Carnival Pride Poll: Service Quality

[R'man]

The R'man family is looking at a possible summer cruise aboard Carnival Pride. Reviews on this ship are mixed, and we're wondering...How would you rate the overall Pride cruise experience:

[afcj1]

We were on her in Oct08. The Pride is a nice ship, in great shape, the staff were always cleaning and polishing. I never had a bad meal, but the service was lacking a bit.

 

Our steward always forgot to leave beach towels, so I had to track him down. Ice wasn't replenished, he wasn't too friendly, just very aloof. Dinner service was OK, coffee never offered, so you had to wait until it got a little slower to get the servers attention.

 

We still had a great time. I like CCL because IMO the guests are usually very nice and "down to earth". It was great talking to so many nice people. There were lots of activities to participate in if you wanted to.

 

All in all, I love the CCL product, but if I didn't have to fly somewhere to catch the Pride, I'd be back on her in a flash.

[glrounds]

The Spirit-classed ships have always been my favorite and the PRIDE being home-ported in Long Beach only 40 minutes away has been my favorite ship for several years.

From the classic 16th and 17th century artwork EVERYWHERE to the immaculate condition this ship is kept in, I can't say enough about her.

Have cruised her twice, once with my son and once solo. Always had a fantastic time. I particularly liked the layout of the Spirit-classed ships and found this the best size to my liking. The aft Lido deck with its adult pool and jacuzzi all OPEN to the sea, with a bar running across the beam and through the doors to the buffet, a perfect hangout for me. :D

I can't think of one negative about this beautiful ship. :)

[dan40]

The R'man family is looking at a possible summer cruise aboard Carnival Pride. Reviews on this ship are mixed' date=' and we're wondering...How would you rate the overall Pride cruise experience:[/quote']

 

I'm Platinum on Carnival and Diamond on RCL. The ship will be very different than you have experienced, but the service will be all but identical to your RCL experiences. The supper club steaks on the Pride are FAR superior to any food on a RCL ship. Real aged USDA PRIME grade meat. RCL has no equivalent. Otherwise food is about even, depending on your tastes.

 

Dan

[fatcat04]

We had a very pleasant cruise on the Pride this past week. The ship is lovely and I love the Spirit class layout. The cruise director was hilarious. I mean hilarious!! Some of the musicians were unbelievably good. One pianist in particular, Gabriel, was just amazing. We had a verandah room on deck 5 which was perfectly fine in size though not having a bathtub was tougher than I had figured in the end as after one exhausting shore excursion I needed a soak, ouch. Room steward was very kind and always used our names. His towel animals delighted our son. Our waitstaff was very nice and always took good care of us, remembering our favorites. Bar staff were happy and we never had to wait for service at the bar. Wine selection was really much better than we had assumed. Food was mostly good and desserts universally so though a couple of entrees (one of our steaks and the veal Parmesan) were well.. to be honest terrible but hey, everyone can have an off night. We just flagged down our waitrs, ordered something different and it came out fast. Lido was good and the food staff was very prompt. Laundry deal.. super nice. I did 2 bags before going home.

 

Now for the honest complaints:

 

1 biggie...

 

The water.. oh my goodness :eek:, it all smelled like the toilet water. I think it must be the desalinization. We always take ice water with lunch and dinner along with a glass of wine on a cruise and after 1 sip of the ice tap water, we opted for bottled water every day, which was not cheap ($72 for the cruise). It even made the coffee, if not very strong, taste like the toilet water smelled. My poached eggs the first breakfast in the dining room tasted like the toilet water smelled as did the scrambled eggs. We just gave up on the water and tea and hoped the coffee was super strong. This was really the only deal breaker for me.

 

A few small complaints..

 

Cigarette smoking in general.. seemed to be a lot of it on this cruise. A maintainance man who was working on something in one of the lounges was smoking while doing the work. Saw a few other staff smoking out on deck 3 while in their uniforms. And then the rather rude and surly folks in the cabin below us who smoked like chimneys everyday morning, noon, and night and loved to have contests projecting their phlegm from the verandah into the sea. What class. Of course these were the same people who also decided to hurl sexual insults in Spanish at the Mexican security personnel as we sailed out of port. Guess they didn't figure anyone on board would know what they were saying.

 

Lack of bar staff in Lido... I guess I am so used to being innundated by bar staff in the Lido on other ships, I was a bit shocked to have to go to the Lido bars to get drinks for the family on several ocassions. This wasn't so bad but another bar person wandering around the lido would have been nice as carrying back a bucket of beer or a couple drinks of the day and a couple cokes at a time can be tough without a tray.

 

Kids club staff.... 2 were very sweet and always remembered our sons name and considering their were max 10 kids in there at any time, this I considered normal. A couple of the staff were well, rude. It seemed they wanted northing more than getting free of the kids, never bothered to remember who my son was, or greet him with even a smile. Oh well, the kid just rolled with it and had a good time all the same. I am glad he is so easy going. Had he not been, the cruise would have been much less enjoyable for him.

 

All in all though, the cruise was pleasant. Cabin and surroundings great. The ports were fun. The staff (with very few exceptions) great. Sadly, you can't choose your cruisemates though I do think doing the "Survivor" voting thing and tossing a few undesirables into the sea should be an option on every cruise. :p;) I hope they fix the water issue as that is really the ONLY reason we would chose to not go with the Pride again.