Very long 8/14 Pride Review!

[mandyc3383]

Taking this cruise was myself (26), my boyfriend (28), my best friend (25) and her husband (25). This was my best friend and her husband’s first cruise and our second. Keep in mind this review is simply my opinion and I’m sure others will have different opinions… so take the review for what it is.

 

Ship: Prior to the cruise I read many reviews on CC describing the Pride’s decoration as gaudy and porn like. I however didn’t feel this was the case. The decoration is typical of the Renaissance era being that it was a bit dark and dramatic. Yes there are many nude paintings and pictures displayed throughout certain areas of the ship such as the wallpaper in the cabin corridors and elevators and hanging in the open lounges. However, there are also plenty of bars, lounges, and public spaces that have their own theme without any nudity involved.

 

Pros: Even though there was a large number of people on board the public spaces and lounges, with the exception of the open decks, never appeared to be overflowing. All lounges, bars, the casino and most activities were located throughout the second and third decks, making everything centrally located and convenient to access. There were various food stations available on the Lido deck offering many different food options such as the Deli, Grill, Chinese, Taste of the Nations and Pizza stations. As well there was the buffet station each day offering some form of carved meat and various sides as well as a large salad fixings station.

 

Cons: The open decks were always packed and the pools appeared to be quite small in size causing them to be overflowing with people. Also the deck area was small not allowing much room for deck activities such as the Hairy Chest Competition, The Mixology Competition, Ice Carving Demo and the Deck Party. The Lido deck buffet layout was confusing because the stations were spread so far apart. It was like navigating a maze to find what you would like to eat. Also the buffet with the carved meats was quite small and only offered a few sides not allowing for much variety in that section. The Normadie dinging room was located at the back of the ship and seemed to vibrate quite a bit. I’m not sure why but you definitely felt a lot of movement while eating.

 

Ship Activities and Shows

Pros: There were the usual fun activities planned such as Bingo, Trivia games, Liar’s Club and Quest. The fly-on acts were wonderful! They are not to be missed! There were two comedians and a very funny Ventriloquist. There were three production shows, Wonderful World, Jazzin and Vroom. Wonderful World featured music and dancing from different countries and was pretty good. Jazzin centered on dancing and music numbers from the Jazz era. Vroom was music from through the decades. Vroom was the best show in my opinion! There was a captain’s reception prior to the first formal evening. It included the typical free cocktails. There was also a past guest party that included both free cocktails and appetizers. However I read on CC someone mentioning cruise ship pins, but they were not given out on this cruise. Teatime was so nice and the small pastries were wonderful! It is definitely something to try!

 

Cons: The scheduling of the activities was poor. For example the Quest show which is an adult only 11:45 pm game show was held on a night when we docked in port at 7 am the next morning. I think that would be better if planned for a night where a sea day follows. Also the second elegant evening was held on the last port day. Therefore you had to be back on the ship by 2:30 pm and quickly scurry to get ready for the elegant night instead of just having the second elegant evening on the last sea day. Although the shows and dancers were good, the female singer sung quite loudly very close to the microphone so we could barely understand what she sung. However, on the last sea day a whole new dance crew and two new singers had come on and performed during the Legends show and both singers were quite good! So the following cruises should have some great entertainment!

 

Ship food: I can not say I ate something on the ship that I did not like. Everything was very good if not excellent! The dinners in the main dining room were wonderful especially!

 

Ship Service: The majority of the people on the boat were so friendly and very willing to help out with anything! There were quite a few people who stand out in my mind as being simply fantastic! Our cabin steward and headwaiter were exceptional and I wish I could take them home with me! However there were about a handful of people on the ship who were very quick, short or just plain rude. One of the girls working in the Spa told my friend and I that a lot of the employees were just finishing up their contracts and were at the point where they just needed to go home because they needed a mental holiday. I can understand that.

 

I did have one issue that I had a problem with how it was resolved. My boyfriend and I returned to our cabin after a day on the beach at Half Moon Key wet, sandy, salty and tired and just wanted to drop our stuff and shower but both of our keys to our cabin would not work. So my boyfriend left me with the stuff in the hall and went to guest services to get new cards thinking that they were demagnetized. The lady who helped him noted that the cards were not demagnetized but gave him two new cards and asked if anyone could be in the room and have the door locked. He informed her that it was not possible because it was just him and I in the room. He returned and tried the new cards and they would not work either. He called guest services from a hall phone and explained that the new cards did not work and she said that she would send someone with main key to open our door. Well about 20 minutes later someone shows up and the main key would not work at all. He asked if someone else was in the room and I said it wasn’t possible. He said he was sorry but couldn’t help me. I called guest services and explained the situation again and they said they would send someone to reprogram the door shortly. About 15 minutes later a grumpy man appeared, said nothing to us, used a machine to open the door, told us briskly to go inside while it took him about 15 minutes to reprogram the door. So about an hour later we were finally able to shower and get ready for dinner which we were about 30 minutes late for, holding up the others unfortunately. Now this didn’t make or break my vacation by any means… however the lady at guest services should have known that if the cards were not demagnetized then there was an issue with the door lock and not the cards and sent the proper help in the first place.

 

If you have any questions please feel free to ask! Again this is just my opinion… I enjoyed my vacation and had a good time. Would I cruise on this ship again… no. Would I take the same cruise itinerary again… certainly!

[flag fan]

Thanks for the review; it's always good to hear both the good and the bad. That experience with the door was a little unsettling; even if the master key had worked, you would have been stuck with 2 (or 4 with the replacement keys) unworking keys. I wonder how often this happens.

[mandyc3383]

I asked the man who came to reprogram the door if that happens often and he shrugged his shoulders and said in a low voice "It happens". So I guess it's happened before... and I'm sure will again. You would think they would know what to do to fix it from the get go instead of an hr later.

[pickypeg]

Can I ask why you would nt do this ship aIf you like again? Do you have pictures and what room did you have? Good review so far. Keep it coming. Thank you

[mandyc3383]

My boyfriend and I are active type of people. Although we enjoy down time, we like to keep busy with activities. On this ship we felt like there were not that many activites planned during the day. Because there was slightly over capacity of people, it was difficult to do unorganized activities such as play mini golf or basketball because there were many people lined up already. The pools as I mentioned were quite small and overflowing so that wasn't exactly relaxing or fun either. As well, I felt like the activities were not scheduled well. So at times when I was dead tired from a full day at port I had to decided whether I really wanted to do an activity I didn't want to miss at 12 am and then get back up at 6:30 for the next port day or whether I wanted to skip it and then other times during the day we would look at each other and ask ok... what should we do now. Now with that being said we are totally the go with the flow, make the best of it type of people. So it would take ALOT to cause us to have a bad vacation. After all vacation is what you make of it! We had a good vacation and enjoyed the ship, but would not chose to go on it again.

 

We stayed in an inside cabin on the 1st deck... Riviera deck. It was cabin 1153. The cabin was good size for us. There was plenty of room for storage. The bathroom was decent size. We never felt cramped. The only issue I had with the room, which is a totally personal issue is that I wish the bed was set up against the wall width wise across the room instead of length wise. And simply because when we swayed at night we swayed from head to toe.... I would prefer to sway from side to side. The head to toe rocking kinda messed with my equilibrium. lol

 

I do have pictures and I tried to include them in my review but I couldn't figure out how. So If anyone wants to give me some directions I would love to post them. :)

[gaylebd]

How did your friends enjoy their first cruise?

[cruiser82]

great review!

[mandyc3383]

My friend kinda had a picture in her mind of laying out on the deck with a drink in hand and casually swimming in the pool, but she learned quickly it's not quite like that. She didn't have quite as many people in her vision. lol Let's see... I'm trying to think of the things they mentioned. They loved the service and the food! She loved teatime and they both loved the wonderful nightly dining room experience. They didn't care for the activity scheduling like us and she wasn't a fan of the buffet layout. She was amazed by the craze that a $10 watch sale causes! lol Anyone who was there will completely understand that one... And although she enjoyed the shows, she wasn't a fan of the female singer. All and all, the last night at dinner she was discussing what cruise we should book next. :D

[Captain'sgirl]

I asked the man who came to reprogram the door if that happens often and he shrugged his shoulders and said in a low voice "It happens". So I guess it's happened before... and I'm sure will again. You would think they would know what to do to fix it from the get go instead of an hr later.

This happened to us on the Triumph this past June. The man who came asked the same question: "Is there someone in the cabin with door locked?" They were finally able to open the door and it did not happen again during our cruise.

[family cruisers]

You wrote a great review and even worded the "cons" on a positive note.

Good job !

We had an experience with our safe on last years NCL cruise . I thought I had programmed in something different and I panicked. Turned out something went wrong inside the mechanics and wasn't my fault. Of course it happened at the time I needed to get some things out of the safe but I will say NCL didn't do bad in fixing it pretty quickly.

[montekat]

"The scheduling of the activities was poor. For example the Quest show which is an adult only 11:45 pm game show"

 

Carnival is now doing the Quest? We have only ever had this on RCCL.

[mandyc3383]

Yea... I had heard about Quest from a friend of mine who sails RCL and was surprised to find it in the Capers. The cruise director Danny and assistanct cruise director Matt made a disclaimer not to come if you are in any way offended because it gets pretty wild. :D

[mississauga]

"The scheduling of the activities was poor. For example the Quest show which is an adult only 11:45 pm game show"

 

Carnival is now doing the Quest? We have only ever had this on RCCL.

Most of the other cruiselines have it too. I know NCL has it for sure and maybe Princess too.

[DanJ]

We were on this cruise with you, and enjoyed your review. Just wanted to try to clarify for you about the second elegant night. Cruiselines typically try to schedule these on sea days, and if that doesn't work out, at least on port days with earlier departures. Sometimes that doesn't work either. In our case, they at least scheduled it on a day with a 3pm departure so that gave people a chance to get ready before dinner. They don't do formal nights on the last night of a cruise because most people are getting packed that night.

 

I don't usually like the early port calls after a late night of entertainment either, but this time we had our kids with us and we were in bed most nights by 11 anyway LOL.

[Cruisin' Ron VA]

Hi and thank you for your short review.

 

I enjoyed Pride.

 

I was surprised to learn that the CD has copied "Quest" from RCI.

 

The door thing sure does suck. I hope that never happens to me. :(

 

Thanks again.

[777mjrseb]

Great review!! I loved the Carnival Pride! I hope to sail her again someday soon! :D

[Thailand Hotels]

hey that was a really nice review. loved it.;)

[sjcruiser]

Thanks, great review. Pros and cons were great.

[mandyc3383]

DanJ - "They don't do formal nights on the last night of a cruise because most people are getting packed that night."

 

Good point... I didn't think about them not doing the second formal night on the last sea day due to packing.

 

I have to say the best thing about getting locked out of the room and having to wait in the hall was... I put our beach bag down leaning against the wall and placed the monkey head drink (which we had gotten a rather large one) on top of the beach bag. All of a sudden one of the cabin stewards who was walking down the hall burst out laughing. He started pointing to the monkey head on the beach bag and said from down the hall he thought it was a kid sitting down leaning on the wall. He was hysterical... so atleast he got a good chuckle. He must of thought as he was walking down the hall, boy that's one ugly kid. lol :D