REVIEW of Carnival Freedom 8 Day Western to Panama 1/15 to 1/23

[mosaic_mom]

Review of Carnival Freedom Cruise January 15-23, 2011

8-day Western to Cozumel, Costa Rica, Panama

 

 

A little history:

We decided to take this cruise to celebrate our 10th anniversary and to get time away from the kids and just have a really fun time. Our original intention was to spend our time alone and enjoy it while we could, but we ended up meeting some really fantastic people through our roll call and having so much fun spending time with them, and we ended up making lifelong friends in the process. This cruise ended up being much more enjoyable than we expected and turned out to be our best cruise ever.

 

 

Friday 1-14-11

We live in central Florida, so we drive to Fort Lauderdale. It’s typically a 4-hour drive. We left home and it was a chilling 41 degrees, cold for Florida. We made it to the hotel around 4 pm. We stayed at the Hyatt Place North, which we felt was very nice, very clean, and quite comfortable. There was a lot of traffic in that area, and fortunately we made it safely to our hotel room. It wasn’t long before we were off to meet up with some people from our roll call for dinner at a restaurant called Dave & Busters. It was a nice place to eat and we had a lot of fun getting to see the people we had only talked to on Cruise Critic. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and rested up for our exciting adventure the next morning.

 

[mosaic_mom]

Saturday 1-15-11

We woke up at our usual time of 5:30 and had the continental breakfast offered by the hotel. It was pretty good. Bagels and pastries and coffee, etc. We left the hotel around 10:15 am and headed toward Park N Go to park our van. It was only about a 10 minute drive and very easy to find. We got parked just inside the security fence and unloaded our bags to wait for the shuttle driver to come pick us up and take us to the terminal. I use a rolling walker for ambulation, so getting on and off shuttle buses is no easy task for me. When the driver got there, he was very courteous and helped load our bags and assisted me in getting myself and the walker on the shuttle bus. And we were off to the terminal. There were others in the shuttle who were going to different ships, so we were teased by driving past the Freedom while dropping off the other passengers. Finally, it was our turn and we were so excited to see our home for the next 8 days. The shuttle driver dropped us off right in front of the baggage area and it was an easy walk right inside the terminal.

 

The line was very short at that time, and we didn’t have to wait long at all to get into the baggage scanner area. However, just as we got inside, they shut down the scanners for some unknown reason, but not for long. We were sent through a special line for special needs people since I was using a walker and made it easily through security and into the waiting area. All in all, we parked our van at Park N Go at 10:40 am and were picked up by the shuttle, dropped off at the ship, went through security, and were on the Lido deck having lunch at 11:30. Not bad at all.

 

 

We were able to get into our cabin around 1:15. This was our first balcony cabin, and we were so excited. Of course, we had to run and check out the view from the balcony. Wow, amazing. To our right, we could see the Queen Mary 2 and to the left was the Oasis of the Seas.

 

 

[magic&buddy]

Can't wait for more....we are considering this same trip!

[mosaic_mom]

Friday 1-15-11 (continued)

Just before 2, we headed up to the Lido deck behind the pizza place for our CC meet and greet. Many of the people from dinner last night were there, along with many other new faces. We had a very good attendance and had a lot of fun laughing and talking and getting to know each other. And it was really fun running into one another all week and getting to know some people who will now remain our friends. It ended up being a really fantastic group of people.

 

We unfortunately had to leave at 3:15 to go find our muster station. Having special needs and being on a new ship, I was not familiar with where we were to go. It seemed a bit disorganized and it took asking several crew members before we were instructed to go wait in the Havana Bar for further instruction. This is where they ended up doing one of the special needs muster drills. Shortly after muster, an announcement was made to tell us we would be leaving late (the first time of many that we would leave some place late) due to port congestion. Actually, we were kind of blocked in by Oasis of the Seas and the Queen Mary 2. But we didn’t care. We were on the ship and having a great time. We’ve always watched sail away from the upper deck, but since our sail time was pushed back to 5:15 or so, we decided to watch sail away from our balcony. It was so nice to be able to do this.

 

After sail away, we decided to go to dinner. We had chosen Your Time Dining this time to see how we liked it. I can honestly say we really did like it. It was nice to go eat when we were ready and I think the only night we had to wait was on elegant evening and that was only like a 10 minute wait. The first night, we got very lucky with waiters. Wira, Gilbert, and Nilo were our waiters and spoiled us all week. Every night we would ask to be seated in their section and it was never a problem.

 

 

After dinner, we went back to the cabin and met our room steward, Augusto, who was very nice and always did a fantastic job keeping our room clean and filling the ice bucket.

 

We went to the Welcome Aboard show in the Victoriana Lounge that evening where we met Ryan, the cruise director, for the first time. He is really a very good CD in our opinion. He’s got a great personality and he isn’t one of those CDs who makes too many announcements or too little. We felt he was probably the best CD we have ever had. We did have a chance at one point during the cruise to sit and talk with him, and he really seems like a great guy. After the show, we went to see the comedian, Carl Strom. He was very good and so funny.

 

After the comedy show, we headed out for our nightly cruise ritual – pizza. Gotta have that piece of pizza every night on a CCL cruise. We take our little travel babies with us and they just love to get their picture taken.

 

 

After pizza, we went back to the cabin and enjoyed sitting on the balcony and listening to the water and watching the stars. It was so peaceful. It was at that time that we knew we could not turn back now. We had to have a balcony now every time we cruise. This little guy was waiting for us too.

 

[mosaic_mom]

Can't wait for more....we are considering this same trip!

 

This was by far our best cruise ever. You will definitely enjoy it.

[mosaic_mom]

Sunday 1-16-11

Today was a sea day, so no reason to rush at all. We slept late and ended up missing our breakfast meet and greet with the people from roll call. We ended up getting a later breakfast at the lido buffet. I had no problem going through the line with my walker. My DH was in front of me to help if needed, but after I got my food, he attempted to put the tray on the walker seat when the Maitre’d from our dining room last night came by and offered to take the tray to a table for me. I felt that was really nice of him. And this was the first time of many that we got to talk with him. His name is Jogi and he is a really nice person and we often encountered him any time we were in the Lido area and he always offered to help. I enjoy the breakfast at the Lido buffet. Lunch is hit and miss at times for me, so at lunch I usually preferred the burgers or something from the deli.

 

After breakfast, we decided to go look for the internet café. We signed up for a plan of minutes and checked for an email from our daughter at home. On the Freedom, the internet café is located inside the Havana Cigar Bar in the back, easy to miss. When we checked our bill on the TV later that night, we noticed that they had charged us twice for the internet plan, but a quick trip to Guest Services got that all straightened out.

 

 

It was elegant night and we got all dressed up for dinner. We usually don’t get pictures on our cruises, but we decided that since this was our anniversary cruise we would get pictures taken. The pictures turned out wonderfully. We were very pleased. When we got to the dining room, it was nice to see how dressed up everyone was. On leaving the dining room, we only noticed one guy wearing long shorts, slouched socks, tennis shoes, a t-shirt, and a ball cap. Not sure if they let him in or not. We ordered a bottle of wine with dinner to go with our lobster tail, shrimp, and prime rib. It was delicious.

 

Since we were celebrating our anniversary, we decided to order a bottle of wine and the special anniversary wine glasses from Bon Voyage. They were waiting in our cabin when we boarded.

 

 

Later in the evening, we went to the show called “Big Easy” and it was a fantastic show. The performers are so talented. We later had to go up for our nightly pizza and while we were eating it, an announcement was made for “Operation Brightstar,” which was the first of several of these announcements made during the week. We returned to our cabin and were getting ready for bed when an announcement was made by Ryan, the CD, that we would be arriving in Cozumel tomorrow much earlier than expected so that they could get a medical emergency patient to a doctor. Of course, the captain picked up the speed, and we could feel a little bit of rocking. But it was just enough to feel great being rocked to sleep.

 

We were amazed most of the week as to how calm the water really was. Even with picking up the speed on our way to Cozumel, the rocking wasn’t bad at all. It made for a great night’s sleep.

 

[Crusin Hogs]

very nice review so far Nancy , and iT was nice meeting you

are all the time talking here

Charles

[mosaic_mom]

Monday 1-17-11

We arrived in Cozumel around 4:30 am. I slept right through it. The slight rocking of the ship that night had given me a great night’s sleep and I slept until almost 8:00. We ordered room service and took our time getting ready for the day. We’ve been to Cozumel before and decided not to get off the ship and instead just wander around the ship while it was quiet. There are some places on the ship that are not accessible for a wheelchair or walker, such as the walking track and the mini golf areas. We wanted to go up and check out the Serenity Deck area, and we finally figured out how to get up there and spent some time checking it out while there weren’t a lot of people up there. That is a great area. We didn’t end up doing too much but relaxing this day, and enjoyed every minute of it. We ended up leaving Cozumel late. It seemed like we were waiting on someone and a young lady showed up about an hour late and boarded the ship and then we left. People standing on their balconies watching what was going on gave a loud cheer for her getting on the ship.

 

Here are some pictures of the ship:

Havana Cigar Bar:

 

 

 

 

Posh dining room:

 

 

 

Chic dining room:

 

[mosaic_mom]

very nice review so far Nancy , and iT was nice meeting you

are all the time talking here

Charles

 

 

Hi Charles. It was great meeting you as well. We sure had a great time getting to know everyone. We sure had a wonderful roll call.

[cathyoo]

I love reading about folks having a good time. Your cruise sounds wonderful. I'm also loving the pictures. My Freedom cruise is less than 3 months away so I am trying to learn as much as possible about her.

 

Congratulations on your anniversay. I will be celebrating my last year in my fifites as I turn 59 the day we embark.

 

can't wait to read more and see more pictures. thanks much

[mosaic_mom]

Atrium:

 

 

 

 

Promenade deck:

 

 

 

Viennese Café: (where DH spent way too much time getting black forest cake, LOL)

 

 

 

Sports Bar:

 

 

 

Library:

 

[mosaic_mom]

I love reading about folks having a good time. Your cruise sounds wonderful. I'm also loving the pictures. My Freedom cruise is less than 3 months away so I am trying to learn as much as possible about her.

 

Congratulations on your anniversay. I will be celebrating my last year in my fifites as I turn 59 the day we embark.

 

can't wait to read more and see more pictures. thanks much

 

 

Thank you. It was our best cruise ever. I loved looking at pictures too when I was researching my cruise, so I was determined to post lots of pictures in my review as well. Be sure and come back to check out a detailed review of excursions in Costa Rica and Panama. Happy birthday a little early.

[mosaic_mom]

Tuesday 1-18-11

Today was a sea day. We got up and went to breakfast at the buffet. Eggs, bacon, and oatmeal for me. Tons of food for DH, LOL. We made our daily trip to the internet café. We planned to do more touring of the ship today. We came upon a trivia game going on and joined in. Didn’t do well at all. After the game, we stayed there and relaxed a bit. I wanted to take video of the ship with my camera but could not do that and walk with the walker at the same time. So we came up with a clever way to take videos by setting the camera on the walker seat while we walked. It worked perfectly.

 

After having an awesome burger for lunch, we went out on the open deck. It was very windy. They had closed the upper decks due to the high winds. We watched people and the water for a while before heading up to Camp Carnival to get a Build a Bear type animal. We ended up getting a puppy. He was a new friend to our usual travel babies. We ended up taking the puppy back to the cabin and relaxing on the balcony for a while. This was when we heard a call for “Sierra Team” to the men’s locker room on the spa deck.

 

 

 

While sitting on the balcony, we saw a small boat in the water. Like a personal fishing boat. There were about 10 canoes in a large area around it. There was no land to be seen anywhere and we wondered why they were out there and so close to the shipping channels.

 

We eventually went to dinner in the dining room again – wonderful as usual – and then went to the evening show, which was fantastic once again. We made a stop in the casino to leave some of our money there. :( Since we had all-day excursions the next 2 days, we decided to go back to our cabin and get some rest and a good night’s sleep. We aren’t night club people, so we never really went to any of the clubs onboard. We did want to go to the piano bar, but for some reason never made it there. We packed a backpack to take on our excursion the next day and then went to bed.

[mississauga]

Great review so far. Looking forward to more of the same.:)

[mosaic_mom]

Great review so far. Looking forward to more of the same.:)

 

Thank you. Lots more to come.

[cruiser fanatic]

any Funtimes?

[mosaic_mom]

Wednesday 1-19-11

Today we were going to Costa Rica. We weren’t due to dock in Costa Rica until 9 am. We got some breakfast from the Lido buffet and ended up docking around 9:15 am. It was amazing to once again see how calm the water was. There were not actually waves, but more like ripples in the water from the ship pushing the water from its path. We were docked next to the Zuiderdam and were to be cleared to debark by 10 am.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had planned a CC roll call private tour with Okeydokey Tours. We chose the A-1 tour and ended up with a private van for 18 of us. Our tour guide met us outside the security fence. It was a little walk to get there, but not too bad. I was a little nervous on how the tour guide would handle the situation with me having a walker. After having spoken via email with Charlie Soto before leaving home, he assured me it would be okay and it turned out that they were very accommodating and helpful. The tour was a lot of fun and having it with a bunch of fun new friends made it even better.

 

Carlos was our tour guide. He was very nice and made our tour quite enjoyable. We boarded an air-conditioned van and were supplied with free water, soda, and beer. When leaving the port area, we soon learned that driving in Costa Rica is a bit scarey with no traffic lights and crazy drivers. Carlos took some time to point out many sites as we drove by and talked to us about life in Costa Rica. He was always open for questions and it was quite fun. Our first stop was at a place where we could take a walk through the rain forest. We parked at a spot where a man had a little fruit stand with some native fruits. The path through the forest was quite rocky and difficult to navigate, so since I was using a walker, they allowed me to remain at the fruit stand with my DH and wait for the others.

 

 

 

 

When we got off the bus, someone spotted a sloth in a nearby tree. He was quite high up there. After the others disappeared into the rain forest, the sloth seemed to disappear also. We soon found that the fruit stand owner’s name was Jose. Another man sitting there was another Okeydokey van who was also named Jose. The van driver asked us if we wanted to see the slot up close and hold it. Wow, was I excited. That’s what I always wanted to do. So he sent the other guy into the forest to get it. We got to hold it and get a close up look at it. I thought they would have soft fur, but it was very course. Very cute !!

 

 

 

[mosaic_mom]

any Funtimes?

 

If I can get the scanner to work, I will include them.

[mosaic_mom]

Wednesday 1-19-11 (continued)

After the others returned from their walk, the ones who wanted to took turns holding the sloth and trying the different fruits there at the stand before getting back on the bus for more sites. Our next stop was at a banana plantation.

 

 

 

We then boarded the bus again and drove for a while, seeing some of the sites. We looked for monkeys in the trees, and they were very hard to spot. We came upon a scenic overlook or two along the way.

 

 

 

We were taken to the Tortuguero Canal where we boarded a small river boat to see the wildlife along the canal. We were amazed that the tour boat driver was able to spot the animals so fast when we could hardly see them.

 

 

 

We saw many birds and other interesting wildlife. There was a huge snake way up in the tree, there was a lizard they called the “Jesus Christ lizard” because it could walk on water, there was a Cayman crocodile sunning on the shore, some bats, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

[mosaic_mom]

Wednesday 1-19-11 (continued)

Our canal tour was over all too soon, and we boarded our air-conditioned tour bus once again and soon arrived at a small restaurant on the beach. I think the beach was the Playa Bonita Beach. We had a traditional Costa Rican lunch of chicken, beans and rice, and plantains. This was included in our tour price. The beach was just beautiful. The waves were big here too.

 

 

Before long, it was time to head back to the ship. We made a short stop at a local grocery store to let anyone who wanted to buy coffee or whatever they wanted to. We then headed back to the ship. Our tour was amazing. If you’re ever in Costa Rica, I would highly recommend booking a tour with Okeydokey Tours.

 

I don’t think there was a show this evening, which was fine with us. We were exhausted and had a very early excursion planned for tomorrow. We ended up eating at the Lido buffet this night and going down to the shops to look at the jewelry sale. Our daughter wanted a chain, so we went in search of a nice one for her.

 

 

We were very tired from our excursion today and decided to go back to our cabin and relax on the balcony before turning in for the night.

[mosaic_mom]

Thursday 1-20-11

Today we were scheduled to be in Panama. We had to get up at 5 am to give us enough time to get ready for the day and to eat a little breakfast before having to meet in the Victoriana Lounge at 6:30 am. All those going on the Panama Canal Tour were supposed to meet there. We weren’t even docked at that time, but we knew we were close. There were ships anchored everywhere. There were a LOT of ships, most waiting to get into the Panama Canal. In the Victoriana Lounge, they explained how things would work in getting everyone from there and onto the buses. They told us that there were 700 people booked to go on this excursion. That’s a lot of people. At 7:10 am, they started letting the special needs people get on the elevator and go down to deck 0 to get off the ship. The buses were not far from there. I think they said there were 18 buses all together. We were down the elevators, off the ship, onto the bus, and pulling out of the parking lot by 7:30 am. We were on bus 1. They took walkers and put them under the bus in the storage bin.

 

Panama is another place where they drive crazy, almost frightening at times. Glad we were on a big bus. Our bus was very nice and clean and in good running order. They had split the buses into 2 groups of 9. We had friends from our roll call in the second set of buses and they didn’t have such a nice bus. In fact, although we were on the same excursion, theirs turned out to be a much different experience than ours, we being the lucky ones.

 

Our tour guide was Miguel and our bus driver was Carlos. Miguel was really a very good tour guide, and we gave great credit to Carlos for navigating the streets of Panama. We had an hour and a half ride on the bus to our destination at the canal. We drove from the Caribbean side of Panama to the Pacific side where we would board a ferry to take through the canal. Along the way, Miguel explained some history of the canal and described the local area to us. It was evident that he was very proud of his country.

 

We saw a large area of businesses called the Colon Free Trade Zone. It was a massive area for importing and exporting goods. It is completely surrounded by a wall and kept separate from the rest of the country. We learned that while individuals are allowed to shop in most of the Free Zone, most of the business done there is with large and small businesses looking to buy larger quantities. Because our tour was scheduled to be all day, there was no time to check out this area. Along the way to the ferry, we got to see homes of the locals and how they live. There seemed to be a lot of trash lying around near residential areas, and our guide explained that they were having some kind of dispute with getting the garbage company contractor to do their job right.

 

We eventually made it to our destination, the dock area where we would board the ferry. Since the tide was so low, the ramp to get down to the boat dock was very steep and uneven, making it quite difficult to navigate with a walker, but there were plenty of people working there who offered assistance. I must admit that it had to be quite frightening to those in wheelchairs who had to go down the ramp backwards. Since there were 700 people on this excursion, they took the first 9 buses and put those people on one ferry and then took the last 9 buses and put those people on the second ferry. We were on the first and smaller ferry.

 

 

 

This is where the experience turned quite different for those in the second group. From what we understand, their ferry, although much larger than ours, was more crowded and was not as nice as ours. We were fortunate enough to be on a very nice and very clean ferry. Although the restrooms were very tiny, the ferry itself was quite comfortable. The only problem encountered was that people who wanted to take pictures would stand up in front of everyone and remain there after taking their pictures, despite repeated requests by the tour operator for them to not do that. Once we were all loaded onto the first ferry, we headed out toward the canal. We could see people from the second ferry lined up along the top of the hill. Not sure what the hold-up was up there. We headed out toward the canal and not long after our departure had to pick up the canal pilot. All vessels headed through the canal have to have a canal pilot onboard. Our tour guide on the ferry was the same one we had on the bus, and he was very good. He explained a lot about the canal history and operation of the current canal and building and operation of the future lane of the canal.

 

[spideyfam]

Thanks for the review! Looking forward to your take on Panama, so keep it coming.

[mosaic_mom]

Thursday 1-20-11 (continued)

On our way to the canal, we got to see Panama City coastline…

 

 

Bridge of the Americas…

 

 

and massive machines used to dredge the new area of the canal expansion…

 

[mosaic_mom]

Thursday 1-20-11 (continued)

It wasn’t long before we arrived at the Miraflores locks. What an awesome sight.

 

 

We had to pull over to the side and wait for the other ferry and a yacht to catch up to us, as we were scheduled to go into the locks with a boat in front of us, the other ferry for our group, and a yacht. There was a large container ship in the lock when we arrived, so we got to see that ship raised up inside the lock and watch it leave the lock area to allow the lock to then close and empty so that we could enter.

 

The locks are emptying (to the right and in front of the lock gates):

 

 

In position to enter Miraflores locks as the gates start to open:

 

 

 

And we were now on our way inside the Miraflores locks…

 

[hobbyhrs97]

Great review so far Nancy.. I still have to finish mine , but can not find it. Your Panama tour review is way different from mine! I was on the over crowded secong ferry and hated every second of it!:mad: