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Our S2S Adventure - Freedom / Spirit (with pics) - 1/7/23

Jamman54

By Jamman54,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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Hogladyrider

Hogladyrider

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@Jamman54.....another FANTASTIC review!  Thank you, thank you for your devotion and time to sharing your cruises with us,

 

We are right there with you on several of your wrap up points!

 

January is not a favorite time of ours to cruise, cold and seas can be rough as well, plus often the water temperatures for swimming are cooler than we like!

 

We too have drifted away from eating in the MDR for the same reasons as you!   We no longer enjoy the sitting for 90 minutes or longer we prefer fix it eat it and move on!

 

Spirit class remains our favorite class of Carnival ships.

 

If we were to cruise Vista class again the only way I would cruise is in a Havanna inside cabin to have access to the Havanna area.  We just felt the ship always felt crowded in all other areas all the time.

 

I enjoy reading on the balcony, bring my faithful Kindle along all the time!  We both enjoy the comedians but not the lines waiting to get into the shows.  We don't follow any sports so that we will pass onto your pleasure.

 

Being retired has its positives for sure, more vacation days for cruising! We are taking the plunge and doing an 18 day cruise to Hawaii from San Diego next January since we now winter in Yuma AZ.  Enjoy researching what we will do in our new to us ports.

 

Look forward to following along Patti and your future adventures!

Susan

 

PS - new knee is improving every day, today I am 4 months PO and yesterday I rode my street bicycle for the first time!  4 months PO feels so much better than 2 months PO!

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TravelGirlinDallas

TravelGirlinDallas

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16 hours ago, Jamman54 said:

You’ve probably noticed that Patti and I don’t eat in the MDR much anymore. I don’t know if it’s the same old menus or the fact that it takes so long. Prior to Covid, we ate in the MDR all the time.

I DID notice, and I was going to ask about it! Thanks for explaining.

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Indiansbaseball

Indiansbaseball

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16 Carnival Cruises and four more booked…we feel much the same. We do YTD and go a couple of times a cruise. We are actually in and out in an hour. We are tired of the menu I think and like the quiet of Lido. We enjoy the Dive In theatre, but movies have been slim pickings lately ( no fault of Carnival). We enjoy the Sports bar and Red Frog Pub. Our favorite class in Conquest with Sprit close behind. 
Love your reviews and Patti’s pictures. We are really considering purchasing your camera. 
I hope we find ourselves on a ship with you two some day soon ! Happy Sailing ! 

Edited by Indiansbaseball
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Jamman54 Great Review Rare

Jamman54

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21 hours ago, BasicSailor said:

Always enjoy your honesty 😁

V ery much agree. 😉

Sorry to read this as I am a huge fan of yawls reviews. Being completely deaf without my implant I do understand Patti's world. Music just becomes noise and screeching. I've tried sign, but my middle finger just keeps getting in the way 🤣Keep those reviews coming. 

Though Patti is completely deaf in her left ear, she can get up to 25% with a hearing aid in her right ear. With that she does quite well, and boy can she lip read. She never learned sign language. She loves having the ability to tune me out with the flip of a switch! :classic_biggrin:

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Jamman54 Great Review Rare

Jamman54

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7 hours ago, Hogladyrider said:

@Jamman54.....another FANTASTIC review!  Thank you, thank you for your devotion and time to sharing your cruises with us,

 

We are right there with you on several of your wrap up points!

 

January is not a favorite time of ours to cruise, cold and seas can be rough as well, plus often the water temperatures for swimming are cooler than we like!

 

We too have drifted away from eating in the MDR for the same reasons as you!   We no longer enjoy the sitting for 90 minutes or longer we prefer fix it eat it and move on!

 

Spirit class remains our favorite class of Carnival ships.

 

If we were to cruise Vista class again the only way I would cruise is in a Havanna inside cabin to have access to the Havanna area.  We just felt the ship always felt crowded in all other areas all the time.

 

I enjoy reading on the balcony, bring my faithful Kindle along all the time!  We both enjoy the comedians but not the lines waiting to get into the shows.  We don't follow any sports so that we will pass onto your pleasure.

 

Being retired has its positives for sure, more vacation days for cruising! We are taking the plunge and doing an 18 day cruise to Hawaii from San Diego next January since we now winter in Yuma AZ.  Enjoy researching what we will do in our new to us ports.

 

Look forward to following along Patti and your future adventures!

Susan

 

PS - new knee is improving every day, today I am 4 months PO and yesterday I rode my street bicycle for the first time!  4 months PO feels so much better than 2 months PO!

Thank you, Susan for your kind words and sharing your experiences with us. Glad to hear that your knee is doing well. It should be perfect for your Hawaii cruise! :classic_cool:

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Jamman54 Great Review Rare

Jamman54

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7 hours ago, TravelGirlinDallas said:

I DID notice, and I was going to ask about it! Thanks for explaining.

 

Things can always change. We did have a good experience the one night we went on the Freedom. Of course, our table for two was four inches from another table for two, but the couple there were very nice. :classic_laugh:

 

5 hours ago, dltvermont said:

Another great review sir! It also helps that we will be headed out on the Spirit to HMC, GT, Aruba and Bonaire in 11 days! This just help with the excitement.

 

 

 

Glad you liked the review, and we hope it helps with your planning. Great itinerary! Have a fantastic cruise! :classic_cool:

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Jamman54

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3 hours ago, JandPB said:

Loved this side by side review. I agree completely that anything less than 7 days isn't nearly long enough. We have to fly wherever we are going so to do that for less than a week just isn't worth it.

 

Amen!! 

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Jamman54 Great Review Rare

Jamman54

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1 hour ago, Indiansbaseball said:

16 Carnival Cruises and four more booked…we feel much the same. We do YTD and go a couple of times a cruise. We are actually in and out in an hour. We are tired of the menu I think and like the quiet of Lido. We enjoy the Dive In theatre, but movies have been slim pickings lately ( no fault of Carnival). We enjoy the Sports bar and Red Frog Pub. Our favorite class in Conquest with Sprit close behind. 
Love your reviews and Patti’s pictures. We are really considering purchasing your camera. 
I hope we find ourselves on a ship with you two some day soon ! Happy Sailing ! 

Thank you so much for your kind words and for sharing your experiences. Patti is so happy with her camera and loves her zoom capabilities. Would love to sail with you guys as well. First round is on me! :classic_laugh:

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Jamman54

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Here is our updated cruise review list. Unfortunately, we had to delete all of our reviews prior to 2017 because we changed photo hosting sites and now the pictures no longer show in the older reviews. We have also included a link to our cruise and vacation albums where you can see all the photos Patti took on every cruise:

 

*** Carnival Pride Repo Journeys Cruise -  2/26/17 - Tampa to Baltimore

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Guest BasicSailor

Guest BasicSailor

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53 minutes ago, Jamman54 said:

Though Patti is completely deaf in her left ear, she can get up to 25% with a hearing aid in her right ear. With that she does quite well, and boy can she lip read.

Lip reading comes natural to me as well. But I take this gadget out in the heat of an argument. However, lip reading provides me with words I never knew my wife could speak. 😬🙃

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d-train

d-train

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As always, another great review! Thanks for sharing your vacation with us!

 

totally agree about no cruise less than 7 days. This past summer we did B2B on Marci Gras, and still did not see or do (or eat, lol!) everything offered. Booked on Celebration for summer 2024, but just an 8 day southern. Looking forward to 3 new ports for sure! Always wanted to go to the A, B, C islands! 

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thethirdhalf

thethirdhalf

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@Jamman54 You said something in your post cruise summary that really resonated with me. My last cruise was the first cruise I did not eat the majority of my dinner time meals in the main dining room. Most of that reason was the speed of the service and as a solo I just don't like sitting looking like I'm thumbing through my phone between courses.

 

The thing I appreciated about lido for dinner was being able to mix and match mains with sides and on the night I wasn't exactly hungry I could make a salad and grab a deli sandwich. Moving forward lido for dinner is what I'll be doing on most nights unless I'm cruising with friends and the group wants to do specialty dining.

 

Thanks again for sharing in your adventures.

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knagl

knagl

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Thank you for taking the time to post your excellent report and pictures. The all-inclusive places looked great. If we ever travel to those ports I'll look into them for sure.

 

As far as the MDR goes, we ate there every night during our back-to-back on the Spirit in December. Food generally ranged from good to great. Service times ranged from great to slow-ish, but we were overall very pleased with our anytime dining experience in the MDR on the Spirit. Richard and Ardeen were great and we asked for their section if they had an available table.

 

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pe4all

pe4all

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We have also pretty much stopped eating in the dining room room - mostly due to covid.  Service is usually too slow for us, and tables too close for comfort. We enjoy getting our food (whether it be the main buffet, seafood shack, bonsai sushi, etc.) "to go" and then we find a nice secluded table inside or outside to eat.  BTW - we wore masks indoors on Spirit and were some of the few in our fb group that didn't come home with a covid souvenir or respiratory illness.  As we debarked (also wearing masks- in terminal, in airport, on plane) I cannot tell you how many people were coughing and sneezing.  Hopefully you and Patti came back healthy from your btb.

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Jamman54

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2 hours ago, pe4all said:

We have also pretty much stopped eating in the dining room room - mostly due to covid.  Service is usually too slow for us, and tables too close for comfort. We enjoy getting our food (whether it be the main buffet, seafood shack, bonsai sushi, etc.) "to go" and then we find a nice secluded table inside or outside to eat.  BTW - we wore masks indoors on Spirit and were some of the few in our fb group that didn't come home with a covid souvenir or respiratory illness.  As we debarked (also wearing masks- in terminal, in airport, on plane) I cannot tell you how many people were coughing and sneezing.  Hopefully you and Patti came back healthy from your btb.

Patti and I have been fortunate enough to have never gotten Covid, (knock  on wood). 😎

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