Cheapo dad's trip report on Freedom of the Seas

[AmyJA]

Things that make you go hummmmm????

Edited January 26, 2017 by AmyJA

[easyboy]

Hey, why do you think I'm still doing this?

 

Technically we've been off the cruise a month ago and I'm just looking at the old pictures and retelling the story as if we were still on vacation.

Cheapo dad scores with 2 for 1 cruise vacation and the second one is even better as besides being free, I don't have to be on the long plane ride...

That makes YOUR thread timeless.

[harryfat1]

My experience has been that Cozumel seems to have highest rate of pier runner, especially when there is an evening departure.

 

Any theory on why this is so? Could it be that if you give people more time to drink, they will tend to drink more and lose track of time? Or they eat dinner off the ship with a late departure and that takes up some of the time?

[harryfat1]

And nicer people than the one I work for too! [emoji846] I do work in a Corporate payroll dept, and could tell you stories that make your hair stand on end. [emoji15] We were actually thankful when we were moved to a separate 'locked down' building. [emoji846] That's not to say that there aren't some great people where I work. Thanks for your kind words on payroll people!

 

Loving your review, its keeping me entertained while I wait for our cruise. Even if we are eastern, not western. The dry wit is one of the things keeping me going during the crazy year end work.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums

 

Thanks for the compliment. It’s the same ship, so you can ignore the port part but still can check out the ship itself.

 

Good to be working away from the masses in different location if they are unhappy. That’s why the IRS never discloses their data processing address. When you send in your tax returns, it’s just to a city and the post office knows where to deliver it but they will never say “123 Main Street” on the IRS address.

 

Yes, January is crazy busy for many Finance people, especially all the yearend tax forms for payroll and AP folks. Then there’s the busy tax season up to April 15 for people still in public accounting. I always marvel at people taking cruises in January through April as I could never do that until I retire or leave Finance.

 

But that’s the same as the retail people looking at me taking vacation in December and shake their heads. There’s no way any retail working people taking time off in December for a cruise. Many people's jobs have seasonality to them.

 

As for dry wit, you know my next question will be - what’s the opposite of a dry wit? Wet wit (sounds like something a 2 year would say as they learn to speak)? Dull wit? But dull isn’t opposite of dry.

 

Yes, yes, I know. All you English majors are now just rearing to reply on the meaning of “dry” and it’s not what we think it means, blah blah.

 

Anal people wanted to know: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/75838/why-can-humour-be-dry-but-not-wet

[harryfat1]

Harry thanks for your review , I have been lurking from early on .

Enjoy reading reviews of cruises we may not get to do as we are in Australia.

Love all of your stories & digressions !!

Our first cruise on RC is coming up in March which should be fun .

Lamenting the fact that your cruise is coming to an end ! However I have just discovered that there is a new 'Norris' review over on the Celebrity boards ! Yay ! Love his work too !

Thanks for all or hard work

 

Cheers

Beth

 

Hi, Beth,

 

Thank you for your kind words and posting. As I know for folks that are infrequent posters, it’s easier to hide in the shadows than to come out & make a comment. I appreciate the effort.

 

You may not go on this itinerary but the Explorer of the Seas isn’t that different from the Freedom. So you might still pick up some useful info from the report besides the entertainment value of the stupid jokes/digressions.

 

Yes, sad to know the cruise is ending soon. But under the philosophy of you need to break eggs to make omelets – you have to end the current vacation to get home and plan the next one.

 

Yes, Norris dropped by early few weeks ago to say hi prior to his cruise and he mentioned that he would have a review up toward the end of the month. The guy is like clockwork in cranking them out immediately after his cruise. I just dropped by to check out the beginning part of his report but I don’t want to get too deep into it. Trying not to get too distracted with other events or else I find myself researching the next cruise now before finishing this trip report such that I’ll still be at this come March. Not good.

 

I did notice that he is much nicer to his viewers than me in labeling his sample pages by the day in the beginning of the report. I just throw mine out there as a sampler page based on what I think looks good. My format is like watching a movie trailer, you see spots here and there but the trailer is not always in sequential order so you are not sure what the plot lines is…

[harryfat1]

Would be a real cold with a red nose from all the nose blowing [emoji40] , oh well starting to feel better!

 

In Ontario here, so east but not Atlantic time east.... was still pretty late.

 

Good morning and have a great day.

 

Happy writing and reliving.

 

Good to know you are feeling better but you know if you are not well, getting rest if more important than reliving the prior vacation. This thread will still be here later on when you are feeling better – no need to stay up late to find out the results like a sporting event.

[Coralc]

We were in New Orleans when both RC and Carnival were sailing (different days). We took a cab and asked the driver to take us to the cruise port, as we were boarding Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas.

 

She whipped through traffic, went the back way into the port and popped out of the cab to remove our bags....while we stayed inside the taxi, looking at the empty terminal, big empty space, and the Mighty Mississippi flowing by, devoid of any cruise ship. :rolleyes:

 

She came back around and opened the taxi door and I pointed out at the flowing water and said, "Ummm, I think this is the Carnival cruise terminal, and they don't arrive until tomorrow."

 

She looked a little confused. I pointed and said, "There is no ship here. We are boarding the ship today and I think it is down that way (other terminal)." :D

 

It all worked out. :)

[harryfat1]

It's good to know that while it isn't wise to test the captains patience, he really doesn't want to leave any passengers stranded at a port.

 

A few years back, there was a similar situation as yours -- multiple RCCL ships at the International Pier and one RCCL ship parked downtown (Punta Lagosta).

 

Going back to the ship from Chaakanaab Park, we shared a taxi with some people we did not know. They simply told the taxi driver to go back to the pier. The taxi driver asked which one and they told him the one with the Royal Caribbean ship. They didn't know the name of their ship (which they had to be on for at least 2 days to get down to Cozumel).

 

Their complete lack of attention to a very basic detail astounded me, someone who easily ranks 9+ on your analality scale. (Yes, I went back to post 44 to use your spelling. In doing so, I probably broke through level 10).

 

I spoke up to let them know that they could very likely be at a ship docked at the International Pier and tried quizzing them on generalities like where did they embark on the cruise and and how big was their ship. They concluded that they probably needed to be dropped off at the International Pier. At least it was early in the afternoon so they probably weren't pier runners even if they needed to catch another taxi to Punta Lagosta.

 

Hi, Joe,

 

Since the anal scale is the arbitrary number of 1 to 10, I would think it’s safe to say the people who have read the entire 1,000+ posts up to this point is in the “above average” spectrum. Given it’s a scale, this would imply there are people who are less than a 5 on the scale just as there are people like us who are above 5. Think you described 2 people who are pretty far on the lowered number side – borderline “clueless”.

 

It’s one thing not to know what’s on the dinner menu pre cruise that many CC cares about or what nights are the formal nights prior to cruise or wanting to memorize the cruise compass of a prior cruise from 4 months ago line by line. You figure the ship will handle the details once you get there and just live life as is. No problem – we don’t all need to be 9+.

 

But you should know the name of the ship, right? This just tells me people come in all shapes and sizes. Difficult to judge others by the scale you set for yourself. Good thing you were in the taxi with them to help them out.

 

As for our situation of the captain waiting, I don’t know if the captain/ship feel some responsibility for the people going to another pier as it was the ship’s employee on not one, but two, ship based presentations on separate days in the main theater telling hundreds of people in attendance that the Freedom will be docking in downtown at Punta Lagosta.

 

We only knew there was a final change AFTER we heard the VM on the phone on day 3. If other people didn’t check their VM, they would just remember downtown is the pier location from the port talk and tell taxi driver to go there. Taxi driver wouldn’t know (or care) whether they were Freedom or Rhapsody passengers.

 

Or maybe the downtown pier to International pier is just few miles (we can see the Rhapsody from our pictures) so the captain knows it’s not going to be a super long wait. Now if the passengers are back at Playa Chen Rio where we were, then I don’t think he will wait.

[harryfat1]

Harry:

 

You (and the folks in this thread) are my kind of people. My wife likes to joke that I like to plan vacations almost as much as I like going on them. Love your writing style, your kindness and your photos.

 

As I won't be going on another cruise until the earliest 2019 (we already have our next two vacations planned - see how we're alike?) I like to occasionally check into the boards here to see what's up. I've spent quite a few lunch hours over the last few weeks reading your review. Thanks for injecting some much needed fun and frivolity into my life!

 

Hi,

 

Thank you very much for all the compliments.

 

In some way I agree with your wife. I would much rather plan a cruise than being on one in the sense that I don’t have to be on the plane for 12+ hours round trip flight just to get to/from FL. Not to mention dealing the 3 time zone changes/walking in the sun & heat at every port/rushing off the ship at tender time and all the “glamour” parts of cruises they neglected to mention in their glossy brochures.

 

For anal people, planning is great in that you never have any “real world” problems in planning. Everything will always work in your planning. Sure, you may have a back up plan but you are pretty confident that your main plan will work – right? We are anal and we are egoistical in priding ourselves in our meticulous planning in getting every detail right before e we leave the house. After that, the real world hit you and the final product may or may not be as you planned.

 

And if you are a big planner, you become happy every time you accomplish a goal in the planning process such that by time you leave for your vacation, you are already very happy in obtaining “victories” in accomplishing all the pre planning goals but for the other non-planners, their vacation starts when they leave the house. But for the planners, you have already mentally walked through every phase of the cruise in your head.

 

In my earlier thread, I already had a discussion on the ratio of planning hours of vacation versus actual vacations hours itself. Most people on the high anal scale will have a large ratio of planning versus actual hours.

 

So for your 2 upcoming vacations, how many hours will you spent in planning versus the actual vacation itself?

[harryfat1]

I rank myself about an 8-9 on THE scale, but, how do you NOT know the name of the ship you've been on for a couple of days??? We've been cruising for almost 13 years, and I know the name and itinerary (not day by day, but at least I know eastern, western, etc.) of each cruise!! And it really drives me crazy when I'm talking to a person who just finished a cruise, and they have no idea of what ship they were on.

 

Harry, love the photo of you family yukking it up playing minigolf. I'm sure it was candid, but they way they're all laughing, it almost looks posed.

 

Need to add that I don't have to look at my CC signature for ships/itineraries, either! ;)

 

 

 

I gave my thoughts on the people that didn’t know the name of their ship in previous post so won’t repeat myself again. I agree with you in that people should at least know the name of the ship. They may not need to know the exact order of the ports but the name of the ship you would think is basic enough when they booked the cruise, they would have that memorized.

 

I supposed you can give the people credit that at least they have the name of the cruise company right – RCI – instead of Carnival or Celebrity. But that’s a low bar to hurdle over.

 

I wish we can laugh on our own like that on demand as than many of our family pictures will look superb. I think the background on that picture was that my wife smacked her golf ball too hard and it went off course behind the rock/next hole so everyone was laughing. When we play golf, the younger one gives me the camcorder so I have double duty of recording and taking pictures.

Edited January 27, 2017 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

Kudos Harry, another great read! Love the color coordinated outfits for the family! That's part of my "anality" even my clothes in my closet are by color 🙊🙊🙃

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

The colored polo shirts were bought from Kohls on their Labor day sales – you know those guys always have stackable coupons during major sales events so we got each shirt at less than #+$10 each. Cheaper than a t-shirt on the cruise.

 

We didn’t planned on what day to wear the shirts – we knew we’d wear them but wasn’t sure on the actual day – didn’t have color coordinated shirt to go with color on spreadsheet.

 

Actually it was bad to have that aqua color at Cozumel as it’s similar to ocean color. Should have worn that set at the Mayan ruins as that would contrasts well with the Mayan rocks. Some of our clothes at the Mayan ruins blend in too much with the background.

 

So if anyone plans to go to the Mayan ruins, wear some strong colors like red/blue/orange. Stay away from green (trees and grass in the back) and the more beige colors.

[harryfat1]

That makes YOUR thread timeless.

 

Thanks for the compliment but I don't think anyone's thread is timeless. This is just like news. All have limited shelf life and gets pretty stale as the ship/cruise line changes policy and menu. Then the info isn't correct and you are left with just some eye candy pictures.

 

I have more ramblings and digressions in this report than the Allure as I made more friends this time around and I felt more comfortable in just going off to the tangent and come back.

 

Maybe this is more like "Groundhogs Day" the movie in that it keeps repeating itself or like the Eagle's song "Hotel California" where you can check in but never leave...

[harryfat1]

We were in New Orleans when both RC and Carnival were sailing (different days). We took a cab and asked the driver to take us to the cruise port, as we were boarding Royal Caribbean Serenade of the Seas.

 

She whipped through traffic, went the back way into the port and popped out of the cab to remove our bags....while we stayed inside the taxi, looking at the empty terminal, big empty space, and the Mighty Mississippi flowing by, devoid of any cruise ship. :rolleyes:

 

She came back around and opened the taxi door and I pointed out at the flowing water and said, "Ummm, I think this is the Carnival cruise terminal, and they don't arrive until tomorrow."

 

She looked a little confused. I pointed and said, "There is no ship here. We are boarding the ship today and I think it is down that way (other terminal)." :D

 

It all worked out. :)

 

I like this story.

 

What was she expecting - you to sit by the dockside and wait for the ship to come by like in the movies where you sit by some small train station for the train to arrive?

[fletch1027]

Any theory on why this is so? Could it be that if you give people more time to drink, they will tend to drink more and lose track of time? Or they eat dinner off the ship with a late departure and that takes up some of the time?

 

 

 

On YouTube, there are also quite a few runners at the Nassau port as well... :-)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Coralc]

"Waiting for our ship to come in." :D

[IRcruisin]

"Waiting for our ship to come in." :D

 

lol I've been waiting for "my ship to come in" for 40 years now 😉😂

[Dewnay]

Hi Harry,

 

I've been reading your report with much interest as we will be on the Freedom of the Seas in April for Spring Break. Great photos and narrative!

 

I was thinking that the folks who didn't know the name of their ship should have been able to pull out their Sail Pass cards and read the ship name. They must have had them in their possession as the cards are required for reentry onto the ship.

 

D.

[harryfat1]

Hi Harry,

 

I've been reading your report with much interest as we will be on the Freedom of the Seas in April for Spring Break. Great photos and narrative!

 

I was thinking that the folks who didn't know the name of their ship should have been able to pull out their Sail Pass cards and read the ship name. They must have had them in their possession as the cards are required for reentry onto the ship.

 

D.

 

Hi,

 

Thanks for the kind words and posting and I see we are from the same bay area. So is Patti.

 

Yeah, those people seems odd in not knowing their ship's name. Maybe they didn't care or nobody thought of it at the time. Sometimes it's easier to think of things after the fact.

 

Have a great cruise in April. Should be a full ship on Spring Break.

[harryfat1]

OK, continuing the story of being at the helipad.

 

 

Saw some people there at the helipad area. Everyone wants to mimic the classic Titanic pose. Yeah, admit it, you want to do it also.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

The Titanic Spot

 

 

 

 

So after taking enough wind whipping face pictures, it was time to get back to cabin and showering to wash away all the sea water from the beach.

 

 

[harryfat1]

My wife caught a really nice picture of the ship with the sun and the clouds in the background

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back inside the ship away from the wind

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Tonight is the second formal night for those that are tracking such things.

 

OK, here is another one of those subjective items – entertainment. As I said before, my music history starts with the Beatles. Before that, not so much. Tonight’s entertainment is the “Alley Cats”. They are an Acapella group that sings the oldies but goodies songs. Check out their YouTube videos if this stuff interests you.

 

I was very bored with the show. Think I closed my eyes few times during those slow songs. My wife and my younger son enjoyed them immensely. Oh, well, goes to show you that music entertainment is personal preference.

 

Here are few shots of them when I wasn’t asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

After the show, we made a quick stop at the cabin to get our second bottle of wine that had been chilling in the not really very cold refrigerator the entire cruise and took that with us to MDR.

 

Good to be back at the MDR after skipping it last night due to timing conflicts. The snob in me still prefer MDR’s ambiance more. I think I quoted my younger son when he called MDR is a place where poor people pretend they are rich. Yeap, that would be us…

 

Oh, yea, there has been some discussions on missing pepper grinders by the CC folks. Guess what showed up sitting in the middle of the table? Just had to take a picture of that. The rest of the family looked at me in an odd way – why is that dork taking a picture of a plain old pepper grinder? No need to explain to non CC the various insider CC jokes.

 

 

 

 

OK, food pics time. Actually this night is very easy. 5 of us had lobsters (plural being the key here) and the other person (give you a guess whom that might be) ordered steak instead. I gave him some of my lobster just to get him some seafood taste which he typically avoids.

 

To make it simple, every person ordered 2 lobsters off the top. Here are the pics. The waiter cuts out the lobster out of the shell for you. Each person had 2 lobster shells on the side. I should have piled up all 10 shells on one plate for a big group picture. Another one of those – I need to do it next cruise pictures.

 

Chill soup - aka as poor man’s free Jamba juice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out all the buttery fat goodness on this bad boy. I am sure eating this took a week out of my life expectancy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2017 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

Lobsters & shrimps

 

One of these was mine and the other one was my wife’s

 

 

 

 

The waiter comes over and helps you cut out the lobster

 

 

 

 

 

 

The leftover shells - each person had 2 of these

 

 

 

 

The lone steak

 

[harryfat1]

So after the main course is served, they had the parade of the cooking staff/chefs. It’s another one of those traditions on the cruise where some of the veteran cruisers scoff at these events as they have seen too many of them but they are great for newbie and newbies +1 like us. We like what we like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My wife taking a picture of me taking picture of the chef’s parade

 

 

 

 

 

They march all the way to the other end