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Carnival Pride Review Feb 12 - 19 with photos

nickiford

By nickiford,
in Carnival Cruise Lines

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pmoniz

pmoniz

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Loving your review and the pictures!! We are sailing on the Pride in May and can't wait!! Our first time with a balcony!! So exciting!! I too am a Harry Potter fan so enjoyed your pictures of Universal Studios!! Can't wait to go back there and visit Harry Potter!!

 

One quick question - do you happen to know if there was a band onboard that played in one of the clubs at night?? We enjoyed going to listen to the "rock" bands on the Miracle and Destiny so was hoping to enjoy one on the Pride?

 

Can't wait for the rest of your review!!

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nickiford

nickiford

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Loving your review and the pictures!! We are sailing on the Pride in May and can't wait!! Our first time with a balcony!! So exciting!! I too am a Harry Potter fan so enjoyed your pictures of Universal Studios!! Can't wait to go back there and visit Harry Potter!!

 

One quick question - do you happen to know if there was a band onboard that played in one of the clubs at night?? We enjoyed going to listen to the "rock" bands on the Miracle and Destiny so was hoping to enjoy one on the Pride?

 

Can't wait for the rest of your review!!

 

I don't think that there was a band, other than the Pride band that played for the Superstar Live. But we really didn't pay much attention to the live music schedules. This is what I remember about the music, there was a really bizaare guy that played the piano in Raphels's Lounge, deck 3 outside the dining room most nights. There was a stage above the lobby bar where I saw two different guys playing and singing, one with an electric guitar and one with an acoustic type guitar. There were two guys that played keyboard periodically out on the lido deck and the guitar guys also played up behind the casino bar sometimes. All people were decently talented. No one that was super impressive. When we were on the Freedom last year, there was a guy named Danny who played acoustic guitar and sang and we thought he was fantastic, we sat for hours and listened to him!

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lovermonkey

lovermonkey

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Thank you much for this review with photos. We are taking the kids to do the extact same thing aboard the Pride.

 

If you have more photos and such for Univsal, I would really like to see. We are planning on going to the Harry Potter thing too, so if you could give us a more play by play, that would be great. You were saying you had to go to the back of he park first for Harry Potter? Did you plan your route before hand; and what was it. sorry for all the questions. Have no clue what we are doing to do there.:D

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nickiford

nickiford

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Thank you much for this review with photos. We are taking the kids to do the extact same thing aboard the Pride.

 

If you have more photos and such for Univsal, I would really like to see. We are planning on going to the Harry Potter thing too, so if you could give us a more play by play, that would be great. You were saying you had to go to the back of he park first for Harry Potter? Did you plan your route before hand; and what was it. sorry for all the questions. Have no clue what we are doing to do there.:D

 

I can post more photos, maybe not tonight, I'm going out to ride my horse tonight, but tomorrow night for sure. I can also give you some more information. Here is a bit right now. It was our first time too, but I am a crazy researcher with a fair bit of Disney experience, so working a park...is right up my alley!

 

When you arrive there it will be fairly close to park opening, but guests of nearby hotels get early entry so there will already be people in the parks. After entering you head towards the right, you go through Suess Landing, my suggestions is to bee-line it, you have lots of time to look around after, then you just follow the signs and the hoards of people to Harry Potter world. The official suggestion is to do Olivander's Wand Shop first if you are interested, because the line gets long for that but moves much more slowly than Forbidden journey. We skipped Olivanders, there is great videos on you-tube that show the whole thing. They sell wands all over the place so you really don't need to do that if you don't want to. Then you should go to Forbidden journey, ideally you will have no bags, this avoids the whole locker issue. You are not allowed any bags on a lot of rides in IOA. Some say you can get on with a small fanny pack, but some also say you will get stopped and asked to put it in a locker. The lockers are free, but it looked very crowed and chaotic in that little room where people were trying to stuff their things in a locker. There are also lockers as soon as you enter the park that are not free, but you can use them to put your stuff in if you want to avoid the pre-ride locker process. After Forbidden Journey, if you are doing Dueling Dragons you should do that next, and then Flight of the Hippogriff after that. Depending on the time of year that you are going, you will want to spend all of the time you want exploring the village before you exit, because depending on crowd levels, then may limit entry into this section of the park and you might not be able to get back in. The gift shops in the front of the park do have a pretty good selection of Harry Potter merchandise as well. Get your butter beer in the Hog's Head pub not at one of the stand alone carts.

 

After Harry Potter, I suggest reversing back and doing Suess Landing and going around that way because I think most people go the other way and I'm all about crowd avoidance!

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SKeighley

SKeighley

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Great review. Thanks! We leave in 4 days, March 4th for our cruise on the Pride. It will be our 3rd cruise on the Pride and 2nd out of Baltimore. Love that ship. Did not get to see the new Seritary Area and I am looking foward to a good book there while in Florida. Hope to read more of your review before I have to leave on Sat.

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nickiford

nickiford

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Friday was another beautiful day! We were in Freeport, Bahamas, we peaked over our balcony to see what the port shops offered and decided to stay on then ship again.

 

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We went for breakfast. I had Eggs Benedict again and Erica had French toast but it had raisins in it so she didn't really enjoy it. Then back up to reclaim our perfect spot on the serenity deck where we stayed for hours again. These two days are not making for an interesting review!

 

I went up to the spa around 11 to see what kind of specials that they had. We decided to book an appointment for 2:45 pm. We had foot and ankle massage, body exfoliation, back and neck massage, scalp massage and facial, it cost $119. It was so awesome. It turned out that the girl that did my massage was Canadian. She was from Kingston which is about 2 hours away from where we live. It it coincidentally where my sister was airlifted to when she was having her twins prematurely. She was telling us that she was just at start of her nine month contract and she wouldn't be able to go home until September. Then we back to the room to rest and get ready for the Chefs Table.

 

We met in the lobby bar. There was a staff member gathering us all up, she had a list with photos of the people that she was looking for. We followed her down into the galley and met Chef Allan Gomes. He has been with Carnival for 20 years, he started at the bottom and then worked his way up to Chef de Cuisine. We got to go on a little tour of the galley and they explained how the dinner orders get filled. It was great, I also met two other cruise critic members from our roll call nieciez and Georgiagirljen. There were no pictures allowed, we stood around a big table in the kitchen and had three delicious appetizers, ahi tuna, tiny beef taco, duck potsticker and avacado cheesecake, all so amazing!!!! I couldnt decide what i liked better the ahi tuna or the taco. One note about this part is that it was very hot in the kitchen. We also learned how to make warm chocolate melting cake and made some that was supposedly for the captain, but i knew it was really for us later!

 

After the tour, we were into the disco to a nice big table and then came all of the food. We were given champagne with the appetizers and then once we sat down we were offered red or white and your glass was constantly refilled the whole night.

 

Salmon tartar

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Fire roasted tomato soup

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Rock shrimp beignets

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Salad

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Then we had a little break and we were entertained by a magician.

 

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nickiford

nickiford

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Sea bass came out like this.

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Then they added pea risotto and a Parmesan crisp.

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Filet mignon

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Chef in a candy shop dessert.

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This was probably the dish I liked the least. It was just weird. They did come out and give you a scoop full of warm chocolate melting cake and I just pretty much ate that.

 

The only other thing to mention is that if you needed to use the washroom, you had to go up the spiral suitcase and out the door to the disco and down the hall. It was a bit of a hike. We were so very full by the time we were done. We went to go watch Jazzin but only made it half way through before we had to go to bed.

 

Towel animal tonight was elephant.

 

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nickiford

nickiford

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Saturday morning was still sunny but it was definitely starting to get cooler. We went for breakfast, I had a cheese omelet and white toast and hash browns, Erica had an English muffin with peanut butter and hash browns. I thought i would deviate from the eggs benedict for just one day!!

 

We went up to the serenity deck to soak up the last bit of sun we could. We used our towels for blankets, it was comfortable. Then back to the room for morning map.

 

Back out for lunch at 1 pm. We went to the dinng room where we got the worst service we received all trip, it was very slow. We had the antipasto starter and both had burgers very good and the chocolate sundae that had barely any chocolate sauce, it was a little weird.

 

Then we went to the fun shops where i bought some salt water taffy for my mom and a couple of magnets. I have a collection of magnets from everywhe Ive travelled to. This whole trip i picked up magnets from Buffalo, Bahamas! Baltimore and a Carnival one. Then back to the room for afternoon nap.

 

We packed up our bags and then got ready for dinner. We went down around 7 pm. I had one last mocha chocolate getaway in the lobby bar and then we went for dinner. We shared the crab cake and both had casear salad. Erica had the flat iron steak and I had the applwood smoked bacon Mac and cheese and it was was sooooo good!!! Then warm chocolate melting cake for dessert. Then we went to the Taj Mahal to watch 60 seconds or less which was like minute to win it. Then we went down to the butterflies to watch a comedian, he was really funny, then we went to the legends show. Some were very good and some were very not. Then back to the room to put out our bags.

 

The final towel animal, wasnt actually an animal at all...towel heart.

 

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The next morning we got up around 7:15 reviewed our sign and sail. I was overcharged for a drink, it was my last mocha chocolate get away from the previous night! It was only around $8, so I decided if the line wasn't too long I would go to guest services to have it corrected. There was no line and they fixed it right away.

 

We went to have breakfast one last eggs Benedict, one last trip to the room to pick up our carryons and then we went to wait in the taj mahal. A bit of a disadvantage for this ship is that it takes a long time to get off, we were in no hurry because our flight wasn't until 3:15 so we had lots of time. We had number 16, they called our number around 11:00 am and you had to be out of room by 9 am. We were able to catch a Taxi right out the side and paid the flat rate of $30 to go to the airport. We arrived there around noon, we inquired about changing our flight to an earlier one but it was going to cost $100 so we just decided to wait.

 

The Baltimore airport is quite nice in terms of restaurants and shops but no wi-fi!!!! I paid $5 for one our of wi fi, but it was nice to catch up on Facebook and I texted with my husband. FYI I use text plus for wifi texting on my iPad.

 

Great flight home, ****ty drive from Buffalo but we finally made it home. It was a great trip, so sad that it is over now. I'd be happy to answer any questions and as requested I will post some more pictures of IOA.

 

Thanks for reading!!

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tshih11

tshih11

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Thanks for your review. We are sailing the Pride on the 11th, and we haven't booked any shore excursions yet. We've done Disney and Universal a few times ... do you think there's enough to do on the ship, kids will be at Camp Carnival. Thanks.

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nickiford

nickiford

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Thanks for your review. We are sailing the Pride on the 11th, and we haven't booked any shore excursions yet. We've done Disney and Universal a few times ... do you think there's enough to do on the ship, kids will be at Camp Carnival. Thanks.

 

I think that there is lots of things to do on the IMO.

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Scottohiocpa

Scottohiocpa

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Did you say Slingo? I love that game..played it in Vegas :D. Also, glad to hear that starboard is the good side - our balcony room is on starboard for our upcoming cruise!

 

Oh no, there goes the gambling budget........:cool:

 

- Cruiserjul's husband

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lovermonkey

lovermonkey

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Wednesday morning we were pulling into Port Canaveral, forecast was Sunny and 23 degrees, perfect! We had booked the Islands of Adventure excursion through Carnival. I am a huge Harry Potter fan so I had been looking forward to this day for a very long time!

 

I just noticed this. I hope it is a type-o, abou the 23 degrees?

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saltmom1

saltmom1

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I think that is Celsius. She is a Canadian. The first towel animal is a walrus.

 

Great review ! I love the picture reviews and you did a great job !

 

How cool was that - your pilot commented on your review !

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