Carnival Freedom

Port Canaveral

As soon as we got back from Barbados, Ron was ready to go on another trip. We didn’t want to drive far, and airfare was insane, so we found a 4-day cruise out of Port Canaveral on the Carnival Freedom. Unfortunately, the day after we booked the cruise, the ship’s funnel caught fire while it was docked in Grand Turk! The videos of the fire looked terrifying but, thank goodness, no one was hurt, and Carnival arranged for another ship to bring the stranded passengers home. But now we were in limbo. Would the damage be fixed in time or would our trip be cancelled? Just five days before the cruise, Freedom sailed back to Florida, minus its iconic “whale tail”. Every Carnival ship, starting with Tropicale in 1982, has had a whale tail funnel. The design is part of Carnival’s logo, and it makes their ships instantly recognizable. Freedom’s new shorter funnel was going to take a little getting used to, but we would be sailing! Of course, there were lots of jokes about the stubby funnel. Someone in my Freedom Facebook group said that we could play ‘Pin the Tail on the Ship’. :-)

Our check-in time at Port Canaveral was 10:30, but boarding started late, so we didn’t get on the ship until lunch time. We went straight to the buffet for lunch, then explored the ship. This was our first time on Freedom, but we’d been on Liberty, her sister ship, so we were familiar with the layout. Freedom’s design theme was “Decades Through the Centuries”, and the public spaces were named and designed to reflect different periods of time. The Victoriana Theater had an ornate crystal chandelier and Victorian-style artwork. The bas-relief sculptures of dancing couples in the Swing Time Jazz Club represented the 1930s. In the 1940s Habana Bar there was a large mural of Havana Harbor, and the bases of the tables and bar stools looked like cigars. The 70’s Nightclub…well, duh. :-)  Some of the pictures I’d seen of Freedom before our cruise made the ship look dark and dreary, but it wasn’t as bad as I was afraid it would be. There were enough pops of color and neon lights to brighten it up. My main problem with the décor was the random mishmash of patterns. There were swirls and dots and squares and tiger prints, all in the same space. I made it into a game to see how many different patterns I could get in one picture.

Millennium Atrium

How many patterns do you see?

We watched the sail away from the Serenity area at the bow of the ship, then got ready for dinner. Something new since our last Carnival cruise was that we had to check in for dinner using Carnival’s Hub app. I thought this was a pretty good system. We tended to eat early, so our table was usually ready by the time we walked to the restaurant. But if the restaurant was busy, we could check in and then go to a bar for a drink while we waited for the app notification. What I didn’t like was that we also had to use the app to view the dinner menus. Besides the fact that the tiny print was hard to read, it just didn’t feel right to sit at the table staring at our phones. As usual, Ron and I both ordered the Chocolate Melting Cake with two scoops of ice cream for dessert. My cake needed a few more minutes in the oven because it was VERY melted. It was more like Chocolate Melting Soup. :-)

After dinner, we went to the Punchliner Comedy Club and spent some time in the casino playing Blackjack. Our dealer, Percy, was a lot of fun, and I ended the night $40 ahead plus the $1 chip that I saved for my chip collection.

Chic Restaurant

Nassau

In the morning, we had breakfast at the Lido buffet. I’d forgotten how bad the buffet layout was on this class of ship. Instead of separate stations, all the food was arranged in one long line so even though I only wanted a couple of things, I had to wait forever while everyone in front of me grazed through each item. Then I had to search for a coffee machine that wasn’t empty. But worst of all, there was no bacon! I could understand when Carnival started using the “bacon police” to make sure people didn’t pile half a pound on their plate, but no bacon at all?? That was just wrong! :-)  We decided we would eat breakfast in the main dining room for the rest of the cruise.

The ship arrived in Nassau a little after 10 o’clock. Ron and I watched from deck as we sailed into the harbor, followed by a flotilla of huge yachts from South Florida. It was a hot, sunny day and all the royal poinciana trees were in full bloom. Good morning, Nassau!

We had booked the 11:15 Wine Blending class at Bahama Barrels, so as soon as the ship was docked, we headed into town. Bahama Barrels is the first and only winery in the Bahamas and is housed in an old church building across the street from the Graycliff Hotel. We ended up having a private class since Ron and I were the only two who’d signed up. Our tour guide, Jonae, started by asking us if we preferred red or white wine. We said red, so Jonae set out five different wines that we would combine to create our own personal blend. The five wines she chose were a semi-sweet white, a sweet strawberry wine, the house red, an IGT (a blend of different Italian grapes) and an extra dry red that was 14% alcohol. After we tasted each wine and took notes on their aromas and flavors, Jonae had us combine the wines into large beakers in whatever proportions we chose. Ron and I made two blends each. For my first blend, I used some of the strawberry wine and thought it came out too sweet, but I really liked my second blend, which was 50% house red, 25% white and 25% IGT. As we experimented, Jonae went across the street to the Graycliff Chocolatier and brought back some chocolates for us to pair with the wine.

Once we had settled on our final blend, we poured our wine from our beaker into a bottle, then back into the beaker, then finally back into the bottle. This was to make sure it was fully mixed, but it was easier said than done after drinking a bunch of wine. :-)  Jonae showed us how to cork and seal our bottles and then printed out personalized labels with the names we had chosen for our wines. Ron called his “Relapse Red”. I named mine “Heritage” after Heritage Village, the historic area around the Graycliff Hotel and winery. What a great tour!

After the class, we walked to the Fish Fry for lunch at Twin Brothers where we shared a fish burger and a plate of peas and rice. We thought we’d catch a jitney back to town, but we waited and waited and never saw any buses. The pandemic must have really messed up the jitney business. They used to come by every few minutes. The walk back was only about a mile and a half, but it was a lot hotter than it was on our last trip to Nassau in February! By the time we got back to the port, we were wilted. We spent the rest of the afternoon cooling off in the cabin and napping.

The ship was supposed to leave Nassau at 6 o’clock, but 6 o’clock came and went. I looked out our cabin window to watch for pier-runners. I could see the dock master pacing back and forth by the gangway, and after a while, two Carnival staff got into a golf cart and rode off into town. They must have been going to look for the missing person at Senor Frog’s. Finally, at 6:30 the captain decided we’d waited long enough, and we pushed off from the dock. I found out later from someone in my Facebook group that the missing person was able to get a ride back to Port Canaveral on Carnival Liberty. I’m glad he made it home!

That night at dinner we ordered the Chocolate Melting Cake again, and this time it was overcooked and wasn’t melting at all. It was just Chocolate Cake. :-) I haven’t been a big fan of Carnival’s food since they switched to the “American Table” menus, but this was the first time we’d experienced such inconsistent cooking. It seemed like the kitchen really needed to work on quality control. On the plus side, we didn’t have to wait a long time between courses like on some of our other cruises.

We ended the night at the Alchemy Bar, my favorite Carnival bar. The Alchemy Bar is a cocktail bar with an old-fashioned pharmacy theme. The bartenders wear white pharmacy coats, and the drinks have names like The Remedy and The Quick Fix. I ordered something I hadn’t tried on our previous cruises, the Restorative Basil Drop, which was fresh and different. I’ll have to figure out how to make it at home. Ron gave me a hydroponic gardening system for my birthday and my basil has been growing like crazy! That would be fun way to use up some of the basil.

Restorative Basil Drop

Princess Cays

The next morning, we had breakfast in the Posh Restaurant, which was a big improvement over the chaos at the buffet. I had eggs Benedict (with a side of bacon!) and bruleed grapefruit. The grapefruit was one of the best things I ate the whole trip. I never would have thought to brulee a grapefruit. That’s something else I will have to try at home.

By the time we finished breakfast, the ship was anchoring off Princess Cays, a private beach on the south end of the Bahamian island of Eleuthera. We had signed up for the 10:30 Stingray Encounter, so we headed to the gangway at 9 o’clock to give ourselves time to tender over to the island and explore a little before our tour. This was our first visit to Princess Cays, and it reminded me of Coco Cay before the “Perfect Day” water park and pool were added. Nothing splashy, just a nice beach with lounge chairs and some watersports. We found a couple of shaded chairs, then walked the beach path past the colorful private cabanas and climbed the observation tower for a nice view of the ship. It was even hotter that day than it had been in Nassau, and after our walk we were more than ready to get into that cool, blue water!

The stingray encounter took place in a small cove next to the tender dock. Our tour guide, Luca, handed out snorkel masks and water shoes and gave us about 10 minutes to snorkel around the enclosure on our own. There were eight stingrays, all of them female (which Luca said were easier to train). Once Luca got into the water, all the stingrays headed his way. Smart stingrays – they knew who “dad” was. Luca picked Sheila out of the school, and we each got a chance to touch her soft, wet-mushroom skin and hold her while one of the ship’s photographers took our pictures. At the end of the tour, we lined up along the shoreline to feed the stingrays. Luca told us their names as we fed them and made sure every stingray got some of the food. Otherwise, Big Mama might have eaten it all. :-)  It felt weird when my stingray, Star, sucked the fish right out of my hand. Another great tour!

We’d planned to spend the whole day at Princess Cays, but the barbecue lunch didn’t sound very appealing and apparently, we couldn’t use our drink packages on the island. Ron got a beer from one of the bars and it was $10! Crazy. We packed up our things and took the tender back, where we took advantage of the mostly empty ship. There was no line at all at Guy’s Burgers or the Red Frog Rum Bar. I ordered a Chilius Maximum with extra chili and a Ting Mojito. Yum! After lunch, we lounged on the Serenity Deck for a while but then decided that since we’d be on the ship all day the next day, we really should get off while we had the chance. By the time we got back to Princess Cays, the skies had clouded over and there were rain showers in the distance, but we didn’t mind the clouds because they kept it from being so brutally hot. Ron and I walked down to the cabanas again where the shoreline was rocky and climbed around on the rocks. Late in the afternoon, the line to board the tender got long. When we finally made it back on the ship, we watched from our cabin window as the last tender pulled up carrying just a few stragglers and tired-looking crew members. The captain announced that everyone had made it back on board this time.

That night after dinner, we went to the Skybox Sports Bar to watch the Lightning play the Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley Cup Finals. I didn’t know what to order, so the bartender made up a drink for me with gin, lime and club soda. The drink was great, the game not so much… :-(  When the score got to 4-0, we gave up and went for a walk around the Lido Deck, stopping at the Pizza Pirate for a couple of slices of late-night pizza before going to bed.

Skybox Sports Bar

Sea Day

Since it was a day at sea, there was a brunch in the Posh Restaurant instead of the usual breakfast. The Seaday Brunch menu had changed since our last Carnival cruise. I tried a couple of the new menu items, the chia seed pudding and fresh-pressed juice with pineapple, ginger and turmeric. I thought I should have something healthy to counteract all the chocolate melting cakes, but then I also ordered a side of bacon. So much for being healthy. :-)

When we finished brunch, we went to the Victoriana Theater for the towel folding class. The stairs of the theater were covered with a menagerie of towel animals made by the hard-working cabin stewards. I’d planned to just watch the class, but it looked like fun, and I ended up getting towels and jumping in. The instructor showed us how to make a towel swan and a “lazy dog”. My lazy dog turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. At least there was a slight resemblance to the instructor’s.

my "lazy dog"

Red Frog Rum Bar

funnel cups pre- and post-fire :-)

Endless Aft Pool

It was too hot to hang out by the pool, so we spent the afternoon reading and relaxing in our cabin. It was Father’s Day and the entertainment staff had planned several activities to celebrate fathers. At six o'clock there was a remembrance service for the fathers who were no longer with us. I thought this was a really nice way to recognize the people who were missing their fathers. Father's Day has been a sad day for me since Daddy died. The service was held at the back of the ship and was short and simple. The cruise director read a poem and then everyone stood quietly, looking out at the ocean and the ship’s wake. Ron and I talked about how both of our dads loved the water. I remembered Daddy teaching me to swim and flipping me off his shoulders into the pool. Ron remembered Bud taking him fishing and teaching him how to drive a boat. We are lucky that we had such wonderful dads.

After dinner (and one last chocolate melting cake) we went to the casino again. I had no luck at all and moved to another table where I didn’t do much better. But Ron took my spot at the first table and made all my money back. We cashed in our chips, then went to the late-night comedy show. The comedian, Manny Oliveira, didn’t just pick on the people in the front row, he went right out into the audience. Ron and I pretended to be invisible and fortunately, he didn’t come our way. He was hilarious but also very irreverent. We found ourselves saying, “that’s just wrong!” a lot. :-)

When the show was over, we thought we’d pop into the piano bar for a few minutes and ended up staying and singing along. Before we knew it, it was after midnight, and we realized we really needed to get a few hours of sleep before the drive home. Carnival calls their ships “the Fun Ships” and we had a lot of fun, even with the cutbacks in staff and food. I'm glad we got to see Princess Cays for the first time, and I loved our two tours, especially the wine blending class. Now we have two bottles of wine to remind us of another great cruise to the Bahamas.