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Freedom for Spring Break - March 11-15, 2024


Cactus527

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Last thoughts about Hideaway Beach:

1. The music they have pumping throughout the area is all from the DJ. It's even pumping at the little bars that they have set up. I made the mistake of sitting at a picnic table for second lunch beside one of these bars, and I was almost deaf by the time I left. If you're away from those, the sound is much more manageable. If you're looking for quiet, though, I would say that the quietest it was was for the first 2 hours of the day, and then it got progressively louder.

2. It seems like a lot of people are setting up in the very center of the beach area so that way they can go back and forth from their stuff easily. The areas closest to On The Rocks (entrance) and the far side of the bay were the least populated.

3. The lifeguards will not allow you to be beyond the area of the furthest chairs on the other side of the bay. They will blow their whistle at you and tell you to come back. You also cannot get up on the rocks at all where they are standing.

4. Even though the Hideaway cabanas are set away from the pool area and on their own with their own infinity pool, I was surprised how noisy it was over there. The sound comes from the fact that each cabana has its own sound system that you can play music through. It felt like some of the cabanas next to each other were competing to see who could get their music louder, and then there was the pool DJ's tunes being pumped in to the area (or maybe somebody had selected that channel in their cabana, I'm not sure). If you decide to hang out on the far side of the bay, that's a consideration for when the cabanas begin to be filled.

5. I highly recommend the island guava BBQ chicken pizza. While the pizza itself is Sorrento's quality, the flavor is awesome.

6. The restrooms are cute! I don't think people give restrooms the credit they deserve when they are clean and nice looking.

7. It definitely started to fill up after about 10:30 a.m. Both Oasis and Freedom were in port today, but I imagine it would look similar for any ships being there together because of the cap on the amount of people that can be there.

8. The ocean water temperature was a touch cool but definitely comfortable. I wouldn't have wanted to go in first thing in the morning, but by afternoon it was fine.

9. You can enter and exit as much as you want, just take your Seapass card with you.

10. The age range I saw skewed young; however, I'm also on a cruise that has a large contingency of college students. They were all mostly over at oasis lagoon. I did not see a large amount of retiree-aged people, but I definitely saw more than 10 50+ couples/people. My favorite was the married couple who had the exact same pattern on swim trunks (male) and bikini (female).

 

 

 

 

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I'll give you a hint what I'm doing right now.PXL_20240312_181742031.thumb.jpg.e0c6103e14a34fc46b30415d4ebb28c9.jpg

This is awesome, because I have a beautiful view of Chill Beach. Here's something I've noticing too:

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If you would like to sunbathe and have no desire to have access to a beach, this is the place to be. I took this photo at about 2:30 p.m., which is about the busiest that PDCC gets. Those chairs I circled are empty. Super easy to get to - exit the ship, turn left when the path splits at the end of the pier, go over the bridge, and then turn left again. 👍

I'm going to continue to be a spy from my balcony. I can even see the NCL passengers from here on *their* island!

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Lollll I too bring binoculars on every vacation I’ve been on since childhood. The only time I didn’t need them was when I stayed with my 2 college friends in a presidential suite at the Fairmont San Francisco.... because the room comes equipped with its own telescope! hahaha We played Eye Spy for houuuurs.

I’d be using them to keep an eye on the aggressive seagulls near that Snack Shack! The amount of people I saw preyed upon when they left food to go back for seconds was hilarious. I saw a seagull take off with an entire soft taco/burrito half-lodged in its throat! 

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I could see & hear it but it took a minute to load. Did you just attach it like a photo? Do you know what format it was in? I remember there was someone trying to upload a video - I think it was a .mov file - and it would only attach but not embed. You had to download it to view it, but yours shows right in the post. 

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2 hours ago, OCSC Mike said:

Trying to find that college girl who was "out" ?

Oh my goodness, with how drunk she was at 1:00 p.m., I sincerely hope she made it back to the ship without falling over and exposing herself again! Actually, my favorite thing to try to find is sea life playing in the water. I keep hoping someday I'll see a shark (through binoculars, while I am safely ensconced somewhere else).

 

1 hour ago, DDaley said:

I'd be using them to keep an eye on the aggressive seagulls near that Snack Shack! The amount of people I saw preyed upon when they left food to go back for seconds was hilarious. I saw a seagull take off with an entire soft taco/burrito half-lodged in its throat! 

Quite honestly, I didn't see any birds except for sparrow-like ones this time. I didn't even think about seagulls until I was on the way back to the ship and overheard someone say a seagull had tried to take their sandwich. Oh, and those scary gull like birds that they have hanging decoratively around the pool at Hideaway Beach. *shudder*

 

1 hour ago, PPPJJ-GCVAB said:

Unfortunately the audio/ video didn’t come through.  But I believe you 😂!

 

1 hour ago, jbrinkm said:

I could see & hear it but it took a minute to load. Did you just attach it like a photo? Do you know what format it was in? I remember there was someone trying to upload a video - I think it was a .mov file - and it would only attach but not embed. You had to download it to view it, but yours shows right in the post. 

It uploaded as an MP4. I know it was having issues on my end too, but I blamed that on being at the beach and trying to upload a video. It's amazing what technology will let you do now! I remember going on cruises in the mid 2000s and realizing that there was going to be zero internet on board unless you went to the internet cafe. Heck, I remember traveling around Europe and having to find Easy Everything internet cafes in order to be able to correspond with home! I'm dating myself now...

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3 minutes ago, Cactus527 said:

Actually, my favorite thing to try to find is sea life playing in the water. I keep hoping someday I'll see a shark (through binoculars, while I am safely ensconced somewhere else).

There are nurse sharks and lemon sharks at CocoCay (both tiny). My wife has snorkeled with both. One was by Chill Beach where the main snorkeling is. The other was when we were treated to an OTW cabana right in that area.

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1 hour ago, DDaley said:

Lollll I too bring binoculars on every vacation I’ve been on since childhood. The only time I didn’t need them was when I stayed with my 2 college friends in a presidential suite at the Fairmont San Francisco.... because the room comes equipped with its own telescope! hahaha We played Eye Spy for houuuurs.

I’d be using them to keep an eye on the aggressive seagulls near that Snack Shack! The amount of people I saw preyed upon when they left food to go back for seconds was hilarious. I saw a seagull take off with an entire soft taco/burrito half-lodged in its throat! 

We were once at a beach in New England (can't remember where exactly, we were visiting friends and they took us) and we had a little pop up tent for some shade. We had put some of our towels and day packs in there. I was sitting just about a foot or so in front of the tent and heard some aggressive rustling behind me - figured it was one of the kids doing something behind me in the tent. Finally, took a peek over my shoulder to watch a Seagull waddle out with an opened granola bar and fly off. The cheeky devil had gotten IN our tent, found a pack with food, stuck his beak into the opening which widened the zipper, pulled out a bunch of snacks and had shaken the granola bar enough that it came out of its wrapper and then he flew away to eat it. 

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1 hour ago, OCSC Mike said:

There are nurse sharks and lemon sharks at CocoCay (both tiny). My wife has snorkeled with both. One was by Chill Beach where the main snorkeling is. The other was when we were treated to an OTW cabana right in that area.

Sweet! If I was a snorkeler, I would definitely try it there. Calm water.

55 minutes ago, jbrinkm said:

We were once at a beach in New England (can't remember where exactly, we were visiting friends and they took us) and we had a little pop up tent for some shade. We had put some of our towels and day packs in there. I was sitting just about a foot or so in front of the tent and heard some aggressive rustling behind me - figured it was one of the kids doing something behind me in the tent. Finally, took a peek over my shoulder to watch a Seagull waddle out with an opened granola bar and fly off. The cheeky devil had gotten IN our tent, found a pack with food, stuck his beak into the opening which widened the zipper, pulled out a bunch of snacks and had shaken the granola bar enough that it came out of its wrapper and then he flew away to eat it. 

I'M TRYING HEALTHY NOW, BUDDY, THANKS FOR THE GRANOLA ahahahahaha!!!!

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1 minute ago, Cactus527 said:

Sweet! If I was a snorkeler, I would definitely try it there. Calm water.

Yeah, I'm not super into it. My wife used to snorkel there 1st thing after we claimed our Oasis Pool spot. I would grab a frozen drink and an umbrella on the beach and wait for her. I'll snorkel some on our excursion in St. Martin next week. I'd rather be jumping off a boat into the ocean to see turtles (hopefully).

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48 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

Yeah, I'm not super into it. My wife used to snorkel there 1st thing after we claimed our Oasis Pool spot. I would grab a frozen drink and an umbrella on the beach and wait for her. I'll snorkel some on our excursion in St. Martin next week. I'd rather be jumping off a boat into the ocean to see turtles (hopefully).

I LOVE THE GIANT TURTLES. When we were in Oahu in 2021, we saw them from our balcony swimming in the water. My girls and I swam with them at Carlsmith Beach in Hilo in 2022. A-maz-ing creatures.

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Dinner tonight: Giovanni's Italian Kitchen

I've done Jamie's before on Navigator, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was GREAT. Not crowded, excellent service, and calm atmosphere. Typically I'll do a specialty restaurant for formal night, so tonight was it.PXL_20240312_215839137.thumb.jpg.c366d38bb47673e949b5e374754dc20e.jpgPXL_20240312_224434998.thumb.jpg.8d56a652024697aad0959e922c1e8e99.jpg

I started with truffle caprese salad and garlic knots. Knots = meh (but the olives it came with were divine), salad = interesting. After thinking about it a lot, I think I was in love with the greens and tomatoes for the salad.

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Main course. My server recommend the osso buco (veal), so I got a small portion of that with spaghetti pomodoro. Oh. My. Gosh. I had no idea what to expect with the veal, so when it came out the look of it was just strange to me. However! I took a bite and fell in love. It was literally falling off the bone, and there was saffron on it as well. Absolutely fantastic, highly recommended.PXL_20240312_222950651.thumb.jpg.9991114c9fc5e56ccf91306ebbb3f64f.jpg

The spaghetti pomodoro was exactly what I expected it to be and it tasted exactly that way. Definitely recommended.

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For dessert, they automatically give you limoncello drink. I found it a very strange taste, even though I am a huge fan of lemon.PXL_20240312_224649185.thumb.jpg.ef699e02908c5d7a09ac61c6a7144543.jpg

Then, out came my chocolate ravioli. I kid you not, I told Spouse later that I would totally marry it if I wasn't already married. We would have little chocolate ravioli children, our house would always smell like chocolate, and I would be able to eat it all the time because my chocolate ravioli spouse would constantly be making chocolate ravioli. If you don't order this, you're missing out. 

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Then, to make it even more special, my server offered to get a pizza to go! I didn't even realize you could do this. So, of course I said yes. Of course I had part of it on my balcony while watching sunset. It's delicious (Giovanni's pizza).

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The garlic knots are my favorite thing at Giovanni's. I am allergic to veal, so I stay clear of the osso buco. We took pizzas to go on Wonder and I was disappointed because mine was wrong. I hope it is better on Freedom.

Sadly, nudity when it comes to bathing suits tops on cruises is a huge thing........also even with speedos. So much so I often feel like I just need to mention it in a general way🤣. I am sure that wasn't the first wardrobe malfunction given this is a spring break cruise.  I also heard the music is a mood killer for people with regular ears at Hideaway. 

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2 minutes ago, Cactus527 said:

Dinner tonight: Giovanni's Italian Kitchen

🤤

I wouldn’t even order most of what you did but I’m so hungry now. Haven’t tried Kitchen yet (Giovanni’s Table was always our favorite) but when discussing it I always wondered how/where does the pizza fit in b/c I would definitely want to try it (the exact one you got). To-go sounds like a good solution. That’s my plan for the large cinamon bun at Mason Jar brunch.

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25 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

The garlic knots are my favorite thing at Giovanni's. I am allergic to veal, so I stay clear of the osso buco. We took pizzas to go on Wonder and I was disappointed because mine was wrong. I hope it is better on Freedom.

Sadly, nudity when it comes to bathing suits tops on cruises is a huge thing........also even with speedos. So much so I often feel like I just need to mention it in a general way🤣. I am sure that wasn't the first wardrobe malfunction given this is a spring break cruise.  I also heard the music is a mood killer for people with regular ears at Hideaway. 

I have a casita up by the pool deck tomorrow, so I will let you know how much nudity I see. 🤣 The funny thing is I worked at a clothing optional resort when I first moved to Tucson, and I only lasted a week. I swear I have an open mind, and I thought I would be totally okay, but I just couldn't do it.

21 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

🤤

I wouldn’t even order most of what you did but I’m so hungry now. Haven’t tried Kitchen yet (Giovanni’s Table was always our favorite) but when discussing it I always wondered how/where does the pizza fit in b/c I would definitely want to try it (the exact one you got). To-go sounds like a good solution. That’s my plan for the large cinamon bun at Mason Jar brunch.

I wasn't sure about a lot of it, but the server recommended them and I thought I would take a chance. I'm glad I did, it opens up some doors and I didn't think I would want to go through.

21 minutes ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

I applaud you.  That’s a LOT of food.  Well done.  Caprese is my go-to at both of the Giovanni’s, but I wish they would nix the strangely-colored tomatoes and stick with red.  Something about a blue and/or yellow tomato just isn’t right !

The yellow tomatoes reminded me very much of ones that I ate growing up. Totally didn't phase me, and I really loved all the variety of tomato that was in that salad!

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45 minutes ago, Cactus527 said:

I have a casita up by the pool deck tomorrow, so I will let you know how much nudity I see. 🤣 The funny thing is I worked at a clothing optional resort when I first moved to Tucson, and I only lasted a week. I swear I have an open mind, and I thought I would be totally okay, but I just couldn't do it.

I wasn't sure about a lot of it, but the server recommended them and I thought I would take a chance. I'm glad I did, it opens up some doors and I didn't think I would want to go through.

The yellow tomatoes reminded me very much of ones that I ate growing up. Totally didn't phase me, and I really loved all the variety of tomato that was in that salad!

The pool is a good spot for shenanigans, especially involving nudity. Not that we want to see nudity........at least I don't 🤣. I can be open-mind and not like those things for myself. 

I make it a habit to try something new, if I don't like it, I can always get something else. It's how I tried the polenta and calamari app at Giovanni's.

I also like how you are filling your days, 4n cruises usually go by fast and I often don't feel like I got to do everything. But you are eating all the food and catching all the reality. 

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55 minutes ago, Ampurp85 said:

The pool is a good spot for shenanigans, especially involving nudity. Not that we want to see nudity........at least I don't 🤣. I can be open-mind and not like those things for myself. 

I make it a habit to try something new, if I don't like it, I can always get something else. It's how I tried the polenta and calamari app at Giovanni's.

I also like how you are filling your days, 4n cruises usually go by fast and I often don't feel like I got to do everything. But you are eating all the food and catching all the reality. 

I really like the four nights. I have been doing three nights previously because that's all I could really do, aside from the seven nighter that I did last summer with the kids. It's hard to get away when you have work and life responsibilities. However, this one happened to work out really well and I like that even though I feel like it's a three-nighter with port stops, I get an extra day to kind of recuperate after that. Trying to make the best of this cruise my way! 👍

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One other thing I remembered that I wanted to put here before I go to bed. The shuttles around PDCC actually have different functions. This is something I didn't realize the last time I was here. They have several.

There is one that strictly goes between the entrance plaza and Hideaway Beach and back. That one is just a little one car shuttle.

There's another one car shuttle that goes directly from the entrance plaza to the ship and back.

There is a two car shuttle, and that is the one that goes all around the island.

Then, after 2:00 p.m., they have little one car shuttles running around the island to particular stops that will take you directly back to the ship. I actually got on at the Chill Island stop and it dropped me off at the ship. No stops in between. No stops in between. and it dropped me off at the ship.

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The carts that pick you up at the ship that accommodate wheelchairs/motorized chairs do not stop at the transportation center….so if you are lucky enough to get one of the accessible carts, you don’t have to get off and transfer to one of the big trams.  I always try and get onto one of the accessible carts (without displacing someone who needs it, obviously).

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6 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

The carts that pick you up at the ship that accommodate wheelchairs/motorized chairs do not stop at the transportation center….so if you are lucky enough to get one of the accessible carts, you don’t have to get off and transfer to one of the big trams.  I always try and get onto one of the accessible carts (without displacing someone who needs it, obviously).

That's really good to know!

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Good morning from nearly Nassau. I can see Atlantis but we haven't docked yet. The water is like glass. ❤️ There are 3 ships coming in - us, a Carnival ship, and something else I can't quite identify on sight.

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Exercise for the day = done. Love the walking track on Deck 4/5. 1 lap = 700m, or 0.44 mi.

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Going toward the bow of the ship. It's dark!

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Bow, pre-sunrise. Interesting how dark they keep it.

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Hello, people working on the bridge! 👋

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I had the area to myself for 30 minutes. It was bliss.

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Through the window

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I also discovered that the shuffle board equipment is stored on the wall. Now I know.PXL_20240313_103307328.thumb.jpg.73a0bf52591472ef1970b6c52433b551.jpg

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25 minutes ago, Cactus527 said:

Bow, pre-sunrise. Interesting how dark they keep it.

There are certain cabins (I know the panoramic view interiors) that are prohibited from having their lights on at night without their curtains drawn so as not to affect the bridge. I only know b/c we tried to RU to one on Indy just b/c it looked cool and didn't cost much for a min bid b/c they're still interiors.

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8 minutes ago, OCSC Mike said:

There are certain cabins (I know the panoramic view interiors) that are prohibited from having their lights on at night without their curtains drawn so as not to affect the bridge. I only know b/c we tried to RU to one on Indy just b/c it looked cool and didn't cost much for a min bid b/c they're still interiors.

I have one of those on Allure this fall. Excited to try it!

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