Freedom OTS Trip Review - 10/30/16 - Freedom's Farewell to Port Canaveral

[fletch1027]

So, I have reviewed several days so far, and there’s a chance (so you're saying there's a chance...) that some folks have wondered what we actually do on a cruise because as I recall, I haven’t mentioned a whole lot of that kind of stuff. :-)

 

Well, my wife and I love trivia. We play it every Wednesday at a local Mexican restaurant. In turn we love playing trivia on the ship. Maybe the fact that Freedom's Schooner is next door to the new Sabor location is why I feel at home there playing trivia (on the other hand, us playing trivia weekly at a Mexican restaurant is why I have no desire to eat at Sabor).

 

Using this as an example, an 8 is a pretty accurate representation of our trivia insanity level:

 

 

 

On this thermometer, a nine would be the people that keep notebooks full of previous cruise questions and answers and a ten would be the people that argue with the staff about answers. Yes, we all know that the movie is called Raiders of the Lost Ark and not Indiana Jones, but you’re on a cruise playing for a pen so let it go. :-)

 

I consider us extremely competitive but also casual and when the game is over, it’s all in good fun. Here are the trivia’s we attended with some commentary. There were a few other ones that we did not make it to:

 

Day 1:

Movie Theme – I’m a movie buff and love this

 

Day 2:

Ultimate 80's – I was born in 1970 so this is in my wheelhouse

 

Music – I can’t remember the specific genre

 

70's Music – This was fun but we didn’t do very well

 

Day 3:

Picture – This was the first time I have played with photos

 

Broadway Music – This is my wife’s wheelhouse

 

Day 4:

Michael Jackson – My wife also loves Michael Jackson but there were some hardcores playing. Here’s a hint for anyone on a cruise that plays this. Learn what songs like “Liberian Girl”, “You Rock My World”, and “They Don’t Really Care About Us” sound like. That’s my reward to you for making it through this trip report! :-)

 

Day 5:

Morning – They do it every morning but this was the only one we played. This is one of the harder ones because the questions are scattered over many topics.

 

Ultimate Harry Potter – This one was played in the Egyptian Lounge and was VERY hard. You need to be up on the books and movies to compete. If you’re not but still like Harry Potter, it is still a lot of fun.

 

Classic Rock Hits – This one was a lot of fun as well with songs from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s

 

Just so everyone reading this doesn't think we are sociopaths, trivia is also a great place to meet new people. Usually we meet folks on the 1st or 2nd day and team up with them the rest of the cruise. There are people we met a year ago (as well as a new travel agent) that we are still in contact and friends with from meeting them through trivia.

 

For this trip, we were actually a team of two for a few of them until we found a few others to team up with. We ended up doing very well for the week. We won five times (that’s the competitive side in me that counts these things), second place a couple of times, and worse than that a couple of times. The ones we won are in bold above.

 

As we were finishing our packing, I thought it would be fun to get a photo of all of the trivia winnings in one photo. As you can see, the value of all ten of these things is under $10 total, but you can’t put a price tag on pride. :-)

 

 

 

Later we headed to the MDR for our last dinner of the cruise. One trick I always do is take a photo of the wait staff at our table so I can reference it later for things like the occasional extra gratuity, survey recognition, and of course trip reports!

 

 

 

I can’t remember if this happens on every cruise (I think it does) but at least on this cruise the wait staff sung and our waiter Kenyata definitely put everything into it. :-)

 

 

 

After dinner, we headed back to the room to find our last towel animal of the trip – the majestic monkey:

 

 

 

We then attended the farewell show. They made a big deal of it this time. Besides a rehash by the CD and short sets from the comedians and band, they recognized the whole crew in light of the “last Port Canaveral cruise” event:

 

 

 

On the way back to the room we stopped by On-Air to watch some of the Thursday night NFL game which featured my Falcons whipping up on Tampa Bay. Ironically, it was only a 5 night cruise, but while on it, the Falcons were 2-0. Maybe I should book a quick cruise during the playoffs! :-)

 

Next up, I will mention our first time attempting a self-disembarkation and a summary of the “extras” we paid for and what I thought of them.

 

To be continued…

 

[fletch1027]

Unfortunately, this is the morning we get kicked off the ship… :-(

 

I awoke and headed out to the balcony to see an early morning version of what I saw the previous Sunday:

 

 

 

I had mentioned in a previous post that we had decided to self-disembark. We chose this method (first time we have done it) because we didn’t bring as much for a 5-night cruise and we didn’t want to have to find and claim our luggage. However, seeing the tags they dropped off (Group 32 – aka last), sealed it for us. :-)

 

We decided to skip breakfast in exchange for a little more sleep. We then did a last search of the cabin to make sure we didn’t leave anything behind (including the safe), and we headed out of the cabin right at 6:50, feeling like people just evicted from an apartment.

 

We arrived down on deck 4 a few minutes before the time to self-disembark and were very surprised to see how many people were down there already! Having never done it before, I wasn’t sure if this was how it usually is or if it was more popular this sailing because of the 2 less nights than normal? Either way, I took a couple of photos of my place in line

 

Looking forward

 

 

 

Looking backwards

 

 

 

As the process began, the line would shorten as people would start trickling off, then as any of the elevators opened, several more people would take their place at the end back in the casino.

 

The process actually went pretty fast as we walked the plank then started snaking our way through the terminal

 

 

 

As we were heading out, I had to grab a photo of the side of the ship when I noticed it said “FREEDO OF THE S”. Either the crew were playing the largest game of Wheel of Fortune ever or the ship needs to pull over at a Home Depot on the way down to Fort Lauderdale to buy some light bulbs. I thought the new LED’s never burnt out?? :-)

 

 

 

The trip through customs went pretty fast and there was a reliable Park n Cruise shuttle waiting which zipped us right back to our car which had already been pulled around and had the trunk popped!

 

Here is a quick time summary of our morning:

 

6:50 – Left room

7:30 – Got through customs

7:45 – In our car driving out of Park n Cruise

 

A total of 55 minutes is well beyond acceptable for going cabin to car!

 

It was a pretty uneventful drive home. I haven’t discussed it here on CC before, but I am an avid BBQ smoker of all things pork and beef! Coincidentally, the same weekend we were driving home was the same weekend as one of the most famous BBQ competitions in the US, the Big Pig Jig in Vienna, GA.

 

Unfortunately, on this Friday, they were not opening to the public until 5pm. We had to get to the kennel to pick up the dogs before they closed or we would have gone for sure! My only souvenir from the Jig was this photo we took of the parking area as we rolled by on the interstate:

 

 

 

Well, that's our cruise! We have another one coming up on Freedom in just over a month from now, which will definitely be the least amount of time for us between cruises.

 

I will have one more “official” post where I will comment on some of the things we chose to buy this time that we haven’t in the past and whether I feel like we got our money’s worth…

 

[fletch1027]

This will be my last “official” post for this trip report besides answering any questions or comments anyone has, but that seems unlikely based on the amount of comments my last several posts have received over the last week or so of posts. :-)

 

I wanted to review some of the things we paid extra for on this cruise. By extra I mean things that are available to buy in the cruise planner at an additional cost or in the case of cabins, more expensive than the base interior cabin.

 

 

 

Voom internet was a necessity for us as Jen needed to occasionally work during the week. I also like to occasionally have access to the outside world. That being said, for anyone that gets Voom, I would only recommend getting the “surf and stream” option. Sometimes they offer something called “surf only”, which we got because it was a few dollars left – but it is horribly slow – similar to the speed in the pre-Voom days onboard.

 

Tip #1: If you know you are going to need it, buy it pre-cruise because it is typically 30% off the onboard price.

 

Tip #2: To save some money, it's very easy for two people to share a 1 device package.

 

 

 

Next up are the drink package options. Neither of us drink alcohol, so for us there are two drink package options: the lowest one is the soda only package which is now called the “Classic Soda Package” and currently costs $8 per day. The next one up is the “Refreshment Package” which costs $26 per day. On previous cruises, we always get the soda package because we all love soda and are willing to pay the $8 per day. The main differences between Refreshment and Soda is: fresh squeezed orange juice, non-alcoholic bar drinks (typically the frozen ones), some hot drinks, and bottled water (also includes all same soda privileges).

 

The cheap person in me looked at the difference between the two packages (which is $18 a day), then took that number to see if it would be cost effective to consider that package. The $18 could be covered by 1 OJ ($3), a frozen drink ($7-8), and a couple of bottled waters ($3-4 each). At that rate plus the soda, there is no way to me that the price difference is worth it.

 

However, a month or so before the cruise, the Refreshment Package went on sale for I believe $16 a day. I figured that between the now $10 difference between it and the Soda and the shorter 5 night length of the cruise, it was now worth it to give it a shot.

 

Verdict: we definitely took advantage of the daily fresh squeezed OJ in the WJ every morning, a few frozen drinks per day, and several bottles of water per day. However, I don’t feel like it is worth the regular price and it’s borderline worth it at the discounted price.

 

 

 

 

This one was interesting. On all of our previous cruises the only specialty dining we had done was the Izumi Hibachi on the Allure, and it was a great experience and value because it cost around the same as a nice Hibachi restaurant here at home and it is also our DD’s favorite place to go on occasions like her birthday.

 

Anyway, we were not planning to do any specialty dining on this cruise until I saw the BOGO deal mentioned in the cruise planner and in several CC threads. Since it was just the two of us on this cruise, we decided to give it a try. It was technically a little more than a BOGO when eating at Chops because Chops is $35 and the BOGO price is $30.

 

Verdict: I went into a lot of detail about our experiences at Chops and Giovanni’s Table earlier in the report, but in summary, while they were both great I wouldn’t recommend the extra expense unless you have the BOGO deal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The three above photos were some of the several I took from our balcony which was our first one on the Freedom. Previously we have stayed in traditional interior and Promenade view interior. We originally had a Promenade interior booked for this cruise, but after final payment the prices dropped enough that we upgraded to this balcony for around $100 for the both of us so I figured we would give it a try.

 

For our Freedom cruise next month, we are back in a Promenade interior. I liked our balcony, but I think my favorite “bang for the buck” room is still the Promenade interior (unless you get an awesome deal to upgrade to a balcony).

 

Promenade interior tip: There are three decks (6, 7, and 8) with Promenade interior rooms. The ones on the deck 8 are actually a tiny bit bigger because the window bulges out and slants down to enable a better view of the Promenade.

 

 

Well that wraps things up! It was a great cruise and I hope Oasis can be as beloved a ship in Port Canaveral as Freedom has been for the last 8-9 years!

 

 

For those of you that made it through this whole journey - congratulations and I hope there was something of benefit for you! :-)

 

 

As always, any questions or comments, let me know…

 

 

[scottygirl]

Thank you for your review. It helps me with my Freedom cruise next month.

 

 

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[easyboy]

Thank you again for the great review, especially the tips on your recap.

Looking forward to the review of your next cruise.

[sg1phileshipper]

Thanks a lot for your wonderful review and your tips about the drink package. I hope the refreshment package goes on sale for my cruise. Can you tell me if it includes lattes at the cafe promenade. Thank you.

 

 

Cindy

[John&LaLa]

Thanks a lot for your wonderful review and your tips about the drink package. I hope the refreshment package goes on sale for my cruise. Can you tell me if it includes lattes at the cafe promenade. Thank you.

 

 

Cindy

Hi Cindy, we ended up back on the Rhapsody TA this April.

 

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[sg1phileshipper]

Hi Cindy, we ended up back on the Rhapsody TA this April.

 

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Forums mobile app

 

 

I just looked at it this morning, what a price! I hope you'll have a wonderful cruise. I am sure gonna miss the solarium on Freedom :).

 

 

Cindy

[harryfat1]

Thanks again for doing your trip report. Reading your report prior to our cruise helped in planning for our Freedom cruise. I even stole some photo ideas from you…:p

 

As a fellow reviewer, I appreciate the time and effort it takes in doing each one of these reports.

 

Well Done!

[fletch1027]

Thank you for your review. It helps me with my Freedom cruise next month.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Forums mobile app

 

What week next month will you be on Freedom? We will be on the 8-night leaving on Feb. 18th!

[dizneydawn]

What week next month will you be on Freedom? We will be on the 8-night leaving on Feb. 18th!

 

 

And we will be on the 8 night leaving February 4th!

Thank you so much for your review! I keep watching the price of the refreshment package for our cruise. It would be so awesome to catch it on sale like u did!

 

 

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[casinostreer]

 

 

For our Freedom cruise next month, we are back in a Promenade interior. I liked our balcony, but I think my favorite “bang for the buck” room is still the Promenade interior (unless you get an awesome deal to upgrade to a balcony).

 

 

Our favorite room on any ship will always be the Promenade rooms on Freedom!

 

Thanks for the review of our favorite ship! Love the pics

[fletch1027]

And we will be on the 8 night leaving February 4th!

Thank you so much for your review! I keep watching the price of the refreshment package for our cruise. It would be so awesome to catch it on sale like u did!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

 

Question for you. What do you guys have planned for the St. Kitt's day?

 

We have never been there and I have been digging around looking for something fun to do besides the usual beach days...

 

 

 

 

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[fletch1027]

Thanks a lot for your wonderful review and your tips about the drink package. I hope the refreshment package goes on sale for my cruise. Can you tell me if it includes lattes at the cafe promenade. Thank you.

 

 

Cindy

 

No problem - glad you made it all the way to the end! :)

 

I don't drink coffee so I never worried about it, but the official list of what the Refreshment Package includes mentions "premium coffee and premium tea".

 

I know that sounds vague, but I believe that it would include lattes @ Cafe Promenade because from what folks here on CC have said the only coffee not included is if the ship has a Starbucks, but you may want to clarify with a general post on CC and you will likely get a more definitive answer...

[fletch1027]

Thanks again for doing your trip report. Reading your report prior to our cruise helped in planning for our Freedom cruise. I even stole some photo ideas from you…:p

 

As a fellow reviewer, I appreciate the time and effort it takes in doing each one of these reports.

 

Well Done!

 

Harry,

 

Your trip reports are awesome - I'll gladly accept the title as the 2nd best Harry (my real name) on CC! :)

 

Glad you enjoyed my report, and no worries about lifting photo ideas from me because I got most of my photo ideas from a great trip reporter of the past, so we all borrow from each other. Her CC screen name is KansCocoa. It looks like she isn't active on CC anymore. :( Her last post was over two years ago, but her trip reports are awesome and I got some great ideas from her - especially getting onboard early and exploring the ship and getting some initial photos before it gets busy! :D

[scottygirl]

What week next month will you be on Freedom? We will be on the 8-night leaving on Feb. 18th!

 

6 night leaving Feb 26th so keep her in good shape for us!

[dizneydawn]

Question for you. What do you guys have planned for the St. Kitt's day?

 

We have never been there and I have been digging around looking for something fun to do besides the usual beach days...

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

I think we will probably go to Discovery Beach Bar. I was leaning towards Carambola Beach Club but just saw a long review of someone that went there and enjoyed it but wondered down the beach and found Discovery Beach Bar and said she would likely go there next time. So I looked at it on TripAdvisor (am I allowed to say that??!!) and the reviews were pretty awesome. It is not as shiny/new appearing but looks like the food and drinks are amazing!

 

 

 

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[n5749w]

I think we will probably go to Discovery Beach Bar. I was leaning towards Carambola Beach Club but just saw a long review of someone that went there and enjoyed it but wondered down the beach and found Discovery Beach Bar and said she would likely go there next time. So I looked at it on TripAdvisor (am I allowed to say that??!!) and the reviews were pretty awesome. It is not as shiny/new appearing but looks like the food and drinks are amazing!

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

 

 

Looking this up too! Thanks for the heads up!

 

We were wanting to do a catamaran tour with snorkeling and possibly a trip over to Nevis. I contacted a couple companies and I'm still waiting to hear back if it is possible.

 

 

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[harryfat1]

Harry,

 

Your trip reports are awesome - I'll gladly accept the title as the 2nd best Harry (my real name) on CC! :)

 

Glad you enjoyed my report, and no worries about lifting photo ideas from me because I got most of my photo ideas from a great trip reporter of the past, so we all borrow from each other. Her CC screen name is KansCocoa. It looks like she isn't active on CC anymore. :( Her last post was over two years ago, but her trip reports are awesome and I got some great ideas from her - especially getting onboard early and exploring the ship and getting some initial photos before it gets busy! :D

 

Yes, I know of her reviews from the past. I read her reports as a preparation for my Allure cruise 2 years ago. She’s very entertaining. I stole some of my trip report formats from her as well.

 

I don’t think my trip report is better than yours or anyone else’s. Mine are just longer as I have more stupid jokes to dish out. More isn’t better. It’s just more.

 

You and I have similar interest in Disney and seek out value for money spent so I appreciate your approach. Everyone cruises differently and it’s good to see how others do it.

 

It’s like a potluck party; everyone brings something different to the table in their review style and technique. I see you have just started another new trip report on the Allure. You’re just a trip reporting fiend…

Edited January 11, 2017 by harryfat1

[Namelocg]

Fletch,

Thank you for the great review. I'll be on the Freedom for the TA on April 23rd. If you get back to the Ft Lauderdale area give me a holler. My husband has 2 smokers, a grill and a wok station set up on our back patio. He doesn't compete but he makes awesome ribs and brisket.

You can reach me at my screen name at aol dot com.

 

Gale

[fletch1027]

6 night leaving Feb 26th so keep her in good shape for us!

 

Will do!! :D

[fletch1027]

Yes, I know of her reviews from the past. I read her reports as a preparation for my Allure cruise 2 years ago. She’s very entertaining. I stole some of my trip report formats from her as well.

 

I don’t think my trip report is better than yours or anyone else’s. Mine are just longer as I have more stupid jokes to dish out. More isn’t better. It’s just more.

 

You and I have similar interest in Disney and seek out value for money spent so I appreciate your approach. Everyone cruises differently and it’s good to see how others do it.

 

It’s like a potluck party; everyone brings something different to the table in their review style and technique. I see you have just started another new trip report on the Allure. You’re just a trip reporting fiend…

 

 

More could be better depending on what the more is. :)

 

You are right in that it is fun to see how everyone does things. There can be 3,500 people all sailing on Freedom in the same direction but they all have different priorities and things they like to do.

 

I figured I needed to continue the momentum while I still had it and get the Allure report done while it was still less than a year since I went... :D

[fletch1027]

Fletch,

Thank you for the great review. I'll be on the Freedom for the TA on April 23rd. If you get back to the Ft Lauderdale area give me a holler. My husband has 2 smokers, a grill and a wok station set up on our back patio. He doesn't compete but he makes awesome ribs and brisket.

You can reach me at my screen name at aol dot com.

 

Gale

 

That sounds awesome! Unfortunately we usually get to FFL on cruise morning then hit the road to drive back to Georgia right off the ship.

 

I see in your profile that you are in Pembroke Pines. I grew up in Miramar until the mid 80's when we moved up here to Georgia right at the beginning of high school...

[cgolf1]

The spreadsheet club is growing! :D

 

There are many out there that OCD people like me use. This one is pretty straightforward (and is based on an Allure cruise):

 

- Cruise days & MDR daily dinner menu at top

- Dark gray are the times we are in port

- Green is when I booked MTD

- Blue are shows that can be pre-booked

- Bottom is the uber-OCD tip section where I tried to determine how much I would be paying in tips for excursions, extra grats, taxi's, etc. Then I broke it down by bill size and went to the bank before leaving and got it all ahead of time. My goal was to have enough small bills for the trip so I never had to wait in line forever at Guest Services just to have them break a couple of 20's for me. On the 2nd tab there are some random tip and excursion notes from a previous Western itinerary on Freedom from a couple years ago... :cool:

 

I copied it up to my google drive and shared it. Let me know if this link works:

 

Cruise Planning Spreadsheet

 

 

 

.

 

Seeing that you have the shows being listed as prebookable, is this on sip or before sailing? We haven't seen the option to prebook on the RCCL website. One more question, we got the soda only package, how does that work for meals, do we need our mug or is soda handled by the waitstaff?

 

Our 2 cents on DCL, is they were worth it until their recent price raises while cutting back some perks and onboard things. So for frequent cruisers they pushed us over to trying our first RCCL cruise.

Edited January 17, 2017 by cgolf1

[fletch1027]

Seeing that you have the shows being listed as prebookable, is this on sip or before sailing? We haven't seen the option to prebook on the RCCL website. One more question, we got the soda only package, how does that work for meals, do we need our mug or is soda handled by the waitstaff?

 

Our 2 cents on DCL, is they were worth it until their recent price raises while cutting back some perks and onboard things. So for frequent cruisers they pushed us over to trying our first RCCL cruise.

 

Pre-booking shows online pre-cruise depends on the ship you are sailing on. On Oasis class (Oasis, Allure, Harmony), most shows can be pre-booked. On others (like Freedom), they do not do pre-cruise booking. If you get there 15-20 minutes ahead of time you will be fine.

 

In regards to the soda package, you do not need to bring your mug to dinner (Main Dining Room or specialty restaurants). The wait staff will being you soda in a glass. Your seapass will indicate that you bought a drink package. That's also true at any bar (getting soda in a glass if you don't have your mug).

 

Hope that helps! :)