CCL Freedom pulled from summer 2009 Rome sailings!

[SunFunCruiser]

Yeah unfortunately no inside cabins on Deck 6 forward by the Sweet 16s... but the location you've chosen looks pretty good. Celebrity will be a different experience in some ways -- we sort of go back and forth between Celebrity and other lines, not terribly loyal to a brand but we do enjoy Celebrity. The side of the ship would, I suppose, depend on your itin more than anything.

 

 

Thanks for all your info.

This is the new itinerary for us:

 

 

DAY DATE PORT ARRIVE DEPART

Thu Jul 9 Venice, Italy

Fri Jul 10 Venice, Italy 3:00pm

Sat Jul 11 Split, Croatia 7:00am 5:00pm

Sun Jul 12 At Sea

Mon Jul 13 Athens (Piraeus), Greece 7:00am 7:00pm

Tue Jul 14 Santorini, Greece 7:00am 7:00pm

Wed Jul 15 At Sea

Thu Jul 16 Naples / Capri (Sorrento), Italy 7:00am 7:00pm

Fri Jul 17 Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy 7:00am 7:00pm

Sat Jul 18 Florence / Pisa (Livorno), Italy 7:00am 7:00pm

Sun Jul 19 Nice (Villefranche), France 7:00am 8:00pm

Mon Jul 20 At Sea

Tue Jul 21 Barcelona, Spain 5:00am

[YOW]

Thanks for all your info.

This is the new itinerary for us:

 

 

DAY DATE PORT ARRIVE DEPART

Thu Jul 9 Venice, Italy

Fri Jul 10 Venice, Italy 3:00pm

Sat Jul 11 Split, Croatia 7:00am 5:00pm

Sun Jul 12 At Sea

Mon Jul 13 Athens (Piraeus), Greece 7:00am 7:00pm

Tue Jul 14 Santorini, Greece 7:00am 7:00pm

Wed Jul 15 At Sea

Thu Jul 16 Naples / Capri (Sorrento), Italy 7:00am 7:00pm

Fri Jul 17 Rome (Civitavecchia), Italy 7:00am 7:00pm

Sat Jul 18 Florence / Pisa (Livorno), Italy 7:00am 7:00pm

Sun Jul 19 Nice (Villefranche), France 7:00am 8:00pm

Mon Jul 20 At Sea

Tue Jul 21 Barcelona, Spain 5:00am

 

That could work well with starboard, as you'd have views of Venice upon arrival and can be up top for sailaway... but maybe cabins on port side would give better views while actually in port -- not sure as we did Venice by land. Best to check with the Europe-Med and Celebrity forums.

[doodlefan]

There is a press release that Freedom is staying in FLL..how more official can you get?

 

Why wait a week? If they know for a fact that next week they will announce Dream will be sailing early, it make no sense and it a horrible business decision to cancel pax one week and bring out a new ship the next.

Pax would be overjoyed if they said, we are pulling Freedom out, but replacing her with a brand new Ship, but if you wait a week, that like a double whammy to those that have already rebooked.

 

They do what they do to make $$$ :)

 

 

Just an update for you from John Heald's Blog. It seems that the Dream will indeed be sailing at least as early as Sept 18th, and doing the Med cruises as I speculated she would.

 

Hi John

I’m sticking my neck out John but you can tell your blogger buddies that Carnival Dream will first operate three 12-day Grand Med cruises Sept-Oct 09 before heading to NYC where she will operate 2 8-day cruises from NYC before arriving at her homeport of Port Canaveral in early December. From there, she will sail on 7-day eastern and western Caribbean cruises. More information and official press release will be out soon.

Back to my cubicle

PA007

The bookings open July 1st. It looks like I was right, all those passengers that rebooked the Liberty (Myself being one of them) did so less than a week ago and now Carnival comes out with this new ship sailing just 1 day after the Liberty's first Med cruise after the Baltic ones. If I had waited, I could have transferred to the Dream instead. I will be talking to my TA and seeing if they will transfer my booking to the Dream instead. I bet there are going to be some angry people though. They could have let us know that the Dream would be doing a Med itinerary in Sept. too so we could have waited and booked on it instead of the Liberty. I'm going to push for the switch with the price protected.

[CruiseCentric]

Sure it exists. :D

 

Here is a direct quote from the news release directly from Carnival

 

"Carnival is the largest and most popular cruise line in the world, with 22 "Fun Ships" operating voyages ranging from three to 18 days in length to the Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, New England, Canada, Bermuda, Europe, the Greek Isles and South America.

The line currently has three new ships on order, including the 113,300-ton Carnival Splendor, set to launch Carnival’s first Northern European cruise program July 13, 2008, and the 130,000-ton Carnival Dream and Carnival Magic – to be the largest “Fun Ships” ever constructed when they enter service in June 2009 and October 2011, respectively."

 

Here is the link to read for yourself.

 

http://www.carnival.com/CMS/Articles/portholeawards_2007.aspx

 

If Carnival was smart, it will be ready in the summer to do a mini itinerary in the MEd just like the last new Carnival ships did and then head over to the US. Also the last 3 new Carnival ships were all ready before they were supposed to be. They have all sailed early, granted not 3 full months but as early as 1 month.

 

July to October is only 3 months. It can be done, I hope it is early and sailing the Med for late summer 2009. I guess we'll know for sure next week.

 

Just an update for you from John Heald's Blog. It seems that the Dream will indeed be sailing at least as early as Sept 18th, and doing the Med cruises as I speculated she would.

It looks like I was right, all those passengers that rebooked the Liberty (Myself being one of them) did so less than a week ago and now Carnival comes out with this new ship sailing just 1 day after the Liberty's first Med cruise after the Baltic ones. If I had waited, I could have transferred to the Dream instead. I will be talking to my TA and seeing if they will transfer my booking to the Dream instead. I bet there are going to be some angry people though. They could have let us know that the Dream would be doing a Med itinerary in Sept. too so we could have waited and booked on it instead of the Liberty. I'm going to push for the switch with the price protected.

 

Well, I was talking about your statement above, where you said Dream would be ready by July to replace all the summer Med sailings. I mentioned here and on several other thread that Dream will be ready a few weeks early and do a couple of Med and a TA cruise.

 

This entire thread was about the absence of Carnival ships in the Med the summer of 09, that still remains the case.

 

Im glad you will be able to switch to a newer ship, that's awesome!!

[crazd]

Is it no suprise that carnival would cancel all of the bookings for the med. and not let you know about Dream? They wanted to fill up the Liberty - who would book the baltics if they knew that Dream would be doing Med? There are many people that are just finding out that their trip was cancelled. I have a friend that was booked for next year on Freedom and this year on Liberty in Carribean. When he found out about cancellation, he switched and is on Freedom this year and will do Freedom in Caribbean next year and he got Carnival to honor prices (even though it took him about 12 calls to make this happen). He couldn't understand why Carnival wasn't offering to let people switch to this years cruise that aren't even full yet. Poor customer service I would say. I know alot of people switched to another cruise line. Carnival needs to learn CUSTOMER SERVICE!!

[SunFunCruiser]

I think the biggest reason people switched to other cruiselines is because we wanted to go to the Med and not the Baltics. So, there wasn't any other CCL choice while school was out.

[SouthernCaribbean]

Is it no suprise that carnival would cancel all of the bookings for the med. and not let you know about Dream? They wanted to fill up the Liberty - who would book the baltics if they knew that Dream would be doing Med?

Im guessing people that love the Baltics. Everyone doesnt want to do a Med cruise.

 

Liberty isnt doing the Baltics at the same time Dream is doing its 3 MED cruises, so Im a little unclear on how the 2 are connected.

[Wennfred]

The Freedom belongs on the West Coast to flood the market.... Spirit, Elation, Splendor and Freedom would kill RCI on the West Coast.

 

 

 

Fred

[Crusin6]

Do you really think Carnival cares? If they really cared, they would have done everything they could to keep you as a customer. They figure since they own so many cruise lines, they have a lock on the cruise industry!!

 

They might be in for big surprise, I bet the competitors love this.

 

Carnival likes playing games with people, just last week they had tons of cabins available on the Freedom for June, July, August of this year - now they say they are sold out - I heard from an inside source they sold these rooms at huge discount without ever posting the discounted price on their website. This way they didn't have to give people OBC - So there goes the best price guarantee!!

I would be interested to know what would be considered a huge discount. Do you know? I pay for 6 people, 2 first, 2 second and 1 third and 1 fourth passenger. I feel that we got a great deal for a 12 day med cruise in 2 connecting oceanview cabins on main deck. We don't like to go higher and want connecting OV's not balconies or insides. So I would be interested in what the folks on the board think is reasonable for our family of 6 for this July. no air or transfers included. We are paying approx $1500 in port charges and $400 in taxes in total. We ARE NOT paying a fuel supplement and have $200 OBC per cabin. So leaving THOSE FIGURES OUT of your calculation, what should the cabins cost us? If you give me your cabin figure, I will add my taxes & port charges and see what we get. Any takers? BTW, we booked thru a large online agent last June and recently got the cost lowered by $1500 in total before making final payment.;)

[burrma]

I think carnival got scared from the 4/26/08 transatlantic to rome where crew were insulted, assaulted and not tipped. Unbelievable:(

 

kim

 

Got ripped off and stung by people like you that signed up for private tours that were arranged with the stipulation that if you didn't show; you had to pay.... and did just wht you did... didn't show; wouldn't pay so we all got stung paying for your share. BEWARE other cruisers of travelwitch 23. Still waiting for your payment.

The money didn't break us; it's the principal! of this type of behaviour and being a memebr of CC!

[CruiseCentric]

Got ripped off and stung by people like you that signed up for private tours that were arranged with the stipulation that if you didn't show; you had to pay.... and did just wht you did... didn't show; wouldn't pay so we all got stung paying for your share. BEWARE other cruisers of travelwitch 23. Still waiting for your payment.

The money didn't break us; it's the principal! of this type of behaviour and being a memebr of CC!

 

 

Oh MY:eek:

[pluto2]

We did the Grand Med. last summer and thought it was the best itinerary and ship out there for family fun. My teen and pre-teen loved it. Now that we can't travel on our summer holidays (I'm a teacher too), we had to switch to Royal Caribbean for the Med/Greece summer 2009. I'll miss the Freedom & its ammenities for families.

 

It was packed with American families (we're Canadian), so I'm surprised they didn't leave the Grand Med. sailing. In June-August I would have thought it would have been easier filling ships with families in the Med. than the Baltics. Our kids definitely want to see Greece & experience the Pyramids more than see the history of the Baltics. People without kids in school have more choices and May/Sept. would be better heat wise in the Med., but it doesn't work for us!

 

Happy Sailing!

[DqALEX]

I think the biggest reason people switched to other cruiselines is because we wanted to go to the Med and not the Baltics. So, there wasn't any other CCL choice while school was out.

I agree. I want to do the Med, not the Baltics

[nolaAlive]

Is it no suprise that carnival would cancel all of the bookings for the med. and not let you know about Dream? They wanted to fill up the Liberty - who would book the baltics if they knew that Dream would be doing Med?

 

Dream and Liberty are doing Med at the same time.