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Freedom 2.0 Review - May 24 Southern Sailing!

tropicaledrink
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tropicaledrink

tropicaledrink

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We disembarked the Freedom yesterday after 8 wonderful days on board! I'll try to get some pictures uploaded later - but no promises on that. But here are some thoughts about our time on board:

 

THE SHIP:

 

The ship looked great! I had not sailed the Freedom before, but other members of our party had, and they mentioned that the ship looked "toned down". One big thing I picked out was that behind Lady Liberty in the Freedom Restaurant on Lido - no more colorful tile or Freedom spelled out above her head. Instead it's now a contrasting dark and light wood panel, and it looks great!

 

The midship pool is now "Stressless Pool" instead of "Timeless Pool" - but not all the signage has been changed yet, it's about half and half. The pool looks great, and the hot tubs were relocated to the first bleacher, which I really enjoy because it opens up the Lido deck.

 

There were some hiccups, but none that really bothered me - occasionally a toilet would be out of order in a public restroom, there were some scratches on the inside door of the elevator, one aft elevator was down nearly the whole cruise. Pizza Pirate had to be moved to the window opposite the deli due to some issues with the oven on the aft station. Nothing major, and nothing that affected our cruise. The Warehouse (arcade) was still under construction while we were on board - nothing we ever use, just noting this.

 

Guys, Blue Iguana Cantina, Blue Iguana Tequlia Bar, Red Frog Rum Bar, EA Sports Bar, Cherry on Top, Red Frog Pub, and Alchemy were all added in dry dock.

 

Camp Ocean had their grand opening while we were on board - we had n children in our group who participated in this, but the kids I saw seemed to be having a blast! The splash pool on Deck 11 is gone, and now has an outdoor Ocean themed playspace.

 

Club O2 was relocated to Deck 4 Midship in the hallway between the Chic Dining Room and the Habana Bar (which is still a waste of space in my opinion).

 

THE STAFF:

 

This is by far the best staff I have encountered on the whole on any of our cruises. Our room steward was nice, friendly, and kept our room in tip top shape, but did not call us by name once. Not a huge deal to us - just noting it, because this is the first time we experienced it.

 

Our dining room team was Ding, Roxanna, and Budasaya in the Chic Dining Room - Early Dining. They were WONDERFUL and by far the best team I have had. We had some special needs for dining (allergy issues) and we were well taken care of.

 

Entertainment Staff was great. Skip Lyons was our CD, and he is HILARIOUS. We loved him, and he probably rivals Butch for my fave CD at this point. His staff was very present - Taylor, Adam, and Jennifer will all be rising stars withing Carnival I am certain! The thing that impressed me the most about them was how much I saw them out and about and assisting passengers. I saw Skip more than once helping someone up and downstairs, taking time to talk to a kid, etc.

 

ALCHEMY BAR:

 

Adri and Daniel are your Master Mixologist - although Adri is only on board until the end of June. Raymond was the Bar Waiter, and the first American Bar Waiter I have met on board! He is sure to be a rising star - we had a great time at the Alchemy Bar, and even made a couple of new facebook friends.

 

Adri told us that the ship was sailing at about 1000 people under full capacity and you could tell. I don't think Carnival was pushing to get this ship sold because there was still work going on.

 

We did Daniel's mixology class and LOVED it. We had a blast, and had some great drinks over the week. We got to know Daniel and Raymond more because Adri was often on break while we were there, but she was also great. I know Adri has some fans here - she is getting married August 2, and she and her fiance will likely only be doing one more contract with Carnival after the wedding. She showed us her dress, venue, and other plans, and she will be a gorgeous bride!

 

PLAYLIST PRODUCTIONS:

 

I think I am in the minority here, but I LOVED them. We had 3 shows - Heart of Soul, 88 Keys, and Getaway Island. I really like the new direction they went. I personally did not attend 88 Keys as I was still ashore in Curacao the night it was on, but the rest of our group did and they LOVED it. They are still obviously working out some kinks, as there were a few technical issues and I think the music needed to be turned down some, and the mics turned up some. 88 Keys was performed for the first time on our sailing. One of the lead female vocalists was not well suited to some of the songs (she has and Adele type voice), but overall they were all pretty good. On the whole, the shows were great!

 

No cheesy FUN welcome aboard show - Skip did his own thing. The other nights we had a hypnotist, a comedy juggler, a magician, and a ventriloquist. The Love and Marriage show was the afternoon of the first sea day and has a tie in with the Heart of Soul playlist production. NO Legends show at the end (thank goodness!)

 

FOOD:

 

I know this is subjective, but we really enjoyed the food. We were on the old menus, which to be honest, I am a little tired of. But everything was great and served hot. The only complaints on food that I have is that sometimes the food was a little TOO hot - the cream cheese was warm once our twice with my bagel, the hollandaise looked like it had not been tempered correctly so it was "chunky" because the eggs had scrambled, and the WCMC was more cake than melting. We definitely did not go hungry and really enjoyed our food.

 

PORTS:

 

Grand Turk - this was a beach day for us with a quick visit to Jack's Shack. We were only in port from 7am-2pm, so we spent about 3 or 4 hours on the beach and got back on about 1pm.

 

La Romana - I was most nervous about this port, given what I had read. But I loved it! We went to Altos De Chavon on the Carnival sponsored excursion. We felt safe while on this excursion, but I definitely would have a plan for this port. The area around the port is very industrial. Points for the best sailaway go to La Romana! The port staff danced and cheered as we sailed away.

 

Curacao - We docked at 2pm and explored Willmasted on foot. We enjoyed it, and it was a nice low key day, which we needed - 4 port days in a row is not my ideal itinerary. We came back and ate dinner on the ship (this was the day 8 menu with the NY Strip Steak and Lamp Chops), and then some of us got back off to take night time pictures of the ship and Willmasted.

 

Aruba - the plan had been to take a taxi to Moomba Beach, but as soon as we got off the ship, we saw that there was a stand offering a tour of the island with optional beach drop off (and pick up!) at Palm Beach for $20 per person. That only ended up being a little more than the taxis would have been. The tour group was El Tours, and our guide was Pablo Wendell - he was AWESOME! We got a great tour of the island, with stops at the Natural Rock Formation, Alto Vista Chapel, and the California Lighthouse (tour was approximately 2 hours on an Air Conditioned Bus). We were then taken to Palm Beach for 2 hours and picked up. For $20/per person this was by far the best value we have received on an excursion.

 

We had 3 Sea Days - 1 going and 2 coming back, and we spent most of them by the pool, in a hot tub, on the balcony, just relaxing and unwinding.

 

WOULD I DO IT AGAIN?

 

YES, YES, YES!

 

This is my favorite cruise to date, and the staff on the Freedom was amazing. I noticed a difference just from our sailing on the Liberty a year ago - the are really focusing on making the Guest a memorable vacation, and I hope it's that way across all the fleet.

 

Until we board the Fascination in January, the Freedom's memories will keep us excited!

Edited by tropicaledrink
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tropicaledrink

tropicaledrink

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Thanks for the info and review. We are taking the same cruise June 22. Did you notice any other construction underway or closed off areas?

 

Honestly not at all! We noticed some general type maintenance going on, but it was never for long, and definitely not noisy. The Warehouse has a big "Screen" in front of it (like new stores in the mall) so you couldn't see what was going on in there. And we never heard it either, and we were on that deck quite often. :)

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092306

092306

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Enjoyed your review! We sailed on the Freedom 4 years ago and lived it even without the upgrades. Would love to go again. Glad you had a great cruise!

 

 

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funinthesun1964

funinthesun1964

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Thanks for sharing. I hope you get to post the pictures later. I've been on the Freedom twice and wouldn't mind a third time at all, especially to see the upgrades. Freedom and Liberty are two of my favorite ships of the ones I've sailed.

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Whimsy88

Whimsy88

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Thanks for the review - we sail on Freedom on July 5 and we're eagerly looking forward to it. Having this review is just getting us more excited!

 

Was there any live jazz on board? I have a 17 year old trombone player who is hoping to hear some!:cool:

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lbrav

lbrav

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have they upgraded to fountain pop yet or are they still serving out of cans? let me know. thanks

 

 

 

I was on this cruise and it was still cans of soda..

 

 

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tropicaledrink

tropicaledrink

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Thanks for the review - we sail on Freedom on July 5 and we're eagerly looking forward to it. Having this review is just getting us more excited!

 

Was there any live jazz on board? I have a 17 year old trombone player who is hoping to hear some!:cool:

 

I don't remember hearing any jazz - but there was quite a bit of live music. The casino band and the guitarist in the pub were awesome!

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Branman

Branman

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Thanks for the review. I think this is the first review mentioning the new playlist production shows. I'm glad to see that you like it. If more people come back with positive reviews, then it shows a trend of an improving quality of shows.

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morganboys

morganboys

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I was on this cruise and it was still cans of soda..

 

 

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

 

thanks for the reply and what a bummer. if I'm going to have to drink warm soda over ice I might as well bring my soda along. lol

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RoderickIII

RoderickIII

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Just read your review. I could almost feel your leftover excitement from your cruise! Glad you have another one to look forward to. We sailed Freedom last September and loved the ship and crew. Sounds like it's only gotten even better! We go on Freedom again next month, July 21st. Looking forward to seeing what you described [emoji2]

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

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