The World’s Longest Freedom Review: Part 5.2featured

When Stephanie and I got back to our room, our luggage had already begun to arrive and within 20 minutes, all of our luggage had been dropped at our door. Our room steward, Melvin, came by to introduce himself and I was very impressed with him throughout the week if for no other reason than the fact that he greeted us by name every time we saw him and he could tell the difference between me and Stephanie.

I don’t remember why we split up for muster drill…Mom, Stephanie and grandma went together and I went to meet up with them. But I do remember this: this was the most disorganized muster drill I’ve ever participated in from a special needs standpoint. See, if you have a special needs guest (like grandma is since she’s wheelchair-bound), you don’t participate in regular muster. Instead, you’re guided to a special area with your immediate party, where you are given a muster briefing by the staff. The staff didn’t know where we should go and we ended up with a few other special needs families near the photo gallery, I think. No one came to show us what we should do in an emergency (we’re well-versed, but still…what if we weren’t and something happened?). No one was really there at all. I took pictures of the empty atrium and we left 10 minutes or so early just because we could and we wanted to make sure we could get grandma in an elevator before the rush.

We made a quick stop at the room and then scurried up to the Serenity area to claim a clam shell for sailaway while Mom and grandma headed for the deli to get grandma a bite to eat (since she usually naps while we’re at dinner in the MDR). It was pretty low-key up there for awhile but quickly filled up. Stephanie and I got some drinks and toasted to the week ahead.

After Fort Lauderdale had faded into the distance, Stephanie and I met up with Mom and grandma back at the rooms to finish unpacking our luggage and get ready for dinner. I was in jeans and even though I know it’s allowed for the first night, it’s not really my thing. If there’s an opportunity to get dressed up in some fashion, I will. It’s fun for me. So I got changed and then we headed off to dinner.

We were assigned to the upper-level Posh dining room for traditional-sitting dinner, and we went a few minutes later to avoid the crowd. I never have and still don’t understand why people go early and stand around like herded cattle when they have a table assigned to them. We arrived around 6:05 pm for dinner and all the crowds were gone and we were led straight to our table.

Our dining team was Bawa from Indonesia and Raphael from the Philippines and words can’t express how amazing they were throughout the week. They were friendly, they were helpful and we just enjoyed them so very much. I always talk about this dining team that we had on the Pride back in 2006 (Lawrence and Lillya) that were so amazing that we hold everyone to their standard…and Bawa and Raphael? The first team since to even approach them, let alone surpass them. But this is why we do confirmed dining: the experience of getting a consistent dining team and getting to know them throughout the week.

Dinner on the overall was excellent. We all started with the Tropical Fruits (marinated in lime juice with a touch of tequila), which had an array of fresh fruits, artfully arranged, with little dollops of coulis. I would have preferred a stronger hint of tequila because I like the harshness of the liquor with the sweetness of the fruit, but we all agreed that it was a nice, light starter.

Tropical Fruits

Stephanie really loves the soups in the MDR (and I’m sure if you ask her, she might tell you their her favorite foods onboard, which is why she’ll order a hot soup almost every night despite even if she has a sunburn and it’s still in the 80s out on deck) and she also had the Beef and Barley soup as a starter. It wasn’t anything remarkable, but she enjoyed it nonetheless and thought it was very hearty.

Beef and Barley Soup with Diced Root Vegetables

Mom and I both ordered the Heart of Iceberg Lettuce salad (mine with blue cheese dressing and hers with Thousand Island). I thought the salad was mundane. It was nice and fresh and I love Carnival’s salad dressings, but it lacked any real flavor and was in real need of some spicing up. If you’re going to make an iceberg salad, why not go full-out and just do a wedge salad?

Heart of Iceberg Lettuce

We all ordered the flat iron steak for dinner. Mine came out a little more rare than I usually like, but in general, as long as my steak doesn’t come out blue or rare, I’m good with it. Bawa was on top of it and really thought it was too rare, but I assured him it was fine. The steak was a bit chewy for all of us and had a bit more gristle than I like on my steaks. The side of macaroni and cheese, though, was so delicious and I would have been happy with a plateful of that (and I’m sure had I asked, Bawa would have found a way to grant me that, but I was so full already).

Grilled Flat Iron Steak from American Choice Beef

For dessert, all three of us ordered the Creme Brulee and it was, by far, the best Creme Brulee I’d ever had onboard. The custard was nice and sweet and the caramelized top was actually crunchy (it’d always been soggy for me every time I’d have MDR Creme Brulee). I also ordered a cheese plate to split with Stephanie to go with my cup of coffee and was presented with a nice selection of cheeses (the blue and the brie were my favorites while Stephanie liked the swiss the best).

Creme Brulee

Assorted Cheese Plate

After dinner, we went to the room to see if grandma was up from her nap and we took her to dinner on the Lido deck. I was kind of sad to see no towel animal waiting for us on Stephanie’s bed, but we did have them for the rest of the week so I was glad for that. We all went with grandma up to the Lido deck so she could have dinner. On the Freedom, things were a little different than they were on the Miracle. While they had a better selection of main entrees, they didn’t have the MDR desserts like the Miracle did every night. They still had the warm chocolate melting cake, so grandma was pleased, but it took away the option to skip dessert and just grab it on deck later.

Grandma dined on some pork that she thought was simply fantastic and when she finished her dinner, we all went off to the promenade deck to look at the shopping. I think the shopping on the Freedom is far inferior to the shopping on the Miracle. While I like the setup of the shops, the merchandise was lacking and I was kind of sad there was no World of Good section since I like those products a lot and wanted to buy another journal.

After looking into the shops, we headed to the main lounge, the Victoriana, to grab seats for the Welcome Aboard show and watch whatever games or trivia they were running. When we got there, they had the band out to play music so couples could dance and there was this one elderly couple that I thought was just the most adorable thing ever. They kind of remind me of what I imagine grandma and grandpa would be if grandpa were still with us based on the stories grandma and Mom told me (he died when I was very little). We sat and listened to the music and I journaled for a little while.

After the dancing came free bingo, which was exactly as it sounds: a free game of bingo. It was advertised in the Capers, but I guess we missed it so we were super excited when they started handing out free bingo cards. As always when there’s something for free, there are people who will try to cheat the system and there was this family who was sending their kids up to beg for bingo cards and would hide theirs when the staff came around to pass them out. The staff was wise to their game and they only got their four cards, but seriously people, come on LOL. Be happy for your game of bingo. They didn’t win, anyways.

That said, neither did we LOL.

In between free bingo and regular bingo, they did a kind of live auction thing from the Park West people, I guess to acclimate people to what an auction is like and get people excited enough to come to the art auctions. They auctioned off a spa treatment, golf lessons, excursions, bingo stuff, a piece of art…lots of things…and while it appeared that this was an actual auction (certainly the people who thought they were bidding $110 for a $150 spa treatment thought so), to thank them for their participation, the bid winners received their prize for free. Now, if they do this on your ship, I don’t advocate making sure you have the highest bid because this could have just been our ship or voyage, but there were some very happy people in the audience that night.

The Welcome Aboard show started at 10:30 pm, featuring the Carnival Freedom singers and dancers and comedian Eddie Capone. The singers were fantastic…probably amongst some of the better ones on Carnival’s fleet. The dancing…a bit disjointed. Eddie Capone’s comedy was mostly based on him being old and getting older. If you like that kind of comedy, you’ll like his show. I thought it got old after a few minutes. We were also introduced to our cruise director, Felipe Couto and the entertainment staff: Jamie, Liz, Little John, Ben and Levi. I thought Felipe came on well, but throughout the week, we were continually disappointed with him. This was probably the most lacksidasical entertainment staff we’d ever sailed with. But the show overall was nice and fun. The show doesn’t change and we’ve seen it a million times, but there’s something special with seeing the familiar sets and hearing those beats that makes the cruise really real. We’re really here…it’s really happening.

When the show had finished and the theater cleared out, we headed up to the casino to get our credit from our sailaway drinks. See, if you order certain drinks, you’re supposed to get a $5 match chip from the casino (which means you have to bet at least $5 to use that credit at all and you can only use it at certain tables). We ordered two Sex on the Beach drinks so we were supposed to get two $5 match chips, per our bar server. Well, the casino host told us we couldn’t get the chips because the bar server gave us the wrong receipt…which was the ONLY receipt she gave us. The casino hostess told us to find the bar server and have her give us the correct receipt. We didn’t feel it was worth the trouble of finding her and making her find the receipt (because on embarkation day, with all those drinks, finding one receipt must be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack) and we just left. Mom won $20 on the slots while she was waiting for us, so at least one of us got something.

After the casino mishap, we headed over to the sushi bar for something they called “Midnight Bites,” which was almost like a tapas area they set up instead of the late night buffet or grill. They put out things like marinated tomatoes, marinated olives, cheese cubes, fruit cookies, brownies, pound cake, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, etc every night and they had two or so other options (this night, they had shrimp ceviche and calzones). Me? I preferred the midnight grill the Miracle had. Sometimes, it’s 1:00 am and you just want a plate of hot, crunchy fries.

We headed up to the pizzeria because grandma didn’t like anything at the midnight bites, but the line literally wrapped all the way into the restaurant. Instead, we just went back to the rooms and ordered room service, which arrived within 20 minutes. I ordered a veggie plate and some apple juice and Stephanie and I settled into our room and watched TV.

The ship was really rocking and people were feeling it. Not me, though. The rocking of the ship gave me the best night of sleep I’ve had since…the last time I was on a rocking ship LOL. And since I always comment on the temperature of the room, it was PERFECT this week. A bit warm at times, but no where near as bad it was on each of my Miracle trips last year (when our room temp would raise throughout the night to the point where we’d wake up sweaty). It’d been a LONG day and even though we wanted to go to see a movie up on deck or go to the piano bar, we were much more content to go to sleep.

Today’s Lido lunch menus

Grill/Deli/Pizza menus

Today’s Lido dinner menu