My wife and I have been on 7 cruises with Carnival and one with Celebrity. We are in our early 50s and love to go to the beach at ports we visit and will do some gift shopping. We left two days before the cruise so we could be in Fort Lauderdale for a day prior to the cruise. We were in town the week before the Pro Bowl and the hype was great. We stayed at the Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort Hotel and Suites. This is a two star hotel that is too far away from the main strip of beach. If you have your own transportation this is not a bad hotel. Our rooms were 99.00 per night and were ok. If you don't have your own transportation, get a 3 star hotel on the strip. Taxi prices were about 14.00 one way from our hotel to the strip and the bus is 2.50 per day pass. The bus system is a bit lacking and the buses came on a range of every twenty minutes to every hour. Bus 11 is the route you need to take. I will spend a little extra next time to be closer to the action.

Embarkation: Embarkation was a breeze! It took 20 minutes from taxi to ship. We arrived at the port about 12:30 and headed to VIP check in. There was no one ahead of us and we walked right through security, up to the check in desk, handed in our Fun Pass, received our Sail and Sign, and then up the gang plank. Smoooooth....

The Ship: The Freedom is a fairly new ship and is very clean. I had read some other reviews about the Liberty head being a little creepy. They were! The heads are back lit so it reminded me of camping and telling ghost stories with a flashlight under your chin. But I got over it and ate breakfast there every day. I am not really one to look at the dEcor on a ship and criticize the look or even be awed by it, so if you want a review of the ship dEcor, look at another review. I was not overwhelmed or awed, so it must have been ok. The ship layout is a little hard to learn, but once you have it down, it flows. The only complaint I have about the layout is the promenade deck is very narrow, add the photographers and it is very crowded. Read more