Pride review 4/3 - 4/10. Perspective from a first-timer!

[rlthomas7]

Ugh. I just wrote out our entire day in Florida and lost it. Here it goes again.

 

We awoke on Wednesday morning to what would be a beautiful day. I was up super early and peeked outside to see lights! We were in the harbor! So I did what any relaxed vacationer would do - I grabbed my iPhone and went out on the balcony to check e-mail and catch up with some work (and catch up on Facebook of course!) I watched the sun rise over the space center. That was something.

 

After everyone else was up and dressed we went upstairs for some breakfast and then I took Adam to Deck 10 to play a little red light/green light before there were crowds.

 

 

We exited the ship and were told that we'd need IDs to get back on board. Somehow I missed that memo and had to run all the way back (and get a new photo taken for my sail and sign card for some reason) to the ship and up to our room to get my license while Paul had to wait with Adam. License in hand, we managed to get down to the ground and outside.

 

We looked for the free shuttle and got to it just as it was pulling away. So we then looked for the $10 shuttle and found one for $4.00 instead. Important note - do NOT take this shuttle! It is a rip-off!!!

 

This shuttle was $4.00 and the guy selling the tickets said that he'd take us to a beach called Jetty Park, which was great for kids with a playground, gentle waves and some shopping. Sounds great, right? We hopped in, along with some others, and off we went. For about two minutes.

 

The shuttle dropped us off at what looked like a flea market in an industrial area of the port. He said the beach was just beyond the shopping area. He didn't mention that it would be TWO MILES beyond the drop off point. Probably longer becuase I figured that out using pretty straight lines in Google Earth, and there were a lot of turns to be made.

 

We started walking and made it about a half mile, after asking for directions twice and were about to pull up and call a cab when we ran into another group from the ill-fated shuttle. They said that there was a public trolley nearby and we realized that we were sitting at the trolley stop already.

 

 

After about ten minutes, the trolley showed up and the very nice driver took us to a good park in Cocoa Beach. Probably where the $10.00 shuttle (or the free one) would have taken us.

 

We played for awhile on the beach.

 

 

And eventually took a break so that Adam could have a snack. I thought Paul packed the snack and he thought I packed the snack. So Paul made an emergency pizza run and came back with a HUGE slice of pizza that looked delicious. Adam ate every bite. And while we were waiting for the pizza, this bird pooped on me.

 

 

OK, I don't know for sure that it was this one, but if it wasn't, it was his friend. Jerk. One of the perks of being a mom who has to overpack for everything (except for snacks, apparently) is that I usually have baby wipes. Poop problem solved.

 

After that big lunch Adam was pretty worn out and we got him changed into regular clothes so we could find a shutle back to the ship. We went to Ron Jon where a VERY nice man gave Adam a sticker and offered us free day passes for the Ron Jon Resort. The Resort looks awesome and is actually very close to the ship and to the elusive Jetty Park. Check it out online! Free plug over.

 

But he told us that the surf shop next door operates a free shuttle, so we went over there to catch it. After about 20 minutes it came for us and we were on the way back to the ship!

 

We made it back through security and onto the ship where Adam took his nap and Paul and I took turns going up for late lunches.

[JWBmom]

Okay- the funny thing is we talked about getting Brooke and Adam together to help him have an older buddy for camp, but it sounds like you had no problem. We on the other hand had an awful time.

We thought she would love it as she told us she was going to camp everyday. We took her the first day for about 2 hours. When we picked her up she was inconsolable and didn't want to go back.:rolleyes: We got her to go back the next day for about 1 1/2 hours and it was better but that was it. No more camp for her.

As a second note- I think I saw you and your family about a dozen times- too bad we didn't have a meet and greet.

I also love the setup with the bed- wish we would have thought of that as we had a middle of the night thud to the floor and busted lip!

Ginger

 

 

PS- Adam is such a cutie:D

[rlthomas7]

Oh, I'm sorry we didn't do that too. I think they would have had fun with a buddy their own age to hang out with - even just eat breakfast together or something. I was a little shocked that we didn't see too many kids their age. I was expecting more.

[pyroguy]

As a dad of 3 youngsters, I appreciate your review. I completely understand even the little things you did to make it a great vacation (like the shower, bed rails and makeup remover), even forgetting the snack and having to make a trek to find something that would work (yay dad!).

 

We took ours on the Valor a couple years ago and had some of the exact same experiences. We tell our "kidless" friends that until you have kids of your own, you'll never understand. There are things that parents just know from experience that others dont...your perspective is dead-on and refreshing.

 

On another note, you took some really good pictures! I'll go out on a limb and say you either have a nice DSLR or a very good point-n-shoot.

 

Looking forward to more!

 

Thanks!

[rlthomas7]

We returned from dinner to find this waiting for us in the room.

 

 

Probably the only snake in the world I wasn't afraid of!

 

And we quickly got Adam and Paul changed into bathing suits and we headed up to the pools.

 

 

I think he liked it.

 

 

I amused myself taking sunset photos.

 

 

 

And we ended our first port day with these. And then some of their friends...

 

[PA Dutchman]

Looking at some of the pictures Where all the chair hogs ???

[rlthomas7]

Looking at some of the pictures Where all the chair hogs ???

 

I really didn't experience that problem. Maybe because the sea days weren't conducive to sunbathing? I don't know. But it really didn't seem to be an issue. There was only one day that I couldn't find a chair in the sun in the Serenity Area, but there were usually plenty by the pool.

[rlthomas7]

Moving on to Nassau. I can't tell you how excited I was to go back to Nassau. And I know lots of people on here hate it, and that's fine. But I spent a week there in March 1998 for college spring break and just loved it. Maybe you always love your first trip to an island with palm trees and turquoise waters, but that trip started a love affair that has taken me to Nassau, Freeport, Jamaica, Antigua and St. Kitts. So I was eager to go back (with a LITTLE more money in my pocket this time) and to share those great memories with my husband and son. In particular, I was really excited to see the lighthouse up close. When we were there for spring break, we hung out all day, most every day, on the beach across from it, I think it's Junkanoo Beach. It's the public beach just down from the Hilton. I have so many photos of our group of sorority sisters in front of that lighthouse!

 

So at 9:45 I abandoned my family (Adam was watching DVDs) and headed to the upper decks with my camera in hand to watch us cruise into the harbor. And the view did not disappoint.

 

 

 

 

I returned to our room and we placed an order for room service so that Adam could have a full belly before we left. Just a note that the sandwiches (at least the turkey sandwich) has mayo on it, along with lettuce, tomato, etc. That was a small issue for us since it's hard to remove the mayo part of the sandwich when both pieces of bread are covered. But we got it to the point where Adam would eat it. I had a salad and Paul had a wrap and the service was VERY quick - maybe ten minutes max. We ate and left the ship for Nassau!

 

Our plan was to catch the #10 jitney to Cable Beach and we walked along the port toward Senor Frogs. Adam saw the frog, thought he was Kermit and wanted his photo taken. I consider this his model pose.

 

 

Hey, in the one where he smiled I cut the frog's head off with the camera (some aspiring photographer I am, right?)

 

And then we took this one.

 

 

We found the jitneys and hopped aboard. It was pretty crowded, with the aisle seats all taken, but that's part of the fun of the island public transportation!

 

We arrived at the Sheraton and were able to get a day room for $99. We consider this among the best money we spent on our trip. Day passes would have been $62.50, so for $36.50 more, we got a room with a place to sit out the rain storm that came, and for Adam to take his nap.

 

The room was very nice and it had a large patio leading out to the pool area.

 

 

And here is a picture of the rain storm that came as soon as we hit the pools.

 

[jerseygirl79]

Nassau is what you make of it! And it looks like you made it a great day! The Sheraton looks nice.....and for $99 bucks!! SCORE!

[rlthomas7]

Some more photos from the Sheraton.

 

 

 

 

 

[rlthomas7]

As Adam napped, I caught the #10 jitney back downtown to do some shopping since I knew the straw market and most shops would be closed by the time we headed back to the ship. So I dashed downtown and was very disappointed in the straw market. It was much more focused on the knockoff bags and sunglasses and less focused on Bahamas-specific stuff. I like to collect art on vacation, either a print from a local artist or a real piece of art, but the pickings were very limited. Shopping completed I went back to the hotel and relieved Paul from nap duty so that he could go out swimming.

 

We finally woke Adam up around 4:00 and went back out to swim some more. If you have a young child, the Sheraton is a great choice since they have a zero-entry pool, where young children can walk in as far as they are able to stand. Kids love these, and it's nice to be able to relax a bit more with them in a pool like this.

 

We left the hotel around 5:45 and headed back to the ship. On the way through the cruise building, I spotted this. I'm a sucker for funny photo ops!

 

 

Adam wanted to play too!

 

 

We took our passports so that we could get them stamped. I felt that Adam deserved to get his first stamp on his brand new passport! It took asking a few times to find the right place but we got the stamps and found our way back to the ship. We dropped our things off in our room and headed for dinner.

 

Again, no photos tonight, but I had the friend shrimps which were good, the pan fried snapper which was very good and the melting cake. Paul had a salad and he also had the snapper. I was really excited for the filet mignon, but it ended up being a duet of filet mignon and short ribs and I don't really care for short ribs.

 

Upon our return to the room we found an elephant, so we grabbed Horatio to get in the photo too.

 

[jnmcruise]

was wondering if you prebooked the Sheraton or just walked up and got a room?? We were looking into possibly doing this one also... thanks

[rlthomas7]

I don't think you can prebook day passes or day rooms but it didn't seem very busy when we were there. Of course that depends on when you go - I've heard of people being turned down during spring break or other busy times.

[rlthomas7]

Our final morning, we woke up early and our room service breakfast that we ordered the night before was right on time. We ate and left the ship for our final port day in Freeport!

 

Like with Nassau, there are people out there who don't like Freeport. I was there in 1999 (before the hurricane of, I believe, 2004 that did a TON of damage to the island. And in 1999 I really liked it. I really felt like the people of Freeport are SO glad to have visitors to their island and they want you to love it too. I went with one of my girlfriends at the time and people would stop us on the street to ask if we needed directions, learn what we had done, suggest places to eat, etc. So I was really looking forward to seeing it again, talking to the people and remembering my previous visit.

 

We walked through the little area off the ship and got a family photo taken while we were waiting for the taxi:

 

 

We cabbed to Our Lucaya and we kept walking to the Radisson. We went into the beautiful lobby and asked about day passes. The woman at the front desk told us that we had to buy them from the beach bar, but that it didn't open until 10:00 and it was only 8:15. I asked if we could use the pools and beach while we waited for it to open and she said we could. So we went outside to check out the pools and went to the beach. The public beach where the taxis drop you off was right beside the Sheraton's property and there were lots of Carnival towels spread on chairs already!

 

Paul played in the water while Adam threw a temper tantrum to go back to the "green water," otherwise known as the pools. If you were anywhere around us during this tantrum, I'm sorry. We finally got him to stop whining/crying/running away and when he finally managed to ask nicely we went to the pools. Adam and Paul jumped in to swim while I wandered around with my camera for a bit. It's a beautiful property.

 

 

 

 

[rlthomas7]

Lots of fun critters too!

 

 

And this very determined bird who was trying to nab Adam's $10.00 cheeseburger. That's right. A $10.00 cheeseburger. It didn't even come with fries. But we had to get him lunch because he was pretty pooped after a day at the beach and we knew we'd be lucky to keep him awake enough to get back to the ship!

 

 

The quote of the day was Adam yelling at the bird. "NO THANK YOU Mr. Bird! That is MY cheeseburger!"

 

 

We headed over to the casino to catch a taxi back to the ship. I did get a little miffed because they jammed twelve people into a ten person taxi, so Adam and an older boy had to sit on laps. We were very squished, there was no air conditioning and the kids were NOT happy about sitting on laps (and we still had to pay $5.00 for this) My opinion was that if they don't get their own seat they shouldn't pay, but this wasn't the driver's fault, so of course I paid.

 

We got back to the ship and got Adam to bed. Paul and I took turns going up for lunch. Lunch this day on the Lido was fantastic. Normally I walked past all the desserts, but they had an amazing chocolate raspberry pie that I had two pieces of! And a great red wine sauce for the carved beef at the rotisserie.

 

It was yet another elegant night, so when Adam awoke from his nap we got dressed for dinner.

 

I will say that we were looking forward to the mid-week $15.00 per bag laundry special, and I was counting on that for a few things, including Adam's long pants. The magical bag never arrived on this cruise, so Adam went to dinner on elegant night in shorts. To anyone who was offended by a three year old wearing shorts, I'm sorry. At least he was in a collared shirt!

 

Before dinner we tried to get some more family photos. On the first elegant night we tried to get a photo on the Atrium stairs. We waited in a VERY long line while the photographer took millions of photos of each family in every configuration. Of course those photos of us were horrible. So we tried again! And these were good. But then I decided that we had enough perfectly good family photos, and on a cruise, I only wanted the CHEESY cruise photos. You know the ones! The super cheesy backgrounds. You'll see a few coming up in this review!

 

Here Adam is being escorted to our table by our wonderful waitress, Oktavia.

 

[JaniceB]

Still enjoying your review. The picture of your son with his face painted as a bunny is adorable.

Waiting for more....

[rlthomas7]

Thanks for saying that - I was wondering if anyone was still reading!

[bunchesofun]

Following your review closely as we sail on May 15 on the Pride. I never get tired of reading reviews especially those with lots of beautiful photos!

[jnmcruise]

nice review... glad you had a nice time

[jerseygirl79]

I'm still reading!!! Can't wait for more! Bring on the cheesey cruise photos, hahahah.

[mama_2_boys]

Thanks for saying that - I was wondering if anyone was still reading!

 

I'm still reading and waiting for the next installment :)

[Beth73]

Thanks for saying that - I was wondering if anyone was still reading!

 

We are still reading. We are sailing on Pride on May 1st. We can not wait! Thank you for the great review and pictures!

[rlthomas7]

Sorry for the hiatus, but I'm back! I think we left off at the second elegant night. Highlights from this dinner were Paul's cappuccino cake:

 

 

And Adam's chocolate ice cream:

 

 

After dinner we took some beautiful sunset shots

 

 

And sent Adam to camp for a little bit so that Paul and I could explore the ship a bit on our own. As usual when we find out that we have some alone time, we didn't quite know what to do with ourselves and just wandered around. We never even got any drinks!

 

When we picked Adam up, it had been jungle night and this was his scary tiger mask.

 

 

And this cute little guy was awaiting our return to the room.

 

[rlthomas7]

Saturday was our final sea day and it was kind of a long day for us. I think the trip was about one day too long because Adam was starting to really miss his toys, his house, his room, etc. We spent a lot of time in the atrium so that Adam could participate in his favorite activity - watching and riding the glass elevators.

 

 

I think that one is going to move next!

 

 

During Adam's nap I participated in the galley tour. My advice for this is not to get there too early. If you get there right as it's starting, you can be seated right at the start of the dining room, near the hostess stand. Because when it's time to go through the galley, you're the first to get up and go down the stairs! I was among the first through and when I was done, people were still waiting to file out of the dining room and go down the stairs!

 

 

Above, dishing out apple pie. Below, the things on the left are the soup kettles!

 

 

 

 

And this is why all of our food photos look the same every sailing!

 

[jaded99]

Thanks for posting this review - I really enjoyed reading all of it. Your pictures are very clear and beautiful, and you have a really great sense of humor that makes reading your review fun. Adam is so cute!

 

Like another poster, I am going to be on the Pride May 1 so I'm reading all the reviews I can, but yours is definitely one of ym favorites! I got a kick out of your son saying you were going back to the "big ship' in THREE days :D