Live From The Carnival Freedom: Crossing the Atlantic for a New Whale Tail

[techteach]

2 hours ago, jam19872016 said:

Somewhere in the Atlantic, a day out from Azores.

 

 

 

Pizza line much more manageable on the crossing.

 

 

The work on the funnel had begun, and today it was snowing.

 

 

This was being spit out of the funnel, the crew worked hard to keep it cleaned up but during the last few days there were a lot of nasty things being spit out of the funnel and I am sure some of it unfortunately ended up in the water. There were also a lot of sparks flying which was more than just a little unsettling. 

 

 

 

 

That is really gross! I hope you’re wrong and it didn’t go into the water.

[techteach]

2 hours ago, jam19872016 said:

Coming up next I will have some extra pictures from my time on Queen Elizabeth and the return crossing and my final thoughts on the trip. Then tomorrow or Friday I will be starting another live for my next trip which I will include a link to in this one.

 

Thanks for following along!

Looking forward to your thoughts and your next adventure. Happy Thanksgiving, I hope the turkey isn’t dry, the gravy isn’t lumpy and the pie is better than the cakes!

[wynkys]

Once again, thank you for this very interesting and enjoyable report and I wish Happy Thanksgiving to

all who celebrate the occasion.

 

[jam19872016]

12 hours ago, Haljo1935 said:

Look forward to seeing the rest of this one and ready to dig in to the next one.

I am excited to see your pis & thoughts on the Azores as we go there in 2 weeks.

The pics are somewhere wayyyyyy back in pages, I think you were on Venezia at the time. It was a beautiful port but the weather wasn't the greatest that day. Most of the excursions were to Sete Cidades but the visibility was poor. I'd read its best not to book tours to it until the day of because visibility is often bad but they run the tours anyway. 

 

I ended up finding a beautiful botanical garden while wandering around and it was the only port with city wide wifi which was nice.

[jam19872016]

12 hours ago, techteach said:

That is really gross! I hope you’re wrong and it didn’t go into the water.

 

12 hours ago, techteach said:

Looking forward to your thoughts and your next adventure. Happy Thanksgiving, I hope the turkey isn’t dry, the gravy isn’t lumpy and the pie is better than the cakes!

I didn't personally witness any fall into the water so hopefully nothing did, but it's hard to imagine that nothing caught enough extra wind to fly over the decks. Maybe they were smart enough to purposely wait until the winds were in the correct direction to not allow that to happen?

 

No turkey for us today, we are going non tradtional since its just the two of us and I'm not big on turkey. There will be pie though 🙂 Happy Thanksgiving to you as well!

[exlondoner]

15 hours ago, jam19872016 said:

Somewhere in the Atlantic, a day out from Azores.

 

 

 

Pizza line much more manageable on the crossing.

 

 

The work on the funnel had begun, and today it was snowing.

 

 

This was being spit out of the funnel, the crew worked hard to keep it cleaned up but during the last few days there were a lot of nasty things being spit out of the funnel and I am sure some of it unfortunately ended up in the water. There were also a lot of sparks flying which was more than just a little unsettling. 

 

 

 

 

Please tell me that isn’t asbestos.

[jam19872016]

48 minutes ago, exlondoner said:

Please tell me that isn’t asbestos.

I don't know what asbestos looks like. I googled it and most pictures seem to be yellow, although it did return some pictures that were white. 

 

Some more research showed that ships built when Freedom was built could legally be built with asbestos in certain parts of the ship which I'm not smart enough to understand exactly where. A lot of technical jargon that just went way over my head.

 

I'd like to give Carnival the benefit of the doubt that at the least the employees cleaning up would be in proper PPE if it was Asbestos but Carnival Corp is on probation for illegal dumping and continued to do it until they got caught AGAIN so benefit of the doubt is gone for them. I guess wishful hoping in lieu of benefit of the doubt? 

[exlondoner]

2 minutes ago, jam19872016 said:

I don't know what asbestos looks like. I googled it and most pictures seem to be yellow, although it did return some pictures that were white. 

 

Some more research showed that ships built when Freedom was built could legally be built with asbestos in certain parts of the ship which I'm not smart enough to understand exactly where. A lot of technical jargon that just went way over my head.

 

I'd like to give Carnival the benefit of the doubt that at the least the employees cleaning up would be in proper PPE if it was Asbestos but Carnival Corp is on probation for illegal dumping and continued to do it until they got caught AGAIN so benefit of the doubt is gone for them. I guess wishful hoping in lieu of benefit of the doubt? 

Oh dear. Just oh dear. I think they would probably fit out the employees properly. They certainly would over here. White asbestos is deemed safe over here, indeed, I have some in my house, PROVIDING you don’t mess with it. Oh dear again.

[jam19872016]

Hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving today who celebrated. And a great Thursday to everyone else.

 

Catching up some more random pictures. 

 

Terminal B in Barcelona...much better stocked than the other terminals I docked at while in Barcelona.

 

 

 

 

 

The hallways on Cunard were more narrow than Carnival but still not as narrow as I've seen on cruise ships before.

 

 

The pizza place was something I wish I had a chance to try more there was just too much other good food available. The topping list was impressive.

 

 

They had a daily special also.

 

 

 

[jam19872016]

Some lunch time snack options.

 

 

 

Barcelona from the QE

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jam19872016]

 

Checking out the top deck.

 

 

I never did find an unobstructed outside view off the front of the ship. The best I got was inside the commodore club which was a lovely lounge, but your view was at the mercy of the cleanliness of the windows at the time.

 

 

Beautiful space inside though with nice comfy seating.

 

 

 

 

[jam19872016]

Barcelona at night from QE.

 

 

 

I am always fascinated by the stairway art on cruise ships, and the art on here was very interesting. Lots of pictures of classic Cunard ships.

 

 

Passing a ferry as we leave Barcelona.

 

 

 

[jam19872016]

Strolling the outside decks at night.

 

 

 

Sunset the night before arriving in Naples.

 

 

 

From the Commedore club I watched an MSC cargo ship arriving in port in Civitavecchia

 

 

 

 

[jam19872016]

I'd looked closer at this portrait of the ship and thought I'd found out the ship had a secret deck just like most Carnival ships do, it would certainly appear that there is the forward observation decks like on Carnival.

 

 

Alas when I walked to the front of each deck, they were marked crew only and when I peeked in, they were most definitely for crew access only. What a shame.

 

In addition to Commedore club which was inside, the only outside deck with a forward view was on this deck with the lawn games.

 

 

I'm almost certain that I had taken many photos of the stairway art on Queen Elizabeth. I found so many of them so interesting but I cannot find them now. I am going to have to look on my phone again but they did not get uploaded to my online host. That will be a real shame if I lost them somehow.

 

While most of the art was classic and tasteful, this one final piece was modern and whimsical and I enjoyed it just as much although it certainly did not fit the overall theme of the ship and as I understand it is a recent addition.

 

 

 

 

[exlondoner]

On one of those decks, it used to be that the corridor was not sealed off, though it looked as if it was, and one could go though a very heavy metal door and stand out the front, which, it must be said, wasn’t at all pleasant, even if the ship was going very slowly, but nice to see an arrival from there.

[exlondoner]

1 minute ago, exlondoner said:

On one of those decks, it used to be that the corridor was not sealed off, though it looked as if it was, and one could go though a very heavy metal door and stand out the front, which, it must be said, wasn’t at all pleasant, even if the ship was going very slowly, but nice to see an arrival from there.

Looking at the plan, I think it was probably Deck 6.

[princess76021]

What a wonderful surprise to wake up pour my coffee and be back on a cruise with you!!

 

These photos are great!  

 

Thanks for coming back and posting the rest of the cruise!

 

Hugs from Texas

 

[jam19872016]

3 hours ago, exlondoner said:

Looking at the plan, I think it was probably Deck 6.

I'm pretty sure I walked each of the decks and checked both port and starboard and they were all marked crew only. I started at the top and worked my way down, so possibly by the time I got to 6 I was defeated enough that the big watertight door was enough to deter me without an actual sign stating crew only. I hope I get the chance to check again someday as that is my favorite place to be for sail away from any port.

 

54 minutes ago, princess76021 said:

What a wonderful surprise to wake up pour my coffee and be back on a cruise with you!!

 

These photos are great!  

 

Thanks for coming back and posting the rest of the cruise!

 

Hugs from Texas

 

Thank you 🙂

 

[exlondoner]

4 minutes ago, jam19872016 said:

I'm pretty sure I walked each of the decks and checked both port and starboard and they were all marked crew only. I started at the top and worked my way down, so possibly by the time I got to 6 I was defeated enough that the big watertight door was enough to deter me without an actual sign stating crew only. I hope I get the chance to check again someday as that is my favorite place to be for sail away from any port.

 

Thank you 🙂

 

Or, equally likely, they have now closed it off. You need to go on QM2, where you can get an untrammelled outdoor view from at least two decks. In fact, I think three decks, one of which is Deck 14.

[jam19872016]

I went back and I did miss two photos of stairway art. I thought I took more but I only found two but I did find a few other photos that got missed. Somehow I skipped a whole day of uploads from my phone. These were from the first sea day leaving Barcelona on QE.

 

Stairway art. Even back then, parents were dumb enough to lift their child over the railing.

 

 

And another sitting on the railing, I guess those were the only ones I felt a need to take a picture of, that's a shame as they were quite interesting.

 

 

This day was also the day of the Indian cooking demonstration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jam19872016]

1 minute ago, exlondoner said:

Or, equally likely, they have now closed it off. You need to go on QM2, where you can get an untrammelled outdoor view from at least two decks. In fact, I think three decks, one of which is Deck 14.

As I understand it, QM2 has eliminated the free sauna. I can't have it all I suppose. For identical itineraries I would choose QE without a forward deck than QM2 without a free sauna.

[jam19872016]

It was also fruit and veggie carving day where they displayed some beautiful works of food art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[exlondoner]

3 minutes ago, jam19872016 said:

As I understand it, QM2 has eliminated the free sauna. I can't have it all I suppose. For identical itineraries I would choose QE without a forward deck than QM2 without a free sauna.

Swings, roundabouts…No, Cunard ships don’t have those either.

I'm surprised the charging policy varies between ships, when the have only got three.

[exlondoner]

4 minutes ago, jam19872016 said:

It was also fruit and veggie carving day where they displayed some beautiful works of food art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naturally, I’m checking on the pineapples. There’s one I’m not sure about.

[jam19872016]

1 minute ago, exlondoner said:

Naturally, I’m checking on the pineapples. There’s one I’m not sure about.

The chef was even giving the thumbs up to reassure me, and I completely missed his message.

 

I've got to do better!