Carnival Pride - 21 day Journey Cruise Jan-Feb 2016 - Thoughts

[meatloafsfan]

So we completed the 21 day Journey cruise on the Carnival Pride (January 17 - February 7, 2016). I am not ready with my pictures yet (we have a lot of food porn coming your way though as soon as I find my camera USB cord so I can download the pictures to photobucket) but thought I would get down some of my general thoughts about the cruises.

 

1. American Table.

 

I like it.

 

I like the lack of table cloths on most nights; I like the water pitchers on the tables (that sit in a little round, brown dish so the water from them does not spread over the table); I like the bread box on the table; I like the food selections - port of call selections, everyday selections, rare finds, pie of the day, etc. There are a couple of dishes that miss the mark, I found that on the previous menus too though. Lots of new dishes, lots of old favourites. I was happy with the MDR for dinner and we only ate elsewhere twice in the 21 nights for dinner (both times the buffet and both were due to wanting to see the early movie).

 

2. Special "Journey Cruise" events and activities.

 

Some noticeable things that I liked was the Arts and Crafts, the 80's throwback sea day, the crew connections and the Captain's celebration.

 

For Arts and Crafts, held sea days at 9am and some port days around 3 - 3:15pm, they had self contained, complete, craft kits - plastic canvass door hangers, sea shell picture frames, journal/scrapbooks, lei's, card making, and luggage tags. These kits contain everything you need (except scissors which they handed out and collected), contained detailed instructions, most allowed you to customize your item so they allowed for some creativity, and let you produce an actual item that was a worthy souvenir.

 

The 80's throwback sea days had multiple 80's themed trivia (tv, movies, music), frog racing, horse racing, bingo, 80's movies on the cabin tvs and on the dive in movies, plus a ping pong ball in your bathing suit contest. The fun squad all dressed up, and dinner was another formal night with lobster being served (so we had lobster tails served 4 nights on the 21 days - twice each cruise).

 

The crew connection activities were plentiful - they included Q&A sessions with various positions, a galley tour, a glee club and a 50's show capping the final night.

 

The Captain's Celebration held on the throwback Sea Day was also very good with plentiful appetizers (meatballs, quiche, pigs in a blanket, fried shrimp) and alcohol (whiskey sours, rum punch, champagne, white wine, and red wine). You could have your picture taken with the Captain against a backdrop, and then during the party the Captain introduced the heads of the various departments (with the head Chef receiving the greatest amount of applause). The bank (the Ooh-la-la's) played and invited people up to dance. There were tons of servers and food and drink was passed in abundance.

 

3. Service.

 

One word - outstanding.

 

The crew was engaging, talkative and called us by name after day 1. There were so many great servers, cleaners, room attendants, fun squad members, musicians, and officers, it was unreal. I've never been on a ship where so many people stopped to talk and make certain everything was good.

 

 

 

 

There were a few hiccups throughout the cruise - which I'm going to mention only because I don't want to be accused of being a cheerleader or wearing rose coloured glasses.

 

A. Anytime dining was not a good experience.

 

We started out with anytime dining but there was always a huge line - people started lining up at 5pm and the line would wind through the aft part of deck 3. This meant that even trying to eat at 7pm or even 8pm, you were still given a pager because they were still seating people who had arrived earlier. After 4-5 nights we gave up and switched to late dining and had wonderful tablemates and great servers.

 

B. Ramps for debarking at port stops.

 

There was at least 1 port where the ramp was too steep for my mother in her wheelchair to get off (St. Croix) and there were several port stops where it was difficult due to the angle. Made for some frustration and there wasn't always a lot of help from Carnival employees (they often had some smaller stature people who simply weren't familiar with how to handle wheelchairs).

 

C. Casino hosts.

 

I earned 7000 points on each leg of the cruise and I felt that I had to pull teeth for any benefits until the last night.

 

 

I know I have more thoughts, I just need to organize them and I'll continue in a bit.

[RaiderFaninNM]

Nice thoughts on the Pride, loved her, very nice ship, she was our first cruise.

 

Agree on the throwback days and the activities as the crew connections, midnight gala buffet was nice to experience. While we did not have the American table, I can not see why a table cloth would ruin ones dinner, now the food is what matters.....:confused: Service, never had an issue, top notch...

 

Now where are those pics!!!!

[Ms. Fun Bunch]

I was on the first leg of the cruise (11 days) and I agree with everything you stated. I loved the American Table especially the cranberry rolls and the cheese bread in the bread box. I also enjoyed the different nightly selection of pie. The service was great all over the ship!!! I had to contact Casino at Sea once I returned to get a free cruise (have to pay port fees & taxes) because the Casino Hosts on the ship did not offer me a cruise even though I had over 10,000 points. I can't wait for my next Journey Cruise which is in November!!!

[meatloafsfan]

I was on the first leg of the cruise (11 days) and I agree with everything you stated. I loved the American Table especially the cranberry rolls and the cheese bread in the bread box. I also enjoyed the different nightly selection of pie. The service was great all over the ship!!! I had to contact Casino at Sea once I returned to get a free cruise (have to pay port fees & taxes) because the Casino Hosts on the ship did not offer me a cruise even though I had over 10,000 points. I can't wait for my next Journey Cruise which is in November!!!

 

Yes, that cranberry bread is a great addition. I also loved that there was a variety - the seed rolls, the brown rolls, French stick, etc.

 

At the end of the cruise (21 days) I did get the free room offer.

 

On the first leg, I received the petit fours (pretty crappy) on day 2 and then nothing. My mother received cookies to her cabin about day 5 and then on the second to last night, the hostess came to my mother at the end of dinner and told her she had a bottle of wine from the casino (which she came too late for that night so we had it on the next night which was the last night of the first cruise). My mother had about half as many points as I had so I was a bit ticked. Normally I wouldn't say anything but my father is kind of outspoken so when we were in the casino, he went to Bunny and made a fuss.

 

She said she had sent me a bottle of wine as well but I never received it (turns out they put down the wrong cabin number for me). Since we already had a bottle for that night and we're not wine drinkers in the first place I declined another bottle so she offered steak house selections for the 3 of us for that night.

 

On the second cruise I once again received the petit fours (again crappy) on day 2 and then nothing until the second to last night when I received steakhouse selections for 2. It was one of the formal menus so we asked to wait until the last night to use them.

 

On the last night, the casino sent me 2 bottles of wine (yes, on the same night). I ended up letting our servers choose whatever they wanted and then gifted it to them.

 

I had prequalified for the drinks on us card for both legs of the cruise (had contacted casino services ahead of time) but for the second leg it took me talking to 4 different people to get the card (even though as it turns out, it was sitting there - pre-printed!). Neither Bunny nor Dante ever made contact with me throughout the trips and considering how many people I saw them talking with through the 21 days, I'll admit I felt slighted.

 

I will say that drink service in the casino was amazing. It seemed that every server worked super hard to memorize your name and folio number so they could call you by name and not have to press the button on the machine. They were also generally very quick and very frequent. The only exception I found to this was early in the morning on sea days and then during the captain's celebration (because they pulled the casino servers to help with that function).

[Prof Peg]

Thanks so much for starting this conversation, I'm sure there are a number of us that were on the cruise that will jump in and contribute.

 

I was amazed that we also received the free cruise offer on the last night. I've been waiting for that for what seems like years. Now I'm disappointed because I have to book by 2/21 and cruise has to be before August. After 21 days and finally paying the bill, we're not ready for a cruise that soon (free or not). :rolleyes:

 

So I'll just sit here in the snowbanks and dream of the time we were in sunshine. Hey, did you notice how cold it was when they were doing the ice carving?

[caddykid12]

I'm going on the 14 day journey next month. Was there enuff entertainment to keep you occupied for 21 days. If there was plenty I shouldn't have a problem for 14 days but feel it may get less and less as ideas run low and try not to repeat

[Keith1010]

Thank you for your review/report.

 

Keith

[meatloafsfan]

I'm going on the 14 day journey next month. Was there enuff entertainment to keep you occupied for 21 days. If there was plenty I shouldn't have a problem for 14 days but feel it may get less and less as ideas run low and try not to repeat

 

They were very good about not repeating trivia's on the two legs. They added lots of "extras" like the crafts, glee club, etc. In the evenings, there were the regular playlist productions and then they had a number of variety acts to fill in the other nights.

 

The red frog pub was usually hopping (the band the Ooh-la-la's was great but I know at least one of the band members was leaving so I don't know if the band itself is staying with a replacement or if there will be a new band).

 

Patrick the piano bar entertainer was also very, very good and kept the piano bar going in the evenings.

 

There were several sessions of Karaoke, and a guitar player/singer in the atrium. I think there was also another duo in the casino bar area most nights.

 

They also had some island musicians play during some of the port stops.

 

There was 1 or 2 movies on the big screen each night; at some port stops, they played the movies from the tv movie channels (Carnival has a regular movie and a kids movie every day on channels 38 and 39) in the butterflies lounge.

 

 

They also added some different day time activities - like connect 4 tournaments, and scrabble tournaments. They scheduled a bridge players meet each sea day.

 

 

The fun squad staff was generally very good. Steve the cruise director is very personable and was out and about often. Matey (fun squad) was very interactive, funny and kind. Nookie the Cookie and Adam were good as well. The only person we didn't like was TJ - he started out fine but got so sarcastic (to the point of meanness) about midway through the cruise we kind of avoided activities he was hosting. This is his last contract and he's going to return to his home in South Africa when he's done.

[Karlou]

I didn't care for TJ either, though, we didn't see him that much.

He was quite mean toward the end. I had the feeling he just didn't care anymore.

Everything also was great on this cruise! Loved it!

Edited February 11, 2016 by Karlou