LIVE BLOG WITH PICS: Freedom OTS - Western Med - 21 May 2017

Oh my -- I can't wait. Thanks!! I'm on this same cruise in less than 3 weeks!! Enjoy

 

 

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Us too Jillianin! Counting the days! Although now have to reconsider the wardrobe...we weren't going to do formal... but we may need to step it up!

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Us too Jillianin! Counting the days! Although now have to reconsider the wardrobe...we weren't going to do formal... but we may need to step it up!

 

 

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You'll be fine once you are not in shorts. It's just a suggestion. I hardly ever get the chance to dress up at home and am not a big dressy up person anyway. Love my jeans and relaxing gear but onboard I found myself dressing up smartly even on casual nights. What i loved was the relaxed ambience even on formal nights. It was no different from other nights, except they took your photo and some people dressed formally while others didnt. All very relaxed.

Following. We will be on this cruise in October.

Appreciate your review and any pointers you can offer.

:cool:

Tonight we had a 19:45 My Time Dining (as described in the previous post). After that we popped back to our stateroom to change into something less formal & restrictive.

Our stateroom attendant, Adil, had done an excellent job tidying up our chaos and providing us with clean bedding and towels. Oh and a totally chilled towel pig...

After that we met some of the LGBT gang in R-Bar on Deck 5 for a drink before hitting the adults karaoke session in the On Air Club down on Deck 3.

I can't sing a single note, but my friend Alan tackled Green Day and a friendly guy from Georgia did Bohemian Rhapsody.

Then we headed up to the nightclub in Viking Crown on Deck 14. I think my slightly passive aggressive note to the cruise director worked - as all the songs tonight were international hits, and the dance floor was packed!

I left there around 01:30, and I really fancied some calming star gazing. If you've never star-gazed at sea your missing out.

Go to the helipad (deck 4 outside promenade and walk forward and up the stairs - it's dark at night), the helipad isn't lit AT ALL to allow the bridge see ahead. Find a bench on the helipad and sit down. Put away your phone and tablets. Close your eyes tight and wait 30 seconds. Tilt your head to the sky and open them...... allow the majesty of the universe to hit you. It's slow to start but within a minute you see more and more stars. Constellations. Comets.

It's incredible. I'm not ashamed to say I got emotional. I do wish RCCL would do more about star-gazing. Princess do a guided nighttime star-gazing session and it's so much fun.

Now I'm back in our cabin and headed not to Andromeda, but to sleep..... chat tomorrow!

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I left there around 01:30, and I really fancied some calming star gazing. If you've never star-gazed at sea your missing out.

 

Go to the helipad ...

The helipad! We roamed all over Anthem and Liberty last year trying to find decent places to star gaze, but everywhere we went was just too well lit. Never occurred to us to try the helipad, despite having gone out to it on both ships in day time. Lol

Thanks for the tip! Will definitely have to do that on our next cruise.

The helipad! We roamed all over Anthem and Liberty last year trying to find decent places to star gaze, but everywhere we went was just too well lit. Never occurred to us to try the helipad, despite having gone out to it on both ships in day time. Lol

 

Thanks for the tip! Will definitely have to do that on our next cruise.

I've been waiting for a cruise where the conditions are right for helipad stargazing! We've done three cruises to date and two of them we struck unlucky with the moon phases, meaning it wasn't great. One cruise was an Iceland & Norway cruise in May/June time, so we didn't even see darkness, let alone stars!

In September we're away over a new moon cycle and are out at sea on one of the darker days, so fingers crossed it will be fourth time lucky for us.

P.S. Edited to add that I'm really enjoying this review! Thanks for doing it. I'd be interested to hear your opinion of a cruise starting from Barcelona compared to the UK - is dinner and entertainment later due to there being more Spanish on board?

This morning we had breakfast in the windjammer around 9:30am as everyone battled to get to the tender boats.

Pretty hard to beat a view of the French Riviera whilst you have your morning cocktail...

Interestingly we've had lots of alerts/alarms this morning. Two ALPHA (medical emergencies) and one OSCAR (man overboard) alerts. I assume it was some sort of drill?

Now we're off into Nice on the train. I'll tell you more later!

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I like your style [emoji12][emoji12] that cocktail looks yum [emoji484][emoji484]

Absolutely loving this review.

I was going to ask how the head was this morning but you've kinda answered that [emoji23][emoji23]

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Great review! We're cruising out of Barcelona on Symphony next year so combing your comments for tips.

Not sure what menu your R bar has, but on Voyager there was a cocktail called red velvet cake - sooooooo good. If it's on the menu you have to try it 🙂

Back on board after a day in Villefranche / Nice.

So the ship arrived just outside port at around 9am. We decided to have breakfast around 0930 and let everyone fight over the first tender boats into the harbour. This worked really well, as by the time we'd headed down to Deck 1 at 1030 we walked straight onto a waiting tender.

We didn't hang around in Villefranche much. It's pretty but small and touristy. That said if you want a really laid back port day with food, drink and a beach you could do a lot worse than Villefranche.

We decided to head to the city of Nice, which is SURPRISINGLY close to Villefranche.

The train station is by the harbour and just a 5 minute walk along the seafront and up some stairs. Ask at the ticket office for a "Nice retour du jour" which is just €3.60 per person.

The train service runs run every 20 minutes (or thereabouts) and leave from the platform opposite the ticket hall (closest to the sea). The trains themselves are modern, and clean, double decker affairs that seat lots of people - but don't worry, the journey only takes 8 minutes!!!

Next post... NICE!

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So once you're in Nice the train station leads you out onto a main road. Cross it and follow the main road right and it will lead you right into Centre Ville (town centre).

Nice is BEAUTIFUL. The region the city is in has traded hands between France and Italy a few times so there's a complete mix of architecture and town planning but it all works out.

The streets are clean, there are parks, fountains and plazas everywhere - and nice has one of the best seafronts anywhere. Note to those beach friends - it's an artificial pebble beach, so no soft sand.

We spent hours walking around the streets, the Old Town (Vieux Nice) and looking at the little shops and markets. We found a lovely little restaurant called 'Restaurant Tapanade' where we stopped for Moules Frite (mussels and fries) with a local wine.

We mooched for a couple more hours and then headed back to the train station, caught a quick train to Villefranche and tendered back to the ship, where I am now enjoying a Pina Colada!

Tonight we're doing My Time Dining without a reservation, should be fine though!

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I left there around 01:30, and I really fancied some calming star gazing. If you've never star-gazed at sea your missing out.

 

Go to the helipad (deck 4 outside promenade and walk forward and up the stairs - it's dark at night), the helipad isn't lit AT ALL to allow the bridge see ahead. Find a bench on the helipad and sit down. Put away your phone and tablets. Close your eyes tight and wait 30 seconds. Tilt your head to the sky and open them...... allow the majesty of the universe to hit you. It's slow to start but within a minute you see more and more stars. Constellations. Comets.

 

It's incredible. I'm not ashamed to say I got emotional. I do wish RCCL would do more about star-gazing. Princess do a guided nighttime star-gazing session and it's so much fun.

 

Now I'm back in our cabin and headed not to Andromeda, but to sleep..... chat tomorrow!

 

 

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I love Zara! It is my favorite store and we are getting another one in Miami!

Love your report!

Do you have the app Sky View? It's awesome, even the free one. You just aim your phone at the constellation and it tells you exactly what you are looking at.

Stargazing on a ship is one of my absolute favorite things to do ever!! And how about seeing a full moon's reflection on that water?!

Today is La Spezia. This cruise is great but It's been so port intensive, and we were both so tired from work when we got on board - so today we decided to create our sea day.

The ship is mostly empty. Windjammer was a breeze, and now we're in the solarium sunning ourself - with cocktails. Bliss.

I don't plan on moving anytime soon.

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Whilst I'm sunning myself I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about something I've noticed on this cruise / ship / itinerary... cultural differences.

Being an American cruise ship, sailing out of Europe - and serving some of the world's wonders (Pompeii, leaning tower of Pisa, Monte Carlo, Cannes, Rome, etc) it attracts a very varied passenger list.

But if I'm simplifying things out cruise is made up of three, equally sized, main groups: Americans, Europeans (notably: British, German, Spanish (it did start in Barcelona) and Italian) and Thai (there's a massive group booking).

The Thai group aren't great with the rules. They've been loud and rowdy in the solarium, kids everywhere, splashing in the pool etc. I mean the staff always intervene and fix things, but a few hours later they're at it again. It feels like they're getting better as the cruise goes on. I think this is more a "new to cruising" cultural difference.

The Americans onboard are all well behaved and friendly, perhaps more casual at dinner than the European & Thai passengers who dress up most evenings, and go all out for Formal Night.

I've also noticed the American guests seem a little surprised at how many of us (yes, including me) wear speedos at the pool. It's just what we do, we're European at heart. Also the faces on some of the American and Thai guests when they realised Europeans (yes, including me again) use the sauna & steam room nude - with a towel of course. Priceless.

There are some oddities with having Freedom OTS in Europe for the first time since her construction, like the fact the DJ has no UK music, and when asked to play fairly well know hits simply shrugged. Or that the Karaoke bar, On Air, has nearly 200 pages of songs but most of them are Latin singers - very few any of our friends recognised.

All of that aside we're all getting on very well with each other and having a FABULOUS time. You can't have a bad day on a cruise ship!

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I'm doing this cruise next week with some friends - we're all from the UK as well.

Is the music Ameircan or all Spanish? We're in our mid 20's and will want to be partying & drinking till the wee hours of the morning. How has the demographic been age wise onboard?

Loving the review - getting me excited for next week. Enjoy it!

 

Is the music Ameircan or all Spanish? We're in our mid 20's and will want to be partying & drinking till the wee hours of the morning. How has the demographic been age wise onboard?

There's a pretty good mix of ages. We certainly don't feel out of place being 31 & 34.

The music is very largely skewed Spanish & Caribbean, but that seems to be slowly changing over the week as the crew get used to a more European crowd. More and more UK & USA top 40 creeping in.

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Enjoying your review and photos!

Being a swimmer in the U.S. I totally feel you on the speedo thing! I don't understand why everyone here is so weird about it...

Loving your review! I did a similar itinerary last July on the Harmony and it was fabulous! I can see why you need a sea day..it is exhausting to say the least. We didn't take a sea day as it was our first trip to the Med or even Europe for that matter, and we just couldn't get enough. I would do that trip in a heartbeat again..and hope to. My favorite cruise by far!

I also love the Freedom! Have a great trip!

This evening has been an evening of Royal Wows!

At the dinner table the head waiter came over with a gin trolley, a bar tender, and a waitresses. "You're Tom, from twitter right? You like gin..."

They then proceeded to mix me and my table mates a cocktail each - which was AMAZING. A really nice touch. Really moved me.

Tonight's menu was 'pimento'. I had the Calprese salad, lasagna al forno, and the dessert sampler.

After dinner we went to the ice show Freedom Dot Com - which was astonishing. So many incredible daring moves, different themes and a guest performer too!

Now we're in the R-Bar for the LGBTQ drinks...

See you tomorrow!!

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I'm doing this cruise next week with some friends - we're all from the UK as well.

Is the music Ameircan or all Spanish? We're in our mid 20's and will want to be partying & drinking till the wee hours of the morning. How has the demographic been age wise onboard?

 

Loving the review - getting me excited for next week. Enjoy it!

please report back after your cruise, this is my first time sailing from Europe and I am trying to get info from everywhere ,:)

Busy day in port today, which might explain why the shuttle buses were so rammed.

 

Currently docked in Marseille:

 

- Freedom of the seas

- Crown Princess

- Costa Magica

- Costa Pacifica

- Seabourn Encore

 

 

 

Also in Marseille, not visiting but in dock, is Celebrity Constellation. Having her "bold refit".

 

 

Have also noticed that Freedom is missing her Starboard Crown & Anchor. Wonder if she's having the lighting fixed?

 

 

 

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I hope it wasn't hijacked for the new Symphony of the Seas::eek:

I will be following along too! We are on the Freedom June 4th!

Ditto for us! Only 10 days to go.

Thanks for posting whilst on holiday. Your journal is definitely making me even more excited about taking this cruise in the fall.

Have you noticed if they have been offering any drink specials for those who don't buy the drinks package? On my last cruise they offered 10 drink tickets for a fixed price, about halfway through the cruise. I'm not sure if they are doing anything similar in Europe.