Cheapo dad's trip report on Freedom of the Seas

[harryfat1]

Let’s start with the food first

 

First sighting of any duck meat. Guess in theory if you order 20 of these, you will have back the side of duck that RCI cut back from you. I want to see the waiter’s face when you order 20…

 

 

 

 

Couple of hot soups

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another one of the Jamba juice for the poor – the chilled soup for the night. My younger son’s nightly cold soup preference.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

 

 

My older son had the vegertain thing. He said it was good.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s my beef dish

 

 

 

 

Someone else at dinner had the beef also. I think it might have been my wife's dish

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Looking at deck 3 folks dressed in their “Smart Caribbean Casual”. Oh, yeah, silly me, RCI forgot to mention that in their daily program…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it me but looks like there were many empty tables that night?

 

 

As promised, here are the pics from the singing waiters. It’d be better if on video with music. Go look it up on YouTube if this interests you. I don’t do YouTube to upload videos so you have to use other peoples video instead.

 

 

Obviously, we didn’t know there was going to be a performance that night so we only brought my cell phone to take food pictures. We left both the SLR and the zoom camera in the cabin. Had we known, we would have taken out the bad boys and gotten better pictures. Camera phones don’t take pictures well indoor with people moving.

 

 

Audience participation is part of the fun. They brought up some little kids to sing and dance with them

 

 

 

 

The big group of ladies at the top of picture were really into it as they were singing and clapping and dancing

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

 

More and more kids & adults showed up at the stairs to join the fun

 

 

 

 

Look at the crowd over there

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

One drawback about singing waiter is that the ice cream on the cherry jubilee melted during their performance

 

 

 

 

 

Our waiter had set up an elaborate contraption with the people at the next table on their bottle of wine

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

After dinner, we hung out at our favorite nightly spot at RP visiting the uncle in prison. As another cruiser from this cruise noted that the online account check from the bedroom TV is super slow. It took several tries for me to confirm that the OBC from our TA has showed up properly in our account so we are safe to spend some of it.

 

One thing we started buying few years back is the Christmas Ornament of the ship’s model so we can start collecting our own fleet. Here is what we bought on the Freedom. It’s a souvenir that is actually useful as we get to see it yearly whenever we decorate the Christmas tree.

 

Here’s Freedom ornament hanging on our tree last month after we came back

 

 

 

 

While the family was shopping, I saw the 2 empty seats in front of the pub. I have never sat there before as we are always on the move so figured I can sit and chill out for awhile. While there, I whipped out the cell phone and took a picture of the car with the dim lights of RP. Turned out surprisingly well for a phone camera with no adjustments (dummy/lazy dads only use auto mode). This is what the actual pictures looks like. No Photoshop or color enhancement from any software. The advancements of these camera phones are just amazing for night time still shots and my Samsung Note 5 (the non- exploding version) is an older 2015 model. This shot might even be better on my wife’s Samsung S7 edge camera as that has better specs or the new iPhone or the Google Pixel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, we took few more shots of the area and after they are done with the prison visit we called it a night as we were tired from having to wake up really early this morning.

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Stairway down to the casino area

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visiting uncle in prison to see when he can make parole

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look at the kid walking on the bridge. I think he is holding a pizza but look the end of the bridge. It’s roped off with a sign. Guess he’ll either have to double back (unlikely) or sneak underneath the rope.

 

 

[harryfat1]

We came back to the cabin and were greeted by another 2 towel animals. Our cabin attendant may not be the most friendly (not always smiling) but she seems to be very vigilant in her nightly towel animals. On the Allure, we only got them every other day. On the Freedom, we got them on many days except the first day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, almost forgot the one very important topic – came back to see the red flashing light on the desk phone with a voicemail message. That’s odd. Who would leave us a VM? First I thought it was my wife’s friend. Nope.

 

Turns out it was the RCI’s shopping dude that came on to correct the statement he made to everyone on day 1 and 2 that Freedom as to dock at downtown pier. Nope. He now says we are docking at International Pier and people need to take taxi to downtown. Good for us. Back to the original plan. All that scare and worry for nothing.

 

Double checking with others on this sailing – did you all get the same VM or only those of us who went to his shop talk (and register for the raffle got one)?

 

Of course, the flip side is whoever was on the Rhapsody that had private tours booked for International pier is now over at the other side. I don’t know what the people over there were told on where they would be docked on day 1. Whatever. The Freedom is going to International Pier on day 5 and they are not…

[dani negreanu]

But I guess we anal CC people have access to shrimp cocktail and morning plate of salmons they don’t have…

 

DH doesn't "do" CC also, but thanks to you, he will enjoy the salmons :D:D

[Biker19]

Our roll call had maybe 25 people at the most and even if you triple that for the “lurkers in the back that never post”, that’s still less than 100 people.

 

If you look at the right two columns of the main CC RCI page (how's that on the anal scale), you'll see that the number of posts compared to the number of views gives a lurker % in the 90s - the number of folks who post is in the low single digit %. Of course the numbers are a bit different for a roll call thread - participation rate is higher.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Biker19

[harryfat1]

If you look at the right two columns of the main CC RCI page (how's that on the anal scale), you'll see that the number of posts compared to the number of views gives a lurker % in the 90s - the number of folks who post is in the low single digit %. Of course the numbers are a bit different for a roll call thread - participation rate is higher.

 

OK, so assume our roll call of 25 is just 10% of the people from the cruise that actually read CC. That would get us to 250 as the “total population” of lurkers and posters for our particular cruise.

 

Divide 250 by 4,400 from our cruise that gets us to 6% or so from the cruise that is familiar with CC or 94% who are not.

[windjamming]

OK, so assume our roll call of 25 is just 10% of the people from the cruise that actually read CC. That would get us to 250 as the “total population” of lurkers and posters for our particular cruise.

 

 

 

Divide 250 by 4,400 from our cruise that gets us to 6% or so from the cruise that is familiar with CC or 94% who are not.

 

 

To bring this to an even nerdier level, does each view represent a distinct set of eyeballs? Even if CC tracks IP addresses and usernames, how does CC know if the same unregistered person has read the same thread on different machines?

 

I'd guess the percentage of people on a cruise who are familiar with CC may be much lower.

 

Sorry Harry, back to your trip report.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Edited January 13, 2017 by windjamming

[bobmacliberty]

Thank you very much for the tips on all the ports. I will start to get serious on SJ walking tour come this Fall.

 

We typically do a long 2,000 miles+ road trip every summer to just go from place to place. So I need to research that in the Spring after all the cruise stuff is behind me. And when that road trip is done, I plan for the cruise.

 

Other people love to work, I work to support my vacation habits...

 

I definitely agree with going to the forts in OSJ if you are a photo enthusiast. Great photo opps everywhere. See my Adventure of the Seas link below to see what I mean. I too take LOTS of photos. My DDs also enjoyed the history behind the forts, so it worked well for the whole family. There is a free shuttle that you can take. The one time that we tried to use the shuttle though it took a long time for it to arrive, and was full with no one getting off at that stop. I don't know if that's typical or not. A lot of people like free. :D

 

On a completely different topic regarding choosing amongst a large number of pictures for a photo book, I use the tools built into Lightroom. I'm sure that other photo software has something similar. I first quickly go through each photo and give it a Yes or a No, based on whether or not it's worth keeping. The No pictures are typically blurry or have some other technical issue. I completely delete the No pictures...no use wasting hard drive space. I then group the remaining pics by topic (different days, different ports, different parts of the ship, etc.). Within each topic, I then grade each picture using a 1-5 scale, using criteria that is important to me (and may be different for you). Part of my anal nature is looking for picture quality in terms of focus, composition, etc. I then look at only the pictures that received a 4 or a 5 and chose amongst them based on how many total pictures I have available for that topic. For example, if I want to have one port be on a double page in a book, I may only want 8 total pictures. LR let's you put multiple pictures on the screen at once so that you can choose between specific pictures. I may for example show 5 different pictures of the family posing at a particular port, but only choose the one that I like best (even though they all may look good to me). I'd then allocate, for example, 3 pictures to family members doing something more casual, and 4 pictures to port scenery. You can always use more pages in the book and include more pictures, but this costs more money.:eek: I then do any post tweaks to the photos that I've selected. You need to separate yourself from being the photographer and think of yourself more as the cut throat photo editor for a magazine article that only has room for a very small number of pics taken by a professional photographer who submitted many awesome pics. It's much easier to choose 1 of 3 or 4 similar photos, than it is to choose 100 of a few thousand various photos.

[n5749w]

We will be doing the Southern itinerary next week on Adventure, as we talked about earlier, but almost all of my ports are over 110pp, I am not "CHEAPO" - I am the opposite of you CHEAPO Dad, I spend waaaaaaaay too much money on my cruises, especially this one!

 

I am doing one in St Kitts thats 25.00pp though, which I figured you'd applaud!

 

In St Maarten, which is our first stop, we are doing the America's Cup Regatta, (109pp i thinK?) I've done it before and it's literally the best excursion I have ever done. In Sept, we were in St Maarten and the excursion got cancelled, so we winged it and went to Pinel Island. I believe the it was 20.00pp to get to the ferry (Would be less for you since you have more passengers, was just the two of us) and then 10.00 pp for the ferry. It's nice and secluded on Pinel, there is just one small restaurant there, you can snorkel off the beach. The water is clear and the ocean floor is not rocky. We didn't pay to get chairs, just layed out beach towels, but all prices were reasonable. Was a nice day at St. Maarten, but I am DETERMINED America's cup won't be cancelled this time! If we end up getting to do it, my husband will go pro it and upload it on youtube

 

 

In St. Thomas, we have been there so many times. Love doing catamarans there, they are awesome and you usually can find them pretty cheap 60-70pp with food and refreshments. We have also done that skyride to paradise point for 20.00pp that takes you up to the top of the mountain to get an amazing view of St Thomas and ate at the restaurant. Wouldn't recommend the restaurant, was worse than Applebees in my opinion. We have also went to Gladys restaurant and that place is AMAZING! Would highly recommend that if you are into local foods and cheap eats.

 

and if you have any specific questions to ask about my ports of call next week (St. Maarten, St Kitts, St Lucia, Barbados, Antigua) just ask away

 

But I am VERY interested to get some more cruise photos for you, to help me deal with my excitement for mine next week :D

 

 

 

I'm curious as to what you did in St. Kitts... we've never been there.

 

 

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[aubreyc1988]

I'm curious as to what you did in St. Kitts... we've never been there.

 

 

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We haven't been there yet, I sail there next week

 

This is what i have booked

 

http://www.thenfordgreytours.com/capital-city-tour---beach-splash-on-st.-kitts.html

[Canadian1]

I'm curious as to what you did in St. Kitts... we've never been there.

 

 

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I know this was directed at someone else but .... it's a lovely island, I really enjoyed it. Beautiful and not overtly touristy. I know that in the daily they said to watch your valuables but lucky we didn't see or experience anything bad. Nice quaint island. Oh and they have monkeys at the port but you'll have to pay if you want to take a picture with them.

[Canadian1]

I know this was directed at someone else but .... it's a lovely island, I really enjoyed it. Beautiful and not overtly touristy. I know that in the daily they said to watch your valuables but lucky we didn't see or experience anything bad. Nice quaint island. Oh and they have monkeys at the port but you'll have to pay if you want to take a picture with them.

Oh and we did a tour of the island with rum tasting. I don't generally drink but it was an interesting tour on a pretty estate. They did have some nice flavours of rum too [emoji3]

[joand452]

I'm curious as to what you did in St. Kitts... we've never been there.

 

 

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Don't know what Harry and his family did, either, but I just want to throw my 2 cents in --

 

The first time we did the sugar train (?). It was fun, but we saw our roll call friends in their tour van and really wished we'd done that!

 

So the 2nd time we did the same tour they'd done -- with Thenford Gray. He's still in business. Just google his name, last name may be Grey. Can't remember, but it was a very good tour of the island. We enjoy going to forts and loved Brimstone Hill Fortress. Awesome views.

 

Now we've been a few more times and just stay in the port area (which was not there the first couple of times) and have an adult beverage or two at an outdoor bar set back on the left, right after the gates.

[hucifer]

Harry,

 

I have been thoroughly enjoying your trip report. Your sense of humor translates well into text. I am extremely picky about which trip reports I read, so consider yourself lucky. How picky? Since you're a numbers guy, let me put this in terms you may understand:

 

* I open about 20% of trip report threads posted on the RCI board.

* Of those I actually attempt to read, about 5% hold my interest long enough to read a few posts/pages.

* Of those that hold my interest, about 10% will keep me reading to the end.

 

That means that...

 

[pretending to calculate percentages]

 

...you have made the 0.8% of trip reports that I actually enjoy to the end. Congratulations!

 

I also love that you acknowledge every poster who makes a comment or has a burning question about your daily elimination habits or attire choices. I dig that.

 

So thank you for sharing all of this with us. Beautiful family! I promise that I will keep reading your report...since you are one of the 1.68% and all. Or whatever the real number is.

 

[waiting for those with a 9.2 on the AS to correct my math]

 

Wendy

Edited January 13, 2017 by hucifer

[tb4]

Loving your report. I'm never likely to cruise the Caribbean as I live in New Zealand and hate long flights but really enjoying this. Heading on my first cruise in the Pacific in March on Explorer of the Seas and picking up lots of cruise tips.

[jresn02]

Great Review. Do you happen to have a copy of the menu for the MDR?

 

Thank You!

[bobmacliberty]

* I open about 20% of trip report threads posted on the RCI board.

* Of those I actually attempt to read, about 5% hold my interest long enough to read a few posts/pages.

* Of those that hold my interest, about 10% will keep me reading to the end.

 

That means that...

 

[pretending to calculate percentages]

 

...you have made the 0.8% of trip reports that I actually enjoy to the end. Congratulations!

 

 

[waiting for those with a 9.2 on the AS to correct my math]

 

Wendy

 

Challenge accepted. 20% X 5% X 10% = 0.1%. Harry deserves even more credit than you gave him.:)

 

And my AS rating is 8.734 (rounded to the nearest thousandth), not 9.2

[harryfat1]

To bring this to an even nerdier level, does each view represent a distinct set of eyeballs? Even if CC tracks IP addresses and usernames, how does CC know if the same unregistered person has read the same thread on different machines?

 

I'd guess the percentage of people on a cruise who are familiar with CC may be much lower.

 

Sorry Harry, back to your trip report.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

Well, you know I love digression talks.

 

There’s way too many unknown and variables in this calculation. It’s like the old question of asking how many angels can dance on a head of a pin?

 

Given that I am currently working for a high tech company, I am surrounded by tons of engineers that design things to make our world a better place.

 

If you ask one of those geek heads the pin head question, they will ask you back – “What type of pins? Military or commercial usage? When was it manufactured? The ones that were manufactured prior to 1990 has a difference surface area than the ones that are produced overseas currently. SNORE…

 

Not to mention it’s impossible quantify the “ripple effect” of CC knowledge. Meaning of our family of 6, I am the only CC “member” (although I am one year behind in my annual dues – need to find some bad reviews to ask for a credit back) but whatever knowledge I was able to gather from CC, it benefits the entire family. Dani’s husband will benefit from the salmon from her participation of CC. Nobody can measure those ripple effect benefits or really cares to track it…

[harryfat1]

I definitely agree with going to the forts in OSJ if you are a photo enthusiast. Great photo opps everywhere. See my Adventure of the Seas link below to see what I mean. I too take LOTS of photos. My DDs also enjoyed the history behind the forts, so it worked well for the whole family. There is a free shuttle that you can take. The one time that we tried to use the shuttle though it took a long time for it to arrive, and was full with no one getting off at that stop. I don't know if that's typical or not. A lot of people like free. :D

 

On a completely different topic regarding choosing amongst a large number of pictures for a photo book, I use the tools built into Lightroom. I'm sure that other photo software has something similar. I first quickly go through each photo and give it a Yes or a No, based on whether or not it's worth keeping. The No pictures are typically blurry or have some other technical issue. I completely delete the No pictures...no use wasting hard drive space. I then group the remaining pics by topic (different days, different ports, different parts of the ship, etc.). Within each topic, I then grade each picture using a 1-5 scale, using criteria that is important to me (and may be different for you). Part of my anal nature is looking for picture quality in terms of focus, composition, etc. I then look at only the pictures that received a 4 or a 5 and chose amongst them based on how many total pictures I have available for that topic. For example, if I want to have one port be on a double page in a book, I may only want 8 total pictures. LR let's you put multiple pictures on the screen at once so that you can choose between specific pictures. I may for example show 5 different pictures of the family posing at a particular port, but only choose the one that I like best (even though they all may look good to me). I'd then allocate, for example, 3 pictures to family members doing something more casual, and 4 pictures to port scenery. You can always use more pages in the book and include more pictures, but this costs more money.:eek: I then do any post tweaks to the photos that I've selected. You need to separate yourself from being the photographer and think of yourself more as the cut throat photo editor for a magazine article that only has room for a very small number of pics taken by a professional photographer who submitted many awesome pics. It's much easier to choose 1 of 3 or 4 similar photos, than it is to choose 100 of a few thousand various photos.

 

Thank you very much for the info on OSJ. I will definitely take a look at your cruise info after I am done here. Trying not to get too distracted in starting new projects. Need to finish this trip report first. If I start to get into my next cruise research now, I won’t be able to finish this report until March…

 

The advantage of doing the southern Caribbean cruise is if we can spend a day or two pre or post cruise in SJ, we would have lots more time to see things. A quick port stop for a few hours will be very rushed in trying to see things.

 

Thanks for the heads up on the photo book. I will keep your suggestions in mind when I start to select the pictures.

[harryfat1]

Don't know what Harry and his family did, either, but I just want to throw my 2 cents in --

 

The first time we did the sugar train (?). It was fun, but we saw our roll call friends in their tour van and really wished we'd done that!

 

So the 2nd time we did the same tour they'd done -- with Thenford Gray. He's still in business. Just google his name, last name may be Grey. Can't remember, but it was a very good tour of the island. We enjoy going to forts and loved Brimstone Hill Fortress. Awesome views.

 

Now we've been a few more times and just stay in the port area (which was not there the first couple of times) and have an adult beverage or two at an outdoor bar set back on the left, right after the gates.

 

Oh, we didn’t go to St. Kitts. That’s the 8 days eastern route. We were on the 6 days western route. St. Kitts just came up as part of the prior discussion.

 

Somewhere down the road, we might do the 8 day cruise to St. Kitts also. It is just more limiting for family folks as we can only go in a narrow time frame.