Christmas on the Freedom 2014

[navybaby1113]

I didn't like anything on the menu tonight, so I ordered the flat iron steak. It wasn't really good. Very tough.

 

 

DH ordered the pork loin and he enjoyed it.

 

 

For dessert I ordered the fig and date cake. This was delicious! The rum ice cream that came with it was absolutely amazing. I could easily eat this dessert every night.

 

 

DH ordered the strawberry cheesecake (and kept stealing bites of my ice cream).

 

[navybaby1113]

We walked into the atrium at the perfect time because it started to snow!

 

 

 

After the snow was finished, we went to the main lounge to watch the Hasbro Game Show. The lounge filled up really early! I had heard that they often make sure kids win this game, but it was mostly adults playing with only one kid. A girl in her 20s ended up winning. I was disappointed they only played this one night of the cruise because it was a lot of fun.

 

 

That night was also the Love & Marriage show, which is absolutely hilarious as always. Wee Jimmy is great at interacting with guests.

 

 

 

Came back to the room for bed around 11:30pm and were greeted by a fish. He was a cutie!

 

[pbxtech]

Great review. We go on the Freedom in April and probably back again with friends in Aug.

[thephillykid]

We are loving your review so far, we board her in 10 days to steal her and take her to her new home in Texas.

12 days of fun in the sun with 6 sea days, I can't wait for the pictures of the sea day brunch. We also loved Guys burgers on the Glory last month.

Howard

[navybaby1113]

Great review. We go on the Freedom in April and probably back again with friends in Aug.

 

You'll have a blast!

[navybaby1113]

We are loving your review so far, we board her in 10 days to steal her and take her to her new home in Texas.

12 days of fun in the sun with 6 sea days, I can't wait for the pictures of the sea day brunch. We also loved Guys burgers on the Glory last month.

Howard

 

That sounds like so much fun! I'll be posting about our first sea day either tonight or tomorrow. We went to the Sea Day brunch on both sea days (one time for breakfast food and one time for lunch food).

[navybaby1113]

Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - Sea Day #1

 

We woke up around 10am. You really lose your sense of time in those interior rooms. I just wanted to constantly sleep every time we were in there.

 

My favorite place to eat on sea days in the brunch, so we headed to the dining room. The line was long, but it moved relatively quickly. We were seated in the back of the dining room with a great waiter and a great view.

 

 

I started off with a piece of their delicious lemon bread. They need to add this to the buffet for breakfast.

 

 

DH ordered his favorite dish, huevos rancheros.

 

 

I ordered blueberry pancakes with cheese grits, hash browns, and bacon. Those cheese grits were one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. They didn't really mix the cheese in with the grits at all. The just topped them with the cheese and it was so greasy. I barely at any of it because it was just swimming in grease. The rest of the food was yummy though.

 

 

 

After brunch we attended Super Team Trivia. They split it into males vs. females. It was the largest amount of people I've ever seen attend this type of trivia.

[navybaby1113]

We ate lunch at the lido buffet. DH got a burrito which he enjoyed. They still don't have chips at the burrito bar. They really need to add those to enjoy with the salsa.

 

 

I just grabbed a few things from the buffet today. Nothing terribly exciting.

 

I did find something very interesting though. Check out the desserts offered in the Comfort Kitchen line because they have a couple more things than the traditional dessert bar. I got a delicious raspberry pie from the Comfort Kitchen line. One of the best dessert I had from the buffet all week. Also grabbed a slice of Lime Cheesecake from the regular dessert line.

 

 

We went outside to enjoy the view for a while. It was really windy and looked like it was going to rain.

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We noticed that the hairy chest competition had started, so we walked down a little ways to watch that.

 

 

 

I started raining about halfway through, so we ran for cover because I didn't want my camera to get wet.

 

 

We did a couple trivia games before dinner. One of them was at the casino bar and I ended up having to leave because it was so smoky. I really hate walking down the Promenade and smelling all that smoke.

 

After trivia, we went back to get dressed for formal night. In the past we've always gotten a buzzer on formal night, so we wanted to get there early to try and avoid that.

[navybaby1113]

We went to dinner around 6pm and got seated immediately at a table for two by the window. We had the same wait staff as we had the first night. Shortly after we were seated, they seated a couple next to us. We started talking and they were also from Tallahassee. Such a small world.

 

For our appetizers, I ordered spaghetti carbonara. It was good, but it tasted different than usual. I can't pinpoint exactly what it was, but it wasn't the same. The wait staff also forgot to bring the parmesan cheese back for the top of my pasta.

 

 

DH ordered the greek farmers salad.

 

 

I ordered both prime rib and lobster for dinner. DH ordered just prime rib.

 

 

 

For dessert, I ordered WCMC and DH ordered the cherries jubilee. We were so wrapped up in conversation with the couple next to us that we completely forgot to get pictures.

[navybaby1113]

After dinner we went back to the room to change. It hadn't been cleaned yet, so we told our steward that we would be out in 15 minutes. The main lounge didn't open until 8pm, so we went to watch a game in the EA Sports Bar while we were waiting.

 

As soon as the lounge opened, we went down and got out seats for 80s Pop to the Max. During preshow, they tape the audience and it's live on a screen. It's a lot of fun. This show was one of the best that I have ever seen on a Carnival cruise. Loved it!

 

 

We hung out in the Piano Bar for a little while tonight while waiting for the comedy show to open up. Jonathan was the piano player on this cruise and by far my favorite. He's a great player and very good at entertaining the crowd. If he's on a ship you're on, I highly recommend you go visit him in the Piano Bar.

 

Lester Bibbs did an adults comedy show tonight which was absolutely hilarious. Both comedians were with us the entire cruise, but they did a different show every single time (and were always funny), so it didn't get stale.

 

We went back to our room to go to bed. We had a pig towel animal tonight.

 

[gingertom]

Thank you sooooo much for this wonderful review and all the great pictures. DH and I go on our third cruise this April on the Freedom leaving out of Galveston (we live in Houston). I can't wait!!

[jenischmeni]

Thanks for the review. This ship is one that I'm considering for a Christmas cruise this year. Your comments about the time frame are especially helpful. Subscribed :-)

[lyndilouwho]

We were on the Freedom in November and we LOVED the 80s Pop to the Max! Definitely one of the best shows we have seen!

[navybaby1113]

Sorry for the lapse in posting. Been a crazy week. Time to start back up now!

[navybaby1113]

Wednesday, December 24, 2014 - Grand Cayman

 

We woke up around 7am and went to the lido deck for breakfast. Lines were long, but no where near as bad as the previous day. DH got a burrito again. I grabbed some french toast and bacon from the buffet. I was sad that there weren't any hash browns.

 

We went outside to take some pictures, but the lens fogged up. Darn Caribbean humidity.

 

Since we had FTTF, we got the perk of priority tendering. We went down to guest services and they escorted us straight to the midship tender, which was the first one that went to shore.

 

We had a tour booked with Nativeway Tours to go visit the stingrays and snorkeling. In the confirmation email, they said to meet them right on the pier. We did not see them, so we went to information booth and asked. The woman manning the booth escorted us over there. The woman who was representing Nativeway wasn't wearing a shirt or holding a sign, which was really annoying.

 

There was one other couple waiting there when we arrived. They were scheduled to do the Stingray and Rum Point tour with some people from another ship. The other ship was running late, so they decided to switch over to our tour. Because of the other ship running late, we ended up being the only two couples on our tour, which was fabulous.

 

We left the pier around 9am. It was about a 15 minute ride to the boat. Our captain for the day was Chris and we were on his boat Trippin' Out.

 

Our first stop was with the stingrays. There were a bunch of other boats already there. We kept to ourselves near our boat and we weren't crowded at all. The only downside was that the stingrays were more interested in the huge groups of people. Nativeway provided food for us to feed the stringrays.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

After we were done with the stingrays, we went to our snorkeling site which was only about 5 minutes away from the stingrays (you could still see the stingray sandbar from the snorkeling site). Nativeway provided the flippers, masks, and snorkels. Chris also threw some food in the water as we were snorkeling to bring more fish around.

 

The water was really choppy, so we didn't stay in for very long. DH forgot the camera, so sadly I don't have any pictures from our snorkeling session.

 

After we were done snorkeling we went to visit some starfish. We didn't stay in the water for a long time because this area was really choppy too, but we did see a lot of starfish. The starfish were huge! Chris dove down and grabbed some for us to hold.

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

After we were done with the starfish, we started heading back towards land. About halfway there it started pouring. Chris let us down in the cabin if we wanted, but myself and the other girl stayed up on deck so we didn't get sea sick. We were soaked by the time we got back to the dock.

 

The van was running a little late to pick us up so we went to the store to use the restroom and dry off some.

 

The traffic getting back to the ship was horrible. We boarded the ship at 1:30pm. Once we got on board we went and took hot showers and then went up to grab lunch.

 

Both DH and I got burgers, which were delicious.

 

 

They had my favorite desserts today, so I grabbed one of both. Napolean and key lime pie. Yum!

 

 

After lunch, we went back to the room to take a nap.

[navybaby1113]

We woke up to go to the Holiday Show. They had singing by the performers and the kids from Camp Carnival.

 

 

 

The also brought Santa out and they invited anyone who wanted to come on stage to meet him.

 

 

It was a nice show. I wish they would have done it on Christmas though instead of Christmas Eve.

[navybaby1113]

We went to a trivia show and then went to dinner around 7pm. We got seated and the waiter took our appetizer order immediately, but didn't take our entree order, which was weird. He left the menus at the table.

 

Our appetizers were delivered pretty quickly. I ordered a caesar salad and DH ordered the cherry soup.

 

 

Thankfully the table next to us was empty, so we were able to put the menus on the other table while we ate our appetizers. Finally the waiter came and took our entree order. Both of us ordered the chateaubriand, which was delicious.

 

 

I ordered WCMC, which was undercooked again, and DH ordered the amaretto cake.

 

 

We left dinner around 8pm and went to try and get a seat for the show. We were shocked by how many were actually open. The show tonight was Heart of Soul. It was a good show, but nothing terribly exciting. This was my least favorite of them all.

 

We came back to the room and rested for the rest of the night. We were worn out from all the snorkeling.

 

[navybaby1113]

Thursday, December 25, 2015 (Merry Christmas!) - Cozumel

 

We woke up around 9am and decided to go to the dining room and have a nice Christmas breakfast. There was a long line, but it moved quickly. We were seated at a two person table in the back. We waited for about 10 minutes before our waiter even acknowledged us. Brought our drinks and then took our order. That's when breakfast went down hill. We kept waiting and waiting. Finally we asked our waiter what was going on and he said that there was a bunch of people came in at once. We were getting ready to get up and leave when our food finally arrived at 10:30am. It was absolutely ridiculous. Someone at a nearby table complained to the maitre de and he came around and talked to everyone in our area. He said there was a power failure in the galley, which caused the delay. Wish someone would have told us that originally instead of lying about the problem.

 

Thankfully breakfast was good.

 

I ordered the french toast with hash browns and bacon and DH ordered an omelette with turkey bacon.

 

 

 

After we were finished with breakfast, we decided to get off the ship. We checked in with our tour, which left at 11:30am. We booked the Salsa, Salsa, and Margarita tour through Carnival.

 

Our tour guide walked us over to the taxi area and put us into 3 separate taxis to the resort where the excursion would be held. This was the first time I've ever had an excursion send us in taxis. Normally they have their own dedicated bus.

 

The excursion was being held at Hotel Cozumel and Resort. They greeted us with a margarita and then led us to our table with 3 other couples. We had the best seat in the house right next to the railing.

 

 

Here's what the room looked like before all the other taxis arrived.

 

 

Our table was already set up with all the ingredients we needed. They also provided us with an apron and chef hat.

 

[navybaby1113]

After everyone arrived, they started the demonstrations.

 

The first thing we made was a margarita on the rocks.

 

 

Then, they invited a couple up to help them do a demonstration on how to make frozen strawberry margaritas. We just watched while this was happening and then they brought us samples. After this demonstration, we could choose from regular margaritas or strawberry margaritas for the rest of the excursion (FYI, if you don't drink alcohol, they had virgin margaritas and also some kind of tea you could have instead. They also provided bottles of water if you asked).

 

 

Up next we started making salsa. We started off with a traditional red salsa and then a salsa verde. They brought some quesadillas and chicken taquitos, along with chips, to eat with them.

 

 

 

 

After we made the two salsa, we used the salsa verde to make a delicious guacamole. I could have eaten this entire bowl by myself.

 

[navybaby1113]

Then we made two more salsa. A classic pico de gallo and then a mango salsa.

 

 

The final salsa we made, which I don't have any pictures of, was a dessert salsa. The gave us some fresh vanilla bean ice cream to mix with it. It was so delicious!

 

The salsa part of the excursion was so much fun. The drinks were always flowing and the food was delicious.

 

After the cooking part was over, now it was time to learn how to dance the salsa. The directions made this pretty easy and was fun to watch everyone try to dance. DH and I were awarded "Most Tenacious"

 

At the end, they did a group picture and told us to grab it from their facebook page when we got home.

 

I highly recommend this excursion if you enjoy food. It was a ton of fun! I would definitely do it again.

 

Once we got back to the port, we walked around for a little bit to look at the Christmas decorations.

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

As we were getting back on board, I had a really weird thing happen. The security guy that was looking at the sail and sign pictures didn't believe I was the same person as in the picture. He made me present a photo ID before he would allow me back on the ship. The only thing different between the embarkation picture and getting back on the ship was that my hair was up. It was the strangest thing ever.

 

Once we got back on, we showered and got ready for elegant night. We did some Christmas trivia before heading to dinner.

 

For dinner tonight, they had a special Christmas menu.

 

 

I ordered both shrimp cocktail and a caesar salad as my appetizer and DH ordered the fire roasted chicken.

 

 

For our entrees, I stuck with one of my favorites, which is the petite filet mignon. The filet mignon had a weird burnt taste. I was glad I ordered two apps, because I didn't eat much of my dinner. DH ordered the ham and said it was good.

 

 

 

For dessert, DH ordered the creme brulee which he said was delicious. I ordered the pumpkin and gingerbread pate and immediately regretted it as soon as I bit into it. I sent it back and traded it in for a WCMC.

 

 

 

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the special Christmas menu. :-/

[navybaby1113]

After dinner, we went to see the show, Getaway Island. Before the show, we got to play with some beach balls.

 

 

The show was really good. They used 3D effects (these weren't that fabulous) and smells like pina colada and bacon to enhance the show. They also brought in a bar waiter to do some tricks and a guitar player.

 

I highly recommend you see this show!

 

We came back to the room to find our past guest invitations. They pushed back the past guest party on this cruise because they didn't want to hold it on Christmas.

 

We decided to go back to the lounge and watch 88 Keys. They brought Jonathan from the piano bar to do some pre-show entertainment. He is by far one of my favorite piano bar players. So amazing. The show was really good. They were all piano bar/sing-a-long type songs.

 

They held the Liars Club and Carnival Quest tonight. No one really got into the quest, so they kind of rushed to end it. I'm assuming since there were a lot of families sailing, no one really wanted do anything raunchy in front of their parents.

 

We went back to the room to go to bed. The ship was really rocking tonight. The bed in the interiors room face horizontally on the ship. This really messed me up because I was rocking head to toe. I was sick all night long.