We departed Fort Lauderdale June 30, 2012 on an 8-night cruise to the Caribbean aboard the Carnival Freedom. Ports of Call were Ft Lauderdale, St Thomas, Antigua, Tortola and Nassau. We received an email close to our sailing date from Carnival requesting that passengers delay arrival at the pier. Therefore, we waited an extra half hour before leaving on our three-hour drive to the off site parking lot and the cruise. After our arrival at the port, we sailed through the embarkation process and were up at the Lido Deck #9 Freedom (buffet) Restaurant in 15 minutes flat. Carrying our Sign & Sail cards, which identified us as Platinum Level members in the VIFP Club, elicited many "Welcome Back" greetings from the staff. It was a nice feeling. The buffet restaurant was quite busy since everyone was waiting for staterooms to become available but we managed to snag a table by one of the large picture windows. Of course, our view was only of the port but it was still impressive as the RCCL Oasis of the Seas was in port. I waited on a long line for a Reuben sandwich at the separate Deli counter. Later I had a soft serve swirl ice cream cone at a nearby self serve machine. Hubby braved the even longer Mongolian Corner line, then one of the main buffet lines and returned to the table only 10 minutes after I did. We both sorely missed not having trays on which to place our food as we always visited more than one line. It helped that buffet staff members supplemented the beverage machines by serving beverages to passengers and offering refills. Since most of the colorful cups at the buffet were small, it made our life easier as we made fewer trips back and forth for refills. We still always needed to make a separate trip to the dessert station. Stateroom was ready before we even ate our lunch and the restaurant thinned out considerably after 1:30 PM.

Our cabin #2379 was conveniently located just a few doors away from the short passageway to a bank of elevators. We were just one deck down from our assigned Chic Dining Room and the Victoriana Theater. The Ocean View Stateroom was comfortable, fairly large and light. It had a large window and the bathroom was the typical size. I did not care much for the artwork (much too vivid for my tastes) on the walls but the frames were lovely. All the rooms on our deck had similar looking prints. I actually avoided looking at them when in the room. The nice-sized salmon colored couch held two small pillows and there was an upholstered chair and an oval coffee table. I appreciated the big mirror over the large desk and the long mirror inside one of the closets. The king bed although lacking a pillow top was comfortable enough not to cause us any back aches or stiff necks and held four fluffy pillows. Two handy bedside end tables were just the right size. There were plenty of closets, hangers and shelf space for all our belongings. The stateroom proved to be quiet throughout the entire cruise and no noise disturbed our sleep at night. Our sweet cabin steward, Tammy was quite attentive to our needs and very personable. After the first night when we requested a bucket and ice from her, she filled the bucket twice daily. She also replenished our packages of amenities: sample sizes of individually wrapped toothpaste, floss and soap. She did a great job keeping our room clean and well supplied with towels. She disturbed us as little as possible, which we appreciated and worked around our comings and goings. We looked forward to her animal towel creations each night. Before the ship departed the port, there was a safety drill mandated for all passengers and attended by everyone out on the lifeboat deck.

We chose Your Time Dining and usually ate between 6-6:30 PM. All our dinners were in the dining room. The dining option worked out quite well for us; we rarely waited on a line. When we arrived close to 6 PM, we always received our requested waiter from the first night. When we ate later, we often sat in other sections in order to get a table close to the window overlooking the promenade deck and its view of the ocean. All our waiters were great. They all bent over backwards to please us. Our 45th wedding anniversary fell on July 1, the first Elegant Evening and all the waiters in our section sang us a song, joined in by fellow diners, the ship photographer took our photo and we received a special dessert with a candle - thank you Carnival for the happy memory! Our travel agent also sent us a bottle of wine to celebrate at dinner that night and we felt quite pampered. Although service at times in the dining room was slow, we enjoyed the terrific meals nightly. They arrived at the correct temperature and the meats cooked as requested. The Maitre d'(Csaba) Chubby as he called himself, assisted by the lovely April, Jr. Hostess was quite helpful to diners with special dietary needs. He was very friendly and stopped by just about every table nightly. When the man slept, I do not know as we saw him up at the buffet restaurant at breakfast and lunch. In addition, he was in the dining room at lunchtime on sea days, too. My only food-related problem was that on Elegant Evenings I wanted all the choices. For example on the first Elegant Evening there was Lobster & Shrimp, Prime Rib, AND Spaghetti ala Carbonara, among other equally good choices. Luckily, our waiter told me that we would have Prime Rib on another night so I ordered the Lobster & Shrimp and the Spaghetti ala Carbonara. You should not have to make such tough decisions on vacation, laugh, laugh. The ship photographers were so busy in the lobby areas with requests from the many families and young people onboard that they rarely visited our dining room except for Elegant Evenings & first & last nights. Read more