Sailed Freedom Last Week

[CRG7]

A few noteworthy items from my recent Carnival trip:

 

- If you order a steakhouse item from the dining room menu ($20 additional charge), Carnival provides your wait staff with an extended break the following day. We were made aware of this after the fact; our wait staff was very excited to have been able to spend a little bit of time in one of the ports.

 

- Had Cheers! and all beverages were covered. We were charged once on the last night for a large bottle of water. Ordered cocktails after this and received no charge for those (ordered large bottle of waters at other points during the trip with no charge). Believe this was somehow an honest mistake and was not worth arguing over $3.24.

 

-- Prepaid Cheers and received the Cheers sticker on the second day (sailed from Galveston, Cheers is unavailable on Day 1) at the coffee bar in the morning

 

- Don't hesitate to provide extra gratuities when you receive excellent service. Even with gratuities being tacked on to your sign & sail and being prepaid in Cheers, doing the math proves how little these individuals are going to receive.

 

- Carnival mistakenly listed two birthdays as an anniversary. We got a good laugh out of it. For an "anniversary" gift, we received a $50 spa coupon, $25 off a bottle of wine coupon and a free 6x9 Pixels photo gallery print coupon.

 

- The photos were pretty overpriced ($11.99 for 5x7, $14.99 for 6x9 and $21.99 for an 8x10 - extra prints of any size were $9.99). We did receive free items for every so-many purchases: luggage tag code for Shutterfly, 8x8 photo book code for Shutterfly, and a cocktail-shaped USB flash drive. We were told we could have all of our photos loaded on to the flash drive. Upon further review, this meant only the first 10 photos purchased and it would cost another $9.99 for Carnival to load them on to the flash drive. Did not participate in this.

[cruzelover55]

We have cruised a lot. So, most of what you posted I am aware of. But, the 1st one, saying that the dining room staff would get time off ship if we ordered.....If I could actually see this in writing from Carnival, we would certainly do it. So, if you have a link about this, please post it.:)

[sanmarcosman]

Thanks for the report.

 

KIRK

[KidShalene]

I would love to hear more about your vacation on the Freedom. I'm sailing on her in December for NYE and would love to hear more about your trip. It'll be my first time sailing on Carnival. What were your ports? We'll be heading out of Galveston to Key West and the Bahamas. Who was your cruise director? Thanks!

[Clarea]

Thanks for the report.

[Keith1010]

Thanks for your report.

 

Keith

[KirkNC]

Thanks for your report. That's an interesting way to encourage the wait staff. I bet its pretty effective.

[CRG7]

I'm not sure if it is in writing anywhere about the wait staff receiving a longer break. We had no idea of this ourselves (our wait staff never tried to push that menu on us) until we ran into our staff in port and at dinner that night they informed us they were given a longer break because a member of our party ordered from the steakhouse menu the previous night. It may not even be fleet-wide for all I know of it.

 

Our ports (sailing from Galveston) were Roatan, Belize and Cozumel. After visiting Cozumel 20 years ago, it was a pleasant surprise to see how it has been built up. In Roatan, we found a guide within the port to take us on a tour outside of the port. We returned to the ship for lunch then back out to Mahogany Bay. Two of us did the Altun Ha & Belize City Carnival excursion (the others in our group stayed only in port) in Belize. In Cozumel, we got a van in port and went to a beach area before returning closer to port to shop.

 

Our cruise director was Malcolm and he was a lot of fun. We didn't catch him around until we saw him doing a trivia session; from then on, we tried to catch his activities.

 

On the Freedom, I found the casino bar to be the slowest at getting drinks - didn't matter if there were 2 people there or 20. The Red Frog Rum Bar on the deck, across from the Blue Iguana Tequila Bar, also had slow service. The staff in the Red Frog Pub inside on deck 5 were extremely friendly and a lot of fun.

 

Our wait staff in the Posh dining room was also excellent.

 

The only negative experience I had on the ship was with the Pixels gallery (photos). I only dealt with one staff member there who was pleasant and none of them seemed overly informed on some items - the flash drive, for example. When I am spending hundreds of dollars on photos over the duration of the cruise, I'd hope for some halfway decent service.

[cruzelover55]

I'm not sure if it is in writing anywhere about the wait staff receiving a longer break. We had no idea of this ourselves (our wait staff never tried to push that menu on us) until we ran into our staff in port and at dinner that night they informed us they were given a longer break because a member of our party ordered from the steakhouse menu the previous night. It may not even be fleet-wide for all I know of it.

 

Our ports (sailing from Galveston) were Roatan, Belize and Cozumel. After visiting Cozumel 20 years ago, it was a pleasant surprise to see how it has been built up. In Roatan, we found a guide within the port to take us on a tour outside of the port. We returned to the ship for lunch then back out to Mahogany Bay. Two of us did the Altun Ha & Belize City Carnival excursion (the others in our group stayed only in port) in Belize. In Cozumel, we got a van in port and went to a beach area before returning closer to port to shop.

 

Our cruise director was Malcolm and he was a lot of fun. We didn't catch him around until we saw him doing a trivia session; from then on, we tried to catch his activities.

 

On the Freedom, I found the casino bar to be the slowest at getting drinks - didn't matter if there were 2 people there or 20. The Red Frog Rum Bar on the deck, across from the Blue Iguana Tequila Bar, also had slow service. The staff in the Red Frog Pub inside on deck 5 were extremely friendly and a lot of fun.

 

Our wait staff in the Posh dining room was also excellent.

 

The only negative experience I had on the ship was with the Pixels gallery (photos). I only dealt with one staff member there who was pleasant and none of them seemed overly informed on some items - the flash drive, for example. When I am spending hundreds of dollars on photos over the duration of the cruise, I'd hope for some halfway decent service.

 

Only one of your party ordered from the steakhouse menu? For some reason I figured you had a large party and several did. Would not make much sense that an incentive is offered for just one participant. Maybe, it is based on how many orders they sell in an evening. Like a contest or just having x amount ordered. Who knows? I will ask my servers next cruise.

 

The Pixels Gallery is a crap shoot. I have been on cruises that I couldn't get even the simplest question answered, to some, that the person just looked at me and located every picture I was in on the whole cruise. (which was actually kind of weird, as I can't help but wonder what made me stand out?)

 

Our next cruise is on the Freedom. Smallest ship we have ever been on. Also, gets lots of bad reviews as to not having many activities day or night. I refuse to be bummed out by this as we have always enjoyed our cruises. I feel we will find things to do.

Thanks for all your input.:)

[KidShalene]

Thanks for providing more feedback from your Freedom cruise! I've been watching for a couple of months now for posts regarding Freedom and there don't seem to be a whole lot of them. I appreciate all of your comments! Thanks!

[PR0318]

I was on the same cruise as you. Fun trip, i thought the service was top notch, service on the Freedom was over the top good.

[JaniceB]

Enjoying your report.

[CRG7]

Only one of your party ordered from the steakhouse menu? For some reason I figured you had a large party and several did. Would not make much sense that an incentive is offered for just one participant. Maybe, it is based on how many orders they sell in an evening. Like a contest or just having x amount ordered. Who knows? I will ask my servers next cruise.

 

The Pixels Gallery is a crap shoot. I have been on cruises that I couldn't get even the simplest question answered, to some, that the person just looked at me and located every picture I was in on the whole cruise. (which was actually kind of weird, as I can't help but wonder what made me stand out?)

 

Our next cruise is on the Freedom. Smallest ship we have ever been on. Also, gets lots of bad reviews as to not having many activities day or night. I refuse to be bummed out by this as we have always enjoyed our cruises. I feel we will find things to do.

Thanks for all your input.:)

 

I wish I had held on to the FunTimes from the trip! There seemed to be activities almost all of the time, although this will depend on what interests you. There were some days when we had to choose between a couple of options at once.

 

We did Bingo, the adult comedy shows (Cowboy Bill Martin was on the first couple of days and he was hilarious - thought I wasn't going to enjoy him as I don't care for the whole "country" aspect but his shows were mostly void of anything related to the topic), performances in the theater, a few trivia sessions, etc.

 

In between, we lounged on the decks, stopped by the casino, ate, enjoyed cocktails. I brought a Kindle filled with new books and a tablet with some movies/television shows... never even touched them! Hopefully you have as good of a time on your Freedom voyage!

[CRG7]

I was on the same cruise as you. Fun trip, i thought the service was top notch, service on the Freedom was over the top good.

 

I agree on the service... aside from the photo area which was extremely hit or miss in my experiences there. As in an earlier post of mine, found the wait times at the casino bar to be the longest although the bartenders were friendly.

[cruzelover55]

I wish I had held on to the FunTimes from the trip! There seemed to be activities almost all of the time, although this will depend on what interests you. There were some days when we had to choose between a couple of options at once.

 

We did Bingo, the adult comedy shows (Cowboy Bill Martin was on the first couple of days and he was hilarious - thought I wasn't going to enjoy him as I don't care for the whole "country" aspect but his shows were mostly void of anything related to the topic), performances in the theater, a few trivia sessions, etc.

 

In between, we lounged on the decks, stopped by the casino, ate, enjoyed cocktails. I brought a Kindle filled with new books and a tablet with some movies/television shows... never even touched them! Hopefully you have as good of a time on your Freedom voyage!

 

Thanks! I'm sure we will. We saw Cowboy Bill on the Magic. My husband loved him. If you don't care for redneck humor you were lucky, as it was all about that on our cruise. But, cruises leaving from Galveston, especially in September, always are called "redneck cruises", So, sure he went with the flow. Husband is from Atlantic City area, me from Texas, so that type of humor is a hoot to him, but, maybe for me not so much. Been there....as all relatives are either Jeff Fox-whatever, and that whole crew, so not new to me. He goes to all the shows, bingo, I am just thrilled to sit on the balcony, or around the pool area and read a book! Life gets in the way of my reading as much as I would like to at home. I don't have to feel guilty about doing it on a cruise. Simple pleasures! And I do enjoy the hairy chest contest on the Lido.:eek: Roots sometimes win out.