Tag: carnival cruise

Day five and debarkation

The last day of the cruise is always the hardest, because you have to go home the next day and face reality again. But I was determined to enjoy my day anyway.

Breakfast in the Main Dining Room

I definitely encourage people to eat their breakfast in the main dining room, especially on Carnival ships. The food and selection is so much better. This day was a sea day, so the dining room was hosting the Sea Day Brunch. The food selections included eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, french toast, steak and eggs, and different pastries and cereals. The old Sea Day Brunch menu was much better, but it’s still better than the Lido Buffet selections. I ended up with the Huevos Rancheros and the Yogurt Parfait, as usual. The Huevos Rancheros is still good, but I really miss the salsa sauce selections that they used to have. They added a lot of flavor. The parfait is delicious also.

Finishing up some last minute things

After breakfast I went around the ship and got some pictures. I managed to find the hair salon and the gym which I hadn’t used the whole trip and got pictures there. I checked out the Serenity Spa area and the top decks of the ship. It was a beautiful day so I was enjoying the sunshine.

Then I went to the Debarkation show because I wanted to see the parade of the crew. After that was Bingo with the Bingo cards we won at the Fun Ashore Excursions show. We almost won the cover all, we were only two numbers away. That would have been fun!

We had to start packing up our things so we could get off of the ship in the morning. As usual we packed our dirty clothes in a compression bag to save space in our luggage. We packed everything we didn’t need, and left out just what we’d need for morning. We decided to carry everything off of the ship ourselves so we could get off of the ship earlier and head home to South Carolina. Last cruise, debarkation had taken almost two hours.

Lunch in the Lido Buffet and comments on internet

Lunch hasn’t been the best this trip, so I decided to just have a big salad and some vegetables. Of course I had dessert too, I’ve eaten way too much of that this trip. Dessert was some Key Lime Pie, which was really good, and some peach no sugar added cake. The cake was nice and light, and I enjoyed it. And then I had to go to the room to write my blog. That takes me almost two hours each day, but I love that I can sit there and watch the ocean while I write.

The internet on the Freedom is hit and miss. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. I was mostly able to use the internet in my cabin but I couldn’t get onto a few of the websites I needed, such as Google Photos. My WordPress was also acting strangely. The internet is okay for Facebook and other Social Media apps, but not always reliable. I was able to download a few videos to Facebook, but not to YouTube.

Our last dinner on the ship

We’d been lucky to have some good dinner companions during this cruise. We’ve enjoyed getting to know them. We’ve also enjoyed meeting our servers, although I haven’t really had the connection with them like I have on other cruises. They seem like they’re very busy, and that they don’t have enough help. Hopefully Carnival will be able to hire more people soon. I’ve heard it’s because it’s been hard for the workers to get work visas since Covid restrictions.

Dinner was good this last night. I had short ribs and cheesy mashed potatoes, along with some green beans. For dessert I had no sugar added Baked Alaska, but it kind of tasted freezer burned. The waiters sang their goodbye song, which always makes me sad. But I think that I was ready to be done with this cruise and on my way home.

Entertainment

After dinner we first went to the Punchliner Comedy club to watch Julie Scoggins again. She’s been hilarious, we saw her show three times during the cruise. If you ever get a chance to see her, definitely do it. Mickey is the Comedy Team announcer, this was his first cruise, and he’s from Jamaica. Then we went to the 80’s Pop show. We didn’t sit through the entire show. I like the 80’s music, but not what they were singing. Guess I’m more of a 70’s girl. This ship lacked the Playlist shows that most ships have. They only had one playlist show and we’d already seen it on the Elation. This was this casts second week on the job, so I’m sure that they will do more shows as time passes.

Mickey from the Comedy Club

Afterthoughts on the cruise

This was a good cruise, every cruise is a good cruise, but this wasn’t my favorite ship. My favorite cruises are always the ones where I make connections with the crew and get to know them a bit. The crew on this ship seemed so busy, so I can’t blame them. The room was kept clean. The food was good, mostly, in the main dining room. Lido Buffet wasn’t as good.

There was a cigarette, and occasionally marijuana odor in our cabin the last few nights. We did report it to our Cabin Steward and Security but they couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Someone said that the AC ventilation system input is next to the smoking area on deck 10, but I don’t know if that’s true. We ended up having to keep our balcony door open for fresh air because I’m sensitive to cigarette smoke.

Entertainment was so-so. Carnival tends to use the exact same shows on multiple ships, so it can get boring. The cast was fine, they did a good job, but I wish that Carnival would once again have different shows on each ship. We won’t be cruising Carnival again for quite awhile because we need a change. The Cruise Director, Gabe, is friendly and good. We didn’t really get to meet him but I think he did a good job.

  • Michael, our room Steward
  • Broken window in the Lido Buffet area.

Debarkation

We were taking our own luggage off the ship, which is called self-assist debarkation. We got up at 7 am and quickly dressed. We ran down to the Lido buffet for a fast breakfast. There was a very poor selection of food at the buffet. Eggs, sausage, potatoes, breads, and a few other things. We did finally find one area that had pancakes but I couldn’t find french toast. There was a separate omelet station where they sell the sushi that no one was using. We just grabbed a few things, ate, and went back to the room.

We were supposed to debark by our Muster Station letter, ours was D. But I hadn’t heard anything being announced but people were debarking. We finished putting our nighttime clothing in our backpack, and headed out. The elevators were crazy so we managed to get our luggage from the 6th floor to the 3rd, and got in line to get off of the ship. We were a bit early because he then announced station letter C, but we got off anyway. They didn’t check.

It took us about 40 minutes from the time we got in the line till we got through Customs and to our Port Canaveral Parking lot bus. We could have actually checked in our suitcases because we had an early number. We walked right through that area and the luggage was already distributed. We didn’t have to have our passports in hand because they have facial recognition instead of Customs officers. It was really easy and fast.

Port Canaveral Parking on Courtenay Parkway

We used the same parking lot in September and ended up with ants in our car the whole way home. See that review here. We really didn’t have a lot of choice as to where to park this time, so we decided to give them another try. They are not affiliated with the port. This time, so far, we haven’t found any ants, we were more careful where we parked. I’d say, don’t park to the far left of the lot, there seem to be a lot of anthills there. We parked a couple of rows in this time and checked for ants before we left the car.

There was a bus waiting for us as we got off the ship, and it was easy to find this time. We had the same great driver as last time, Penny, and we had very quick service back to the parking lot. After this time using this lot, we would use them again.

And then we headed out for our 7 hour drive home. Till next time!