Carnival Freedom March 25-April 1, 2017 Review with Funtimes (Kids clubs too )

Hi Everyone I thought I would try another review..... I did one last year after our first Carnival Cruise..... I am very sorry to say we have the bug..... THE CRUISING BUG and have our next cruise booked already! So I will be on here scouring for information about that ship.....

Just to introduce us Our family comes from Calgary Alberta Canada and we love traveling especially to warm places with lots of sunshine. It was a perfect fit for this trip. There's myself Nicole, husband Tim, daughter Alyssa (18) and son Brendan(13). Unfortunately due to University Alyssa was not able to join us on this trip. Tim's mum and step-dad flew in from London, United Kingdom for this journey!

Our journey started out early on the 24th of March and we headed to YYC with our fearless taxi driver (aka our daughter) Our sunrise was beautiful that morning as we made our way. I thought I would get a picture, unfortunately with the break neck speeds around corners it was less than ideal but here it is

We decided since this trip was to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary we would splurge and wait in the Executive lounge (cost us about $100.00 CDN) since we had to wait for about 3 hours before our flight left. This allowed us to have free breakfast and drinks. The service in the lounge was poor. Dirty dishes were not cleaned up, food/drinks not stocked etc.

We spent time reading and our son did a lego kit I had surprised him with, sudoku, and read as he was saving electronic time for the long flight. I am not super impressed with the new US departure terminal at YYC. After heading through the cattle corral and through security you are immediately in the duty free shops where there is a TON of perfumes and of course alcohol for purchase. The smells were awful. When it was time to board the aircraft you are called to the gate to line up yet again in cattle stalls---kinda like big lineups at amusement parks. There is NO seating at the gate and really I would suggest waiting until the very last minute to arrive at the gate so you can just walk down and board. (sorry no picture of this)

Our flight to Houston was just over four hours. We flew Westjet (our favourite airline) and had purchased their plus class fare. We like this because it includes 2 pieces of checked luggage each, pre-selecting seats, priority boarding, all our food and drinks (yes wine) on board. I am always a little OCD about my kids behaviour. I do no want them disturbing others and our son has a few extra needs people can't "see" so that makes me hyper-aware. Needless to say I try to make sure he is always seated by the window with a parent beside so that he can only disturb us. There is zero tolerance for poor behaviour when we travel and he knows loss of screen time is the consequence so we are usually pretty lucky. He actually is a really good traveler for the most part. Once we boarded my husband ended up sitting with a gentleman who with his wife (she was two rows ahead as they couldn't get seats together) were also cruising on the Freedom. In plus class was a family of four with a 2 yr old and 6 yr old and they were off to visit family. This mom and I really hit it off.... It started with her saying to me please don't judge me I'm on vacation and then said to the flight attendant I will have a glass of red wine and a tea! Whew! My kind of lady! I said can you make that two and we really hit it off. Our boys talked, played and had super amazing behaviour the entire flight. We were all as parents very impressed.

We landed at IAH with no problems, said our good byes to our new friends, told Lars (my hubby's seat mate) we would find them on the ship and off we went to collect our luggage.

My Inlaws flight was to land about 30 min before ours and was on time as well. We met at the rental counter and upgraded our car to a minivan to fit all the luggage for 5 people for a 10 day trip and headed off to drive to Galveston. This is where my panic set in. I don't do well driving in new places especially when we really had no idea where to go. I had done lots of research between this group and others websites to get directions to Galveston. We don't have toll roads in Canada and this was a huge stress as we didn't want to end up on one. We also arrived at 330pm on a Friday. See where my stress was coming from? We made the best of it though! I put a addition on my phone where I could transfer my Canadian cell phone plan to anywhere in the USA for $7.00 per 24 hour period. Perfect! I only needed one day prior to the cruise and 2 days after... $21.00 CDN was way cheaper than what the rental care company wanted to charge us for GPS in the car for the time we were away. (That was very long winded sorry)

Here we are in the van on an interstate somewhere between Houston and Galveston.

Here is a pic going over from the mainland to Galveston Island. For us seeing the bayou area and just the scenery was really neat!

We were staying at the Tremont House in Galveston. We paid $18 USD for valet parking for the first night and that allowed us to have our car parked at the Hotel Galvez for the duration of the cruise (with a shuttle to the port) included. This is a super benefit I believe. The service at the Tremont House was fantastic. We had a beautiful deluxe corner room with two queen beds and large sitting area. Our in laws had a smaller room that was an interior courtyard room with one queen. For some reason I do not have a picture of the rooms.

This picture was actually taken much later in the evening but that's ok. We all needed supper so after checking in we wandered close by the hotel to find somewhere to get food. My mother in law is diabetic, has some limited mobility and it had been an 11hr flight from the UK for them and with the time difference they were very exhausted.

We ended up at the Gumbo bar for supper. We had wanted to try the Black Pearl Oyster bar (the aromas coming from here were FANTASTIC) but the wait was just a bit long with everyone's hunger state. I can honestly say that the food was better than I expected. We all enjoyed dinner and our son had a great time testing out our new camera.

Next up will be embarkation day, fun times for all the kids clubs ( Camp Ocean 2-5yr Penguins , 6-8 yr Stingrays , 9-11yr Sharks , 12-14 yr Circle C and 15-17 yr Club O2)

Subscribed. Looking forward to the kids club information. I'll be on the Freedom in August with a 9-year-old in the party.

Such a lovely start to what is looking to be a detailed and fun review!

Love that you brought the lego kit. I do the same for my dad. :p He has no patience so it's nice to have something for him to do if there's going to be any down time. For our February cruises I bought him a small kit that made 3 different things (airplane, car and something else). We also carry adult colouring pages, markers, suduko, word search, and a variety of card games (UNO, rack-o, tetris). Needless to say, none of us enjoy being bored!

Can't wait for the rest!

Thanks

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I have uploaded all my photos and I'm just trying to finish this review.... photos are not co operating so please be patient! :)

After supper we headed back to the Tremont House to send everyone to bed. In laws were pretty exhausted with an 11hr flight, a 6 hour time difference they were pretty much done! We put our 13 yr old into bed with his iPad. He was so excited as because we were in the USA he could access Netflix content for the USA.... You should have seen the grin on his face getting to watch/download some favourites!

Hubby and I had other plans as we were not that tired and certainly wanted to stretch our legs so off we went to explore. We saw some amazing sights!

My favourite pic in Galveston because we were really ready to have some island time!

As we kept exploring we arrived to the area behind the Harbour House and there were a few tall ships!

On our way back to the Tremont House I found this trumpet and I loved it!

After exploring the port area we headed back to the hotel for a night cap! Unfortunately they did not have the port I wanted but we survived and found something else. We really enjoyed sitting in the lobby and listening to the music and just the energy. We retired shortly after as I knew I would be excited and up early. Our room was quiet other than it was by the stairwell to the rooftop bar. It was closed due to the weather (really windy that night) and people seemed to think even though it was well marked they should go try to check it out and then let the inside door bang hard. My inlaws who had an interior room looking into the lobby below said they could hear the music until it ended for the evening. I would recommend staying here and we really enjoyed the area, the staff and the ambiance of the hotel.

Our biggest regret about Galveston was that we were not able to explore as much as we wanted, feast on some more yummy food and just be immersed in the feel of the island! We have solved that though! Heading out on the Carnival Breeze March 25, 2018 and we are going to fly in on the Friday early so will have almost two days to explore more!

Embarkation Day!

Well it was here! I woke up early, and relaxed and enjoyed a quiet cup of coffee! The next one would be on the ship which I was very excited about. I checked the webcams often and saw the Freedom entering the port area. We met up with our inlaws for breakfast. We were on the family bed and breakfast package and my inlaws just had a room. With our package we received 4 x $22.00 vouchers for breakfast. This fed actually all 5 of us with about another $10 including a nice tip. We all had cappucinos/ caramel milk steamer for the kiddo. The frittatas were fantastic as was the fruit plate and we were all very full!

We reserved a place on the 9:30 AM shuttle from the Hotel Galvez as we had FTTF and I wanted to take advantage of the pre cruise excitement in the waiting area and trying to find some of the people I had met online doing research for this cruise. We made a quick stop for my Mother in law at CVS and I grabbed a bottle of wine;p (We ended up hauling this back to Canada with us :eek:)!!

Our view as we boarded the shuttle at the Hotel Galvez!

Again the views in Galveston were incredible!

As we arrived at port this was our view!

Thanks for the review.

Great start! We've been on the Freedom twice, great ship! We stayed at the Tremont House last year (for free, thanks to Wyndham points!), beautiful hotel.

Great review of Embarkation day! Looking forward to reading more. Subscribed!

Thanks for your great review so far. I can feel your excitement just reading it.

Great start to your review. I'm looking forward to more.

Great start looking forward to more....

Looks great so far. We will be at the Tremont for 2 days before our July cruise so it's nice to see a good review.

Nice photos, good start.:)

I've never been to Galveston or sailed on Freedom but I am enjoying your trip report so far. Can't wait to read more!

Thanks for the review! Great start. Great pictures. Great looking family!!!!

Patiently waiting for more.

:)

Can't wait to read the rest!

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Just stepped off a 7 day cruise,on the Freedom this morning. We really enjoy cruising that ship.Been many times.It is just the right size,with the right staff.

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Just stepped off a 7 day cruise,on the Freedom this morning. We really enjoy cruising that ship.Been many times.It is just the right size,with the right staff.

 

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Are you gonna do a review? Maybe in a new thread? Pretty please:)

Can you tell me about the menu in the main dining room? We are going on the Freedom in August.

Looking forward to your review and a peek at the Club O2 kids fun times schedule. So many families cruising today but these schedules seem hard to find on the boards (for me anyways) [emoji10]

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Thanks for your review OP.

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