An Ordinary Cruise

Item: Carnival Freedom
Rating: 3
Author: HannaP

Carnival Freedom Cruise Review to Caribbean - Western

HannaP

Contributor Level: Deck Hand

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 37

Overall rating:

3 out of 5

Verified Review

8 Night Western Caribbean (Ft. Lauderdale Roundtrip)

Sail date: November 19, 2011

Ship: Carnival Freedom

Cabin type: Oceanview

Traveled as: Family (older children)

Reviewed: 12 years ago

Review summary

We recently sailed on the Carnival Freedom for the first time. We were disappointed with this cruise. This is our seventh time sailed with Carnival, but this trip was as not as good as our prior experiences. This ship had about 3500 passengers, but the lobby is much smaller than the other Carnival ships. The level of services were really down. Our waiters have to handle so many tables in the dining room, so they didn't have time for greetings nor social gesture. We requested early dining seating because my husband has diabetes. Yet we got the late dining seating. Our first night the service was extremely late. We finished our dinner way after 10:00pm. They gave us the dessert menu after most of the people left the dining room. The second night, they asked us to move the table with not polite at all. We were asked to show our card as if we were sitting in the wrong table. Then they asked us to move to another table. When we asked her if we moved for the rest of this trip or only that night, her answered was so rude that we had to find out by ourselves.

Ship experiences

Food and Dining

3 out of 5

The food was okay, but it was not as good as it's used to be. The steakhouse was great, but we had to pay $30/pp extra.

Entertainment

3 out of 5

Carnival entertainment team was boring for most of the time. The Motown guest singer was great.

Children's Programs

3 out of 5

The teen program was very weak.

Service and Staff

1 out of 5

The servers were too busy with their jobs, very little greetings or social gesture

Ship Quality

3 out of 5

The decor is ordinary, nothing special. The lobby is smaller than other Carnival ships especially for 3500 passengers.

Cabin / Stateroom

3 out of 5

The stateroom was just as other Canival ships.

Ports of call

Colon, Panama

5 out of 5

We took the Panama Canal tour. It was expensive but it's worthy.

Thumbs Up 0

Puerto Limon, Costa Rica

5 out of 5

We hired a local driver at the port to take us tour around the area: banana plantation, canal boat ride, and the town. Our driver was very friendly and knowledgeable since he was a native Costa Rican. We paid only 1/3 of the Carnival price.

Thumbs Up 0

Cozumel, Mexico

5 out of 5

This is our third time but we still like Cozumel. The infrastructure is newer and nicer. we had lunch at a Mexican food restaurant Casa Mission. It was really fun. There was life music and the photographer took our picture and he had sombrero (Mexican hat) for us for the picture.

Thumbs Up 0

Pros: Reasonable price

Cons: Not so good service

Recommends Carnival Freedom? No.

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