My wife and I have done the Western Caribbean cruise many times, so decided to do an Eastern Caribbean one. She wanted to see Key West too so we booked out of Galveston. We live in New Orleans, so it was only a 6 hour drive. This was our first time on the Freedom and it was my 13th Carnival cruise.
Things started out wet as there was flash flooding in Galveston when we arrived. We were detoured away from the ship for a bit, but eventually made our way around through some half-flooded streets. Our VIFP status was certainly helpful on debarkation/embarkation processes, they really zipped us through on both ends.
Service:
Big enough for the 2 of us, everything in it's place. No problem. Just what we expected.