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Freedom June 2-10 Review (8 day Southern)


CharmedMom

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So this is my first review ever. I've read a few reviews in the past and wanted to write one myself. I took notes and pictures so I could write what I hope to be a good review. Sorry for the delay in time - but after our cruise we stayed in Florida for another week, then flew to Hawaii for another six days.

 

So we flew down to Florida the Friday before (June 1st) - our flight was an early one (8am - we arrived at our airport at 6:30am). I checked one bag - it was a mammoth of a bag (since we cannot take toiletries in the carry on over 3 oz, and would need them after the cruise, I knew we would need them, plus there were several other things we needed that went in the mammoth). I was 11 pounds overweight. I had called the airline regarding overweight and over sized bags (I needed to know if there was only one charge for bags that were overweight and over sized or if I would be charged twice - once for overweight and once for over sized ... if that were the case, I would do what I could to reduce my luggage by 11 pounds since there was nothing I could do about the size. Luckily for me, it was only one charge - so I didn't care).

 

We stayed at Spring Hill Suites. Not a bad hotel. We ate dinner at Dave and Buster's - we don't have one really close to us, so we were happy to try it. It was a total rip off. We will never go to a Dave & Buster's again. At least the shuttles were complimentary as was the breakfast.

 

The shuttle from the airport to the cruise port picked us up at 10:45a. As we arrived to the port, we got our first glimpse of our cruise ship.

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We pulled into the port and went over to the area where they unload the luggage from the shuttle and put it on the carts - we sat on the shuttle while they unloaded our luggage, and saw them begin to load our luggage onto the cart (we all checked our luggage, I only carried on my laptop). We then had to walk over to where check in was to begin. This was not a process I thought was very organized. It was done differently than it is done for the Dream.

 

While walking from check in to the Fish & Chips area, we ran into people from Ohio (not people that we knew, but Carnival employees). An entertainment guy greeted us at the elevators, and an older gentleman who was working between picking up our S&S card and getting onto the escalators to get on the ship gangway - he saw my daughters shirt (Canton McKinley Marching Band), and it turns out he was from the area. Once on the ship, after we got finished eating, another guy (turns out he was one of the comedians, John Rathbone) saw the same shirt, and he is also from the area. It was really strange.

 

So we ate up in Fish & Chips (only two of our party of five actually ate food from up there, the other three of us got food from the buffet and took it upstairs). It is nice sitting up there as it isn't crowded. We kind of hung out until our rooms were ready, I really didn't feel like exploring (I figured I had 8 days to do so).

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Once we got into our room, we waited for our room steward - we needed to have her put the divider down between our connecting balconies, and let her know that once she brought the bed down out of the ceiling, she was supposed to leave it down. We also had to let her know that the mirror markers we brought were indeed removable and that we would take care of the issue and that she wasn't to touch it as this was our way of leaving notes to one another. She did not show up till 3p (and she only showed up at that point because her boss asked her to - we were not happy that every other room had their stewards at 2 with the exception of our small little wing). Turns out on the Freedom, the stewards cannot lower the balcony dividers - you have to go down to customer service and ask permission to have it lowered (and since we were on the same deck as the bridge and only five rooms away, they couldn't lower the divider due to security issues - this wasn't something we were happy with, but it wasn't horrible).

 

We had our muster drill (very different for us - standing there in an area versus sitting in a dining room on the Dream).

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We watched the ship pull out of port from the tenth deck aft.

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I tried a Twilight Zone - it was ok, but not my thing. My son and husband and Bob got their luggage a good deal before dinner, but my daughter and I didn't get ours till after dinner (at least we got it). As if running into random people from our hometown wasn't strange enough, my children ran into one of their school friends on the cruise (his grandfather took him on a cruise for his graduation gift). The chances of running into someone from school is so slim to none, but it happened. Our tablemates were very anti-social (made dinner a little uncomfortable, but we adapted).

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I took pictures of our dinner food every night (figured people would be interested to see what food looks like - and with five of us, there was a good selection of food).

 

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Chicken Tenders

 

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Linguine with Italian sausage, green peppers and mushrooms

 

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Pan seared filet of tilapia

 

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Sweet and sour shrimp

 

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Tender braised beef brisket in gravy

 

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Chicken a la Grecque

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First Sea Day

 

We played some Twisted Scattergories (Scattergories is my ultimate favorite game in general so I was excited to see they were playing it on board). Instead of doing a list and rolling the dice for a letter, Jenna (from England, who had problems pronouncing the letter H, and would say hay-ch or the letter R was rrrrrr-ah) just read off somethings for us to answer and we came up with an answer (using whatever letter we wanted) we just needed to have an answer that no one else had. And of course the winner got a 24k piece of plastic ship on a stick. I really wanted one of these.

 

The staff on the Freedom are very different than the staff on the Dream. They ask if they can get you something to drink (or a refill) while you are on the Lido eating in that area.

 

Went to the Cooking demonstration at Sun King Steakhouse.

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They made a lot of dishes that involved mushrooms (we don't eat mushrooms at all). They carved a nice looking watermelon.

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So we had to call and have our a/c checked. The rooms were really hot, we would barely move and would have sweat dripping off our heads. So they came and checked our a/c and left a card on our bed.

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Now they may say that things were normal, but they did something to the a/c as the room got cooler. We also had to have a plumber come up as our shower flooded and went way over the edge.

 

Our wait staff in the MDR was excellent, however, dinner moved along very slowly every night. We eventually figured out that it was due to the fact that our table mates ate very slowly. Tonight was elegant night (I think Carnival could get away with only doing one of these each cruise).

 

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Minestrone

 

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Stuffed Mushrooms

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Cherries Jubilee (almost forgot to get the picture, but it's close to how it looked when it came out).

 

The Serenity deck closed at 8p, so anyone wanting adults only needed to go to the adults only pool in the aft of the ship. Wouldn't have been so bad except that they closed the roof and it was very very hot back there. Even the bar staff said that they couldn't understand why it was closed and they were sweating.

 

I got a Whirly cup with Pina Colada in it (sorry I didn't take pics of any of my drinks or the Whirly cup, which is the green twisty cup).

 

I forgot to mention that we went to Tea Time at 3p - this is something we all enjoyed and looked forward again. And we went to bed early (we couldn't stay awake for the comedians).

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Grand Turk

 

We didn't have an excursion booked for this day (we got into the port really early (7a) and we were leaving at 2p, and I don't like to get up early if I don't have to (this IS vacation after all).

 

We got off the ship at 8a and went to the beach - I wanted to check out the conch graveyard (when you go looking for the graveyard if this is something you are interested in - you have to go past the "welcome to Grand Turk" wall, then turn right and loop around to get onto the beach - continue walking down the beach until you come to a picket fence. The graveyard begins on the other side of this fence).

 

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this is a shot of the fence I am talking about.

 

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Most of the shells are in the water

 

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We found seven good shells (well okay, we found about 12 shells and had to make ourselves stop looking - we took home seven shells).

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We learned that getting the shells on board is simple if you follow a few easy steps. Rinse out the shells of ALL sand (and there cannot be any critters inside the shells). The ship does allow the shells to come on board, however, to go about no questions at all, if you ask one of the shops there in the port for a bag (or in our case seven), you can put your shell inside the bag and it looks like you bought them in the port. The lady we got our bags from also gave us two large bags with handles to put the smaller bags inside. No questions were asked.

 

We went to Margaritaville and got to look at the cabana's that you can rent (we will be returning to this port on the Breeze in June 2013 and wanted to check out the cabana's). They are decent looking - there is a shower outside each cabana that can be used. Sofa's inside the cabana (with a/c), and a door that locks so you can leave your valuables inside while you swim in the pool or tan at the poolside.

 

We returned back on the ship after getting our souvenirs and had lunch at the lido. We found that the lido lunch food was way better than it was on the Dream - with the exception of the turkey wraps which were totally gross on the Freedom (then again, the Freedom's MDR food was also better than it was on the Dream in 2011). We had pizza and nachos - very tasty.

 

Played some more Twisted Scattergories (this time we had to try to have an answer that was most matched with others playing - definitely twisted). Then my kids and I played some putt-putt ... very small course (and it was very windy, and our balls would blow away from the holes making it difficult).

 

Serenity was closed AGAIN!! This was a problem for my husband. It was not announced that Serenity would be closed, and my husband has bad lungs. The travel all the way up to Serenity is up a few decks via stairs, and it was difficult on him to find when he got up there that it was closed - they wouldn't even allow him to sit and catch his breath, so he almost had lung failure. Not cool Carnival, not cool!!

 

Brendan from Australia (this was his first contract) was walking the pier gathering up stragglers so we could leave Grand Turk ... turns out we left that port without 11 passengers (I have no idea what ever happened to those 11 passengers, we never heard anything about them again). Everyone was hoping to see some folks running down the pier after the ship, but the port closed up the duty free shop making it so no one could get on the pier period at that point.

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Jerked Pork Loin

 

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Warm Chocolate Melting Cake

 

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Warm Fig Date and Cinnamon Cake

 

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Strawberry Cheesecake

 

We started thinking that maybe our food was getting ruffied (although we could remember everything), because after dinner we were immediately tired and couldn't stay awake to do anything. Again, we went to bed early missing the comedians.

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La Romana (Dominican Republic)

 

We did the Countryside Experience excursion. We rode around in an open air truck/jeep. We stopped at a cacti & orchid nursery, we got to see a sugarcane plantation and sample fresh sugarcane (which you chew then suck) - and then we were served local rum (and then the company that took us on this excursion tried to sell us their merchandise). The people of La Romana are very poor. Before we stopped to taste our sugarcane, a couple of young boys chased after our truck - one actually got onto the back of our moving vehicle, the tour guide had to beat him off with the sugarcane (this same kid after getting beat off our vehicle, jumped onto the vehicle behind us and was beginning to steal purses, bags and whatever was on the floor under the seats that he could reach - but one of the tourists on that vehicle saw it and told the tour guide who also has to beat the kid to make him get off).

 

We then stopped at Pepito's house. We were supposed to see how coffee and chocolate were made, but instead we tasted coffee, were given fresh fruit to eat and saw how cigars were made. We were bummed that we saw cigars instead of chocolate.

 

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This is La Romana - the smoke coming from the factory is a sugarcane factory.

 

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Cacti & Orchid nursery

 

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Sugarcane Plantation

 

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the driver is stripping the sugarcane so we can taste it

 

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the sugarcane is cut into strips so we can take a piece for tasting

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We bought our souvenirs then returned to the ship. Played some travel trivia (for which I did horribly). Then played more Twisted Scattergories. Did a Lyrical Challenge (it was all musicals so I only knew about four out of 20). Went to the room to relax and wait for dinner time.

 

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Shark and Langoustino Firecracker Roll

 

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Yukon Gold Potato Cream Soup

 

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Chilled Peach Cream Soup (well in this case just the chilled peach)

 

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now it's soup

 

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Southern Fried Chicken (off the everyday menu)

 

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Flatiron USDA Steak (also off the everyday menu)

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We are on the Freedom July 28. Reading with much interest, your impressions. Food pix are almost magazine quality. Are you a photographer in real life in Ohio?

I was born in Dayton OH, now live in CO.

Myrna

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Farfalle with Roast Turkey Breast and Green Peas

 

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Assorted Seafood

 

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Tiramasu

 

Tonight was Grown Up Game Night - we forced ourselves to stay awake for this. I had no idea what this would be, but it sounded like it could be fun. Turns out it's the old Adult Scavenger Hunt. Instead, you are put in a room (which you are not allowed to leave to go find things, you just hope you have them with you), put yourself into teams and are given a number. Something is called for (like a woman wearing a man's shoe), the woman who has on the man's shoe has to take the team number up to the host and show him (the first team gets three points, the second team gets two points and all other teams get one point each until the round is closed). I hope to play this game on the Breeze, I will be better prepared.

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I'm glad everyone is happy with my review so far. If there are any questions about any of it, please feel free to ask.

 

We are on the Freedom July 28. Reading with much interest, your impressions. Food pix are almost magazine quality. Are you a photographer in real life in Ohio?

I was born in Dayton OH, now live in CO.

Myrna

 

I am not a professional photographer, I just love to take pictures.

 

Love you photo review! What type of camera did you use?:)

 

Thanks! I have a Canon PowerShot ELPH 100 HS. I also have an underwater housing unit for it so that I can take it in the water with me. I love my little camera. I used to use a Canon Rebel, but they are so bulky and you need all those fancy lenses to take up close shots and such - this camera has awesome zoom. :D

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Hi, I'm doing a daily countdown for this cruise (same itinerary) using pictures of sights we will see during the cruise and would like to use one of your pictures for tomorrow's post on the July 14th Carnival Freedom roll call. Let me know if this is alright?

 

In particular the Ft. Lauderdale beach one I'm thinking

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Curacao

 

It is also my youngest child's 15th birthday!! We were in Curacao from 2p-11p, so we got to sleep in. Michayla (my birthday child) got to open her gifts after breakfast. I had re-decorated our door the night before, and added a birthday message for her on the mirror.

 

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I used wet erase markers on the mirror each night to show what was planned for the day, that way if we got split up everyone would know where the plan was (or we would leave individual notes of where we were if nothing was scheduled at that time).

 

We were getting ready to get off the ship for our excursion and we noticed that while we were out of the room that morning, our room steward took our bathrobes, they were hanging in the closet. We'd been using them instead of towels when we got out of the pool or hot tub, and my husband had his nitro pills and inhaler in the pocket of the bathrobe. He called down to customer service right away, and while they were on the phone with him, they had another person calling down to laundry. Guest services said that our steward should not have taken the robes, and they were going to replace his medications for free - he just needed to go down to sick call. He went down right away, we got the rest of our things together so we could get off the ship for our excursion and went down to sick call to see how much longer it was going to be. We ended up having to leave my husband at sick call with his excursion ticket in hopes that he would be able to join us. Luckily, he was able to (he ended up coming off the ship about ten minutes after us). Turns out that as soon as customer service called down to laundry, the medications were found so the lady that had called laundry ran down to get the meds, ran them up to the 8th deck (that is where our rooms were) found that we weren't there, then ran them down to sick call giving them to my husband. It was a close call all the way around, but now we aren't very happy with our room steward.

 

Curacao is a nice town (not third world). Our tour took us around the town, which started out nice. We went to the Curacao Liqueur distillery and got to sample some Curacao (not something I much cared for). From the distillery we went to a nice section of town ... it wouldn't have been so bad except that our tour guide seemed more like a realtor and was trying to "sell" us some houses. Then we went to the Sea Aquarium (the reviews I read about the aquarium were a mix of good and bad, so I knew going into it that we could be disappointed). The aquarium was actually nice, we got to see some sharks, fish, sting rays, flamingos, turtles and dolphins (as well as a nice little dolphin show).

 

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sharks

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Hi, I'm doing a daily countdown for this cruise (same itinerary) using pictures of sights we will see during the cruise and would like to use one of your pictures for tomorrow's post on the July 14th Carnival Freedom roll call. Let me know if this is alright?

 

In particular the Ft. Lauderdale beach one I'm thinking

 

yes, you may use one of my pics ... :D

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