Carnival Freedom Ship Review
“H” here. I’m Prof. Cruise’s T.A. (teaching/travel assistant). She’s out, guarding with a spiked club, her spot in line at Target for when the Valentine’s Day chocolate goes on clearance at midnight, so I’m filling in today. In honor of Throwback Thursday and in keeping consistent with Prof. Cruise’s subpar teaching pedagogy, I’m going to be recycling an old lecture I first gave back in December of 2014. That was a big month for me as it marked my 2nd birthday and, more importantly, my first ever cruise.
So pop some candy hearts and join me on the beautiful Carnival Freedom back when pooping in my pants was still considered age appropriate. Ah, the good old days!
The Cast of Characters
Prof. Cruise and grandma tagged along on this trip with me.
Here’s Prof. Cruise. She’s super hot and funny and smart (and I may be relying some on her lecture notes, if you haven’t figured that out already).
And here’s my grandma. She kept Prof. Cruise sane by hanging out with me lots.
Coupla dead weights if you ask me, but they insisted on coming to “supervise.” I was determined to make them regret it though – next time, I sail SOLO. If you were on this ship, I probably gave you a sticky high five at some point. Or you probably heard me yell. Because, dudes, I yelled A. LOT. Prof. Cruise told me to tell you sorry for that – so, SORRY. She tried her best to keep me quiet – I just stunk at it.
It’s good I was cute!
You might find this lecture particularly helpful if you’re traveling with a little one (lord help you). Or if you’re a vegetarian; Prof. Cruise is one of those weird hippy types, but my grandma isn’t, so there are non-vegetarian food pics too. Or if you’re on a tight budget; Prof. Cruise wasn’t, she’s just uber cheap. She’s seriously proud that her on-board expenses totaled -$.19. Yeah, she actually got refunded 19 cents. Sorry shareholders. She’s going to be one of those cat ladies living in a shack with millions in the bank when she dies.
There should be something here for everyone though. Prof. Cruise keeps texting me from the Target line (n=1) with, “tell them this” and “tell them that.” So fine, I’ll talk about lots of boring grown up things too.
I’ll be organizing the lecture as follows: “food,” “ship tour and activities,” and finally, “the good, the bad, and the ugly.” I’ll give you a hint about that last one – it involves an older gentleman losing his trunks. My grandma found that a bit disturbing. Just another day at the office as far as I’m concerned – I’m always losing my drawers. But first, sail away with me from Fort Lauderdale…
Food
I may have been only two and a vegetarian, but I had a very sophisticated palate back then and man oh man, did I love to eat. Prof. Cruise did too. It remains her favorite part of a cruise and, well, life.
Main Dining Room (MDR)
We had the 6:00pm seating and our wait staff included Art and Florin. I loved saying “hi Art” and watching him work and giving high fives to Florin. Art was all business, but provided very good service. He brought me fruit or a cheese plate as soon as we sat down each night. Florin was my buddy. Prof. Cruise wanted to take him home with us as, like, my much older sibling. Our maître d’ was Konstantine. If you’re an old lady, you’ll loooooooove him. Prof. Cruise loved him too, but in an ironic sort of way. Prof. Cruise tells me cruises are cheesy – that’s part of what makes them fun! I did eat a lot of cheese.
My favorite items in the MDR were the soups, the cheese plate (I had one every night), anything with noodles, bananas and Cheerios I stole from the Lido earlier in the day and orange sherbet (hence the sticky high-fives). I tried a lot of other things too, but these were the clear winners.
Extra Credit: parents of toddlers will want to bring some sandwich bags and an extra large purse to breakfast to stuff with crap to bribe your naughty with throughout the day. Also, bring your own kid friendly cups, dishes, and silverware.
Prof. Cruise loved the cinnamon, pumpkin, yam pie thing, the polenta and mushroom dish, the vegetarian lasagna, and the Indian vegetarian. The tofu steak (go ahead and laugh) and the chili rellenos weren’t her favorites, but she still ate most of them. The eggplant, zucchini, and mozzarella dish was very heavy, but tasted good. She loved all the cold soups. She thought the warm soups were generally too salty. As for the desserts, she loved the WCMC with TWO ice creams and the bitter and blanc. Her absolute favorite was the Grand Marnier Souffle.
Grandma ordered a lot of fish. She also loves to try new things and had the ox tongue, snails, sushi, and frog legs. She thought the sushi was excellent and liked the snails and frog legs, but thought the ox tongue looked too much like a tongue. Go figure.
Patience! Food porn coming, yinz (shout out to my Pittsburghers – that’s where I lived back then!). BTW, there’s a quiz at the end of the lecture to see if you read any of this or just skipped to the photos like Prof. Cruise always does. I don’t know what Playgirl is, but I know she hides it in her desk under the pile of soiled plates she keeps meaning to take back to the school cafeteria and that she only buys it for the articles.
Speaking of Prof. Cruise, she just texted me again asking me to mention that she would have taken even more pics, but she was busy grabbing my hand full of food mid throw, playing ice “cars” (don’t ask…you do what you have to do), and picking s**t up from off the floor (thinking of cruising with a toddler, yeah, don’t they have grandparents they can stay with?!?!).
Wait for it….
W A I T F O R I T
W A I T……..Okay, fine:
Appetizers and Soups
Frog legs. I had to start with these. They were fascinating! Grandma thought they were pretty good. Tasted like chicken. No really, they did.
Cherry soup. YUM! I stuck my fingers in this like 10 times. So good!
Eggplant and mozzarella app. Heavy, but good.
Mango soup with ginger. Best ever! 20 finger licks!
Tomato, mozzarella, and basil app. Light and tasty.
Ox tongue.
Tomato soup.
Veggie spring rolls. These were on the menu every night, but we’re not sure why – not our favorite.
Stuffed mushrooms. Prof. Cruise loved these. They looked too much like the snails for me.
Shrimp cocktail. Grandma ordered this twice and got it one other time by mistake. No problemo, Art! Yum.
Moving on to entrées.
First though, here’s what my table looked like after I ate EVERY night. Poor Art. He really earned that extra buck my grandma slipped him (I’m not sure if that’s what she really gave him, I just assume it was A LOT).
Entrées
Broiled tiger shrimp.
Cinnamon, yam, thingy. Best evaaaar!
You cruise types like trivia. Name that fish! Anyone, anyone???
Eggplant, zucchini, mozzarella dish.
Tofu “steak.” Not very good. Not because it was tofu (Prof. Cruise and I love well-prepared tofu…yeah, yeah…laugh), but because it tasted like a block of uncooked plain tofu sliced up and topped with some spicy stuff. Blah.
Couscous stuffed pepper and stuffed pastry thingies. Prof. Cruise can’t pronounce, spell, or remember what those were. Now’s an appropriate time to call her “Dr.”
NOODLES! This boy loves him some noodles.
Salmon.
Indian vegetarian. If you like Indian food, you’ll LOVE this! Available every night in the MDR.
Chili rellenos.
Next up, DESSERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn’t photograph all 8 of the orange sherbets I ordered, sorry.
See what I did there? I made you wait for dessert, scrolling though all those photos of moderately healthy stuff. And wait, and wait, and wait. That’s what Art did to me. Actually it wasn’t that long, but it feels that way to a two year old (that’s when you pull out the “ice cars,” mamas). While I was waiting, Konstantine would serenade us, old ladies would swoon, and sometimes the waiters would get “low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low.” I danced and chanted “orange sherbet, orange sherbet!”
You’ve waited long enough. Orange sherbet you want, orange sherbet you shall have.
That was formal night. I had to take off my sport coat to really get at that sherbet properly.
Here’s the Prof.’s favorite, the Grand Marnier Souffle (and the second time today the Prof. has had to Google how to spell “souffle”).
“Healthy” cheesecake. Just cause it has a heart next to it doesn’t mean you can order 2 of them, GRANDMA!
Sticking with the same theme, here’s the “diet” orange cake. Notice the disheveled icing? Yeah, I stuck my fingers in that. What can I say, I like orange stuff.
Baked Alaska. Not that good, but it’s the law that you order this on a cruise.
And the money shot:
Make sure to order the warm chocolate melting cake with TWO ice creams. Next up, Lido Buffet, Blue Iguana Cantina, and Guy’s (veggie) Burgers…and regular too, calm down!
Lido Buffet
Prof. Cruise is really a quantity vs. quality kind of gal, so she thought the lido buffet was perfectly fine for stuffing one’s face. I liked it for breakfast, mostly because they had peanut butter toast, oats, and bananas, three of my all-time favorites. Plus, I got tons of tickles and high fives from the super silly buffet staff.
Here’s a random plate of vegetarian food from the buffet. Interestingly enough (okay, not really, but you have to humor me, I’m just a kid), the tofu on the buffet was much better than in the MDR. It was grilled and nice and firm and flavorful.
Blue Iguana Cantina
You think I’m boring with my orange fixation, but Prof. Cruise had the exact same breakfast every single day. Seriously. One morning she said she was getting something different and she came back with the SAME. DARN. THING. Said she panicked. What was it, you ask? It was a breakfast burrito from Blue Iguana Cantina. Did she at least mix up the ingredients? No. Mexican eggs, potatoes, cheese, lettuce, pico, sour cream and guacamole. I give her some credit though — she accidentally ordered a wheat tortilla instead of jalapeno one morning. You can view the breakfast menu here.
Prof. Cruise also ordered a lunch burrito from there once. She didn’t think that was as good as the breakfast one, but it was still good. I had one too, but mostly I just made art (not to be confused with our waiter, Art, who I also covered in food regularly) with it. You can view the lunch menu here.
See that little omelet looking thing? That’s an arepa. It’s also the best thing Prof. Cruise and I had on the whole cruise. Sweet corn and cheesy goodness and available at the Blue Iguana Cantina for breakfast. Prof. Cruise got two of those every morning with her burrito. She had to stuff one in on her way back to the table or I would grab it for my own self.
Guy’s Burger Joint
Prof. Cruise and I both tried the Guy’s “veggie” Burger (forgive us, Guy) and grandma tried the real thing. You have to ask for the veggie burger and it takes about 10 minutes to make. We liked the burgers, but Prof. Cruise and grandma thought the “fixins” were the best part — they loaded theirs up with grilled mushrooms and onions.
Next up: Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast! Don’t act like you aren’t interested. There were full grown adults there with hats, weird socks, and no kids.
Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast
These guys have the same names as my grandma and Prof. Cruise.
Prof. Cruise HATES Disney (she’s a horrible American). But this almost made her want to take me. Almost. I freakin loved seeing the characters and when the food came out I was like, holy crap, the chef can see into my weird little brain! Everything was fun and yummy. 5 out of 5. Check out the menu here.
Waffles.
Pancakes.
Steak and eggs.
Sea Day Brunch
I attended this once and Prof. Cruise attended it three times (I’ll leave you to guess why I only got invited to one). Grandma also went once because she was stuck with me. And that makes a perfect introduction to my next story (I LOVE stories. My moron of a boss/mother only brought two books with us on this “big boat.” Thank goodness for Bookville!). I think you’ll find this one quite exciting.
I was getting settled into a new nap routine (or not) on our second sea day. Grandma stayed behind to read on the balcony while I napped and Prof. Cruise went to brunch. Grandma sleep trained me at 6 months (I think the technique was called “SCREAM bloody murder until you fall asleep”), so she’s an old pro at this “go the f**K to sleep” thing. Anyway, Prof. Cruise was half way through her soup (at a table for 1, SERENITY NOW), when the hostess came over. She started with some small talk. “How’s your brunch? “ Having a nice vacation?” “Where are you from?” “Oh, BTW, you’re kid has been screaming “MAMA” for a solid half hour. Finally Randy (our room steward) went in there and, “um, ma’am, did you maybe leave him alone in the room while you came to brunch?”
She was so sweet in how she handled the whole awkward encounter, but I’m sure she was thinking, “you monster! (I agree with her…leave me to cry while you feast on those delicious popovers!).” Anyway, Prof. Cruise informed her that grandma was out on the balcony, then asked “is he bothering anyone?” “If not, he just needs to cry himself to sleep.” See, monster.
For her third brunch, Prof. Cruise requested the largest possible table and hoped she’d blend into the crowd.
Also, the food was delicious. Totally worth the knock at our door from CPS upon our return to Pittsburgh. Check out the menu here.
Pappardelle “Principe di Napoli”
Mac n’ cheese! If you order one thing, order this. But better to order six.
I had to fight off Prof. Cruise to get a photo of these chocolate chip pancakes. Down, girl. DOWN.
Well, that concludes the food portion of this lecture. Or does it? I might sneak in a few more pics here and there so I don’t lose 90% of my audience. Oink, oink, people.
Ship Tour and Activities
For months Prof. Cruise dreamed about sitting on her balcony, relaxing with a dessert, a drink, and a book. What an idiot. Really she spent most of her time trying to keep me entertained (read, not YELLING). I’ve ranked these activities in order based on how many minutes they kept me from YELLING, from 10+ minutes to 0 minutes – because all the parents out there know that life with a toddler is measured in 5-10 minute increments. “Okay, we’ve eaten twice, painted on the walls, danced like no one is watching, gone up and down the stairs 30 times, chased the dog, and it’s only 7:30am. What NOW?”
Prof. Cruise has a long list of adult activities she’s asked me to include in this section, too. Feel free to skip that part, I won’t tell her. She shares an office with me and, as such, doesn’t have much self-esteem left.
Open playtime in Camp Ocean: 10+ minutes
Open playtime in Camp Ocean. On sea days Camp Ocean was open to the under two crowd from 8-10am (with parental supervision). This was the clear winner. I had fun playing toys with Prof. Cruise and grandma and the camp counselors were really nice. I can’t wait until I turn two and can enroll in camp (my Prof. Cruise REALLY can’t wait).
Fancy elevator: 10 minutes
Going up and down in the glass elevator. Prof. Cruise called it the “fancy elevator” to try to con me into being excited about it. I let her have this one win. This was awesome except when we went up when I wanted to go down and when we went down when I wanted to go up. I guess other people use these to get where they’re going. Whatever, I gave them high fives to be polite even though they don’t understand what elevators are for.
Cabin kitchen: 10 minutes
One of the most awesome things on a cruise that many people overlook is the “kitchen” in your cabin. It’s got a little fridge with a bunch of bottles of “happy juice.” After Prof. Cruise drinks all of them and is suddenly in a much better mood, you can take them out and put them back like a billion times. Also, you can pretend to drink them and get the side eye from passersby.
Dr. Seuss Bookville: 10 minutes
It looks pretty cool in here with all the bright colors and different places to sit. Really, though, it’s just, well, books. That might fly with old people like Prof. Cruise, but I demand more. Still though, we killed a few minutes in here each day.
Outdoor playground (right outside of Camp Ocean): 10 minutes
Holy windy! Usually I just freaked out the minute we walked in here, because it was like walking into a tornado and no one wants to get swept away from a cruise ship. I played in here for a few minutes when we were stopped at port though, on the last sea day, and while we were waiting to get off the big boat. It has a tunnel to climb through and a slide. I also made one of the chairs into a kid “clamshell.”
Still reading? Apple pie for you!
Playlist Production shows: 5 minutes
I’ll file this one under “5 minutes” since the one show I attended held my attention for about 30 minutes and I didn’t attend any of the others because they were after my bedtime and I would have been kicked out after about 1 minute.
Prof. Cruise kept telling me to have low expectations for the Playlist Production shows after all the trash talking she’s read about them on Cruise Critic. Maybe it’s because Prof. Cruise’s tone deaf, has two left feet, and can hardly stay upright walking on a moving boat, but she actually really liked them! I only saw one, the holiday show (I got to see Santa from a distance, which is the way he prefers to see me…see below), but between Prof. Cruise and grandma they saw the rest of them. The cast was talented and enthusiastic and there were tons of special effects like 3D, laser beam things (I feel like there should be an Austin Powers reference here, but I can’t quite put my finger on it), and scents pumped in (a word on that later).
Here’s my photo with Santa from 2014 and the one from 2015. See how terrified and disgusted he looks? The bellman at our pre and post cruise hotel (Quality Inn and Suites Cruise Port – would recommend for a budget hotel. Free shuttle to airport and cruise port and free wifi and breakfast. Check it out or book it here.) kept calling us “mafia” after we’d tip him. Our shuttle driver explained that Henry calls those who tip well “mafia” and those who don’t “poor.” Prof. Cruise just pointed at me and said “HE’S mafia!” I guess that’s why Santa was so scared.
The MC was our cruise director, Wee Jimmy. Take a moment to picture a “Wee Jimmy” in your head. ……………………………. Okay. Is he short? Plump? Scottish? Surprisingly sophisticated sense of humor for a cruise director? That’s HIM!
Here’s a photo of Wee Jimmy warming up the crowd for the “Getaway Island” show. I’d like to apologize for Prof. Cruise’s poor photography skills. I wasn’t able to attend this show, so I loaned her the camera. Big mistake. Big. Huge.
Towel folding demonstration: 0 minutes
I grabbed Prof. Cruise’s towels before she had half a trunk. I thought we were supposed to swing them around like when we sing in the dining room. This would be pretty interesting for a grown-up though. We learned that if your room steward is in a hurry he or she will make you a seal. If you’re the type to leave a bunch of dirty underwear and socks around and half eaten food outside your door or if you bunk with a toddler, he/she will make you a snake. Prof. Cruise was expecting nothing but snakes, but Randy made us the best animals. Here’s the monkey he made us.
Grandma thought it looked a bit like that scream painting by Edvard Munc and insisted we take it down so she wouldn’t wake up and accidentally jump off the balcony.
Still here? Snails for you! Prof. Cruise and dad had a long debate about whether snails are vegetarian. Who cares!?! It’s not like I was eating them either way. I sided with Prof. Cruise though, just in case.
The Gym: 0 minutes
I’m very concerned about Prof. Cruise’s health, she eats a lot of chocolate, so I try very hard every day to run her ragged. After her workout she sometimes likes to hit the gym to relax. She visited the ship’s gym and spa each day around 3pm (it was never crowded that time of day). Prof. Cruise has two criteria when reviewing a gym. First, do the machines have TV’s — she loves TV almost as much as she loves eating. Second, temperature. Don’t tell Prof. Cruise I told you this, but she’s a sweater. She once drowned someone sitting next to her in a spin class. This gym succeeded on both fronts. Nice, new machines (and LOTS of them) with TV’s and a cool temperature. Ten or twelve industrial-sized fans blowing directly on her would have made it even better, but would have created hurricane conditions for anyone trying to ride the exercise bike behind her.
Showering in the spa shower was another part of her daily afternoon ritual. Prof. Cruise is a bath person, so any shower is already at a disadvantage and let’s just say that the shower in the stateroom didn’t meet her unreasonably high standards. It worked great as a car wash though (And while I was distracted washing my cars, Prof. Cruise hosed the sand off me. She’s still finding some in my diaper 3 days later though!). The showers in the spa, on the other hand, were delightful (Her word, not mine. Seriously, does that sound like something I would say?). Would have earned a 5 out of 5, but the doors don’t close properly. Prof. Cruise was so worried about someone seeing her post baby boobs and belly (she thought they’d probably schedule an emergency tubal ligation at the next port and miss their excursion), that she spent like 15 minutes trying to figure out how to stop that damn door from swinging open. Wedge some towels between the door and the wall, people. Or just be proud that you earned your stripes! Miracle of life and all that crap.
The lockers also took a few minutes to figure out. Prof. Cruise hates asking for directions. She’s worse than dad. After driving in circles for over an hour she finally asked. For reference, you press “C” type in a four digit code of your choice, then the button with the lock symbol on it.
Best part of the gym/spa…it’s free. At least all the stuff Prof. Cruise was inclined to use. She didn’t try the hot tub, sauna, or steam room, because she hates being hot. Have you seen her pasty white skin? I hope you had on the special protective glasses. Prof. Cruise wasn’t designed for heat.
Still listening?
What? No food pic, you say?!?! That’s why you need to know about the GYM.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The good
Service. If I ranked this vacation based on the number of high fives I got from the big boat crew, it would get, like, 40,000 stars. It’s like they had never seen a miniature person before and wanted to slap my hand to see if I was real.
I’m two, so I’m accustomed and entitled to very good and prompt service (NO BEET BALLS MAMA, CAKE!!!), but even I have to say that the service was top-notch. In summary, I work hard for my money (I throw my own diapers in the trash, people), so you better treat me right (those should be song lyrics). And you did.
Value. Eight days of all-you-can-eat cheese and orange sherbet for 3 people for 2 grand? That, my friends, is a good value. It’s happened. I’ve become Prof. Cruise.
And this.
And this.
And this!
The Bad
Muster drill. I’ve seen Titanic and still, I’d rather drown. Don’t call me dramatic. I’M NOT DRAMATIC. NOOOOO, WAAAAAAA, SIEOWIENFOEWNIF, *#*$#*@*$#*@#$!!!!!!!!! Also, I immediately went back to our stateroom and cut off that horrible identification bracelet they put on me. What makes you think I even want to find Prof. Cruise in the event of an emergency? Put me on the lifeboat with Art and Florin!
“Special bed.” When I walked into our stateroom there was one big bed in the middle of the room and a smaller bed along the wall. I figured, great, mine must be the big one and Prof. Cruise and grandma will share the smaller one. Then Prof. Cruise asked Randy to separate the big bed into two smaller ones and requested a crib from guest services. I started getting a little nervous at this point. It gets worse, people. Before I could even unpack my “Handy Manny” suitcase, Prof. Cruise starts rigging up some medieval torture device with magnetic hooks on the ceiling attached to a shower curtain. She called it my “special bed.” Special my ***. I couldn’t see anything, so the only thing to do in there was SLEEP. I feel like there must be some sort of training camp at the hospital where new mom’s learn about how to make our lives miserable.
The balcony. Prof. Cruise and grandma totally hogged it. I want to sit out there and dream about my life before kids and students too!
And the ugly
Sharing a stateroom with two elderly women. They woke me up every time they had to pee and kept blaming their smells on my diaper. Bring a bungee-cord to prop that balcony door open, people.
In Conclusion…
Even though I could never figure out how to sneak out of my “special bed” to hit the clubs, we had a fantastic vacation. But there is one thing that would have made it even better – if my Grandpa had been there. He passed away from Multiple Myeloma in 2010. I never got to meet him, but Prof. Cruise tells me he was the kindest, most generous, hard working, devoted to his family, funny guy in the wide world. Plus, he was an amazing storyteller (I must get it from him). In honor of grandpa, please squeeze your loved ones a little tighter on this Valentine’s Day, tell a great story, make someone laugh, and try to be a little kinder. We’re all on this big boat together, people.
Quiz:
A photo of a ship on a stick for anyone who can correctly name two of my favorite foods on the big boat. Here’s a hint:
Class dismissed.
Check out my other Carnival ship reviews here.
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