Time for a 12 day Scandinavian cruise out of Dover om the Carnival Pride

[jimbo5544]

It has been a while since we last cruised (January on the Celebration.  Since then we have taken a couple of land trips, but the time has come, so join us.

[jimbo5544]

We have sailed Pride more than any other Carnival ship.  The booking of this cruise started two plus years ago and at the time we wanted to do something new and different.  The first was the Pride out of Rome (a cruise which will be ever etched on our minds because of Hurricane Ian.  Then we booked this one, we really wanted to go to St Petersburg….. but that was not in the cards.

 

There were two more we booked at basically the same time as these two.  They were the Legend out of Baltimore to Greenland and a Celebrity cruise to Antarctica this coming January.  All bucket list items, possibly covid knee jerk reaction items as well.

[lazydayz]

Looking forward to following along.  Our turn is coming up at the end of the month.  

[VIFP1987]

Following along! 

[Joanne G.]

I am on this cruise, my first since 2019, with several covid cancellations and postponements (and land vacations) in between.  I booked it after St. Petersburg was dropped, because even before the current situation, Russia made me nervous.  I am doing the next cruise also, 9 days around Great Britain.  I have been on several Conquest class ships, the Sunrise, and the Splendor, but I have never been on the Pride.  I have also never cruised solo before, so this will be an adventure.  I am not so good at writing trip reports, so I’ll be following this one instead!😄

Edited July 6, 2023 by Joanne G.

[nybumpkin]

jimbo5544, I'm sorry I didn't get more of a review posted before you left. I ended up with just my thoughts about Pride's refurbishment (short story: not many changes) posted on Tom n' Cheryl's page. Looking forward to your review; we did the Baltic 10 years ago (you're doing a few different ones than we did).

[gotscrapz]

Looking forward to a review or pictures if you decide to post them. I have been looking at an Iceland, Amsterdam, etc cruise. I haven't seen any reviews of these cruises so I am very interested!

[jimbo5544]

There will be many of both!   

[jimbo5544]

5 hours ago, nybumpkin said:

jimbo5544, I'm sorry I didn't get more of a review posted before you left. I ended up with just my thoughts about Pride's refurbishment (short story: not many changes) posted on Tom n' Cheryl's page. Looking forward to your review; we did the Baltic 10 years ago (you're doing a few different ones than we did).

No worries. Thanks for coming along on the journey.  

[jimbo5544]

5 hours ago, Joanne G. said:

I am on this cruise, my first since 2019, with several covid cancellations and postponements (and land vacations) in between.  I booked it after St. Petersburg was dropped, because even before the current situation, Russia made me nervous.  I am doing the next cruise also, 9 days around Great Britain.  I have been on several Conquest class ships, the Sunrise, and the Splendor, but I have never been on the Pride.  I have also never cruised solo before, so this will be an adventure.  I am not so good at writing trip reports, so I’ll be following this one instead!😄

Thanks for coming along   

[jimbo5544]

5 hours ago, VIFP1987 said:

Following along! 

Welcome to the journey 

[jimbo5544]

8 hours ago, lazydayz said:

Looking forward to following along.  Our turn is coming up at the end of the month.  

Feel free to ask any questions along the way.  

[jimbo5544]

So this trip is a little different than many if our others.  We have 15 grandkids and 5 grown kids.  They are always invited and sometimes come as families.   This time, when we asked, our daughter said yes for her oldest two. Gabby and Alyssa are joining us for this trip!

 

This caused some cabin flipping.  We gave up our 4th floor aft wrap VS and instead took two balcony cabins on 7.  More on that later.   

 

 

[jimbo5544]

We decided to fly in a couple days early, show the girls London and make our way to Dover the night before. Also changed our flights, normally take the Delta red wye but switched to a code share Virgin Atlantic early morning getting into Heathrow at 8:30 pm. 

[KaiBlue]

2 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

We decided to fly in a couple days early, show the girls London and make our way to Dover the night before. Also changed our flights, normally take the Delta red wye but switched to a code share Virgin Atlantic early morning getting into Heathrow at 8:30 pm. 

Thanks for doing this! We are on the 12 day Pride in late August and can't wait to hear how it goes!  We have the Delta red eye (no connections yay!) but getting into London early morning and having to push through that first day on little sleep is a bit of a worry for me. It will be an adventure! 

[jimbo5544]

28 minutes ago, KaiBlue said:

Thanks for doing this! We are on the 12 day Pride in late August and can't wait to hear how it goes!  We have the Delta red eye (no connections yay!) but getting into London early morning and having to push through that first day on little sleep is a bit of a worry for me. It will be an adventure! 

Adventures are the bread of life.  Thanks for following along.  

[jimbo5544]

Car service at 4am comes early.  Sorry for the upside down pic

 

 

 

[jimbo5544]

Sunrise at jfk

[jimbo5544]

The longest part of getting to the gate was the traffic out front

[jimbo5544]

Long line at Duncan.  Gave me a black coffee instead of sweet and light.  Grrrrrhhh

 

 

[jimbo5544]

At the gate, we have a plane, thats a good thing.  
 

 

[LouChamp]

Aloha.  Looking forward to your posts and pictures and thank you for sharing. Have a great holiday!

[Joanne G.]

2 hours ago, jimbo5544 said:

We decided to fly in a couple days early, show the girls London and make our way to Dover the night before. Also changed our flights, normally take the Delta red wye but switched to a code share Virgin Atlantic early morning getting into Heathrow at 8:30 pm. 

I am curious how that flight works out for you.   I often fly American, and they also have a daytime flight to London that arrives about 10:30 pm.  So, arriving at bedtime seems like a good idea - except it won't feel like my bedtime.  I pictured myself tossing and turning and losing a night's sleep anyway   So, I booked a typical redeye tomorrow evening and am staying near Victoria Station, where I am getting on the Carnival transfer on Sunday.      

[jimbo5544]

16 minutes ago, LouChamp said:

Aloha.  Looking forward to your posts and pictures and thank you for sharing. Have a great holiday!

We will try.  Thanks for following along.  

[jimbo5544]

7 minutes ago, Joanne G. said:

I am curious how that flight works out for you.   I often fly American, and they also have a daytime flight to London that arrives about 10:30 pm.  So, arriving at bedtime seems like a good idea - except it won't feel like my bedtime.  I pictured myself tossing and turning and losing a night's sleep anyway   So, I booked a typical redeye tomorrow evening and am staying near Victoria Station, where I am getting on the Carnival transfer on Sunday.      

Will give you some feedback after flight.