Review - 1st time cruisers - Freedom 8nt eastern - Feb 29 - March 4, 2012

[Jenfaith4]

Seriously, quit your job and become a writer! Or a reviewer!!! I'm sadly hooked to your review and refresh my phone/computer at least 3-5 times per hour to see if there is any additions!!! We are leaving on the Freedom on Sunday, so I have mentally checked out @ work!! Thanks for keeping me entertained!!!

 

Hope you're feeling better!!!!

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Gambling (Casino/Bingo)

 

Hubby and I love to go to Vegas and to the local casino (Foxwoods) so I knew we'd be spending a bit of time in the casino on the ship.

 

The casino was a bit smaller than I expected, although it never got too crowded so the size was probably about right. They did allow smoking at the tables and at most slot machines in the casino. It didn't seem too smoky in there though, and even when sitting at the tables, it wasn't bad.

 

I like to play 3-card poker, blackjack, let it ride. Hubby likes tables but doesn't like losing money so mostly he just watches me play. He'll play a bit here and there.

 

First night I got a straight flush on the 3-card table, walked away very much ahead. I was lucky one other time at let it ride, but mostly, my trips to the casino were to give back any money that I had won. It's okay , in the end I broke even overall, so I consider that a great success :)

 

Slots, terrible. Although I never win anything at slots - this was no different.

 

We did participate in the slot tournament (which we had never done). It was fun and hubby actually got on the board. He was eliminated quickly after that though. It seemed to me that in the later rounds, the scores were much higher so if we ever did it again we'd just sign up for round 15 when it seemed everyone was scoring higher points.

 

Bingo - I like bingo. I know it's not typically a "younger persons" game, but hey i'm not that young anymore. Anyhow, I go every so often at home to Foxwoods high stakes bingo and it's a lot of fun. Bingo on the ship - while fun - is a huge rip off. They charge $20 and for that there are two, maybe three games. I get that people just want a quick bit of bingo in the middle of the day - nobody wants to spend their vacation time spending hours in a bingo session but $20 a ticket seemed a bit crazy for the amount of the prizes (which were generally $250 or less). Carnival is making a HUGE profit on bingo.

 

The good thing is that I won (yay!). The prize was $150. It showed up on my sign and sail as a credit.

 

One last thing I should mention -- the cash vault! That machine is addictive. I tried a few dollars a day without success. Hubby as well. I never saw anyone win, yet I know people did because at times various prizes were missing. It seems so simple, yet it's so ridiculously precise and hard to win. Loved trying though!

 

 

Pictures

 

The infamous cash vault machine:

 

Summary -

 

 

 

...to be continued

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Oh and the cash vault machine plays a song that I swear draws you into it. Just try and walk by that thing without being sucked in. I dare you!

 

 

...to be continued

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Let's see, what next.. how about drinks & bars?

 

Drinks & Bars

 

As I may have mentioned, I'm pregnant.. just mentioning it yet again so you understand my utter frustration in being surrounded by delicious looking drinks that I couldn't drink.

 

Sure, I tried the "mock-tails" - virgin daiquiris, pina coladas, smoothies, etc. but let me tell you, while they taste all good and sweet, they don't taste the same without the rum. Sad, but true. Plus I think in the first few days I may overloaded on sugar from the drinks.

 

But let's talk about the drinks! I do love a good conversation about cocktails.

 

Hubby had a bottle of captain morgan from bon voyage so he often times mixed up a rum + diet coke with limes in the room and wandered about the ship with it in a big old bubba keg mug type thingy. I also had a big bubba keg type thing but mine contained either ginger ale, pineapple soda, or water.

 

He did buy drinks at the bar - he got a drink of the day on day 1 and refilled it a few times. We also went to the lobby bar a few times before dinner. He got delicious gimlets and martinis and such and I was very jealous.

 

I was surprised that juice from the bar counted as soda ? I had just assumed juice would be free since it is from room service and at breakfast. But I still didn't order enough juice to warrant a soda card or anything.

 

Bars - there are a lot of them on the ship! You're never really far from a cocktail. We really liked the lobby bar. I wanted to like Scott's Piano bar but the piano player was dreadful (more on that in the entertainment section of the review) so we didn't spend much time there. We went into the 70's disco one night because it was supposed to be a Michael Jackson dance contest .. but nobody was dancing and there was no contest (we weren't going to enter it, we were just going to watch). In there they were selling shots with a light up glass. Gimmicky but still kind of fun.

 

Anyway the drinks are pretty much the same in any bar you go in. One night at the comedy club the drink menu was different but still you can get any drink at any bar.

 

I can't tell you if the drinks were strong or weak since I didn't drink anything (I mentioned that, right?). Hubby seemed to enjoy his drinks and definitely wasn't complaining.

 

 

Pictures:

 

This was a non-alcoholic strawberry pina colada with the DOD which was bahama mama

 

 

One of my favorite pictures:

 

 

 

I agree with the drink menu, although I think maybe it's more like 36%

 

Hubby enjoying something tasty at the casino bar:

 

 

 

 

I'll post a few more pictures of the bars in the next thread.

 

Summary: Drinks are everywhere and very tasty!

 

 

...to be continued

[aggiecruiser05]

I'm enjoying your review! Excited to see what you did in the ports.

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More pictures of some of the bars on the ship

 

Habana Bar:

Scotts Piano Bar:

 

Wine bar (just outside of the piano bar)

 

70's Disco

 

 

 

...to be continued

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OK let's do the ports!

 

We didn't do any Carnival excursions mostly because we didn't really do any excursions at all. Even if we did, we would've done stuff on our own. I know many take Carnival excursions for peace of mind and I totally understand that. For me, I can't pay those prices for something I know I can get for less. I realize I'm taking risks and such, but I'm okay with the risks. To each their own in regards to port excursion choices.

 

With that out of the way, our first stop was St Thomas. We'd been there before, but only to fly in, and then take a taxi to the ferry dock to Tortola so we never really spent any time there.

 

St Thomas

 

We got off the boat around 9am. Easy quick process. We just really wanted to go to a great beach, not to busy, and with changing/bathroom facilities. Taxi driver recommended Sapphire Beach and we were fine with that. We got into an open air taxi with others going to various other places. It was about a 20 minute ride to Sapphire Beach.

 

As it turns out Sapphire beach is a time share / hotel type property but it was gorgeous and not that crowded. Nice recommendation from the taxi driver. Beach was free, we paid for chair rental but for the life of me I cannot remember what we paid. It was either $5, $6, or $7 each.

 

We immediately went swimming and had a great time. Hubby got a rum punch from the bar area and I got a Sprite. It was the perfect day at the beach.

 

After we'd been there about 4 hours or so, we got hungry and decided to go back to town and do some shopping and have lunch.

 

We got a taxi back and got dropped off in the shopping area of Charlotte Amalie. Now the shopping are is insane - I've never seen so many jewelry shops in one place in my life. I'm not sure if it was from the hunger (I was starving) or what, but while we were looking for a place to have lunch, I managed to somehow buy a David Yurman necklace. I guess the moral of the story is don't shop on an empty stomach!

 

We found a place for lunch, way down the end of the street. It was more of a local joint and that suited us perfectly. I had conch stew, plantains, rice and pigeon peas and hubby had a roasted chicken dish with rice and beans. Yummy and totally authentic. Of course, I can't remember the name of the place - I know it begins with an "F" but I'm sure that's a fairly useless bit of information.

 

After lunch we wandered around some more, then got a taxi back to the port. We wandered around more there, bought a t-shirt for my nephew and boarded the ship.

 

Pictures:

 

Photos of sapphire beach:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shopping in Charlotte Amalie:

 

 

 

Summary: St Thomas has great beaches and don't shop while hungry!

 

 

 

...to be continued

[SMSACE6]

I am loving your detailed review! Thanks for taking the time to post it. The Freedom was the last ship that I have been on, and I still love to read Freedom reviews, and get to relive my great cruise! Great review! and Congratulations on your baby!:)

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Antigua

 

Next we went to Antigua. Neither hubby or I had ever been there so we were excited to see a new place. We debarked again right around 9am and it was quick and easy. Taxi drivers were all over the place trying to get passenger and we got Joey.

 

Joey was dressed in a bright pink shirt and he was quite a character. We waited while he got 6 other passengers for the trip and then we headed towards his very, very beat up taxi van.

 

Joey's van was a sight. It was fairly used and beat up, but the best part about it was the horn. When he beeped the horn, it did not beep like a regular horn in a regular taxi. When Joey beeped his horn, his truck shouted "Move over!!!" loudly. Joey also had an ambulance sound as well. Truly we had a great time driving around the island with Joey.

 

It seems the locals on the island were very familiar with Joey and even before he had the chance to blast his "Move over!!" horn , people would shout "Move over!!" as we drove by. It was classic.

 

Joey drove us around to see a harbor area, through a rainforest type area, and then took us to a beach. Antigua has 365 beaches "one for every day" and if they are anything like the beach Joey took us to, I think I'll definitely be back to Antigua.

 

We spent a few hours at Darkwood Beach and then Joey came back and picked us up and brought us back to the ferry terminal.

 

Cost for this day was a mere $25pp. I have to say that like the rest of the Caribbean, the roads aren't the best. Normally this doesn't bother me at all but Joey's shocks probably were a bit worn out and the trip was very bumpy for me. I just got a little nervous being pregnant and bouncing around a lot. I probably wouldn't have ridden in Joey's taxi van if I had known.. so for this reason we decided to take it very easy in the next port.

 

Antigua reminded me a bit of Barbados, where I've spent a bit of time. The people we met were friendly and the beaches were gorgeous. We'll definitely go back.

 

Back at port, we went to a restaurant/cafe that had free wifi and checked our email on our phones. We had some drinks and a snack as well. Oh we also bought some duty free Antiguan rum which some day I'll be able to drink.

 

Photos:

 

Joey:

 

and his beat up taxi:

 

harbor:

 

 

 

Pineapples and bananas

 

One of Antigua's 365 beaches:

 

 

 

...to be continued

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Antigua Photos.. continued

 

 

Darkwood Beach:

 

 

Shopping area, St Johns, Antigua

 

 

 

 

...to be continued

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Taking a bit of a break, will try and post Tortola and Nassau soon .

 

Glad everyone's enjoying the review!

 

 

 

 

 

...to be continued

[aggiecruiser05]

Beautiful beach pictures!

[ck53]

Thanks Katie! I is a great review, can't wait for the end.

 

We did this cruise last Feb and going again in November w/ a slightly different port agenda.

 

Have fun w/ the baby!!

[pcvtmom]

You are a wonderful, captivating writer! We'll be on the Freedom in August (albeit with the 6 day itinerary), so I'm anxiously awaiting the rest of your review!

[IsItTime]

Love it Katie! You are not wordy AT all! Not too little, not too much, exactly enough! Informative, funny, easy to read. Thanks for taking the time :D

[Texarribean Chick]

Thanks! :D

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Tortola

 

 

So I mentioned this in the Antigua review but I felt I was "too jostled" around on the trip around the island. I wanted to avoid this in Tortola. I've been to Tortola before and I know how windy, steep, and bumpy the roads are. I just didn't want to risk being jostled around any more. So for Tortola, we were pretty lame and we just got off the ship and walked around for about an hour or so. It's a shame because I love Tortola and the BVI, I just didn't feel that great.

 

We returned to the ship and spent a leisurely day by the pool.

 

 

I did manage to snap a few photos while out though!

 

 

Our ship and another docked side by side in Tortola. I love how it looks like they're in the grass:

 

 

 

 

 

Summary: Don't be lame like us when you get to Tortola!

 

...to be continued

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Nassau

 

I've been to Nassau before, but it was oh, a good 20 years ago back when I was young and fun. I took a girls trip - me, my sister, and other girls flew into Nassau and took it by storm! I remember a lot of drinking and taking the cable beach bus to Merv Griffins Crystal Palace resort and casino. What fun we had! I was excited to go back to Nassau. I knew a great deal had changed and one thing that was new since my last visit 20 years ago is the behemoth that is called Atlantis....

 

I knew it was big and I knew it catered to a wealthy clientele but man, it was a bit crazy. We took a taxi from the port to Atlantis on Paradise Island ($4 pp each way). Once there we wandered around a bit - it reminded me in way of a Las Vegas hotel/casino - but bigger and more opulent. While walking through the casino, I saw a high limit area off in the back. We walked through the main drag of tables, and I kid you not, I saw $500 blackjack tables. More than one of them, and there were people playing at them. Some were playing multiple chips per hand. Wowza, and that wasn't even in the high limit area. Insane.

 

So we then bought tickets to the Aquarium (around $40 each). We kind of wandered around outside and found the shark area. Nothing was really very clearly marked. The shark are was really cool and that put us into a big round restaurant area. We left there and had lunch at Virgils BBQ. The food was pretty good, albeit expensive. I mean, hey, we're in Atlantis, I expect things to cost more so we weren't that shocked at the $8 local beer or the $18 pork sandwich (I guess)... Anyway it was good, and we headed off to the Dig.

 

It took us a bit of time to find it but eventually we found it. Again, signage is not really that great - we had to ask directions. I kind of felt like an idiot. Oh bonus though, we found a room where you could print your boarding passes and since we were leaving the next day we checked in to our southwest flights and printed boarding passes. Got the "A" group, which was sweet.

 

OK the Dig - this was pretty impressive. The aquariums were really beautiful! I took a ton of fish pictures. I'll attach a few at the bottom and hope I don't bore you.

 

After that we played a bit on the slot machines (didn't win) and then took a taxi back to the port area, where we walked around, found a starbucks and got drinks, bought some things in the straw market and also found the tortuga rum cake factory store and bought a bunch of rum cakes (yum).

 

pictures:

 

Atlantis:

 

 

 

In the aquarium and the dig:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Nassau pics , next post

 

...to be continued

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Nassau Pics, continued

 

Port area, downtown Nassau

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course we HAD to get conch fritters while in the Bahamas!

 

 

$3 and delicous!

 

and yes this is me being a dork!

 

 

Nassau Summary - Nassau was great, Atlantis is out of control crazy!

 

 

...to be continued

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Ok ports are done, but a few things still left to cover -- how about the entertainment?

 

Entertainment

 

If you said there's nothing to see or do on a cruise ship, I'd tell you you were crazy. There was always something going on.

 

While on the cruise we did a few trivia events, we saw a show or two, and also visited the comedy club.

 

Shows - We saw The Big Easy and while the dancing, costumes, and singing were great, we didn't go see any more shows after that. I just felt like it was more of a "concert" rather than a "show" - there was no connective story for the show (other than it was all songs about or from New Orleans). I would've liked the show better if there was some sort of story line to it.

 

Anyway we did see the Legends show though on the last night - loved it. We actually went to the auditions earlier in the week - it was great to see people try out for the parts in the show.

 

What else did we do - oh Trivia! I love trivia! We did two different music trivas - one where you heard the song and guessed the artist, and the other you had to write down the name of the song. Both were really fun and both I lost by 1 point. The other trivia contest we did was the cruise director's random and useless trivia. Tons of people were at that one and I actually sat next to a couple that cheated!! I mean really, cheating at a trivia game on a ship? The question was which king in a deck of cards, has his sword pointing at his head. The woman had a deck of cards in her purse and they were all sneaky about it and looked at them. They looked so proud after they wrote down that answer. I just shook my head and thought how sad that grown adult need to do stuff like that.

 

Anyway we didn't win that trivia either but it was a heck of a lot of fun and we learned some completely useless information -- if I'm ever on Jeopardy and the answer is "twit" I will definitely be buzzing in and answering, "What is a pregnant goldfish!!" Alex Trebeck would be proud.

 

Other things we did - we went to two comedy shoes. One was way funnier than the other. I'm sorry I don't recall the names of the comedians. The funnier one was earlier in the week. The not-as-funny one was later in the week and basically just made sex jokes. Now, I love a good sex joke, but these weren't really even that funny. Still he wasn't terrible.

 

Oh we watched the "thriller dance class" in the Victoriana lounge - if we weren't 10 minutes late I probably would've been up there. It looked so fun! By the end everyone on stage was doing the Thriller dance pretty well!

 

We also saw something in Victoriana where there were 3 guys on stage and you had to guess who was giving the real definition of something .. I can't remember what it was called but the 3 guys were hysterical.

 

Lastly we saw the Newlywed game and absolutely loved it. The CD Brad did a great job as host and the contestants were hysterical. That was probably my favorite entertainment thing on the ship. I hope one day to be as happy and funny as the couple that had been married for 50 + years.

 

OK bands and lounge acts --

 

In the lounge there was always this duo called Rhythm Limit. They were Filipino and they sang standard type songs. The man played the keyboard and sang, while the girl sang. They were good and sang a wide variety of songs.

 

There was another guy on the ship that sang country songs. He was great too!

 

pictures:

 

Victoriana theater

 

 

Rhythm Limit

 

 

 

I didn't have too many other pictures.

 

Summary: Great entertainment, always something to see or do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

...to be continued

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The Spa

 

I couldn't really get any spa treatments - they wouldn't let me have any massages due to being pregnant. So I opted to get the "fire and ice" manicure.

 

This involved a manicure + a hot rock massage on the hands and arms.

 

The manicure was good, the nail tech was really nice and we talked a lot. The nailpolish selection left a lot to be desired. Guys, you probably don't care about this but girls, there literally was maybe 15 colors to choose from - 99% of them either pink or red. I'm non traditional when it comes to polish, I was hoping to find a bit more variety in the color department. I picked a grape-y pink and she did a good job painting my nails.. or so I thought.

 

Two days later they started chipping and by the time I got off the boat I had literally peeled off the polish. It came off like a sticker!! I wasn't in the pool a lot or doing anything that would cause it. I'm kind of a nailpolish junkie and that never happens to me. I know I should've complained but I liked the girl and I didn't want to get her in trouble or anything. I'll just not get a manicure on the ship again. Maybe next time I'll try a massage. It's pricey but hey, it's vacation!

 

I don't have pictures from the spa.

 

Summary: Spa is expensive and my manicure wasn't good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

...to be continued

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I think we're nearing the finish line! We've covered the ports, food, entertainment, gambling, and spa. What's left? I think I need to just wrap it up!

 

Summary

 

In summary, I know I went into the cruise thinking I'd hate it, but in all honestly I had a great time! And me saying I had a great time (completely sober, lol) is no small thing. Will I still fly to islands in the Caribbean, stay at small places and spend all afternoon in a rum shop? Of course. But I'll also definitely do another cruise. In fact, we bought a future cruise certificate while on board. We plan to go next spring when the baby will be a bit over 6 months old. Trying to convince the rest of our family to join us as well. It'll be a trip, that's for sure!

 

Oh and I didn't really touch too much on the service - but everyone on the boat, from the guy washing the floor near the elevator to the hostess to the bartenders was insanely nice. Employees were always smiling and looked genuinely happy to be there. I loved that aspect of the cruise also - friendly people are just awesome, and I definitely appreciated that.

 

I think that's it for this review - feel free to ask any questions, as I probably missed out on lots of things. I'll leave you with a few more pictures from our trip:

 

Rainbow while leaving St Thomas:

 

Antigua:

 

Elephant Towel Animal:

 

 

St Thomas:

 

Front view of the ship:

 

 

Thanks for reading and thanks for all the comments so far!

 

 

...The End!

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Oops, I said I was done, but one more thing, if anyone wants to see the full 350+ pictures, visit my picasa album here.

 

[riclop]

Thanks for the very detailed review and good luck with the baby!!

[cruzlovr75]

Wow what a great review! I love your beach photos. Congrats on your pregnancy. :)