Freedom - Eastern Caribbean January 30-February 7 2010

[goodtoglow]

Thanks for the patience! Nothing like coming home from a vacation to 12 hour night shifts!

 

Back to the review now....

 

Saturday Jan 30 - Embarkation Day

 

Colin & I and Rich received our bags surprisingly quick - within 2 hours of making it on the ship. What a sigh of relief that was for our rum runners.... Christin and Jeff boarded the ship during prime boarding time so their bags must have been at the very bottom of the pile. We aren't sure why Jessica's bags came later, but eventually (after we finished dinner) everyone's bags arrived and we did a happy dance with our Bubba Kegs and Rum Runners...

 

 

The "liquor cabinet" ended up being in my room:

 

We went to dinner at our assigned time (8:15pm) that evening in the Posh dining room. We were so disappointed in our waiter! He barely said hello, and was so impersonable. We were really looking forward to having a great waiter (like we did on Royal Caribbean). Our assistant waiter hardly spoke to us either. They were just there to ask what we wanted and put the plates down in front of us. Luckily the food was great!

 

Rich had a disappointing experience with the "Carnival Classic Mahi-Mahi". Rich grew up sailing through the Bahamas eating fresh caught mahi-mahi. He also had mahi-mahi the night before at Coconuts in Fort Lauderdale. He said this didn't even compare.... it was dry and had bones. He actually got another entree instead.

 

I didn't take pictures of my entree this evening and I don't even remember what I ordered! I did take a picture of my appetizer, and of course, dessert:

 

Chicken Strips - These were good, but nothing extraordinary (can chicken strips really be extraordinary though?). My only meal that was lukewarm during the entire trip:

 

Creme Brulee - Good as always:

 

Black Forest Gateau - I sampled this... it was very good!:

 

That night we wandered around the ship and were disappointed at the lack of nightlife... our bar waiter told us it could be because it was the first evening so everyone was still settling in, and also that the Welcome Aboard shows were on. I hope no one takes offence to my next comment, but we were truly surprised at how old the majority of the people on this cruise were. There were multiple large groups of seniors.... definitely not the vibe we were going for when we booked this cruise. Colin and I wanted to try Carnival because we initially booked just the two of us - we were hoping that the "Fun Ship" would have a younger crowd and we could hang out with people our age. Our waiter (when he finally started talking to us a few nights in... more on him later) said that he had never seen a crowd with such a high average passenger age before. Next time I am going to try and see if we can find out if any large groups have booked, before we book, and maybe we can find out if they are an older crowd.

 

Anyway, most of us went to bed early that night but Colin and Rich had a blast wandering the ship and going to the Piano Bar to sing along with Greg Gallellon.

[goodtoglow]

Sunday January 31 - Day at Sea

 

Our day at sea was full of relaxing. There were no chairs available (especially for a group of 6) around the pools, so we went to the small deck above the Sports Deck and hung out there. It was mostly just us up there, with the exception of a few people who came and went.

 

 

The sun was shining and it was HOT!

 

We ate at the buffet throughout the day - it was great! I would even go so far as to say it was better than Royal Caribbean's buffet. There were plenty of food choices and even the scrambled eggs at breakfast were good. I loved the chicken strips with honey mustard they served at lunch time, and the nacho chips with chili, salsa and sour cream was my favorite lunch item!

 

That night was formal night #1 on the ship. We dressed up and went for dinner, excited for the lobster, and hoping that our waiter would be a bit more personable this evening:

 

We definitely got no more out of our waiter than we had the previous night. How disappointing. A huge part of the cruise experience is the great service, at least for me and Colin. He actually came across as very rude, and extremely burnt out. We tried to initiate conversation so he would loosen up, but we had no lucky. On a good note, the food was great!

 

Cheese Stuffed Mushrooms.... my mouth is watering just thinking about them again, and the pastry they served it with was so good!:

 

Christin's Duck, which she loved:

 

My prime rib, which was excellent! I wasn't expecting much because the RCCL prime rib was horrible and I figured its probably that way when they are trying to cook it for so many people.... :

[sds1arm2]

Thanks for all the feedback on The Freedom so far. I am going on this cruise in June.

 

Can you give me some advice on shore excursions? Which to do and which to avoid?

 

I believe our balcony room is in 8D. Is this a good level?

[goodtoglow]

Instead of surf & turf with the sirloin, I wanted it with the prime rib. However my waiter brought me an entire entree of lobster & prawns! I skipped eating the carbs since I had so much food in front of me. It was definitely good, and I loved the oven baked broccoli as well:

 

We were so stuffed after dinner that we just ordered espressos, cappuccinos and coffees. Us girls couldn't resist sharing the Warm Chocolate Melting Cake either..... it was good, but didn't live up to the hype on here, in my opinion. We have a local restaurant that has this, called Lava Cake, which is much better:

 

After dinner, we went to The Big Easy show. The costumes and talent were phenomenal. It was basically people singing songs that related to New Orleans, there was so storyline or real point but it was fun to watch:

 

Rich and Colin went to bed after the show as they were pretty tired from staying up so late the night before. Unfortunately Colin was developing a head cold. The rest of us wandered the ship and checked out the people dancing in the night club. I couldn't get them to dance, though :{

 

Monday, Feb 1 - San Juan 4pm-1159pm

We hung out on the top deck above the sports deck all day and watched us get closer and closer to San Juan... we were arriving one hour earlier than our scheduled time (5pm).

 

Here is a shot of Fort San Cristóbal (I believe) from the ship (yes, I was using a telephoto lens):

 

San Juan was so fun! We hopped in a taxi and went up to Fort San Cristóbal - I believe we paid $6pp for the taxi. It was closed! There were some areas you could walk around though, including an area with gorgeous views. The sun was just starting to set and I really enjoyed the 10 or so minutes we spent there.

 

 

[goodtoglow]

After the Fort, we wandered around the beautiful city. We ended up at Fort San Felipe del Morro (probably a 15 minute walk from San Cristobal to the outskirts of Fort San Felipe del Morro).

 

Fountain outside del Morro:

 

Based on a recommendation, we went to Raices for dinner and drinks. This restaurant is a tourist trap! It was insanely overpriced ($18 for a little steak platter, and $29 for a deep fried appy platter that tasted like oil). The waiter recommended we try a shot that is stronger than Bacardi 151, saying it would knock us off our feet. I would say it was about 15% alcohol. The decor was fun though, and they did a song that was entertaining....

 

 

We took some pictures in front of our ship after, and checked out the duty free shops.

 

 

Jess and I picked up bottles of Van Gogh Espresso and Melon vodka for $9 each!! That goes for $40-$50 in Vancouver! We had some fun at the "sample" station in the upper part of the duty free liquor store.... along with some other cruise ship passengers, we had a free shot of Jagermeister. We treated our fellow passengers to our infamous Jager song that we sing at home! We walked right past the liquor collection table with our Van Gogh, and straight up the stairs to our room!

 

 

We hung out on the Serenity Deck for a bit and then went to sleep. We had a very early day the next morning, as we wanted to get off the ship right at 7am to make the first ferry to St. John.... will continue this soon!

[goodtoglow]

Thanks for all the feedback on The Freedom so far. I am going on this cruise in June.

 

Can you give me some advice on shore excursions? Which to do and which to avoid?

 

I believe our balcony room is in 8D. Is this a good level?

 

The 8th floor is a great floor to have your room on. It's close to everything, especially the Lido deck (9) where the food is located! You can quickly run up for 2am pizza if you want!

 

Look for the remainder of my review which will outline which shore excursions we did.... those would be what I recommend! I avoid the ship excursions.... we are young and independent, and I research enough to be confident that we will make it back to the ship on time. In San Juan we opted out on doing excursions as not much is available. The guys saw the Segways though, and said they would have liked to do that. San Juan is the perfect cheap port because you can have a great time just walking around the gorgeous city! If you have any specific questions about the port let me know!

[goodtoglow]

For anyone who is interested, these menus look to be pretty similar to what ours were (so you can put a picture to the description): http://www.zydecocruiser.com/free_08/menu_d.htm

[gypsyrose]

Very good review!! Love the pictures. Bet you are so excited having the Olympics there, crowds and all.

[serene56]

For anyone who is interested, these menus look to be pretty similar to what ours were (so you can put a picture to the description): http://www.zydecocruiser.com/free_08/menu_d.htm

 

 

thank you- I was wondering how close to the menu today these would be-

[diathoney]

Look for the remainder of my review which will outline which shore excursions we did.... those would be what I recommend! I avoid the ship excursions.... we are young and independent, and I research enough to be confident that we will make it back to the ship on time. In San Juan we opted out on doing excursions as not much is available. The guys saw the Segways though, and said they would have liked to do that. San Juan is the perfect cheap port because you can have a great time just walking around the gorgeous city! If you have any specific questions about the port let me know!

 

I'm looking forward to the rest of your review! We're planning the same excursion that you did for San Juan. Hoping to get to San Cristobal before it closes, but I'm happy to read there is still something to see if we miss it!

[As You Wish]

Enjoying your review and pictures. It looks like you all had a lot of fun.

[Nanatravel]

Thanks for the great review and fabulous pictures. We are boarding on Sunday. If you post a link to your photo album when it is complete, I would really love to see it in its entirety.

[serene56]

Thanks for the great review and fabulous pictures. We are boarding on Sunday. If you post a link to your photo album when it is complete, I would really love to see it in its entirety.

 

 

Bev- will you PLEASE bring your capers home:rolleyes:

[what-a-life]

We are sailing on the Freedom April 24, 2010. thanks so much for posting!!!:D

[goodtoglow]

Bev- will you PLEASE bring your capers home:rolleyes:

 

I have my capers, what would you like to know?

[goodtoglow]

Thanks for the great review and fabulous pictures. We are boarding on Sunday. If you post a link to your photo album when it is complete, I would really love to see it in its entirety.

 

Definitely! Here is the photo album link, in case I forget to post it once all of the pictures are up: http://s30.photobucket.com/albums/c321/goodtoglow/Vacation%202010/

 

I'm just uploading the pictures that are included on the review... if you want to see ALL of them (because there are a lot) send me a message and I can give you my info for Facebook :)

[LANERACING]

I would love to see all your pictures my email is tcmm4@hotmail.com.

we are on the same cruise 09/11/10.

Your review is great! Congrats on your graduation hope you like nursing as much as I do.

Teri

[goodtoglow]

I forgot to mention previously that we went to the adult comedy show on Day 2 (Sea Day) - the comedian was Marvin Todd (www.myspace.com/marvintodd) and I really enjoyed him! He was hilarious and got the entire (huge) crowd laughing.

 

After we got back on the ship in San Juan, Colin, Rich, Jess and I went outside to watch Karaoke Under The Stars (and Jess was brave enough to get up there and sing!). There were a mix of great singers and not so great, but they were all equally courageous for getting up there and singing so publicly! I loved being out in the open space to sing along to "Friends In Low Places" and other great songs, and cheer people on. We also had a great view of our departure from San Juan being out on the deck. Okay, so THEN it was off to bed to prepare for our early day in St Thomas!!

 

Tuesday, Feb 2 - St. Thomas 7am-7pm

This port was a large reason for why I chose this cruise. I have been to St. Thomas previously, but have always wanted to check out the crystal clear waters of St. John. With 12 hours in port, there was more than enough time to get over to St. John and have an adequate time over there without feeling too rushed. Luckily, Jeff and Christin went did a land vacation to St. Thomas/St. John just under 2 years ago, so they were game with the plan, and Jessica had never snorkeled before, and Rich grew up snorkeling and loves it, so they were on board with the plan too!

 

The morning started off with a 6am room service knock and breakfast in bed! Actually, the knock completely startled us as my alarm hadn't gone off yet, so the day started off a little strangely..... Colin's nerves were a bit shattered from being startled (and even though we said "coming!" and Colin was just throwing some more door-answering-appropriate clothing before opening the door, they kept knocking... and knocking... impatiently knocking... which added to the anxiety!) - Colin ended up dropping the plate with the coffee cream and cream cheese - oops! They brought us up a new plate with the cream and cream cheese within minutes of us calling, and in true Canadian fashion, we apologized profusely for the broken plate (although I don't think they cared).

 

Luckily, breakfast was good. The options are limited, so I decided to try something that I have never had before (which is terrible, considering I grew up with parents who took us fishing for fun, so my entire life my freezer has been stocked fully with salmon fillets, cupboards with canned salmon, and fridge with candied salmon and lox).......

 

 

A bagel with salmon and cream cheese! While it was great, I am not a huge fan of whipped cream cheese - I prefer the stronger taste of the hard cream cheese. I also got an apple turnover..... they are very small, but one of my favorite breakfast items by far! Oh how I wish I had just one more apple fritter before the cruise ended...... We also had coffee, and cereal. Our room service order was perfect, however Jessica and Rich must have got the wrong order because everything was wrong! 6 orders of salmon, 1 bagel, 1 piece of fruit..... Needless to say, because they were a bit turned off of breakfast room service, and the lack of variety, we opted to eat at the buffet (and once in the MDR) for the remainder of the trip....

 

As it turns out, our shakey start to the day and Jess and Rich's unfortunate room service were the only miniscule problems of the day... We were off the ship about 7:10am (yes, exact minutes matter when you are trying to catch a ferry) and got into a cab basically immediately, to take us to Red Hook. The road was exactly how I remembered it - windy! There was no traffic so we got there within 20 minutes. I couldn't believe it, but at that point I actually started believing we may make the 8am ferry (9am local time, FYI)!!! I had mentally prepared myself to make the 9am (ship time... always stay on ship time!) ferry so I was pretty excited. The tickets were $12 return and the boats run every hour on the hour. Aside from a mild panic while in the line up to board, as the line movement started to slow and we worried the boat was full, the motto for the day was starting to unfold... "smooth".....

 

 

(Don't look too excited, Jeff)

 

A warning to all of you eager folks who love to sit on the side of the boat.... watch out for water splash! I was happily snapping away when I started to get splashed! Anyway, we pulled up to St. John... finally! The moment I was waiting for (okay... the moment other than a proposal from Colin!) was here!

 

 

First stop in St. John: Beer! We brought a cooler bag along that looks like a laptop bag (you can see Colin carrying it in the picture 2 above).... priorites for the boys are priorities! We stopped at the tourist info booth to ask where we could buy beer..... why is Canada one of the only places in the world where you cannot buy beer at the grocery or corner store? Geesh.... off to the corner store we went. We grabbed some ice, Heineken, some pop and some mini bottles of wine and went outside to walk back to the dock where we figured taxis would be located.

 

"Smooth" moment numero dos of the St. John trip: an open air taxi pulls up outside of the corner store, and says to us "I was just coming to get you!" --- we couldn't believe our luck! We hopped in and asked him to take us to Gibney beach, which is part of Hawksnest Bay, just east of the main Hawksnest beach. http://www.stjohnbeachguide.com/Gibney%20Beach.htm

 

The ride there was about 15 minutes, but it went by quickly, with amazing views the entire time. We pulled up to an iron gate, and followed Jeff and Christin, who had been there on their trip to St. John.

 

 

We walked down a path for a minute or two, the beach becoming more visible with every step.... peeking through the trees, the water was bright blue and crystal clear, the sun was shining..... sigh.... my life is so rough....

 

 

THIS IS PARADISE! The picture perfect beach, up there on my list with the beaches of Labadee (RCL's private island in Haiti), although much more secluded and with more shade... For all of your Gibney Beach seekers: this is a SMALL beach... just enough room for our stuff and not much room for sprawling out on the sand. We saw a few other people coming down the path, but they ended up walking towards Hawksnest a bit more onto another beach section since we had basically claimed the small amount of space. This beach was just perfect for our group of 6. When you are 1 person among a ship full of cruise ship passengers, being on a secluded beach with 6 of your closest friends truly is paradise.

 

View of Hawksnest Beach (taken with my telephoto lens... it is not this close in person):

 

We were at this beach by 8:45am and asked our awesome taxi driver to pick us up by 11:30 - just enough time to enjoy the sun and some snorkelling. We probably could have spent the entire day here, however Jeff's "must-do" of the trip was to go to Skinny Legs in Coral Bay and have a Blue Cheese Burger (coincidently, Jeff doesn't eat beef, dairy or wheat, so that says alot about how good this burger was!) http://www.skinnylegs.com/

 

Back to Gibney Beach.... I cannot get over how crystal clear this water was... Rich wasted no time jumping in with a snorkelling mask on. I stayed back with Jess and Christin to take millions of pictures, and then give Jess a lesson on snorkelling! This was her first time, so I gave her my mask that I brought from home and a little pep talk, and off we went. I was happy with the snorkelling at Gibney. It certainly was not world class, but there was plenty of sea life, and Christin even chased a turtle! We saw a stingray burrowed in the sand as well which was a bit scary, but neat!

 

At 11:30 on the dot, our taxi driver pulled up (why can't I remember his name?!) and off to Skinny Legs we went! Check out this map: http://stjohnusvi.thebeach.vi/st-john-map.html We started out in Hawksnest Bay and drove way, way over to Skinny Legs which is in Coral Bay! It was a gorgeous drive, again filled with stunning views....

[goodtoglow]

It was a gorgeous drive, again filled with stunning views....

 

Including a view of Trunk Bay! We had to get the infamous picture:

 

 

And a group pic.....

 

 

 

The drive took about 25 minutes...

 

 

Lunch was delicious and the blue cheese burger was as good as Jeff remembered. All 3 guys ordered it, and Jeff made them take their first bite together "on the count of 3... ". There were some nice shops as well, including a small leather shop where the owner hand makes everything. A touch on the expensive side though, so other than some leather bracelets for my girlfriends back at home, I opted out on buying the passport holder and leather palm tree decoration hangy-thing (for lack of better words) that I was coveting.

 

We tried to treat our taxi driver to lunch, but as it turns out, many (most? all?) restaurants in the Carribean offer free lunch to taxi drivers for bringing their passengers there, so we didn't have to pay for him in the end.

 

By this time, we had had "smooth moments" 3, 4, 5, and 6! We decided to head back to Cruz Bay and take it from there. The day was seriously running so smoothly, and we knew that we would easily make the 2pm ferry, with time for a quick swim in the water near the ferry dock, and time for a drink at a dockside restaurant.

 

Some pictures from the dockside area:

 

 

 

On the ferry back, we sat on the top deck. I should have put the clues together at that point, but my brain was in vacation mode. I was overwhelmingly tired, and even though I only had 6 hours of sleep, my 25 year old body can still handle that, plus it was only 2pm! I'm pretty fair skinned, and although I pre-tanned before the trip so I had a solid base tan, a base tan does not protect you from heat exhaustion! Sitting on the top deck with the sun beating down on my head was definitely not helping. I'm sure the ferry ride back was smooth, but I actually fell asleep.

 

We got into an air conditioned van back at Red Hook, which felt goooooddd..... we dropped off our fellow van passengers at their hotel which had a perfect view of the many cruises in port that day. I forgot which hotel they were staying at, but WOW - I need to figure it out so I can stay there one day. There was a bit of road work and traffic on the way back, so I would say we returned to Havensight by 3:30pm. Everyone wanted to skip the shopping and head back to the ship, except Jess and I.

 

 

I was on a mission to get an Olympus underwater camera for my parents (making the total number of cameras I had with me on the trip as 3). $330 for the newest model, plus a case and memory card, compared to close to $500 for all of that in Canada - pretty good! I also picked up a turtle Pandora charm for a girlfriend for $25 at the same store. I was waiting for Jess who was in the bathroom, and I noticed a beautiful palm tree pendant in a jewellry store - Christin had been searching for one similar to a $700 one she saw at home, but she had already gone back to the ship! When Jess finished, I showed her and we decided to surprise Christin with it. We looked at 4 or 5 other stores first before deciding to go with the original one we saw.... I started to feel nauseous and dizzy at this point, with hot and cold flashes. Water -- STAT! With that, we headed back to the ship feeling very content with our "smooth" day in the US Virgin Islands...

 

I fell asleep and awoke to St Thomas at night: absolutely breath-taking.

[goodtoglow]

We were loving the food in the MDR, so despite our waiter-woes, we all decided to attend our scheduled meal time that evening.

 

Jess gave Christin her surprise pendant, proposal style:

 

I decided that I was going to crack our waiter this evening. First on the list, some ice breaker questions: "Does the ship normally rock this much? I have never been on a cruise where you feel the motion so much!" (Answer: It's just the Freedom, in his opinion, however the water could be a bit rougher too, causing the extensive motion). Question two: "How long have you been working in the cruise industry?" I asked this question to determine whether he was burnt out or not. (Answer: 14 years, 11 of them with Carnival). Oh boy.... I am not sure what happened after this, but did I ever open up a can of worms! This guy needs a break! And people think that burnt out nurses are bad! He just started talking, and talking, and talking, and talking! Ranting, and raging! I hope no one takes offense to this, but we felt like, as soon as he found out we were all Canadian, he suddenly liked us. However he definitely crossed some serious boundaries with the comments that he made. That is why I am not mentioning his name. All I will say is, we seriously considered requesting a table change from the maitre'd after this night.

 

Thankfully, the food was AMAZING! To start, we all shared a few things: Proscuitto Ruffles (small but good. It is a simple dish); Black Bean Soup (no complaints); French Onion Soup (no complaints, I liked the consistency of the broth as it wasn't too thick); and Smoked Chicken Quesadilla (excellent!). Okay, I'm lying, just Jess & I shared all that. We each had our own soup, and shared the proscuitto and quesadilla. Again, refer to this link (Dinner, Day 2) for detailed food descriptions: http://www.zydecocruiser.com/free_08/menu_d.htm

 

The shortribs were out of this world good! Tender and delicious, I probably should have ordered a second round, except our waiter was b'ing and complaining too much about different cultures and their mannerisms for me to get a word in!

 

Back to the Braised Style Short Ribs:

 

Great, it's 3am and my mouth is watering, and I have an incredible craving for short ribs!! Rich and Colin also ordered these, and since they weren't trapped in a one-way conversation with our waiter like Jess and I were, they kept repeating "oh my god these are good..... holy wow...."

 

Jessica was in love with her dinner as well: Jerk Pork Loin:

 

 

Oh, and along with both of the above meals, underneath the meat was a piece of tempura-style eggplant... perfect flavour combination. Again, there goes the watering mouth.

 

Finally, our waiter was dragged away from us to go dance (when we asked him why the lights were flickering - which we later realized was a warning sign for the waiters to prepare to dance - he said "it's an abandon ship signal" - funny, haha, but at the time we just didn't understand why he wouldn't tell us what they were flickering for! We thought it was a ship malfunction!):

 

 

For dessert, I ordered the Strawberry Cheesecake, which was fine, but I have had way better cheesecake. Jess tried the warm fig, date and cinnamon cake which was good but a touch on the dry side. Neither looked special enough for me to take a picture of.

 

The show that evening was Jamie Frasier and the Freedom Big Band ("Britains Answer to Michael Buble") - I wanted to go but no one else did. Hopefully Christin's review will enlighten me as to what we actually did this evening, because I have no pictures to remind me and my memory is blank... I feel like this evening, Christin went to bed early and the rest of us went and hung out on the Serenity Deck and had some good chats.

 

To finish off the USVI review.....

 

 

I would love to get one of these bumper stickers!! Time to look on eBay!

[beachchick24]

WOWOWOWOW awesome review !! I love all the detail ! Im getting sooo hungry looking at all the food as well !

[mississauga]

I'm looking forward to the rest of your review! We're planning the same excursion that you did for San Juan. Hoping to get to San Cristobal before it closes, but I'm happy to read there is still something to see if we miss it!

 

 

In case you don't know already, there are free trolleys in San Juan. From Pier 4 ( where Carnival ships usually dock ), you just cross the street and walk a little to the left and the #1 stop is where you can catch any of the 3 free trolleys. One goes to the forts, one goes to the shopping area and the 3rd one is a combo of the fort and shopping areas. You can hop on and off whenever you wish. 2 of the routes have air conditioned buses and the other one is an open type trolley. They will all end up back at #1.

 

Goodtoglow, enjoying your review! Keep up the good work!

[grover39]

Hi from Calgary,

We are leaving Thursday morning for our cruise on the Freedom. I was reading your reviews and they are fabulous. I have some questions regarding St. Thomas here is my email address klgrover at shaw dot ca. I would love to hear from you.

Kim

[serene56]

Hi from Calgary,

We are leaving Thursday morning for our cruise on the Freedom. I was reading your reviews and they are fabulous. I have some questions regarding St. Thomas here is my email address klgrover at shaw dot ca. I would love to hear from you.

Kim

 

 

Kim- you also want to be reading the Port of CALLS BOARDS under St Thomas= so much information there.

[grover39]

Thank you. I will check it out. I had a couple questions regarding the beach they were at. It is beautiful and would really to like to go and check it out.