Carnival Pride Review - 5/16/2010 - lots of pictures!

[broadwaystar32]

I recently returned from my cruise on the Carnival Pride to the Bahamas and Port Canaveral, and I'm going to give a pretty detailed run down of the trip. If anyone has any questions along the way, just ask and I'll do my best to answer them!

 

I graduated college the day before my trip, and my boyfriend had just turned 21 a few days earlier, so we were excited to go! It was just the two of us traveling and he had never been on a cruise before. We left his house Sunday morning and arrived in Baltimore around 11:45. It was so exciting when we got to see the first glimpse of the ship!

 

 

Once we got to the port everything went really smoothly. We handed our luggage to a porter, tipped him a few dollars, and headed inside. Once in we just had to show the Carnival workers our FunPass that we had filled out ahead of time - no paperwork to do on the spot, and our passports. The only other thing we had to fill out was a really short form about our health and basically stating that we weren't sick and didn't have the H1N1 flu. We went to a desk, handed in all of our forms, and were given our sign and sail cards, which were to be our room keys and credit cards onboard the ship. We were then given a waiting area, since they hadn't started boarding yet. We were in zone 10. All of this took about twenty minutes, and we had to sit and wait only for about ten or fifteen more minutes - they started boarding a little before 12:30. Below, the waiting area in the port:

 

 

We were on board the Pride less than an hour after we had arrived in Baltimore. I was super impressed at the boarding process and how efficient they were - and friendly! Once on board you entered right into the Renaissance lobby, which was gorgeous and spanned from the 2nd floor all the way up the 10th, and featured glass elevators:

 

 

On the other side a man was playing piano and singing, and the bar was open.

 

 

They told us our rooms wouldn't be ready until around 3:30, so we headed up to Deck 9, the Lido deck, to grab some lunch. My boyfriend, Jason, was very excited about getting some of that free food! They have a buffet with lots of different stations, and the whole area is called The Mermaid Grille and is themed with underwater and mermaid designs.

 

 

After lunch we took a personal tour of the ship, just checking out what there was to do and what everything looked like, where it was located. Here's a picture of the library, a very modest library at that. Not many books, but mostly just the area where you can use the internet - at 75 cents a minute! We liked the idea of taking a break from the computer so we never used it. There were also some board games you could borrow during certain hours.

 

 

After that it was back to the Atrium/Renaissance lobby to order... the drink of the day! Jason had just turned 21 and so we was especially excited about getting the specials every day.

 

To be continued...

[family cruisers]

Keep it coming ! We LOVE the pride and look forward to the next one (Oct. 2010) .

[DBBJR87]

cannot wait till more.

[vavasmom]

We board in 33 days - can't wait. Reviews are so much fun to read

[Gone_Kroozin]

Nice review so far-I was on Miracle and we were docked alongside you in Nassau.

[broadwaystar32]

Ah, so on the drink of the day... today it was the FunShip Special. Pretty delicious, a combo of vodka, rum, apricot brandy, amaretto, and fruit punch. We used a trick someone told us on here and asked for it with no ice - we basically got twice as much drink, no problem. We did get charged 50 cents extra in tax because we were still docked in Baltimore, but we got the plastic glass that we could use for a discount refill on the special good for the rest of the week!

 

 

We headed up to the pool area to sit out in a deck chair, because it was May and just barely warm enough to do that! We lounged around, sipping our drinks, just excited to be stress free! I'd had a busy semester student teaching (14 and 15 year olds!) so I deserved it. :-)

 

Around 3:00 they announced that the rooms were ready early and we could go to them. Our luggage still hadn't arrived, but they said it sometimes takes up to 2 hours after we've set sail to receive the luggage, so I wasn't too worried. We did, however, find a wonderful surprise when we got into the room:

 

 

Jason's uncle had arranged for a "Chocolate Delight" to be waiting in our stateroom! So nice - and tasty! Those were some delicious chocolate covered strawberries. The stateroom we had was on Deck 1, an indoor room, so no window, very small, but basically what we needed - a place to sleep.

 

 

So we checked out the room, couldn't really unpack, but at that point it was just about time to leave Baltimore! We headed up to deck 10, the Sun Deck, to watch the cruise ship pull away from port. They were playing music, getting people to go the electric slide, etc. It was a pretty nice day out!

 

 

I believe there were also a few weddings on board the ship that day: we got to catch I guess the end of one from afar:

 

 

We also had a good view of the pools: there were three different pools, the Apollo, Venus, and Poseidon, the latter of which was an adults only pool. Each pool also had an accompanying whirlpool, which in the cooler Baltimore weather was much more enjoyable to use until we got much further south! Here's the Apollo pool:

 

 

So we finally begin moving, which was exciting, even though we were moving quite slowly. After about five minutes, though, it looked like we were going backward! Wait, I was thinking, we already passed those boats in the water, why are we going back?! When the cruise director Kirk comes on and tells us that there is an emergency medical issue that needs to be attended to.

 

We had no idea how long this might take or what was going on, so we waited patiently. After about fifteen minutes Kirk came on and told us the injury was not life threatening, the family had made it the hospital, and we would be off again. It wasn't until our last day at sea that we found out the details - a young girl had slammed the door on her finger and her fingernail fell off. Definitely not life threatening, and they could've taken care of it on the ship, but apparently she was pretty hysterical and they couldn't calm her down, so they had to take her to the hospital. Such a shame for her family, too, missing out on their cruise!

[broadwaystar32]

Nice review so far-I was on Miracle and we were docked alongside you in Nassau.

 

That's right, we saw the Miracle as we pulled in to Nassau!

[ibm_db2]

congratulation!! Yes, keep it coming.

[falkcor]

welcome back! (as if... you wanted to be)...

 

but great start so far! this is bringing back some memories, and im looking forward to the rest of your review!

 

good idea re: the drinks of the day - smart! :cool:

 

congratulations on your graduation! :D

[Ms. Fun Bunch]

Enjoying your review can' t wait for the rest. My Fun Group will be on the Pride August 15.

[Meyer2]

Great review so far. Look forward to the rest. Great pictures.

[SammieMC00]

Hey thanks for writing a review. We were getting off of the Pride as you guys were getting on! Why did you have to kick us off ;) I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your review and seeing if you guys saw things we missed. My hubby is doing a review of our trip on the Pride go check it out. It was the May 9th sailing. Congrats on graduation! What is your education degree in?

[ChampionCruiser]

I'm getting spoiled with all of the great Pride reviews :)

 

It really does help the time go by...less than a month now!!!

[Tiffany1203]

Great review so far! Can't wait for the rest!! :D

[krmckee]

Becky, any chance you can finish this review by Sunday am? JK! We leave in 4 days!!!!

 

I can already tell this is going to be a good review!

 

BTW, from falkcors review I know what happens on this cruise and congratulations!!!! You guys are such a cute couple!

[peppermintpatty]

Great reveiw so far. Can't wait to read the rest

[labtech]

Was on this cruise with you!!!! And was also in the MDR when a certain "special" event took place....congratulations!!!

The trip really WAS awesome, wasn't it!!!!????

[RDP3081]

Great trip report so far. Looking forward to the rest of it.

I will be going on my first cruise in September and it is on the Pride. These trip reports are great as I can find out what others liked and disliked, what to do and what to avoid.

[ccruisequeen]

I miss the Pride out of Long Beach!

[As You Wish]

Your review is off to a wonderful start, and I'm looking forward to the rest. Congratulations on your graduation!

[Duckie26]

Welcome back!! Great start to your review! I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.

 

Only 263 days until I'm back on the Pride....:D

[vacruizer]

Thank you for taking the time to review! Looking forward to more - leaving on the Pride this Sunday!!! :D

[KeywestK]

Congratulations on your graduation!!! Thanks for posting a review and wonderful pics! I enjoy reading everyone's review, and it just makes me more excited for our cruise in October. I'm eagerly awaiting more!!!:D

[ElkridgeTerp]

We were on the same cruise (Pride 5/16) and this marked our return to cruising. After logging five cruises in two and a half years, my wife and I had to take a five year hiatus from ocean life due to having a child. But she's nearly four now and we decided to now was the time to introduce her to cruising.

 

Anyway, I hope Becky doesn't mind if I just add my experience of this cruise to her already wonderful review.

 

Embarkation:

We live near Baltimore, so not flying was nice. Of course this means we may have over packed a bit, but the porters were quick and courteous. We arrived around 1:45pm and there were already a good number of people on board. Since it has been five years since we cruise, having a young child and celebrating our 10 year anniversary, we sprung for a Vista Suite this go around and this seems to have gotten us VIP status. Having VIP status got us to the front of the line for the security check and personal attention (private room) to complete the Sail and Sign process. I figure this saved us 30-45 minutes of line waiting. My wife and I are anything but VIP type people, but skipping lines is always nice! From there it was the standard embarkation photo stop and onto the ship! Oh, VIP status does not seem to get your luggage delivered to your stateroom any faster, so make sure you pack your carry on appropriately.

 

Catching up with an old friend:

Coincidentally, the Carnival Pride was the last ship we sailed on when it was doing the Mexican Riveria itinerary. While I love the ship, the choice of decor isn't exactly my taste. I call it a collision of classic Greek stylings with Siegfried and Roy flair. The layout is standard with the pools, spas, and activities on the Lido deck and above. Main theater in lower decks forward. Casino, bars, clubs, atrium in lower decks, mostly center. Main dining in the lower decks aft. It took a bit to re-orient myself and remember where everything was, but by the evening, I was able to get around the ship without having to carry around the deck plan. The ship doesn't have anything terribly special to distinguish itself (rock climbing, surfing, etc.), but these are not things I would likely take part in anyway.

 

The second worst part of cruising:

The dreaded muster drill. But hey! When did they change the rules where you can now leave your life vest in the stateroom? Wow, that made a huge difference. It wasn't as hot or crowded and the process seem to go much faster! Good job cruise industry.

 

The stateroom:

As I mentioned above, we sprung for a Vista Suite on deck 7. This was a corner aft room. There are three types of suites on this ship, Ocean, Vista and Grand. I saw the Ocean suite right next to us and it is like a beefed up balcony room. A lot more space in the main area, a bigger bath and balcony as well. I didn't see the Grand suite, but I imagine it's just a bigger version of the Ocean suite. The Vista suite layout is entirely different, and one I would recommend for those traveling with one young child. As you go into the suite, there is a little hallway that leads into the "living room". There is a comfortable sofa that also served as the bed for my daughter. There was also a TV, some storage space, a desk, a small table and a couple of chairs. Not a big space, but efficient. From the living room, there are three doors, one to a dressing area, one to the balcony and one to the bedroom.

 

The dressing area simply consists of a desk with three drawers, chair and well lit mirror. From the dressing area was a door the bathroom and another door to the bedroom. Compact hair dryer. Accessible outlet where I set up our charging station.

 

The bathroom was huge for a cruise bathroom! Double sinks, plenty of little shelf space for toiletries, cabinet space under the sinks, and a full size whirlpool tub! Sliding glass shower doors kept the water in the tub and off the bathroom floor. A retractable close line in the shower to hang your swimsuits. My one knock on the bathroom was that the towels didn't stay on the hooks (balls really) well and frequently fell to the floor. This probably resulted in our cabin steward changing our towels out more frequently then we would ecologically want. Not a real complaint, just pointing it out.

 

The bedroom had a comfortable bed (twins pushed together). A couple of nightstands. Two nice nightstand lamps that had a gentle main light and a stronger reading light on a flexible neck. (The living room had the same light now that I think about it.) TV, safe, four drawer dresser and a chair. The closet was an actual walk in closet with plenty of space. There were a number of supplied hangers, and floor to ceiling shelves. Good thing there was a door to the closet that you close because the vent in the closet was terribly loud.

 

There were a number of floor to ceiling windows in the bedroom and living room, each with curtain and sheer. Since it was a corner room, we had views out two sides (to see the vast ocean in two directions :D).

 

The balcony was gigantic. It wrapped around and was probably five times the size of a standard balcony. There were two chaise lounges, two chairs and a small table. It wasn't terribly deep, so the chaise lounges ran almost the full depth. The way the aft of the ship is angled, you get pretty good privacy from above and below. Basically you could see the people below only if they were leaning on the rail or their feet if they were lounging. Here is a big bonus. If you walk around the Lido deck when the ship is going full speed, the wind can be gale-like. Being at the aft, you are fully protected from the wind and can lounge comfortably.

 

Oh, one more thing about the room. There are lots of lights and lots of light switches (too many!). Each of the main areas (living, dressing, bed) had both regular lights and dimmable mini lights in the ceiling. Very helpful. I take a little nightlight so we can see in the middle of the night, but we didn't need it here.

 

Cabin Steward

Can't say enough good things about our cabin steward and his team. Friendly, polite, helpful, hard working. Having a young child, there is no sleeping in, even on vacation. I remember getting up early (6ish) one morning and running out to grab some coffee. There was our steward on hands and knees scrubbing some decorative metal trim. Anyway, his name is Constantine and he works the even-numbered side of deck 7. Great guy. If you see him, say hello for me.

 

Oh, and we always love the towel animals. Sunglasses, pictures, etc.

 

Cruise director Kirk

Good cruise director I guess. Not over the top kind of guy. I don't utilize the cruise director so I don't have much to offer.

 

Camp Carnival:

First time we used the camp. Camp is divided into two age groups, 2-5 and 6-10(?). Since it was off-season, camp was terribly crowded. Maybe 6-10 kids in the 2-5 year section for the two times my daughter went. The staff was nice and I felt comfortable with them. Parents aren't allowed into the area. You sign your child(ren) in and out with your room card. You can get a phone (advisable) to carry around so the camp staff can contact you in case of anything. The room itself had plenty of good toys, video games and activities (we got a tour on the first day). Make sure you grab the schedule as it tells you when there are fee-based activities, pick-up times, etc. There are two other groups for older kids. The C Club (11-14?) and O2 Club (15-17?).

 

Drinks:

Neither my wife or I are big drinkers, so I can't give too much opinion on this. The prices have gone up a little since I last cruised, but still seem to be in line with bar prices. The margarita had good punch to it. Stuck to water, iced tea and coffee for the most part.

 

Breakfast and Lunch

We always ate on the Lido deck for breakfast and lunch. Lots of variety, but it was mostly the same variety. Each morning, same fruit selection, same croissants and pastries, same eggs, sausage, and hash browns. Maybe there would be french toast one morning. The food was very good, except the toast was never toast, just slightly warm bread. Lunch had a little more variety, but you could always get pizza, burgers, Chinese and deli. Everything was tasty. Seating can get tight during absolute peak times, so get there a little early or eat a little late and you won't have a problem getting a table.

 

Dinner:

I think this is the first cruise where we ate all our dinners in the main dining room. We had early seating and had our own table (table 281) in the Captain's room. Really, it's just a side room and didn't seem to be anything special, except it had a separate door you could use to exit/enter through. It was nice having our own table since our daughter is at the age where she can't sit still. However, we have always enjoyed group dining and meeting wonderful and quirky people during dinner. I think its blind luck, but we really haven't had one bad table mate in all our cruises, so I definitely miss that element of dinner. Our wait staff was OK. They seem to be working more tables now, so service may be less personable. Here's what I don't get. I order after-dinner coffee the first night, so they are good enough to bring coffee every night without having to ask. We order a glass a milk for my daughter each night, but they don't pre-arrange that until the lat night? Not a problem at all, but struck me as odd as this seems to be standard practice on every cruise I've been on. Anyway, nice folks, very entertaining when they do have to do their dances.

 

I'm not a foodie, but I've always found the food on Carnival to be fantastic. Sometimes the steaks come out a little more cooked than I ordered, but when they are serving a thousand people at once, things like that are easily overlooked. I find the appetizers and main courses to be sophisticated in taste and presentation. I'm not a big dessert kind of guy, but my wife loves the warm chocolate cake. I enjoy tiramisu when it is available, and ship does a nice presentation of it. Hats off to the entire dining crew. It's amazing they can prepare and serve for that many people at once, then do it all over again for the late seating!

 

Port Canaveral:

We are fortunate in that we have a friend who works at Disney. She picked us up at the port and drove us to Disney and got us into the park for free. We got to the park just a little after nine and stayed until four, so a good solid seven hours. But it feels like we only scratched the surface of Magic Kingdom. The lines for the rides were 50/50. Some we got through in under 5 minutes. Some took 20-30 minutes. All that waiting, eats up seven hours quickly. And this was before peak season. Better planning on our part would have made more of the day. If we booked through the ship, I think it would have been about $150/person. While the cost is justified in terms of admission ticket, transport to and from, I'm not sure the value was. It would have cost us $450 not including meals to ride 8-12 rides, eat lunch and meet 4-5 characters.

 

Nassau:

We've been to Nassau before and have already toured Atlantis. So we decided to catch a Jitney to cable beach. The #10 Jitney takes you right there and only costs $1.25/person. If you go to cable beach, grab food before as there is nowhere to eat. The beach itself is wonderful. Very little people, clear water, nice sand.

 

Freeport:

We opted for dolphin encounter through the cruise ship. This is where you get into a pen that has a submerged platform that is 3' deep. You go two at a time and get to pet the dolphins for about five minutes. You also get a kiss from the dolphin and they take a photo of that which you can purchase. When it is not your turn to be in the water, you sit along the edge of the pen and the trainers tell you about the dolphins and send them out for a trick here and there. Most of these tricks are designed to get you absolutely soaked! It was great fun to have a dolphin pop up right in front of you and proceed to spray mouthfuls of water on you, or have one swim by full speed leaving you to eat a mini-tsunami. You will get soaked just sitting there and have a great time doing so. The one down side to this particular excursion was our bus driver was an hour late picking us up. We booked through the cruise ship, so I wasn't concerned about missing the ship, but many first-time cruisers were anxious. When the bus finally got there, he said something about another cruise ship having been diverted to Freeport because of the oil spill in the gulf. This sounds like utter BS since the Bahamas is no where near the spill and there were no other ships docked when we got back. Anyway, the ship was scheduled to pull out at 2pm, and we got back at 1:50pm. Of course the ship waited for us and we ended up leaving Freeport about 30 minutes later than scheduled.

 

Casinos:

The only thing I play is poker and I didn't do much of that. They have electronic, dealer-less tables. Takes a few minutes to get used to, but you adapt quickly. They take a monstrous cut (10%) of each pot for the house, but the level of play is pretty wide, so there it can definitely be profitable if you are at all serious about poker. The casino allows smoking (cough), but he poker table does not. Oh, at the electronic table, there is no cash. You use your Sail and Sign card, transferring funds to play at the table. There is no "cash-advance" type charges which is good. However, don't assume any winnings goes as a credit against your S&S card. It doesn't. You have to cash out your winnings. I'm not sure what happens if you don't. The cashier says they will cut you a check... eventually. Not good.

 

Debarkation:

Two options. Self carry gets you off earlier. Assisted gets you off later. Since we over packed we had to do assisted option. Being in the suite did get us in the first zone of the assisted option though. We docked at 9am and our zone was schedule to get off starting at 11:10am. We got called around 10:40am and made it through customs, got our luggage and was in the parking lot by 11:05am. Not bad.

 

Enough for now. Hope this helped someone. I'll check back later and answer any questions you may have. Enjoy sailing on this fine ship. We plan to sail at least one more time this year on the Pride.

[Baybear]

We were on the same cruise (Pride 5/16) and this marked our return to cruising. ... we sprung for a Vista Suite on deck 7. This was a corner aft room. There are three types of suites on this ship, Ocean, Vista and Grand. I saw the Ocean suite right next to us and it is like a beefed up balcony room. A lot more space in the main area, a bigger bath and balcony as well. I didn't see the Grand suite, but I imagine it's just a bigger version of the Ocean suite. The Vista suite layout is entirely different, and one I would recommend for those traveling with one young child.

 

What # did you have? We will be sailing next week (June 6th) in #7347 which a 7-deck aft wrap... I was interested in knowing if your description was for our exact same room or not. And if it's the same room #, I could retrieve anything you may have left there on your cruise.:D