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Wonderful weather!

Monaco (Monte Carlo)

We went on the last Freedom cruise before her dry dock in Barcelona to get her fins fixed. We had a great cruise. The boat is a bit older, very similar to the Liberty (almost identical) but very easy to navigate, in great shape, great staff and a clean ship. The atrium always had good music and events. The musicians were excellent with a great selection of music. The cruise director, Andy, was my favorite of all time. He was so animated, comical and fun. The midnight buffet was clean, had good easy grab options. The adult pool was often full but always a good time. The main dining room was wonderful. Particularly Ace. He remembered our names and was so accommodating. Happiness and Soo in the casino were wonderful dealers. The food in the buffet was also good. Great selections. The cruise was a hit! I definitely recommend this gem.

Final Freedom before the Fix

Just got off 5 night cruise on Carnival Freedom to the Bahamas, and a lot has changed since we went on the Freedom last year.

We loved it so much last year we went again, but the food and service were horrible this time.

Had a balcony room again but this time the light didn't work and we were told that it couldn't be fixed, so we opened the curtains for some light out there at night.

Buffet food was mostly dry and tasteless and finding somewhere to sit was awful; we actually left our food on the table to get drinks and came back to find people standing and saving our table and telling the waiter to clear off our table and they threatened us when we sai8d that the food and table were ours..

We are 71 years old and didn't want a scene so we just left.

Tried MDR 3 nights; shrimp cocktail had 4 tiny shrimps; tried steak twice, ordered medium rare and both were very thin, mostly gristle with a tiny bit of overcooked rubber in the center.

Salmon the other night was tiny, overcooked, dry and tasteless.

Our waiter last year was the best but this year our waiter actually ignored us and I even had to get up and get my water refilled.

Left and got pizza all 3 nights, which was the best food on the ship.

Getting served at any bar was endless waiting, while bartenders seemed to only pay attention to drunks who must have spent the whole day there tipping them.

Waited about 20 minutes at 2 different bars then went to a third bar, waited, ordered a beer and they were out of that brand.

Don't they restock the ship before they leave the port?

Also the stabilizers were broken and everyone was stumbling, especially theladies in heels on dress up night.

On a positive note, our room steward Wayan was great, friendly and showed us how to make a towel dog, and the cruise director Andy was awesome, funny and also helpful.

We're booked on another Carnival cruise next year, but I think we may cancel and try another cruise line.

Unexpectedly Awful!

Freedom cruise from 8/5 - 8/10

We just got home from our first ever Carnival cruise and it will also be our last. 

We had the most miserable trip of our lives. This was our 14 year old sons first cruise and it was a total waste of our money. We paid for priority boarding and got our luggage long after people who did not have priority. We paid for the soda package for our son but would have to wait 30 minutes or more everytime we ordered a pepsi. We had a suite but the beds kept sliding apart and the foam mattress pad would bunch up in the middle every night. The room was so hot that we could not sleep. There would only be one buffet open each night with long lines. The lines were long at every restaurant. The food was awful, cold and tasteless!  We have been on several cruises and several all inclusive vacations and have never had such an awful experience. We upgraded everything and got absolutely nothing for it. This is an old outdated ship!! Even the basketball court was closed half the time. The pools are ridiculously small. 

Carnival Freedom DO NOT BOOK THIS SHIP

All the services that we received was awesome from the cooks, servers, housekeepers, and even the people that checked us in for the cruise.  But I would like to thank four people who went above and beyond Maaressi, Vijay, Sahip, and Ketut these guys were amazing and hope to sail with them again.  Next time i cruise I will ask if they are on my cruise ship.  Great cruise and great people.  Every day they something for you to do and it was not a dull moment on this boat.  Entertainment was good and games were on point.  I kind of wish that the pool was bigger but I understand because we never got to get in the pool because it was always full of kids and I wish we had a place for the adults to drink and relax by the pool or hot tub for the adults.  Awesome

Great servers

My wife and I have been cruising for about 15-16yrs now and have taken at least 13-14 cruises. We’ve been mostly on the NCL, Royal and Disney lines with many amazing and fun memories. We booked this cruise in 2019 before the pandemic made a mess of everything. We were given a deadline to take the cruise in order to take advantage of the cabin credits and to avoid losing our paid fair. So we finally took it this past weekend. What a disappointment!?!?  The food was quite bad…one day the pizza was good and the next day soggy tasteless. On the 2nd day (at about 6:30pm) we decided to eat at the buffet rather than the restaurant only to find that most of the buffet was closed…Guy’s burger place was closed and what was open was terrible. Sandwich meats, dry bread and some other mystery foods that looked scary. The items on the restaurant menu were not even close to what we expected. The brisket came in a sauce and loaded in fat. The cheese for omelets were so “imitation” that it wouldn’t melt…it stayed hard and chewy on the food. The veggies looked old and wilted.  The food came out fast, which was great, but obviously had been sitting around forever because it was lukewarm (at best) when we got it. 

We saw 3 badly shattered window panes around the ship…one was being help up with duct tape. Most of the crew was nice..but definitely ran into a few that didn’t want to be there and showed it with attitude. Some of the bartenders clearly had no interest in making drinks. I’d find a bar with as few people as possible, which may have been the wrong strategy because it seemed like they would see me and continued to focus more on putting things away than taking my order.  

They now have a promotion for free drinks once you earn enough points at the casino. Once I earned my points I ordered a drink with a cocktail waiter…about 5 mins later he came back to tell me I was ineligible for the free drinks (he said the system hadn’t updated) so i waited about an hour and tried again with no luck. I came back later at night and still no luck…I found a manager who told me I was eligible but the cocktail waiter didn’t understand how to run the card…REALLY!!!!!???  How do work in the casino and NOT know how to honor your promotion!? I paid for drinks that should have been free. I completely understand that Carnival is NOT a luxury line and that you get what you pay for…I certainly still didn’t get what we paid for. This was my first and LAST cruise with Carnival.

Very dissatisfied 

I have never written a review about anything. But I chose this cruise because I read a lot of reviews and felt like I needed to mention things that I had not seen on previous reviews 

The food and meal staff were amazing

Now, for the negative, pretty much everything else. This ship is extremely outdated, had very strong odors, which smelt like sewer. You have a total of two outlets in your whole room.  I understand small spaces, but something needs to happen as far as the shower/bathroom space. Tons of closets, but wasted space. Also, cruise Director needs to have better communication. I heard a lot of people talk negatively about the communication.

Also, I was charged for services in the spa that I did not receive, which I will be dealing with soon. If you’re looking for a cruise to go on, this one is not it. Finally, one of the biggest things is people in guest services. Need to be able to speak English.

I paid way to much money for poor conditions

After reading other reviews, I was so anxious and worried about the cruise we had booked on the Freedom. We've sailed with carnival multiple other times so we had an idea of what to expect, but with tales of poor room conditions, understaffing, bad smells, over crowding, etc, I was very concerned.

Our cruise was wonderful. The ship was clean and well kept. Our room (inside cabin on first deck) was exactly as expected. The a/c worked fine, as well. (I'd read other reviews of little to no room a/c). 

The staff were amazing, as always on carnival. I would agree that they were a bit understaffed compared to previous sailings, but it didn't make much of a difference at all. The cruise director Robby was great, as well as all the other staff members who handled games and events. They were funny, friendly and full of energy. 

The food was really good. Guys burger joint never disappoints, and though the lines can get long, they move so fast it doesn't matter. Same goes for pizza. The only food that I felt like the wait was excessive for was the bonsai sushi, they definitely needed more help there. 

The only place overcrowding was an issue was the buffet, specifically at breakfast. Tons of people at once and the lines didn't move quickly. However, the buffet seemed to suffer in general on this ship, as far as options go. We found out quickly the main dining room was definitely worth it with amazing breakfast and brunch options as well as great dinner every night. Skip the wait and just eat there and you are golden. 

The steakhouse was spectacular, as well. I highly recommend booking dinner one night for the experience. 

Overall I would definitely sail the Freedom again. We enjoyed the ports of call, the staff, the sights and everything in between.

Do NOT let older reviews scare you!

While the initial check-in process was smooth, we then had to sit in a large room with hundreds of other people for over a half hour until we could board. The Boat layout is extremely confusing and you have to go to other floors to get around to your final destination. We got lost 3 times before we found the Habana bar. The boat stinks of sewage A LOT. And not in only one location but everywhere. Sadly we got an adjoining room and you can hear EVERYTHING in the other room. Not just the adjoining room but if anyone is on the balcony or walking through the halls/closing their doors. I don’t think we slept for more than 5 hours at a time until something woke us up. For breakfast you have to check-in on the app and then wait 20 minutes for a table…food in general isn’t impressive at all. Since the boat caught on fire the other year, the fumes go down on the deck; the first day we were pelted by ash from it. Pools are pretty small and the hot tubs don’t have jets. The fitness room has about 8 lifting machines and the treadmills force you to watch TV instead of looking out at the ocean. The cruise director says things that don’t make sense, and sometimes he’s borderline offensive. I could go on and on about how miserable this cruise is and we are only 3 days in. We will not be cruising Carnival again.

Horrible

Needed a short getaway close by.  I had read the reviews and was expecting a hassle but the whole affair was a surprising delight.  Everything was just fine, from embarking to debarking.  The cabin was clean, everything worked.  The crew were friendly and working hard.  The food wasn’t 5 star but it was good enough!  Drink package was worth it for us.  Casino paid out a win.  The itinerary wasn’t that awesome because there isn’t much to do in Nassau or Bimini.  We didn’t take any excursions because most of them are so weather dependent.  Gladly, it was 20 mph winds when we got to Bimini so anything in the water probably wasn’t good.  If you are traveling from northern states you might not care about wind as long as there is sun, and there was plenty of that.  Having been on many cruises, oceans and rivers, this was a good value.  We were very happy with this experience.

Delightful

I have to start off by saying that a few weeks before our cruise I was ready to cancel the whole trip based solely off reviews I'd read on Tripadvisor and Cruise Critic.  The Freedom holds over 3,000 people, it leaves on 4 and 5 day cruises every week.  Keeping that in mind you can only find a handful of reviews regarding the Freedom and most are negative.  While you are always going to have a handful of complainers clearly the vast majority of the people who went on Freedom enjoyed it but sadly chose not to take the time to write a review.  

Is the Freedom an older ship?  Yes.  Is it a smaller ship (comparatively) yes.  However, it was clean!  The staff was AMAZING!  Food was fantastic!  We had a wrap around balcony room at the back, room 74**.  Our room steward was Wayan.  The room was so nice, so clean and Wayan was so attentive to our needs. 

Here are the things I take issue with, with previous reviews.  "Lines for food are too long".  Again, there are over 3,000 people on this ship.  Guess what, there are going to be occasional lines.  Be smart about when you eat especially at the buffet.  They are the busiest between 8:00 and 9:00.  We chose to eat before the rush around 7:45 but even the one morning we ate after 8:00 and there was a line, it moved pretty quick.  There are 2 buffets.  There is the one at the very back of the ship but if you walk forward there is another buffet line.  They all have the same food.  One thing I noticed is not ALL the lines were long.  In fact one time there was a VERY long buffet line on one side but I walked around to the other buffet line and I was able to walk right up and grab a plate!  Shop around and find a short line.  The line for Guy's burgers, yes it was long, but I stood in line for only 10 minutes, the line moved fast and there was plenty of people watching to do while you waited.  Don't forget the BBQ place upstairs in the lido buffet.  There was rarely a line for BBQ and there are PLENTY of tables up there no one really uses.  We did the "Your Time" dining all 5 nights.  You check in on the app and we never had to wait more than 15 minutes before we were seated at a table.  And you can wait for your table wherever you want.  They hold your table for 10 minutes.   3 nights we were sat with other couples and 2 nights we sat by ourselves.  My tip is if you want to sit by yourself eat later in the evening, after 7:30.  However, having said that, we had a very enjoyable time talking with other cruisers at dinner.  And, guess what, they all went on and on about what a great time they were having and they all had zero complaints about their cruise experience.  The other thing that worried me was I read reviews about "fights" happening all over the cruise ship".  We saw zero fights, in fact I was struck by how friendly and talkative everyone was. And there were security officers on board that made themselves seen so I felt very safe as well.  As far a bars go, we liked the one at the back of the ship by the pool, it was never very busy.  A lot of people on previous reviews complained about how long the lines to the bars were, we often walked right up and were able to get service at most bars and I think the longest we ever waited for bar service was again about 10 minutes.  And the last thing that worried me was debarkation.  We have been on previous cruises and have always loved how organized Carnival is when it comes to debarkation especially compared to other cruise lines.  I think if you follow directions you will have ZERO problems.  We waited until our "zone" was called and pretty much walked right off the ship.  Were we in a line?  Yes, but that line never stopped moving and I looked at my watch and from the time we got to the lobby deck of the ship, to the time we had our bags and were walking out to meet our transportation bus was less than 15 minutes.  

Our cruise director was Gabe.  How lucky is Carnival to have this man!!!  He was SO FRIENDLY, so funny and so energetic!  When we saw him he always took time to chat with us and even posed for a pictures with us the last day.  We talked to a guy who told us he'd been on over 20 cruises and he said "This guy (Gabe) is the best" he'd ever seen!  We had to agree.  

All in all it was great cruise!  We had a fabulous time and would definitely cruise Carnival again and the Freedom again.

Great Cruise!  Do NOT believe previous reviews!

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