Pride Norway Cruise June 9-18, 2023 Q & A

[let's go cruising]

We just returned from the Pride cruise to Norway. I don't know if I will write a proper Review or not, but I can answer questions.

 

1.) YES you can bring wine, beer, alcohol on board at the beginning of the cruise or at any port. No one looks or cares. We brought on 5 bottles of wine we purchased in London at Dover and a few beers we bought at a grocery in Haugesund. No problems. The only issue is the wine and alcohol are available only at a certain store and there are not many during the cruise. I would not count on that AT ALL.

 

2.) We had an Ocean Suite and we had 4 lamps that each contained 2 USB ports. 

 

I don't know what the other burning questions are.

 

Renee

[NutsAboutGolf]

Having hindsight, what would you recommend to do in the ports?  Ship tours, DIY, etc

[let's go cruising]

42 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

Having hindsight, what would you recommend to do in the ports?  Ship tours, DIY, etc

That question requires a long answer. My initial reaction is that Olden was the favorite port of everyone I talked to. ANYTHING you do in that port will be a good thing, if it suites your tastes. 

 

I'll put more work into this later.

[JimmyTheSaint]

Just a little tip about the alcohol. It's very expensive in Norway so buy it all in Dover before you board. We took a taxi from the train station to a very well stocked local supermarket to purchase ours for the cruise. The taxis in Dover are regulated to a set fee from the train station to the cruise port so the driver charged us an extra £5 for the detour, well worth it. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

Are folks carrying on booze, using the bags that go to the porters or both?

[let's go cruising]

5 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

Are folks carrying on booze, using the bags that go to the porters or both?

We packed a few of the wine bottles in a bag that went with the porters and a couple in the carryon we kept with us. They were heavy in my carryon. We could not get in the suite until 1:30, so we had it with us. They Lido was VERY crowded before the call that rooms were ready. It was difficult to find a place to sit and eat.

[JimmyTheSaint]

We just carry on, there's no need to try and hide it in the suitcases. Very different attitude in Europe to carrying on alcohol.

[NutsAboutGolf]

So they have drug sniffing dogs, apparently living on board some ships/sailings but they let booze on no problem…ha ha

[let's go cruising]

We brought this with us too. We only brought carryon luggage. I recommend when you fly with it, you should put it in a bowl with your keys/phone. If it is packed in your bag, they will set your things aside to check on the corkscrew.  If you set it out for them to check, you will breeze right through security.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Compliant-Corkscrew-Bottle-Opener-Stainless/dp/B0BQJTR6NS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1JCBL1VRAKUD7&keywords=tsa+approved+corkscrew&qid=1687194337&sprefix=tsa+approved+cork%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

 

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 hour ago, let's go cruising said:

We brought this with us too. We only brought carryon luggage. I recommend when you fly with it, you should put it in a bowl with your keys/phone. If it is packed in your bag, they will set your things aside to check on the corkscrew.  If you set it out for them to check, you will breeze right through security.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Compliant-Corkscrew-Bottle-Opener-Stainless/dp/B0BQJTR6NS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1JCBL1VRAKUD7&keywords=tsa+approved+corkscrew&qid=1687194337&sprefix=tsa+approved+cork%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1

 

Just a FYI, if it doesn’t have a blade/foil cutter you can carry it on

[AllenF]

Thanks for the info will on Pride June 30th for Norway.

[let's go cruising]

3 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

Just a FYI, if it doesn’t have a blade/foil cutter you can carry it on

The one we bought said that it was TSA approved on the side. It, of course, didn't have a blade. The agents really liked it. It was in a bag on the way TO London, and they pulled the bag to check it. We smartened up on the way home and just put it in the bowl. The agent showed it to his coworkers because he liked it. No problems.

[let's go cruising]

I posted this in the port forum as well.

 

Bergen trip report from June 11, 2023. The weather was sunny and about 75 degrees Fahrenheit. 

 

We were on the Carnival Pride. Our plan was to walk to the funicular and ride it up, walk around and ride it back down. Then, we planned to walk to Bryggen before walking back to the ship.

 

Another ship, Viking I think it was, was docked near Bryggen at the Bergen Harbor. The Pride was docked at the Bergen and Omland Port Authority. That was some distance away. That is I expected that when we debarked, there would be road signs pointing us toward the City Center, Funicular, Mt. Floyen and/or Bryggen. The reality is that we struggled with directions. We walked some distance up hills before we could see Bryggen to try to orient ourselves, but we needed to use our data to bring up a map to locate the Funicular. 

 

We did make it over to the Funicular and rode it up quickly. It cost 170 kr each for one-way. We then walked to the lake and then followed some trails at the top of the mountain for about 2 miles. We found our way up to the Commune where we ate the lunch we brought with us. The older man manning the Commune building recommended that we take a short-cut back down. The short-cut worked great. We then took the Funicular back down and then walked over to Bryggen. 

 

We expected nothing to be open because it was Sunday, but many stores and cafes were open. There was a market selling fish too. The shopping in Bryggen was the best of the cruise. There were several sweater shops and even a shop selling hand-made moose-leather items. I wish I had bought things there, because I never had any other opportunities as good. 

 

What I learned: I wish I had a better map before we started. The walk on top of Mt. Floyen was wonderful. I'm glad we did it. We should have brought shorts on our cruise. I wish we had shopped in Bryggen.

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 minute ago, let's go cruising said:

The one we bought said that it was TSA approved on the side. It, of course, didn't have a blade. The agents really liked it. It was in a bag on the way TO London, and they pulled the bag to check it. We smartened up on the way home and just put it in the bowl. The agent showed it to his coworkers because he liked it. No problems.

That’s smart, save them from digging/rearranging your bag 

[HM129]

8 hours ago, JimmyTheSaint said:

Just a little tip about the alcohol. It's very expensive in Norway so buy it all in Dover before you board. We took a taxi from the train station to a very well stocked local supermarket to purchase ours for the cruise. The taxis in Dover are regulated to a set fee from the train station to the cruise port so the driver charged us an extra £5 for the detour, well worth it. 

Do cabs in Dover take credit cards?  What is the set fee for a one way ride to the cruise port?

[HM129]

10 hours ago, let's go cruising said:

We just returned from the Pride cruise to Norway. I don't know if I will write a proper Review or not, but I can answer questions.

 

1.) YES you can bring wine, beer, alcohol on board at the beginning of the cruise or at any port. No one looks or cares. We brought on 5 bottles of wine we purchased in London at Dover and a few beers we bought at a grocery in Haugesund. No problems. The only issue is the wine and alcohol are available only at a certain store and there are not many during the cruise. I would not count on that AT ALL.

 

2.) We had an Ocean Suite and we had 4 lamps that each contained 2 USB ports. 

 

I don't know what the other burning questions are.

 

Renee

How was the food and service onboard?  

Was the ship noticeably updated from the recent drydock?  Did the rooms get modernized?

[jimbo5544]

7 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

So they have drug sniffing dogs, apparently living on board some ships/sailings but they let booze on no problem…ha ha

That is what you got out of this post?  Really?  Gotta love CC

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 minute ago, jimbo5544 said:

That is what you got out of this post?  Really?  Gotta love CC

Conversation piece…lol

[EllieinNJ]

In Bergen we took the hoho bus and then got off at the funicular.  We made the mistake of only purchasing one way tickets.  Thought it would be easy to walk down.  It was 3 kms.  Said 45 minutes.  Took 1.5 hours for us.  Very steep.  Caught the hoho bus back to the ship around 4pm.  Driver said it was the last bus back.

[Cruising_Addict]

9 hours ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

So they have drug sniffing dogs, apparently living on board some ships/sailings but they let booze on no problem…ha ha

Because alcohol is legal. The drugs you speak of are not legal, at least not on a federal level. Which Carnival follows. 

[Cruising_Addict]

Boarding the Pride for this exact same itinerary on the 30th. Do you know what time the ship started boarding? I’ve heard everyone was off by around 8 which is early to clear a ship. I’m just surprised that the earliest check-in time is still 10:30. 
 

Also, you would happen to have copies of the menus, do you? Trying to figure out what night to book the Steakhouse. I like to plan ahead. 🙂

[let's go cruising]

8 hours ago, Cruising_Addict said:

Boarding the Pride for this exact same itinerary on the 30th. Do you know what time the ship started boarding? I’ve heard everyone was off by around 8 which is early to clear a ship. I’m just surprised that the earliest check-in time is still 10:30. 
 

Also, you would happen to have copies of the menus, do you? Trying to figure out what night to book the Steakhouse. I like to plan ahead. 🙂

10:30 is the earliest I heard of.

 

The menus were the same people have posted elsewhere. The thing that surprised me was that there were no items special to the ports like they do in the Caribbean.

 

[let's go cruising]

10 hours ago, HM129 said:

How was the food and service onboard?  

Was the ship noticeably updated from the recent drydock?  Did the rooms get modernized?

The service was good everywhere. 

 

I have never been on the Pride before, so I don't know how it used to look. I only went in my cabin, so I don't know have they all were. I took a video of our cabin. I'll try to post it.

 

[let's go cruising]

Again, I posted this report on the port in the Northern Europe posts forum.

 

Trip report for Haugesund, Norway, June 16, 2023 Sunny and about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Breezy along the water. 

 

This was the final port out of 6. There were no sea days between ports, so we were tired.

 

Our plan was to walk the trail along the coast. 

 

When we arrived in port, we saw that the ship was docked on an island. I'm not sure how far you have to walk to get off the island and into the city center. Carnival had transportation available when we got off the ship. There were several options. We chose a bus that cost 70 kr each roundtrip to the Information center. That saved us a lot of walking along he 100% sunny road.

 

We decided that we did not want to have to walk 4 miles round trip to get the the 3 1/2 mile coast road trail that day. Other people did do that walk and enjoyed it. Instead, we walked around the City. There was a map available at the Information Center. There was a nice pedestrian area there too. The issue was that the only open WC in the area was at the City Library, so we didn't travel far from there. We did end up walking 3 1/2 miles around town.

 

This might have been a better day for a bus tour. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

With the WCs, 

13 hours ago, HM129 said:

How was the food and service onboard?  

Was the ship noticeably updated from the recent drydock?  Did the rooms get modernized?

 

It wasn't a major drydock for public spaces, the existing steakhouse and sports bar received a name change and minor facelift, the spa received a facelift, the gym received new equipment and the hull received the new color scheme