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A Carnival guy on Freedom OTS, The WOW factor: A pictorial review


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Introduction:

This was my second cruise with Royal Caribbean (RCI), and my wife’s third. We had previously been on Monarch of the Seas together, and she had since cruised on Monarch again with some of her girl friends. I have also cruised twelve times with Carnival, and once with the now defunct Premier Cruises. After posting my review of the Monarch cruise last year on Cruise Critic, many folks said that I should try one of Royal Caribbean’s larger ships to truly get a feel for what they are about.

We had originally been booked on Navigator of the Seas, but had to switch to Freedom due to a schedule conflict with my wife’s job. Freedom ended up being a better fit for us since it’s a shorter drive from our house to Port Canaveral, and she is a newer, larger ship. This cruise left from Port Canaveral on 10/18/09 for seven days to Coco Cay, St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

Pre Cruise:

We drove to Port Canaveral on Saturday, the day before the cruise, and we stayed at the Country Inn and Suites, which is right near the port. We could actually see the Carnival Glory and the two Disney ships in port when we arrived. We chose this hotel because we got a free room with my wife’s credit card points. They also allow you to leave your vehicle parked there during the cruise (for a $20 fee), and provide a shuttle service to the pier. This saved us money versus driving down the day of the cruise and paying the pier’s parking rates.

After checking in we headed to Grills Seafood and Tiki Bar which sits right on the waterway that the cruise ships traverse. We had an unofficial pre cruise meet and greet with some of the folks from our Cruise Critic roll call. Despite the cool temperatures and winds, everybody seemed to have a nice time. I was able to get some pictures of the Carnival Glory and Disney Magic as they left port.

 

Here comes the Glory

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...and Disney Magic

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Embarkation:

After a decent breakfast at the hotel, we were shuttled over to the cruise terminal. I was impressed with Freedom of the Seas when I first saw her while I was on the Carnival Inspiration back in 2006. Standing next to her at the pier was even more impressive. The size of the Freedom Class ships is just unbelievable. We got to the pier at around 10:45, and went through security relatively quickly. There were no lines at the check in counters, and were all done with the process by 11:05. We thought we would be able to board the ship, but were redirected to a sitting area. The embarkation staff told us that a US Coast Guard inspection was holding up passenger loading. After about 15 minutes they started letting folks on, but stopped again shortly thereafter. We sat around for a long while, they then made an announcement that the check in machines had gone down. We eventually did make it on board at around 12:15, one of the longest embarkation processes I have been through.

 

Arriving at the pier

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The Terminal

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Day 1: Exploring the largest cruise ship in the world

After we boarded the ship, we went up to the Royal Promenade; there was an immediate “wow” factor to seeing this for the first time. It is nothing short of amazing that such a large and elaborate area is built into a moving machine. I liked how all the shops, bars and dining areas are all right on the promenade. The barber shop, gift shops, general store, café, champagne bar, pizzeria, ice cream shop, clothing stores and wine bar are all right there along the “main street”. I especially enjoyed the Sorrento’s pizzeria, which had a wide variety of pizzas, Italian dishes, desserts and salads. It gets much less crowded than the Windjammer buffet, so we had lunch there instead. We did visit the Windjammer to make our Chops Grill reservations (more on that later), but we didn’t stay and eat since it was packed full of people.

 

My first time on a Royal Promenade

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What would become my favorite eatery, Sorrentos!

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WOw Im so glad you are posting this. I have read your wonderful reviews before on the Carnival boards. Im defecting out for the oasis and thinking about another RCI cruise as well. Im looking forward to more pics and the rest of the review. Also any tips for a normal Carnival cruiser would be great

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WOw Im so glad you are posting this. I have read your wonderful reviews before on the Carnival boards. Im defecting out for the oasis and thinking about another RCI cruise as well. Im looking forward to more pics and the rest of the review. Also any tips for a normal Carnival cruiser would be great

 

Thanks!

 

It never hurts to try other lines, I think its fun to explore a new ship and not know what is around every corner. Cruising RCI after doing Carnival is easy, most of the main things are very similar: food, service, rooms (on RCIs newer ships) and activities.

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So different from Farcas. Im soon going to see the purple grapes for the 2nd time in my life :) Looks great. Seems like the food choices are more spread out than on CCL too. Keep up the awesome job.

 

Yes, they are. I liked it though, I only ate in the buffet twice.

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