Pride review-4/18-4/25

[Duckie26]

Wonderful review so far! I can't wait to read the rest of it.

 

I love reading reviews of the Pride... it takes me back to our amazing time.

 

I can't wait to sail on her again!!! :)

[KeywestK]

I can't wait to read more of your review!! So glad you had such a great cruise. We just booked the Pride yesterday for the Oct. 3rd sailing. It'll be our first Carnival cruise after 9 Royal Caribbean cruises! I never thought I'd "jump ship," but the pricing was amazing, and it'll be so easy to just drive 25 minutes to the port.

 

Your little girl is adorable! And the name of that bridge you sailed under is the Francis Scott Key bridge....:)

 

Karen

[cantwait06]

My husband and I and our good friends were also on this same cruise! If you went to the adult comedy show on Friday night in the Taj Mahal with Tommy Drake, you might have heard the "roast" on our friend Bill that my husband had Kirk do to Bill. It was a "payback" for what Bill did to my husband Jeff on the Tuesday Morning Show. All in good fun though! We had an ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC time! Time went by TOO fast!

 

It was a great cruise! I didn't see Tommy Drake for the adults only show, we made it the night before for the PG show, but we missed the adults only show due to having too much fun in the piano bar! He was hilarious though!

 

Wonderful review so far! I can't wait to read the rest of it.

 

I love reading reviews of the Pride... it takes me back to our amazing time.

 

I can't wait to sail on her again!!! :)

 

I'm glad you're enjoying it! I would sail her again in a heartbeat!

 

I can't wait to read more of your review!! So glad you had such a great cruise. We just booked the Pride yesterday for the Oct. 3rd sailing. It'll be our first Carnival cruise after 9 Royal Caribbean cruises! I never thought I'd "jump ship," but the pricing was amazing, and it'll be so easy to just drive 25 minutes to the port.

 

Your little girl is adorable! And the name of that bridge you sailed under is the Francis Scott Key bridge....:)

 

Karen

 

You are going to love the Pride, it was an amazing week! You won't regret "jumping ship!"

[cantwait06]

This is GREAT. I am going to addicted to this post. We go on this ship July 18th. Any tips you can give would be great. We are doing the other cruise though; Grand Turk and Half Moon Cay along with Freeport.

 

You said you brought on Rum Runners? How did you get that on?

 

I think you will find my review full of tips but please ask if I don't cover something! We bought the rum runners here:

http://www.rumrunnerflasks.com/

Filled them according to directions provided. We put them at the bottom of our luggage between lots of clothes and close to the wheels. No problems at all (and we still racked up a bar bill over $1,000!)

 

Great review & pictures so far. You daughter is so cute!!

Thank you, I'm glad you are enjoying!

[rcnhoward]

Great review so far!! I wish I was back on her right now!! Did you get to see the Coast Guard pick up the crew member that got injured?

[vacruizer]

Looking forward to more - headed out for our second Pride trip in just over a month! :D

 

Good to know Kirk and Jaime are still there. I really think Jaime will be one of Carnival's star CDs one of these days if she sticks with it.

[cantwait06]

Great review so far!! I wish I was back on her right now!! Did you get to see the Coast Guard pick up the crew member that got injured?

I did see that happen but I forgot about it! I hope that crew member was ok!

 

Looking forward to more - headed out for our second Pride trip in just over a month! :D

 

Good to know Kirk and Jaime are still there. I really think Jaime will be one of Carnival's star CDs one of these days if she sticks with it.

 

I liked Jaime a lot. She was really sweet to my daughter all week. We actually saw her when we disembarked in the line for forgien customs. She told me she was leaving for "vacation" and will be back on the Pride in 5 weeks.

[cantwait06]

Day 2-First Day at Sea/Elegant Night

I don’t sleep well on vacation-I think it’s because I’m excited and don’t like to miss anything. So I was up before 7-my daughter too. So the 2 of us headed out to walk around-it was FREEZING! 55 degrees I believe. But of course she wanted to go swimming, so we went back to the room to grab our stuff (and my fiancé!) and went for breakfast, with the promise that she could swim after she ate. Breakfast was good-we did the Lido buffet and had made to order omelets. They were really awesome. I didn’t notice any problems with the bacon police-I was actually hoping to just get 2 pieces because I didn’t want to overeat but he gave me a huge pile!

 

After breakfast she swam, we relaxed. My fiancé swam with her a bit too because believe it or not, even though it was only in the low 60’s, under that retractable roof, it was actually quite hot-I was sweating!

 

The retractable roof covers most of the pool area, but there is a bit that is open. I sat right under where it was open so that I could get some sun, and was very hot!

The guys were there playing the steel drums and singing, it was great.

 

Covered area

We lasted until lunchtime but then my daughter was spent. We had some lunch-lido buffet again. It was alright, but so crowded it made finding a seat nearly impossible. If we had eaten a bit later we would have been fine.

[cantwait06]

After lunch, I insisted my now whiny daughter take a nap, since she got an invitation to the camp carnival late night party for that night, and she really wanted to go. I knew she’d never make it since she woke up early that morning and then swam for over 3 hours, so we did. After nap time we got ready for dinner and headed off for some pictures. Dinner was great-very good every night. My fiancé of course got the lobster tail and shrimp, and I ate off the spa carnival menu again-both of our meals were excellent. Our waiter was great-he greeted us by name every night and quickly got to know our preferences.

 

 

Me with my daughter

 

I forgot what she was sad about, but I thought you might like to see the warm chocolate melting cake!

[cantwait06]

After dinner we saw the Vroom show. After reading some great reviews on cruise critic I thought I might check it out even though normally shows aren’t my thing. The show was great, it didn’t disappoint. My 3 year old LOVED it-she was enthralled the whole time! I was surprised that some of the costumes were considered family friendly but my daughter didn’t seem to notice, so I didn’t care. If I had an 8 or 9 year old I might reconsider seeing the show though. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the show but here are a few from before the show:

 

 

 

My daughter wanted to go to camp carnival since they were having a kids only party, so we took the opportunity for some alone time. Camp Carnival was great-they remembered her by name from when we went to view it, and she walked right in without saying goodbye or even looking back! Well worth $6 for babysitting to give us some grown up time! We went to the piano bar-there were a lot of people there and the crowd was great. Roger was lots of fun-he is funny and is really good on the piano. We stayed for a few hours, picked up our daughter, and headed back for bed!

 

 

The mask she made at camp carnival

 

The towel animal for tonight

 

I do have lots of pictures of the piano bar since I spent a lot of time in there, but they will be coming with another day's recap!

[hill6]

Great review so far. Your daughter is adorable. She looks alot like my 4 year old Goddaughter.

 

My daughter's friend was on the cruise as her honeymoon. It was their first cruise and they loved it.

[Ave43]

Thanks for the review "in progress"! And YES, your daughter is adorable! Especially all fancied up for formal night! What a doll! Can't wait to read / see more!

 

Ave

[Glamourgal]

Your daughter truly is beautiful. She looks like a little princess...reminds me of my daughter when she was her age. She is now 26...time certainly does fly, it seems like yesterday!!

 

I am really enjoying reading your review. It is making me more anxious than I already am, and I didn't think that was possible!! I'm so happy to hear about the piano bar. That is one of our favorite spots and we have been reading such positives about Roger!!

 

Thanks for taking the time to review, I look forward to reading more!!

[cantwait06]

Great review so far. Your daughter is adorable. She looks alot like my 4 year old Goddaughter.

 

My daughter's friend was on the cruise as her honeymoon. It was their first cruise and they loved it.

 

Thanks for the review "in progress"! And YES, your daughter is adorable! Especially all fancied up for formal night! What a doll! Can't wait to read / see more!

 

Ave

 

Your daughter truly is beautiful. She looks like a little princess...reminds me of my daughter when she was her age. She is now 26...time certainly does fly, it seems like yesterday!!

 

I am really enjoying reading your review. It is making me more anxious than I already am, and I didn't think that was possible!! I'm so happy to hear about the piano bar. That is one of our favorite spots and we have been reading such positives about Roger!!

 

Thanks for taking the time to review, I look forward to reading more!!

 

 

Thank you so much! I appreciate the comments, thats what keeps me going with my writing/posting! Its a lot of work, but its fun! I do miss my vacation though! :(

[Laurab23]

Your daughter truly is beautiful. She looks like a little princess...reminds me of my daughter when she was her age. She is now 26...time certainly does fly, it seems like yesterday!!

 

I am really enjoying reading your review. It is making me more anxious than I already am, and I didn't think that was possible!! I'm so happy to hear about the piano bar. That is one of our favorite spots and we have been reading such positives about Roger!!

 

Thanks for taking the time to review, I look forward to reading more!!

 

We went on this cruise in Feb.and Roger is great.He is a great guy who really gets everyone involved.

[cantwait06]

We went on this cruise in Feb.and Roger is great.He is a great guy who really gets everyone involved.

 

 

agreed!

[smileyrnc]

We were getting off the Pride when you were getting on! It was our first cruise and we loved everything about it! I am planning to sail her again next year. I forgot that Jaime said she was going on vacation, I know she won't spend much time off the ship because she and Kirk are a couple, they joked about how they spend their vacations on the Pride because their boyfriend/girlfriend won't let them leave, we really enjoyed them and all of the staff, and the FOOD, all I can say is WOW!

[cantwait06]

Woke up and went to check out the situation on the Lido deck-my family was still sleeping. I got there and there was 1 chair left around the pool-1. This was about ten after 8 in the morning. It was amazing what some people used to chair hog-but this was a whole new level of chair hogging. I don’t even know where they found an open bar to purchase this, but here you go:

 

 

Those sat there for about an hour before they came over and parked it.

 

We got breakfast (omelets again! This time I got mine with egg whites only-not as yummy but still really good) and I relaxed in the one open chair while my daughter and fiancé did some swimming. It was already hot outside but the pool was freezing, so they spent most of the morning in the hot tub. My fiancé went in with a red bathing suit and my daughter's was turquoise blue. There must have been a lot of bleach in there because he came out with an orange bathing suit and my daughters faded to a baby blue color. I didn’t care, but it is something to note.

 

bathing suit BEFORE the hot tub

 

Bathing suit AFTER the hot tub (I'll tell you about the medal later!)

 

While they were swimming, I saw some dolphins following the boat. They were hard to catch but I caught this one:

 

[cantwait06]

We stayed at the pool for most of the morning. My daughter really wanted to get an airbrush tattoo but the lines were incredible. We made it to be the first one in line but still waited forever for her to get set up and then another 15 minutes just to apply it! She loved it though, so it was worth it in the end-$17 later!

 

 

 

We left the pool around 12:30 to grab some lunch-we did the lido again. The lines were long but the food was good.

 

After lunch we headed up to the kids pool where my daughter could play without us being right on top of her and we got some relaxing in. I do have to say here that there were about 5 babies in the kid’s pool, and they definitely had swim diapers on. I wasn’t thrilled about it but my daughter was only running in the pool and not sitting or even touching the water with her hands so I didn’t worry about it. There were signs posted saying no diapers or un-toilet trained kids in the pool, but it went ignored. I know this subject gets people fired up but that’s not why I wrote about it, I’m just trying to inform people either way that it did happen.

 

 

[cantwait06]

After awhile in the sun, we were getting tired so we decided we would go to the past guest party before dinner, which brought us back to the room to get ready a lot earlier then normal. The past guest party was good actually. I’ve read so many times on cruise critic that you can’t get drink service and it’s not worth it. We did not have that problem-there were waiters coming up to us constantly and we never had an empty drink!

 

Our table full of drinks

 

They had wine, beer (really watery light beer, but still free!) rum punch (strong!) and whiskey and amaretto sours.

 

They had a band playing and invited people up to come and dance:

 

 

The appetizers were not so good-they were little salmon cakes.

 

After the party we walked around a little bit and then headed to dinner-again delicious! My fiancé got the short ribs which he couldn’t even finish because he was so full, and my daughter and I got the Mahi-Mahi, also really delicious. We ended our meal with the warm chocolate melting cake again-so good! My fiancé got the strawberry cheesecake which he said was not so good.

[cantwait06]

After dinner we head to the Taj Mahal lounge for bingo and then the ventriloquist show, which I also read on cruise critic was hilarious and not to be missed.

 

Bingo was wipeout bingo, if you won, they paid your sail and sign account up to $1000 up until the moment you win bingo. I took my daughter to the bathroom and missed the directions, but my fiancé told me it was just a regular bingo game, fill up a row and you win. So we’re playing, and we’re one number away. The calls our last number and I yell Bingo! Everyone groans, and they come to check my card. Then she reminds everyone that to win, you need to have a W on your card, which of course I did not. I was so embarrassed and shot my fiancé the evil eye for that one, but the game moved on and of course, we did not win. Really embarrassing.

 

We stayed for the ventriloquist show afterwards. I heard it was really funny and there were a lot of kids there so I figured it was ok for my daughter. There were a lot of people laughing but I just didn’t really like it. He swore a few times but my daughter didn’t seem to notice (usually she is all over that-she announces to everyone when someone says a bad word) but the show itself just wasn’t all that funny to me. Everyone’s different, no big deal!

[iggy's mom]

Love your review! The Carnival Pride is one of the ships I really want to sail on. Reviews like yours makes me wish I could sail on her tomorrow. :)

[cantwait06]

After that it was time for camp again for DD and grown up time (piano bar) for mommy and daddy! The piano bar was great again-lots of people, high energy. Roger seemed a little tired tonight and he kept having people at the bar help him sing. He told me I had to help him sing “I will survive.” I’m not much of a singer even though I love to do it, but after a few beers, I was good to go. I sang it, if anyone was there; I hope I didn’t pierce your eardrums too much! People were clapping and good sports about it though.

 

Me singing (or hurting everyone's ears!)

 

After Roger took a break, most of the bar cleared out and there were only about 6 of us. We all made friends and sang a long for a few more songs, but he closed up early. I talked with him a little bit; he’s a really nice guy. He is from the Phillipines. He has an amazing voice and he is really good on the piano. We sat behind him so we could see that he only had the words in front of him with some handwritten notations-he did not have any sheet music! I thought he was amazing. He told me that his first instrument was the guitar but he just picked up piano playing one day. He was really great!

 

 

These signs were posted on the piano and all on the bar surrounding the piano. You could smoke in the rest of the bar, but no one really did. It wasn't very smokey at all in there.

 

 

 

The bartender singing with Roger playing

[cantwait06]

I know he is wearing different clothes but after every break he changes!

 

 

So we closed the piano bar but the other people there with us were fun, so we headed down to the casino to party some more.

 

The rest of the night is a little hazy for me :confused:but we hung out for a little bit, then picked up our now sleeping daughter at camp, got pizza for my fiancé (late night food is the best!) and headed back to the room. The pizza was good, or at least I thought it was good that night! I heard a few people refer to it as fast food pizza and not very good, but late night it was great! So then it was off to bed, Cape Canaveral in the morning!

[cantwait06]

We were getting off the Pride when you were getting on! It was our first cruise and we loved everything about it! I am planning to sail her again next year. I forgot that Jaime said she was going on vacation, I know she won't spend much time off the ship because she and Kirk are a couple, they joked about how they spend their vacations on the Pride because their boyfriend/girlfriend won't let them leave, we really enjoyed them and all of the staff, and the FOOD, all I can say is WOW!

 

 

I didn't realize that Jaime and Kirk were a couple, I never got that vibe from them! They were great regardless!