Carnival up to now has been our comfort zone, and pretty much they have met our needs and wants. The Carnival Freedom just did not measure up to our expectations and cruising experience we are accustom to. We embarked in Fort Lauderdale and found it to go quite smoothly taking about the normal length of time for having arrived at 12:30. I would say that total time was about 30 - 40 minutes form entering the terminal until we were on board. The ship is pretty dated, and I was told that it is going into dry dock next November for a total refurbish. It appears they have given up on exterior maintenance. There is noticeable rust sen from the Lido deck, especially around the big screen, the big screen also has problems as area pixelate and blur. The decking needs to be refinished badly and the water slide replaced.

The common areas of the internal ship are well kept for a ship that is 7 years old. The biggest disappointment on this ship was the level of service or lack of. In the Posh dining room our wait staff was was not interactive, not sure they ever know our names and basically just went through the motions. They were not timely in bringing or checking on anything. One night we stared at our empty plates for over 30 minutes before seeing a desert menu or offered coffee. The next night we had to leave, we order desert and coffee but would have been late for the show if we had waited any longer for it to show up. We were in the dining room at 8:15 sharp, there is no way we should still be waiting for desert at 10:00. We talked to the Mater D and got out dining switched to My time Dining in the Chic dining room. It only got worse in there, They could not even seem to bring the right meals to us in there. I ordered a Flat Iron, got a Prime Rib, Ordered Fruit Cocktail and Shrimp Cocktail only got 1 of the 2. It was not just me, they repeatedly got the orders around the table messed up. Here was the real kicker. My wife ordered Mahi Mahi, another in our party ordered salmon. She was served first, scraped all the topping on the fish off to the side ate one bite and realized it was not salmon. The waiter took it back and brought her salmon. The waiter served everyone at the table and served my wife last. Yes indeed it was the same dinner serve that had the topping scraped and bite missing. Totally unacceptable! we then experience the same problem in my time dining, way too much time between courses and way too long to be served coffee and desert. Believe me we are Carnival fans, this is far from what we are used to and have come to expect from Carnival. The food itself was fine we had no complaints about the offering nor the quality, just in the manner it was delivered. We prepay our gratuities and on every cruise we have been on we were so wowed by service that we tip the wait staff far beyond that. Not only did we not tip extra, for the first time ever on Carnival I went to guest services and rescinded half of our prepaid gratuities for the wait staff and our cabin steward.

Our cabin steward did not even seek us out to introduce herself. I have a need for a power card and had to go find her to obtain one. Again when seeing us in the hall on occasion she would just simply say hi or smile. There was never any conversation, or asking is we needed anything. The glass shelves in the bathroom had a layer of dust, and a layer of dust around the TV. Read more