Crusan with Susan

2013-12-5 embarkation day for our Carnival Freedom cruise:

The first day was spent exploring the Carnival Freedom ship. We had booked the cheapest category room at the very front of the ship (interior upper/lower which meant bunk beds) as a guarantee, but were fortunately upgraded to an interior cabin with 2 lower beds and located in the middle of the ship--cabin 1291. It wasn't the suites I'd been getting accustomed to and I missed the verandah, but we didn't spend much time in the room and it was quiet and very little motion was felt there.

Weird bathroom picture!

We did some exploring before the muster drill.
The water slide.

Looking towards the large outdoor theatre screen. They played a couple movies and concerts on this screen.

the 24 hour pizzeria

the Freedom Café (lido buffet)

one of the 3 or 4 - 24hr ice cream/hot drinks stations.

patio seating.

yummy!

Then it was time for the infamous muster drill. We got there way too early and it lasted way too long, but fortunately we didn't have to use what we "learned"!

Back to exploring the Carnival Freedom. It's another large ship (passenger capacity of 2970 and crew of 1150), but really didn't seem all that big. Maybe it was because of our cabin location in the middle of the ship. A lot of reviews complained about the dark décor around the ship, but I thought it was very nice.
Aft pool area (adult pool)

inside the elevator

one of the bars along the walk through area

Some of the interesting lighted art along the hall way

Lounging area along walkway.

Lots of areas to get away from the crowds and chill out. Hard to believe there's over 4000 people on board!!!

display by sampling bar (where they make an appetizer in the evening)

Viennese Café. These desserts had an upcharge for them, but it was only about $2 and the portions were huge.

entrance to the casino

tempting!!!!!!

atrium area. Lots of the ships Ken and I cruise on now don't have these grand atriums anymore. I rather like it.

one of the dessert bars in the Freedom café. There was a fish and chips restaurant above this part of the Lido, but it wasn't opened many hours.

We were even treated to a pretty sunset as we sailed away from Fort Lauderdale!

Looking down the atrium from a couple floors up. There was very good nightly entertainment here. This was a talented band called something like the 3rd Degree.

the library where you can check out books and games or just enjoy the quiet. There were also daily crossword puzzles and Sudoku games for interested cruisers.

the Havana Bar---note the cigar bar stools! There were great shows in here, too. You would think it would be smokey, but I think this is one of the rooms that doesn't allow smoking. The casino still allows smoking. There's also smoking on private lanais, but that may be it.

We took the late assigned dining. We really loved our wait staff, but our dinner mates were somewhat strange. Or should I say one was. The 1st night we went and only 2 other people were at our table for 8. The one gal was probably on something which didn't mix well with alcohol. She definitely was entertaining. Her travel companion was a very nice gal, but hardly got a word in. We didn't go to the main restaurant the 2nd night since it was formal night and we didn't want to dress up. The 3rd night we met 2 more of our dinner mates and they were a really interesting gay couple. The last night, we went to the restaurant at the early seating and asked our servers if we could dine then and they were happy to oblige. Seems a lot of people don't go to their assigned dining times anymore. With the lido food being basically the same food as in the restaurant and there also being a burger bar and pizza bar, it makes it easy to avoid the restaurant and dressing up. But we did make it there 3 nights and enjoyed most of our food. This was probably the best thing I had---brisket. It was very tasty. The boneless braised ribs were great, too. Surprisingly, the filet mignon was only so-so.

The entertainment on the Carnival cruises we've been on have been very good---much better then HAL, I hate to admit. This ship even had a live band. We were told they are only 1 of 2 ship bands left on Carnival now. They were excellent. So were the Carnival singer and dancers.

The ship was already decorated for Christmas. It was really neat seeing all the decorations.

They even had a mailbox for letters to SAnta!

The tree in the atrium had to be at least 25' tall.

I think we even saw Santa napping on the deck!

the 3rd Degree playing in the atrium.

another sitting area.

From inside, it looked like it was light outside when it was really dark. So we went out to see why. The blue lighting gave it an interesting appearance.