The World’s Longest Freedom Review: Part 5.1featured

Sorry for the delay guys! I’ve had the most killer migraine and those aren’t really conducive to writing, you know?

Anyways…FINALLY on the cruise portion! Yay! I think I’m going to break this one up into two parts just so it’s not insanely long. So…part one!

So we woke up around 8:00 am. It was pretty early considering the port is only, like, ten minutes from the hotel but we like to get an early start. We had a quick breakfast of something or another in the room (I want to say Vitamin Water and mini muffins, or something like that) and got our luggage all together. For whatever reason, there were no bellhops at the hotel and we had to bring the luggage down ourselves. No biggie. We borrowed a luggage cart from the front desk, loaded it up, brought it down and loaded up the car. We noticed that it was absolutely FRIGID outside. Much colder than I can ever remember being in Florida (except for maybe the time I went to Magic Music Days at Disney World with my high school choir…night time in Orlando in late-February is downright chilly). By 9:15 am, we were on our way to the pier.

One of the reasons we like staying in Plantation is its proximity to the pier. It’s far enough away from Fort Lauderdale to be a bit quieter, but still so close to the pier. The ride from the hotel to the pier was literally less than 10 minutes. And, of course, we were looking for that first whale tail sighting the entire drive.

Port Everglades was actually having a pretty busy day. There were many ships in port, including the Oasis of the Seas. Thankfully, because we arrived early, we didn’t encounter much of a line a the first security check point and we were quickly on our way to the parking garage and seeing our first up-close view of the boat.

The downfall, of course, of arriving early is that the ship is still disembarking. There weren’t any porters to take our luggage and we didn’t want to be those first people who drop off their luggage and risk it getting lost. So instead, we circled a few times and then parked in one of the corporate lots for about a half-hour before dropping off our luggage and parking.

We dropped Mom off with the luggage and Stephanie, me and grandma went to park the car. Stephanie and I got everything situated with the car, helped grandma into her chair and went down to meet up with Mom. From there on in, check in was pretty flawless. Because grandma is special assistance, they put us through the VIP line (as they have in every other port). In this port, though, after we went through security, we were escorted into a special assistance lounge, which was actually a large room separate from the main room with seating and a desk of helpful people who checked us in and got our keys for us. Since we were so early, we actually sat there for a good while, which was fine because it was pretty comfortable. Around 11:45, they called us and someone wheeled grandma onboard for us. We got our S&S pics taken, took our family pic and we were up on the Lido deck by noon. Not bad, eh?

There’s nothing quite like that feeling when you’re walking up that gangway about to get onto the boat…when you hear that first ping of your S&S card…when you get your first glimpse of the lobby and take your first ride up the elevator. I have to admit, it was REALLY odd being on a boat that wasn’t the Miracle. Our last non-Miracle trip was in May, 2008 on the Glory (which is the sister ship to the Freedom). Since we’ve been on the Glory (and the Liberty, as well), we were familiar with the ship’s layout. That isn’t saying much, though, since I find the layout of the Conquest class ships highly confusing (and I’ve spent…I think…23 days sailing on them) and I kept getting lost all week. In terms of ship layout? I’ll take the Spirit class any day of the week.

We made a beeline for the Lido deck restaurant for lunch to grab a table. See, the longer you explore and wait, the less of a chance there is that you will have a table and the higher the likelihood you will need to ask a total stranger if you can crash their table. The fact of the matter is that within a half-hour, the Lido restaurant was a total zoo. I hated the layout of it. Despite the fact that there were two lines for everything (two stir fry lines, two Taste of Nations lines, two Rotisserie lines and two dessert lines), everything was just so poorly laid out. For example: on the Spirit class ships, there’s a separate area for the salad bar. On the Freedom, the salad bar was at every line in both stations of the Rotisserie and Taste of Nations. This meant that if you got your salad at Taste of Nations and you wanted something from the Rotisserie, you needed to wait in line behind everyone taking their salads and it just took forever. You’d think that having two lines for everything would cut the lines, but the lines just seemed longer than anything I’d experienced on my past two Miracle cruises. Oh, and they took away mine and Stephanie’s favorite station, the Oriental station. They’re currently transitioning it into a Mexican station (burrito bar? I don’t know. The ship maps we got said Mexican on them). As I found the Lido food generally abysmal during the week, that one fewer station weighed a bit heavier.

On the plus side, though, the Freedom did have more options than most of the older ships. There’s the Tandoor (which I tried for the first time later that week), the stir-fry bar (which we’d tried on the Liberty) and the usuals (grill, pizzeria, Taste of Nations, Rotisserie, Fish and Chips and deli). We started with the stir fry since we were on early and there was no line. I knew if we wanted stir fry, now was our chance because we’d never find it without a line later in the week. I was disappointed by the lack of veggie selection (no mushrooms, no water chestnuts, etc). The protein selection changed daily (a seafood, a chicken and a meat…this day it was shrimp, chicken and steak. Another it was clams and mussels, chicken and pork. It varied every day) and they only had three sauces. I went for the medium one (the thai barbecue) and it was entirely too spicy for me (and this is coming from the girl on the hot nut mission).

I didn’t care for anything at the other stations so I went for old faithful: a hot dog and fries. These hot dogs are as far away from Chicago dogs as you can get, but there’s something innately distinctive about them that says “Hey, you’re on a cruise!” The difference this time, though, is that you can’t serve your own fries. They aren’t at the self-serve station with the rest of the food anymore. You must now ask for them when you order your hot dog/burger/chicken sandwich/veggie burger/etc. So the bacon police? Now there’s fry police, too. Kind of annoying when all you want is a plate of fries and you have to wait in line for 10 minutes, but in the grand scheme of things? Meh.

So the grill and the Tandoor are outside stations near the main pool. The pizzeria is, oddly enough, in the back of the pool where the adults-only pool is. Not really ideal placement for keeping it kid-free, but I never once saw any kid in that pool (a first), so snaps for Freedom deck security. It was roofed on this day because it was so cold, but it was also roofed on many of our days and someone would need to find deck security and ask them to retract the roof. While the solarium feel is nice, sometimes it was just grating wanting to swim beneath the heat of the sun and feeling like you’re in a hotel pool.

The Freedom is the first ship we’ve ever been on with a Serenity area, so after we ate (and since we still weren’t allowed in our rooms), Stephanie and I headed up there to check it out. I thought the area was beautiful, with plenty of seating and cool things like private hot tubs and hammocks and cushy-looking lounge chairs. Of course, we never really got the opportunity to use this area because the chair hogs were out in full force (but we’ll get to that later), but it was nice to scope it out and we actually came back for sailaway.

In another oddity, the children’s splash pool is located directly next to the Serenity area (which is, coincidentally, located next to Camp Carnival). I took a picture for anyone who wants to know what it looks like. I also spotted a sign making it explicitly clear that non-potty trained children in any type of diapers are not allowed. I found signs like this all over the pool areas (and much clearer adults-only signs at the aft Lido pool), so perhaps Carnival is trying to be louder without actually having someone speak. I still think pool security would be a better idea.

From deck 11, we also spotted our first glimpse of the Oasis of the Seas. For all it’s hype, it’s still a ship. A big ship, but still a ship. A ship that I had wanted to consider sailing at some point before this Freedom trip, but considering the crowding and spacing issues we encountered throughout the week, I don’t think a bigger ship is in my future anytime soon.

At 1:30 pm, we were allowed to go to our cabins and we got our first taste of the interesting location we chose. We had rooms 7203 and 7205, which are as far forward as you can get. Since everything on the ship was pretty much aft, we did a LOT of walking. The positive, though, was that we did have a window and a private deck in front of our room that we could use. The bridge was right above us, but we never heard any noise from it.

While the room grew on me throughout the week, I was not a fan of the room we were in. I was happy to be on a cruise, but this was our first cruise without a couch and that extra space. If you know how much luggage I bring, you know I need as much space as possible. This room was tiny, it was cramped and it was much smaller than any other room we’d been in. It took a lot of getting used to. Mom and grandma quite enjoyed their room, which was obviously much more spacious since it was an accessible cabin.

7203

7205 (accessible cabin)

Stephanie and I left Mom and grandma to get settled and we went to get extra keys made. See, to get us the best rate, our PVP booked Stephanie and grandma in one room and Mom and I in another. So, Stephanie needed a key to her room, Mom needed a key to hers and grandma and I needed keys to each others. Yeah. I think that’s right. We got that done and went up to the Chic restaurant to confirm a table for four (it’s nice to meet people and chat, but we prefer to keep meals to ourselves). We got that done quickly but there was a long line and a lot of unhappy people. Our dining (the 6:00 pm traditional seating) was full, but everyone wanted it. I guess a lot of people didn’t want open dining or the late seating and the poor Maitre’D and his hostesses were just dealing with a LOT of angry people. We’ve been lucky…aside from our first cruise, we’ve always had our preferred dining confirmed.

I sat in the lobby for a little while to take it all in while Stephanie went to get some brochures from the shore excursions desk. I love how grandiose the lobbies of the Conquest class ships are. They truly are magnificent. I love the use of color in all of them and how the colors constantly change. There’s always something to look at. While we were perusing the new drink menus, we met one of the dancers, Jai, who was a member of the Welcome Aboard team handing out maps, Capers and answering questions. He came over and chatted with us and offered us his drink suggestions and throughout the week when he’d see us at shows, he’d give us a wink or a subtle wave or he’d come dance with us. He reminded me of one of my dearest friends and it was kind of fun.

After some lobby staring and shore excursion discussion, we headed back to the rooms to Mom and grandma to get ready for muster.