Freedom Eastern Trip Report - 2/18/17 – Eight Days THIS Week w/ lots of photos!

Apologies to The Beatles, but I thought this was a fun name for a trip report! :)

It's been not very long since my last trip report. We last sailed on Freedom in October of ’16 for her last cruise from Port Canaveral. We also sailed on Allure in February of ’16, but I didn’t actually do that report until late last year, so since it’s become a habit, I figured I would do one for this Freedom cruise as well and try to include different things to keep it from being a re-hash of our last trip on Freedom.

We were planning on doing a cruise in February, but sinceFreedom was gone out of Port Canaveral, we assumed we would be going on Oasis. However, when we were working on the booking, we noticed that Freedom was doing this 8night itinerary which included a couple of ports that we had never been to previously(St. Kitts & San Juan). In doing the math in my head, I figured that an extra day of cruising beat out the extra 3 hours in the car each way of drive time. Also, the 8 night on Freedom in an Interior Promenade was cheaper than the same or a CP balcony on Oasis.

As I have done with most (or maybe all) of my previous reports, we did an overnight at Disney the night before cruising. We are Disney Vacation Club owners, so for us lately, we have been using nights at the DVC resorts as a pre-cruise hotel. :D

Hopefully those that are interested in the cruise but not the pre-stuff @ Disney will stick around until I get to the cruising part.

If you enjoy lots of photos (especially from the various ports we stopped at) mixed with some (hopefully) humor and honest assessment of our experience, then you may benefit from this thread.

It was an 8 night cruise, but in my past experience, I anticipate this taking a few weeks to complete, as I have a lot of photos to link to and will attempt to mix that with some useful commentary. Anyway, if you are interested, follow along and ask questions along the way. There is no such thing as a dumb question – but the same can’t be said for me! :cool:

I just booked this cruise for next year. Can't wait for the full report!

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I'll follow along. We are preparing for the same itinerary next month. :cool:

Day “0”– Hit the road Jack!

As most everyone here on CC is prone to do, we spend exponentially more time prepping for a cruise than the cruise actually lasts! That being said, I planned ahead and brought with me some different things than I had in the past. Below is an overview of what produced the photos that you will see:

iphone – Since I used my iphone to take the photo, this one in the pic is my wife’s as a stand in

Sony A7 – This is an awesome digital camera! Way out of my price range, but I was able to borrow it for 2 weeks from my work. Ferris Bueller said it best: "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

Zoom lens – This is a 55-210mm zoom lens for the Sony A7

GoPro Hero – I borrowed this as well from a friend and I used it while zip lining and snorkeling.

Olympus TG-4 – I actually own this camera and I use it for underwater photography

Along those same lines with overly planning, I’m in the CruiseCritic chapter of OCD Anonymous, with the main difference being that when we post our planning spreadsheets, we are no longer anonymous :-)

Here’s mine, and I typically start by greying in the times we are in port, which helps me plan when to schedule things like our MTD meals.Then, if we do excursions, I go in and add the approximate excursion time so it’s easy to estimate things like extra time to shop, time to prep for dinner after getting back on the ship, etc. Non-Oasis ships are a little easier to plan for because there aren’t as many on-ship activities that are able to be booked before the cruise.

I also had a section below each day that seems to have been cropped out of the screenshot where I tracked how much cash I would need in each port for things like cabs, excursions, tips, etc.

So, we got all packed up and ready to leave. Our dogs Sadie(basset) and Shadow (golden) have the look like, “are you guys going on vacation and leaving us… again…??”

The answer to that is we love them but yes!! :-)

One new thing I have this time that I played with a lot this trip and will be showing up often in the posts is screen shots of this GPS tracker app I installed on my phone. I thought it would be cool to show on a map view the route we are traveling.

It’s Friday morning and we are headed out. Leg #1 is from our house to Valdosta, GA. It’s roughly the halfway point, and where we typically stop to grab lunch and full up the gas tank at the local Sam’s Club.

Then it’s the rest of the way down to Disney World!

looking forward to your review

Looks good so far. I hope there is more to read when I am struck home tomorrow in the snow.

Following...looking forward to your review....

I just booked this cruise for next year. Can't wait for the full report!

I'll follow along. We are preparing for the same itinerary next month. :cool:

Thanks - you will both love Freedom's new itinerary!

Following along, leaving in 5 days on the same itinerary.

We just got back an 8 nighter on Freedom yesterday. It will be interesting to read how your cruise was compared to ours. If you don't mind I may add some comparisons along your thread.

We just got back an 8 nighter on Freedom yesterday. It will be interesting to read how your cruise was compared to ours. If you don't mind I may add some comparisons along your thread.

Oh boy

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Day “0”– The Disney overnighter

After what seemed like 6+ long hours, we finally arrived atWDW. This time, we decided to stay at Bay Lake Tower, which is technically apart of the Contemporary Resort (it’s the round high rise next to it). One thing I love about Disney is the little things they do to make guests feel special. Here is one of the buttons we had waiting on us when we checked in – I had noted on the reservation that we were celebrating our 24th anniversary

I wish RCI did things like this, however, the “you get what you pay for” principle kicks in and to me it’s not worth the extra money for aDisney cruise over RCI… :-)

We specified on the reservation (and spent a few more points on) a Magic Kingdom view room. Here was the view from our balcony without zoom

Space Mountain and Cinderella’s castle with zoom

Here’s a view looking over at the Contemporary with the iconic monorail rolling through the middle of it

Zoom in view of the monorail poking its head out

to be continued…

Following along. So great that you are able to add a day at Disney...My favorite 2 vacations...The park and a cruise! Looking forward to hearing more. Enjoy!

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Oh boy

 

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I'm not too sure how to take that!:confused:

I'm not too sure how to take that!:confused:

I'm excited. Double review! Lol

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We just got back an 8 nighter on Freedom yesterday. It will be interesting to read how your cruise was compared to ours. If you don't mind I may add some comparisons along your thread.

Welcome back!!! I hope you had a fantastic cruise!!! :D I heard that you missed Labadee, so I hope the weather cleared up and you were able to enjoy some of that wonderful Caribbean sunshine :cool:

Subbing.....we are DVC members too and do the same thing you do, overnight stay at a DVC resort before heading to the port.

BLT DVC Owner here - following along! Your cruise spreadsheet looks a lot like my Disney spreadsheet (I color code the park blocks by their main park color instead of grey though! Ha! Please tell me you do this too?)!!

I never considered repurposing the spreadsheet for a cruise but I am going to see if it helps for my cruise Apri 16 on Liberty!!

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looking forward to your review

Thanks!

Looks good so far. I hope there is more to read when I am struck home tomorrow in the snow.

Good luck with the storm! Hopefully I will get the posts rolling along!

Following...looking forward to your review....

Thanks!

Thanks!

 

 

 

Good luck with the storm! Hopefully I will get the posts rolling along!

 

 

 

Thanks!

Yes please do, I'm snowed in tomorrow, too! [emoji23]

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Subscribed! Going on Freedom this Sept to the Med! Be sure to include any drink specials/pricing if you can as I won't be getting the drink package and will just be trying to hit any specials that arise (Although I am sure they change week by week, but you never know!)

We are booked in an inside right now, but am very interested to hear what you have to say about your promenade room, as we could probably upgrade if we wanted to!

Welcome back!!! I hope you had a fantastic cruise!!! :D I heard that you missed Labadee, so I hope the weather cleared up and you were able to enjoy some of that wonderful Caribbean sunshine :cool:

Thanks. Yes, we missed Labadee. Not a huge deal for me. It would have been nice to walk around for a bit but being penned up in the compound has never been a highlight for me. We got to San Juan early because of the missed port. Made the most of doing what I like doing there (think forts) in between the rain showers. It turned very nice for the last two ports, St. Maarten and St. Kitts, which I always look forward to going back to. The two sea days sailing back to Ft. Lauderdale were very nice. Good thing I had a piano to keep me occupied during some of the bad weather!:) I hope the game players up in Cloud 9 didn't get too sick of me.:eek:

I had no idea about the blizzard that is hitting here today until I got to Ft. Lauderdale airport and people were talking about it. Today is NOT going to be a good day.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Day “0”– The Disney overnighter (cont)

After checking out the room and looking around, it was time for dinner. We drove over to Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney) and decided to grab dinner at the newly re-opened Planet Hollywood. Before there, however, we made stops at the Star Wars store to pick up a shirt (yes, I am a huge Star Wars nerd) and some chocolates at the Ganachery! Here is the new entrance to Planet Hollywood

I knew I was in a great place when the first things I saw were a couple of old friends!

The fact that Kathy Bates autographed that sledge hammer makes it all the more creepy! :-)

So not all of the memorabilia in here is creepy. Here’s Dorthy’s dress from The Wizard of Oz. Not creepy at all, unless the thought of witches, munchkins, and flying monkeys creep you out…

The inside of the big dome that is visible from the outside is used as a huge projection wall that all of the diners can see. They play movie clips, music videos, and sometimes fill it with random patterns like this that look pretty cool

to be continued…

Day “0”– The Disney overnighter (cont)

Another photo of the big dome showing a less random but funnier image than before :-)

Now on to the food. I came here for one reason. Planet Hollywood has a very "healthy" dish that is essentially chicken fingers that are breaded with Capn’ Crunch cereal. Sounds odd, but they are awesome! Photo is below – oops, I ate half of them before remembering to take a photo.

Also, they come served in this cool chicken shaped basket

Some more random photos from around the restaurant. The re-design looks much better than the previous layout…

One more view of the outside as we were leaving with the dome on the upper left side of the photo

to be continued…

Following along, leaving in 5 days on the same itinerary.

Thanks for following along! Not sure how far along I will get before Saturday but hopefully it will still be a fun read for you!

We just got back an 8 nighter on Freedom yesterday. It will be interesting to read how your cruise was compared to ours. If you don't mind I may add some comparisons along your thread.

Will be fun to have a ride-a-long, although from what I've seen about your cruise a lot of the comparisons will involve your rain and our sun... :(