Blue Collar Diamond + tries Carnival Freedom

[BillOh]

Yes, I know there has been a lot of reviews of Royal Loyalists doing other lines. I thought I would add mine here. It might be of interest to you, you may learn something or have your own commentary, so let it fly.

 

Background fluff

 -  We just got back from our first Carnival cruise after 21 Royal Caribbean cruise and thought I would relate the story here in the Royal part of the site.  Some of you don’t like long signatures here in the forum, but for this story it will give you an idea of my cruise background and it was till this year only on Royal.

 

We did 19 cruises pre covid and like many of you have several canceled between 20 and 22.   Another thing we missed for a couple of years was the Ohio State Fair.  When we returned to that in 2022, I walked by a booth that had a big Carnival Cruise line banner.   We thought it was a Carnival booth, but it was actually some travel club (concierge service) that was selling memberships.   They told us for watching their 90 minute presentation we would receive several things, on top of that list was a 3 day Carnival Cruise.   We decided what the heck, we can sit for 90 minutes for a presentation for a cruise. I’ve heard of these type of deals and went in with an open mind.  The company seemed decent and if  you travel a lot, it might be worth it, but we decided to pass and received our compensation for our time (The cruise certificate with instructions on how to book it)

 

At the time (summer of 2022) we had a cruise booked on Wonder for Late April of 2023, but life events and mainly my wife’s employment changed, so we canceled Wonder.  After getting the cruise certificate I started browsing Carnival Itineraries.  I was told I could apply my credit to any cruise and pay the difference.  We figured this would be a fall cruise in 2023 and we like to visit the Orlando area to visit family and cruise out of Port Canaveral. I looked at a few ships all of out Florida, but picked Carnival Freedom out of PC going to  Nassau (our 13^th visit), Princess Cay and Grand Turk.  The latter two being new to us.

 

I do like to take pictures of our ship and other ships in port when cruising so I am familiar with many Carnival and other lines ships.  Carnival has, of course that distinctive “Whale Tail” smoke stack, so it was somewhat ironic I picked the only ship in Carnival’s fleet that didn’t have one.    In the past Carnival Freedom was in Grand Turk and her smokestack caught fire in May of 22. I didn’t show my wife this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiLLNw-Va9A     But we did know she would look like this on our departure.

 

I also started a thread called SGT SCHULTZ KNOWS NOTHING in the Carnival forum here on CC.  I was very open of my cruise history and my openness to discuss anything with this ship and being a first timer on Carnival. I was greeted with enthusiastic tips and advice and much of it was very helpful.

 

@ValerieJo I started it!

Edited September 24, 2023 by BillOh
corrections

[BillOh]

With a 2023 Royal cruise off the table for us, our spring and summer mainly concentrated on camping which we did a lot this year and we still have 2 more trips planned for this year.  But I did participate in roll calls to keep my interest up, learn more, and for the safety of my coworkers, having a cruise to look forward to helps them remain safe and me sane. I was quickly accepted into those roll calls and was recognized as a cruise veteran and Carnival newbie and a lot of good chatter happened!   I have cruise 6 times during peak Florida hurricane season so I think my weather reports were well received and sparked a lot of discussion 

 

There are enough recent youtube videos of Carnival Freedom that were posted in 2023, they were helpful. I did also do a little research on Princess Cay and Grand Turk.    In Spring when I should have been on Wonder, I registered on Carnival’s website and downloaded their app for my phone.   I thought their app might be a little better than Royal’s at least more useful once on board.   For now, I will say Carnival was the winner with the onboard app, but to be fair, I tend to put my phone away and never take it out while on a cruise, so I didn’t use the Royal app hardly at all on my 2020-2022 cruises.  I still carry a camera with me (real one) so I don’t like having my phone, but I’ll adjust and probably use it more for my Wonder cruise.

 

This was our 7^th cruise out of Port Canaveral and for 6 of them we drove from Columbus, Ohio to the PC area.  I don’t mind flying too much but we actually like this road trip together.   So like I do with my Royal Cruises, I discussed the drive with my roll call friends and post updates along the way.   It is usually about a 14 hour drive for us.   This year, my wife got invited to her company’s summer picnic, and its usually a good time.  This was her first time as a retiree (albeit a forced retirement) and she wanted to go, so we waited till after she returned from that picnic and we started out trip at 4pm 9/13 for a 9/16 cruise.

 

Last year for our 2022 Mariner cruise, we had to leave for our cruise road trip unexpectedly a week early with only 2 hours notice due to a family emergency in Orlando that almost canceled the trip.  That almost happened again. I had the cousin closest to my age die unexpectedly on the day we departed Ohio.   I’m definitely getting older. In that 2022 road trip we left at 7pm and drove to Charolotte NC where we stopped at 1am for the night.  On this trip we left 3 hours earlier, but when we reached Charolette we stopped again.  I was exhausted, driving the WV Turnpike at night is a lot of work!  At least we crossed into WV in daylight this  year. 

[CeleBrat]

You are I are total opposites, as we usually always travel Carnival, but our next cruise is a jump over to Royal!

 

Looking forward to hearing what you think about Carnival!

[Mikew0805]

Hey Bill,

 

Following. I like CCL myself, but I have not been on the Freedom. Hope you had a good time.

[BillOh]

1 hour ago, CeleBrat said:

You are I are total opposites, as we usually always travel Carnival, but our next cruise is a jump over to Royal!

 

Looking forward to hearing what you think about Carnival!

Which Royal ship are you going on when?  I am off to read your Eastern Caribbean on Freedom now. 

[BillOh]

1 hour ago, Mikew0805 said:

Hey Bill,

 

Following. Mike CCL myself, but I have not been on the Freedom. Hope you had a good time.

Mike Good to hear from you again! 

[SE fla]

I want to hear more. You have my attention. 👍

[BillOh]

19 minutes ago, SE fla said:

I want to hear more. You have my attention. 👍

I will try to get this done in a day or two, back to work tomorrow, a dreaded 5 day work week. (Not many of those left)

[perfect match]

Hi Bill! 👋 Good to see you here!

I’m interested to see how Carnival compares with RCCL in your eyes. I’ll definitely be following along.

[BillOh]

We let nature wake us up for Day 2’s drive from Charolette to Orlando.  We were about 8 hours of driving with nothing on the agenda but dinner with family set for the evening.

On this road trip we did get passed on the interstate by a helicopter!

A lot of people who knew we were making a road trip said WE HAVE TO STOP AT BUCEES on the way. One is opening here in Ohio next year, so we decided to check it out and see what the hype is about. It was a fun precruise excursion!

 

We did get just a little rain on the trip down, but we made it to Orlando and visited family Thursday.   After that it was a quick pre cruise trip to nearby Playa Linda beach for a wonderful beach day. The weather was great, but the seas were rough making a very wavy, but fun beach day.

 

From there it was on to the Radisson at Port Canaveral, it is our favorite hotel for cruising from PC because of its shuttle and I love that pool! Check in was efficient and we verified our parking and we got to our room in time for our next pre cruise tradition while in PC -  Pre cruise dinner and ship watching at Fishlips!  I love sitting up there eating and drinking while watching the ships leave the day before us.  Independence of the Seas, Mariner of the  Seas (our last ship) and Disney Wish all departed while we watched.  This is another favorite tradition when sailing from PC.

[BillOh]

Some photos the ships sailing away on 9/15 as viewed from Fishlips.

 

[BillOh]

After Fishlips it was time for my ritual  standing in the water fall at the Radisson's pool

We also had frozen blue drinks at their Tiki bar and then watched a Falcon 9 launch from the front of the hotel.

 

[Ride-The-Waves]

Bill:  You are a very brave mariner...

[Jerseygirl1416]

Loving this review! Thanks for taking the time. 

[gambler]

following along.

 

[UK Fan 78]

Really enjoying this thread so far. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on CCL. It has been many years since I have been on CCL, but my son has expressed some interest in the new ships. We shall see.

[BillOh]

Back to work today, I won't drag this out too far.  I'll right about boarding day soon!

[Tatka]

We are now D+ for several years and since 2021 completely switched to Royal after sailing with 8 lines since 2003… Carnival is the only line we dropped after 3 honest tries (Liberty, Miracle, Glory), but it’s interesting to read you review. We are also big campers during summers! 

[clochette]

following along, great review so far

[BillOh]

I did mention that I though the Carnival App on my phone was pretty useful, but it did have one minor issue.  When we returned to our hotel the night before the cruise I tried to open the app and it crashed.  What made it bad timing was Carnival sent an email stating their website would be down for 12 hours that occurred when we were boarding.   I ended up having to uninstall the APP and reinstall it so it would at least open.   Once we were onboard it worked fine.

Cruise day finally did arrive and as usual the provided shuttle service worked very well and we were at the port for our scheduled 10:30 check in.   Oh, this might be a good time to note that while I don’t normally get “The Key” on Royal, I did buy the QUICKER TO THE FUN OPTION for this Carnival cruise. It did get us the early boarding time and a few other small perks.

 

I do so enjoy the first sighting of the ship as we take that shuttle to the port.! We did arrive when we should and one of the agents saw I had the QUICKER TO THE FUN option and directed me to a shorter line and it moved me up quite a bit in the boarding order.  

 

One other tradition when sailing from Port Canaveral is to wave to the PZTV port cam and to the folks back home.  One of my former cruisemates from Austrailia captured this for me. That is us at the top level

[BillOh]

We didn't take any formal clothes with us this trip as it was just a relaxation extra cruise for us, but we did take one of the obligatory boarding pics on this new to us ship and at a couple of new to us ports.

At this moment we became official Carnival cruisers.

 

 

And the new to us ports -  

 

We don't spend a lot on pictures any more unless it is a new ship and ports, so with Gina and I getting one free pic each on Royal, I spent about $60 on these 3 just for you!

[BillOh]

20 hours ago, perfect match said:

Hi Bill! 👋 Good to see you here!

I’m interested to see how Carnival compares with RCCL in your eyes. I’ll definitely be following along.

Hello again Nancy. You will have my Wonder review to look forward to too 🙂

[BillOh]

In the previous post I forgot to include the photo of seeing the ship for the first time. I can remember this event for every cruise we have taken.

 

 

Check in and the short wait in the terminal was over and by 10:50 we were boarding!  We did have to stop in groups of 20 before heading to the gangway as a drug sniffing dog was run by our carry ons. (Whew!) It felt just as good walking up to the ship as it does on Royal since I knew no work for 12 days!   Because it was so early  we weren’t hungry yet and went off exploring the ship  since it was new to us.    It was new to a lot of people. One thing I did notice that is the same between cruise lines, on boarding day a large number of people are on that, or any other ship, who have never been on that ship before and are seeing everything for the first time.   It just so happens when these people stop to look at something, they choose to do so at choke points! (I guess that is a universal thing! 😊)

 

We did start to head to our room to drop off our carry ons. – This was supposed to be part of their FASTERTOTHEFUN deal, but hallways were closed and signs said, or rather implied -  Stay out regardless of your status, rooms aren’t available.  No big deal, as experienced cruisers we know just what to carry on and what not to carry on.

 

So while exploring the ship for the first time, my impression was the layout was like Majesty in some ways,  “you can’t always get there from here”  A few other things about Carnival Freedom reminded me of Majesty. I do realize this is a much bigger ship than Majesty, but a lot of things reminded me of her.  In 22 Royal cruises we have only done an inside room twice, both on Majesty, so that adds to the comparison a little in my eyes 😊    I initially booked this cruise and got an inside on deck 1 at the very bottom of the ship. I figured that was good enough, but kept my eyes open for upgrades.  Several people in our roll call did get decent upgrade offers.  The only one that was offered to me was a move up to deck 8, but still an inside. ($40)  This just showed up in my Carnival App a month before the cruise so I bought it. Glad I did. 

 

Our location on deck 8 was pretty convenient

Getting back to the Majesty comparison, this inside room was quite a bit bigger than the one we have had on Majesty.   That said, I think Carnival Freedom (didn’t look this up) maybe between a  Voyager and Freedom class ship with Royal, so maybe those inside cabins are bigger too?   I thought this room seemed about the size of a D1 balcony, without the balcony of course!  The shower was definitely bigger and it had a real shower curtain. It wasn’t one of those Star Trek transporter tubes as I call them on some Royal ships.  I could also see that this was two twin beds pushed together as is the norm for us on most cruises.  I will say now, this was the most comfortable bed we have had on a cruise.  We have had some good ones, but around 2016 Royal started replacing many mattresses with very hard ones!  We had slept on a few stone slabs in those years, but we had 5 great nights of sleep on this cruise.

I just checked and I didn’t take any pictures of our room!  It’s a nice inside, but still an inside!  Below is the only picture I took even near our cabin!  The picture is a gift from cruise friends of ours that we displayed for the first time on this cruise.

 

 

As is our tradition, we packed our swim suits and found a bathroom near the pool and changed into the our swim suits. The weather was perfect for 4 of the 5 days of this cruise.

 

I will confirm it feels great being on a cruise ship pool deck whether it is Carnival or Royal, it is not at work!

Then came my only real annoyance with Carnival.  We bought the "bubbles package" which is the same as the soda/pop package on Royal.  I found out ahead of time that their ships don't have Coke Freestyle machines (or their equivalent, so we would have to go to bars to get our pop.)  I did learn you can take your own drink container and they will fill it with ice and give you a can of your chosen drink, so we decided to buy the onboard drink of the day as it came with the  cups shown below.  My annoyance came when I asked the guy at the pool, "How much". I was told $20.  We obviously bought them. I found out later the cups were $20 and the  Bahama Mamma inside was another $13 so these two drinks cost me $66!   I may be just as much to blame, I may not have listened closely. I will say this was the worst part of the trip!  That is said with a somewhat sarcastic tone as if this was the worst, I knew we were still having a good time.

 

Since I mentioned buying the bubbles package and no "Coke Freestyle Machines"  this is a good time to mention in many discussions with people on cruise critic, and other friends, many times the subject comes up of "Carnival vs Royal"  One of the frequent things I've heard said, is , it is like Coke VS Pepsi - or what you are use to.     While I am and will be a Royal Loyalist, I am a life long Pepsi drinker (probably drinking it 59 of my 64 years. so score one point for having Pepsi, but deduct 1/4 point for having to go to a bar to get it (I never had to wait too long)

 

Next was grabbing our spot on one of the upper decks to watch sailaway and wave to the port cam as pictured in a previous post.

[ValerieJo]

50 minutes ago, BillOh said:

Hello again Nancy. You will have my Wonder review to look forward to too 🙂

When are you guys going on Wonder?  We’ll be on February 2025. 

[BillOh]

7 minutes ago, ValerieJo said:

When are you guys going on Wonder?  We’ll be on February 2025. 

Late May of 2023.  Go Buckeyes BTW