nickiford

Thank you much for this review with photos. We are taking the kids to do the extact same thing aboard the Pride.

 

If you have more photos and such for Univsal, I would really like to see. We are planning on going to the Harry Potter thing too, so if you could give us a more play by play, that would be great. You were saying you had to go to the back of he park first for Harry Potter? Did you plan your route before hand; and what was it. sorry for all the questions. Have no clue what we are doing to do there.:D

I can post more photos, maybe not tonight, I'm going out to ride my horse tonight, but tomorrow night for sure. I can also give you some more information. Here is a bit right now. It was our first time too, but I am a crazy researcher with a fair bit of Disney experience, so working a park...is right up my alley!

When you arrive there it will be fairly close to park opening, but guests of nearby hotels get early entry so there will already be people in the parks. After entering you head towards the right, you go through Suess Landing, my suggestions is to bee-line it, you have lots of time to look around after, then you just follow the signs and the hoards of people to Harry Potter world. The official suggestion is to do Olivander's Wand Shop first if you are interested, because the line gets long for that but moves much more slowly than Forbidden journey. We skipped Olivanders, there is great videos on you-tube that show the whole thing. They sell wands all over the place so you really don't need to do that if you don't want to. Then you should go to Forbidden journey, ideally you will have no bags, this avoids the whole locker issue. You are not allowed any bags on a lot of rides in IOA. Some say you can get on with a small fanny pack, but some also say you will get stopped and asked to put it in a locker. The lockers are free, but it looked very crowed and chaotic in that little room where people were trying to stuff their things in a locker. There are also lockers as soon as you enter the park that are not free, but you can use them to put your stuff in if you want to avoid the pre-ride locker process. After Forbidden Journey, if you are doing Dueling Dragons you should do that next, and then Flight of the Hippogriff after that. Depending on the time of year that you are going, you will want to spend all of the time you want exploring the village before you exit, because depending on crowd levels, then may limit entry into this section of the park and you might not be able to get back in. The gift shops in the front of the park do have a pretty good selection of Harry Potter merchandise as well. Get your butter beer in the Hog's Head pub not at one of the stand alone carts.

After Harry Potter, I suggest reversing back and doing Suess Landing and going around that way because I think most people go the other way and I'm all about crowd avoidance!

Loving your review and the pictures!! We are sailing on the Pride in May and can't wait!! Our first time with a balcony!! So exciting!! I too am a Harry Potter fan so enjoyed your pictures of Universal Studios!! Can't wait to go back there and visit Harry Potter!!

 

One quick question - do you happen to know if there was a band onboard that played in one of the clubs at night?? We enjoyed going to listen to the "rock" bands on the Miracle and Destiny so was hoping to enjoy one on the Pride?

 

Can't wait for the rest of your review!!

I don't think that there was a band, other than the Pride band that played for the Superstar Live. But we really didn't pay much attention to the live music schedules. This is what I remember about the music, there was a really bizaare guy that played the piano in Raphels's Lounge, deck 3 outside the dining room most nights. There was a stage above the lobby bar where I saw two different guys playing and singing, one with an electric guitar and one with an acoustic type guitar. There were two guys that played keyboard periodically out on the lido deck and the guitar guys also played up behind the casino bar sometimes. All people were decently talented. No one that was super impressive. When we were on the Freedom last year, there was a guy named Danny who played acoustic guitar and sang and we thought he was fantastic, we sat for hours and listened to him!

Lovely review and I appreciated your wonderful photos of inside the Pride. She is one of our favorite Carnival ships. So happy that you have fond memories of your cruise!

Ah, the "Hunger Games;" several of my students were reading the series and I borrowed their books and now am almost done with the second one. The author truly has a knack for drawing the reader into her stories . . . I'm curious to see how it all ends with the third book and will go with some of the teenagers to see the Hunger Games film when it comes out soon.

Being part Canuck (mom from TO), I especially loved your description of your experience getting into Buffalo and then flying to your destination. All of my relatives from Canada drive to Buffalo to fly southwest almost everywhere in the U.S.! Much cheaper and convenient.

I fly out of Buffalo whenever I can I love it, I actually read the whole trilogy on this cruise, I liked them all but the first one was the best.

After a little rest we got ready and went down to the lobby bar for a drink before dinner. Tonight at dinner we had the cream of mushroom soup and casear salad. Erica had the flat Iron steak and I tried the filet mignon and the boneless rib. It was alright but I actually liked the flat iron steak better! Then we shared WMC for dessert. We had drank the rest of our bottles of wine with dinner and had a couple of cocktails before so we were really feeling no pain.

We decided to stop by the casino where I made an $80 donation which maxed out my gambling budget for this cruise. I did play for a long time on the slingo machine. After that we went to check out Superstar Live that they had this night in Butterflies instead of Starry Nights so it was no smoking, yeah!!! It was a small crowd with a lot of repeat singers. Erica got up and sang Pour Some Sugar On Me. People got up and danced it was fun. Then we decided to call it a night. Towel animal tonight was the frog. I really love coming back to the room at night and seeing the animal and checking out the fun times before bed and kind of planning out the next day.

We woke on Thursday am to a beautiful day and we were to arrive in Nassau at about 11 am. We went for breakfast in the dining room. Eggs benedict for both of us again! I know people make a big deal about ordering the sauce on the side, but they were just fine to me.

After breakfast we went back to the the room to pack for a day on the deck. I should say we had no plans for the Bahamas. We have stayed at all inclusives before in the Bahamas, we have been to Atlantis, we hate the beach, so for us there really wasn't anything we were interested in doing. We had thought if we felt like it we might go to Señor Frogs for a drink or get off for a quick shop, but in the end we did nothing!

We went up to the serenity deck and pulled two loungers under the shade between the two hammocks, because I absolutely will not sit in the sun.

We were able to watch as we backed into the pier. The Magic was also in Port that day.

Serenity Deck and the partial shade cover we moved under.

Our setup, you can also see my cruise critic tote bag and my Bubba keg full of water!

It was a perfect day. I read the entire Hunger Games book on my Kobo this day. The only thing that was slightly disturbing is the numerous sirens you kept hearing from downtown Nassau all day long! Sort of solidified our decision as two females alone not to go wandering around Nassau. I know they could have been ambulances or for accidents or something, but it was a lot. Also, one note about the Pride, the serenity deck as beautiful as it was, was located almost right under the water slide. So for an adults only zone, you could hear kids all day. The no children rule was enforced, we saw a staff member informing someone that had wandered on to the deck with a child that it was adults only. Other than the water slide issue, it really is a great spot, it has it's own bar, hot tub and pool and was very close to the buffet. It was pretty empty most of the day. We went and got buffet lunch and then brought it out to eat. That way we wouldnt have to give up our chairs!! It remained pretty empty most of the day because we were in port until 10:00 pm. We stayed out until around 4 pm. I tried the thirsty frog red beer for the first time today, it was good!

After that we came in and rested a bit, I hung out on the balcony. My scaredy cat sister didnt like it out there because she said it was too high.

Balcony

Slightly zoomed Atlantis from the balcony, starboard is definitely the "good" side of the ship to be on.

So glad you are doing this review! We are sailing her in about a month :D!

Love the bling over the seabands - lol! The martinis looked really good too. Do you remember when the casino opened the first night - since we have a long way until we are out of the bay area?

Sorry, I'm not too sure when it opened.

ROTFL! I have NOT seen this particular towel animal before, nor have I seen it described that way! I had to re-read that and do a double-take! Hilarious! I will never look at a towel animal the same! :D

 

ETA: DH wants to know what is it supposed to be anyway???

It's a seal.

Enjoying the review so far (although it does make me wish we were on the Pride next week instead of 229 days from now).

 

What was your cabin number? And you had about 7 and a half hours at Islands of Adventure, is that right? Thanks for the info!

Sorry forgot to answer about IOA, we got there at approx 8:45 and had to be back for th bus at 4:30, plenty of time I thought.

Enjoying the review so far (although it does make me wish we were on the Pride next week instead of 229 days from now).

 

What was your cabin number? And you had about 7 and a half hours at Islands of Adventure, is that right? Thanks for the info!

We were in cabin number 6235, which was a perfect location IMO. Close to the atrium elevators, the fastest ones, I think, but not so close that you could hear the lobby.

Oh my gosh!!! I'm pretty sure I was your pilot. That plane gave me a lot of trouble, the weather, not so much. An aircraft, especially a large jet, is a complicated piece of machinery and it’s not uncommon for things not to work properly. There are multiple backups for all important systems and for the most part, you on board are almost always oblivious to malfunctions.

 

As we were climbing, I noticed the left main landing gear unsafe light was illuminated. About the time the I had started running the checklist, the landing gear door light became illuminated. After working through the various checklist procedures, were able to correct the issue by turning the engine-driven hydraulic pumps from low to high, we heard and felt a loud kathunk as the some portion of the gear or gear doors found their correct place and the warning lights went out. And landed on time. All without you noticing a thing! LOL.

 

Thanks for flying Southwest! And wonderful review so far. The one Spirit Class ship I've been on has been my favorite so far, and now with the Miracle leaving we're only stuck with the Pride and the Legend.

Omg!!!!! You are right we didn't notice a thing, we were just enjoying the novety of such a short flight thanks for getting us there safely!

Amazing how two people on the same cruise can have such a different time. We would never sail Carnival again after this cruise. We found the staff mostly untrained and unpleasant. The activities boring and not enough of them. The food was ok but nothing better than previous cruises. We basically felt bored and uncared for the entire time.

Glad you had a good time though.

That is amazing!!! We thought the staff was fantastic. We felt like there were so many activites that we had to decide between two most of the time. I would say this was even better than our last Carnival cruise on the Freedom. I think I prefer this class of ship.

We had little to no interest in this section but this is where we decided to stop for lunch at Captain America. No lines and tons of tables, had a cheeseburger and fries it was ok. We sat and watched the people at an outside table and then happened to catch the superheros coming in on their trikes. Pretty much the only one I recognized for sure was this guy.

Then we went through the weird Toon land pretty fast nothing was of interest to us there. Then on to the other part that I was looking forward to was Jurassic Park.

It is very cool walking through the gate and hearing the music. I knew I wanted to go on the river adventure ride. Erica said for sure that she would not go on. But I gave her one last chance to change her mind. I told her that if she went on it that I would do the stupid dress up pictures with her on the ship. She said yes! We walked right on, she started panicking almost immediately. It was awesome and the hill was really big but you dont go down right away. We sat right at the back and got wet but not soaked. After that we just checked out the discovery centre and shopped around a bit.

It was about an hour before we needed to catch the bus so we checked out city walk and went to Bubba Gump Shrimp company and had some

Garlic shrimp and a Lt. Dans drink, it was very good .

We had some time to go through a few shops on city walk and then caught the bus for 4:30.

When we got back to the ship we rested for bit and then went for dinner. We both had the potato soup, spinach and mushroom salad. Erica had salmon and had the seafood newburg which was delicious but I was so full!!! We didn't even have dessert. We ordered two more bottles of wine which we left to keep over for Thursday night. Then we went to taj mahal to watch the liars club, it was entertaining. Then we just decided to keep our seats, we stayed through the bingo to watch the Wonderful World show. It was very good. We could barely stay awake through it, it was a very long day. Right to bed after that and then slept in until 7:30! That's a big sleep in for me. Towel animal was bunny.

Heading to bed for the night, will hopefully finish tomorrow. Please feel free to ask any questions.

Then we were getting a bit hungry so we stopped at a cart and got a croissant and a bottle of water, we stopped to rest and just watched all of the people streaming through the town.

We then went right passed all of the long lines at the butter beer carts and went right into Hogs Head head pub there was no one in there at all.

We got a frozen butter beer and a draft Stella even though it was only 10:30 am. We sat out back and enjoyed the sun shine. The frozen butter beer was soooo good.

After that we looked all through the shops and took lots of pictures. Then we that we went back through the lost continent and did the Pseidon adventure. It was pretty cool! Next up was Suess landing. Very cool theming.

The high in the sky trolley had a 45 minute wait so we decided to pass. We got in line for the Cat in the Hat but the ride was down so we backed out and continued on to Super Hero island.

Wednesday morning we were pulling into Port Canaveral, forecast was Sunny and 23 degrees, perfect! We had booked the Islands of Adventure excursion through Carnival. I am a huge Harry Potter fan so I had been looking forward to this day for a very long time!

We had to meet outside the terminal at 7:45 am so we ordered ahead the continental room service. Hot tea, cheerios, bagel with cream cheese, croissant and apple juice. We had set multiple alarms for 6:00 am and told the room service to come between 6 and 6:30, it came around 6:20.

It was very good. We were on the starboard side so we were able to watch them dock at port canaveral. We got right off at arond 7:20 and walked right out onto the bus and it ended up leaving about 10 minutes early because I guess that everyone was there. It was about a 45 to 50 minute drive, very boring really nothing interesting to look at. We arrived just before 9am and started the long trek to the back of the park for Harry potter section.

When we finally arrived at Forbidden Journey it was a 10 minute wait but it was essentially a walk on. It was amazing! I closed my eyes a bit the first time because I wasn't too sure about the spider part. It was so amazing how it goes from watching a screen to flipping you around so you are really on a ride. My sister hates rollercoasters and was really nervous to go on this but she loved it. We decided to go on one more time and this time I would keep my eyes open the whole time. We essentially went around and just walked right on. We had no bags so we were directed to the left and we able to by pass the lockers. I can see how later on in the day when it gets busy that line for the lockers would get long and that you would be able to bypass a lot of waiting. I have a very small across your body purse that I had on under my shirt and then I had the little purse in my pocket. It was just as good the second time . The store after the ride was very crowded and there wasn't really anything I was looking for so we got out.

Next up was flight of the hippogriff. It was a roller coaster, Erica was very scared but I convinced her that it was a baby roller coaster and that she could do it. She decided to go on, she was being very adventurous this day. It was a walk on too, it was a little more adventurous than it looked, but Erica survived. I would have went on Dueling dragons but I heard it was pretty rough and I didn't want to risk getting a sore neck. I was at Canadas Winderland with my niece earlier this year and a lot of those major roller coasters are super violent.

Hogwarts

Hagrids hut

Buckbeak

Tuesday morning we woke up to overcast skies and still fairly chilly out. We went for breakfast at the dining room and had eggs Benedict again. We were pretty hungover this morning so we were pretty sure that this would not be a drinking day for us.

After breakfast we went back to our room for a nap. We wanted to do the wine pairing at 11:30 but just couldn't do it. We went down to check out the art auction but thought things were really pricey and weird. We decided to go to the dining room for Lunch. Erica had chicken casear Salad and I had mushroom ravioli and it was soooo good. Then we went to the game of love, very funny and stayed for the 5 game bingo, much better value than the one game bingo for $25 that they had on the first day. After that we went to lido and had a slice of pizza and waited for the past guest party to start in the Taj Mahal. There was a huge line and when we went in there were tons of drinks and three different appetizers.

There was tomato and mozzarella on a crustini, and chicken salad in a crustini and some cheese cubes and some kind of a spicy breadstick. After the party we went back to the room to rest up for dinner. Can you see a theme here? Sleeping eating, sleeping eating.

We went down to the physical comedy with Max show before dinner, stayed for about a half an hour, not really into juggling. Then went to Valentines dinner. All the ladies got a red carnation. We both had study in sushi, casear salad and skirt steak and WMC for dessert. After dinner we went back to the room to go to bed early for for our day at universal studios tomorrow! Drank lots of ginger ale today! Towel animal was swans. I stuck my flower in them before I took the picture.

The next two days, Monday and Tuesday were sea days. On Monday morning when we woke up the ship was moving pretty good again but once again it wasn't bothering us thanks to our sea bands!

We went for breakfast at the dining room and finally I was able to have my eggs Benedict and the yummy little hash browns!!! Erica had the same. After breakfast we went back to the room to rest for a bit and to plan out our day. We had a mission to get involved today which is something we don't normally do. We relaxed and read for a while and then had a little nap. Then we went to the cooking demonstration at Davids steakhouse.

It was Interesting to watch, but the chef was very difficult to understand. He had a very strong accent. They gave us some recipe cards, showed how to make a crab cake. After that was beef stroganoff which we all got to try. It was very good. Then they demonstrated how to make a berry sauce for the cheesecake which we all got to try as well. It was a beautiful sunny morning to be in the clam shell.

Then we went and caught the end of the shopping show. There were a lot of people buying the organizers for $30 but we are not really going to be doing a lot of shopping this trip so we passed. Then we went down to raphaels lounge to play win lose or draw with Steve. The digital scavenger hunt was just wrapping up it looked like it was Fun. At some point we must have bought the DOD funnel cups because we took this picture.

Win Lose or draw was a game where Steve, one of the entertainment staff, would say whether he was going to be drawing a movie or a tv show and then draw a picture and we had to guess. We got 12 and the winner had 13!! We were one away from winning the ship on a stick, boo! After that it was around 3:00 and I decided I would make my first donation to the casino. I went through $40 in about 15 minutes. We stood and watched that casino vault game for a while seems like it's impossible to win!

Then we went back to the room to relax some more. We read, played on iPad had a nap. It was still too cold to sit outside. Earlier in the afternoon we had gone up to serenity and layed out on a clam shell. It was nice to feel the warmth of the sun on your face but it was freezing!

Then it was time to get up and get ready for formal night. Wewent down around 6:30. Only had to wait about 10 minutes for a table for two. We had the stuffed mushrooms to share and caesar salad each. It was lobster and shrimp night but I didn't want lobster just shrimp so she ordered me two entrees with no lobster and we just combined them. My sister had the skirt steak which was great as well. We shared a warm chocolate melting cake, it was cooked a little more than last night but still very runny. I know I remember that you could order it well done if you wanted but we didn't bother.

Then we went to the theaters just in time for Vroom. It was good, the female singer is much better than the male. We left just a couple minutes early to run down to Butterflies for the first comedian. He was very funny, it was packed in there! After that we went back to the room because we were running out of drink tickets and it was turning out to be a drinking night. We then went to the piano bar and it was so much fun! We decided that we were still up for seeing the next comedian at 11:45 managed good seats for this one as well. His taster set at the welcome aboard show was good but he ended up not being as funny. He made fun of a lot of Audience people and crossed a line or too that I just didn't find that funny. Then we actually set foot in the disco!!! It was smoky and we didn't stay long. We also checked out karaoke, my sister loves to sing karaoke but it was in Starry nights and it is a smoking bar and it was WAY too smoky to even set foot in there. Then we went up to lido for a 1:00 am snack. We had what I thought at the time was the best cheeseburger I have ever had and some fries. Finally we made it to bed. A very late night for us!!!! Towel animal tonight was ....dog!

We arrived at the port at around 11:30, cruised right through security, short line from Sign and Sail and we got out first gold card! We were directed to chairs and they had complimentary water and lemonade. We were informed that embarking would be delayed because of a scheduled coast guard safety inspection. We started to board around 12:30 I think. We were one of the first few groups to board.

Once on board we went straight to the buffet. We got a nice peaceful booth off to the side and had a lovely italian lunch. And our very first....DOD!

It was starting to get really chaotic just as we were finishing up. We went on a quick tour of the lido deck. It was very cold and windy. We did a spa tour and got a complimentary neck message and it was great. They were really trying to book appointments for the first day but I think that the deals get better as the days go on so we decided to hold out.

After that it was about 2:00 and we decided to go and check on our room and it was ready and our suitcases were there! This was our first balcony room and we loved it!

We got unpacked and then went out for the very cold muster drill. After that we went back to the room and had a little rest and then got ready for dinner.

We went down to the Raphaels lounge and tried the martini tasting .

They were sweet but very good. You also got a free wine charm that is a little martini and it says Carnival. Then we went for dinner we had your time dining, we were given a pager because we wanted a table for two. We had ordered drink and soda coupons on line and we received those right when we checked in. We had also purchased the wine package earlier that day. We realized that we needed to have our receipt with us for the wine package so we went back to our room and then by the time we got back our pager was going off.

There were a lot of very nice private tables for two. We had a very nice dinner and got two bottles of wine from our package. We shared the chips and salsa starter and we both had casear salad. Erica had the grilled salmon entree and I had the tilapia. We had creme brûlée and WMC but it was very very runny. There won't be a lot of food porn on in the review, but as a teaser we did the Chefs Tabke and we have pics of that.

After that we went to Game Show Mania in the theatre.

On our last cruise, I won on a ship on a stick playing this. I didn't get picked for the first round and it turned out that is was glad that I didn't, they made the people dance and carry on. I just want to do the trivia part if it. It was very entertaining watch though. After that we just stayed in the theater for the welcome aboard show. Brent Mitchell was very good and Canadian! Both comedians looked funny as well. One of the comedians was having a show right after but we decided that we would save it for tomorrow night and head to bed. The ship was moving pretty good, you could feel it but we had our sea bands on so we were good. And the first night, we got the towel vagina!! iPad is dying and I'm going to take a break for dinner. I hope if anyone is reading this that they are enjoying so far!

When we arrived in Baltimore, we called for the shuttle. We were staying at the BWI Best Western Plus in Elkridge. The hotel was very nice. We dropped our suitcases in the room and then got the shuttle to take us to Arundel Mills mall, we were there for about an hour or so then called for the shuttle to pick us back up. The driver was kind enough to stop on the way back at this little restaurant, convenience store to let us buy a bottle of wine.

The hotel was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but there was a restaurant in the parking lot called the Stained Glass pub. We ate there for dinner it was quite good.

We went to bed early after a swim in the pool and a soak in the hot tub. We planned to leave for the port at 11 am. We got up and had a nice BW complimentary breakfast and then the hotel shuttle took us to the port.

Our first whale tail glimpse and look at the Pride!

Here was the general plan. We were crusing on Sunday. Leaving from Peterborough, Ontario noon on Friday, driving to Buffalo, staying the night, flying to Baltimore, staying the night then going to the port on Sunday.

We left right on schedule at noon and drove to Buffalo, no problems at the border. We came straight to the hotel, we always stay at the Buffalo Bes Western by the airport. We just dropped off for suitcases and went to the Walden Galleria Mall where we had an amazing dinner at the Cheesecake Factory factory and then we came back to the hotel.

Ou flight was at 11:30 am on Saturday, woke up to MAJOR snow. We were pretty worried that we wouldn't be able to fly out! But we left on time nor problems. We flew Southwest, the flight was less than an hour and cost $49!

$49!

This is my second cruise with Carnival and second review, but first using Photobucket for iPad, so this will be a short intro post with a test photo.

It was my sister and I that were cruising, we are in our late thirties and take a trip without our husbands and kids once a year. We tried cruising for the first time last year, we really enjoyed it. We might not have cruised to soon, but we had an incident on our last cruise and they gave us a certificate for 50 percent of our next cruise, but we only had two years to use it so we decided to do two cruises in two years.

We both are susceptible to sea sickness so we wear sea bands. But they are are so ugly! ...so we blinged ours out. Test pic below.

Testing

I love it! I will definitely try this for my February cruise. I do check a large suitcase so I think I will use a smaller one to create the clothing bundle then move it to the larger suitcase and put in toiletries shoes and etc in the extra space.

I'm glad you enjoyed the report and I hope you have a great wedding. I'm very confident that they have treated the affected rooms and that hopefully there will be no further problems.

I know, that was my thought too, that I had brought them with me, but based on the number of bites that I have I'm thinking that they were already there. I'm sure that they have treated the room but it was room 7342.

Thanks for the photo posting tips. I'm finished now but I will know for next time.