My Freedom Birthday Cruise Review 9/29/18-10/6/18

[Quilcruisers]

I always like to give back and educate others on my experiences when I travel. This cruise was number 2 of 3 for the year of 2018.

We cruised the Carnival Breeze on August 5 and this cruise was on the Freedom, leaving Galveston on Saturday, September 29, 2018 and returning October 6, 2018. I would cruise every quarter if I could but have to settle for 2 or 3 times a year. We do other travel, went to Orlando for Spring Break, Vegas in June and had cruises for August, October and November. This cruise was just my husband and I. We cruised for my birthday which was October 2. 

We planned to leave home at about 9am on Saturday morning and packed everything up the night before.  We did not intend to check any bags so we had one bag each, I had a backpack for my laptop because I am taking classes and we had our rolling cooler. Our bags were packed to the rim, we had no room for anything else but we made it. My husband uses a large rolling bag, I use a smaller one and pack my fan, wine and soda in my rolling cooler. We also take a few snacks for the cabin. We really could get by on a lot less and I am getting better at packing.

We are both platinum so we also get 3 bags of laundry each, we really should use that to our advantage and pack lighter but haven't mastered it yet. We have a 14 year old son and 27 year old daughter (married and living out of state, so we had to drop him off to my mom’s.  My mom was going to stay at our house with him for the week but they didnt plan to come back until Sunday to our house. My sister lives near the port so we planned to pick her up so she could drop us off.  We left home at 850am and headed to my moms.  It was storming really bad once we hit the freeway and it took us a little longer to get there.  From my mom’

Edited October 18, 2018 by Quilcruisers

[watermelonqueen99]

Awesome start, following!

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[Quilcruisers]

thank you for following. I am starting on day 2.

[Quilcruisers]

Cruise day 2 - We got up to a beautiful day at sea.  Sea days are my favorite.  I always get up, go up to the track and do a few laps and then come back for breakfast. Our cabin was in a perfect location, one flight up, we were on the lido. We walked up and were right below the aft pool deck, pizza and if we walked the other direction, we were at the buffet.  To get to the track, I had to walk up and across the ship as I like to use the track and workout outside whenever possible. It was very windy outside but clear and sunny.

 

This view is what we woke up to, I could do this every day, I had to get going, lots to do on a sea day and I wanted to have time to come back and relax on the balcony and read.

 

This is a picture of the steam room and one thing I love about the Freedom class ships. The steam room/showers are so spacious and I usually come here every evening before dinner. I didnt get to spend any time here this cruise, but I did get to take pictures when it was empty.

 

This is the steam room, another perk of the Freedom class ships.

 

On sea days, I try to make it to brunch, then the first sea day, is the cooking demo in the steakhouse. The samples are excellent there, missed it too!!  LOL, this trip was different, I missed a lot of things that I normally attend. It was the balcony that caused me to miss other activities.

 

We ate brunch and did nothing all day but walk around the ship, to all of the various activities. We downloaded the hub app on our phones so that we could get the activities pushed to us. I always like to mark my activities that I want to attend. Tonight was elegant night and we wanted to take some pictures. We also wanted to go to the early show of Heart and Soul, so we planned our eating and our day around being able to get our Lobster tails, take our pictures and make it to the showroom in time to get a good seat.

 

This is a picture of me before dinner and right before sunset on the balcony.

 

 

We took a lot of selfies this cruise since it was only the two of us.  I do have a selfie stick and a gorilla tripod but I never pulled them out this cruise, lazy, I guess.

 

I got a good view of sunset right before leaving for dinner. My hair was hiding the setting sun though.

 

We went to dinner, got in and out and made it to the show. We had Lobster and Shrimp and it did not disappoint.  My husband will usually ask for 2 lobster plates, a flat iron steak and another entree, either chicken breast or pork chop.  I don't know how he can eat all of that but he cleans his plate and in addition, he has to have melting cake each night.

 

I ordered two lobster tails and ate all of it and the shrimp, I got fresh fruit for dessert. My husbands melting cake was too well done for him and we didnt have time to wait for them to get another, so he skipped it this night.

 

The Heart and Soul show was really good. Emma was our cruise director and she did a great job. We really enjoyed her. We miss Malcom Burns though, we have cruised with him many times on the Freedom. Emma was very visible on the ship and did a great job.

 

We came back to the cabin and had our Plat gifts - the crossbody backpack. I love this little bag.  Its so funny that I had ordered a very similar bag before this cruise and took a pic of them side by side. The only thing is that the Carnival bag is too small for my iPad Pro, but fits my iPad mini just fine. I use my iPad mini just for reading, and so that worked.

 

I was happy with the gift and the strawberry plate we received. We also ordered a case of water that was delivered the day we arrived. I think we went to the Comedy club this night too. We hung out a little in the atrium after the show and had some laughs with Emma and the gang. 

 

We watched the band in the atrium a couple of nights and they were very good. It was very windy outside this night, so a lot of the activities were brought inside, which meant some of the performers had to wait to start until after the other activity was over. Its never a dull moment on a cruise.

[cruisewithwife]

Nice start...we loved our 2 trips on Freedom

[Quilcruisers]

The freedom is one of my favorites, especially since it’s home is Galveston.  We haven’t tried the Vista yet.  

[Quilcruisers]

Cruise -Day 1 Continued :

 

I dont know what happened to the rest of my day 1 post, but here it is:

 

 

We planned to leave home at about 9am on Saturday morning and packed everything up the night before.  We did not intend to check any bags so we had one bag each, I had a backpack for my laptop because I am taking classes and we had our rolling cooler. Our bags were packed to the rim, we had no room for anything else but we made it. My husband uses a large rolling bag, I use a smaller one and pack my fan, wine and soda in my rolling cooler. We also take a few snacks for the cabin. We really could get by on a lot less and I am getting better at packing. We are both platinum so we also get 3 bags of laundry each, we really should use that to our advantage and pack lighter but haven't mastered it yet. We have a 14 year old son and 27 year old daughter (married and living out of state, so we had to drop him off to my mom’s.  My mom was going to stay at our house with him for the week but they didnt plan to come back until Sunday to our house. My sister lives near the port so we planned to pick her up so she could drop us off.  We left home at 850am and headed to my moms.  It was storming really bad once we hit the freeway and it took us a little longer to get there.  From my mom’s house, it took another half hour to get to my sister’s house. We left my sister’s house at about 1030am and made it to Galveston at about 1145am. We were stuck in floodwaters for an hour in front of the port.  Traffic was trying to leave and more people were trying to come in.  We waited patiently because by that time, we had gotten the alert that departure was delayed from 4pm until 7pm. Cruisers had until 6pm to get to the port due to the storms and flooding.  We were too far in to turn around and they had errands to run, so we kept going with our plans.  We got out at the port and made our way thru the lines. We carried everything on so did not use a porter. We got dropped off at 1245pm, we were on the elevators to our room at 108. By that same time, my sister called and they had made it back to the freeway in the same time it took us to get on board.  Amazing! We went right thru the priority line, checked our passports, scanned luggage and were on our way.  I am an honest person so I head to the table to check my wine but they did not really act like they wanted to see it.  I took it out anyway.  They turned another guy away that tried to check his soda. They did not need to check it. We went thru the remaining scanners and were on our way to the ship. We already had our passports on file, they typical use the same photos for us. We were so happy to be on board and proceeded to our cabin.  The staff was very good about directing traffic.  They "gently" guided the people who did not have FTTF or plat, diamond to the lido bound elevators. They didnt stop or question the other people getting on the elevators to go to different floors. They had 1 side of elevators as the lido Express and the other side were other destinations. It was very organized. The flood doors were closed tight and had the no entry signs on them.  I was glad to see this because only people who knew they were supposed to ignore the signs, could do so.  We went thru the doors and carefully closed them behind us. Our cabin was 8452, aft extended balcony, and our keys were in the mailbox. Our main goal was to use the restroom, by this time, we had been on the road for 4 hours from our home in Houston, it seemed like a road trip. Let me say this: every single time I get a balcony, I will strive for this same exact balcony cabin.  It was very quiet, but sunny, a couple of days it was hot out but most days it was nice. The view at sunset was everything. We watched every port departure and I wanted to catch the sunrise but did not happen. I would either get up to early for it or too late. We dropped our luggage and went upstairs to eat lunch. There was plenty of time for our departure, it was only 1pm by the time we got settled.  We ate the buffet and then went back to the cabin.  Muster was going to be later so I unpacked and we downloaded movies and just relaxed. I started using packing cubes and this has made all the difference in the world. I had all my clothes separated, workout clothes, underwear, pajamas, socks, and 2 more cubes for my electronic plugs, speakers, selfie stick, water proof pouches, etc. I simply pulled the cubes from my suitcase, laid them on the shelves and I was done.  I didn't even have to hang up my dresses, everything was rolled up in the cubes and didn't wrinkle. This was my second time using the cubes and I think I will buy them for my husband and son. They keep everything organized and separated. It also helps when packing to go home, I consolidate everything into cubes and they fit nicely into the suitcase. I got the tip from cruise tips TV and also some other you tube videos. We were notified that muster would be at 5pm, because everyone had made it on board so we headed down. Muster was muster, it was somewhat organized, it was not hot outside, so it went by without a hitch. Once we left Muster, we went back to the cabin, and our cabin steward in the stairwell. All I require for the week is ice in my cooler and clean towels. Really simple. We opted for the morning service and our room steward did not disappoint. I typically go to the track about 9 or 10am, my husband is a bit of a late sleeper, but we committed to getting up and at least leaving the room for breakfast or brunch about mid-morning and this worked well for our room to be serviced. I cannot, for the life of me, remember the room stewards name but I will find the card. I usually take a picture of it but guess I didn’t this time.

 

We went back up to the cabin to finish straightening up, we were told that we would be leaving before 7pm, since everyone made it on the ship in plenty of time. We wanted to watch sailaway from our balcony, so up we went, we downloaded movies (Netflix) to our devices, and chilled out to wait for sailaway. Well, it wouldn’t happen for another 2 hours. We did not leave Galveston until 830pm. We were happy but got to dinner at the absolute last minute as a result. We met our neighbors next door and shared a glass of wine as we watched sailaway and the workers at the port bid us farewell. It was a looooong day for them and I know they were glad to see us leave. This was my first aft balcony and it was so nice to see us sailaway and also pull into port. Really, anytime we were on the balcony, whether sailing or just sitting there, we enjoyed the view.

 

We had YTD and got there about 9pm. We were seated at a table for 2, table 219 in the back. For dinner that night, we had grilled mahi mahi, fried shrimp and rice and my husband had melting chocolate cake and I had fresh fruit for dessert.

 

We walked around a bit after dinner and then went to the cabin to turn in, it had been an extremely long day and we were exhausted. Very excited for our cruise to begin and enjoy a week of relaxation and fun on the high seas.

[bakersdozen12]

Love the review! Thanks for taking the time to write it!

[bury me at sea]

My next cruise is on the Freedom, a new ship for me.

 

I am enjoying following your detailed review, and thank you for posting.

[Quilcruisers]

I absolutely love the freedom.  I am debating cruising freedom again for spring break but only if I can get more people to go.  I love grand cayman and Cozumel.  Also enjoyed the key west and Bahamas route too.  Spring break prices are outrageous though.  

[Quilcruisers]

Day 3 was Jamaica – Montego Bay.  This was my birthday, October 2.

 

We had to catch up on some movies that we had missed and also some of the series that we don’t get to see while at home, this is our way of relaxing and unwinding.

 

I forgot to mention we used room service the night before. They have a very nice menu. We were hungry so we ordered firecracker shrimp, fries and sweet potato fries. 

 

We ordered room service during the day a couple of times and the meals were good. The chocolate cake is good, and the sandwiches are good too.  Now, if you are in a pinch, the deli is open until 11pm. My husband does not eat pizza, so sometimes, we ran back up to the deli to get food before they close.

 

 

Room Service - Shrimp - 5.00, Sweet potato fries were 2.00; delivery took about an hour but it was late and in high demand, I guess.

 

 

We woke up to a slightly rainy day and were looking forward to staying on board and taking advantage of the empty ship. We have been to Montego Bay a few times so had nothing planned. We ate the buffet with caribbean themed foods – jerk chicken, rice and peas, stew and it was very filling. I also had tacos from the Blue Iguana.

 

 

It was very choppy coming into Jamaica, there were many alerts to be careful on decks and outside as it was windy.

 

We got out right around noon and took a few pictures outside. There was the band playing at the port and we could hear it from our balcony. We went up to the 10^th deck to take pictures of the scenery. 

 

After lunch and pictures, we found a quiet spot to sit on the side of the ship to relax. It started to rain a little, but we were under the covering.

 

 

 

 

This was the port area in Montego Bay. You couldn't see from here but could hear the band playing. 

 

 

 

This is a view of Jamaica from the back of the ship:

 

Since it was my birthday, we had reservations for the Steakhouse. I reserved back in January, so we paid $35.00 per person. We arrived at 6pm and were seated right away. We have been to the Steakhouse a couple of times. I enjoy it, my husband, not so much, he enjoys the main dining room but since it was my birthday,my choice.

 

We ordered the shrimp cocktail, salad, I had the Lobster tail and my husband ordered a steak. I ordered the wine package with my meal, so for 18.99, I got a glass of wine with each course, appetizer,salad, entrée and dessert. For dessert, I ordered the cheesecake but they brought me the chocolate arc for my birthday dessert. We took dessert to go.

 

 

Lobster Tails

 

Side dish- Macaroni and Cheese

 

Later on, we went to the Love and Marriage show.  It was funny, as usual. We walked around a little to look at our pictures and then went to the cabin.

 

 

Choppy weather coming into Jamaica :

 

[kitten816]

Loving the review! Would you by chance have the main dining menus for Jamaica and Grand Cayman?

[LibratPDX]

Happy belated birthday, we share the same day :)  I was on the Sunshine that week, I love birthday cruises! 

[Quilcruisers]

On 10/21/2018 at 8:27 PM, kitten816 said:

Loving the review! Would you by chance have the main dining menus for Jamaica and Grand Cayman?

We went to the steakhouse on Jamaica night.  I do have the main entree part of the menu for grand cayman night.  Thank you 

[Quilcruisers]

On 10/22/2018 at 5:56 PM, LibratPDX said:

Happy belated birthday, we share the same day 🙂 I was on the Sunshine that week, I love birthday cruises! 

Thank you ! Same to you and yes I love birthday cruises.  I forgot my sash and crown this year though. It was so fun last year to get all of the well wishes on my birthday.  People are so friendly and nice on cruises.  It’s amazing to experience.  I have never cruised the sunshine.  

[Quilcruisers]

Day 4 - Grand Cayman

I love Grand Cayman. We awoke to this beautiful sight. I didnt really plan to get off the ship in Grand Cayman, so we got up and went to breakfast.

 

View from the aft of the ship - Grand Cayman 

 

After breakfast, we walked around a little bit. The ship was empty and I asked my husband if he wanted to go ashore. He did not especially because of the tender. We went back to the cabin and I got my stuff and decided to get off the ship. 

 

My husband came back upstairs and was going to chill out and relax on the ship while I was gone.

 

 

When I went down to the lower deck, there was a line of people waiting to debark. The tenders were being unloaded so we just waited while they unloaded. Soon after, we were allowed to board the tender. The tender loaded with about 20 people at this time. We were waiting to see if others would come out and then it started to rain. Once the rain started, they decided to go ahead and leave to take us ashore. There were 3 other ships in port that day.

 

 

View of the other ships, from the tender. The water was a little choppy and it sprinkled a little. By the time we got to the terminal, the rain stopped.

 

This is another tender coming from the other ship.

 

Getting closer....

 

It took about 10 minutes to tender to the island

 

 

Welcome to Grand Cayman

 

 

I didnt have any plans, just walked around, taking in the beautiful weather and taking pictures. This little town is so cute. I love it here. We have been to GC many times and have walked around some times, other times, we have gone to 7 mile beach.

 

This picture was a little beach right off the pier. Some people were in the water, others were taking pictures. The streets were very busy with a lot of people in port.

 

I love seeing the ships in the background. All 4 ships are pictured here.

 

The souveneirs are very pricey here, I did not intend on buying anything and I didnt, not even water. It was just a nice day to walk around and take pictures. I ended up walking 3 miles. I had already had lunch, so when I got tired, I just planned to jump back on the tender and go back to my "home". This is absolutely beautiful!!!

 

[Quilcruisers]

More ship photos of Grand Cayman

 

 

It was very hot outside once the rain stopped, typical for the islands

 

I was too lazy to pull out the selfie stick, so I just took these photos. I have really short arms though.

 

This was near the other end of the terminal that I came in on. 

 

There was a line of people waiting to take photos by this sign. We just passed our phones/cameras to the next group and took each others' pictures. So funny!  We have found that we love helping people out to take their pictures and they are glad to reciprocate.

 

This was a picture of the dockyard with people working

 

This was an interesting formation, the water was so clear.

 

 

I threw in a little history here.

 

On my way back "home"

There was another tender boat waiting

I thought this clock was pretty cool

 

BBD

 

 

BBD

 

 

Goodbye pretty island! I will probably be back next summer.

[Quilcruisers]

Going back on the tender. I love this view of the water from the tender boats. 

 

Getting back on board was easy, We were leaving at about 330, I came back about 2pm. It was a full tender of 200+ people but it did not take long to get on.

 

I found my husband sitting on the Promenade deck people watching and just hanging out so we went up on the top deck and walked around. We then went back to the cabin to watch more of our movies and I wanted to take a shower and cool off.

 

Of course I ended up asleep, the beds are like a drug. We woke up around 6pm to go to dinner. We were going to MDR since we went to the steakhouse last night. 

 

Look at this beautiful sunset, this never ever gets old.

 

 

 

We were seated at a table for 2, near the window. We got this same section pretty much every night. Our wait team was good. This night, we were 1 section away from our normal, at table 130. No complaints here. These were great seats!

 

We sat next to 2 gentlemen who were super nice. We ended up talking to them the whole night. They were an uncle/nephew, the uncle was there on a premier cruise and his nephew was the only one down the "list" who could make the trip. They were so fun and we had an awesome time talking with them. We shared cruise stories and talked about our home life and it made for a very nice dinner.

 

 

The crab cakes are the best in the world!! We will usually get 2 orders of these and gulp them down. I also got the clam chowder this night. The grilled jumbo shrimp was my entree.  I think my husband got flat iron steak or pork chop and of course the crab cake and jumbo shrimp. He does not hold back on the meals when we cruise. 

 

Selfie

 

This was the dessert  - Key lime mousse, I believe. It was low sugar but I could only take about 2 bites, it was delicious but I could not do more no matter how badly I wanted to!!My husband has the melting chocolate cake every night and after the first night, the wait team knows how he likes it and they do not fail to deliver.

 

This team was very good. We did not sit with them on any other night but this one. We were in the next section over most of the time and had a really good wait team.

 

Entertainment  - the dining room was not full this night. We had a wait 1 time, for about 30 minutes and they gave us a pager. We were able to go upstairs and look at our pictures until our pager went off. Every other night, we were seated after a short wait or right away and requested a table for 2 each night.

 

After leaving dinner, we stopped in the atrium to this madness. A deck party was brought inside due to the winds. We were on our way to the showroom or comedy club, I cant remember which one. Emma, the cruise director and team were very good and had tons of energy. They did a lot of performances from the top of the bar. We laughed so hard and participated in the trivia and singing any time we saw it happening. They had to share the atrium with the band. The band was pretty good too. We sat here for awhile to wait to go up to the comedy club.

[jimbri]

Great photos!  Looking forward to the rest of your review.

[lrr1998]

I don't find a lot of new reviews about Freedom like I see about the other larger/newer ships. Thanks for posting a review. Cant wait to read the rest.

[Beav1279]

Thanks for the review! I'm enjoying reading about your trip and the Freedom. I'm sailing her for the first time in December.

[Quilcruisers]

3 hours ago, lrr1998 said:

I don't find a lot of new reviews about Freedom like I see about the other larger/newer ships. Thanks for posting a review. Cant wait to read the rest.

I agree, the newer ships get tons of praise. I love sailing on this class of ship as evidenced by the fact that I have sailed her twice in one year and have cruised this exact itinerary many times too. I always wish I was closer to Florida ports but living near Galveston is not half bad.  

[Quilcruisers]

3 hours ago, Beav1279 said:

Thanks for the review! I'm enjoying reading about your trip and the Freedom. I'm sailing her for the first time in December.

You are welcome. It’s what keeps me sane in between cruises.  You will love the freedom and Emma and team are so fun! 

[Quilcruisers]

I think we went to comedy on the night of Grand Cayman, although I cannot be sure. We went to comedy two different nights. One was good, the other "meh", neither one were very memorable to me. I usually enjoy the comedians, possible it was an off night.

 

Now, onto the next day - Cozumel. I really prefer having my ports at the end and sea days at the beginning. This cruise was ideally scheduled from a port perspective. Even still, I personally prefer sea days and could do an entire cruise of sea days with maybe 1 port stop, I love my beach fix. Every trip we take goes to Cozumel, so we are very familiar. We did not go to our normal port this trip, it was full, so we went to the "old" port that we went to back in the day. I remember this port and still enjoy it. 

 

I went to the track and walked and we ate lunch before leaving the ship. I try to walk the track daily, all this eating and drinking is not my norm, so I try to cleanse myself as much as possible so that I feel good. It was a beautiful day in Cozumel and we just intended to get off the ship and stretch our legs. We waited until the crowds died down and made our way to exit. The ship was empty and getting off was a breeze.

 

This was a great shot of the ship in all its glory, and my husband standing beside the ship.

 

 

Such a beautiful view of the island

 

 

This water is so pretty, but don't get too close, I'm always scared of crossing the "line"

 

 

Our first selfie of the day.

 

More views from the pier

 

I love Hooters, we didnt plan on eating, we only eat on the ship. The restaurants were crowded though. There was a hooters here and a few other restaurants.

 

 

This owl was pretty cool

 

Can you guess which ones are real? Well, besides my husband? We tipped them for this photo.

 

This shop had great prices. We bought a few things before we made it here and paid way more than the prices here. We bought some nice sports panchos for the "cold" weather in Houston. We talked with the store owner for awhile too. No rushing for us this day, we had plenty of time in Coz and did not have any plans outside of hanging around the port.

 

More statues

 

 

Another selfie. We had many offers to take our photos but we did our own this day. 

 

 

I love these pictures. I often use these for my screen background. They do not look real and lot of people will do a double take to see if its real or a postcard. I always tell them that these views are indeed very real.  I do not use my camera a lot, I use my phone - I have a Samsung Note 8, nothing fancy, but I took most of my pictures with my phone.

 

We walked around Cozumel for several hours and then decided to go back. I wanted to get in the pool/hot tub while it was still empty. We still had a few more hours in Cozumel before leaving. Also, all of this walking around tends to make us hungry for a Guy's Burger or Blue Iguana taco/burrito.