Live from the Freedom of the Seas - March 18, 2012

[famofsix]

Thanks so much!!!

 

I really enjoyed your "live" review last week and was so sad when it was over! Now I'm excited to see the rest of your post-cruise review. You're off to a great start. Thanks for posting the pictures!

 

Were you able to save your cruise compasses?

[RaiderFaninNM]

Daghis, thanks for your review, the staterooms looked VERY much like the one we had last year on the Allure. how was the food in the MR, I found it to be a bit lacking and tasted rather bla. LOVED Jamacia and Labadee. Great thread and pics, please continue on!

[Daghis]

Let me talk for a brief moment about Crown & Anchor coupon books. We didn't get any. I figure that was because of the cabin change, and I was pretty sure it wasn't going to be a big deal.

 

Sure enough, we found a Loyalty Ambassador manning a table in the Royal Promenade, and he was happy to run up to their area and pick us up a couple books. I was excited to see that we were among the first to receive the newly updated coupons, so I quickly looked through them all. From what I could see from Bryan's Gold and my Platinum books, the coupons hadn't changed from before, except for the expiration date having been removed and the version number updated to 17.

[Daghis]

I really enjoyed your "live" review last week and was so sad when it was over! Now I'm excited to see the rest of your post-cruise review. You're off to a great start. Thanks for posting the pictures!

 

Were you able to save your cruise compasses?

Thanks, and you're welcome!

 

Yes, I did save the Cruise Compasses. It'll take a bit to scan them in, but I'll post them online once I've got that done.

[Daghis]

Let me get back to that missing folio number on our SeaPass cards. Seeing that we had the brand new coupons and that they still had a blank for the folio number, I was concerned that something was wrong with our SeaPass cards. In addition, we were concerned about why we were asked about mysterious roommates at My Time Dining. After dinner, we headed to Guest Relations.

 

 

We spoke with Rosemarie who got very puzzled by what she was seeing in the computer. It seems that our accounts were somehow linked with another cabin. She noted that it still showed us in 7309, the Promenade cabin we had before upgrading. I explained that we had upgraded just a few days ago, and that cleared things up for her, at least as to what had happened, but it was still a bit challenging to get it fixed. She spent a few minutes consulting with others and tapping away at the computer, and ultimately printed up a couple new SeaPass cards that correctly displayed folio numbers right where they were supposed to be and confirmed that our accounts were now fixed.

 

While there, Bryan went ahead and booked the All Access Tour. I skipped that because it wasn't as interesting to me. Plus, at $150, it's a bit pricey.

[Daghis]

I had commented before in a different thread:

By going to http://MyCruisePhotos.com (the site that seems to manage photo-related orders) and looking up my upcoming cruise on the Freedom of the Seas, I see three photo packages are available:

• 10 Digital Photos - $149.95
  
• 15 Digital Photos - $199.95
  
• Unlimited Digital Photos & Prints - $349.95

For comparison, the pricing of these packages onboard were nearly identical, with only the unlimited one being higher at $399.95 - note that this one is CD only, no prints.

 

 

And here is a picture of the ship's godmother, Katherine Louise Calder:

 

 

[Daghis]

Whoops, I forgot a few sail away photos...

 

Here's Rusty's Seafood & Oyster Bar as we passed. I do highly recommend eating here on Saturday evening to watch the ships sail out as we did.

 

 

Fishlips Waterfront Bar & Grill (home of the Port Canaveral Web-Cam):

 

 

Here are the places where the Enchantment of the Seas and the Carnival Ecstasy appear to dock (near as I can tell from the Port Canaveral web-cam):

 

 

And we're slowly following the Carnival Sensation who set sail before us.

 

[Daghis]

Hi My name is Sheri and I cruised on Freedom 2 years ago. I loved the cruise director Allan Brooks, is he still there? We might go on Freedom again..

The current Cruise Director is Graham Seymour. He's fantastic. I thought he was better than Allan Brooks, but that's my personal opinion.

 

Just wondered if all the cabanas are the same. Are the ones for non suite guests as nice as the ones for suite guests? Do you think they are worth it? TIA:)

The cabanas do appear to be all the same. The only difference is location (Nellie's Beach versus the Barefoot Beach Club, and by the water, on the beach, or on a hilltop).

 

Are they worth it? That's a hard question to answer. I really did enjoy having a "home base" (as Bryan put it) on Labadee to stash our stuff and hang out. It was certainly very nice and relaxing to be able to do that. I'm not completely sure it was worth $150 for one or two people for our cabana, but if you can share the cabana with a few more (up to 6 people total), then I think the cost can be very reasonable.

 

Plus, if you do get a cabana, you do get access to the private (suites only) beach area which is a bit less crowded and that can be desirable.

[burtonnm]

Thank you for reposting the question. I tried to find it this afternoon to reply to it, but my search attempts weren't successful.

 

No, there weren't any time changes during the week. We remained on EDT, and were one hour off in Grand Cayman and Jamaica, and two hours off in Cozumel (soon to be just one hour off).

 

Why soon to be just one hour? When will it change?

[mariaw8889]

Cozumel will observe daylight savings time at 2:00 am on April 1st by turning their clocks ahead 1 hour thus being only 1 hour behind Eastern time instead of 2.

[njmomof2]

So glad you had a great time. I saw you posted that you'll be putting up the compasses for your cruise, but if you have time (or you don't have time), would you be able to send them to me? I find that when they are posted, sometimes they are so small I can't even read the information. We leave on Sunday for the same Western you're doing, and I'm trying to pin down some times for the Flowrider for the boys and shows for mom (we have MTD as well).

 

You can email them to me at janetsnj at verizon dot net.

 

Thanks!!!!

[cuppy]

Thanks for the review, just booked the Freedom this morning.

[karajeboo]

Nice to see the luggage neatly organized when you took the pic of it ready to be loaded on the ship. On our only cruise on DCL last year, it was a MESS and I was scared to see what ours would look like once we received it!!!

[luv2travel29]

daghis :D thank you so much for the wonderful review!!! we are on her in 11 days (the eastern route)!!!!! love the pics!!!

[Daghis]

I saw you posted that you'll be putting up the compasses for your cruise, but if you have time (or you don't have time), would you be able to send them to me?

I won't be able to send out the Cruise Compasses directly to you as the files are numerous and quite large. You should be able to click on each page to see a larger, very readable version.

[Daghis]

I've uploaded all the Cruise Compasses to my photo gallery. In addition to posting them inline here, you can also browse them here:

• Cruise Compasses
  
• Cruise Specials

[Daghis]

Cruise Compass from Day 1

 

 

 

 

[Daghis]

Cruise Compass from Day 2

 

 

 

 

[Daghis]

Cruise Compass from Day 3

 

 

 

 

[Daghis]

Cruise Compass from Day 4

 

 

 

 

[Daghis]

Cruise Compass from Day 5

 

 

 

 

[Daghis]

Cruise Compass from Day 6

 

 

 

 

[Daghis]

Cruise Compass from Day 7

 

 

 

 

[Daghis]

In addition, the entire package of Cruise Compasses for the week is available as a PDF download from http://www.bluevine.net/Cruise-Compasses-Freedom-March-18-2012.pdf (54.6 MB).

[Daghis]

After dinner, we headed back to the cabin briefly to get ready for the evening. We saw that our beds had been separated and were already ready for a good night's sleep!

 

The Welcome Aboard Show was tonight, and that was quite entertaining. The comedian, Kivi Rogers, was quite funny. I wish he would have done a longer act later in the week, but we didn't see him again.

 

After the show, I wanted to go to Vintages, try out some new wines, and also try out their dispensing machines.

 

 

Looking at their wine menu, I noticed that the selections in it were generally more expensive than I was expecting, with many choices being $15 or more per glass. I tried a relatively inexpensive Chilean chardonnay (don't remember what it was). The server brought us out some fruit and cheeses to go with our wine. That was nice.

 

After this first glass, I wanted to try the machines.

 

 

They had quite a few different varieties of wines from which to choose. I selected another chardonnay, a bit more expensive this time. I had a bit of a mechanical difficulty swiping my card and then pressing the button to dispense the wine quickly enough before it timed out. I finally got it, only to find that the machine failed to dispense a full glass because the bottle ran out. I probably got about 4 out of the 5 ounces. I was told that the machine wouldn't charge my SeaPass unless it dispensed a full serving. They were wrong as I was, indeed, charged. The server made up for it by offering me a couple small samples of other chardonnays to make up for the incomplete fill.

 

Oh, speaking of being charged, even though it had been a few hours since we left Port Canaveral, Vintages was still charging sales tax. They promised to take the sales tax off later, but when I got my final bill, I noticed that there weren't any credits from Vintages. Oh, well.

 

After Vintages, we headed down to the casino so I could meet the Casino Host, a lovely woman named Andreea. Since I'm a Club Royale member, I get a few special perks in the casino, including some free drink coupons that she gave me (and continued to make sure I had plenty on hand during the week).

 

Before too long, it was time to head to bed and get a good night's sleep. Day 2 was going to be a very relaxing day, but we needed to ensure that we would get up on time for the Meet & Mingle at 10:15.