Carnival Freedom Review w/ Pictures (January 2014)

[navybaby1113]

Once we got back on board, we headed to the buffet for lunch. We both went for hamburgers and hot dogs at the grill.

 

 

After lunch, we went to a couple trivia games. We won Sing a Long Lyrical Challenge! We had 26 points. The next closest was 14. Oy!

 

DH went to shower while watched the Oasis of the Seas and Carnival Dream sail away.

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

 

 

 

 

[ohiomast]

Love the reviews and photos

[navybaby1113]

We went to dinner tonight around 6pm. Tonight the maitre d and his assistant were both at the front of the dining room seating people. As soon as we got to the front of the line, we were seated immediately. The table the maitre d said to seat us at was full, so the hostess sat us at the table next to them.

 

When the waiter came up to take everyone's order, he called the table next to us by our names. No one apparently fixed the mix up with him. After he took our orders, he went and notified the hostess who came over later and asked our room numbers to get it corrected in the system.

 

For appetizers tonight, I ordered a ceasar salad and DH ordered mixed field greens.

 

 

Tonight's menu was one we had never had on a cruise before and it was fabulous. DH ordered the NY Strip Steak and I ordered the Lamb Chops. Both were absolutely delicious. Sadly the picture of the steak didn't come out. :(

 

 

For dessert we both ordered the white chocolate bread pudding. Tasted pretty good. Could have used some more sauce though.

 

 

The wait staff at dinner tonight was absolutely fabulous. We were so glad to actually have a good dining experience tonight.

 

The maitre d never bothered to follow-up on my complaint, but was very glad to see things had been fixed.

[navybaby1113]

After dinner we went to the theater for Michael Jackson trivia and 80's Guess That Song. We then sat through Thriller Dance Class and Bingo because we didn't want to lose our seats for the show.

 

Tonight's show was the Showcase of Stars. The said it was a talent show, but the only talent that anyone had was singing. Everyone was really good and there were parts of the show that were very funny. Most of the guests interacted with Brad really well, which made it even more interesting..

 

After the show was over, we grabbed some pizza and went to bed. Tonight we had a pig waiting to wish us good night.

 

[headhurt]

Great review thus far. Love the pics!

 

I may have died a little inside when I saw the bowl of tapanade from the supper club. I miss that stuff sooooo much!

[Lulu01]

Hi , really enjoying your fab review , we will be taking our first cruise on the Freedom on June 1st , to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary , you are giving us a great insight of the ship & the ports & all the lovely food , we are flying in from the UK a week before the cruise for a week at the beach , looking forward to reading more , thank you

 

 

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[Cinedan]

[quote name=

Approximately how long did you get to spend at Maho Beach? We are going in December and trying to decide if we should book a tour or head there on our own. I did notice Bernard's has a Maho Beach only tour on their website for $25' date=' not sure if that's new or not, but it sounds like you took a different tour.[/quote]

 

I was on this same cruise too! I just took a cab (van) to Maho beach. I stayed there about 3 hours. The big crowd thinned out as time passed. The cab was $8.00 each way. No problem getting a cab back to the ship! The cabs were very frequently driving by the beach and asking if anyone wants to go back to their ship. I prefer taking a cab because I can stay as long as I want without being on a tour guide time schedule!

[gelo7]

Wonderful review and photos.

[WAHMto5]

Awesome review, thanks for sharing!

[GabbyCooks]

I'd say we spent a total of 45-ish minutes at Maho Beach. That was plenty of time for me. It was cool seeing the planes come in, but the beach was ridiculously crowded.

 

I was on this same cruise too! I just took a cab (van) to Maho beach. I stayed there about 3 hours. The big crowd thinned out as time passed. The cab was $8.00 each way. No problem getting a cab back to the ship! The cabs were very frequently driving by the beach and asking if anyone wants to go back to their ship. I prefer taking a cab because I can stay as long as I want without being on a tour guide time schedule!

 

Thank you both for your replies. We are leaning towards just going ourselves because we don't have any other plan besides Maho beach, and kinda want to spend some time there. There will be 8 of us so cab will be costly, but atleast we'll be on our time. Thanks again!

[navybaby1113]

Thursday, January 30th (St. Thomas)

 

We decided to sleep in today, so we didn't get up until around 9am. We tried to go to breakfast in the dining room, but they actually closed at 9am. So, we went up to the lido buffet. I got pancakes, bacon, and hash browns while DH got an omelette.

 

After breakfast I went out on deck to take some pictures of St. Thomas. This is by far my favorite island to photograph.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

We decided to go to the lobby and do food trivia and then TV trivia. We won TV trivia! We were now up to 3 ships on a stick!

 

After trivia we wanted to get off the ship for a little bit. We walked through the Havensight shopping area and then decided to walk over to Charlotte Amelie. We got all the way through Yacht Haven Grand, but decided to turn around because it was so hot.

 

There is a little stream at the end of Yacht Haven Grand. It is really cool to stop and look at the fish.

 

 

 

[navybaby1113]

Once we got back to the ship we played some mini golf.

 

 

After mini golf, we started getting hungry so we went to the lido buffet for lunch. I grabbed some strip loin from the carvery and some fries. Delicious! DH got some salad and pizza.

 

 

 

We got a couple different desserts to share.

 

 

 

After lunch, we went back to our room to take a nap.

[navybaby1113]

After we woke up from our nap, it was time for sailaway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After sailaway, DH went to shower and I went up to the Future Cruise Desk to talk to the guy there. The line was ridiculously long. I never got to talk to the guy at the desk, but I did talk to a gentleman in line with me. He had talked to his son on he phone while he was in St. Thomas today. His son goes to school at FSU and mentioned that school was cancelled because of snow and ice. I was shocked! Of all the times to have a snow day, of course it's while I was on vacation!

[navybaby1113]

We went to dinner tonight around 6:30pm. We asked to be seated with the same wait staff from last night. We were seated immediately. Sadly the table was poorly lit, so the pictures kind of stink.

 

For appetizers, I ordered lasagna and ceasar salad. The lasagna portion was huge for a starter. There was no way I could eat it all, even if I didn't order the salad. DH ordered the chicken tenders.

 

 

 

For entrees, I ordered the filet mignon and DH ordered the lasagna. If I thought the starter portion was huge, the entree portion was even larger!

 

 

In between our entree and dessert, the waiters started to dance. Our wait staff really got into it.

 

 

So we had an interesting time with dessert tonight. I really wanted WCMC, but I love the raspberry sorbet that comes with the cake on tonight's menu. So I asked our waiter if I could have WCMC with the sorbet instead of vanilla ice cream. He looked really confused, but said okay.

 

Well, when he came back to the table with my dessert, I had WCMC with 2 ice creams and the raspberry cake with 3 raspberry sorbets. We could not stop laughing!

 

 

[navybaby1113]

After dinner we went to the adult game night in the Habana Bar. This included Last Team Standing, Gender Show Down, and Carnival Quest. We've seen these get really raunchy before, but the Freedom kept it pretty tame. It actually ended really early.

 

Went up to the deck party afterwards and danced for a couple hours. They did a conga line and a ton of line dances.

 

Came back to our room and was greeted by a little froggy. Our steward also left our pig, which we were excited about it.

 

 

[bmdz412]

Thank you for taking the time to post and share pictures. I am enjoying your review. I will be on the Freedom after dry dock in May. Can't wait! :)

[imluvncruzn]

I'm really enjoying your review! We were on this same cruise. It was my 15th on Carnival (2nd time on Freedom) and far and away the worst service we've ever had in the dining room! We had early dining in the posh dining room. Despite that, we had a fantastic time! Couldn't have asked for better weather right?

[navybaby1113]

I'm really enjoying your review! We were on this same cruise. It was my 15th on Carnival (2nd time on Freedom) and far and away the worst service we've ever had in the dining room! We had early dining in the posh dining room. Despite that, we had a fantastic time! Couldn't have asked for better weather right?

 

Glad we weren't the only ones with horrible service. It was ridiculous!

 

The weather and the cruise were fabulous though!

[klaner64]

Do you have any of the maps they give you on the ship for Grand Turk, San Juan or St Thoma? If you do, could you please post them? Planning a cruise next year and going to those ports.

[navybaby1113]

Do you have any of the maps they give you on the ship for Grand Turk, San Juan or St Thoma? If you do, could you please post them? Planning a cruise next year and going to those ports.

 

Sorry, I don't have the shopping maps.

[navybaby1113]

Oh my gosh, I am so, so sorry for the huge gap. This week has been crazy at work and I've been going to bed pretty much as soon as I get home. I will try to finish the review tonight! Just two sea days left, so it shouldn't take too long.

[navybaby1113]

Friday, January 31st (Sea Day)

 

We woke up around 9:30am and went to the buffet for breakfast. I had french toast and bacon and DH had an omelette.

 

We went to Animal Trivia and then stuck around for a Q&A about entertainment. They had Brad (Cruise Director), Robin (Assistant Cruise Director), head of the show band, head dancer, and the technical person. The main female singer also showed up about half way through. The Q&A was very interesting. I love when cruise directors have this on their schedule.

 

After the Q&A we went to the Sea Day Brunch. We got seated a table for two near the window. While we were waiting for our waiter to show up, I was looking out the window and saw a whale jump! It was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

 

The bar waiter came by and we used our free drink coupons. DH ordered a Miami Vice and I ordered a Kiss on the Lips.

 

 

As you can see in the back of the picture, our basket of rolls were burnt. :-( I was so disappointed, but couldn't find our waiter to ask for a new one. I didn't see him again until he brought our food and by that point I was going to bother.

 

DH ordered the huevos rancheros and it was different than what he had for breakfast. They changed out some of the sauces and added something else (don't remember what exactly it was).

 

 

I ordered the filet mignon. It was not as good as I had on our Liberty Cruise. The filet was a lot smaller and I didn't get any sauce with it.

 

 

 

For reference, this is what I got on the Liberty.

 

[navybaby1113]

We both decided to order dessert. I got the caramel cheesecake and DH got the banana cream pie. Both were delicious!

 

 

 

After lunch we went back to the room and watched a movie for a while. After that, we went to the Love & Marriage Show. Hilarious as always.

 

I wanted to make sure we went to tea time this cruise, so we headed there after the show. I don't know what it is about tea time, but we always get stuck with people who have no interest in talking to us. It's so awkward!

 

They walked around with a cart of food and I grabbed two "macarons". They were delicious, but didn't taste anything like a macaron.

 

 

We did a couple of trivias and then went back to the room to get ready for dinner.

 

We stopped by the Taste Bar on the way to the dining room. Tonight's offering was from Cucina del Capitano. Delicious!