My Freedom Birthday Cruise Review 9/29/18-10/6/18

[Quilcruisers]

This place was very crowded and the drinks look really good. We didnt stop though, it was very hot and humid and I could not imagine adding alcohol to that mix.  

 

These were the panchos we got from Cozumel - we were very excited to get these - my husband is a huge Football fan - we also bought a couple of backpacks and some hats and shirts for my son.

 

This picture was taken at home - notice the Mexican blanket in the background?

 

We have a ton of these blankets purchased many years ago. We still use them regularly to this day. 

 

 

Once we got back to the ship, we went to drop off our purchases in the cabin.

 

We made our way to the lido for more food. We always bring 2 bottles of wine but will buy several drinks during the day and in the evening while at the shows and dinner. I always wish I had more wine because I am finished with the 2nd bottle by the 3rd day.

 

We also bring soda and snacks, like chips and cookies so we do not go hungry.

 

For our meals, we eat breakfast at lido or in the Seaday brunch on sea days. We alternate breakfast with a mid-afternoon lunch at Guy's /Blue Iguana or the buffet and will reserve room for dinner in the MDR. We eat most dinners in the MDR. One or two nights we will eat a late lunch and skip the MDR. These nights we will sometimes take our food back to the cabin. The deli and pizza are good for me. My husband does not eat pizza, but the deli is a nice alternative, late night meal. They have the best hot dogs.

 

 

We took advantage of the empty ship and changed and went to the aft pool.

 

I got in, my husband sat in the chairs and relaxed. I met some really nice people in the pool and tried to read but I never can. I am a very social person and the only time I can really focus on reading is if I am alone or not around people. Add people to the mix that are being social and reading loses out every time. I spent about an hour in the pool before it started to rain. 

 

I got out a little bit to see if they would close the roof, the rain was really cold by this time. We decided to wrap up and get ready for dinner. We had a lot of activities to do later and planned to go to dinner early so we could make it to the other things we had planned.

 

Unfortunately, we never got to watch any movies and missed the Quest but we did see 2 comedy shows, Love and Marriage and played in the Casino a couple of nights. We also watched a little football and caught up on some of our Netflix favorites. We had a great mix of catching up on things we enjoy and mixing them in with cruise activities.

 

As we sailed away, we went on the balcony and watched the Horizon on the Horizon. 🙂 (A little cruise ship humor)

 

 

 

 

 

Coming up next, final sea day - the best and worst day of my cruises.

[Beav1279]

I'm enjoying your review. Thank you for continuing to post!

[Quilcruisers]

On 11/4/2018 at 2:48 PM, Quilcruisers said:

This place was very crowded and the drinks look really good. We didnt stop though, it was very hot and humid and I could not imagine adding alcohol to that mix.  

 

These were the panchos we got from Cozumel - we were very excited to get these - my husband is a huge Football fan - we also bought a couple of backpacks and some hats and shirts for my son.

 

This picture was taken at home - notice the Mexican blanket in the background?

 

We have a ton of these blankets purchased many years ago. We still use them regularly to this day. 

 

 

Once we got back to the ship, we went to drop off our purchases in the cabin.

 

We made our way to the lido for more food. We always bring 2 bottles of wine but will buy several drinks during the day and in the evening while at the shows and dinner. I always wish I had more wine because I am finished with the 2nd bottle by the 3rd day.

 

We also bring soda and snacks, like chips and cookies so we do not go hungry.

 

For our meals, we eat breakfast at lido or in the Seaday brunch on sea days. We alternate breakfast with a mid-afternoon lunch at Guy's /Blue Iguana or the buffet and will reserve room for dinner in the MDR. We eat most dinners in the MDR. One or two nights we will eat a late lunch and skip the MDR. These nights we will sometimes take our food back to the cabin. The deli and pizza are good for me. My husband does not eat pizza, but the deli is a nice alternative, late night meal. They have the best hot dogs.

 

 

We took advantage of the empty ship and changed and went to the aft pool.

 

I got in, my husband sat in the chairs and relaxed. I met some really nice people in the pool and tried to read but I never can. I am a very social person and the only time I can really focus on reading is if I am alone or not around people. Add people to the mix that are being social and reading loses out every time. I spent about an hour in the pool before it started to rain. 

 

I got out a little bit to see if they would close the roof, the rain was really cold by this time. We decided to wrap up and get ready for dinner. We had a lot of activities to do later and planned to go to dinner early so we could make it to the other things we had planned.

 

Unfortunately, we never got to watch any movies and missed the Quest but we did see 2 comedy shows, Love and Marriage and played in the Casino a couple of nights. We also watched a little football and caught up on some of our Netflix favorites. We had a great mix of catching up on things we enjoy and mixing them in with cruise activities.

 

As we sailed away, we went on the balcony and watched the Horizon on the Horizon. 🙂 (A little cruise ship humor)

 

 

 

 

 

Coming up next, final sea day - the best and worst day of my cruises.

The last sea day!! I love love love sea days, but I hate the last sea day. The last sea day for me is filled with sadness, but excitement. I always think back on the week at things that I wanted to do but didnt and try to cram everything in.

 

We got up early and had brunch, walked around and looked at our pictures. We always get a canvas of our formal pictures and they had a really good deal going on, we got 2 canvas (16x20) and 3 8x10 pictures, a memory stick with all of the pictures we bought and a porthole frame that we had our eye on, for about $120. The canvas was buy 1, get the other for 20 more or something to that effect.  These are the pictures:

 

 

I found some frames on amazon and we DIY for a much lower price than I have paid over the years at Michaels and Hobby Lobby. Of course, our frames are not "professional", but they are nicely framed for the price.

 

We have a nautical theme in our bedroom, so this one goes very well with the decor:

 

The day before, we sent laundry off and ended up with 3 bags. We had to ask our room steward for 2 additional bags. We were allowed 3 bags per person with our plat perks but only needed a total of 3 bags. I did not separate our clothes, so some things had a bit of a tinge to them, it was fine though. I appreciate the laundry so much and mostly sent underwear, pajamas, tshirts and things like that. 

 

We did dress up for both elegant nights. The first elegant night was Sunday, I wore the black and purple dress and we took elegant pictures. The next time was the night of my birthday and I had on the yellow skirt. 

We used to go all out for elegant night, sometimes we still do. My husband and son both wore tuxedos up until about 2 years ago.  Now, we just dress nice, but not formal. We like to get a canvas made of our family, so we will dress up at least 1 of the nights. The other nights, we just dress like we would to go to dinner at home, dressy, but not formal.

 

This was the day of the Diamond/Platinum party. The party is held on the last sea day, at 5pm usually and in a lounge. This time it was in the International lounge I believe. Of course I could just scroll down and look at the picture. 

 

We always walk in to these early, find us a seat, order several drinks and play the games. We do enjoy this little treat, the apps are usually tolerable but the drinks, divine. My husband likes fruity froo froo drinks, I like wine mostly, but will also drink hard liquor(shots, martinis, etc. ). I do not like frozen, fruity drinks. They had a wide variety of drinks at the party. 

 

Emma was entertaining as the host of the party. I dont know when some of the cruise directors get to sleep. She was everywhere! We really enjoyed her.

 

 

They introduced the officers and also called up a gentleman who was turning 100 years old and on his thousandth cruise (maybe not thousandth, but he had cruised a lot).

 

 

Me and hubby, just enjoying the party.

 

This is the invitation. It is usually left in the cabin the 3rd or 4th day. They do not publicly advertise the party. It is invitation only. Sometimes they actually collect the invitations, other times they just look and let you take them.

 

Once we left the party, we walked around a bit and then went back to the cabin to pack. Our laundry had been returned by our room steward and it made it so easy to pack. I didnt go through the laundry, I left it packed up. I dont send anything that is too fancy or I would cry if I lost but I will group the like items together next time. 

 

We were going to self-debark, which I prefer, so we did not have to leave the luggage out the night before. That is always a downer for me. I did pack everything so that we could go out and enjoy ourselves without worrying about doing that. 

 

Packing is not our strong suit, we usually overpack and this trip was no exception. Regardless, we had 1 suitcase each, a backpack each, our rolling cooler stuffed to the gills (souveniers, my fan, random toiletries) and our canvas container. 

 

Once we had everything packed, we went to our last dinner. We had YTD and did not eat in one spot but 2 days out of the week. We left the tips as they were, did not tip extra to the dining room team. We did hand our room steward an extra tip, he was good, kept our room clean and kept our cooler full of ice.

 

The dining room was low-key as everyone was dreading the end of vacation but we sang along to the funship song and had our dinner/cried in our beer and went to enjoy the rest of the evening. 

 

Coming up next:Debarkation and final thoughts.....I promise I will finish before my next cruise next week 🙂 Thanks for reading.

 

 

[Anyislandwilldo]

Great review!  Loved the Freedom!