Carnival Freedom Review

9th Cruise, 1st and Last with Carnival

Review for the Western Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Freedom
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BlurXC
First Time Cruiser • Age 20s

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Sail Date: May 2010

Where to begin? This cruise went from the bad to the ugly, quick. First, a little background info: My wife and I are late thirties, and this was our first Carnival cruise, with multiple cruises with RC, Celebrity, and one with Princess. We look for value in cruises, not necessarily the cheapest available, but for sure always looking for deals. I do look for standards to be met on the cruises, namely service and food quality. This review will reveal my honest opinions of the cruise, and do not think I am a totally negative or hard to please person. I have written four reviews, the other three were mostly glowing reviews (5 stars) pointing out a few quirks. This was an eight night cruise from Ft. Lauderdale.

I did not like the boarding process. Upon arriving before noon, in reality I was on the ship in a comparable time to other cruises, but we had to stand up the entire time, meandering from one long line to the next. Not ideal to say the least, and my least favorite boarding thus far. We began to notice some service type deficiencies from the beginning. The room stewards in the halls seemed to think they owned them. If you were walking down the hall, and they were dragging a vacuum cleaner behind them, you had better move to the far edge or you would get hit! Total disrespect for the customer IMHO. This was not an isolated difference. It seemed as though most of the staff did not want to be on that ship working. We have not noticed this on any other cruise.

The dinner service and food quality was adequate, but not good. As I had read on other reviews, the Head Waiter I did not see until the last night of the cruise. Things quickly headed downhill with the morning and lunch main dining area. The service and food quality was substantially below average. One day at lunch the server brought out cold, stale bread. I asked for him to bring us some fresh bread, and he said "No. This is what we have." I said, "Excuse me?" He just looked at me. Unbelievable! Several lunch meals the food came out extremely greasy. This included both chicken and fish dishes. One morning at breakfast my wife asked for pineapple and watermelon for her fruit selection. The server responded that only cantaloupe, orange slices, and honey dew melon would be served. I just laughed, and he just looked back at me. Again, unbelievable IMHO.

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