Carnival Freedom 8 Day Eastern Caribbean Review 09/10/11 - 09/18/11 LOTS of PICS

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

Carnival Freedom 8 Day Eastern Caribbean

█▓▒░★ September 10, 2011 – September 18, 2011 ★ ░▒▓█

 

 

I just wanted to start by saying that the valuable tips that we learned from Cruise Critic helped us so much. I couldn’t imagine going on this cruise without knowing the things that we learned ahead of time. For this, I say THANK YOU! I knew that after I went on my cruise, I was going to pay it forward to help other newbies. I will try to pass on as much as possible. Any questions, please ask.

 

This was our first cruise and we researched cruise lines and ports for a while before booking. We booked 365 days to the day of setting sail with Cruise Direct. We liked Cruise Direct because we were able to select the exact cabin that we wanted. We also purchased our cruise insurance with CSA Travel Protection through Cruise Direct. We paid $186 total for the trip insurance. We decided on the Carnival Freedom 8 day Eastern Caribbean. We chose this cruise because initially it visited 5 ports. Puerto Rico, St Thomas, Antigua, Tortola and Bahamas. A few months before the cruise, we got an email saying that Puerto Rico had been dropped due to port congestion. We were completely fine with that.

 

I have a lot to tell you, so here we go….We (Me – Michelle and DB – Robert) decided to fly out from Kansas City to Ft Lauderdale the day before. This made us a lot more comfortable just in case there were issues with anything. We flew Southwest for the first time and it a nice flight. The flight attendants were funny and very accommodating. We paid the extra $10 for Early Bird check in and were in boarding group A for all of our flights. This gave us the opportunity to have our pick of the seats that we wanted since it’s pretty much a free for all depending on your boarding group and line number. We left Kansas City and had a 1 ½ hour layover in Baltimore…then off to Ft Lauderdale.

 

 

 

We got off the plane in Ft Lauderdale and followed the “Taxi” signs. We went outside and were immediately greeted by a fleet of taxis ready to take us where we needed to go. We told the driver where we were going, he helped us with our bags and we were off to the hotel. The fare was $14.90 and we gave the driver $20.

 

We chose to stay at the Embassy Suites on 17th Street for our pre-cruise hotel for numerous reasons which I will tell you all about. I would highly recommend this hotel! We read on Cruise Critic that we could sign up for Hilton Honors and get a discount on our room. We signed up for Hilton Honors and this saved us $50. It was $125/ night after this discount and WELL worth every dollar. We made our reservation about 4 months in advance. On our reservation request, there was a comment section. In this section we requested the highest room possible facing the cruise port and this is exactly what we got! We were in room 1218. This room included a living room area, dining room area, a mini bar area with a small sink, refrigerator, coffee maker and microwave. There is also a bedroom with a door that separates the 2 areas. The couch was a fold out bed, we didn’t need it, but you guys might want to know so I thought I would tell you. I don’t want to forget to mention that there is also a balcony and a BEAUTIFUL indoor atrium.

 

-:¦:-•:*"'"*:•.-:¦:-•*Here are some pics*•-:¦:-•:*"'"*:•.-:¦:-

 

The atrium:

 

 

Living area:

 

Dining area:

 

Minibar:

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

-:¦:-•:*"'"*:•.-:¦:-•*More pics – Embassy Suites*•-:¦:-•:*"'"*:•.-:¦:-

 

Bedroom 1:

 

Bedroom 2:

 

Bathroom:

 

Balcony:

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

Funny story: When we walked into the hotel lobby. DB asked me if it was normal for people in Florida to wear their bras on the outside of their clothes. I said…ummm. I wouldn’t know, why? He said, look over there. I looked and there was an employee behind the counter with a white t-shirt on and a neon pink bra over the shirt. I thought to myself…hmmm, alrighty then. We went to put up our bags and when we came back down to take a look around, a man with a pink bra on over a t-shirt walked past me. I was like OK, this has officially become weird. I thought that this MUST be normal around here. J As we walked a little bit further, I saw a sign that said “Embassy Suites Cares”. The employees were wearing pink bras over their shirts in support of breast cancer awareness. LOL

 

We took a few pictures and then decided to walk over to Publix to pick up our 12 pack of redbull & case of water to bring on the ship with us. The prices on these items were comparable to the prices at home. The parking lot of Publix and Total wine is approximately 2 blocks from the Embassy Suites. This was another reason why we chose this hotel. For those of you that don’t know, you are able to carry on 1 – 750 ml bottle of wine/champagne and 1 – 12 pack of non-alcoholic beverages PER PERSON on the ship with you. If you choose to bring these items on with you, you will NOT be able to check these items with your luggage to be brought to your room. You will have to carry them with you until your room is ready.

 

We lightly packed a small rolling suitcase to use for these items and make it easier to get around the ship until our cabin was ready. We also brought one of our reusable grocery bags to carry our items back to the hotel. When we got to Publix, we found that they have an extensive liquor selection that ranged from an $8 bottle of Yellow Tail to a $200 bottle of Cristal. We just decided to just buy everything there. We got a bottle of wine that we have never tried and a nice bottle of champagne. If you are wondering how we got the wine opened, we packed a corkscrew from home in our checked luggage and it made it fine.

 

Why did we bother you ask? Well,….ONE can of redbull on the ship is $4.75 per can plus gratuity and a case of 12 is approximately $20 plus tax at Publix. Do the math! We aren’t coffee drinkers and I enjoy a nice cold can of sugar free redbull in the morning to get going. We brought the water because we didn’t know how the ship’s water tasted. Surprisingly, she ship’s water in the buffet area tastes really good. But, it was nice to have a bottle of water in our cabin mini fridge when we wanted it. Here’s a pic from our balcony of how close they are to the hotel.

 

 

We brought our items back to the hotel and decided to grab something to eat. Even though Embassy Suites has it’s own restaurant and bar, we wanted to go somewhere outside of our hotel that we don’t have in our own city. We chose Duffy’s. See the picture above. This place was really great! It has a sports bar area, a restaurant area and an outdoor seating area. We decided to sit in the sports bar because they have more than a dozen large projector screens showing all the sporting events that any sports lover can handle. Here’s a pic, but it’s kind of blurry because the lights are dim in the sports bar section.

 

 

We got there during “happy hour” :D 5pm – 8pm and drafts, wells and call drinks were BOGO. We decided to start with a nice cold draft and our wonderful server Ashley immediately suggested that we get a 32 ounce draft…I think she called it a “Big Kids Mug” hehehe. Yep! Vacation has begun! Pic below.

 

 

We sat for a while looking over the menu and taking in the surroundings. We talked with Ashley about the menu, not being from Ft Lauderdale and our cruise. It seems like we were there for hours. We didn’t eat since that morning, so we were pretty hungry. I decided on parmesan chicken, but I didn’t want the spaghetti with red sauce. Ashley said that I could change it out for fettucini alfredo. Nice… DB ended up getting the rib plate dinner. We are from Kansas City and KNOWN for our BBQ, but it compared pretty nicely. We got another Big Kids Mug and we were feeling pretty nice J We had a nice walk back to the hotel. The weather was perfect! It was around 10pm and the area was buzzing with people.

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

When we got back to the hotel, we were pretty wound up and decided to go down to the pool. This pool was really nice. Pretty nice sized with a waterfall and a hot tub. There were a lot of nice private areas to sit with the palm trees and another dimly lit area with another wall waterfall. The hotel bar was off of the pool and there was indoor and outdoor seating there. There were only us and another group of about 5 people in the pool area. They were in the hot tub, so the pool was all ours. I also used the pool to test out our new waterproof camera and test the settings. See pics below. Sorry, it was dark outside.

 

 

Pool area with waterfall:

 

Testing waterproof camera in the pool:

 

One of the private areas around the pool area:

 

2nd Waterfall in the pool area:

 

Who knows what time we got back to the room, but we ended up having a couple more drinks by the pool ;) We normally aren’t big drinkers, but this was a pretty big vacation for us and we were having a great time!

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

We woke up in the morning, pulled back the curtains and this is what we saw! YIPPEEE!!

 

 

:DYEP! That’s the Freedom!:D

 

 

 

 

Oasis of the Seas was also in port:

 

 

This was all we needed to see to get up and dressed. DB went down to the free breakfast buffet and I jumped in the shower. Embassy Suites has a free breakfast buffet with coffee, a variety of juices, dry cereals, fruits, pancakes, oatmeal, a variety of danish, muffins, toast, bagels and made to order omelet station.

 

Breakfast area:

 

 

 

We had a light breakfast, packed our bags and attached our Carnival luggage tags. We brought the printed tags with us and attached them with clear packing tape that we brought from home. ($1.28 at walmart) If anyone is apprehensive about the paper tags, that’s understandable, we were too. If you fold the tags like the instructions say and then cover them with clear packing tape they are extremely secure. Just a helpful tip :)

[hfweather]

Wonderful review so far, can't wait to read the rest!! Thanks so much for posting your review.

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

Next we headed down to see the koi pond before we left. We knew there was a koi pond somewhere in the hotel, but it wasn’t in the atrium like we originally thought. There is an indoor waterfall and pond in the atrium, but there were no fish in there. We found that they were in an outdoor pond by the pool. We walked over the bridge to the pool the night before, but we didn’t know they were there because it was too dark. Here are some pics of the koi pond. There were hundreds of large koi in there. That’s also when we found out that it was EXTREMELY humid outside!

 

The main pond:

 

 

 

 

 

A few koi:

 

 

A few MORE koi:

 

[paper1122]

Very detailed! Keep up the great work!

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

Ok, it was officially time to start our cruise. We lugged our bags down to the lobby. We planned on taking a private cab to the cruise port, but when we got down there…there were several others waiting in the lobby with their bags. DB talked to the concierge about getting a cab and he told him that there were shuttles to the cruise port right outside for $7 per person. Since the shuttles were already there, reasonably priced and we were excited to leave…we decided to go with it! We hopped in the shuttle, waited about 5 min for the bags to be loaded and we were off.

The ride was very quick. We stopped at a security station and we were all told by a guard that we all needed to have our ID’s ready to show to the next guard. We all pulled out our ID’s, rolled up to the guard. She checked the driver’s ID, asked if our vehicle had already been searched. I’m not sure what the driver said, but we hadn’t been searched and all of the other vehicles were being searched. Then, we just rolled on through to the terminal.

There she is!

 

 

Just one more turn and we are there! I wanted to jump out now :-)

 

Let the fun begin!!…. Did I mention that it was super humid outside?

We pull up to the baggage drop off area and the shuttle driver unloaded everyone’s bags. We made sure to grab our bag with our carry on drinks, tipped the driver, tipped the luggage handlers and we were off to stand in line. All of the other passengers were standing in a LONG line outside in the heat.

Edited September 19, 2011 by Let'sDoThisCruiseThing

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

Here’s where things take an ugly turn. As we are walking up to stand in line there were several Carnival representatives handing out a letter to everyone and stating that they were required to inform everyone of a change. We were handed the letter and found out that the change was that our 8 day Eastern Caribbean cruise was being changed to an 8 day Western Caribbean cruise.

 

 

Instead of going to St Thomas, Antigua, Tortola & Bahamas, we were going to Cozumel Mexico, Grand Cayman, Montego Bay Jamaica & Bahamas. This change in itinerary was due to Hurricane Maria. Frowny face :( I know that we booked during hurricane season, but we couldn’t let this change get us down. I told myself that I would be happy to go anywhere. It’s still vacation and I’m still going to have fun regardless of where we go.

 

 

We stood in line for what seemed like forever. It was hot and people were angry about the itinerary change. A lot of people were talking about how they were going to complain as soon as they got on the ship for some OBC. :cool: Others were complaining about how they have already been to these ports and that’s why they booked the eastern itinerary. Some were saying that they hate Mexico and Jamaica and will not get off the ship during these ports….and then there were the people that just turned around and left….seriously!

We finally got into the air conditioning and showed our passports and boarding passes to security.

 

 

Side note: We decided to get full passports instead of the passport card or sailing with our birth certificates. As you may or may not know, passports are not required for closed loop cruises. But, and the big BUT here is that if you are stranded at a port, get hurt or if the ship has to sail early because of inclement weather and that port is not part of the United States, you cannot fly home without a passport. We didn’t want to take our chances.

 

 

We got past security and went to SURPRISE another long line! This time we were waiting in line for our Sail and Sign cards, but we were in air conditioning so it wasn’t bad. We showed our passports again along with the credit card that we entered at the time of completing our fun passes. We were given a small map of the ship and told that we were since we had ‘anytime dining’ we were in the Chic dining room. We were also told that lunch was being served at the buffet on the lido deck and that our cabins would be ready at around 1:30pm.

We did not have to wait for zone boarding, the ship was ready for everyone at this time. We walked up towards the gangway, had our picture taken and up the gangway we went!

 

Here we go folks!

 

 

We are now on the ship! YAY! Proceed with happy dance. We were led into the lobby.

 

 

 

 

 

[2-4me]

Great!!!!!!! We sail on the same ship, same Itinerary, and will be at the same Hotel for two nights. I am so looking forward to this review. Thanks.

[Tom_n_Sara]

Like the pics! Looking forward to your review. We're on Freedom in May! Wish it was sooner!!

[gail811]

Loving your review! I am a big fan of the Freedom, and Embassy Suites in Ft. Lauderdale! We had a room on the same floor and just seeing the view brought all those wonderful feelings of the first look at the ship back to me! It is also great you are including so much good information for other "newbies". Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[Angeladh1981]

Keep posting- sailing on Freedom in December, and your pictures and review are getting me pumped!!

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

We went up to the Lido buffet to regroup, have some lunch and wait for the room to be ready.

 

 

Side note: When you eat at the buffet, it's always packed! We learned from reading Cruise Critic that you can go upstairs where the fish and chips is located and there are always great seats available. It seemed like most people didn't realize that there was seating up there OR they wanted to stay closer to the food :rolleyes: There is a drink station up there, so don't get your drink first. You can get your food and find your table, then get your drink. They have coffee, iced tea and water. If you eat there for breakfast, the only thing that they do not have available upstairs is orange juice.

 

Here are some pics of the upstairs section of the buffet:

 

 

 

 

We grabbed a shore excursion booklet to determine what we were going to do at the new ports. We had already booked and paid for 2 excursions in St Thomas, had an independent plan for Antigua, had an independent excursion booked for Tortola and an excursion booked for Bahamas. We were now back to square 1.

 

 

Tip for the ladies: Do not ONLY bring 30 pairs of flip flops (slight exaggeration) and sandals to match your outfits and water shoes. I brought shoes based on what we were doing for our planned excursions / around the ship and didn’t plan for a lot of rough terrain or itinerary changes. I wouldn’t have been able to do the Mayan ruins excursion because I didn’t bring any comfortable tennis shoes. Just leave a few pairs of those flip flops at home and bring a good pair of tennis shoes just in case. :)

[finzup-kt]

Great review so far, can't wait to read the rest!

[Jimmy Geegitz]

Great Start! Keep it coming!

[rambler57]

Next we headed down to see the koi pond before we left. We knew there was a koi pond somewhere in the hotel' date=' but it wasn’t in the atrium like we originally thought. There is an indoor waterfall and pond in the atrium, but there were no fish in there. We found that they were in an outdoor pond by the pool. We walked over the bridge to the pool the night before, but we didn’t know they were there because it was too dark. Here are some pics of the koi pond. There were hundreds of large koi in there. That’s also when we found out that it was EXTREMELY humid outside!

 

The main pond:

 

 

 

 

 

A few koi:

 

 

A few MORE koi:

 

 

that orange one was in both photo's.

Just saying:D

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

Here's another helpful tip. ;) We got a lot of "where did you get those?", "did you buy those on the ship?" and "that was a great idea!" for doing this....

 

The Carnival drink cups are pretty small. About 12 ozs. We brought our own insulated mugs and filled them with iced tea or water as needed. We would bring them to the buffet and fill them up (which was very close to our cabin) so there are less trips for drinks and you stay hydrated.

 

Also, it's a great thing to have if you are a soda drinker. When you buy a soda, they will give you a small plastic cup filled with ice and then pour the soda in for you. You never get the full can that you paid $2.24 (gratuity included) for. Also, the soda is not chilled, it's room temp when they pour it in. With the bigger mug, your soda is chilled and you get your full can. :)

 

 

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

that orange one was in both photo's.

Just saying:D

Oh really? I hadn't noticed. You are very observant LOL

[rambler57]

Great review so far, can't wait for more. Pic's are great too.:p

[mystone99]

Great job with the review so far. Love the pictures. This is going to be our 2012 cruise so I am excited to hear about the ports. Keep it going.

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

It was about 1:40 now and I decided to leave the rolling suitcase, my purse and the backpack with DB and go check on the cabin. It was a short walk down one flight of stairs and around the corner to our cabin. We were on Deck 8 - Verandah. I got to the cabin, inserted the Sail and Sign card and it was ready! Yesssss. Gave a quick call to DB and he was on his way.

 

-:¦:-•:*"'"*:•.-:¦:-•* The Cabin *•-:¦:-•:*"'"*:•.-:¦:-

I haven't found many pictures or reviews about this cabin that were to my satisfaction prior to this cruise. Maybe one or two pictures total. This was a good and a bad thing. Bad, because I really wanted to know what it looked like. Good, because it was a nice surprise to see it for myself for the first time in person. There were no pictures of this cabin on cruiselinerooms dot com. Well, that will change now!

 

We were in Aft Cabin 8450 with an extended balcony. In my opinion…the best cabin ever! Well, I AM partial to this cabin now. :) All of the positives outweigh any negatives. We actually had a hard time coming up with any negatives. This balcony is at the aft (rear of the ship) It is extended, so it is larger than any of the side balconies. Our cabin was right next to the aft wrap balcony and on deck 8, cabins 8450 and 8455 have more length and width than all of the aft balconies on this deck. None of the other decks have this balcony. It’s special :) Just look at the dividers on the pic below.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2011 by Let'sDoThisCruiseThing

[Let'sDoThisCruiseThing]

-:¦:-•:*"'"*:•.-:¦:-•* More Cabin Pics *•-:¦:-•:*"'"*:•.-:¦:-

 

 

 

 

Ample closet/storage space. We had about 20 hangers.

 

 

 

 

What you see with the curtains open. Oh, my! Simply beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

Bathroom, tiny but effective :)

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2011 by Let'sDoThisCruiseThing

[australian_girl]

Really enjoying your review! Nice pics as well!:)