Just on the flight home from a great Carnival cruise. This was my 7th cruise - 3rd with Carnival. It has been almost 8 years since I cruised Carnival. the Carnival FREEDOM was chosen by a group of Cruise Critic friends. We arrived at the port around 11:30am. We had a Dollar car rental which we were able to pick up at the airport and drop off at the port. Dollar shuttled us to the cruise port- quick and easy. There was very little line when we arrived and we quickly passed the checked luggage off to a porter and then went through the security scanners without issue. We ended up waiting in the holding area for about an hour.

Once on the ship we found our cabin & dropped off the carry on luggage. I was honestly a bit disappointed in our balcony room - more because I was comparing it to the recent balcony on Royal Caribbean. Our cabin number was 7380 and it was an excellent place for a room with a full floor of cabins above & a full floor of cabins below. Also just two flights up from much of the nightlife, and just two floors down from the lido/ pools/ buffets so we were able to run up or down two flights of stairs to get anywhere quickly. Friends of ours had 6442 (below & aft) and they commented many times about hearing the music and loud base from the nightclubs below. They loved the aft cabin despite that. Our cabin was I oranges and while very very clean, it did seem a bit worn and dated. There was a door & a window to the balcony which I prefer a double door like Royal Caribbean better than the door & window here. Otherwise the balcony was great - normal decent size with two nice chairs & a table . There was tons of storage in the room. We had an excellent room stewart and once I got over the color scheme and that it was a bit dated, was happy with the room.

The ports of call were Antiqua, Nassau, Tortola & St Thomas. Enjoyed all the stops though found Antiqua was pretty depressed. St Thomas - we did a tour (including blackbeard's castle and went to Megan's beach (spelling??) The beach was beautiful, then stopped at Senor Frogs at the pier and did a bit of shopping although wasn't impressed with the shops. In Antigua we were a bit nervous - we had been warned that there had been a fair number of crimes against tourist so we stuck together (about 17 of us) we were surrounded by locals who wanted us to hire them to drive - finally found one and one of the people who toured with us negotiated a rate of 7.00 per person each way to Church beach - the beach was lovely, had changing rooms, food, drinks sandy beach - only issue were some persistent jet ski rental people constantly trying to get us to rent one. Tortola - We did a Virgin Gorda Snorkel & Baths & it was my favorite. We jumped on a very big catamaran ? spelling?? went on an exciting ride about half an hour over to beautiful huge rock formations and were fitted with snorkel gear. We hopped off the boat & snorkeled to shore then followed the guides into the caves around the rocks. It was tricky to climb & crouch and squeeze through the rocks - I am short & it was easier for me but larger/taller & older guests had a more difficult time. The walk through the rocks took us maybe 20 min & we then came out to a beautiful beach where we snorkeled around for about 1 1/2 hours. After that we all followed the guides and snorkeled back to the boat. They had rum punch on the ride back - this was my favorite excursion. Nassau was our last stop and we were also warned about crimes against tourists there. We were In a group of 20 people and we took a city bus (1.25 each) over to the Breezes resort. It was nice but we didn't have nearly enough time there. Read more