amrgirl95

Once I finish something else up, I'll get to posting day six!

Too bad about the washcloths. At least Bahamas in February/March shouldn't be as warm as W.C. was in May.

That's true, hopefully the weather works in your favor!

Great pictures and review!

I just got off the Pride on Sunday. Had a fantastic cruise!

Thanks!

Loved your pictures and review! 285 days til we get on the Pride for a 14 day Journey cruise (Nov 2018).

 

Karen

Thanks! I hope you enjoy your trip! The itineraries on the Journey cruises always fascinate me.

Loving this review. Your detail is much appreciated.

Thanks!

The shrimp tacos looked amazing! I'm glad to see they have water when getting back from ports. It was a nice touch on our NCL Western Caribbean and hoped they would do something similar. Did they have chilled washcloths to refresh with too?

The tacos were really good! No, they just had the water, but no washcloths, unfortunately.

A ship in the distance?

The pool lit up red

And orange

There was some Mardi Gras event in the atrium that night. I planned on meeting my mom there after the show let out. I went and got a seat and she found me. Once it started, Saffie called people up to dance, and off my mom went. I held her light jacket and phone and purse, so when I went up a deck to be able to see (and take pictures of my mom), I couldn’t message her. She eventually found me after. The event consisted of some singing competition between the women and the men, then the two contestants of the lip sync battle were brought out to practice. I thought the female contestant was really good at the lip synching, but the crowd preferred the guy. The entertainment staff then threw out those cheap beads you see everywhere. My mom got one and came to find me. We went back to our room and went to sleep.

Some pictures from the Mardi Gras Party

So that’s day five! I have to go car shopping Saturday and I’m getting with my friends on Sunday, but I’ll try to work on more over the weekend. Thanks for reading!

The water looked cool outside of our room

This little guy was hanging out on one of the room stewards' carts

We waited a whopping four minutes for our table. My mom was debating what to order that night, and asked our waiter if the swordfish was any good. My mom doesn’t eat fish that much, but she does like swordfish. He said it wasn’t that impressive. My mom still wanted to try it, and ordered a mystery appetizer that I can’t identify, the peach soup, and the fish. She was debating ordering the cannelloni appetizer instead of the fish with the waiter, so he brought that too. She had a lot that night. Like our waiter suggested, the swordfish wasn’t that good. I had the prosciutto ruffles and shrimp cocktail for my appetizers. I ordered the BBQ pork spareribs for my entrée. They were okay. I don’t like eating meat off of the bone, so my mom had to cut a lot off for me because I’m really bad at it. I refuse to eat food like that with my fingers. I cut the meat off of wings, for example. There was a fair amount of meat on the ribs though. My mom skipped dessert again, and I had the “Double Roasted Pineapple.” I think that’s what it was. It was some pineapple dish that was low fat and had no sugar added. Our waiter recommended it. It was just some roasted pineapple with some cream that was sort of flavorless. I wanted to get something and nothing appealed that much to me. I was avoiding the chocolate melting cake since I felt sick the two nights I had had it. I’m not sure if there was any correlation, but I still wanted to play it safe.

My dessert for the night

The ceiling above our table

After dinner, my mom went to the show, “88 Keys The Rock N’ Roll Piano Show.” I went on deck 10 and took some pictures. You could see the lights from what I thought was land and a couple of other ships in the distance. My hands shake all the time, and it was worse since it was windy out, so in order for me to take these nighttime shots (with a slow shutter speed), I had to balance my camera on something. I don’t have a tripod, so I chose whatever I could find. I then walked down to deck 9 (I was wearing 4 inch wedges and a dress so I was struggling a bit in the wind). The one pool was lit up at night and would change colors. I went down to deck 3 and walked around the promenade deck. I came outside on the starboard side forward, walked around the aft and saw the wake, then walked all the way forward on the port side. In my heels. I got a seat in the sunset garden area. I could hear the show going on. It was good, but, again, it isn’t really my type of thing.

I thought those lights in the distance were land, but I wasn't sure

The pilot boat

There was some music in the atrium. I think they were there almost every night of the cruise

I eventually got up to watch sail away. Right before we left, crew started packing up the deck chairs towards the aft of deck 10. There were no pier runners, but I noticed I think three people run up to a van that was shuttling people up and down the pier all day. The van sped over to the ship, and three people with suitcases got on. After that, we were off, at about 4:50. I watched the pilot get off our ship and onto his boat, then wave at us. After that, I’m pretty sure I ran down to the room to ditch my book and grab my hoodie, since it was getting windy and chilly out. I went back up to deck 10 to watch the sunset, then I went back to the room to meet up with my mom and get ready for dinner.

While my mom was doing that, I took pictures of the island. I then got another taco! I went back to the room, possibly to ditch my other lens and exchange it for my book. While I was in the room, I took pictures of everything in the bathroom (I saved the rest for the last day. Don’t ask why it took me so long). I then went back to deck 10 and sat in the sun and read for a bit. Or I tried to, at least. Some big group ended up next to me and they kept yelling. You could almost hear the announcements from the other ship. I had a cup of water in my hand, and I was drinking it without paying attention. I looked down, and noticed that there was a wasp struggling in it. I had no clue how long it had been in the water. I put the cup down, and noticed that the wasp was still alive. I poured a bit of the water on the ground to get the wasp out, but it never flew away.

Some shots of Nassau

Our new towel animal

When we got back to the room, we noticed it was a bit warmer than before. We adjusted the temperature so it would be cooler in the room. I think the temperature was fine, but we ended up with something like a wind tunnel in our room. Whenever we tried to open the door to the hallway or the French doors, it required extra strength. My mom could barely get the door open sometimes. You could hear a whistling noise too. We tried multiple times to ensure that all the doors were shut. We probably should have told somebody, but we were being lazy and assumed our room steward would deal with it if it was an issue.

After we dropped off some stuff, we went up to deck 9 to have lunch at Blue Iguana Cantina. It was our first time there all trip, and we didn’t know if we would end up liking it. If you’ve never been, they have two separate lines; one for tacos and one for burritos. We went to the left to get in the taco line, since we didn’t know if we’d like it enough to get burritos. The sign only listed three types of meat that I can’t remember, but the person in front of me ordered shrimp, which wasn’t on the sign. I guess it was on the other side, so I got shrimp. My mom got pork and we went to get our toppings. I really liked how this was set up. Like I’ve mentioned, I’m a picky eater and don’t like a lot of foods, with cheese being my least favorite. I hate going to a Mexican restaurant and asking for tacos or a burrito with no cheese, but here, I just got the meat and went to put whatever toppings I wanted on it.

So this is a list of all the different salsas that were available. I like spicy food, and I got the Arbol Chili the first time. It was okay, but I liked the Salsa Roja better.

We finally sat down and got to eat the tacos. They were great! My mom said that it was the best taco she had ever had. I was still hungry, so I went and got another one. We then went inside to the buffet for dessert. I found some cheesecake and carrot cake, my two favorite desserts, and they were both good. The cheesecake was supposed to be key lime flavored, but I couldn’t taste it. My mom had some strawberry/raspberry chocolate thing, maybe a mousse, which looked really interesting in person. I think she said it tasted good. She also had some peach thing, which she said was really good, as long as you liked peach.

The pool deck was pretty empty then

My taco

My desserts

My mom's desserts

My mom and I then went our separate ways. She had her spa appointment for a Swedish massage. She said the masseuse was pretty rough with the massage. I went with my mom when she booked the massage, and we asked if they had any port day specials. The woman at the front desk said that they only got notice of those about a day in advance, and a lot of the slots could be full by then. In order to make sure that she had the massage time she wanted, my mom booked it early, instead of waiting for the special.

Anyway, we made our way down the pier, went through the port building, and came out into the shopping area. That’s where we stay when we’rein Nassau. We entered that area around 11:30. We did a preliminary walk through of all the stands, then went back and bought what we wanted. I planned on getting some Christmas gifts while on the trip, and I got gifts for two of my friends while here. Last time in Nassau, we got my dad some coffee that he liked, and we got some more for him. In the back of the area, there’s a fancy soap stand that’s area conditioned, and that’s my mom’s favorite place. She always spends time at this stall talking to whoever is working there.

We finished shopping and went to get back on the ship at1 2:53. We got in line for a security guard to check our S&S cards and IDs, and we went back to walk down the pier. We took some more pictures along theway. Outside of Carnival Pride, crew had set up a few couches and chairs under coverings,and also some flavored (lemon-mint and orange) and regular water. That was a pretty nice touch. My mom wanted to drink some water, so we sat down. My mom ended up talking to some people, so we didn’t get back to our room until 1:58. We had another buddy there waiting for us.

You can see our room in this picture! It's the third from the right one, if you count the little sliver of a window all the way at the right of the picture. So the first full window/door from the left, if that makes sense

The water and the couches

On previous visits, this sign always had lines of people waiting to take pictures under it, but, this time, nobody was there when we were

You go through the bulding to get to the port shopping area (I don't know what it's called) and then out some gates and into Nassau

Atlantis in the distance

So I'm back with day five! I should get this all posted tonight, but I'll have to take a break for dinner, then my dad's taking me car shopping, so I may stop partway through uploading this.

Day Five

On this day, we were in Nassau, Bahamas. My mom and I had been here on our last few cruises, and we didn’t like it that much. The first time we were here (in recent memory at least), we and a family friend walked down to Señor Frogs, and didn’t feel safe doing so. I spend a lot of time walking around Baltimore, and felt safer doing that. My friend is actually on a cruise right now, and she said that they almost got robbed in Nassau, and I assume her dad was with her at the time. She said they were relatively near the ships. The last time we were in Nassau, we just shopped around the secured port area with all the stalls, and that was our plan for this day. Since we didn’t plan on spending much time off of the ship, we didn’t have to get up early in order to get off as soon as we were cleared to do so.

Our view from our room that day. We did dock on the port side of the ship

So on the previous day, we got a letter delivered to the cabin saying that they were going to shut off our AC for maintenance, from 8:00-11:30 A.M. They chose that time since they were assuming most people would be off the ship then. We didn’t know if it was regularly scheduled maintenance, or if they were fixing something that was wrong. The letter also said that the room could be a bit warm once we got back as well. We didn’t think this would be an issue, even though we would be asleep then getting ready in the room during that time. I get cold easily but my mom doesn’t. Around 7:30, I woke up and heard what I assumed was the air turning off. At 8:50, I heard a big clang, then silence. A few minutes later the same thing happened again. I’m not sure if that was related to the maintenance. After that, we didn’t hear anything more from the repairs.

I think we got up around 9:00 that morning, and went to the buffet for breakfast around 10:00. I got my same plate of pastries again. I also was getting a cup of Lipton each morning. I regularly drink Lipton at home, so I’m fine with it, but I do like the greater selection of (free) teas on Royal Caribbean. After eating, I stepped out on to the Serenity deck to take some pictures of the island. Once we got back on board, I planned on grabbing my other lens to take some more close up shots of Nassau, but I just took a few now. We were docked next to Carnival Elation. Even though Carnival Pride is only a few years younger than Carnival Elation, it was easy to see the size difference between the two ships.

My breakfast. This was the only day I saw poppyseed muffins, which were really good

After we stepped outside for a minute, we stopped back at the room to grab some cash and our credit cards, and then we were off the ship at 11:19. We took some pictures before heading down the pier. Years ago, I gave my mom my old point and shoot camera, and she rarely uses it. My dad and I always make her take it on trips, but she doesn’t do much with it. I’m pretty sure she took it off the ship one day, but I don’t remember which. That was the only time she used it the whole week. I, on the other hand, had my DSLR around my neck almost all the time. My mom took most of her pictures with her cellphone, and she always takes ridiculously long time doing so.

Good information to know, I had assumed the pool was fully covered - will definitely take advantage of the heated pool at the pre-cruise hotel;). Looks like I'll be carrying the epi-pen on ship too.

 

I'll make sure we have layers packed for if we want on deck on the book-end days. Maybe Feb/March will be warmer.

The pool actually wasn't that cold, so that may be why they left it open. If the weather's worse, I assume they'd close it completely. I heard that on this class of ships, the covering can only be closed when the ship is in port, not when she's at sea. With the weather in this area, you never know what you'll get.

Love the pictures and your daily reviews. Thanks so much for sharing.

Thank you!

Thanks again for your review!

 

You gave me some good pointers for Princess Cay - make sure I have the epi pen in case of bee stings (I don't always think about it in the winter) and bring along some extra tp ;)

 

The frozen yogurt sounds like a nice option. The fries look really good too - like fresh cut vs frozen. I'm a picky eater too, but unfortunately it is the healthier foods I usually don't like :(

 

Is the covered pool only partially covered? Do you remember what temps were like there in Baltimore and 1st and last sea days?

 

Enjoying the pictures and descriptions.

Thanks for reading! I'll mention this in the next day of my review, but I was sitting on deck 10 while we were docked in Nassau, and a bee started bothering me then too. I understand you on the food thing. I don't like certain healthy foods, such as some vegetables. The pool was partially covered on our trip. They didn't adjust the roof during the week. It was above freezing- but still cold- when we left and got back to Baltimore. On the first sea day, the temperature wasn't that bad. It got better as the day went on. On the last sea day, the weather was worse. My mom said she couldn't sit outside at all that day. I went outside to take pictures of the sunset and had to immediately come back in, since it was so cold then.

Im enjoying your review! I was on the Pride in late November/early December 2012 and i see there have been some changes to her since then. I live in Richmond,so it would be so easy for me to cruise on her again and your review is making me want to!

Thanks! If you get the chance, you should definitely try her out again!

Enjoying your review. We will be in a similar "French Door" cabin in a few weeks. The photos are interesting showing kind of a catwalk beyond the rails at the French Doors. What would prevent a person from going over that rail and walking along the catwalk area for a better view? Not that I would do that of course . . .

I actually had the same thought! There was a sheet of glass coming down from our railing, to block the room from the catwalk, if that makes sense. If somebody really wanted to, you could climb over the railing and on to the catwalk. There wasn't anything that I can think of that would stop somebody, provided that they could get over the railing. I did look and didn't see any cameras, but I'm sure there was some camera that would notify the crew if you were to go out on the catwalk.

We were on the Pride cruise that left 12/17, so the day you returned, and were also in the same category cabin! It's been nice reliving our cruise through your pictures.

Nice! How was your trip?

The beef lasagna

My cheesecake

After we finished eating, we stopped by the room then went to the theater. The show this night was the Love and Marriage show. I had never been to one of these shows, but I’ve seen parts of them replayed on cruise ship televisions, so I wanted to go to one myself. I don’t think my mom had been to one since before I was born. I’m pretty sure she and my dad participated in one of these back in the day. When we got to the theater, I think we walked in to the end of the “’80s & ‘90s Music Trivia Party.” We sat up on the balcony and didn’t disturb anybody. Saffie, our cruise director, was trying to get everybody up and dancing. At one point, I’m pretty sure she pointed at us, but that wasn’t about to happen. The Love and Marriage show was good. Once it was over, we went back to our room and went to bed.

Some of the decor in the theater

I was looking through this day’s Fun Times, and I noticed there was “Power Hour At The Arcade” from 5:00-6:00 PM. The games were half off. If we had noticed that, we probably would have gone then to win some ducks, but oh well.

So that’s it for day four. Sorry I disappeared for a few days. I’m working on day five now, and I’ll try to get it up soon. Thanks for reading!

It was a bit before 5:30 at this point. I knew there was still time before we would head to dinner, and I was hungry, so I grabbed a sandwich from the deli. I got the roast turkey sandwich (I think that’s what it was called. It was turkey). We still had the old deli menu while on board. While it was being prepared, the guy in line said he had had them before, and they were really good, so he was back for more. The sandwich was really good. I stepped back outside to take a couple of pictures, then went back to the room to get ready for dinner.

We got our pager and waited 8 minutes for our table that night. For dinner, my mom had the roasted pumpkin soup and the beef lasagna. She liked the soup but wasn’t that big of a fan of the lasagna. It was a really big portion though. I just had a few different appetizers. I had the marinated chicken tenders (really good), the honey roasted ham (also very good and presented really nicely), and the fried shrimp (just okay, a bit too fried forme). For dessert, I had cheesecake, which is one of my favorite desserts. I never seem to eat cheesecake enough, so I always enjoy it. My mom skipped dessert again.

My roll that night

My ham appetizer

Steps leading to nowhere off the promenade deck

The wake leaving the island behind

Around 4:40, I looked and saw that we were moving. I went down to deck 3 and walked around the promenade deck a bit. That’s one of my favorite places on a ship, and my main complaint about Carnival is that they don’t do the promenade deck well. On Royal Caribbean, there are chairs out there, so you can sit close to the water. On Carnival, there are no chairs and it almost feels like you’re not supposed to be out there. I think I walked around a bit more, then went up to deck 10 to take pictures of the sunset.

The pool deck was still pretty empty, even once we were moving

The pool has a dolphin in it

From the promenade

After munching a bit, I left my mom relaxing, and went to walk around deck 10. This was the first (and only) time I made it up to the sports deck. There were quite a few people playing up there. When we were waiting in line to get on the ship, I noticed three or four kids with basketballs, and I guess they were using them here.

The relatively empty pool deck

Another empty pool

The mini golf course

These statues were on the sports deck. I wonder if they were going for sort of an Aztec theme

A bathroom shot

Anyway, we finished in the bathroom. There was a band playing (Christmas songs) in the bar, which was a nice touch. We did a bit more shopping (everything was cash only, from what I saw), and then got back on the ship. There was just a little line to go through security (maybe four or five people before us). It would have been easier if people knew how to go through metal detectors. I think that slowed us down. We had our S&S cards and IDs out, but I don’t believe they checked them. We got on another tender and left shortly after. We were back on the ship around 3:10. We went back to our room to drop off our stuff. I think I stayed there for a few minutes, because I later found my mom on the pool deck with a drink in hand. She had the same yellow drink from the rum bar again. We were sitting by the main pool, and it was fairly empty, even though the time for the last tender was coming up. We got two lounge seats right next to the pool.

Our new friend in our room

A shot of the island

This guy was hanging out near Guy's

I was a tad hungry, and the only thing opened was Guy’s Burger Joint (and the pizza and deli). I haven’t eaten fast food in years, and I know that if I was to do that, it would bother my stomach. I was worried that Guy’s would be “fast food” enough that it would make me feel sick. I’m also not a big burger person, and I don’t like any of the “fancy” toppings they offer (bacon, cheese, onion rings), so I didn’t feel like I was missing out on much. My mom planned to try a burger, but never got around to it. This day, I did get us a plate of fries to munch on, and they were really good. I also got my mom some soft serve (I also don’t eat ice cream. I’m such a picky eater). This was the only time she had the soft serve on the trip. There were two machines. One was soft serve (chocolate, vanilla, and swirl on that day). The other, which had no line, was frozen yogurt (chocolate, strawberry, and swirl). I got my mom chocolate frozen yogurt in a cup. She liked it, but I found out that she’s a cone person. Oh well. This way, I didn’t make a mess of myself.

Our fries from Guy's

My mom's frozen yogurt

Some shots from the top of the tower

This is the opposite side from the beach. I don't know if anybody would be able to go over here

I got back to our spot and my mom went off to explore. The last tender was 4:15, and we wanted to head back long before that so we didn’t get caught in a long line. Before 2:00, the beach we were on began to clear out. My mom still hadn’t come back (she was talking to somebody. This happens everywhere we go), and I was getting a bit nervous, since I had wanted to leave our seats around 2:00 so we could do some shopping before getting on the tender. We ended up getting up around 2:30, by the time my mom came back. We tried to go to the ladies’ room by our seats, but an employee said it was closed. I don’t know why, since the island shouldn’t have been shutting down yet. We went down the path, towards the ship, stopping at stands if anything caught our eye. We both got a few small things. We went to the bathroom by the bar, and of course it was out of toilet paper.

The bar with the ship in the background

The view from our seats

An airplane overhead. I'm pretty sure I heard that there's an airport somewhere on the island

We got to our seats around 11:45. I went to get food around 12:45. My mom wasn’t hungry then, but we knew that the food would end around 1:30, I think, so we had to get something then. I brought my food back to our seats, then my mom got hers. It was pretty good. The desserts didn’t do much for either of us, but we really liked the couscous and the jerk chicken. Also the German potato salad was very flavorful. There were so many bugs flying around, including tons of bees. I had put bug spray on, but they still liked me better than my mom. At some point, my mom got one of those special drinks in the big plastic cups. I think it was a Miami Vice. My mom thought there wasn’t much alcohol in it, and I agreed with her, because I actually thought it tasted good. After eating, I sucked it up and went into the sand to explore a bit. I went down to the water, then further down the beach, towards the cabanas. There was a little hut with a pathway that extended into the water. Also, there was a little look out tower type thing (I don’t know what it’s called) and I went up that to see more of the island. Behind it was a different section of the private island, but I don’t think it was connected to the main part of Eleuthera. I wonder if cruise guests could walk over there, but it probably wouldn’t be allowed.

Looking down the beach towards the cabanas and the walkway over the water

A water shot

So I'm back for day four of the trip! Sorry it took a bit of time to post.

Day Four

So day four. Our first port day. We were tendering at Princess Cays on this day. My mom and I had never been to this port before, but generally a private island is a private island. If you haven’t picked up on it already, I am not a morning person, and we never get off early, so we were not lining up at 7:00 A.M. to get tender tickets to get on the island.

I believe we got up around 9:00 that morning, and went to breakfast in the buffet around 10:00. Around 10:45, they stopped calling the ticket numbers for the tenders. They stopped at number 35 or 36. We were still eating at that point, so that just meant we didn’t have to stop and get tickets. People did wear their tender number stickers all day. This was my first breakfast in the buffet, and I liked it. I can’t eat a lot in the mornings, so I just had pastries, and they were good. The chocolate muffins on Carnival are amazing.

My breakfast

A view of the island from the (dirty) window in the buffet

The buffet was pretty empty this morning, probably because everybody was already off the ship at this point. We were able to see the tender boats going back and forth from where we were sitting. After breakfast we stopped back at the room to grab our beach bags, then headed to get off the ship. The water was a bit choppy, so it was a tad bit difficult to get on the tender, but we made it. My problem was that the ramp connecting the tender to the ship kept moving up and down, and I had to really duck to be able to make it on without hitting my head.

I wanted to post these pictures earlier in the review, but I couldn't find them. This is looking out of our room's window to the right (forward)

And left (aft)

For whatever reason, we had to wait on the tender for about 15 minutes before we left the ship. I guess they wanted the tender to be full before going ashore, but waiting there was pretty boring. I noticed that there was a big, dark cloud getting closer to the ship while we were on the tender boat, and I regretted not bringing my umbrella with us. The cloud was gone by the time we reached land, and that was as close as we got to any rain all trip. We eventually started moving towards land. The water was rough, and the boat was moving around a lot. It didn’t bother me, and the ride was only a few minutes long (maybe 6 minutes based on the times on my pictures). This picture shows just how much the tender boat was listing.

We had sat on the top deck of the boat, and somehow I was the first person off, at 11:32. My mom was not. Somehow, she ended up letting a bunch of people go in front of her, so I stood around waiting. I noticed two singers and dancers getting off of our tender. My mom finally caught up to me, and we went to find a good spot for the day. We walked some, since a lot of the chairs were full at this point. We were the only ship in port that day, and it was never too crowded. We ended up finding two seats on the back of the beach, next to the main path. They were right by some bathrooms, and relatively near to one of the lunch buffet areas. We settled in for a relaxing day. I stayed at the seat for most of the day, since I hate sand and I don’t want to get it everywhere, and my mom walked around a bit. It was windy, but warm enough in the sun. Whenever the wind would blow and the sun would go behind clouds, I would be freezing. I was sitting there in my hoodie, with my mom’s towel around me (and my towel beneath me).