Carnival Freedom Review

Average cruise overall, but specific cabin issues

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Freedom
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DGJax
10+ Cruises • Age 40s

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Sail Date: May 2014

This cruise experience reminded me why I do not sail Carnival any more, and will certainly not sail them ever again, even if I were offered a free cruise. I will first talk about the ship and our cruise in general, then go into the serious issues that occurred and the (lack of/inadequate) response by management.

A little background: This was a mother's day trip for my mom and sister, and I, so 3 people sharing 1 cabin. We've had 4 sharing a cabin very comfortably on other cruise lines, so while we knew the square footage of this cabin was smaller than we were used to, we thought it would be OK.We were told that the Carnival Freedom had just come out of dry-dock roughly 2 weeks prior to our sailing, May 10, 2014. I cannot confirm the validity of that statement, but if that is true, the decor of the ship must not have been addressed at all. The decor throughout the ship is very outdated, from the cabins, to the different buffet areas on the Lido deck, to the common areas like the atrium. There is minimal soundproofing, which I will get into in much greater detail later in this review. The layout of the ship is confused and inefficient. We had to cut through at least one dining room several times throughout the course of our daily movements. The elevators are small. Ship's appearance I give a C-.

Carnival must really be in cost savings mode, because they have all but eliminated live entertainment from the ship. Yes, there are the seemingly impromptu guitar and cello performance, or the casino bar band nightly (much more on that to come), and the night club still has a DJ playing music, but if you are a fan of production shows, you will be disappointed. They have been replaced by comedians, almost every night. I believe there was only 1 'production' show on this 8 day cruise, and calling it a production show is pushing it. There was no set design, and hardly anything in the way of dancers. It's all projections on an LED screen, with some (very) roughly average singers. The rest of the nights you'll enjoy comedy shows - ranging from a night with the newlywed game, to adult-only comedy. (Of course for a comedy show, you only need to have a sound and lighting engineer, and the comedian, versus a true production show which would require several lighting staff, a few people on sound, at least half a dozen dancers and usually 2-3 lead singers.) As far as other entertainment on board, there were various activities like art auctions, games/contests on the pool deck, bingo, casino tournaments, alcohol tastings, spa seminars, etc. Most of the activities are designed around encouraging you to spend money on board the ship, such as the spa seminars, the art auctions, etc., with other activities that cost money to participate in, such as bingo, casino tournaments, alcohol tastings or mixologist demonstrations, the specialty steak house ($35 fee per person), daily shop sales, scrap book classes, etc. This is all (sadly) standard fare for a cruise anymore; gone are the days so full of activities that you couldn't decide which ones you'd rather go to - but that's the cruise industry as a whole. So, for on board entertainment and activities, I begrudgingly give it a C-.

Cabin Review

Unless you are a night owl who stays out of your cabin until after midnight, this is NOT a good cabin to book!! This cabin, and all those surrounding it on the starboard (right) side mid-ship, are literally right above the casino, which happens to have a bar with live entertainment every night. The band uses microphones, of course, and their music is pumped through the speakers, which are in the ceilings of deck 5. This cabin is on deck 6, so their ceiling is our floor. The music is SO incredibly loud that the walls and ceiling actually shake! We could even feel the reverberations of the bass in our chest! (The singer wasn't very good, either, which certainly did not help.) This goes on every single night, and is scheduled to stop by 12:15 AM. Unless you are one who likes to stay up late, enjoying the clubs or casinos or anywhere but your cabin, this is NOT a good cabin for you!! If you have kids, FORGET IT! If you must book on deck 6, I highly recommend a cabin on the port side (left), or a forward / aft cabin - avoid starboard mid-ship! Carnival is aware of the noise issue and they acknowledge that it is a problem, but they will not do anything to fix it aside from shutting the band down if they play past 12:15 AM and you call to complain. Also, this particular cabin has an air conditioning issue, and would not cool down to an acceptable level, despite daily temperature checks by maintenance, and attempts to fix the air conditioner. The head refrigeration tech did acknowledge that a fan belt had issues, but his attempts to fix it did not produce a noticeable difference in the cabin temperature.Now, onto the cabin in general. The room is small compared to what we're used to. We had 3 people, and it was a tight squeeze for our 8 day 'vacation'. There was not very much closet space and extremely little drawer space. The TV is quite old and temperamental. There is no DVD player, but you can watch a movie through their system for $10.99 a piece. (No thanks.) The beds obstruct the path to the balcony, though you can actually maneuver around the end of the bed to reach the balcony door. The bathroom was an average size for a cruise ship. We were able to store our luggage under the beds, which was good, but since we had 3 people, they left that couch sleeper undone the entire time, which completely eliminated any sitting area in the cabin, aside from the beds themselves.Overall: I cannot stress this enough - do not book this cabin, or any around it on the right side middle of the ship on this deck if you have kids, if you like to go to sleep early, if you like to spend some of your evenings in your cabin. The noise issue is a very serious one, that while aware of, Carnival has no plans to address. Especially since the Freedom just came out of dry-dock 2 weeks prior to our sailing on May 10 2014, I would have thought the cabins would have been soundproofed, but that was not the case. We were eventually moved to cabin 6469 (starboard side, aft of the ship) and had no noise or A/C issues there. While this room does accept 3 people, it is a tight squeeze, so keep that in mind.

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