October 14-20 Freedom Review - Family Style

[Ramrac]

I will start by saying a fellow cruiser, *Sweetcurves*, who was also a part of my the roll call, is doing a review as well with tons of pictures. I will try to post pictures, if I can figure it out. I have tried before and failed miserably, so if anyone would like to tell me how to do it I will post them. However, we did not take as many as I had hoped and most are of myself and my family.

 

Background about us:

 

It was me (27), DH Chris (31) and DS Alaric (6), we also have an 18 month old DS Braeden, but since he was not old enough to do camp or almost any of the excursions he stayed behind with grandma and grandpa. They of course were beyond excited to keep him for a solid week, even though they only live 10 minutes away and see him every week as is. We planned this cruise in September 2011, yes we had a looooong wait and Alaric and I counted down almost everyday :D It helped build the excitement for the forever wait we had. We live in Northern Virginia and debated on driving down for the cruise or flying, but after thinking about the drive we took 3 years ago to Orlando with our then 3 year old we opted to fly. Which I am so glad we did. I will tell you this is my first review, so I will try to keep everything organized and not all over the place. Also I will apologize in advance for any rambling, I will try to stay on track:)

 

Saturday, October 13:

 

We were scheduled to fly out on US Airways at 10:30am from DCA, which left right on time. The only positive thing that happened that day. I woke up that morning at 4am horribly sick. Braeden had the flu all week and we were all crossing our fingers he didn't pass it on to us, but no luck. I took what I could to help make myself feel better and pushed us all out the door by 6am. We arrived to the airport in 34 degree weather and in layers of clothes. We had shorts on under our pants, which looked funny but we were prepared :p I slept the entire time we were waiting for our flight as well as on the plane and luckily at this point I was the only one who seemed to have caught it. By the time we landed I was being to feel much better, although still tired. I had made car service reservations with Avanti Limo Ride in Fort Lauderdale and booked us a limo. I wouldn't normally do this but I had never been in one before and thought it would be fun for us to get, plus we got a great price. Our driver met us at the curb and then we were off to Embassy Suites on 17th Street. We got there at about 1:30pm and were told our room would be ready at 3:00pm. By this time I was feeling back to normal so we decided to go find lunch. We went to Outback, which here is only open for dinner, which is located behind the hotel and then walked around the hotel grounds. At 3:00pm we went to check in and were told it would be another 30 minutes, so back to walking around we went. 3:30pm we were back at the desk and were told another 30 minutes. By this time there was not much else to see so we waited in the lobby and watched everyone else who checked in go straight to their room, kind of discouraging. Finally at 4:15pm we were told our room was ready. When we got to our room we saw that our room faced the port and could see the Oasis of the Seas and another ship docked. We hung around the room for a while and watched tv until it was time for dinner, which we went to the shopping center on the other side of the hotel and ate at the Lauderdale Grill. I ordered the shrimp salad which was great, Chris got the chicken caesar salad and Alaric ordered the grilled cheese. Alaric and I enjoyed our meal, but DH, who I call 5 star because he always has some remark about his food, didn't like his salad which I thought tasted pretty good. Back to the room we went to take showers and get ready for our big day!

 

Will be back later to continue...

 

 

***I also wanted to add, before someone comes on here and complains that I still went sick. When I booked our cruise through our normal TA we were given travel insurance, or so we were told. Then the week of the cruise I called our TA to find out who I'd contact in the event someone caught what Braeden had and had to cancel. She went on to tell me that we had an OBC not travel insurance and somehow somewhere the two were switched and nothing could be done about it...this was the first cruise where I did not have insurance.

[SMSACE6]

Looking forward to your review! And OP, you wont be the first nor the last person to board a cruise ship with a cold/flu. I understand. And that is why I get a flu shot every year. I know that it is not going to protect me 100pc, but it will help. And whether we are on a cruise ship, airplane, or in a shopping mall, restaurant or wherever....some one nearby will likely have a cold or a flu. We cannot isolate ourselves completely from this sort of thing. So Im looking forward to your review, and hope you are feeling better now.:)

[Ramrac]

Looking forward to your review! And OP, you wont be the first nor the last person to board a cruise ship with a cold/flu. I understand. And that is why I get a flu shot every year. I know that it is not going to protect me 100pc, but it will help. And whether we are on a cruise ship, airplane, or in a shopping mall, restaurant or wherever....some one nearby will likely have a cold or a flu. We cannot isolate ourselves completely from this sort of thing. So Im looking forward to your review, and hope you are feeling better now.:)

 

Thanks for your input. Yes I am feeling better now and as for the flu shot, I got mine two weeks before the cruise, as did my youngest yet we both got sick:(

[tulipcityfamily]

Look forward to the rest of the review and the ports you visited. My family sails in March 2013 on the Freedom. We can't wait!:)

[vegadog2]

I will be waiting to read you review. My DW and I plan on booking the 8 day southern or eastern on the Freedom. Please try to post on this message as I am subscribing to your thread

[Ramrac]

Sunday, October 14:

 

I woke up at 1:00am to my husband being sick. What a great start to a family vacation:rolleyes: I gave him some medicine and got him back in bed and luckily that was it for him. Alaric and I got up at 8:00am and went down to the atrium where the hotel has a HUGE selection for breakfast. They had different types of hot and cold cereals, breads, danish's, an omelette station, fruits, meats and so on. I had some cereal and a banana and Alaric had pancakes and cereal. It was the best breakfast display I'd ever seen at a hotel, and it was free! Can't beat that. At 9:00am we got a call from our driver saying he would be there in 20 minutes...he was supposed to be there at 10:00am, but I didn't want to make him wait and we were excited to get to port so I woke up Chris and we all got ready and headed downstairs.

 

One thing I will note about Embassy Suites, which I had never experienced at a hotel before, was when we were ready to check out all I had to do was call the front desk and let them know we were leaving and left the hotel keys in the room. What an easy check out process~ Also I forgot to mention, when we arrived to the hotel there were, can't think of the proper term so I'll call them staff, met us at our limo and loaded a cart and brought our luggage inside. They also offered to bring it to our room when it was finally ready and then when I called to say we were leaving they offered to meet us at our room and bring our luggage down. Very helpful. They also have a room to store your luggage until your room is ready and it is done coat check style. They tag each piece of luggage and give you a stub.

 

 

So once we were down in the lobby we met our driver, loaded the limo and we were on our way. The port was about 10 minutes away and we drove by the Allure of the Seas on our way, which was HUGE! We got to port at about 10:00am and were met by porters who took our luggage away. Two porters helped us, even though one probably could have handled it but it was slow so they were probably just trying to stay busy. We tipped them and made our way inside. We had VIP embark since we had an Ocean Suite, which by the way was my first ever suite and think I may have spoiled myself:D So we walked inside and went to the VIP counter, which really didn't matter because there were no lines anywhere. We were checked-in, went through security and in the waiting area all within 10 minutes. I will note that the VIP waiting area wasn't really VIP. I don't know what I was expecting but had heard Miami's VIP waiting area had drinks, we didn't have anything which wasn't a big deal. We hung around until 11:30am when they started letting the weddings (2) then the "VIP's" start boarding.

 

Finally we were on the ship! My son was amazed, he tried taking it all in looking up the atrium and around at the sitting areas and asked me how much bigger it was. I told him this was only a small part of the ship and there were tons more to see. After reading previous reviews and from my prior experience on Carnival we made our way to the lido buffet. I don't remember what exactly we all ate, it was just a little bit of everything there between the three of us. By the time we had our plates full it felt very crowded and we made our way to the fish and chips sitting area, which had plenty of seating. After we ate we went out to look at the pool and Chris and I had our first DOD while we ordered Alaric a virgin pina colada. Something he was looking forward to. He drank a ton of these on the cruise. I don't know how he could stand it but he did, it was terribly sweet, and he loved them!

 

Another note(sorry keep forgetting to add these) when we boarded we were told the cabins would be ready at 12:30, which was an hour earlier than I had expected.

 

At 12:30pm we made our way to our cabin and were amazed when we opened the door. It looked just like the pictures I had seen, and we were all very excited with the jetted tub that no one ever used the entire cruise, lol. Alaric's bed was already made, he slept on the couch, and it stayed up in bed mode the entire cruise. We all laid down and watched some t.v. until the Muster drill was announced. We headed down to the deck and by the time we got there everyone else seemed to already be there and we were lucky enough to be in the front row. This was surprising because we headed down right after the announcement was made. I thought for sure we would be standing around a while waiting for people. They began the drill shortly after we got there and EVERYONE stayed quiet. After a couple of minutes Alaric looks at me and says he doesn't feel well...great. I told him to just hold on and we would go back to the room and lay down once it was over. A minute later he has his hands over his mouth and the guy doing the demonstrating tells us to go so Alaric and I go running down the deck and two staff members plus our drill guy are trying to direct us to the closest bathroom...he didn't make it to the bathroom, but luckily he made it to an hallway with no carpet. I felt so bad for both Alaric and the staff. I apologized over and over again. I asked if I could have something to clean it up and they all laughed and said it happened all the time and not to worry about it. The staff was great, so we made our way to the bathroom and then back to our room. I gave him some medicine and made him lay down and then waited for Chris to come back to the room. Then at 5:30pm I went to check in Alaric with Camp Carnival but left him behind in the room with Chris. The camp introduction was very informative and answered all of my questions. Once back to the room we ordered room service for dinner and called it a night. For room service Alaric and I had the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Chris had the veggie sticks (which was a habit of his every night on the cruise), and some type of sandwich.

 

I will work on Tuesday, Key West tomorrow. I hope everyone is enjoying my first time review!

[DoubleHJr]

Sounds like you had an interesting start.... I hope it got better after that!

[mom22tinks]

Sounds great! Can't wait to hear the rest!!

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review!

[sweetcurves]

Oh no! I hope that was the only puking you guys had to endure during the cruise! My review kind of trailed off to nowhere. I guess I should finish it.

[Mrs.C05]

Great review so far! Sorry to hear the whole family got sick!

[Ramrac]

Monday, October 15(Key West): Today we were planning on doing the White Knuckle Boat Ride, which was booked prior to the cruise. We all woke up feeling much better, but scared to go on the excursion. We had room service delivered to our room at 7:00am and after eating we felt as though we would be fine. We met our small group on the pier and on to the marina we went. I have to say the people who operate the White Knuckle Boat ride were GREAT! Everyone was so nice and friendly! We all had a great time on our excursion and nobody got sick, not even close! Yay! Vacation is looking up!

 

After our excursion we walked around and went to the Toy Factory. It was neat and on our way up to it we saw some parrots that we got to take our picture with. They were beautiful. After that we went looking for Sloppy Joe's. After hearing so much about it prior to our cruise we were determined to eat lunch there. The place is really relaxed and they had a man and woman on stage, taking requests, and singing and playing the guitar. I don't remember everything we ordered, but I know we had 3 or 4 different types of appetizers to split, which was a TON of food and very yummy. After eating we went shopping and bought some items to bring back home.

 

We got back to the room, showered and rested for a bit and then walked around. At about 6:30 we walked Alaric to Fish & Chips so that he could have dinner with the camp and so that we could go to the steakhouse. We had reservations at 7 pm, but got there at 6:45 pm and said it was not a problem. The staff was amazing and the food was incredible. We were dressed formal, as we were told to dress, but others were more casual however no one was in jeans and everyone looked nice. We were seated and our waitress, we had a couple of them helping us, came over to show us the different types of meat. Then we placed our orders. I didn't want a salad so I was able to order two appetizers. I had the lobster bisque (amazing), and portabella mushrooms, then my main entree was the surf and turf and then the chocolate sampler. They also brought out a little tomato soup to try which was also very good. Chris had the crab cake and shrimp cocktail, then he had the prime rib(I think) and the fresh fruit for dessert. By the time dessert came out we were beyond stuffed, but we still tried them. Dinner was a great experience and I recommend everyone try it at least once. We will definitely be back again.

 

After dinner we went back to change and went to check on Alaric, who surprise surprise didn't want to leave and ended up staying at camp until 1am!

 

Then onto the casino we went. We played roulette and black jack for a couple of hours. It wasn't until Thursday night though that we decided to play to win rather than play til it was gone. We don't usually gamble in the casino to win instead to just have a good time. We budgeted a certain amount to spend each night so we didn't lose too much the first couple of nights.

 

After our donation to Carnival we went walking around and jumped into the theater area to watch the ending of the show, walked around some more and then off to bed for me:) I was in bed around midnight almost every night:) Chris brought Alaric back around 1am and then they went to bed.

 

Sorry it has taken sooo long to write more, I have been really busy with the family (sports), work and college.

 

More to come:)