Chrissandra's 2012 Carnival Pride Review May 27 - June 3 (lots of pics)

[ardnassac79]

Thanks Everyone!! I'll get Nassau up later this evening... gotta finish work first :mad:

 

(it's easier to just hop on here for a few seconds to type responses than to link up pictures and stuff!)

[JaniceB]

Really enjoying your review. I can't wait to sail on the Pride again. Your pictures of the Harry Potter waiting area were excellent. I haven't been there since they opened the ride.

 

Can't wait for the next day.

[bluehenfan]

Loving your review. Will be on Pride cruise # 4 in Sept. I love the casino and while I'm not thrilled by it, can tolerate a little smoke. Hope it's not too bad in Sept. Thank you for taking the time to write and post this review. I've done a couple years ago and it's not easy! Looking forward to your day in Nassau.

[suzinva]

First, so sorry to hear about your furry buddy. We lost my beloved Lucy Cat a few weeks ago, I'd had her for 13 years so I know what a loss this is. Second, thanks for such a great review. We're sailing her in August and I can't wait!

[hannahsmomtoo]

Great review - just marking my spot !

[sunshinecruiser62]

Cass and Chris,

 

Sorry to hear you lost one of your fur family. I lost my two kitties (16 and 12 years old) within a year of each other. My heart goes out to both of you. I LOVE your review!! So much so, I went back to read your past reviews. I almost cried reading about your engagement. CONGRATULATIONS!! I can't wait for a wedding cruise review! Meanwhile, I'll hang around waiting for the rest of this one.

 

Michelle

[Anung Un Rama]

Thanks everyone! Cass is putting the finishing touches on Thursday so it's going to be fast and furious once she's done. I figured I would help her add some humor so you don't fall asleep reading it :p

 

And I'm about 48 hours away from being the happiest person on the planet :D

[Lejardin]

Thanks everyone! Cass is putting the finishing touches on Thursday so it's going to be fast and furious once she's done. I figured I would help her add some humor so you don't fall asleep reading it :p

 

And I'm about 48 hours away from being the happiest person on the planet :D

 

I am just really enjoying your review. Looking forward to more. :)

[Anung Un Rama]

My god, she's still typing. Sorry but she rambles. At least you don't have to live with her :o

[ardnassac79]

Cass and Chris,

 

Sorry to hear you lost one of your fur family. I lost my two kitties (16 and 12 years old) within a year of each other. My heart goes out to both of you. I LOVE your review!! So much so, I went back to read your past reviews. I almost cried reading about your engagement. CONGRATULATIONS!! I can't wait for a wedding cruise review! Meanwhile, I'll hang around waiting for the rest of this one.

 

Michelle

 

Aww, thank you!! I can't wait for the Honeymoon review either :D

 

My god, she's still typing. Sorry but she rambles. At least you don't have to live with her :o

 

yeah yeah yeah brat.. Ok it's coming... :p

[Crusin Karen]

Thanks everyone! Cass is putting the finishing touches on Thursday so it's going to be fast and furious once she's done. I figured I would help her add some humor so you don't fall asleep reading it :p

 

And I'm about 48 hours away from being the happiest person on the planet :D

Okay, so either you're going to elope on Friday or you are going on ANOTHER CRUISE! :eek: WTH, you wouldn't even have to unpack from this one! :D

[ardnassac79]

5/31/12 – Day 4 (Thursday) – Nassau, Bahamas

 

OK.. little disclaimer.. this will be VERY picture heavy, and also kinda wordy... I'm a writer at heart, and doing these reviews lets my inner author shine, lol. Hang in there with me please!

 

 

After the unexpected but really fun night, we were both kind of shocked to be up around 9:30am, and not feeling too badly either. Since we weren’t scheduled to dock in Nassau until 11, and our excursion to Atlantis Aquaventure didn’t meet until around 11:30, we took our time heading up for a little breakfast at the Mermaid Grill (we usually hit up the grill around the Lido deck stage as it seemed less crowded on most days than the buffet stations indoors).

 

A shot of the ship pulling into the Nassau docks:

 

 

 

We went back down to the room to get ready, pack up, and headed down to debark. We waited on the docks for the rest of the people doing excursions through Carnival to Atlantis, and then were finally led down the docks to where the van shuttles were waiting to take us.

 

 

All the women were of course heckled by the Hair Braiders – Beverly, “like Beverly Hills” was trying her hardest to convince people to come back for braids. Gotta give them credit for trying :rolleyes:.

[ardnassac79]

It was around 12:15 by the time got through the resort, led to the towel stations, and found the locker rentals. Woo Hoo, Lazy River! I wouldn’t exactly call this a “lazy river” – some of it is relaxing, but there are definitely little parts of rapids, waterfalls, and other surprises! It’s all a ton of fun – we opted to do the 2-person inner tube each time – much more fun!

 

 

 

We went around the entire circuit 2-3 times, each time taking a slightly different route (the different river channels take you to different water slides and rapids).

 

 

 

 

Luckily there are staff members both along the walls for safety, as well as in the water at certain points to keep everyone moving smoothly. Overall the currents are designed well enough to keep the flow of tube traffic all going in the same direction, but there are a few places where people can get in and out that are like whirlpool deadzones… we always seemed to get stuck in these and poor Chris was forced to try to paddle us back with the rest of the floating herd. (I was worthless as my alligator-length arms could barely touch water over the sides of the inner tube!)

 

 

Heat lamps in here!

 

 

Ahh here it comes!!

 

 

They are next in line for the tsumani!

 

 

The waves follow all the way down this section of the river!

[lovesonny]

We just got back from the same cruise! We surprised our kids with their first cruise and we all had such a great time. I haven't been ambitious enough to do a review yet...I did want to talk a little bit about Camp Carnival at some point though. Great pictures! Mine are mostly of my kids in the pool, etc! :D

[ardnassac79]

After about 45 minutes, we were both getting hungry, so we headed to one of the appropriate stands that could take our lunch coupons (they no longer offer the excursion without taking the “lunch included” option, and the coupons aren't taken at every food pavillion). It came with a sandwich, fries, and a soda – we went to the "Shark Bites" eatery which is close to the Mayan Temple with the slides - I had a grilled chicken sandwich, Chris had a cheeseburger. Both were decent, nothing to write home about, but when you're hungry, it was good. I liked the fries (and evidently so did the numerous seagulls, lol). After lunch, we walked around a bit to check out the lines for some of the other water slides…

 

The line for this one (which wraps around the side) was a bit too long for now..

 

 

We previously did this same excursion in Oct 2010, and the place wasn’t crowded at all. It was more crowded today... however, I am sure it was nowhere near as packed as it can be on really busy days. We decided the lines for both the Racing Slides and the Serpent Slides (both accessible from the large Mayan-looking pyramid) weren’t too bad, so first the racing slides (he won L).

 

 

 

Next up was the Serpent Slide. We both love this one, as it done on an inner tube (or 2-person one as we opted for) and is a winding tunnel that comes out in a large acrylic tube that is actually under water where they have Nurse Sharks and Caribbean Reef Sharks swimming all around you! It slows down at this point and it’s REALLY cool to go floating along and see the sharks swimming all around you. In fact 2 of the Nurse Sharks were just chilling on top of the tunnel and we floated right underneath them!

 

See that square tube to the right under the water? That's what you float through!

 

A shot of the Nurse Sharks taking a breather on top of the tube:

 

 

 

By this point it was becoming more and more overcast and started to drizzle, but who cares, we were already wet!

 

Then back to the lazy river we went to head around again and up through the Power Tower to do the other slide accessible from the lazy river.

 

 

Some empties heading down to the rapids

[ardnassac79]

By this point we were ready for something a bit more exhilarating… the Abyss… this is a 200 foot drop that begins with 50 feet of a near vertical drop ending in a beautiful indoor lagoon.

 

The Abyss is hidden inside the Power Tower, so it's easy to miss, but I assure you, if you like water slides, this one is a Must.

 

The Power Tower:

 

Holy crap this slide is For Real. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of it, so you'll just have to take our word for it. You literally freefall for a few seconds as well! And luckily the line for it was nonexistent.

 

After that we did the lazy river one more time all the way around.

 

Some empties heading towards the rapids:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally we hit up the Serpent Slide a second time before calling it a day, with the waterpark at least. We went back to the locker area, cleaned up, and set off to take some more pictures of the area.

 

FYI - the lockers are not free - we rented a small one which was big enough for my small backpack and our clothes and shoes. It was $7 for the day and I believe they only took a credit card. They had medium and large size lockers which I think were somewhere around $10-$12 and then $16-$17 for the day. No need to bring your own towels though - they were free, and you could swap out at any towel stand for fresh ones at any time.

[ardnassac79]

Here's just some random pictures of the area... such a beautiful place!

 

 

The bridge there is actually a penthouse suite, called the "Michael Jackson Suite" because he was the first to stay in it. It's $25,000 a night, with a 4 night minimum.... perhaps a few more years to save up... ha!

 

 

 

 

[ardnassac79]

As mentioned before, we were here previously in October 2010, and it was a sunnier day - we didn't get near as many photos this time around, so one more post of the outdoor scenery from 2010 (nothing has changed!).

 

 

 

This large area has Hammerhead Sharks swimming around:

 

 

There is a beach area that people can enjoy as well - it was closed due to strong currents in 2010, but open this year. Unfortunately we never took advantage.

 

[dvond]

We love the Atlantis, my 2 kids think it is one of the best places on earth, we uually get a room at the Comfort Inn since it is cost effective for 4 passes and much cheaper than excusion, when we were their last in November I think we were one of the last 100 people on the boat, tried to stay at the end. Great Pics

[ardnassac79]

Ok back to 2012..

 

We found an area we missed last time, The Dig.

 

 

This is a large indoor aquarium that has some of the most interesting and breathtaking sea life I’ve ever seen. They even have a pair of “baby” Manta Rays that had a wing span of about 8 – 10 feet, but they can get up to over 28 feet across in the wild! Amazing creatures to see up close.

 

 

 

 

I loved these little seahorses!

 

[ardnassac79]

Nemos!

 

 

 

 

No, my camera isn't upside down - this little guy just felt like showing off:

 

See that little blue guy in the corner? He kept trying to photo-bomb all the pictures, so I finally gave him his own time to shine:

 

 

I forget what these were called, but they were beautiful!

 

[ardnassac79]

And onward with the tour.. next stop: squeamish, beware!

 

 

 

 

First, some Jellyfish... evidently it was Jellyfish season out in the ocean (we saw a posted sign) but these were much safer to observe!

 

 

 

 

Next stop on this tour... Moray Eels... ok, so we all know what eels look like, right.... yeah. Not these puppies......

 

.....

 

These are what nightmares are made of....

 

 

.......

 

 

................

 

 

 

 

 

 

..... Yeah told you...

[Sandpiper10]

I'm absolutely loving your review and have enjoyed your other reviews as well. We are sailing the Pride in February and your review is making me super excited for it, but sad its still so many days away. Can't wait to see what the big surprise is on Friday....i think i know what it is!!!! :)

[ardnassac79]

And last but not least, some final images of The Dig:

 

 

 

Some great pieces of quartz were also set up on display throughout the area:

 

 

These guys were so thin they were almost see-through. Definitely could see their bones...

 

 

[ardnassac79]

Whew... ok told you all this was gonna be a picture-heavy day! (The wordy part is still to come....)

 

 

Anyhoo... on with the show...

 

 

We decided to head back to the van shuttles because it was close to 5:30 and they were running every half hour or so until 7pm. On the way through the resort, we grabbed a few more photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also posed in the big chair and felt like a queen... a lot more comfortable than what I imagine the Iron Throne to feel like (shout out to all Game of Thrones fans out there!)

 

 

 

 

 

Outside the resort close to where the shuttles are, is the marina... and some very impressive yachts...

 

 

 

 

 

We still wanted to get in some shopping in the port area by the boat, specifically I wanted a new beach bag and Chris wanted to find a cool T-shirt, both from Del Sol. Evidently Rush Hour hits Nassau as well, as we hit some pretty heavy traffic coming back to the port.

 

Our van driver took us off the beaten path down some back alleys and we got to see a little of the areas you probably don’t want to walk around in.

 

Trust us, we did that on foot back in 2009 when Googlemaps steered us about a mile and a half inland in the wrong direction and were lucky enough to have a kind Nassau policeman escort us back to the safe areas! Not the kind of place you want to be walking looking like tourists...

 

 

 

This is the main square close to the pier:

 

 

City Hall:

 

 

We got dropped off by the pier around 5:50 and walked over to Bay Street where all the shops are. Everything closed. Apparently that rush hour traffic we were stuck in were all the shop employees going home. Bummer.

 

 

Travel Tip – if you wanna shop in Nassau and are on an excursion, don’t wait till after 5 to do so.