Bstel's Random Thoughts and Musings from the 10/3 Pride Sailing (Baltimore)

[bstel]

Overall was a good cruise.  It was our second one this year.  One on RCL and one on Carnival.  We took our kids this time (under 12 and unvaccinated) and it was their very first cruise ever.  They loved it.  We also booked under a casino rate with "free" room.  So onto my thoughts.

 

1.  Check-in and testing.  Since the kids were under 12 we got our exemption approval about 1 day after booking, since we booked only 10 days before sailing.  We live in an area with pretty good testing options so the pretesting wasn't an issue.  We arrived and headed to the testing area for the kids "day of" antigen testing.  That area was a little hectic and it took about 35-45 minutes to get checked in, wait, get tested, wait, and then get the negative results.  We paid the $150 per kid for this pier side test and the test on day 6 on the cruise.  There was an older couple complaining about the cost of testing.  Apparently their 2 day prior test results had not come back yet, so they were wanting Carnival to test them at the pier.  Carnival said fine, but it would be $150 per person, like everyone else.  The old people thought it should be free.  So the Carnival rep gave them 2 options.  1) wait until the last minute (5pm) to see if their results would come in or 2) pay the $150 each and get tested now.  At the time it was 3pm, so they paid the $150 each.  I am glad that Carnival didn't give in on the $150 charge.

 

2.  Checking luggage.  This is probably only a Baltimore port issue, but at this port (first time for us) you drop your bags with the porters before you park.  But since we had to get the kids tested before getting on board, Carnival recommended that you don't drop your bags just in case the test is positive and you get denied boarding.  So we complied (nobody else appeared to do so), but then we were stuck with our bags and there was no where to drop them after testing but before formally checking in.  So we had to schlep our bags on our selves.  Worked out better in the long run since we could go straight to our room and had everything, but hauling 4 large rollers with 2 small kids was a pain.

 

3.  Smoking.  We don't smoke, so having the casino not allowing smokers to just hang out was awesome, as you could only smoke if you were gambling at a table or slot machine.  So the casino was practically non-smoking.  But the unintended consequence was all the smokers had to huddle on the lido deck, rear main pool, in the smoking area so that entire pool area was pretty unusable if you didn't want to smell smoke all day while laying out or swimming.

 

4.  MDR.  We are MDR kinda people, never had an issue with the Carnival food.  But i would say the food quality had gone down a bit more since our last Carnival cruise in early 2019.  food was still ok, but i don't think they can go much cheaper.  But there were still good things to eat, except any fish.  All the fish dishes were terrible, very fishy tasting.

 

5.  Kids Club.  We knew the kids clubs were closed before we booked, so we were a little worried about that with 2 kids under 12 but it worked out just fine.  Kids were able to find a couple friends and we just let them loose on the ship, so they didn't bother us too much (haha).  My 9 year daughter was a crew favorite, she seemed to know everyone and everyone seemed to know her.

 

6.  Halloween theme.  It was pretty minimal and not well organized.  The worst part of the Halloween celebration was that they had Halloween costume night, formal night, and 80s night all on the same night.  Talk about poor planning.  I hope it was just because it was the first cruise of the month, but if what we experienced was normal, i would say Carnival should just drop it.  They had 1 pumpkin carving challenge but only 4 people got to participate.  Luckily, this dad, pulled off guessing the number of candy corn in the jar to secure my 10 year old son a spot, or he would have been devastated. Overall decorations were pretty sparse.

 

7.  Ship capacity.  This ship sailed at 52%, according to the Captain.  So that would put us at just over 1000 passengers.  So it was great.  And with our previous RCL cruise that only sailed at less than 30% capacity (1050 passengers of about 3500 capacity) we are totally gonna be spoiled when ships return to full capacity.

 

8.  Sports bar.  This has to be the biggest waste of space on the ship with such a poorly executed concept.  Both times i have sailed on Carnival the space was practically empty because they don't carry whatever sports are going on in the US at the time.  This cruise they did a great job with NFL football and the place was busy for Sunday and Monday night football.  But they comes Saturday for college football and basically nothing is on.  So Carnival carries ESPN but they have Caribbean/International coverage.  So why would a ship that sails out of the US and normally caterers to an American market be playing Futbol on Saturday instead of Football?  just crazy.  The only college football coverage was ESPN SEC network which had on some crap game with North Texas, when you had games like Iowa/Penn State, Texas/Oklahoma, Alabama/Texas A&M that day.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2021 by bstel

[mondello]

Thanks for posting. Kind of surprised they let the old people get tested at the pier because I was understanding they were not gonna be doing that. I've been seeing too many posts about the food declining from the past; think I'm going to be sticking with the bigger ships that have more choices.

[JaniceB]

I heard there was basically no college football on the TV.  I'm happy we will have NFL games.  

How was your debarkation?

[bstel]

6 hours ago, mondello said:

Thanks for posting. Kind of surprised they let the old people get tested at the pier because I was understanding they were not gonna be doing that. I've been seeing too many posts about the food declining from the past; think I'm going to be sticking with the bigger ships that have more choices.

I had thought they weren't doing testing at the pier for adults as well.  But I also saw a few other adults being tested as well, so not sure if they had an exemption or they were doing it on a case by case for people with testing results being delayed.

[bstel]

55 minutes ago, JaniceB said:

I heard there was basically no college football on the TV.  I'm happy we will have NFL games.  

How was your debarkation?

Yup just the 1 college game on ESPN SEC.  was a real lost opportunity as saturday we sailed right through the tropical depression sitting off the NC coast so everyone was trapped inside due to rain, wind, and waves.  Sports bar would have been packed.  we did self disembark and it was quick and easy.  we actually started disembarking 30 minutes early as i guess the ship was cleared quickly by customs.

Edited October 13, 2021 by bstel

[groundloop]

7 hours ago, bstel said:

.......  All the fish dishes were terrible, very fishy tasting......

 

 

 

 

HAH!!!!!!  I like my fish to taste like fish.  😄  (Probably a result of growing up in Florida with tons of fresh seafood available)

 

I just got off of Magic a couple of weeks ago and my personal opinion was that MDR food was perfectly fine, especially the fish.  We'll be on Pride sailing out of Tampa twice in the next two months (thanks for loaning her to Tampa, by the way) so I'll be able to see for myself.

[bstel]

2 minutes ago, groundloop said:

 

 

HAH!!!!!!  I like my fish to taste like fish.  😄  (Probably a result of growing up in Florida with tons of fresh seafood available)

 

I just got off of Magic a couple of weeks ago and my personal opinion was that MDR food was perfectly fine, especially the fish.  We'll be on Pride sailing out of Tampa twice in the next two months (thanks for loaning her to Tampa, by the way) so I'll be able to see for myself.

yeah i grew up in FL too, so week old frozen fish doesn't really cut it for me.

[sanmarcosman]

20 minutes ago, bstel said:

yeah i grew up in FL too, so week old frozen fish doesn't really cut it for me.

I'm from Maine and I think this way about the "lobster" most cruise ships serve. I do like fish and in the past the Atlantic farm raised salmon filet from the every night grill was reliable for being average. Which fish type(s) did you order? There's a new fish on Carnival's dinner menu, the Barramundi. Did you try it?

[groundloop]

Just now, sanmarcosman said:

.... There's a new fish on Carnival's dinner menu, the Barramundi. Did you try it?

 

I thought that was very good.  Hopefully can get it again when I'm on Pride.

[kwokpot]

2 hours ago, bstel said:

Yup just the 1 college game on ESPN SEC.  was a real lost opportunity as saturday we sailed right through the tropical depression sitting off the NC coast so everyone was trapped inside due to rain, wind, and waves.  Sports bar would have been packed.  we did self disembark and it was quick and easy.  we actually started disembarking 30 minutes early as i guess the ship was cleared quickly by customs.

It's all about the cost of getting the feeds for those sporting events. Carnival isn't willing to pay for the cost to bring those events onboard.  That's not going to change, unfortunately.

[bstel]

5 hours ago, sanmarcosman said:

I'm from Maine and I think this way about the "lobster" most cruise ships serve. I do like fish and in the past the Atlantic farm raised salmon filet from the every night grill was reliable for being average. Which fish type(s) did you order? There's a new fish on Carnival's dinner menu, the Barramundi. Did you try it?

yes I tried the Barramundi, thought it was the worst of all of it.

[IntrepidFromDC]

Let's not kid ourselves.  Carnival MDR food is fit for steerage.  You want lobster night?  Paddle faster.

[KatPem]

On 10/13/2021 at 9:04 AM, bstel said:

 

 

8.  Sports bar.  This has to be the biggest waste of space on the ship with such a poorly executed concept.  Both times i have sailed on Carnival the space was practically empty because they don't carry whatever sports are going on in the US at the time.  This cruise they did a great job with NFL football and the place was busy for Sunday and Monday night football.  But they comes Saturday for college football and basically nothing is on.  So Carnival carries ESPN but they have Caribbean/International coverage.  So why would a ship that sails out of the US and normally caterers to an American market be playing Futbol on Saturday instead of Football?  just crazy.  The only college football coverage was ESPN SEC network which had on some crap game with North Texas, when you had games like Iowa/Penn State, Texas/Oklahoma, Alabama/Texas A&M that day.

 

Thank goodness my husband doesn't know about cruisecritic lol He can find out on the ship about no college football to speak of lol