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Freedom review 11-14 to 11-29 from a first time cruiser


Talli

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Hi Everyone!

 

First of all I want to thank everyone for all the great advice and information that I received off of this board and website! I went into my first cruise feeling like I have done this before and even had people that had many cruises under their belt asking me questions on how things were done. And of course due to CC I was able to answer all the questions :D.

 

 

First a little background. This was mine and DH's (Tim) first cruise. We are both in our 30's and we have two beatiful daughters, which we left at home with Grandma. Tim and I have been married for 13 years and this is the first vacation we have taken without the kids since our honeymoon, so this was very much anticipated! We booked back in the spring for DH's sisters wedding. My SIL had decided that they wanted to get married in Key West and they wanted to go via a cruise since she and her fiance LOVE to cruise and they wanted everyone to share in that experience with them.

 

So we booked a balcony, and after changing rooms several times (long story) we made the decision to stay with room 7410, which we absolutely loved!

 

We flew out of Minneapolis/St. Paul International on Saturday Nov, 13th and flew into Ft. Lauderdale.

 

We left this:

 

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For this:

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Even though we were only staying for one night pre-cruise, I wanted to have the whole experience and stay at a nice hotel right on or near the beach so I booked a hotel through Priceline. We received our second choice so we were VERY happy.

 

Pic of our hotel, which is right across from the beach and does have a skyway to cross the street.

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View from the hotel room:

 

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We had dinner and drinks at a restraunt with outside seating a few blocks from the hotel within walking distance with several people that were traveling with us for the wedding and cruise. I think the restraunt was something Rock and Roll. Good food, good margarita's but they were expensive even with the 2 for 1 special they had going on. But hey, we are on vacation, right?

 

Tim and I also spent some time on the beach that night and the following morning and I have to say it was great!

 

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I definetely was not missing all the snow!

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Day 1

 

So we decided to sleep in a bit and checked out of our hotel by 11am (checkout wasn't until noon though). We caught a taxi to the port and arrived by 11:20 but as I was sliding out of the taxi my sandal broke! Of course they were my favorite pair and the only ones I brought with me! So I had to put on a pair of running shoes.... Not the way I wanted to start my cruise.

 

Anyway, check-in was very easy and only took us about 40-45 minutes even with a long line in front of us.

 

Finally onboard! Yaaaay! We immediately went to the Lido deck for lunch and found some of our group right away and went to get lunch. We both got the Mongolian Grill which was awesome! Loved it!

 

After lunch our group decided to see if our individual rooms were ready since everyone wanted to unpack and it was about 1:30. We did get into our room immediately and was very happy with it and it did seem larger than I expected it to be. Also I was very happy to see that my BV order was waiting in the room!

 

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Here are some pics of some other ships in port as well:

 

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After checking out the room and unpacking our backpack (the only luggage we carried on) we made ourselve's a drink, put on our swim suits and headed to the Serenity deck to meet up with the group. The Serenity deck is adults only and had very comfy lounges and hammocks as well as hottubs. This was the meeting place for our group throughout the cruise.

 

We did go through the muster drill which was pretty painless, and then headed to room 6450 (L shaped balcony) to check out the bride and grooms room and to make another drink with a pit stop by our room to see if our luggage had arrived. Ok, this is the point that I need to apologize to my roll call. I am really, really sorry I did not make it to the meet and greet. I was really overwhelmed by the ship and very excited to be on vacation, plus I had already had 2 drinks and just forgot. I felt really guilty plus I really did want to meet everyone I had been talking to for the last several months!

 

So after a bit we finally headed back to our room, and yay! Our luggage had all arrived! We unpacked, enjoyed our balcony a bit and headed down to dinner.

 

Dinner was very good, and sorry I took NO food porn. Even though my oldest DD asked me too :rolleyes:. I just always forgot to take my camera to the dining room.

 

After dinner we, as a group, checked out each others rooms since for the most part they were different (1 regular balcony, 2 L shaped balconies, 2 inside rooms and 1 pt room) and hung out on the Serenity deck. I think the groom made a pit stop to the casino though :D. We did call it a somewhat early night though since the wedding was the next morning.

 

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Next stop, Key West! Which means wedding day!

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Getting away by yourselves is a wonderful thing to be able to do. I am looking forward to more of your review.

 

 

Yes it is! I am very appreciative to my mom that flew in for a week to house sit, pet sit and kid sit. All with a week of unpaid vacation from work. She is the best! Also thanks! I will try to post more tomorrow....

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HEY!! You had given me some tips on one of my posts about Stingray City in GC and also stated that you were probably going to do a review after your cruise. Even though we've been back from the Freedom for a couple of weeks now, I still can't get enough of her and love reading reviews. So, I did some digging and here I am! Great review so far! A wedding and a Freedom review? This is gonna be great...can't wait! :D

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I just realized that I put 11-14 to 11-29 in my title! I can't seem to edit it either! So the correct dates are 11-14 to 11-20.

 

Sorry!

 

Talli

 

I was about to be like, daaang, what is this special itinerary I missed out on?!?!

Great review so far :)

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HEY!! You had given me some tips on one of my posts about Stingray City in GC and also stated that you were probably going to do a review after your cruise. Even though we've been back from the Freedom for a couple of weeks now, I still can't get enough of her and love reading reviews. So, I did some digging and here I am! Great review so far! A wedding and a Freedom review? This is gonna be great...can't wait! :D

 

I remember you! How was your cruise? Did you swim with the stingrays in GC? We did and it was our favorite excursion!

 

Talli

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I was about to be like, daaang, what is this special itinerary I missed out on?!?!

Great review so far :)

 

Thanks! I wish we were onboard for that long! We definetely were NOT ready to go home at the end of it....

 

Talli

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Day 2 Key West and Wedding!

 

We were very excited to be in Key West since Tim's sister was getting married today! We got up, got ready for the day and met everyone we were traveling with in the lobby. For some reason EVERYONE was running late including the bride and groom! I won't go into much details but it was a kinda confusing morning but everything turned out all right. Fortunately I knew about the secret decks, and had checked them out on day 1 so the bride and groom met for the first time in their wedding finery on the secret deck on deck 6. They thought it was perfect since no one else was out there and they could have that moment to themselves.

 

Pic of Key West from the ship

 

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The location for the wedding was Smathers beach which was a 10-15 minute drive onto the other side of the island from the pier and unfortunately we were in a hurry and of course we couldn't find a cab! So we opted to ride in an overgrown golf cart (not sure what they are called) that holds 6 including the driver. We had 6 passengers sooooo since I am one of the smallest ones I offered to sit between my husband and SIL Kelly in the very back of the golf cart. I was very scared for my life at times and ended up sitting on my husbands lap. I am sure we were breaking some traffic laws :rolleyes:. Anyway we got there in one piece and the weather that day was perfect, all blue skies and warm weather, I think it was mid 70's and little to no humidity. The ceremony was very simple, just some music and all of us on the beach but it was perfect.

 

Some pics:

 

Smathers Beach

 

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Tim and I

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Tim walking his sister down the aisle, err I mean beach

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The Happy Couple

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Key West continued

 

After the ceremony and many pictures being taken, we all decided to get lunch. The photographer recommened the Conch Republic so we all headed there. Food was good, cracked conch was the favorite and drinks were good. After lunch the plan was to do a pub crawl on Duval street but we really only hit one bar since we liked it so much! We did Kevins Irish bar and they had a 2 person band and they were hilarious and the music was great. We did leave to check out other places but they weren't as fun so we ended up back at Kevins.

 

When we first walked into the bar they did notice that there was a newly wed couple and played a song just for them so they could have their first dance.

 

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My fav sign from the bar

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We did spend the entire afternoon at Kevins before heading back to the ship. Once on the ship we just relaxed as a group before heading down to dinner, we had early seating.

 

Dinner was good, sorry since I am writing this all off of memory I don't recall anything we ate on a particular night. Afterwards we just did alot of celebrating and did end up at the 70's club at which the groom ended up doing the worm, his signature dance move, on the dance floor. I wish I had a pic of that! They also did a tribute for an hour to Michael Jackson in which they played his songs (obvious right) but also had a dance off to see who could dance like him the best, which was fun to watch. There were some pretty talented dancers out there!

 

As you can probably imagine, it was a late night especially since tomorrow is a Sea day!

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I remember you! How was your cruise? Did you swim with the stingrays in GC? We did and it was our favorite excursion!

 

Talli

 

YES WE DID!! :D It was the highlight of our cruise! Thanks SO much for the advice. I don't want to take away from your review because it is GREAT, but I did a review of my cruise and ports (including Stingray city) if you would like to check it out. :)

 

Here is the link to it:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1309588

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YES WE DID!! :D It was the highlight of our cruise! Thanks SO much for the advice. I don't want to take away from your review because it is GREAT, but I did a review of my cruise and ports (including Stingray city) if you would like to check it out. :)

 

Here is the link to it:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1309588

 

 

Awesome review! Thanks so much for posting the link! Like you I was really nervous and scared to swim with them but excited too. Sooo glad I did that excursion!

 

Talli

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Day 3 Sea Day

 

Not much to say about today! We decided to sleep in and basically enjoy our room and balcony. It was very much needed and very relaxing. We did go up to Lido for lunch and did do a little bit of shopping but otherwise just relaxed.....

 

We did go to dinner which was the first formal night, loved seeing everyone all dressed up! Also for those that care I did not see anyone dressed inappropriately in the dining room. We did make plans with the rest of our group to go to the show after dinner which was the Big Easy. After that we wanted to go to the R rated comedy show.

 

The Big Easy - It was ok. If you like shows that are all about singing and dancing you would probably like the show, definetely check it out! Tim and I just don't care for that type of show but did enjoy different parts of it and others not so much, again nothing wrong with the quality, just not our thing. Everyone else in our group very much enjoyed it.

 

We did leave the show a little bit early so we could get seats at the comedy show. Even though we were about 1/2 hour early all the seating except for the first 2 booths right when you walk in the doors were taken. So with great relief we grabbed them both for our group of 12! The show was awesome! Really enjoyed it except that since we were so close to the door we had people standing in front of us the whole show, so annoying! Our waiter asked people to move several times so not to block our view but he and other waiters were having a very hard time navigating through the crowd. People would move than slowly creep back into the aisle ways. It made it hard to enjoy the show. So if you plan to see this one, which I think is a must go early and don't take the very first booth! Also please remember it is R rated so lots of raunchy jokes, but honestly I thought he was so funny that I had tears running down my face :D.

 

After the show we did go to the 70's club for a bit which turned out to be a favorite of ours.

 

Some pics!

Us the first formal night

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Next up: Grand Cayman!

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Day 4 Grand Cayman

 

This was my favorite day, as far as things we did and saw!

 

We set the alarm early for the day since we had pre-booked a tour with Island Marketing to jetski out to stingray city! So excited for this tour! But very nervous at the same time since I don't like fish at all... I like to look at them when they are safely in an aquarium, but will not, and do not touch or eat them.... For some reason they just freak me out....

 

Ok, so to get back on track, we got up and after I was ready for the day went out the the secret deck on deck 7 to take some pics of us pulling in to GC. This would be the first and only time seeing anyone else on the secret decks for the entire cruise.

 

Sunrise and coming into GC

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We then grabbed our bag which we packed the night before otherwise something would have been forgotten :cool:. Met up with the one other couple in our group of 12 that wanted to do this tour with us, and who had decided only the night before that they wanted to do this so was hoping that they would have room for them on the tour. We met on the Lido and all four of us forced ourselves to eat breakfast since we were not planning on eating until we got back to the ship later in the afternoon.

 

After taking some pics we met our driver in front of the church next to the HardRock Cafe at about 8:20am. We asked if the other couple could join the tour if they had room and he said no problem! We were very happy! It was also really nice to have an entire tour bus to just the four of us and our driver who was very nice and pointed at point of interests to us on our drive, which was about 15 minutes to the Ramada Grand Caymian Hotel, from which our tour left from.

 

Some pics from the pier

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Pic of GC from the street

 

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There were several ships in port that day but all the pics we have of them have the other couple in the shots and they asked me not to post any pics of them online.....

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The resort was beautiful, and the golf course made Troy (my BIL) want to go golfing but we had other plans! After a brief safety talk and on how to work the jetski's we were off to Stingray City!

 

The ride out to the sandbar was pretty smooth considering we were in the ocean and lots of fun! After hearing and seeing pics from others from Stingray city, I was very pleasently surprised to see that other the police boat out there we were the first ones there for the day! We arrived to see crystal clear water but no stingrays! It just looked like a pool so I jumped right in. But to my surprise, all of a sudden there was a fish! I couldn't believe that a fish had the nerve to swim right next to me! Didn't it know that I don't like them? So I immediately and very quickly I might add jumped right back on the jetski! Next thing I see is Jill and Troy who said they would probably just watch from the jetski's since they did not want to swim with fish or stringrays and were very adamant about it, in the water swimming around! Well that didn't seem right and I was about to get back in but then I see a huge school of stingrays swimming right for us! I was so amazed and awed by the sight! It was the coolest thing I have ever seen! I wish I had a good pic of this but unfortunately we don't :(. Well if you can believe it I did get into the water and it was the coolest thing in my life to swim with the stingrays! I did not want to leave! In fact I want to go back right now! Lol! If you ever go to GC this is a must do for everyone! I am only 5'1 and the water was only waist deep on me and up to my shoulders depending on where I walked around. We all were very nervous to do this activity but were so glad we did!

 

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Above that's me watching the stingray in front of us hoping it doesn't come too close, but not realizing there was one behind me! By the end of the excursion I was trying to catch them! Also our guide tried to have us feed them but we were all too nervous to do that, but now wish I would have had the courage to hold the squid!

 

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Tim and our guide Leon

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We ended up leaving stingray city once some tour boats started to arrive and we were very happy we decided to take a private tour! After swimming witht the stingrays we chose to go to Rum Point Beach instead of snorkling. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL! There was hammocks and a small place to get lunch and/or drinks. My pics really do not do it justice.

 

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Me writing in the sand

 

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A blue crab we found when we were walking up to the shore

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I wanted to find a starfish so after Rum Point our guide to us Cayman Kai which was about 1-2 minutes by jetski from Rum Point. We found 2 starfish in about 1 1/2 feet of water right off the shore line.

 

Pics

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In case anyone is wondering we did leave the starfish where we found them after taking a few pics.

 

The one thing I found so hard to believe is that we were having so much fun and loved the beautiful beaches so much but I could not believe that while we were on vacation enjoying ourselves that this was a day of work for our guide. I told him I wanted to trade places with him, of course he just laughed!

 

On the way back to the resort the water was a bit choppy but still fun, even though we all got a bit of saltwater in our mouths :eek:.

 

After the tour we had the option of going back to town of hanging out at the resort for as long as we wanted. Of course we chose to stay at the resort and got some drinks!

 

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Success! We found our souveniers and headed back to the ship!

 

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Above is the pirate ship that fired at us while on our tender! We did grab something to eat when we got back to our rooms and then relaxed and showered for dinner. I am sure we did something after dinner but cannot remember what we did!

 

Next is Jamaica! Yah, Mon! I'm feeling Irie!

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