Cheapo dad's trip report on Freedom of the Seas

[tropiclvrs]

Happy New Year to you as well. The Chinese celebrate the New Year for multiple days. In SF, they celebrate it for 2 weeks until February 11 where they block of couple miles of SF city streets for the Chinese parade that lasts for couple hours and is on TV.

 

This station estimated around a million people went to the event couple years ago. Don’t know about if it’s actually that high but lots of people for sure:

 

 

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/About-One-Million-People--245722071.html

 

 

Yes, the tea house experience is very different and that’s where the pictures were taken. You don’t order food form the menu. The ladies push the carts around and you just point to whatever and they drop the food on the table for you

 

 

Happy New Year! I have 2 Roosters in my household, so they are quite thrilled it's the year of the Rooster:-) Do you mind sharing the name of the Dim Sum restaurant you were at on Saturday? When I was a kid growing up in the East Bay, we would frequently go have Dim Sun on the weekend in China Town. So delish!

[956wenbrook]

Harry or any other kind person. I saw that johnny rockets serves breakfast on the Allure for free. Did they offer same on the Freedom if you recall?

 

 

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[fletch1027]

Harry or any other kind person. I saw that johnny rockets serves breakfast on the Allure for free. Did they offer same on the Freedom if you recall?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

 

The Oasis class are the only ships that have breakfast at JR's... :-(

 

 

 

 

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[edspec]

Love your trip reports! We will be using the shuttle service and the water taxi that you discussed earlier in this review. RCI really should comp a cruise for your family, I wouldn't have booked one w/o your reviews.

Harmony 9/30 here we come!

[harryfat1]

Oops. Wrong link

 

Mark,

 

You’re not trying to add in any inappropriate web site link here, are you? :p

[harryfat1]

Hey Harry, what kind of camera and what size zoom lens are you using for these shots?

 

I discovered that our company has a gadget inventory of electronic toys that we can checkout / borrow for a couple of weeks at a time, so for our cruise in three weeks, I am checking out a Sony A7 and a 55-210mm zoom to go with it. My version of a cheapo lifehack because I would not ever spend over $1,200 for a camera! :)

 

Oh, very nice to have access to the A7 from work. The only perks we get at work are free donuts on Fridays…

 

My wife’s brother is a photography nut and he has the A6000 along with 4+ cameras bought the last 5 years. It’s very nice but at $700, it’s too rich for my blood given we have other functional equipment. I won’t even think about the A7 at $1,200+. I’m a volume shooter. Take 50 pictures and hope 5 will be decent. Good enough is good enough for me.

 

Oh, yeah, I didn’t do a Fletch special by displaying the various photographic equipment (and a bottle of soda – insider joke, you have to read his Allure trip report to understand that) we used for the cruise. I guess I can still do that at the very end.

 

We are a Canon & Panasonic family so we typically stick with those two lines as to keep the terminology the same. For the Allure, I had the old Canon SX30 with 35X zoom. Then on Black Friday, saw a Canon refurbished sale on the SX 60 for $250 so bought that right before the cruise.

 

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/cameras/point-and-shoot/long-zoom-cameras/powershot-sx60-hs

 

The SX60 has 65X zoom. Similar to your Nikon bridge camera. It has it’s limits indoors in low lights as the f stop is too high so it works well as outdoor zoom. My wife has the Canon T5i SLR with 18-200 mm all around travel lens. Looking to upgrade that to 18-250 in the current year. We’re still old school and haven’t migrated over to the mirrorless format yet.

 

 

One problem with brand new equipment is you don’t always know where things are as they moved buttons/menu in the 3 generations of changes/improvements. Not as if you will read the manual while on the tour. So be sure you know the ins and outs of the A7 before you leave.

Edited February 1, 2017 by harryfat1

[harryfat1]

I have a couple of wild ones like that also. My favorites are one with Dexter from the Dexter's Lab cartoon and one with the Peanuts characters using computers because I am accused of being a computer geek. :)

 

I like the subtle ones also because you can see them catching peoples eye, then they look again and sometimes a third time to make sure their eyes aren't playing tricks on them when they figure out what they are looking at. :D

 

Here's another subtle Star Wars one I picked up at Disney World a couple of years ago. I had to screen shot it off the web since I'm "hard" at work this morning...

 

 

That's why I don't see myself ever doing a "live" trip report - I don't want to ever do anything resembling work on my vacation! :)

 

So how often you get to wear these ties? I don’t know of too many IT folks even owning a tie.

 

+++++++++++++++++

 

 

A lot of hard work to do the live thing. I uploaded few pics onto my old Allure report in December when another cruiser just happen to post a comment on the day I was headed for airport and then all the old friends came by to say hi when they found out I was going on a cruise and I ended up with few live pics uploads.

 

You can’t look up when you are looking down at your phone/camera typing. As such, you will miss taking pictures of “dirt” or whatever else is around you if you spend too much time chatting with CC folks. For me, part of being on vacation is getting away from the real world and disconnect.

[harryfat1]

Coopers and Lybrand Alum here. Why didn't I ever get the Grand Cayman assignment? ;)

 

That's actually the industry I used to work in, but most of my contacts are in Netherlands Antilles. Moving to the Cayman Islands is still on my wish list!

 

I would imagine the Caribbean and Hawaii or other tropical places have a long list of people that wants to go versus Buffalo in January.

[harryfat1]

When your Cheapo Dad's trip report keep showing up at the top of the boards everyday I finally decided to see what it was all about. Took me 3+ days to read through your cruise review. Great job, loved reading about your experiences and the helpful hints along the way. Going to ask for MDR sitting selection in a couple of weeks for when we sail on Brillance of the Seas.

I have a question about what APP you use on your phone for the miniature effects - Tilt feature, I am assuming Cheapo Dad would NOT pay for an APP, but I could be wrong. Retired accountant here, so I appreciate all the money saving tips you've provided.

 

Ahhh, you got sucked in by the black hole of time continuum, eh? So do you wish to have back your 3 lost days wasted reading this trip report as you gained zero knowledge after all my blabbering other than learning the fact that Sir Mix A lot sang with the Seattle Symphony and watching that hilarious video?

 

I was going to welcome you to CC as this was your only 3 posting, but then I see that you have joined since 2006 and this is only your 3rd post. Wow, you, my friend, is the ultimate background reader in being quiet in the background for 10+ years. After all these years, I am honored you un-cloaked and posted a question here.

 

Oh, yeah, I am way too cheap to pay for any app when there are many free ones out there. Maybe you get more features with the paid ones or have no ads, but not a real photography nut so the paid apps are not worth the money to me.

 

You didn’t specify what format your phone is so I will just tell you how to find them for the Android. Should be the same for Apple. Just search for Tilt shift and you should get many hits. I used to call it miniature effects as that’s what Canon calls it on the menu but on the Allure report 2 years ago, someone pointed out the official name as Tilt shift.

 

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=tilt%20shift&c=apps

 

From my experience, the tilt effect work best when you are from high above taking pictures of small repetitive objects. It worked out well on the Allure looking out at the Falmouth area. These were pics from the Allure report 2 years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

n5749w,

 

Here is another suggestion for St. Kitts if you want to stay close to the ship and relax.

 

We went to a place called "Palm Court Garden" when we were in St. Kitts in April. It's an easy 10 minute walk from the pier and we paid a small fee ($12USD per person I think) which included a reserved padded lawn chair, umbrella, access to the facilities and free wifi. There is a restaurant and bar and a beautiful infinity pool/hot tub that overlooks the ocean where you can see your ship in the distance. There is no beach access there, but we enjoyed the pool and gardens very much.

 

 

Harry,

 

I would like to say that I have been enjoying your trip report along with everyone else on this board. I primarily sail on Celebrity, but I will be doing the TA on Freedom of the Seas in April and I'm very much looking forward to it, especially after reading this report.

 

Linda :)

 

 

 

Hi, Linda,

 

Thanks for the kind words and following along in this overly long trip report.

 

Appreciate you dropping in the additional St. Kitts info for other cruisers. I call this report a pot luck party – I may be the primary person hosting the party but everyone is welcome to contribute info and photos. Look at Fletch and me – we are off talking about tie collections that nobody else cares about. Just like hosting a big party and you have many side conversations between people and don’t always have to be the same topic.

 

The ultimate Forrest Gump – like a box of chocolate, you never you know what you gonna to get…

 

Depending on which cruise we end up going to later this December, I may end up spending some time on the Celebrity cruise side in the latter part of 2017.

 

Have a wonderful TA cruise.

[harryfat1]

Happy New Year! I have 2 Roosters in my household, so they are quite thrilled it's the year of the Rooster:-) Do you mind sharing the name of the Dim Sum restaurant you were at on Saturday? When I was a kid growing up in the East Bay, we would frequently go have Dim Sun on the weekend in China Town. So delish!

 

Hi,

 

I read your posting quickly on my phone at work when I got a notification that someone had posted to this thread. I just read it real fast and put down the phone and went back to work. When you said you have 2 roosters, I thought you meant you had 2 chickens in your farm/yard. Only later on it dawned on me that you meant you have 2 family members that were born in the year of the rooster and not real chickens in the backyard…

 

DUH, I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m dumber than I look…:p

 

I live in the East Bay and the in-laws and all my wife’s relatives are in SF so they picked the restaurant in Daly City so we had to drive across the bridge to go there.

 

Here’s Yelp’s link to the restaurant:

 

 

https://www.yelp.com/biz/king-wah-restaurant-daly-city-3

[harryfat1]

Harry or any other kind person. I saw that johnny rockets serves breakfast on the Allure for free. Did they offer same on the Freedom if you recall?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

The Oasis class are the only ships that have breakfast at JR's... :-(

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

 

Fletch is the nice person that responded to your question. Yeap, JR is only open on Oasis class ship for breakfast for free. If you look at the scan of the daily compass, go to page 3 of any given day, you will see the restaurant hours. On the Freedom, JR will cost you money to eat there lunch or dinner.

 

Here are few JR breakfast pics from the Allure:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Love your trip reports! We will be using the shuttle service and the water taxi that you discussed earlier in this review. RCI really should comp a cruise for your family, I wouldn't have booked one w/o your reviews.

Harmony 9/30 here we come!

 

Thanks for the compliment. Glad the shuttle and water taxi info is helpful.

 

Don’t think RCI loves too much as in my Allure report I called them “money sucking scum pigs” for taking away the secret balcony just so they can make more money on aft balconies.

 

Oh, very nice to be on the Harmony. I need to wait until Oasis 4 comes out next year and then Harmony will be cheaper.

[harryfat1]

(Continuing with the parade on RP)

 

People lining up for the parade. Note the tape barrier? Allure didn’t have any when we were on it. They should as it prevents people from coming in late and blocking you.

 

The parade starts on both ends of the RP so you need to look on both sides. My wife and I decided one person with do one side and the other person do the other side but she got bored with her side sometimes and cheats over to take pictures on my side.

 

Remember that we were too lazy to have big cameras with us that day. Drawback is cell phones don't take action pictures well in darker places so you will see lots more blurs in these photos. Oh, well, you know where to email your complaints...

 

 

 

 

They’re coming

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dude looking right at my wife’s cell phone

 

 

 

Since he is on stilts, it was funny as he talks to little kids to tell them “high 5” but they can’t jump high enough initially but he does bend down later on

 

 

[harryfat1]

Drawback of cell phone instead of regular camera – motion blur. Can’t capture the moving horse. All blurry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

Kung Fu Panda

 

 

 

 

 

Alex the Lion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

Shrek with the mermaid from above looking down

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting motion blur

 

 

 

 

 

[harryfat1]

 

 

CD comes out for the Finale

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can’t zoom on cell phone

 

 

 

 

People started to leave

 

 

 

 

Mass exodus - note the penguin balloon thing in the background as they got cheap and had no penguins in the parade

 

 

 

 

This is the part of some CC gets all worried about “crowds” on a big ship. Relax, people, if the big crowd worries you, just stand aside and have people walk by. In 10 minutes, it’ll all be cleared out

[dizneydawn]

Hi,

 

 

 

I read your posting quickly on my phone at work when I got a notification that someone had posted to this thread. I just read it real fast and put down the phone and went back to work. When you said you have 2 roosters, I thought you meant you had 2 chickens in your farm/yard. Only later on it dawned on me that you meant you have 2 family members that were born in the year of the rooster and not real chickens in the backyard…

 

 

 

DUH, I know it’s hard to believe, but I’m dumber than I look…:p

 

 

 

I live in the East Bay and the in-laws and all my wife’s relatives are in SF so they picked the restaurant in Daly City so we had to drive across the bridge to go there.

 

 

 

Here’s Yelp’s link to the restaurant:

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.yelp.com/biz/king-wah-restaurant-daly-city-3

 

 

OMG! I'm laughing so hard right now! Thanks for the awesome humor Harry!!

 

 

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[fletch1027]

Kung Fu Panda

 

 

 

I love this photo - the guy holding the Po sign looks about as happy as someone that just filmed a hostage "proof of life" video. He's just holding up a Po sign instead of a copy of todays newspaper... :)

[fletch1027]

I have a question about what APP you use on your phone for the miniature effects - Tilt feature, I am assuming Cheapo Dad would NOT pay for an APP, but I could be wrong. Retired accountant here, so I appreciate all the money saving tips you've provided.

 

 

Oh, yeah, I am way too cheap to pay for any app when there are many free ones out there. Maybe you get more features with the paid ones or have no ads, but not a real photography nut so the paid apps are not worth the money to me.

 

There are a couple of ways to achieve this. Some cameras have them built in as a selectable mode or feature. I have an Olympus TG4 waterproof that has this as a setting.

 

Until reading these comments, I never thought to look far an app that will do this effect on a smartphone camera. I looked around this morning and downloaded one called TiltShift and I think it was 99 cents for iPhone. I then messed around at work with some photos looking down at the CNN Center food court and the parking deck across the street. After taking the photo, you can then adjust the scope and amount of effect before saving it. Since I was in a hurry I didn't tweak them too much...

 

 

 

 

Not too bad for a cheapo (relatively) app to make the deck look like a bunch of Hot Wheels cars. :)

 

Like Harry said, the affect definitely works better when taking photos of a lot of similar sized things a little farther away...

[jdkbrim]

Thank you for taking the time to write this review. It is very timely for me as we will be going on this exact ship and itinerary in April. An added bonus is that this review perfectly caters to my anal/cheapo/adventurous self. I have a couple of questions for you that I hope you might be able to answer:

- Were any of the Chacchoben ruins in Costa Maya in the jungle? As impressive as Tulum and Chichen Itza are, I really want to see some ruins surrounded by jungle.

- What time would you suggest that we need to be in line to catch a tender from the ship in Grand Cayman if we want to be to the pier by 10 a.m.?

- I'm assuming your sons never attended the Teen programs since you have not mentioned it in your review. Any chance you have a copy of the teen camp or kids' schedule?

[Tropical Traveler]

Harry,

 

Kudos on your most excellent photo trip report. Its been informative, enlightening and entertaining.

 

We'll be sailing the same itinerary on Freedom in April of 2018. Even though my cruise is still a long ways off this will be a valuable asset as I endeavor to plan, prepare and pass the time (as the Tom Petty song goes: "The waiting is the hardest part").

 

Your taking the time and effort required to make a presentation such as this is much appreciated.

 

Jack