Crusan with Susan: Carnival

another angle of the Atrium. This is about the time Jane discovered her credit wasn't any good. She tried to buy something and it was denied. So off to the front desk to find out why. Even though I had put all her info in and printed out boarding passes for both of them, Carolyn used the boarding pass she had printed out before Jane was registered. Don't know if that was the reason for the mess up, but I'm assuming it was. At least it was an easy, albeit annoying, thing to fix.

A really cool little place we found last year. Got a really great hand dipped milkshake from it. The desserts looked great, too, for a small charge, but we were always too full to try any of them.

the Red Frog Bar again.

another Red Frog bar. This one was by the big screen and was the place to get free popcorn at night.

a concert shown on the big screen.

another towel creation.

Another fun filled day---even though we were stuck on the ship all day.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

2014-12-9 Sea day:

A day to wander around the ship and check out some more places.
Like the Serenity Deck for adults.

and the towel animal station.

even uncorked one of our 4 bottles of wine.

cheers.

After dinner it was off to another show in the main theatre. I was surprised they didn't have one on Key West night.

Then we found this twosome (two-tones) and really liked them. We stopped by to listen to them many evening.

We tried to listen to karaoke a few times, but it was too painful!

Angie and I also checked out the Red Frog Bar. Really enjoyed the acoustic guitar and singing of Tom. Unfortunately he caught a cold and the rest of the cruise his voice was really squeaky.

Loved my Mango Madness drink.

the free plantain chips were really good, too.

Just a fun girls day of visiting!

Sunday, December 7, 2014

2014-12-7 embarkation day for our girls' Carnival cruise:

My son-in-law, Josh, drove us to the Everglades cruise port and dropped us off---it's so nice having relatives who live in the area. We thought by going later in the afternoon---after 2, we'd get in right away. But there were some flaws in that thinking! Not only did we still wait over an hour to board the ship, but all the food venues on board were closed by the time we got on (except 24 hour room service). We walked our luggage on board, so unpacked and waited for the muster drill. Angie and I had room 1256, an oceanview cabin. It was a good sized room and pretty quiet.

2013 Dec. mother/daughter Carnival Freedom 4 nt Bahamas cruise

Since Angie was coming back to St. Louis for her cousin's wedding on Nov. 23rd, staying for Thanksgiving week, she decided to drive up from Ft. Lauderdale with her 2 dogs. Josh was smart and flew up and back over Thanksgiving. Having nothing better to do, I asked if she wanted company for the long ride back (other then the company of the 2 dogs). She said sure, so I did. With 20 hours driving time to their home in Coral Springs (by Ft. Lauderdale), it was an exhausting drive/ride for all of us.

About 2 weeks before her trip out, we were joking about going on a short cruise during the week I would be there. Joking turned to checking out cruises. We found 1 that fit perfectly and went to 2 Bahamas islands. So we booked it. Not a bad deal at $198@ for 4 nights (about $235 with the port taxes for the 2 ports we went to---Nassau and Grand Bahamas), plus I was able to get a $50 onboard credit for owning CCL stock and cruising on Carnival. So we pretty much rested up the day after we got to her home. The next day, we met Josh for lunch. He dropped us off at the port, and away we went.

2013-12-2 and 3 Travel days:

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

2013-12-6 Nassau:

2013-12-7 Grand Bahamas:

2013-12-8 Sea Day:

On Dec. 9th, we did the self debarkation since we only had carry on luggage and Josh picked us up. Amazing how tired we were after only 4 days on the cruise! We slept most of that afternoon and the next day I flew back to St. Louis. It was a fast week with a lot of stuff packed into it. But I love these mother/daughter vacations. They're fewer and farther between now that she's married and lives so far away.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

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.

The atrium again.

Listening to the band from a couple floors up.

Bar Nouveau.

So far, so good! I really like the ship.

Friday, September 26, 2025

Friday, December 12, 2014

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Thursday, December 5, 2013

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