B2B On the Freedom ~ August 18th & 25th: My Diary

[maxs mom]

We stayed a little after the M&M and "mingled" a little more with a few people. We were chatting with Steve and Kay and they were telling us about the unusual JS that they had. They invited us to see it. It was actually a family JS and in the place of the walk in closet, there was a small room with bunk beds! They had about three or four other closets throughout the suite.....so much storage!! It was a really nice suite.

They were lucky to have this suite for two weeks!

We relaxed and read in our cabin until lunch time. I just love this quiet atmosphere and the view out our balcony on sea days. You will not find me at that loud pool trying to read. Although the people watching there is amazing!

We went to the Windjammer today for lunch........with about 10,000 other people!! Oh my!! Just too many people.....no place to sit.....ugh!! We figured out later that they had Chops open for D+/P folks to take their food to eat. That was much better, but we didn't know that today. Anyway....had my usual lunch. When I went for dessert, there was such a long line, no plates. I finally found a bowl somewhere and got a small bit of flan to taste. I've never been a fan of WJ desserts. I couldn't believe the people in front of me were piling massive amounts of desserts on dinner plates! The girl in front of me and I were disgusted. Sorry! We ended up sticking with Sprinkles for dessert the rest of the time.

Lots of reading time this afternoon. There were actually three ice shows today, but none of them were at convenient times for me. I never got to an ice show in the whole two weeks. I generally like those, too.

We hit the CL at around 6:30 tonight where we met our new cruise buddies, Gerry and Sandy.

We were later joined by Brian and Barbara.......

Both fun couples. That is one reason we love going to the CL. We meet the best people in there......well traveled......love cruising......fun to hang out with.

[tallcva3344]

Thanks for posting this! My DD and I were on this cruise -- and in the CL with you. It's so fun to relive our last cruise through your pictures :):)

 

Willie is the best!

 

I also split my time between the CL and DL. I like the DL view the best if it is not too crowded. Bertie did a great job in the DL. I cruised B2B with Willie in January. I will miss his music in November, but Rahul will take his place this Sunday for a few months, and I have cruised 6 other times with Rahul. This will be my 11th cruise coming up on the Freedom. Have not booked yet, as I will do that about two to three weeks before the cruise. I wish I had made contact with everyone. H

[tallcva3344]

Thanks everyone!! For some reason' date=' I could not get on to CC last night. I'll try to get a little more done this morning.[/size']

 

Gerry.....I'm impressed! You're all the way up to 3 posts now! And yes.....it was a great two weeks. So glad to have met and hung out with you and Sandy. We'll definitely do it again!

 

It was great to see you at the M&M and the picture you took of us and the girls was great. My camera did not take that good a picture. Sorry we did not get to set together in the CL. Sometimes I went there by myself, because Joyce was getting the girls ready before she came to the lounge. I did have a good conversation with the lady that had the dog. She was very nice, and still recovering from the effects from her car crash. I think the dog was allowed because of that condition. She also came into the DL, but did not bring the dog there. She did have a joke about the dog being Pinnacle (actually was given a pinnacle card on the dogs collar). She said while they were D+ the dog got "dog year" credits so he got to the level quicker.

 

I hope we will get to cruise together again in the future. Maybe we could go to Chops together. H

[Tobyhilda]

We are sailing on Freedom next week,,,Sept 15,2013,,,yes, we have been on FOS before, looking forward to chnges you mentioned,,,WOW, no more coupon books.

You never mentioned Diamond Lounge, only Concierge Lounge. (we are diamond plus) and so far, we prefer DL, because it is airy, with lots of windows...

Once again, we will be meeting in person on Indy 12-7-13...

In ref to Chops, we love RED VELVET CAKE,,,however, I will try MudPie, on your recommendation. I remain,,,aka The Godmother Tobyhilda

[wolfganghowell]

Just a note - there IS a Diamond breakfast area on Freedom. It is a side dining room just off the MDR. We had to ask for it when we were onboard since there was no mention of it and no sign. We ate there 3 or 4 times and each time there was only one other table of people in there.

[teajak]

Just a note - there IS a Diamond breakfast area on Freedom. It is a side dining room just off the MDR. We had to ask for it when we were onboard since there was no mention of it and no sign. We ate there 3 or 4 times and each time there was only one other table of people in there.

Once we found this we had breakfast there every day, love it. I had forgotten about it, so glad you reminded me as we are sailing 10/27.;)

[Debitoo]

Congratulations on your retirement Jane! I'd love to be able to retire someday, but probably won't. :rolleyes::p

 

Thanks for doing this report! Really looking forward to the next installment!

[dreamer976]

Thanks so much for doing this review. I'll be doing the same B2B trip on the Freedom this December, also doing the Hampton Inn for a few days pre-cruise. Glad you enjoyed it.

 

Congrats on the retirement!

Edited September 6, 2013 by dreamer976

[maxs mom]

OK....back again for a little while!

 

Harry.....Glad we got to meet you briefly. Would love to have dinner in Chops with you some time. Hope we can cruise together again!

Tobyhilda......we love the Red Velvet Cake, too! But that Mud Pie is just special!! Looking forward to meeting you in December!

wolfganghowell......That breakfast area was NOT available on these two sailings. Yeah....that side area is where it has been on every other ship. There were just too many D/D+/P folks on these sailings. The first week we were on there were 11 Pinnacles and the second week there were 13 Pinnacles. And a whole bunch of D and D+.

The DL is certainly nice and we enjoyed going in there during the day from time to time. I just like the coziness of the CL. The DL was just too crowded in the evenings. This week the CL was fairly empty. The next week, it was really busy every night. Both Willie and Berty are fantastic.

[maxs mom]

Thanks so much for doing this review. I'll be doing the same B2B trip on the Freedom this December, also doing the Hampton Inn for a few days pre-cruise. Glad you enjoyed it.

 

Congrats on the retirement!

 

Glad you will be able to stay at the HI for a couple of days. That will give you enough time to enjoy that beautiful beach and relax. (Also eat some great seafood!)

[Ocean Boy]

Glad I found this thread today. I'm looking forward to read it as I don't have a cruise to look forward to for several months. And I love these Freedom class ships!:)

[wolfganghowell]

Thanks for the review, forgot to say that! :) Bummer on the breakfast area - seems like if there were so many onboard they should have not only opened it up but expanded the area. Weird decision there.

 

I hope you will do an Independence review since we will be on her after you. Would love any info on the CL and the concierge onboard as well as the entertainment in the various lounges.

 

Congrats on your retirement. I'm starting to reach the age where instead of "dreading" retirement, I am looking forward to it! :D :D

[maxs mom]

So this was the first formal night.

Enjoying ourselves in the CL:

Around 8:30 we head down to Deck 5 for My Time Dining. The traditional late seating on this ship is at 8:00.....again.....something different. We never had to wait to be seated on either week. This week we were seated in one of two places, so we got to bond somewhat with our waitstaff and they were great in both areas. Tonight we were seated all the way at the end of the dining room on the little balcony that was all the way aft. Really cool place to sit. There were two tables for two there and one table for fourteen. Our waiters were excellent in the fact that they didn't get all bogged down with that table for 14 and forget about us. They always made sure that we were served first. Great job!

I had the delicious filet of beef tonight and the strawberry cheesecake....also excellent.

The only dessert John likes is sugar free chocolate ice cream. They had that tonight! Yay! On some ships they gladly bring it to him every night and on others they act like we have just asked for the Failsafe Launch Codes!! He was able to get it most nights on this sailing, but hardly ever on the next sailing. That's partly our fault......we should have sought out the Headwaiter and arranged that with him......but we never saw a Headwaiter this cruise!

After dinner we wandered through the casino and tried out a few slot machines. I thought I had found a neat little 25 cent Wheel of Fortune machine, but the max spin was 15 credits so I lost $20 fairly quickly. John found a machine that hit some kind of Wild Thing and he was able to win a little money before we retired for the evening.

Another thing different on this ship.....or maybe with this new smoking policy.....they are doing this on all ships now. There is smoking all the time in the casino....whereas Formal nights used to be non-smoking there. It made it very hard for us to stay in the casino for any length of time. But that might be a good thing!

[39august]

A couple of questions, please. If D+ and P were eating breakfast and lunch in Chops, then I assume suite pax were in Portofino? That is a suite perk we really enjoy. Also, what were the CL and DL cocktail hours, please? I have read on other threads that on some of the cruises it was 4:30-8PM. I much prefer the usual 5-8:30 PM.

[maxs mom]

Glad I found this thread today. I'm looking forward to read it as I don't have a cruise to look forward to for several months. And I love these Freedom class ships!:)

 

Hey There! Nice to see you! Always enjoy chatting with you here and there.

wolfganghowell.....I so agree with you on them opening up an expanded area. It just didn't make any sense to me. Love the Independence and she was all gussied up right after we sailed on her last....so I'm looking forward to getting back on board. Raj Bugwathe is one of the Concierges and he will be on when we are there in December. We've sailed with him a few times and he is great!!

[maxs mom]

A couple of questions, please. If D+ and P were eating breakfast and lunch in Chops, then I assume suite pax were in Portofino? That is a suite perk we really enjoy. Also, what were the CL and DL cocktail hours, please? I have read on other threads that on some of the cruises it was 4:30-8PM. I much prefer the usual 5-8:30 PM.

 

Hey There!

Yes.....I believe the suite passengers went to Portofino for lunch. We very rarely saw Chops open to D/D+ for lunch on the second week. The CL/DL hours on this ship were 4:30-8:00. All other ships have been 5-8:30. and like you......we much prefer those hours.

[39august]

Thank you, Jane.

[maxs mom]

Tuesday ~ August 20th ~ Labadee

Oh boy!! Labadee! One of my favorite stops!

I was up very early this morning. We docked at 8 o'clock. We had a table for two in the MDR this morning. I just got some oatmeal today looking forward to that great BBQ lunch on the island.

Good Morning, Labadee!

They were getting all the supplies ready to go:

We got all our stuff together and got off the ship around 9 or so. It was a beautiful day. We were able to use Barefoot Beach. We just got a couple of chairs there and put them under a tree so we would have plenty of shade. It was mighty hot today. We just lazed around and read and thoroughly enjoyed this day! I have lots of pictures of Labadee.

[mikechass]

So great, looking forward to seeing and reading more.

Welcome Home and Congrats on the retirement!!!

[maxs mom]

It never got crowded here today! My kind of place!

[The Big Booper]

I've been waiting for your trip report - great timing, right after Radio's ended.

 

Nancy retired June 2005 and we took the stretched Enchantment out of Boston to the smaller New England ports the first week in Sept 2005. So we know the feeling.

 

Between Radio and you, we are all juiced up for our first Oasis trip 9/14.

 

We're doing the last Explorer run out of NY Nov 1 2014.

 

Did you use a polrazing filter on the beach shots?

[maxs mom]

Lunch was nice. There was a little bit of a line but it moved quickly. I got a really good hamburger, cole slaw, corn, a fruit skewer, and a cookie. Delicious. We just took our plates back to our chairs to eat.

[maxs mom]

I've been waiting for your trip report - great timing, right after Radio's ended.

 

Nancy retired June 2005 and we took the stretched Enchantment out of Boston to the smaller New England ports the first week in Sept 2005. So we know the feeling.

 

Between Radio and you, we are all juiced up for our first Oasis trip 9/14.

 

We're doing the last Explorer run out of NY Nov 1 2014.

 

Did you use a polrazing filter on the beach shots?

 

Hi Dave!

I see where you have moved to Florida! Congratulations! No filters on the camera yet. We are on the Explorer next month.

[maxs mom]

After lunch we took a swim. The water felt great. Did I mention it was HOT!? We remembered to bring our water shoes this time......a definite MUST for Labadee! I felt really bad for the folks that didn't have any. They really struggled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tallcva3344]

A couple of questions, please. If D+ and P were eating breakfast and lunch in Chops, then I assume suite pax were in Portofino? That is a suite perk we really enjoy. Also, what were the CL and DL cocktail hours, please? I have read on other threads that on some of the cruises it was 4:30-8PM. I much prefer the usual 5-8:30 PM.

 

It is controlled by dinner times. Late dining is 8:00pm so they close at that time. Early dining has been changed on this ship to 5:30pm so they give them an hour before dinner for happy hour. Same amount of time, just matching it with dinner on the Freedom. Ships with 6:00pm and 8:30pm dining times still have 5:00pm to 8:30pm happy hour. H

Edited September 6, 2013 by tallcva3344