TJCrenshaw

The look on your face when you were told by the Priority Staff at the check in area where our cards were was definitely a good one.

Some people in reviews I read before noted disliking a LOT the whistling noise that comes through the door area where the storm door is on the front balcony. The first night we had some noise, for sure, and that wasn't even the windiest day by any means. The following morning when I went to go out on the balcony, I realized the steward had barely even closed that storm door. It had rained overnight as well, and there was a pool of water in the small walkway between the storm door and the door out of the suite. Every night after that I made a point to go and securely seal that storm door. We didn't have any more whistling after that.

Another note to point out is it is mandatory to close your curtains fully at night. There is both a sign in the room that states it, and one night we had them open and the room steward came in and closed them, said the captain called him and asked him to close the blinds on the room below the bridge (which was us). Something about it causes a glare on their windows up there. So no nighttime views over the front of the ship unless you just go out onto the balcony, but even if you do, you can't turn any lights on. This was by no means a deal breaker, but thought it was worth pointing out.

As much as I tried to sleep in for my DH (I'm a "let's go all day all night!" kind of gal), I just couldn't do it. We had received an upgrade to a balcony on the Lido deck. My original concern was noise at night, but we had no problems there. I found that it was loud in the mornings- I think there may have been a "service room" or something of the like that housekeeping accessed early in the morning.

 

My wife and I just got back from this cruise with her father and his wife, and he was on deck 8, in a balcony room, right below that rear pool area behind the buffet. They complained of noise from the crew moving all those chairs around to clean every morning and every night. Perhaps the same noises you were hearing?

We leave today on her, flying out of Orlando, FL to SJU in 4 hours. Just a heads up to future cruisers, I received an email from Carnival yesterday that they were switching the stop at St. Kitts to Antigua. They've been switching it to Dominica, so this was new. Would rather go to Dominica, but oh well.

Wife and I are booked on Liberty 2 weeks after she makes the reposition from Port Canaveral to San Juan, so ours is out of San Juan. We've not been on a 2.0 ship yet, but are due to sail of Freedom 10/2014, and it's recently been done. We live in Orlando, so we visit PC often just to hang out and watch ships leave. We love it. Enjoyed your review so far, subscribing to keep up with additions as you go!

Wife and I were in 7442 back in March 2013, it's the last aft view ext balcony right next to one of the aft-wrap balcony rooms. We loved it. It was on Freedom, and we did not feel it gave us any problems. Not really any trash from above, so soot that I can recall, room stayed a comfortable temperature for us. Our neighbors in the aft-wrap were part of a much larger party though, and it was apparent all of their co-cruisers enjoyed hanging out on the aft-wrap next to us. People were always coming and going, some were loud, door mostly always slammed shut both in the hall and balcony door. They weren't rude, and didn't really bother us, just some notes on if you (or anyone reading this) has a room with an aft-wrap right next to it. Wife and I actually have an aft-wrap booked on Freedom February 2015, for our 10yr anniversary. Booked it without hesitation. Would have preferred deck 7, but since our son is coming with us, deck 7 rooms have a max occupancy of 2, whilst deck 6 rooms are 3.

I would strongly encourage you to choose a different week, if possible. They just didn't have things together and it was very clear that the ship needed to be in dry dock longer! I was told by other cruisers that crew told them that even they thought it should have been longer (but I was never told that by crew first hand). Of all the people I talked to on lido, in elevators, at shows, etc, I only ran into ONE couple that was happy with the cruise, and it was their first one so they didn't know any better.

 

My 2.5 year old son's favorite thing to do is take laps around the sun deck (10) to look at "the boat tail" and we couldn't do that because the whole back area was blocked off because of work on the water park.

 

I heard older folks complaining about hearing construction while trying to relax on the serenity deck..

 

I forgot to add in my other portion that most of the ship smelled of paint and other smells that go along with refinishing.

 

Hope that answers your question!

Thank you for your reviews of the ship post-dry dock. Those are all the reasons why I did not want to go on this ship right after dry dock. We were originally booked 3/30, moved it up almost a month so my wife's dad and step mom could also go with us to 3/2. Hoping it's all or mostly taken care of by the 3rd trip out after dry dock. We've been on a lot of cruises, so do have higher expectations.

For those of you out there looking for a solid review, I will make sure my wife and I do as thorough a review as we can while we are onboard next week. We always take our tablet with us so we can write it up as we go, so we don't forget anything.