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Let FREEDOM ring! A picture review of our 2/25/17 cruise!

watermelonqueen99
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watermelonqueen99

watermelonqueen99

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Great review! Can't wait to see if you met your "goal" by the end of the cruise (or at least by the 3rd day - the first 2 don't count 'cause you're sailing out of Galveston). Keep the good times rollin' looking forward to the next installment.

 

Oh, the suspense of did I or didn't I.....stay tuned! Lol Thanks for reading!

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watermelonqueen99

watermelonqueen99

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Hey, everyone, sorry for the delay in posting. Literally the morning after we got back from the lake, we had to hit the road again for work. We travel a LOT for work. Now, I went back and forth on whether or not to tell you all this next part, because I don't want to make you jealous and have you stop reading my review, but this week we are in a very exotic* location. Palm trees, sand, beaches. We're staying at a 5 star resort, where we have our very own butler. This is the life.

 

(*Reality: We're at a Super 8 in Wichita, KS.)

 

I have a little bit of free time this evening, so I will be working on my next installment. The WiFi isn't the best here, but it isn't the Trump Toupee of the WiFi world like the lake resort was, so I should be able to upload pictures.

 

Stay tuned.....

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watermelonqueen99

watermelonqueen99

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When I left off, we had just left the nightclub. Now that we've all popped a couple Estrogen pills (yes, the men too) to try to combat the hot flashes that Floyd's sexyhot dance moves gave us, let's move on. (I have absolutely no idea where we would have gotten Estrogen pills, but let's go with it.) We're going to skip ahead a little bit here. Where do you go after the Alchemy bar closes, you haven't quite hit your Cheers goal, and you still want some more time to make a complete fool out of yourself? That's right kids, the piano bar! The place where, by the end of the night, we're all singing along, out loud, because in our heads we sound just like Elton John. We wonder why the staff hasn't called the Entertainment Director up so that he/she could offer us all jobs on the spot. (Spoiler alert: That hasn't happened because in reality, we actually sound like those people who try out for American Idol and they're so bad that they only show their audition to make everyone laugh. We hear Ray Charles beautifully crooning "Georgia on my Mind," while the sober people hear William Hung singing "She Bangs.") Here's the entrance to Scott's Piano Bar:

 

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The PBE was Bob, the same guy we had on the Dream last August. He's pretty good. He gets pretty raunchy after 10:00, so being the respectable lady that I am (I'm basically the American Kate Middleton*), I make sure to get there early to get a good seat. I have done some things I'm not proud of on a piano bar stool on many a Carnival ship, but who hasn't? (The 95% of my readers who raised their hand and said "me" can have a seat. I don't need to feel any worse about myself.) But I've been able to get most of the charges dropped. And getting a new identity wasn't THAT hard, at least not the first couple of times. And I think that one thing I did is a sin in 14 different religions, but I'm not really religious so I think I'm good there....... But I digress. Here's the inside of the piano bar:

 

(*Fact check: I am the polar opposite of Kate Middleton.)

 

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Now that they've kicked us out of the piano bar for indecency (I can't take ya'll anywhere! Sheesh!*), let's take a look at the International Aft Lounge. This is where karaoke and the comedy shows were held. I'm sorry for the blurriness and lack of pics of the inside. We briefly went to karaoke one evening, politely sat through one passenger's performance who made my singing voice sound like Adele (if Adele had just gotten over a severe cold, had mild laryngitis and was also hungover from the night before, but still), so we didn't go back. And seeing as we don't go to the comedy shows or anything, we never made it back in there. Here it is, looking at it from the outside in:

 

(*Okay, so it was ME who was trying to take my clothes off and pole dance on that big red support beam. Does that make me a bad person?!?)

 

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Here's the screen advertising one of the comedians. Like I said, we didn't go to any of the comedy shows, so I don't know if this Kat was any good. See what I did there? I'll be here all week. (Actually, at this rate, I'll still be here trying to finish this review when the Freedom has been scrapped for two decades and the Horizon is the oldest ship in the fleet.):

 

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To be continued:

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watermelonqueen99

watermelonqueen99

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When I left off, we had just gotten thrown out of the piano bar, so we peeked into the comedy club. It didn't look like there was anything inappropriate or questionable going on in there, so we didn't go in. In my last installment, I deliberately skipped ahead a little on our tour of deck 5 because I wanted to save these next pics for last. We had spent our day playing cards, people watching, drinking (duh!), making sure our doctors had job security by having a mid-day Guy's burger, and bar hopping. This is the night that we settled into "our bar" for the week.

 

This next photo is so heartbreaking-ly beautiful. I hope the curators of the Louvre never see it, because they will call for the immediate removal of the Mona Lisa and they will replace it with this picture. I really don't want to be responsible for that, but I guess I'll take that chance for the sake of my review. Ladies and gentlemen, remove your hats and place your hands over your hearts as I present to you the crowning glory of the Carnival Freedom:

 

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Gazing upon that picture inspires me to do many things. Write poetry. ("Roses are red, vodka is clear, pour me another drink." I'll give you a moment to wipe away the tear that the beauty of that prose invoked.) Recite Shakespeare. ("Cuervo, Cuervo, wherefore art thou Cuervo?" I'm pretty sure that's an accurate Shakespeare quote.) Do missionary work. (Go around to areas that lack a sufficient number of liquor stores and hand out those mini bottles of booze that you get on airplanes.) But most of all, it brings back some amazing memories. The people we met on those bar-stools, the connections we made, the laughter, the conversation, are all things we'll never forget. Allow me to introduce to you the Alchemy Bar Dream Team: Inga, Zsolt, and Anna:

 

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Words fail me when trying to convey just how amazing these 3 were. They took such good care of us and all of our new friends the entire week. I especially made a connection with Inga, and got quite emotional as I said goodbye to her on the last night. They were phenomenal. If you're cruising on the Freedom soon and you see these 3, know that you are in for an amazing week. Now, I don't which one of you rude b*&^%$s started cutting up onions in here, but let's move on.

 

We spent the rest of the night at Alchemy, getting to know the bartenders, talking to our fellow passengers, and striving toward that goal of 15. I am PROUD to say that on this day, we made it. (Feel free to leave congratulatory messages below. We'll need something to read when we go to detox. ) At home, we don't eat or drink sugar. So when we're on vacation, we drink that s#&t down like it's liquid crack. We tried pretty much everything on the menu over the course of the week. (Thank you, inventor of the Cheers package. You rank right up there with the creator of the Magic Eraser, and I wish I could kiss your face.) I took some pics of the menu if you're interested. Notice in that first pic, you can see that I really dressed up this evening by wearing my best pair of flip-flops. And you'll also notice a hint of the Carnival themed pedicure that I paid a very hefty price for* at an upscale salon in Houston:

 

(*Reality: I found the idea on Pinterest, and I had C recreate it for me in our Comfort Suites hotel room with nail polish I bought at Wal-Mart. He used to paint model cars as a hobby in high school, and obviously that was the Universe preparing him to become his future cheap wife's pedicurist. Is that not pure fate and the most romantic thing you've ever heard? The Notebook ain't got nothing on us.)

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This is the "French Kiss." It was so pretty and classy looking that while sipping on it, I felt like I should get dressed up in my best "Knot's Landing" cosplay, go lay by the pool in a chaise lounge, and light up a Virginia Slim. But I forgot my silk negligee circa 1987, it was too d*mn hot to go out on Lido, and I don't smoke. So I just stayed there at the bar and drank up:

 

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By mid-week, our bartenders had learned (not really) that the easiest way to offend us and make us throw a bigger tantrum than a Platinum card holder who had not been offered a red carpet on the gangway during boarding, was to put fruit or anything green in our drinks. So excuse the offensive strawberries, and behold the beauty of my favorite Alchemy drink, "The Deal Closer":

 

 

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Having reached our goal for the day and also closed down the bar, we were feeling pretty good. We casually strolled* back to the cabin and had us a good night's sleep. We were looking forward to our second sea day the next day.

 

(*Translation: By casually strolled, I mean that by the time we got back to our room, I had lost one flip-flop, knocked 3 of those phones that hang in the hallways off their cradle, invited 5 strangers back to our room, and was covered in several mysterious bruises. In other words, it was an amazing night!)

That concludes day 2 aboard the Carnival Freedom. To be continued........

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