Carnival Freedom 12-day Repo: Full review with 100+ pictures

[Spaniel Lover]

Here's my review of the Carnival Freedom 12-day repositioning cruise which started in Ft Lauderdale and ended in Galveston. Along the way we visited St Maarten, St Lucia, Curacao, Aruba, and Cozumel.

 

I know that much of North America is dealing with snow and incredibly frigid temperatures right now. Hopefully, when you see all my pictures of the beaches and the snorkeling and the margaritas, it will warm your spirit just a little!

 

Before we dive in to this, let's start off with a little introduction...

 

 

I'm Jim Zimmerlin (everyone calls me Jim Zim) and I always cruise with my wife, Kellyn. (Pronunciation tip: it rhymes with Helen.) We're from Grover Beach, California... a little beach town on the California coast about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. We've been cruising since 1996, and this was our 28th cruise overall... our 23rd with Carnival.

 

After 20+ cruises with Carnival, we decided to do a little experiment in 2014 and cruise with some other cruise lines to see what they had to offer. It wasn't that we were unhappy with Carnival... quite the opposite, actually... we just wanted to see if we were missing out on anything good that the other lines had to offer. So, in 2014 we did two cruises with Princess... and also sailed on the newest ships from Royal Caribbean and Norwegian. We enjoyed those cruises a lot, and even concluded that the Norwegian Getaway is the best cruise ship in the entire world right now, but came back to Carnival in 2015 when we heard about the 12-day repositioning cruise. Caribbean cruises longer than 8 days are very rare on Carnival, so we jumped at the chance.

 

I'm a pretty good photographer and enjoy all the fantastic photo opportunities that a cruise presents. I think you'll enjoy all of the photos and videos that I took during our cruise... most of them shot using my Canon EOS 70D digital SLR camera.

 

With that bit of introduction out of the way, let's get to it...

Edited February 19, 2015 by Spaniel Lover

[Spaniel Lover]

Carnival Freedom Overview

 

 

Carnival Freedom is a Conquest-class ship that is nearly identical to her sister ships: Carnival Conquest, Carnival Glory, Carnival Valor, and Carnival Liberty. (The Conquest-class ships were all introduced post-9/11, thus the patriotic-themed names.) If you've sailed on any of the other Conquest-class ships, you'll find Carnival Freedom quite familiar. The interior decoration scheme is different on each of the ships, and the Carnival Conquest is the only one of the five that doesn't have a Serenity Retreat, but other than that they are nearly identical.

 

I really like the Conquest-class ships and have sailed on all of them except the Carnival Liberty. It's probably just a matter of time before I make it on to the Liberty! There are two things that I really like about the Conquest-class ships: they've all received the Funship 2.0 upgrades such as Guy's Burger Joint... and they all have an adults-only pool at the rear of the ship which features a sliding glass dome that can be closed during periods of bad weather.

 

 

I totally LOVE the aft pool area and end up spending a LOT of time there during a cruise. The mid-ship pool drives me crazy with all the loud music, the screaming kids, and the noisy events such as the hairy chest competition and the mixology contest. Plus, when the ship is underway, it can sometimes be a little windy by the mid-ship pool. So, the aft pool is my retreat. The music mix is different than at the mid-ship pool and plays at a very low volume... there are no screaming kids or obnoxious event announcers... and if the weather goes downhill, they'll close the glass dome.

 

On some of the Carnival ships I've been on, it seems like they had a policy of only closing the sliding glass dome as a last resort... when there was actual rain falling. I was completely delighted to find that on Carnival Freedom, they had a very different attitude about the sliding glass dome: they closed it much more frequently than on other ships. They closed it nearly every evening to provide a warm wind-free environment at the back of the ship... and left it closed all the way until after sunrise the next morning. And when we hit some cooler weather at one point in our cruise, they left the dome closed during the day, too... even though there was no threat of rain. The folks in charge on Carnival Freedom really seemed to understand that there were a lot of situations other than rain where it would improve passenger comfort to slide the dome closed. I really appreciated it!

 

By the way... when Carnival renovated the Carnival Destiny and turned it in to the Carnival Sunshine, they completely removed the aft pool on that ship to create space for the Havana Bar. When I cruised on the Carnival Sunshine in 2013, I found that the lack of an adults-only aft pool was a big problem for me. There wasn't a quiet place for me to hang out by the pool... as their Serenity Retreat, which has its own pool, was located too close to the sound system at the main pool. In other words, it wasn't serene at the Serenity Retreat and there wasn't an aft pool to retreat to. So, even though I'm totally in love with the Carnival Sunshine's Cruise Director, I don't think I'll be sailing on Carnival Sunshine again. The Conquest class is perfect for me!

 

 

I like the aft pool area so much, and spend so much time there, that I always try to book a cabin at the aft end of the ship. My favorite class of cabin is the aft-wrap balcony... known in Carnival language as a "Premium Vista Balcony" cabin. Take a look at

if you want to see what those aft-wrap cabins are like. There weren't any aft wraps available when I booked this cruise... so I opted for a standard balcony cabin instead.

 

A few months after booking, my personal vacation planner gave me a call and told me about a special sale that Carnival was having and how it presented an opportunity for me to save about a thousand dollars on my cruise fare... if I was willing to do one thing I always said I would never do: accept a "guaranteed" cabin, where Carnival assigns a cabin to me rather than me picking a specific cabin. I really struggled with the choice... as I know that when you get a cabin assigned to you in this manner, it's going to be one of the least desirable cabins on the ship... probably a cabin in a bad location, like one floor above a noisy restaurant or lounge. But it was too good of a deal to pass up... taking my $3000 cruise fare down to $2000... which is a heck of a deal for a balcony cabin on a 12-day cruise. $83 per person, per day, for a balcony cabin. An excellent deal... but whether I would regret taking the deal was all going to boil down to what cabin they assigned to me. If they put me in a cabin directly above the disco, I would never get to sleep with all the bass coming through the floor. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best, figuring that if Carnival was going to screw somebody and put them in a cabin above the disco, it probably wouldn't be one of their Platinum-level guests with 20+ Carnival cruises to his credit.

 

A few weeks before the cruise, I received my cabin assignment from Carnival. I had been assigned to cabin 6441. The good news was that this cabin was at the aft end of the ship, which is where I like to be... close to the adults-only aft pool, the Lido buffet, and the comedy club. It was also conveniently close to the aft elevators, which cuts down on the amount of walking you have to do anytime you want to go anywhere... but it was not so close to the elevators that there would be a lot of noise.

 

The big area of concern, as I studied the deck plans and tried to figure out how good or bad of a cabin 6441 would be, was that the cabin sits directly above the Alchemy Bar, and not very far away from the disco. I've been on ships with an Alchemy Bar before, and they didn't strike me as being particularly noisy, so I wasn't completely unhappy with my cabin assignment and knew it could have been a lot worse. I hoped that our cabin would be far enough away from the disco that I wouldn't hear it... but from the deck plans, I just couldn't tell if it would be or not.

[Jamman54]

GREAT start Jim Zim!! Looking forward to another great read!!

[Spaniel Lover]

Carnival Freedom Stateroom 6441

 

 

If you've sailed with Carnival before, you know that the layout and decor of their balcony staterooms is very consistent... at least until you get in to the Dream-class ships, where they started to get away from their love affair with the color orange. In looking at these pictures of our cabin, they pretty much could be pictures of just about any standard balcony cabin on most Carnival ships.

 

 

A few things to point out for anyone who has NOT sailed with Carnival before:

 

There is a safe located under the television, behind those two cabinet doors. On this class of ship, access to the safe is made using any kind of card with a magnetic stripe... such as a credit card or a grocery-store loyalty card. On the newest Carnival ships, they have a more convenient safe system that uses a 4-digit code for entry... but the Conquest-class ships don't have this.

 

There is a refrigerator behind the cabinet door under the desk. There is ONE and only one electrical outlet at the desk... so if you have multiple electronic items to charge at night, bring a multi-plug adapter.

 

The king-sized bed is actually two twins pushed together... and that creates an awkward bump in the middle. Your cabin steward can separate the beds for you, if you prefer two twins to one king. The bed sits high enough above the ground that you can store all your suitcases underneath it.

 

 

There's a hair dryer located in the top desk drawer. There are three closets near the door to the hallway. Two of the closets are set up with hangers, and the third is set up with shelving. The bathroom is across from the closets.

 

 

Carnival stateroom bathrooms aren't luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but they get the job done. If you want luxury, you should spend the big bucks and stay in The Haven on Norwegian Getaway! (See this video to learn more.)

 

I like the magnifying mirror on the wall, and the way they provide body wash and shampoo in the dispensers in the shower. (Remember to bring conditioner.) There's one electrical outlet awkwardly located near the ceiling, which you can use to run an electric shaver or to charge an electric toothbrush.

 

After 20+ cruises with Carnival, I was quite comfortable with the bathroom arrangements and expected the same kind of thing when we booked a cruise on Princess in 2014. I was shocked to find that Carnival bathrooms were significantly better than the bathrooms in the standard balcony cabins on Princess. We sailed on two different Princess ships in 2014, in standard balcony cabins, and both times the showers were unacceptably small. I'm never going to book a standard balcony cabin with Princess again... I'll have to go with at least a mini suite in order to avoid the super-cramped showers. If you find that topic interesting, take a look at

I shot during our Princess Alaska cruise that shows how small the shower is in a standard balcony cabin... and what you get if you upgrade to a mini-suite.

 

One trick we've learned in all of our cruising is to bring a small spray-can of a nice smelling deodorizer with us. We keep it in the bathroom and spray it, as needed. Some of the cruise ship bathrooms we've been in have had a problem with sewer gas venting in to the bathroom, causing a bad odor. We did not experience that problem in this particular cabin, but it's always good to have that deodorizer with you if you need it.

[kelkel2]

Oh I love your reviews!!! Can't wait for more!!

[Spaniel Lover]

By the way, if you've ever tried to take photos of your cruise ship cabin and have had problems fitting the whole cabin in to your shot... take a close look at those last few photos, especially the bathroom shot, and notice how much of the room you can see in each photo.

 

I used a special wide-angle Canon lens in order to show as much as possible in each photo. That lens really comes in handy in small places like a cruise ship cabin or bathroom!

 

The lens I used was the new Canon EFS 10-18mm image stabilized STM lens.

[Spaniel Lover]

Now let's take a look at the best cabin feature of them all... having your own private balcony!

 

My wife likes to sit on the balcony and read books on her Kindle

 

As this is just an inexpensive category 8B stateroom, it's not a gigantic balcony... but it's plenty large enough for relaxing and enjoying the beautiful views. Oh my... the views! Here's a photo I snapped of the sunrise one morning, from our balcony.

 

More beautiful sunrise and sunset photos to come... later in this review!

 

In our 20+ Carnival cruises, we've tried a wide variety of cabin types: everything from the cheapest inside cabin that doesn't even have a window, to the most expensive suite on the ship. (I'm referring to "The Captain's Suite".

for a tour.)

 

We won't even consider cruising in an "inside" or an "oceanview" cabin anymore. A balcony cabin is our minimum... and an aft-wrap is our preferred choice. We really like having our own quiet place outside where we can sit without listening to background music or other people talking. It's also great, when the ship is coming in to port, to be able to quickly step outside and see how close we are to being there... and to watch all the steps involved in docking a big cruise ship.

 

It's also fun to have a private place to enjoy a cocktail while taking in the ocean view...

 

 

We don't do a whole lot of drinking -- we're certainly not candidates for the all-inclusive drink packages they offer on the ship -- but every now and then during a Caribbean cruise it's fun to have a cocktail. It just takes one margarita to loosen me up! But usually at some point in the cruise, typically on a sea day, I'll go up to the Blue Iguana Cantina and bring back a pitcher of margaritas... which is enough for each of us to have two, and which is quite a bit cheaper than buying four individual margaritas. It's nice to enjoy those margaritas out on our own balcony, rather than in a bar setting where you sometimes run in to loud drunk people.

 

 

Speaking of booze... I have to confess that I also successfully smuggled a small bottle of Malibu Rum aboard. I like to drink diet cola mixed with a tiny bit of Malibu rum mixed in. I actually don't do it for the alcohol... I do it for the coconut flavor. One of the big cola companies ought to come up with a coconut flavored cola... because it's really good! A small 12 ounce bottle of Malibu rum was enough to last me the entire 12-day cruise. That should give you an idea of how little of it I would mix in with a diet Pepsi each day. Carnival only serves Coke, and I prefer Pepsi... so I brought a few diet Pepsis from home for the first few days of the cruise, and then I bought some more in St Maarten. I also get frustrated with the tiny glasses they use on cruise ships... so I bring a big plastic cup from my favorite casual Mexican restaurant back home.

 

Now that I've shown you pictures of our cabin, let's get back to the thing I started talking about before... the location of our cabin being right above the Alchemy Bar and not too far from the disco. I certainly never would have chosen this cabin on my own. I'm always careful to pick a cabin on a floor that is at least two levels away from potential noise sources. The only reason I ended up in this cabin is because it saved me a thousand dollars off the price of the cabin I had originally booked. I was also curious about what kind of cabin Carnival would assign to a Platinum-level guest who had booked a guaranteed cabin category. I assumed that Carnival wouldn't stick a loyal Platinum-level guest in a horrible room.

 

On the first night of our cruise, I started to worry that I had made the wrong decision. There was a surprising amount of noise coming up from the Alchemy Bar, directly below us. I guess the bartender would make some kind of spectacular flaming drink... because every now and then, we would hear the crowd at the bar erupt in to cheering. Very late at night, I guess things really got going at the disco, too... because we started to hear the pounding sound of bass through the floor. We were far enough away from the disco that it wasn't very loud, but in a totally quiet stateroom at 1 AM, we could definitely hear it. There was also some kind of weird loud noise that woke us in the middle of the night every night of the cruise. We never could figure out exactly what it was... some kind of machinery being operated either on deck five below us, or in the crew-only area in the center of the ship on deck six. We never could identify the specific source.

 

For some reason, the noises from the Alchemy Bar and the disco were only a factor during the first few days of the cruise. After that, we never heard the bass from the disco again and we only very rarely heard the cheering from the Alchemy bar. Perhaps someone complained? The unidentified mechanical noise at random times between 1 AM and 4 AM went on all week, though.

 

In the end, I think I made the right decision to save a thousand dollars on a cabin assignment that was out of my control. It wasn't a great cabin, and there definitely were noise issues at night, but it wasn't unacceptable. However, I don't think I'll be booking a guaranteed cabin category ever again. Too risky! Eventually, I bet I'd get stuck on top of the disco.

 

In walking up and down the corridors on deck six during the evenings, we noticed that we got very lucky with our cabin assignment. Some of the other cabins on deck 6 had some much worse noise problems! Deck five is a public deck featuring not only the disco, but the casino, too. There's a rock band that plays in the casino at night, and the amount of noise coming from that band in to some parts of deck six was incredible. We were so lucky to not get stuck in one of those deck six cabins near the casino! The other deck six cabins that have a real noise problem are the ones down near the forward elevators. There's a musical duo that plays in the atrium... and because of the open layout of the atrium, the music comes through very loudly on deck six near the forward elevators. I imagine that if you're in one of those first 4 or 5 cabins near the elevators on deck six, and you're lying in bed at night while the music is playing in the atrium, it will come right through your cabin door and bother you.

 

The bottom line is that deck six on a Conquest-class ship is one of the worst cabin locations you could find yourself in. Beware, and avoid!

[Spaniel Lover]

Interior Decorations

 

You've already seen the photos of the very outdated orange color scheme that Carnival used on most of their cabins up until the introduction of the Carnival Magic and Carnival Breeze. Back when the Conquest-class was the latest thing, the principal ship architect for Carnival was Joe Farcus... and he wanted to express the fun of a Carnival cruise with a particularly loud style of interior design: lots of neon, shiny stuff, bright colors and over-the-top craziness that sometimes bordered on tacky. Luckily, by the time the Carnival Freedom came to be (it was the last of the Conquest-class ships), Farcus had started to tone things down just a little. You can see the famous Joe Farcus style in the Grand Atrium of the Carnival Freedom, but it's certainly not as brash as some of the other Carnival ships!

 

 

 

To go along with the post-9/11 theme of patriotism, which inspired the ship's name, Farcus used the Statue Of Liberty as his design inspiration for the "Freedom restaurant"... which is the casual buffet restaurant on Lido deck. You'll find a big Statue Of Liberty overlooking the "sweet spot", and several hundred faces of the Statue Of Liberty integrated in to the light fixtures throughout the restaurant.

 

 

 

 

I like the fun, but classy, colors and interior design of the "Chic Restaurant"

also known simply as the Main Dining Room, or MDR...

 

 

While we're on the subject of the main dining room, take a look at this picture of a "table for two"... and then let's discuss one of my major grievances!

 

 

<RANT>

Look at tables 610 and 612, which are each considered by the Maître D' to be a "table for two". Yikes! Way too close together! We went to the Chic Restaurant for dinner on the first night of the cruise and specifically asked for a "table for two with some privacy". We were seated at the middle table of THREE tables that were next to each other in the manner you see in that photo. It was about the furthest thing from "privacy" that you could get in the restaurant, short of being put at a table for 10. We never ate in the Chic restaurant again for the duration of the cruise. Trying to make small talk with the strangers seated next to us is not our idea of a fun dinner. For some people, that wouldn't be a problem, I'm sure... but for us it was, especially after specifically asking for a private table.

</RANT>

[Spaniel Lover]

Entertainment

 

I mentioned that during 2014, we experimented with cruising on other cruise lines besides Carnival. So, it had been nearly a year since our last Carnival cruise... and during that time, they came out with four new "Playlist Productions" shows. Those are the big song and dance shows that are performed in the big theater at the front of the ship. We had been getting a little tired of seeing the same shows over and over during our frequent Carnival cruises, so it was a real treat to see four brand-new shows during our cruise on Carnival Freedom. It was such a big deal, Carnival put out a press release about it.

 

Of the fours shows, our favorite was "80's Pop To The Max"... a song and dance show based on some of the biggest hit songs from the 1980s. I worked as a radio DJ during the 1970s and as the Music Director and Program Director of several radio stations in the 1980s... so I think I'm in the unique position of being able to judge how good of a job they did in picking the songs for a musical about the songs of the 80s. I give them a 10 on a 10-scale for song selection in this show! It was all the right songs from that era... instantly recognizable to all the passengers on the ship. I wish they had played such good music as background music in the public areas of the ship! (More about that, later.)

 

Here are a few photos I took during "80s Pop To The Max":

This girl, Ya Ya Williams, did a fantastic Whitney Houston number

 

 

 

Easy on the eyes, aren't they?

 

 

 

A standing ovation for the finale

 

Sorry that I wasn't able to get the entire cast in to that picture! I was using a big zoom lens and couldn't zoom out any further. It might surprise you to know that I was actually sitting in the back row of the upper balcony... one of the furthest seats from the stage! I like to sit way back there when snapping photos so that my camera and big zoom lens are as unobtrusive as possible. I was using Canon's big 100-400mm zoom lens, so that I could get shots that wouldn't look like I was shooting from the back row. If you look at the quality of that first photo of Ya Ya Williams singing the Whitney Houston song, it's amazing to consider that it was shot from the back row, which you can see in this next photo of the theater. I was sitting in one of those seats under the four windows at the back of the theater.

 

The Victoriana theater... looking from the front towards the back

[Spaniel Lover]

Another show that I enjoyed a lot was "Getaway Island". Any show that features Kenny Chesney's song "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem" is all right with me. Why wasn't this song -- which is all about taking a vacation to a beach in Mexico -- played at least 20 times a day on a 12-day cruise that finishes up with a stop in Cozumel?!?! Don't get me started. I'm saving my rant about the background music played throughout the ship... for later.

 

A musical number from the "Getaway Island" show... featuring the 1958 hit

 

This brings up something that I find interesting about the "Playlist Production" shows on Carnival. Back in my high school days, I was fascinated with sound and lighting for the theater. I volunteered on the stage technical crew of just about every theatrical production during my high school years. Sound, lighting, and set design for the theater have always been of interest to me. It's come a long way since I worked behind the scenes on stage shows during the 1970s!

 

Back in those days, they would paint a physical backdrop. The best stages had a flying loft over the stage, so that various new backgrounds could be dropped down on to the stage in between acts. If the stage didn't have a flying loft, you'd push in a physical backdrop from the wings. It was that way on Carnival stage productions for a long time, too. Then along came "Playlist Productions" and the advent of digital screens. Take a look at this shot from "Getaway Island"... where it's hard to tell where the physical set ends and the digital screen begins.

 

 

A still shot of the digital backdrop doesn't do it justice, though... as they are video screens, so the production designers are free to unleash their creativity and introduce motion in to the backdrops. Take a look at this video from "Getaway Island", which really shows how adding motion to the video backdrops can take the fun to a whole new level that we couldn't do in the old days:

 

[YOUTUBE]0QZc8EWYKAg[/YOUTUBE]

 

Please note that the flickering lines that appear on the video screens in my little video clip are NOT seen by the audience. That's a function of my video camera not being synched with their video screen. To the people in the audience, the video screens appear crystal clear.

 

Another one of the new Playlist Production shows is "Heart Of Soul". As you might guess from the title, this one features romantic R&B and soul songs. The songs in the show are from artists such as Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Otis Redding, Ray Charles, and Al Green. Here are a couple of photos:

 

 

 

It's cool how they coordinated the green lasers with the green lighting and the green "Aurora Borealis" display on the video screen.

 

The fourth of the four new stage shows was "88 Keys", featuring the music of famous piano players such as Elton John, Billy Joel, and Jerry Lee Lewis. I didn't shoot any photos or videos of this particular show, as I didn't get there early enough to get a seat with a straight-on view. I like that you don't need reservations to see a show on Carnival (reservations were required for the shows on the Royal Caribbean and Norwegian ships I was on last year), but it's a good idea to arrive quite a bit early to get the best seats. "88 Keys" and "Heart Of Soul" also have a pre-show... which starts 15 minutes before the posted show time... and the pre-show really just segues right in to the main show, so you need to arrive well in advance of the pre-show to get a proper seat.

 

Since "88 Keys" is all about piano-centric artists, the pre-show features the entertainer from the ship's piano bar. He plays a roll in the main portion of "88 Keys", too. Unfortunately, the piano bar entertainer on the Carnival Freedom, Russell Blues, was the worst piano bar performer I've seen in 20+ cruises... so this was, by far, the weakest of the four shows. But I enjoyed all four of the shows... and it was especially cool that all four were new to me. My guess is that these are the shows I'll be seeing on all my Carnival cruises for the next several years!

 

It's fun to see big production shows during a cruise, as I would just never go out to see live theater at home. The one downside to seeing four Playlist Production shows during a 12-day cruise is that all four shows have the exact same cast. The songs are different, the sets are different, the costumes are different, the choreography is different... but it's all the same people each time. Imagine watching music videos on MTV, but with every music video featuring the exact same performers every time. (Of course, I am speaking of the days when MTV actually played music videos... I'm just that old!)

[Spaniel Lover]

Comedy

 

Of course, big production shows aren't the only entertainment on the ship! I love the standup comedy shows on a Carnival cruise. Having sailed on four different cruise lines in 2014, I can say without question that Carnival is the most dedicated to stand-up comedy. Normally, on a 7-day Carnival cruise, you'd be able to see performances by four different standup comedians. Since this was a 12-day cruise, Carnival went all out and featured SIX different comedians over the course of the cruise.

 

Comedian Jim Brick

 

I like that you don't need a reservation to see a comedy show on Carnival. On those Royal Caribbean and Norwegian cruises I did last year, I needed to plan the whole week out and make reservations for everything... including comedy. I hate having to plan everything out like that. I much prefer to just wing it as the week goes on. The only downside to that is that there's a lot of competition for seats in the comedy club... so get there early! My wife brings her Kindle and I bring my tablet to help pass the time... and we get there 30-45 minutes before show time so we don't get stuck in a bad seat.

 

A funny story about something I saw in the comedy club...

There was a group of people sailing together on this cruise, and two of them were deaf. Two other people in their group knew sign language and would do a sign language interpretation for them at shows. I saw them do this in the main theater one night, and I also saw them do it in the comedy club. It was so funny for me to watch the sign language interpreter do the signs for dirty jokes! We were at an R-rated adults-only comedy show, and every time the comedian did a blow-job joke... I looked over to the female sign language interpreter to see the expression on her face as she signed the joke. Sorry I didn't get it on video... you'll just have to imagine it! It certainly made me laugh.

 

Besides traditional standup comedy, there were some other funny shows during our cruise. My favorite featured ventriloquist Phil Hughes...

 

 

Phil's show starts with a traditional dummy act, along the lines of what you'd see at a Jeff Dunham show. The highlight of Phil's act, though, comes later... when he finds a 13-year-old boy in the audience and brings him up on stage. The boy is all outgoing and confident... up until the point where Phil finds an 18-year-old girl in the audience, and brings her up on stage. The boy's awkwardness when the girl moves a little too close to him was laugh-out-loud funny... and then things got downright hilarious when it was revealed to the boy that he was going to have to kiss her! Lucky for you, I got it all on video. Take a look:

 

[YOUTUBE]GukKNrUuCDQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

I was laughing so hard that I had trouble holding the camera steady during a couple of parts of the act!

[Spaniel Lover]

A Special Musical Performance

 

Because this was a rare 12-day cruise, the entertainment staff put on a couple of special shows to broaden the entertainment mix beyond what is offered on a normal 7-day cruise. One of the special shows was a guest talent show... but that didn't end up being much to write home about. It was pretty much just a glorified version of the Superstar Live karaoke show, in a larger venue.

 

A special show that was MUCH more interesting to me was appropriately billed as "A Night To Remember". It featured the Playlist Productions performers backed by the ship's band, known as the Steel City Groove band. It was held in the smaller International Lounge at the back of the ship rather than in the big Victoriana Theater at the front... so there was an intimate feeling to the show. Here are a few pictures:

 

 

The show was organized by the Dance Captain of the Playlist Productions cast. While not normally designated as one of the ship's singers, he sang well during this special performance.

 

The girl with the long brown hair was incredibly beautiful, and I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. As a photographer, a woman that beautiful must be photographed!

 

I bet she has never had any trouble meeting men!

 

Something I found interesting about this "Night To Remember" concert was the song selection. I mentioned earlier that I was Music Director and Program Director at a couple of different radio stations in the 1970s and 80s. Choosing the right music for your audience has always been something I've understood. I laugh when watching American Idol on the occasions where someone shoots themself in the foot by choosing the wrong song to sing.

 

I have a feeling that when these singers first started planning this "Night To Remember" show for the unusual 12-day repositioning cruise, they approached it as a unique opportunity to put on a special show... like they would if they could invite a bunch of their friends over for a one-time concert. The problem is that their friends are probably 25 years old and the median age of the passengers on this cruise was probably 65! I've been on a lot of cruises... but this was definitely the oldest group of passengers I've ever sailed with. The fact that it was a 12-day cruise in the middle of the school year scared off almost all of the families and younger people. One could have easily imagined these passengers belonging on a Holland America cruise... not Carnival. So, it was an audience full of geezers... and that requires a special kind of song selection. A few of the singers were on target... doing songs by Anne & Nancy Wilson of Heart. They also got the closing number right... picking "Mustang Sally", a geezer classic. But the majority of the songs they sang were totally wrong for the audience they were singing to. I think everyone in the audience felt the passion and the fun of the performances, though.

 

 

While we're on the subject of musical choices for a geezer cruise, we've got discuss the background music that plays throughout the public areas of the ship... especially the songs they play in the lounges and theaters before a show. I don't know exactly who picks the music that's played... perhaps it's the Cruise Director or someone else on the entertainment staff... or perhaps it's actually someone back at the home office in Florida. Whoever it is... we need to talk. When picking the music for a 12-day repositioning cruise that attracts a passenger demographic in the Holland America range... especially a cruise full of Texas rednecks, since the ship was being repositioned to Galveston... don't play rap music, urban music, European music, or music that was a hit in the last 10 years. This is not what this audience craves. If you don't believe me, go to a performance of Superstar Live and listen to the songs that the passengers choose to karaoke to. George Strait, Jimmy Buffet, Garth Brooks, Michael Buble, Neil Diamond, Chicago, The Eagles, Martina McBride, James Taylor, Shania Twain... that's what you ought to be playing. I get that it's The Fun Ship and you want the music to be fun. But it's got to be fun music that is recognizable to your audience. And on this 12-day cruise, at least, your audience was REALLY old and really Texan!

 

 

[Spaniel Lover]

These Carnival Guys Are Smart, Really Smart!

 

So, I've just finished chewing out the folks at Carnival for failing at music selection. Let's flip it around and look at some of the smart moves they've made over the last ten years or so. They've actually made quite a few. This is the stuff that keeps me coming back!

 

"The Ringer" from Guy's Burger Joint

 

At the top of the list would have to be Carnival's tie-in with Guy Fieri of the Food Network. That was a genius move. Those Guy Burgers are FANTASTIC. My favorite is "The Ringer"... which has an onion ring on it. The fries are to die for, too. The challenge going forward is to deploy Guy's Burger Joint to every ship in the fleet as quickly as possible... because it's a real winner.

 

Here on Cruise Critic, there are probably 100 positive comments about Guys Burger Joint for every one oddball that says it sucks. My guess is that the few people that say Guy Burgers suck didn't try "The Ringer".

 

We've already talked about the moves Carnival has made since the Carnival Magic to add some sophistication to the interior design of the ships... and to get away from those gawdy atriums and orange colored cabins. The Carnival Breeze is really beautiful!

 

The atrium of the Carnival Breeze

 

Developing their own destinations such as Grand Turk, Mahogany Bay, Amber Cove, and Half Moon Cay was a very smart move. I would so much rather sit on Carnival's private beach at Mahogany Bay rather than sit on a public beach and get hassled by vendors and beggars.

 

Lately, they've started to add some longer voyages to the mix. For a while there, the 15-day Hawaii was just about the only longer-than-8-days cruise Carnival offered. Sprinkling in a few 12-14 day Caribbean cruises was a smart move.

 

Making a big commitment to standup comedy and offering 4 different comedians on a 7-day cruise totally fits in with the whole Fun Ship thing. Very good move.

 

The Green Thunder Waterslide! Oh my... now THAT'S a great waterslide! I hope that whoever came up with that one got a big promotion. But why do you keep sending the ships with Green Thunder waterslides to Australia? Carnival needs to put Green Thunder slides on many more ships in the fleet. Start with the Conquest-class ships... as those waterslides seem really dated now.

 

Finally, there's the addition of the Serenity Retreat on almost every ship in the fleet. Great move! (But why doesn't Carnival Conquest have one?!?) Here's a photo of part of the Serenity Retreat on Carnival Freedom. It's actually so large, and on two different levels, that you'd never be able to get a photo of the whole thing without a drone or a helicopter!

 

 

I do have a suggestion for the Carnival Management folks who are in charge of future ship design:

 

Putting the Serenity Retreat at the back of the ship (like was done on the Spirit-class and Fantasy-class) works out much better than putting it at the front of the ship. At the front of the ship, it gets REALLY windy. The Serenity Retreat is almost unusable on a lot of sea days... just too windy! Another good thing about having the Serenity Retreat at the back of the ship is that it's isolated from the noise of the mid-ship pool. There's nothing serene about the Serenity Deck if it's located too close to the big sound system for the mid-ship pool area.

 

Royal Caribbean actually came up with a good solution to the wind problem. They have something on their Oasis-class ships that is similar to the Serenity Retreat... but they call it the Solarium, because they've surrounded it with glass that blocks the wind. Take a look at this photo of Royal Caribbean's solarium, which I snapped during a cruise on Allure Of The Seas last year.

 

The solarium on Royal Caribbean's "Allure Of The Seas"

 

See how they've protected this adults-only quiet area at the front of the ship from the wind by using big glass panels that go way up in to the air? The area is not fully enclosed in glass, which helps keep it from getting TOO hot... but the glass goes up high enough to totally block the wind. This is a great design that Carnival should steal if they want to keep putting the Serenity Retreats at the front of the ship. Notice that Royal Caribbean has also used live plants and a water feature to make their solarium much more serene than Carnival's serenity retreat.

[Spaniel Lover]

Swimming Pools & Jacuzzis

 

Carnival Freedom has three swimming pools, eight Jacuzzis, and a waterslide.

Here are a few pictures of them...

 

A "splash party" at the mid-ship pool.

Don't sit near the pool during this event if you want to stay dry!

 

The mid-ship pool on Lido deck is pretty much the heart and soul of the ship. There is always something going on here! It's a lively, fun place... but also usually noisy and crowded. This is the place for fun-seekers, not lovers of peace & quiet. Several nights during the cruise, the loungers are removed from around the pool and a deck party takes place... usually around 11 PM. By then, the geezers are in bed and the party people are all that remain.

 

 

 

During the day, they'll quite often put a rock concert on the big screen:

 

 

At night, this becomes the dive-in movie theater where you can watch full-length movies.

 

 

 

Here are some folks watching a movie one night on Lido deck...

 

It was so warm that some kids were still swimming at that hour

 

 

 

The underwater pool lights change color over time...

 

If you sit and watch the pool lighting for about ten minutes,

you'll see it slowly cycle through several different colors

[Lace]

 

 

 

I'm a pretty good photographer and enjoy all the fantastic photo opportunities that a cruise presents. I think you'll enjoy all of the photos and videos that I took during our cruise... most of them shot using my Canon EOS 70D digital SLR camera.

 

I must say you have the best pictures I've EVER seen on this site!

[Spaniel Lover]

It's rare to see the Lido pool empty like this...

 

 

I was only able to get that shot of an empty Lido pool because I'm a Platinum-level guest and therefore I get priority boarding. I was one of the first onboard on embarkation day, and snapped this photo of the mid-ship pool before the main crowd arrived.

 

There's probably not a cruise ship in the world that doesn't feature a bar next to the main swimming pool... but on Carnival ships which have received the Funship 2.0 upgrades, there are two: The Blue Iguana Tequila Bar, and the Red Frog Rum bar.

 

 

In this next shot, taken at sunset, you can see the two Jacuzzis that are located on Lido deck near the mid-ship pool. There's another Jacuzzi and a small swimming pool one level up, near the base of the waterslide.

 

 

 

Here's a photo that shows the pool and Jacuzzi at the base of the waterslide:

 

 

Due to their location at the base of the waterslide, this pool and Jacuzzi tend to get taken over by kids on most cruises. But since this 12-day repositioning cruise attracted a demographic that was quite a bit older than the normal Carnival crowd, I actually saw adults in them quite a few times.

[Lace]

These Carnival Guys Are Smart, Really Smart!

 

So, I've just finished chewing out the folks at Carnival for failing at music selection. Let's flip it around and look at some of the smart moves they've made over the last ten years or so. They've actually made quite a few. This is the stuff that keeps me coming back!

 

"The Ringer" from Guy's Burger Joint

 

At the top of the list would have to be Carnival's tie-in with Guy Fieri of the Food Network. That was a genius move. Those Guy Burgers are FANTASTIC. My favorite is "The Ringer"... which has an onion ring on it. The fries are to die for, too. The challenge going forward is to deploy Guy's Burger Joint to every ship in the fleet as quickly as possible... because it's a real winner.

 

 

Finally, someone that knows how to take food pictures. In focus, and appetizing!

[Spaniel Lover]

The Water Slide

 

 

The waterslide on Carnival Freedom is pretty tame... bordering on lame. Kids under the age of 14 will think it's the greatest thing since Disney Radio, but adults aren't going to get much of a thrill from it.

 

Some of the newer Carnival ships, such as Carnival Breeze and Carnival Magic, have better waterslides than the ones on the Conquest-class ships. The best waterslides in the whole fleet, however, are on Carnival Legend and Carnival Spirit. They have the "Green Thunder" water slide... which is a vertical-drop waterslide that will scare the heck out of you for the first two seconds of the ride! Here's a video I made about the Green Thunder slide on the Carnival Spirit:

 

[YOUTUBE]aPMfe1vMZuE[/YOUTUBE]

 

By the way, that video of the Green Thunder water slide went viral on YouTube and has been viewed over 35 MILLION times! It's is, by far, the most viewed YouTube video about a cruise ship. I'm very proud of that video. Not many videos get 35 million views on YouTube!

 

Carnival certainly has Royal Caribbean beat when it comes to water slides. Royal Caribbean doesn't have any on their ships, as far as I know. Same for Princess. So, that's a clear advantage for Carnival when it comes to families cruising with kids.

 

However, there are two cruise ships that have got Carnival beat in the area of water slides. Those two ships are the Norwegian Getaway and Norwegian Breakaway. They've really set the bar high for waterslides on cruise ships... by not only having better waterslides than Carnival, but lots more of them... which reduces the lines during peak times. So, if you've got kids that are totally in to waterslides, check out Norwegian Getaway and Norwegian Breakaway. It will be interesting to see if Carnival ups the ante on waterslides with their next generation of ships.

 

My favorite Jacuzzis and swimming pool are the ones at the aft end of Lido deck, past the buffet and the aft elevators. I like them because they're for adults-only... it's very quiet and relaxing back in that area... and because of that sliding glass dome that can be opened or closed depending on the weather.

 

Here's a shot of the aft pool area on embarkation day, before the crowd had arrived:

 

 

The statue of the skinny girl in the bikini is a weird design idea from the mind of Joe Farcus. He seems to like to put a little statue of some kind near the swimming pools on ships he designs. Some of them can be quite weird! If you look real carefully at this next photo, of the Carnival Spirit docked in Acapulco in 2009, you'll see a weird bird statue that looks a little like a vulture... hovering over the pool area, waiting to scavenge the bodies of any dead geezers...

 

 

Looking down from the Panorama deck, with the sliding glass dome open on a warm night, you get a good view of the two Jacuzzis that sit right next to the aft pool...

 

 

Just like the lights in the mid-ship pool, the underwater lights at the aft pool will change color over time. If you sit out there at night for about ten minutes, you'll see the color cycle from green to blue to red and back again.

 

Another thing to notice in that previous picture is all those tables and chairs just on the other side of the Jacuzzis. Notice that the Panorama deck overhead provides cover over these tables and chairs... so even with the dome open, it's a covered area. There are huge picture windows at the back of this area, so you have a fantastic view of the trailing wake behind the ship. This is one of my favorite places to sit with a Pepsi or to enjoy a frozen yogurt cone from the nearby soft-serve ice cream and yogurt machines. Sometimes Kellyn and I would sit at one of these tables and read a book for a while... just to give our cabin steward some time to clean our room.

 

A funny story...

I found it especially ironic one day when Kellyn and I were sitting at one of those tables by the Jacuzzis and I noticed the guy at the next table was reading the bible. It was ironic because I was reading a book, too... Fifty Shades Of Grey. It's nice that we're all free to worship in our own ways!

[Spaniel Lover]

Finally, someone that knows how to take food pictures. In focus, and appetizing!

 

You'll be singing a different tune when we get to my steakhouse pictures!

The low light levels in the steakhouse really messed me up, as I didn't want to disturb others in there by using a flash.

 

But thanks for the compliment on the Guy Burger photo. The first time I cruised on a ship with Guy burgers, my burger photo was horrible. The next cruise, they happened to have a gorgeous glossy picture of a Guy burger in that magazine they leave on the stateroom table. I paid particular attention to how they had staged the Guy burger for their magazine photo, and have tried to re-create that photo every time I've shot a Guy burger since then.

 

I think I actually got a better shot of it last year during a cruise on Carnival Glory:

 

 

To my eye, that's my best photo of "The Ringer" so far. But I'll keep plugging away at it each chance I get!

[Lace]

You'll be singing a different tune when we get to my steakhouse pictures!

 

 

As long as it's not of half eaten food, and tablecloth stains.

 

I look forward to them.

[Spaniel Lover]

Picking up where I left off in a discussion of the pools, water slide, and Jacuzzis...

 

There are two additional Jacuzzis up in the Serenity Retreat at the front of the ship... one on the port side, and one starboard.

 

 

While there are a total of eight Jacuzzis on the Carnival Freedom, most people will only ever find seven of them! That's because this next one is hidden fairly well, in a place that few lazy vacationing cruise ship passengers ever go... the gymnasium!

 

 

That Jacuzzi sits in a glass-enclosed room between the gym and the locker rooms. The funny thing is that it's REALLY tricky to get to! You can stand in the gym and look through the glass right at this Jacuzzi just a few feet away... and you still might not be able to figure out how to get to it. There's no door through the glass wall... you can only access it from the locker rooms. I actually made a YouTube video about secret places like this on Carnival Freedom's sister ship, the Carnival Glory. Since the Glory and the Freedom are nearly identical, let's take a look at the video... and whenever I say "Glory", just think "Freedom".

 

[YOUTUBE]i1lJstgIcH4[/YOUTUBE]

Edited February 19, 2015 by Spaniel Lover

[Spaniel Lover]

Kellyn's Favorite Game

 

My wife gets a big kick out of playing air hockey. It seems a little unusual for a woman in her 50s, but I just roll with it! On the rare occasions during a cruise when we get a little bored, we'll head to the arcade and play a game. Just about every cruise ship we've ever been on has had an air hockey table in their arcade. On this cruise, we were delighted to find that they had an upgraded type of air hockey game that we had never seen before. It's called PacMan Smash...

 

 

It plays pretty much like normal air hockey, with one fun twist. At random times during the game, 20 smaller pucks are all released on to the table at the same time. So, you'll just be playing a normal game of air hockey with a standard sized puck, and then all of a sudden with no warning 20 smaller pucks drop down on to the table. It gets crazy!

 

Kellyn won every single game of PacMan Smash that we played during the 12-day cruise. In fact, she's won every game of air hockey we've played for the last several years. Somehow, that's never struck her as odd, only as awesome. Since she doesn't read Cruise Critic, I'll tell you my dirty little secret behind her amazing winning streak!

 

I throw the games. Every single one of them. Years ago, I used to just play normal... and I'd win almost every time. It was sad to see the expression on her face change from the joy of playing air hockey to the sorrow of losing. So I just started throwing the games. I do it all the time now... it keeps her happy... and somehow she's never figured it out.

 

Don't blow my secret, OK?

[PC Cruisin]

Yea! Another awesome review from Jim! Love your reviews and your pictures are perfect! My husband and I thought about doing this same cruise but went a different direction on another cruise. Now I get to see what I have missed LOL

Thanks again for doing this for us!!

[Spaniel Lover]

The Cruise Director

 

Jen Baxter, Cruise Director of the Carnival Freedom

 

Jen did a fine job as CD. Having a good Cruise Director is important to me. I've sailed with the best (Jaime Deitsch on Carnival Sunshine) and I've suffered through a few that really drove me up the wall. (Hello, JC Sanchez on the Norwegian Getaway, just to name one!) Anyway, we knew we were in for a good experience on this cruise as soon as we learned that Jen Baxter would be the CD. We've sailed with her before... years ago, on the Carnival Spirit. I'm glad to see that she's still with Carnival.

 

 

It will be interesting to see who Carnival picks to be the Cruise Director of the Carnival Vista after John Heald finishes the introductory season. Seeing who they assign to a brand new ship tells you a lot about who they think their best employees are. Let's see if they think as highly of Jaime Deitsch as I do, and make her CD of the Vista when it finally comes to the USA!

 

 

Jen does a TV talk show in the morning that is broadcast on the big screen by the mid-ship pool and is also available on the TVs in all the staterooms. We didn't have anything going on one morning, so we decided to go the the Victoriana theater and watch Jen do the show. As part of the show, she asked some trivia questions to the audience... and one of them was about a song from the 1970s. Since I was the Music Director of a couple of radio stations back in the old days, that was as easy for me as shooting fish in a barrel. My prize was one of those "solid gold (plastic) ship on a stick" thingies you see on her table.

 

 

I shared the photo with my friends back at home and joked that they should all now refer to me as "the award-winning cruiser, Jim Zim".

[Spaniel Lover]

While it was a stroke of luck to have Jen Baxter as our Cruise Director on Carnival Freedom, we didn't get as lucky when it came to our cabin steward. Unfortunately, he and his assistant just didn't work with our schedule at all. A good cabin steward will pay attention to your schedule and work within it. For example, if they notice you tend to go out for breakfast at 7:30 AM every day, they'll make a point to clean your cabin at that time. But this time, we had one of those cabin stewards that works from one end of their assigned block of cabins down to the other end... working on the cabins pretty much in order as they moved further and further down the hallway. That's simple for them, but it was super inconvenient for us. They paid no attention to our comings and goings at all. We sometimes left for hours at a time, only to come back to our cabin and find out that they hadn't gotten to our cabin yet. So, we'd have to go off and find something else to do for a while. Very inconvenient for us, so no extra gratuity for those two. And yes, in case you're wondering, we ALWAYS put out the cruisin' sign when we left the cabin during the hours the cabin stewards were on duty.

 

In spite of his shortcomings, our cabin steward was quite good at making towel animals...

 

 

 

My favorite Carnival Freedom crew member was not the Cruise Director and it certainly wasn't our stateroom steward... I'd have to say it was Ram, the guy that made me an omelet every morning. He was friendly, learned my name, and had good English skills. Oh yeah, he made a great omelet, too!

 

 

 

In case you're wondering about the Lawry's seasoned salt,

I bring that from home to enhance the taste of eggs and potatoes at breakfast