Carnival Freedom 9-11 Review with lots of pictures!!

[aly2445]

We woke up almost every morning to us pulling into a port-Not because we felt any motion of the ship or anything, we are just early risers anyways. We also left our curtains open a little bit so we can let the sun in in the morning (because if it were dark, we would probably sleep forever). So Antigua is up now.

 

 

the band playing when we exited the ship

 

walking around

 

and a drummer when we entered back onto the ship

 

I do have a TON more pictures that I will include at the end of my review-too many to talk about and describe!

[aly2445]

I'm going in order too from when the pics were taken so thats why I have a lot of ship pictures coming up randomly! We did a lot of exploring and went into rooms just so I can take pictures of them! lol

 

This is the Sports Bar (we didn't spend too much time here).

We are both non-smokers and the smell of smoke really does bother me. I hate when the smell gets all over me and my clothes when I'm around people smoking often. And if I'm around people smoking a lot, I will wake up the next morning with a bad sore throat.

I wasn't bothered by people smoking in the smoking areas, I just stayed away from those areas. And I didn't see anybody smoking in areas where they weren't supposed to (I'm pretty sure).

 

70's Disco (didn't go in here either-even though late a night I saw it pretty hopping! hah)

 

We went out on to deck 10 (right above the main action on the lido) because we wanted to see all the late arrivers but there was only 1 i think. And I saw these guys on a little man made raft going to get to their boat.

 

This is the Lido Buffet area

 

I heard about how creepy the statue of liberty heads were and I took a picture of one (with the flash on) and it didn't seem too creepy. But then, I turned the flash off and took this next picture and now it deff seemed creepy! The decorations still did not bother me-the whole ship did not bother me. I don't know why people pay so much attention to it!

[aly2445]

I forgot to mention what we did in Antigua. We stayed in the main downtown of where we were docked and looked around the shops and bought a few things. If you need port info, I probably won't have much for you in the next ports-we mainly just walked around and went to the little shops that they have. We were planning on going to a beach in every port but after spending $50 for transportation to a beach in Saint Thomas and getting a lot a lot a lot of color, we were pretty much beached out. We prefered to go in the pools on the ship when we were in port since not many people were there. I wish we did do more excursions but we would be broke now if that were the case!

 

So it's dinner time now!

I had the ceaser salad of course and Dillon had some kind of soup (i think it was potato soup or something)

 

Dillon's main-some kind of seafood dish again with broccoli and rice

 

My main.. I actually remembered the name of this one!! It was the Grilled breast of corn fed chicken! wooo. It was good-just like any other grilled chicken, no complaints.

 

Dillon had the tirimisu for dessert (was very good)

 

And I had the bitter and blanc (was delicious! I was very satisfied)

 

After dinner, we went to check out our pictures and I took this one from when we got off earlier in Antigua.

[aly2445]

After dinner and checking out pics, we went to watch some karoke in the international lounge. Some people were very good, some people were bad, and some people were drunk. It was deff fun to watch and so entertaining we spent over 2 hours there!

 

I also got a "Shade-Ade" while we were there because I was feeling in the mood for a drink. It was really good and tasted just like lemonade.

 

We went back to the room and I took dramamine which was probably not a good idea after having a drink (one drink usually gets me close to tipsy since I never drink and I'm so tiny!). Then we went to see "Jump Jive and Wail" in the Victoriana Theater. The show was good, but I liked all the shows that we saw lol. But towards the end, I was so tired that it was a struggle to keep my eyes open. I was so upset because I wanted to do so many other things! Next time, I swear I'm getting that patch!!

 

But this little guy cheered me up =]

[NewFlyer]

Thanks Aly! Your trip report and pictures are fantastic. :D We will be on the Freedom on Saturday and can hardly wait. :) And yes, the balcony is one of the best parts of cruising. ;) We went the first time without it and learned our lesson. Now we always splurge for it. It really makes a difference.

[Mestiza Queen]

Then we did some exploring and this is the Dynasty Room-the room where they do wedding ceremonies (i'm pretty sure we saw one in progress when we walked by one time) and they also do other private events.

 

Hi Aly - thanks so much for your review. We were on the same cruise and seeing your pics brings our trip back to life. I love the pic of the Dynasty room, because we renewed our vows in this room on the last sea day (the Friday), and we forgot to take a picture of this room when it was empty. My DH was always standing under the red light, joking that it was some UFO beacon that would beam him away. :)

[rp23g7]

Oh dang, i book marked your review the other day to look at later and now i cant see the pics.

 

Saw your first pic of the hotel. Looked great. How did you like New York? We skipped a cruise last yr to do NYC and booked Princess Cruise out of New York next yr. We stayed at the Marriott Times Square on W.40th

[jareds930]

Aly are you going to post more pics at the end? Also great job on the review i am really enjoying it!!

[proudpatriot07]

Aww, none of the pics are showing up now. Stupid "exceeded bandwidth".

 

My fiance and I were both 24 for on our last cruise, and I turned 24 on our first cruise. We're so addicted now, I would hate it if I had to wait until 25 to cruise! He's 25 now and I turn 25 next month.

 

I definitely feel you on the looking young thing! My first cruise I never got carded on the ship but one bartender did ask me how old I was (lol), and then when we went to the Bahamas, I *did* get carded... and the age there is only 18. I look super young though because I'm short and thin (run a lot, vegetarian) so I'm kinda used to it, I just thought it was ironic that I got carded in the Bahamas but nowhere else, lol.

 

Still loving the review... it looks like you guys had so much fun. I love reading these things and getting ideas for our next cruises :).

[aly2445]

Aww, none of the pics are showing up now. Stupid "exceeded bandwidth".

 

My fiance and I were both 24 for on our last cruise, and I turned 24 on our first cruise. We're so addicted now, I would hate it if I had to wait until 25 to cruise! He's 25 now and I turn 25 next month.

 

I definitely feel you on the looking young thing! My first cruise I never got carded on the ship but one bartender did ask me how old I was (lol), and then when we went to the Bahamas, I *did* get carded... and the age there is only 18. I look super young though because I'm short and thin (run a lot, vegetarian) so I'm kinda used to it, I just thought it was ironic that I got carded in the Bahamas but nowhere else, lol.

 

Still loving the review... it looks like you guys had so much fun. I love reading these things and getting ideas for our next cruises :).

 

lol right? They card you in the places where you don't think you'll be carded! We weren't carded in San Juan, but it's probably cause it was at senor frogs and I don't think they cared very much. Oh! and the pics are back up now =]

[aly2445]

Aly are you going to post more pics at the end? Also great job on the review i am really enjoying it!!

 

Thank you! and I will be posting a lot more pictures at the end-I took like over 750 pics. lol

[aly2445]

Oh dang, i book marked your review the other day to look at later and now i cant see the pics.

 

Saw your first pic of the hotel. Looked great. How did you like New York? We skipped a cruise last yr to do NYC and booked Princess Cruise out of New York next yr. We stayed at the Marriott Times Square on W.40th

 

The pics are back up now! I love the city-as long as I don't have to live there! I've been there a few times, but never stayed over night. It is amazing at night, that's the best time to go. And all the clothing stores are open past midnight, till like 2AM! I was in heaven. We stayed at the Doubletree Guest Suites right in the middle of timesquare and we loved it! When we checked in they gave us cookies and they were sooo warm and gooey and good! It was so funny cause the girl behind the desk like pulled the cookies out of nowhere and they felt like they had just come out of the oven haha.

[aly2445]

Hi Aly - thanks so much for your review. We were on the same cruise and seeing your pics brings our trip back to life. I love the pic of the Dynasty room, because we renewed our vows in this room on the last sea day (the Friday), and we forgot to take a picture of this room when it was empty. My DH was always standing under the red light, joking that it was some UFO beacon that would beam him away. :)

 

Awe, congrats on renewing the vows! I'm glad I could help you by taking a picture of the room :). LOL at the UFO light. I hope you had as great of time as I did on the cruise!

[aly2445]

So we woke up pulling into Tortola and of course I ran out to our balcony to take a picture. It was so so SO humid here that I could barely take a pic before my lens fogged up. So the next pic is a little foggy but it still looks nice.

We had breakfast at the MDR that morning (I'm pretty sure). We had it one morning, so it may have been the morning of Tortola. I had the french toast, which was good, and Dillon had the eggs benedict which was also good (no pictures :(). After breakfast, we got off the ship and decided to walk around the main downtown and the little flea market.

 

The flea market-all the tents had pretty much had the same stuff but we ended up buying a few things. We went to a store that sold black coral hand crafted things-it was very neat. I also bought some nice sunglasses and some other little things. We spent about 2 hours or a little more in Tortola and we hopped back on the ship.

 

We had some lunch and decided we wanted to go swimming! It was so nice to go swimming in the pools while we were in port because there was really nobody in the pools. The hot tubs at the Timeless (during the day), I think were the perfect temperature. It is really hot outside, but inside the ship blasts you with the air conditioner! So after being blasted a few times and the combination of the wind, we were not terribly hot, just a little hot lol. So we tested the pool water and it seemed too cool for my liking and we went into the hot tub which was perfect. During the day, those hot tubs are kept cooler but once night hits, i think they crank it up a bit. If you really want a hot hot tub, go to the endless.

Here are some pics of us pulling away-

 

 

Some surrounding Islands we were passing

[aly2445]

I think we took a little nap today at about 4. I only slept for a half an hour and Dillon slept for an hour and half. I woke up and Dr. Phil was on and for some reason I got so drawn into it! I have never watched him before but it was the first episode of his "housewives with secrets" episode and it was good! lol. Anyways we got ready for dinner and I know you guys just want to see food pics so here we go!

 

Dillon had some sort of bbqed chicken appetizer i think?

 

and I had the ceaser salad I guess.

 

This is dillon's main-It looks like steak again

 

I had the veal and it was really good! They give you really big portions of certain dinners

 

And my favorite part-dessert!

Dillon had the warm apple pie, yum!

 

and I had the chocolate raspberry dessert. It was like a chocolate and carmel cake with a raspberry filling with raspberry sherbert on the side. It was pretty good.

[aly2445]

After dinner we went to the minute challenge in the Victoriana Theater. If you've ever seen the game show "Minute to Win it"-that was it pretty much.

 

Then they had a few ladies and a few gentleman come up for a challenge. They gave them a quarter and they had to squeeze it between their butt cheeks (on the outside of their clothes)! lol and they had to walk with it there and try and drop it into a little shot glass size glass on the floor. I think the ladies got 1 and the guys got at least 2. But it was a lot harder for the girls because of the clothing! lol

 

And our towel animal for the night (for some reason I couldn't figure out what half of them were, but they were all cute!

[Perfect Stranger]

lol right? They card you in the places where you don't think you'll be carded! We weren't carded in San Juan, but it's probably cause it was at senor frogs and I don't think they cared very much. Oh! and the pics are back up now =]

 

Drinking age in San Juan and most of the port stops is only 18 and they've been known to let kids younger than that drink!

[loan_girl]

Watching for your "funtimes" we're leaving October 9th! Glad you guys had a great trip!

[airlink diva]

Great review!

Glad to see one from a young couple! Got you hooked now!!!

[Cobra1365]

Great Review! More pics please!

[aly2445]

So we woke up in the morning to a knock at our door with our room service breakfast!

So we both had some cereal, toast, bagels, orange juice, hot chocolate, coffee. It was a lot of stuff lol.

 

We did some activities around the boat (I can't remember everything we did but as soon as I get the funtimes on here, I'll remember). We had some lunch and ran outside cause I wanted to see the ice carving but we were too late to see him in action. But I saw it afterwards.

 

Then we went back inside to the chocolate extravaganza (I'm a HUGE chocolate fan). MMMHHH. They had a bunch of stuff-but it still didn't compare to the desserts they serve in the main dining room.

 

And then we checked out the photo gallery and found one of the Saint Thomas one's. It's the one with the pirate. Kinda funny..

[aly2445]

We got all dressed up!

 

For the second elegant night, we decided to eat at the Steakhouse. It's a dark picture cause I didn't want to put my flash on and disturbed everybody eating!

 

It was very delicious! But I could not finish everything. Yeah, these are all dark pictures but it's ok. This is the filet mignon cooked perfectly medium-rare for me and delicious.

 

and the dessert I got was the chocolate sampler-which was also delicious! I just wish I could have eaten the whole thing!!!

 

Afterwards we went back to the room to relax a little bit.

 

I wanted to see the Ticket to Ride show, which is the show about the Beatles but we missed most of the show at 830 and I was too tired to see it at 1030 after the comedy show we wanted to go to. We walked in during part of it and just stood at the top to look down. Next time, I will definitly be seeing the entire show! We went to see one of the comedians (Phat Kat) at his 945 show and he was hilarious! We also saw Russ Nagel the night before (I forgot about it-this is why I need my funtimes!). They were both equally funny. We saw both R rated shows and after seeing them I wish we saw the other comedians that performed earlier in the week. After the show, we pretty much went back to the room and went to sleep.

[aly2445]

The next morning we woke up and decided to do some activities again around the ship (trivia, etc). As we were doing some trivia, we were pulling into Nassau! The captain backed up the ship and did it very well. This was also the first port that we weren't the only ship! There was already 3 ships there (or 4, but I think it was 3 lol)

 

Carnival Imagination

 

 

 

There were lots of horse drawn carriages!

[aly2445]

Some Nassau pics-

 

in the Bacardi store

 

 

The Straw Market

 

Getting Conch Shells

[aly2445]

In a store

 

Band playing where we exited and entered the gangway to the ship

 

Atlantis

 

Us trying to get a nice pic of the water behind us lol

 

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