Freedom 6 day Western Carribean 3/4 - 3/10 with pics!

[DemonPeeves]

I have found that the best way to get over the post cruise blues is to write a review and relieve the memories. Yay! Well, its the second best way actually. You know booking another cruise is the first! Ha!! But first... review!!

 

After a celebratory birthday weekend in Ft Lauderdale, Sunday morning arrives and its time to get on the Freedom! My cousin was kind enough to take my husband and I to the port. There it is!!

 

 

 

 

My last few cruises were out of New Orleans and Mobile so its been awhile since I was in a port with so many ships! There was a lot of traffic, that's for sure! But it was great to see other ships, especially the Monstrosity of the Ocean! I mean, Allure of the Seas! Super huge in person!

 

 

 

Also in port was the Westerdam, a Celebrity ship, a Princess ship and some others. I cant even remember! I think I was too excited to be on mine and also mesmerized by the Allure!

 

I dont know about you, but the first thing I do when I get on the boat is feed the fuel tank and then run around and take pics of everything before the boat gets too crowded. I will start there in the next thread!

[DemonPeeves]

Let's start with the center- the lobby. I have to say, this was the most happening lobby of any ship I've ever been on. Many evenings there were people dancing to the pianist and trivia games were played here throughout the day. It was great to see so many people utilizing this great space!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A pic of the library. Very nice cozy room. Saw a lot of people using it this cruise, usually playing dominoes or other board games. I did see that they had a few in there such as Scrabble, Cranium, Apples to Apples and some youth games.

 

[DemonPeeves]

The sports bar with some cool little seats!

 

 

The spa. I never go in so I didnt see any of it. This is all I got.

 

 

The cigar bar- which is non smoking. Seems like a bit of an oxymoron to me. What are you suposed to do in the cigar bar then? Hold your cigars and sniff them? Not sure. I didnt go back after this picture since I'm not a cigar smoker anyway. Table details were cool.

 

 

The very aft of the boat on the 5th deck was the International Lounge, which became the Punchliners comedy club in the evening.

Great comedians! Get there early. The seats fill up quickly especially those comfy circular booths.

 

 

The piano bar.

 

 

[DemonPeeves]

The wine bar:

 

 

The 5th deck promenade:

 

 

 

Sushi stand, which I didnt get to try. 5pm-8:15pm are the hours. I would forget to go before dinner and then after dinner I wasnt hungry. Oh well!

 

 

The video arcade:

 

 

[DemonPeeves]

Casino:

 

 

 

The coffee and sweets cafe:

 

 

Photo gallery:

 

 

Fun shops!

 

[DemonPeeves]

The Victoriana Lounge:

 

 

 

 

Detail on the tables in the lounge. I liked them!

 

The Swingtime Lounge. They played some big band music and latin music in here.

[DemonPeeves]

Lido deck had some of the coolest details:

 

 

 

Posh Dining Room entrance:

 

 

We were in the Chic Dining room. Booth for 4 for us and our friends on the 2nd floor of the room. It was great!!

 

 

Aft pool and hot tubs. Already in use before we sailed!

 

 

[heathercrops]

Can't wait for more. We sail this exact cruise next Sunday!!

[DemonPeeves]

Sport deck and mini golf area:

 

 

 

Now it was time to see our room! Since we were flying in this time, I thought I'd save a few bucks and do an oceanview versus a balcony. I crossed my fingers and hoped that being in a lower deck would be ok. We were in room 2276, which became the best room ever! Right behind the main elevators and one floor below the main lobby, guest services, the lounge. It was such a great location and we loved it! And having the window was great! Some pics:

 

 

 

 

[DemonPeeves]

The Allure from our room window:

 

 

The Westerdam from our room:

 

 

The window washers from our room. What's up dudes!!

 

 

After we were in our room for a bit, we were summoned to the Muster Drill. This is when I realized we were truly on a Spring Break cruise. College kids everywhere! In the middle of muster someone would break out with "Go Green" and some other kids from some other muster station would shout "Go White" and back and forth... This was the first of many chants we'd hear this week. Thankfully none while I was trying to sleep or someone would have been going overboard!

 

Let's get ready to sail!

 

Bye some other Holland America boat I remember the name of:

 

 

Bye Allure!

 

 

Let's go Freedom!! Follow those ships!

 

[PA Beachlovers]

Sport deck and mini golf area:

 

 

 

Now it was time to see our room! Since we were flying in this time, I thought I'd save a few bucks and do an oceanview versus a balcony. I crossed my fingers and hoped that being in a lower deck would be ok. We were in room 2276, which became the best room ever! Right behind the main elevators and one floor below the main lobby, guest services, the lounge. It was such a great location and we loved it! And having the window was great! Some pics:

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for sharing the pictures of the stateroom, we are going to the Freedom in Oct. with a picture window so this gives us an idea what we are getting, our first cruise last Oct. we had an inside on the Dream, decided this time it would be nice to know if it is day or night out!

[pcvtmom]

Keep it coming! We will be on this ship and itinerary in August. Thanks for the detailed pictures!

[cruisinsly]

Cant wait for the rest! Great start!!

[DemonPeeves]

After sail away, we hung out on the deck for a bit and then went down for dinner. We had early seating in the Chic dining room at 6pm, table 651. I have to say that I do not understand this anytime dining craze. It would be 6pm and there was a line for the anytime dining. Why didnt you just sign up to eat at 6pm? Personally, I would rather know when I'm eating and plan my day around it rather then sign up to stand in line for yet another meal on this ship. If my opinion counts for anything- early seating for meals is the way to go! If you're still hungry you can always get pizza or room service later!

 

Our waiters were Junior from Jamaica and Jose from India. Both were awesome and personable. Jose would bring us brain teasers each night like a puzzle involving re-arranging toothpicks. It was nice he went out of his way to interact with us and the tables around us. Our maitre'd was Chubby from Hungary. Probably one of the best ones I've ever encountered. He went around to every table, every night and really made an effort to get to know you or at least intereact with you. I was happy to know we were going to have a great waitstaff for the week!

 

This evening we went to the Superstar Karaoke in the International Lounge, which is live band karaoke. A lot of fun! We also saw the adult comedy show back here after which was great, as they all were.

Looking at the Fun Times it shows the movies for this night were Free Willy, Casino Royale and Amistad. Wow... what an upbeat late night cruise movie... hahahahaha...

 

Went to the room for our first towel animal:

 

Now its off to bed to get some rest for Key West!

[DemonPeeves]

Its Key West day!! We docked at 8am and had to be back to sail at 5pm.

We (and by we I'm referring to me, my husband, and another couple we cruised with) decided to just have a low key (hahahahaha) day in Key West. We got off the ship and decided to do some walking around at first. I wanted to find the Key West Toy shop, which we did. Off the boat, go left, and you'll find it in the mall. Super cute decor! There were all sorts of toys in the shop liked games, Lego's, puzzles and stuffed animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[gelo7]

Loving your review.

[DemonPeeves]

After walking for a bit, we decided to try something we've never done before and rent a scooter! Why not! So we walked our way up Duval Street and at the corner of Duval and Caroline there was a little place with 2 guys and yellow scooters called Sunshine Rentals, I think. Its definately Sunshine something. Anyway, for $47 (including insurance) we hopped on some scooters and decided to scoot around the island and take in some sites!

 

My husband monopolized the driving part, but I got to pretend when we parked!

 

We went to the Southern most point and it was chaos! I understand there were 3 ships in port that day, but if everyone would have just made a line, it could have worked out. Instead people just jumped up there and people were in and out of other people's pictures. So I just grabbed a shot of it:

 

 

And we decided to just take a pic with the water behind us instead. Yay!

 

 

The lighthouse. It was down the street from the southern most part. We were going to climb up it but it was $10 to do so. Ouch!

 

 

The awesome trees:

 

 

[DemonPeeves]

The beginning:

 

 

Fascinated by the artwork:

 

 

We had lunch at a place called the Sunset Cafe or Sunset Pier or something with Sunset in it. Arent I terrible at this stuff? :-) Its the southern most point of Duval Street. I'm sure you can find it if you're interested. Its a pier with brightly colored tables and chairs. The food was very good. I had conch fritters and they were yummy. Its was also a great view! The ships were next to us and Sunset Key was across the way!

 

 

After lunch, we scooted around some more. We wanted to find the Key West Key Lime Pie Co that had the throwdown with Bobby Flay, which we did! I had the frozen key lime pie bar. It was a piece of pie, dipped in chocolate and then frozen. It was sooooo good! After we scooted around some more and decided to head back to the Freedom.

 

This evening was the infamous Love and Marriage Game Show! The couples were a newlywed couple that was married on the ship, a couple married about 24 years and then a couple married 54 years, that just so happened to be the grandparents of the newlywed couple. It was a very entertaining show! A lot of laughs, that's for sure!!

 

This night was the adult only game show, which I believe is like The Quest, but we did not go. We decided to pop some wine bottles and play cribbage on the lido deck.

 

The Fun Times shows the movies for tonight being The Kings Speech and A Beautiful Mind. Wow... what a bunch of snoozers this cruise!! But still, there were people watching them from both seats, lounge chairs and from the hot tubs.

 

Time to get ready for bed. Got to make sure we're up early for some awesome deck chairs!

 

Hey... its a towel animal!

 

[DemonPeeves]

First day at sea. Yay! I was up about 7am so I could get some breakfast and some deck chairs.

 

What a depressing looking sea day huh?

 

 

 

The question I had about these Carnival Seaside Theaters is "what do they play during the day?" Well in the morning they would play serene relaxing music and show beach, underwater and sometimes space scenes. Around 9am, Brad (cruise director) and George (asst cruise director) would have their morning show which was so entertaining!! After their show, it would go back to the scenes and then the relaxing music.

 

I checked out the serenity deck to see how it was looking on this cruise:

 

 

 

Some pics of the deck:

 

 

[DemonPeeves]

Afternoon is approaching... time for deck activities like the Master Mixologist and the Hairiest Chest Competition. Wooohooo! The drink that won was a butterscotch banana concotion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tonight was the first of two elegant nights. It was also the night of the Captain's reception. You could meet him and take pics and drinks were $1 off during certain time frames. Tonight's show was The Big Easy. We didnt see this one, but I'm sure it was good. We decided to spend our evening watching comedians once again. Good decision. They were fabulous. John Rathbone and Steven White. After many laughs and coming across my new favorite Carnival cocktail, the Hurricane Wave, we went to bed to get ready for Grand Cayman.

 

Movies for the night by the pool were While You Were Sleeping and Sleepless in Seattle. Awww... all about the love tonight!!

 

Hurricane Wave, by the way, consists of hurricane drink mix, banana daquiri mix, appleton rum... awesome!!!

[DemonPeeves]

Its Grand Cayman day! I'm actually surprised we were able to tender because the water was a wee bit rough today! We were up early and hopped on one of the first tenders off the boat. Our excursion didnt start until 8:45 but we figured we might as well just get started!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[funinthesun1964]

Thanks for posting photos of the ship. We will be doing this one in October. Looks beautiful!

[DemonPeeves]

The center where you get off of the tenders:

 

 

Some pics of the area:

 

 

The Carnival Paradise arrives:

 

 

Now our excursion was the Explore Grand Cayman by Land and Sea. It was set to leave at 8:45 but we had to meet at 8:30am. We were got there early to just hang out. More and more people started to arrive to line up for their excursions and that's when everyone learned that all sting ray related excursions were cancelled. Our friends we cruised with were doing a sting ran excursion and were bummed they werent notified until they hit the dock. Then there was only one girl handling all of the changes. I cant believe she handled it all herself but she seemed to have it under control. Our friends decided to join us on our excursion and got their ticket changed and that was that. At 8:45, we all walked to the bus to go to our Nautilus for an undersea adventure!!

 

 

 

[DemonPeeves]

This Nautilus is the apparently the largest semi submarine of its kind. I have to say, it is pretty roomy. Its great for people who cannot handle tight places because there was a lot of space. We went over the two sunken ships and then over to Cheeseburger Reef, where the captain hopped into the water and fed the fish so we could get some good pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DemonPeeves]

 

 

A parrot fish!

 

 

 

 

After about an hour, we left the Nautilus.

Bye Nautilus! Thanks!!

 

 

We then boarded our bus (and by bus, I mean a small van/ bus that holds about 20 people) and headed off for the land part of our tour!