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Freedom OTS Trip Review - 2/16/14 (Western) - Playing “Clue” in the Caribbean!


fletch1027
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I really enjoy doing trip reviews. They help me organize photos as well as help me remember things from the cruise.

 

This one will be my second one. Both on Freedom... both Western Caribbean... both in the winter. I sense a pattern developing... :)

 

Big difference this time was in addition to Jen and I, we also brought along our 16 yr old DD Hannah. A 16th birthday present was an excellent excuse for a cruise!

 

Having one of the kids along brought with it some new challenges in planning & time management that I will try to remember to being up along the way.

 

I also like to come up with clever (in my mind anyway) titles for my reviews. This one I am calling "Playing 'Clue' in the Caribbean". I called it that for a specific reason based on where our cabin was located, as well as some themes that carried throughout the week. For those who have played Clue before, the answer to this Clue game is:

 

Professor Key Lime did it in the Library with a Silver Medal

 

Doesn't make a lot of sense now, but it will by the time I get to Day 7.

 

Another thing I did differently this time was go armed with a better camera. I found a great deal on a Nikon P510 a couple months ago ($199 on Woot). For comparison, they were selling the P520 on the ship for $599.

 

Anyway, I love to take pictures and this camera delivers with an awesome 42x zoom. Here's a pic below:

 

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I used it at least part of every day with the exception of the Grand Cayman day where I used the same waterproof camera that I bought for the last trip (Nikon Coolpix S31).

 

Well, I hope to update at least daily with a days worth of review. Mostly photos, with some rambling commentary...

 

 

:cool:

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Also, some folks have asked for scans of the weeks worth of Cruise Compass scans. I scanned only the back page of each after labeling the top, and they are all in one 7 page PDF document that I uploaded and shared on Google docs.

 

The link is below for anyone that wants to see them:

 

FOS Western Compass Download

 

 

:cool:

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Really looking forward to your review. We're bringing the family on Freedom in 117 days. One BIG question for you... the cruise compass lists arrival in Cozumel at 10am. Obviously, that's "ship time". But did ship time match "island" time?

 

Thanks

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Really looking forward to your review. We're bringing the family on Freedom in 117 days. One BIG question for you... the cruise compass lists arrival in Cozumel at 10am. Obviously, that's "ship time". But did ship time match "island" time?

 

Thanks

 

 

Always stay on ship time! The captain made announcements to this! You will arrive in Coz at 9 am their time, but 10 am ship time. Keep a watch with you because the ship will leave without you!

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Always stay on ship time! The captain made announcements to this! You will arrive in Coz at 9 am their time, but 10 am ship time. Keep a watch with you because the ship will leave without you!

I *KNOW* that. But when planning 3rd party excursions, you need to know if there's a difference in time. If we arrive in Coz at 9am (local), I'm good. If we arrive in Coz at 10am (local), I need to reschedule. I can't wait until I'm on the ship to do that.

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Really looking forward to your review. We're bringing the family on Freedom in 117 days. One BIG question for you... the cruise compass lists arrival in Cozumel at 10am. Obviously, that's "ship time". But did ship time match "island" time?

 

Thanks

 

We were there last week (pre DST), so Jamaica and GC were the same as ship time, and Coz was 1 hour behind). I know the Capt determines ship time, but both times we were on FOS, ship time was EST.

 

In Coz, we did a private tour that included riding the boat to Playa del Carmen, so we had to be aware of both Coz (CST) and ship time.

 

 

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

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Looking forward to reading this! We are traveling in June on this itinerary with our three girls ages 9, 9, & 11, plus my 16 year old niece. I am interested to hear what your daughter enjoyed. Do you happen to have a printout of the "Teen Club" activities that you can scan? Thanks for scanning the compasses!!

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We were there last week (pre DST), so Jamaica and GC were the same as ship time, and Coz was 1 hour behind). I know the Capt determines ship time, but both times we were on FOS, ship time was EST.

 

In Coz, we did a private tour that included riding the boat to Playa del Carmen, so we had to be aware of both Coz (CST) and ship time.

 

 

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Great! It sounds like my plans will work (10am Coz excursion). Thank you!

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Great! It sounds like my plans will work (10am Coz excursion). Thank you!

 

You should check and see if and when (or if) Mexico starts their DST, because when we cruised there last March it was after DST so we were 2 hours ahead of Coz...

 

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You should check and see if and when (or if) Mexico starts their DST, because when we cruised there last March it was after DST so we were 2 hours ahead of Coz...

 

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Thanks for the tip. Coz starts DST on April 6, so they will hopefully be 1 hour behind ship time for us (end of June). If they're two hours behind us, even better.

 

Our Dolphin Encounter at Chakanaab is scheduled for 10am. Ship is scheduled to dock at 10am. So if Coz is an hour behind, we have an hour to get off the ship and to Chakanaab. That's easy. If they're on the same time, we can't do it and have to reschedule, which adds other complications. :p

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Day 0 – The Adventure Begins

 

Living in Atlanta has some perks. One is all the ice I could ever need right in my front yard! Another one is proximity to Orlando and her close neighbor Port Canaveral!

 

Apologies for not immediately jumping into the cruise, but our family has traditions and processes that we are required to follow as we build up to the real vacation – the cruise, hence the “Day 0” designation for this day.

 

We are also Disney Vacation Club owners, so for all of the cruises we have done, we have always left around 8-9 am, drove the 6-7 hours down to Disney, spend a night at a DVC condo, then make the quick hour drive to PC the next morning.

 

This time we stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Since there were three of us this trip, the 1st night in the studio room was good prep for the three of us in a cabin. :D

 

Animal Kingdom with a savannah view was also a good opportunity to play with the new camera! I got a lot better shots this time than last trip (also being a newbie with it I also missed out on some cool shots), but pretty good zoom action from the 5th floor:

 

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Ostrich with a zookeeper

 

 

 

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“Tommie” Gazelles

 

 

 

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Roan Antelope play hard and eat hard (similar to cruisers)

 

 

 

To be continued...

 

 

 

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... and to finish up Day 0 (thanks CC for the 6 photo limit per post) :-)

 

 

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Giraffe (duh)

 

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Zebra (on the FOS they sound a lot like Chris Rock)

 

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Disney Unicorn

 

 

After watching the animals for a while, we headed over to Downtown Disney to visit one of our favorite places to eat – Earl Of Sandwich. After dinner, we started to get into cruise “shape” by stopping by Ghirardelli’s for some dessert. :-)

 

We then returned back to the room, watched our last bit of “real” television, and went to sleep, excited for tomorrow’s boarding - but not before indulging in another favorite hobby – spotting “hidden Mickey’s”:

 

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Room carpet

 

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Hallway

 

 

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Great pictures! I couldn't get that close to Disney and not go to a park.

 

I felt the same way in the past. This isn't the forum for me to air my Disney greviences, but it does make it easier to skip a park when I see Universal (and even Sea World) spending money on new rides, etc and Disney spends between 1 and 2 billion on wristbands, and what new things they have been or plan to do are out in CA (Star Wars, Cars, etc).

 

Also, last Sunday they raised ticket prices again... :-(

 

 

 

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Looking forward to reading this! We are traveling in June on this itinerary with our three girls ages 9, 9, & 11, plus my 16 year old niece. I am interested to hear what your daughter enjoyed. Do you happen to have a printout of the "Teen Club" activities that you can scan? Thanks for scanning the compasses!!

 

I'm ready to see more pictures of the cruise! Even though I went on this exact same itinerary in June 2011, I will be boarding with a few of the members above in June for my anniversary!

Wow, it's turning into a Roll Call sub forum. :D

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Were the formal nights Monday and Thursday night? Still have Lobster tails one night?

 

Thanks.

 

Yep, formal nights were Mon & Thurs.

 

Lobster on Thursday

 

Snails available a couple of nights that I know of (because I don't like them) :D

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Sorry for the delay, this turned into a term paper sized post... :-0

 

We awoke early on Sunday morning. Our room at Animal Kingdom Lodge was facing west on the 5th floor, and I caught a pretty cool image of a “moonset” that I don’t see very often. Especially cool when framed with the AK Lodge:

 

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After getting everything together, our plan was to load up the car, eat at the Lodge and be on the road around 9:00. The “quick service” restaurant at AK Lodge is called “The Mara”, and it was my lucky day! Our “home” Vacation Club resort is Saratoga Springs and their quick service place features a flatbread breakfast pizza. For some reason, The Mara had it as a special, so I knew we had picked the right place to stay! It is a flatbread layered with country gravy, scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheese, then baked in a pizza oven. I don’t do a lot of “food porn”, but I had to get a shot of this:

 

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Then of course there were 2-3 things we forgot to bring, so we had to hit the Wal-Mart on the way out of town. Anyway, we got over to Port Canaveral by around 10:30 and pulled into the parking lot.

 

Shameless plug / Tip: I did a lot of back and forth trying to decide where to park. There are two main “offsite” lots: Park N Cruise and the other one by the Radisson. They are both less than half what the Port charges to park, so I knew I was going to use one or the other. We used Park N Cruise last year and I ended up deciding to go there again. I am glad I did. It worked out perfectly for us! I logged into their site and pre-paid the night before. They are located on Merritt Island, the last exit before going over the bridge to PC. We pulled up to the main building and unloaded our bags. I then drove over to the parking area, which was 100-150 feet away. By the time I walked back to the main building, the shuttle was full of people and ready to head to Port. It is a 5-minute drive from Park N Cruise to the port. On top of that, you are dropped off at the bag drop area, and the driver literally unloads everyone’s luggage at the porter’s feet, so all you have to touch is your carry-on’s.

 

Getting there that early has another great benefit – very short lines at check in. From curbside through security to upstairs check-in to Freedom’s gangway was about 30 minutes total, and that was the line for the “regular folks”. We are a cruise away from bumping from Gold to Platinum, so while we have a Gold line upstairs for check-in we are still in the regular line downstairs.

 

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The good-looking members of the family walking the plank into vacationland

 

 

After getting on board, we took a different approach than we did when we cruised on Freedom last March. Last year, after reading some great trip reviews we took their advice and explored the ship from bottom to top while it was still empty and took note of where everything was. That, plus making use of the touch screens all over the ship (touch with my knuckle that is) really makes the Freedom very easy to manage and navigate even as big as she is! This time around we went up to the Windjammer for some quick lunch, then took our daughter around to show her things she would be interested in.

 

We had debated how much “freedom” to let her have on the cruise. We wanted her to be able to meet people and have fun, but at the same time, it is still a family vacation, and I paid to have her come along.

 

What we decided is that when we are off the ship at a port, she is with us 100% of the time. Dinner for us was also “family time”. She ate with us all but the 7th night. Sea days (Freedom Western has 2), she was pretty much on her own except for dinnertime and a couple of shows we did together (welcome aboard show, freedomice.com ice show, and magic show). She then had a curfew – usually midnight. The ship curfew for under 18 is 1am, so we may be mean parents, but that hour made a difference when trying to roust her the next morning for an 8am port.

 

Here is what we discovered. If travelling with teens, the ship becomes even easier to manage, because this is all they will care about when they are allowed to roam free:

 

Deck 5: Sorrento’s

Deck 11: Whirlpools, Pools, Windjammer

Deck 12: Teen Living Room, Fuel Room

Deck 13: Rock wall, Flowrider

Also, the last sea day they all discovered that the helipad was a cool place to hang out and talk it up

 

So, after eating, we showed her the four Freestyle stations around the ship where she could fill up her Coke mug (either side of Windjammer, in front of Sorrentos, in the arcade). We also showed her the places I listed above. When we walked through Fuel with her, there were no staff in there yet, but we noticed that there was a stack of Teen Compass’ laying out so we grabbed one.

 

For those of you with teens don’t look for a daily version; this is the only one for the week. It lists general ideas but no details:

 

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Teen Compass

 

 

However, all is not lost. All of the touch screens will tell you exact activity times each day, and it will let you sort by age group. The teens do some stuff combined, but most of the time they are split into two groups (12-14 & 15-17).

 

We then went up to the sports deck on 13, played a round of mini golf and introduced her to the flowrider.

 

TIP: We knew she would want to get in the water as soon as possible, so we had her pack her suit in her carry on because between boarding and muster drill, the Flowrider is open for business and there is hardly anyone up there. She did it for about an hour and there was about 5-6 people rotating through the line with her. I also did the waivers online so we didn’t have to do paperwork on the ship.

 

While she was boogie boarding, I messed around with the new camera some more and tested the zoom using the Disney Dream parked behind us as a subject:

 

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Dream without zoom (water coaster is between the red smokestacks)

 

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Zoomed in on the water coaster – I think I love this camera!

 

 

 

 

To be continued… the rest of Day 1…

 

 

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