainment was of great quality!

 

We don't participate in things like Love & Marriage show, or bingo, or hairy legs contest, etc., so I can't comment on those. I'm sure that they were a lot of fun for those who are interested in them.

 

We didn't spend a lot of time in the casino either. Not because we don't like to gamble, but because it's so damned smokey in there that it made me choke. I know those of you who smoke want the right to enjoy yourselves too, but man oh man, it's tough for us non-smokers who want to breathe. It really did make me limit my time in the casino, I would have liked to have spent more time there, but I did come home ahead $39.50 so I guess it was for the best. :D

 

All in all, I have to say that we had a really great cruise. The ship is nice, the decor a little wonky but then again, it didn't have all the neon that we've seen on the Imagination or even in the Victory. It was clean, they were always cleaning something. This was the friendliest crew that we've ever experienced, and the other passengers were just as friendly.

 

We would definitely sail on the Freedom again, same itinerary.

 

If anyone has any questions, please ask. Thanks.

 

-Sharon -

[mizLORInj]

We really enjoyed this excellent itin as well in May.

In DR we did Seavis Tours and went to a beautiful island by boat. I'd do it again.

Agree that Eagle and Palm beaches in Aruba are pristine.

[bythehex]

I look forward to your review. We sailed this itinerary in August. I agree with your assessment of the Posh DR, I thought that snakeskin was really weird. I did think the ship was pretty gaudy. I am curious which ship you feel is more so, I may want to avoid those ships! While sitting in the lounge in the lobby, watching the glass elevators so looking up I noticed that was some pretty bizarre print and so orange...It looked so 70's to me.

 

I noticed that 70's type of wallpaper too. I just don't understand the decor at all. Nothing seemed to go with anything else, it was a little jarring. And the decor in the elevators too, there were granite floors, fake wood grain on the walls and what looked like Pennsylvania Dutch designs on the back wall and inside when the doors shut. What was that all about?? :confused:

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review!

[Silent Penguin]

Thanks for the report. I will check the Freedom off my list as possible ships. That loud and gaudy decor would mess with my head.

[izzypooch]

Hi Sharon

 

Hubby and I are doing this same itinerary this Saturday. He is having some mobility problems and I was wondering if you remembered how far one has to walk from the ship to get to the end of the pier where you'd board buses for excursions in DR and Cureso or if you remember seeing available golf carts or shuttles at any of the ports.

[bythehex]

Hi Sharon

 

Hubby and I are doing this same itinerary this Saturday. He is having some mobility problems and I was wondering if you remembered how far one has to walk from the ship to get to the end of the pier where you'd board buses for excursions in DR and Cureso or if you remember seeing available golf carts or shuttles at any of the ports.

 

In Curacao there isn't really a very long walk from the pier to where the excursion buses are. In La Romana, there's a much longer walk and it's sort of uphill. I don't recall seeing any kind of golf carts or shuttles to be honest. The pier at Grand Turk is a really long walk also to even get to the shop you have to walk through, let alone to the beach.

 

It would probably be better if your husband can arrange for a wheelchair, especially for La Romana. I don't know if that's a possibility for you or not, but it might be something you want to look into.