Carnival Freedom Cruise Reviews - Reviews

We enjoyed the fact that there were 4 comedians on this cruise. The entire staff aboard was pleasant and helpful. Waiters were excellent  and entertaining. Cabin staff excellent.

favorite part is the excursions. We saw eals, sharks, colorful fish. Least favorite was having to continually ask for glasses to be put in our state room every day. Mohogany bay was very stinky, the water was dirty, could even see my feet when I was up to my calfs in the water. i didn't get in any deeper. The boat for the Nurse Shark excursion is too small, uncomfortable, one of the 3 motors broke, not one dry place on the boat due to the small size of the boat and the speed the captain was moving. This boat is an accident waiting to happen. It goes 21  miles out so that is pretty scary.

Overall service on the ship was very good.  the food was not as good as we have had on other Cruises, but it was gooD.  we had a little rough water to start, which through the shows off a bit  .We were delayed in departing due to fog, which was not a terrible problem for us, but did cause a problem for one our travel companions   she had to reschedule her flight back to Colorado twice  

Me and my wife's favorite part of this cruise were Malcolm's shows. He is funny!! I loved his different shows and activities; they are very entertaining and engaging. All the food provided was excellent. There was a vast variety of everything-all you can eat! I was very pleased with the services provided by the crew. Syafei & Mariffy were excellent servers at the Posh. Syafei has such a positive attitude and he frequently smiles. That's excellent! Mariffy was very personable, courteous, and polite. We really liked her too! Our room was always clean and Nengah did a great job. He provided a great service and he was such a nice person. He had a good attitude; he was humble and always smiled!! Keep it up guys! Good job!!

My only reason to not give 5 stars is due to the attitude of a couple of crew members serving/taking orders for alcohol; especially the woman/server at the Posh. Since alcohol is purchased separately, there is an automatic charge of 15% for tips. She stopped by our table the first night. I ordered 1 alcoholic drink, and since the 15% was included for tips and I only had one drink, I did not tip more. I got an upset face from her, and out of the 5 nights that me and my wife ate at the Posh, that first night was the only night that she stopped by to asked if we wanted an alcoholic beverage. She merely ignored us the rest of the nights we were there. She did not make us feel welcomed and she apparently was trying to punish us for not tipping her MORE THAN 15% over 1 drink. Unless it is obligatory to tip more than 15% for alcohol, it would be beneficial for carnival to talk to some crew members serving alcohol, who feel entitled to always get more than 15% in tips.

I would recommend going on this 7-day cruise on sunny/hot days instead of the cold season because most days were cloudy. We still enjoyed everything, we just hope next time we go on a cruise, it could be during the summer. Overall, it was a lot of fun!!

Jan & I cruised in Jan 2016 on the Magic, and had a great time. We scheduled cruises for Jan 2017 on the Freedom and Jan 27, 2018 also on the Freedom. We were pleased with our room on this cruise; it was very nice. We had the early dining in the Posh dining room. We were seated at table 333, and our waiter and waitress were very nice. Unlike the Magic, we rarely saw them unless we stopped them and requested something. I don't know how many tables they had, but they were overloaded.There were seven at our table though most nights we only had four. Our dining was at 6pm, and we normally didn't get finished until approximately 7:45pm, because service was so slow.Several nights the doors to the dining room were already closed in preparation for the 8pm seating by the time we got through. When the waiters entertained, ours usually did not participate because they were so swamped. On the Magic we were seated at a table for 10, ate and talked leisurely, and were almost always finished by 7:30pm.

On the cruise, Hayden signed us up for a Feb. 4th, 2018 cruise on the Breeze. This was the same itinerary as the 1-27-18 cruise, but we did not want to sail on the Freedom again because of our current experience. We were promised a $150 credit to our Feb 4th cruise account, which he said was a special while we were on board. When we got the letter, there was only a $50 credit but when asked, he said he would correct it. To date, it has not been corrected. The booking number for the 2-4-18 cruise is 5GD1B1. Now they are trying to charge me approx. $100 cancellation fee on the 1-27-18 cruise with booking number 1WK2H7.

To top things off, Jan came down with pneumonia while we were on the cruise. I planned on taking her to the hospital when we docked Saturday morning. Because of fog in Galveston we could not get off the ship till 6:30pm on Sunday. We had to take her off the ship in a wheelchair. I realize this was not Carnival's fault, but this became the "Cruise from hell". We are VIFP members, and really like Carnival, so I hope thing can be resolved.

The room and balcony were fantastic.  Beds comfortable.  I really enjoyed the quality of the food and the  variety!!!  All staff were enthusiastic and wonderful!

the good- the food was great, room stewards and dining staff top notch. facilities were beautiful and well maintained. 

Punchline comedy club- great entertainment. comics from Comedy Central! 

Alchemy bar had awesome drinks

not too crowded

the bad- we weren't able to attend any of the musical shows because our 8:15pm dinner slot (despite requesting early dinner) conflicted with all the shows. 

overall i wished there was more activities planned because there was nothing going on before the 8:15 dinner, and we missed a lot during our dinners. 

booked excursions through American Airlines, one was good, one was not.  

My favorite part was the food, cleanliness, and excursions. I think more children's activities should be added to every cruise ship. Also i think their needs to be an indoor pool for children as well. 

We had a problem understanding the captains information about our problem we had with the fog and embarking.  He could have done a better job in this area. We had to delay our flight for two days later because of the lack of communication.

Loved the fun food choices: Guy Fieri Burger Joint and Blue Iguanas Taco Bar

Loved there are two ADULT ONLY sections!!

The Punchliner Comedy Club. Cowboy Bob. Hilarious!

The service could have been a little better in all areas.

Kudos to Prem (aft bar) and Septo (Chic dining room)! 

Carnival claims to have child care for children under 2 but it is only during breakfast and 10 pm-1 am.  Potty training children can not swim, even with swim diapers anywhere on the ship.  So if you are in the process of potty training and want to put your child in a swim diaper in case of an accident then don't put them in a diaper, you will get kicked out of every pool.

The first floor center ship of the Carnival Freedom smells like sewage.  The employees on the ship recognize this and just accept it.  I personally don't like spending thousands of dollars to stay in a tiny room and smell s**t every time I walk out.

Also, the toilet quit working in our room and the shower quit draining, both were fixed relatively quick but the sink also wouldn't drain and that never got looked at. 

Cruise was a blast.  I already booked my next cruise and started a countdown.  The 3 places we went to were great.   Carnival did a great job decorating for Christmas and having Christmas music playing.  Please see below comments for more details on dining, excursions and service.

Loved that members of our large group had different activities to choose from throughout the day. Disappointed in long lines everywhere, long waits to get seated for dinner even when our group was split up. The execution of getting everyone off the boat for excursions is nothing less than a hot mess. There were many examples, but the one that really got me upset was that the staffperson who gave us instructions on how to get to our ferry for our Tulum trip did not know what she was talking about. We were told to walk down the pier and past the left side of the Duty Free Building. After we did that we realized that if we were getting picked up by a FERRY and not a bus, we would need to go back to where there is actually water. So we went back down the pier and found the group waiting for the ferry. There were several employees with signs for various excursions, but no sign for our Tulum trip. We were assured we were in the right place, and it turned out we were, but there was a lot of unnecessary stress due to being given erroneous instructions before debarkation.

Booking the cruise was super simple and there were plenty of emails stating what we needed to do and bring with us. We choose a parking garage company that was recommended by Doris the rep who booked our cruise and that process was very smooth. Arriving at the port was also straight forward and after a bit of a wait we boarded the ship. Once we got on board we had a bit of a learning curve for how the meals worked, what the dress was and where to go but once we learned the layout and read the Fun Times brochures that were left at our door every morning we were well prepared. We had our two kids with us (2 & 4) but I pre-registered for Camp Ocean so when we showed up they had our info in the system and name tags were waiting for the boys to pick up. The Staff were all very great with the boys and they loved their time at camp almost as much as Mommy and Daddy. There was so much to do on the ship and tons of stuff going on all the time. We especially loved the constant musical performances, comedy shows and karaoke as well as trivia contests in the atrium. We had so much fun on the ship we almost didn't want to head out at to explore the countries. We didn't book any excursions ahead of time. In Honduras we walked to a nearby beach without the kids and hung out with food and drinks for a few hours. In Belize, we took the kids and found a beach trip to sign up for which was awesome. No car seats but we were expecting that. The driver was safe and we had no issues. In Cozumel we went ashore without kids again and just explored the nearby shops and sights. We did the fish spa for your feet which was really cool, my feet are still smooth! Back on the ship we also enjoyed the evening movies by the pool, 24/7 ice cream and pizza and the live shows.

Our room was great, two twin beds pushed to make a king, and a couch. There was also a bunk that dropped down from the ceiling which Daddy slept on. Mommy and the boys took the King.

At meal times we had a wonderful staff of people who worked very hard to take care of us. There was one individual who stood out to us, Gabriela from Peru was always very happy to see us and the boys and she went out of her way to see that we were taken care of throughout our vacation.

Not much else to say, we loved our time and can't wait to try another cruise. 

The best part of the cruise was the service provided in the dinner dining at Posh Restaurant. The people and the place were amazing! The food was good as well. I would definitely recommend this place to anyone who visits the cruise. One of the major reasons that I am giving the overall rating at 4 is this place. 

Having said that, the Spa services is really bad. I wouldn't recommend it et al. You are better off spending that money at the Casino. Its overtly expensive and the service is definitely not worth it.

I would recommend the cruise, but would definitely ask fellow cruisers to avoid the spa and spend that money on anything else on the cruise.

Food and service was great.  Shows were outstanding. Housekeeping was good. My 15 year old year loved O2, and my 12 year old loved Circle C. Omelets were amazing. Excursions were amazing,

As a first time cruiser, the cruise was pretty close to what I expected.  The room service was amazing (thank you Antonio!).  Servers were great and the evening meals were pretty good.  Breakfast and lunch was like Golden Corral, to put it simply.  The ship was always clean and there was always food, coffee, and ice cream available.  There were plenty of activities to attend, but casinos, shopping, and dropping hundreds of dollars for a couple's massage is not our thing.  Cocktails are $8 something each or you can get an all you can drink package for like $50 a day or something.  Again, it's what we expected going in.  

On this particular cruise the ship was unable to port in Falmouth, Jamaica.  I understand nature happens but this broke the hearts of many people and was in my opinion, the highlight of the trip.  Carnival did refund the shore excursions, but I also assumed that they would give some sort of onboard credit for the day.  They didn't.  We had our third sea day and lots of people were going crazy.  Three days is just too long.  I was content reading my book but slightly annoyed by many people complaining about it the entire day.  

As for the ports (Grand Cayman and Cozumel), my fiance and I had a good experience because we didn't book any onboard excursions and did our own things.  I would recommend renting scooters.  I talked to several other couples who had booked certain excursions and were very let down by what they received, or had gotten to the port and discovered it was cancelled for unknown reasons.  When going in to the port, it took a long time to get it and get back out, which was expected.  

When we arrived back in Galveston and were supposed to dock at 8am, there was heavy fog and we were unable to dock until after 11am (typical mother nature).  I am patient because I understood the situation, but many people were upset because they had to cancel flights (rightly so, as it was Christmas Eve).  I'm not sure what happened with all of that since we were driving out, but I hope they made it home for Christmas.  

Overall, as easy going backpacker style travelers, this way of seeing places is just not really our style and I'm unsure we would take a cruise again.  

We experienced a lot of rough waters. We were not able to dock at Jamaica. I didn't understand because 2 other carnival cruise ships were able to dock. I do understand the waters were rough but why did the other 2 carnival ships able to dock.

The rest of the ship experience was fun and exciting. I really liked the hospitality of our waiter and waitress. Lots to do on the ship to keep my family entertained.

favorite part was the serenity area for adults only; until kids invaded towards end of cruise. have rules about adult supervision; too often kids were running around with not adult in site. Otherwise, cruise was a wonderful getaway for us; exceeded expectations!

The favorite part of the cruise was the service received at the room and at the evening dining.  Our state room steward Mr. Rubiyanto kept our room in top condition and the dining room attendants Mr. Atmaja, Mr Ebert and Mr Iman continued to entertain and serve us to the very last day.  They and all showed professionalism and gave top quality service.