Freedom June 18th Review - Long

[MissDebbie]

**Forgive the typo's - I had troubles with the spell checker....

 

Just a brief background: this was my 3rd Carnival Cruise, 4th in total. My husband and I went with our two sons, 12 and 16. Absolutely LOVED this trip and had a great time. P.S. my kids have cruised before with us.

 

I booked through Carnival the cruise itself, and did my own hotel and airline reservations. We stayed at a small hotel in Rome 3 days before the cruise itself. We took the Express train from the airport to the Termini station and then walked to the hotel (yes, lugging the luggage behind us ). It worked out well since the kids could handle their own bags and the walk was only about 5 blocks. I think we paid about 33E for the 4 of us. Many people were doing this so we didn't stand out. In Rome we either walked or took the metro (we bought a 3 day metro pass). We felt we saw more of real Rome this way (plus my husand and 16 year old had a lot of Knowledge of Rome and the history - we basically did our own tours). Hint - stop in some of the little churches that you pass, some of the most little, run down places had some of the most beautiful artwork, statues etc. inside that most tourists just pass by.

 

Hint - for churches - shorts on men/children/women are fine, just keep them knee length. I wore capris the whole trip. If I wore a tank top, I made sure I had a cover top (I usually wrapped it around my waist when I wasn't using it) with me for the churches and had no problems. Many of the churches had these special paper towel type coverings for women to use if they didn't have a covering. No hats though inside. On photos, most places had signs when they didn't want photos (or flash).

 

On the 18th we walked back to the Termini station and bought tickets on the train to Civit. (not going to try and spell it). We hopped the train (2nd class, with all the stops) and had a great trip to the port. No problems and it took about 1 hour 20 minutes or so. We got to the port around 1:00 and walked over to the place where the free shuttles were to the cruise ship. At the most, I would say the walk was about 1/3 to no more than 1/2 a mile. Huge boardwalk style sidewalk, no problems in lugging the luggage there. There was about 20 other people with us on the train that were doing the same thing. I think the cost for 3 (my 12 year old was free) was 15 E in total (going 2nd class with stops).

 

Embarkation - this was the easiet entry that we have ever done! The shuttle drops you off in front of the building, we gave a good tip to the porters there (and saw our bags I might add about 30-45 minutes after getting on the ship). We spent 2 minutes in a line, 10 minutes at the desk and were on the ship in our room not 10 minutes after that. It was SO EASY. Yes, they do take your passports but let me add we didn't need them anywhere we went so it was kind of nice having some else take care of them!

 

Note on Euros. Two days before we left I got about $750 in Euros before we left at a local bank . We used our ATM cards when we needed more cash in Rome and in the different ports. We had no problems at all as there were ATM machines EVERYWHERE (although I made sure I notified my bank before we left that there would be transactions from Italy, Greece and Turkey). I would skip the Carnival currency desk, and use your ATM card. John Herald even came on one night (we were docking some where the next day) on the overhead and suggested this to people, that they would get a better exchange rate etc (apparently there was a line at the desk) using their ATM cards or credit cards. We did not use our credit cards much - we preferred paying with cash in places.

 

The ship itself: most of you have seen the photos so you don't need a discription. I liked it although I wouldn't decorate my own home that way :) .

 

Rooms, we had rooms 8420 and 8422 on the Veranda deck (adjoining rooms). Category 8C. AFT side. Yes, we could hear noise above us from what sounded like chairs sliding around, however it didn't ruin my cruise and it sure was convenient getting up the lido deck for lunch or coffee in the morning! We absolutely loved this side as we had excellent views of most of the ports as we were coming in.

 

Camp Carnival - no opinion as my kids didn't use it.

 

Entertainment - LOVED the Ticket to Ride show (last one) plus the Swing time show, the New Orleans one although I liked it, didn't love it. Would get high marks though to the shows in general. John Herald is very entertaining and doesn't mind making fun of himself (and everyone else!).

 

Food - again high marks, although after 12 days we were bored with the choices for breakfast. It was the same thing each day on the lido buffet line. Dinner, Chic at 5:45. Good selection of choices, was happy with everything we got although my husband had one meal he called medicore (some kind of chinese dish). Lunch if we were on board was either the lido buffet, burgers (great), fish and chips (good), or pizza (my boys loved this and usually went for pizza for a bedtime snack).

 

Shore Excursions: We booked mostly through Carnival as we didn't want any stress in missing ships and have done these before on our other cruises and in general were always satisified.

 

Ship tour -- Pompeii, Sorrento and Positino - LOVED this excursion - had an EXCELELNT guide and had a great day. The lunch was provided in this little restaurant that had the MOST WONDERFUL view of the coast line, plus the lunch itself was EXCELLENT. The champagnee they gave to us was some of the best I have ever had, plus each table got a bottle of white wine. Since my husband and I were the only adults at our table, yikes, I was feeling a bit light headed by the end of that trip. Only complaint was that I didn't get enough time in Sorrento, it was only about 40 minutes of shoppping, I could easily have used another hour - what a beautiful place! I think there was only about 16 people on this tour bus with us.

 

Sea Day - I will lump all of them in here - minature golf, bingo, napping, reading, sunning.

 

Ship tour - Beautiful Lindos - I didn't really get to see Rhodes at all on this excususion as we had about an hours drive to Lindos. Again, very satisified with this tour, and loved our guide. He was greek, cute, and very passionate about what he was telling us. It was HOT that day so the walk up to the hilltop was draining, however I felt I had plenty of time to see everything, plus some time to go through the shops in Lindo's itself. Only complaint was it would have been great to have some extra time to have spent in Rhodes (longer time in port) but you can't have everything! :)

 

Ship tour - Ephesus and Sirince/Ephesus and museum. I went to the Sirince and Ephesus while my husand and kids did Ephesus and the museum. I had a WONDERFUL guide, just loved her and really enjoyed this tour. It was great to see some of the countryside of Turkey and spend time in a place with not a lot of tourists! Lunch was included and it was excellent! Only about 11 people on this tour with me. My husband although he enjoyed what he saw, felt his guide was too rushed

 

Ship tour - Istanbul - I think it was called Grand Istanbul with lunch at the Four Seasons hotel. Again, we hit the jackpot with our guide. Knowledgeable and passionate. This was probably my favorite tour. We hear the call to prayer while we were walking around, spent plenty of time in the mosques, only about an hour in the grand bazaar which either was too much or not enough depending on who you ask:) ! We sat through the short carpet demonstration which I really enjoyed although we had no intent of buying a carpet. It was interesting and it was great to regroup for 15 minutes with the apple tea and bathrooms! We did not get any turkish lire, we only used Eruos or American dollars in the bazaar and it worked out well. The lunch at the Four Seasons was probably the best meal we ate in our whole trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was wonderful.

 

**Head coverings are NOT required for women in the Mosques. My husband and sons wore pants this day and I had a tank top (and capris), however I also had my long sleeve blouse to put on when we went into the churches and we had no problems at all. We did see many men with shorts and they had to put a covering around their waists.

 

On our own - Athens. It was 100 degrees this day. The ship docked around 2 miles from the metro station. We should have taken a cab but we didn't realize how far away the metro was! I was exhausted (from the heat at 7:00am and the high humidity) before we even got to the metro. We had no problems getting around on the metro to the Acropolis drop off. Of all of the ports, this was my least favorite, and probably the heat had something to do with it. I am glad to have seen the Acropolis but since I was seeing it with the THOUSANDS of other folks who were seeing it with me up at the top in the blazing heat and sun (and smog) it was not as enjoyable as I had hoped. We had plenty of time to shop at the Plaka area and had a great lunch (in an airconditioned place:) ).

 

Ship tour - Katakaloon - Olympia trip. I loved this little town and again, wish there was more time in port to have spent more time there, however my husand really wanted to see Olympia. The place itself was wonderful, and the museum they have there on sight was one of the better ones, however on this expedition we did NOT have a good guide. We ended up leaving her and just walked around olympia on our own and met up with her at the designated spot....

 

Ship tour - Florence on your own - Again, we hit the jackpot with the guide. He gave a good running commentary on the drive to Florence, a good map (plus he put down his suggestions on what to see). Florence was easy to get around, we did see the Ufizzi (we pre bought tickets on line - good ideas as the line was HUGE to get it and see it - we would have been waiting for a couple of hours minimum to see it). With the tickets, we waited maybe 20 minutes at the most. LOVED Florrence, this is someplace that I would come and see again and spend a few days in. Again, make sure you go and see the churches there!

 

Day we were in port in Civit. On our own we took the train to Tarquinia. We had the BEST time doing this. Tarquinia is only about a 20 minute train ride from the port. We got to this itty bitty train stop with nothing in English written. We found a bus with the non English speaking bus driver and rode to town praying we could figure out where to get off (yes, it was obvious). This town was so non touristy it was GREAT. The Etrusician museum was excellent, the town just nice to walk around, a good lunch, found a fabulous spot that overlooked the countryside (the town was on the hill). No beggers, no souvineer shops... It was great. This was one of our favorite spots as it is a bit of real Italy.

 

Debarkation - again it was SO EASY. Wish all ships had this system.

 

Ship tour - Holy Rome and drop off in a central location to get to the metro and our hotel. We goofed up and had thought we had an extra day in Rome to do the Vatican museum at the end of our trip but upon realizing that we didn't and with Sunday the museum being closed (and Saturday is early closing) we bought this excurision on board the day before we got off the ship to see the museum. This was not the excurision that allowed you to skip lines. Just be prepared - we waited 3 HOURS in line to get in the museum, then spent about 2 hours in the museum including seeing the sistine chapel. We then spent maybe 30 minutes in St. Peter's (which was fine as we had seen that on our precruise days). Atlhough it was no fault of Carnivals or the tour guide this was an expensive tour with just a lot of waiting around. We had an excellent tour guide and tried to make the best of it while waiting around.

 

**I must add that we would not have seen the Sistine chapel or the museum if we had not done this tour as that 3 hour wait would have caused us to walk away if we were on our own.

 

Hint - if you do the Vatican museum on your own, pay attention to the closing times and the days they are not open when you are planning your time in Rome! We messed up when planning and really "paid" for it! :)

 

We spent another day and a half in Rome on our own before flying home.

 

It was an excellent trip, excellent cruise and if we had the money I would do it again!

 

Debbie

[winewanderer]

Thanks for the review.

 

I was so glad to hear of you going to Tarquinia. On our cruise in Oct. we are going there. It's on a Monday so the museum and such will be closed but I've read it is a pretty town.

 

We've been to Rome enough, want something different.

 

Hubby and I speak some Italian so we should be fine.

[MissDebbie]

Winewander,

 

I am sorry to hear you won't have a chance to get into the museum. We were really surprised at some of the unique items they had on display! It really is a pretty little town and I think you will be glad that you went. Not sure if you will be there for lunch, but make sure to get off the main street for lunch, as AFTER we had our lunch, we then came across 3 more restaurants that looked even better then what we had :) on the little side streets.

 

Debbie

[teach2travel]

Thanks for the excellent review!

[MissDebbie]

I hope you have a most excellent time on your cruise! I see that yours is coming up very shortly. There was a heat wave going on throughout Europe when we were there. Make sure to drink lots of water on what ever shore excursions you take (on your own or with the cruise line). The best advice that I picked up on this board was buying a water botle in the states and taking it with you to save money from buying water bottles each day. We purchased 4 32 oz bottles with the carrying straps to take with us before we left Texas. It was one of our best purchases we made before we left and always had plenty of water to drink both in Rome and on the port excursions. We just slung them over our shoulders so didn't have to carry them and stayed well hydrated. It was never a problem having them where ever we went. If you are in Rome before or after the cruise, you can refill the bottles from the public water faucets. The water was good and usually there was a line to fill them up!

[cod]

Good review MissDebbie! And I hope you won't mind if your description of the train to Civitavecchia and the walk to the port followed by a the free 'in-port' shuttle is pointed to in the future! We did it last year with luggage (too) and had no problems. Yet whenever I try to explain our experience, "someone" accuses me of 'misleading people' and not mentioning the 'big hill' between the train station and the port entrance! We are pretty much do-it-yourselfers too and rode the train to Rome from Genoa and then to Civitavecchia on the day we sailed. My husband is Italian so knowing the language helped.

 

Your cruise review sounds like a good time was had by all. We were on the 'sick' Liberty transatlantic and had a completely different experience. I was very disappointed in Rome, as was my husband. I know it's a beautiful city with wonderful sites but to us the whole atmosphere was of a tourist trap. Then again, we'd been in Genoa 3+ weeks and were ready to go home....and it was raining and had turned very chilly in Rome, and we found the food awful..of course they were OUR restaurants of choice. (Plus, we'd been eating his sister's or his sister-in-law's wonderful cooking for weeks which had to have influenced our opinion).

 

Oh, well, this is all neither here nor there. Glad you had a much different experience.

[MissDebbie]

Cod,

 

I had to laugh when I read your message as this was a huge debate between my husband and myself on how we should get to the port from the train station. On these boards I have read that it was 3 miles, 1 mile, 1 block, hills, confusing, not confusing etc and we had no clue if we were making a bad mistake or not. We decided to take a chance and it was a piece of cake.

 

To everyone considering this choice: The train station from civit. to the port entrance (where the free shuttles were) was around 1/3-1/2 a mile away. We were walking very slowing so it was hard to judge the exact distance by time. There are NO HILLS!!!!!! The train station sits up from the road by maybe 8-10 steps altough you can just walk through the parking lots on a gentle slope until you get to the side walk. If you cross the street from the train station there is a huge sidewalk that is very easy to take your suitcases across to the port entrance. We had no map, asked for no directions and just headed in the direction everyone else started walking in (towards where we could see ships in the distance). Another way to put it was when you come out the front of the train station, head to your right along the water, you will come to it.

 

We each had one suitcase each and a day pack. If I was lugging 2 suitcase each, with elderly parents, badies or toddlers in tow, I would think twice and maybe take a cab. Otherwise, it was not a big deal. Just incase you think I am some kind of marathoner, I am 47, somewhat (ok, quite a bit) overweight and drive everywhere I can....

 

Although I absolutely loved Rome, I agree on the tourist trap. That is why we enjoyed Tarquinia so much because it was more "real" then Rome. Even though we know very little Italian (we can read it better as it is similiar to spanish) that is half the fun!

[Kali4]

Thanks for the excellent review!! I leave in a few days for my cruise on the Freedom and I am glad to hear that you and your family had a great time.

[teach2travel]

Thanks for the good wishes and the suggestions, we are getting very excited. I will definately take note of your recommendations concerning water! Although I have to say a drop in the temp would be OK with us :). Glad you enjoyed your trip