Freedom Questions and Advice

[poisonivynicole]

Any advice or comments are welcome! Taking my husband and 9 year old daughter on their first cruise in March! We will be visiting Belize, Mahognay Bay and Cozumel. What are some good excursions or ideas for these locations? Traveling with my daughter and she will also be interested in Camp Carnival. What should we/she expect? There seems to be little information on the freedom, or at least less than other ships.

[besito20]

We will also be on the Freedom this March! Have you checked out the Roll Calls here on CC? You will find tons of info there and here. Search for threads and there are several that have detailed reviews.

 

My kids are 10 yr and 8 yrs old and super excited about Camp Ocean! :)

[overeasy]

I am cruising Freedom nest month for the first time and just recently noticed the sticky at the top of the carnival forums for the "virtual tour of the freedom" with 1700 photos. Lots of great pics. I had wondered about decor, and layout of red frog pub for example - the photos answered those questions.

[PAPERBKWRITER]

We did that itinerary on Freedom in Nov. The ship is a typical Carnival experience. Nothing bad to say about anything there. Ports; Rotaan, we got a tour of the island in the morning. Saw everything (2 hours $80 plus we tipped the driver $20 4 people) Its a bit of a walk but go to the taxi stand and make your deal there. DON"T get sucked into a private tour you find on line. they can't come in the port area and you'll walk about a mile to get to them. In the afternoon we had lunch on the ship and then walked to a beautiful beach very close to the ship. (free). Belize; not a place to walk around. (pier area fenced in) It's a tender port and if you want to do something there I'd make arrangements ahead of time. Cozumel, lots of shopping at the pier area with huge crowds. Lots of options to do something there.

[tandemcruzr]

DON"T get sucked into a private tour you find on line. they can't come in the port area and you'll walk about a mile to get to them.

 

We've done private tours 3 times now. Our first, we had to do the walk. :(

 

Now, you can grab a cab from the port for $2 pp to take you over the hill to the private tours. Upon return, the private tours have access to the port where they drop you off in the taxi area. :)

[PAPERBKWRITER]

We've done private tours 3 times now. Our first, we had to do the walk. :(

 

Now, you can grab a cab from the port for $2 pp to take you over the hill to the private tours. Upon return, the private tours have access to the port where they drop you off in the taxi area. :)

 

I think we had this conversation before. What I found; When I talked to the taxi moderator and asked if he could match the deal, he did. AND for us 4 pp @$2 plus a $2 tip adds $10. Why would you want to do that? SO, after getting stood up by the private tour operator I'll stick by my opinion.

[steph7021]

We did this itinerary on the Freedom. Our favorite place to be was the aft pool and the Red Frog. These are great places for adults when your daughter is in camp...which is fun by all accounts, but it does sometimes depend on the personality of the child.

 

In Roatan we did Little French Key booked through them...fantastic place! Yes, you walk a bit but it wasn't a big deal (or take a cab). In Belize we booked through Carnival for the ruins. Long day, long drive...totally worth it. In Cozumel we did a scuba dive. I definitely wouldn't hang out in port areas but we never do.

 

Have fun!

[poisonivynicole]

Thank you everyone! Such great information!

[VitaminDLover]

While we are due to sail the Freedom in April, we just did this itinerary this past April. Here's what we did...

 

Cozumel-We've been here before, but did a Carnival sponsored excursion which caused us to be first off the ship and the last back on, we didn't get to shop or look around at all. This time we chose to do our own thing. There is LOTS of shopping in the terminal area. We also got out and just walked around for a bit. Pancho's Backyard (in the terminal area) is amazing!!

 

Belize-I organized a private cave tubing excursion for a group of 100 from our roll call page. I booked this through cavetubing.bz. I would HIGHLY recommend them! While I was SUPER organized, they definitely helped me along the way and gave us a great deal!

 

Roatan-By far our favorite port of call from this itinerary! We booked another private tour here with Victor Bodden tours. After doing an extensive amount of research on here I decided to go with them and to ask for TEX as our driver. We had collected school supplies with our roll call page so the 10 of us in our "little" group asked Tex to take us to the place in most need. He took us to his alma mater and we were introduced to the administrators and children. It was very eye opening and amazing. He then took us to a shopping area that was on a cliff that overlooked a bay of sorts. BEAUTIFUL! We had a few of us that wanted to zip line, so we headed there. Tex was able to get us an awesome deal by negotiating with the locals so we all ended up doing this. This was by far my absolutely favorite part of the day! We also got to see the monkeys there. We ended our day by going to a beach! While there is a bit of a walk to get to the private tour operators it was by far worth it as we never would've found this experience through the ship!

 

Hope this helps and I hope you have an amazing cruise!!

[pjinaz]

Went on the Freedom last September and loved it. Great ship, loved the crew and fellow passengers. Cozumel is fun and a lot to do. We went to nachi cocum, nice beach, not crowded, decent food and drinks. Nice but laid back and quiet. If you want more of party or active day go to paradise or mr. Snachos. Both are very nice as well.

 

In Rohattan we rented a cabana on the beach. It was great. Private relaxing and great service. It was at the beach just off the boat. There are much nicer beaches but it was nice to not have to travel and the beach and water was nice enough. Port area has shopping and Fat Tuesday fine, but carnival built port area and so not kinda hokey, but fine.

 

Belize we walked around town. Very hot there. I did not feel at all scared and felt the belizean people were kind and friendly. Not much to do, walked around, went to a nice restaurant on the water and had lunch. Not much to do and very poor. I probably would not go back but I felt safe.

[poisonivynicole]

Thank you everyone! I think we have decided on which excursions to do in Mahogany Bay and Cozumel. Belize is the only one we are not sure about. I have read a lot of really good reviews about cave tubing as far as the company goes. It seems like people say the company is great but the excursion itself wasn't that exciting and that the water can be pretty shallow. I am sure it depends what you expect. Maybe we will just do some snorkeling. Glad to hear you did not feel scared while walking around Belize. We have been warned its not safe and of course that makes me concerned. I appreciate all the tips!

[Livin4Real]

I think we had this conversation before. What I found; When I talked to the taxi moderator and asked if he could match the deal, he did. AND for us 4 pp @$2 plus a $2 tip adds $10. Why would you want to do that? SO, after getting stood up by the private tour operator I'll stick by my opinion.

 

Not sure who your tour company was but we loved Bodden Tours in Roatan. Great people, wonderful tour!

[DobberDog]

We did this itinerary on the Dream in Jan 2015 and will be doing it again on the Breeze in September 2016. We did Bodden Tours in Roatan and it was the best $120 (private van for our party of 9 with tours, zip lining & monkeys at Bodden estate).

 

My 14 yr old son and I did the River Wallace and ruins excursion through Carnival in Belize. AMAZING!!!!!!!!!! We got rained on since it was rainy season but it was the best non scuba diving excursion we have done with Carnival. Would highly recommend it and would do it again.