Newly Retired Teachers

If you have a chance, we would love to see a picture of the new itinerary than Hank sent to you, so we can compare it to what is showing on the Navigator app. Thanks again for posting your experiences on this Live blog.

We just heard about your LIVE blog today. We are also set to board in San Diego on 10/3. Bob & Steve

"Lost City", that's a recent release. It's a fun summer type movie, we enjoyed it in the theater recently.

We just found this Live Blog, and thank you for posting it. We are booked for the 9th, like many others, for the 35 day Voyage of the Vikings. Your pictures are great, as well as the daily programs. Do you know if they are planning a Mariner Awards gathering on your cruises? Bob & Steve

Was Pickleball offered on Zaandam? We will be sailing on her for the Voyage of the Vikings and would like to know if we should bring our paddles. Bob & Steve

The last morning on the ship, I did hear that a small group of passengers had tested positive and were quarantined until the next morning (debarkation day in Barcelona). Not aware of any other issues.

We arrived in Barcelona this morning about 5:30 am. Disembarkation went quickly and smoothly. We were off the ship, right after all the unassisted passengers left. The terminal we arrived at seemed very new, and customs and baggage were the easiest ever. There was a marathon in the city this morning, but the cab navigated a way around the street closures just fine to get us to our friends home. It's nice to have internet again. I'll post more a little bit later. Bob

Boarding the ship in Tampa went pretty smoothly considering. . . The Carnival Pride looks better in person than it does in pictures. It really is a great layout for spreading out the passengers. We were told to expect a little over 1700 passengers, but that number reduces to about 1640 when we sailed away Sunday night. We have experienced two special dining opportunities so far, and they were both wonderful. David's Steakhouse, with its fig leaf covered huge statue of David, was worth the $38 pp. We had a free bottle of wine because who chose to dine on the first formal night. Then we were completely blown away by what we experienced during the Chef's Table. Champagne, white and red wines flowed as we experienced course after course of gourmet presentations and tastes. They converted Beauties Nightclub for the event, which lasted a full 3 hours. There were almost as many chefs and servers as there were guests (16 passengers our night). $75 pp may seem high, but since everything exceeding our expectations, it was well worth it. We would definitely splurge on it again. Our cabin, #5111 is a forward, extra large balcony. The cabin seems larger than normal too. Although dated in some ways, it is very comfortable and has plenty of storage. Carnival seems to be pulling out all the stops to celebrate their 50th birthday, and they are offering many retro experiences from their past 5 decades. We really weren't sure about being on the cruise, and we try not to compare to our other cruise line experiences, but we are enjoying every day, the staff and crew are great, and have no regrets in booking this cruise. Yesterday we were in Bermuda and the weather cleared for a perfect day. Gotta run to dinner now. Bob & Steve

We will be boarding the Carnival Pride on Sunday, April 24th for a 14 day transatlantic repositioning, from Tampa to Barcelona. My last cruise on Carnival Cruise Line was in June of 1985, aboard the Tropicale, for a Mexican Riviera cruise. This will be the first Carnival cruise for my husband. There are only 4 scheduled ports along the way (Bermuda, Ponta Delgada, Malaga and Valencia), but we love sea days! The ports of Malaga and Valencia are both new for us, and we look forward to seeing these cities along with a tour out to the Alhambra from Malaga. Please follow along as we share our experiences along the way. Please feel free to ask questions about our trip that you think we might be able to answer. We chose this cruise because of a fantastic Casinos offer, and it fit in our calendar. If you look at our Cruise Critic Signature, you'll see that we are crazily booked through March of next year. Most of our cruise choices have been on Holland America and NCL. We did our first "Live" Topic (blog) during our first post COVID cruise in February, 2022 on board the Koningsdam, Hawaii roundtrip from San Diego. It was fun to post, and to interact with other cruisers. The COVID-19 procedures for this cruise require vaccinations, and a Booster if it's been more than 6 months since your last regular injection. We also needed to apply for a Travel Authorization from Bermuda ($40 pp), and upload vaccine and testing results to Bermuda, and to Carnival using the VeriFly app. The mask orders will still be in place for embarkation and the flight to Tampa. Our journey for this trip will begin on Saturday, when we fly to Tampa one day before the cruise. Bob & Steve (Palm Springs, CA)