Pirate's JOURNEY on the Pride...March 13-28 Photo Review

[Jamman54]

Not trying to hijack the thread - but those of you that are familiar with embarkation in Baltimore.....

 

Is there a separate check-in location for Priority boarding?? We are Platinum and we have a suite. We have never sailed from Baltimore - so I'm just trying to be prepared.

Thanks!

 

Yes there is. A nice little office with comfy chairs to check in. They will then lead you to the other side of the building to the chairs where you will wait to board.

[happy cruzin]

Yes there is. A nice little office with comfy chairs to check in. They will then lead you to the other side of the building to the chairs where you will wait to board.

 

Thanks! Each port is so different - you just never know. ;)

[Crusin Karen]

Yes there is. A nice little office with comfy chairs to check in. They will then lead you to the other side of the building to the chairs where you will wait to board.

Jamman, it was not like that 3 weeks ago when we checked in. I think they are remodeling the cruise terminal or something. All Platinum/Diamond and I assume FTTF were put in LONG rows of fold up chairs kind of just a bit seperated from the other area. We WERE the lst to board, but it took a long time. I can't remember if it was ever announced what the delay was. One rumor was there was lost luggage, but you never know. I don't think we boarded until about 1-1:30pm and we were one of the first on. There WAS a seperate line for VIP check in, tho.

[pirate4me2]

Looking forward to reading this start to finish..

Tomorrow is my first day off in a while. I am going to hunker down with my coffee and some comfy pj's and dig right in.

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Can't wait!

Chass

 

It may not be ALL the way done, but I am going to try and get through most of the remaining part tonight. Thanks for reading!

 

Thanks!

 

We plan to go to Jack's for the first time in June. We have been to Grand Turk many times and just have never taken the walk down there. :o This time it is THE thing we plan to do!

 

You won't regret it! It's a great place to spend the day. :)

[happy cruzin]

Jamman, it was not like that 3 weeks ago when we checked in. I think they are remodeling the cruise terminal or something. All Platinum/Diamond and I assume FTTF were put in LONG rows of fold up chairs kind of just a bit seperated from the other area. We WERE the lst to board, but it took a long time. I can't remember if it was ever announced what the delay was. One rumor was there was lost luggage, but you never know. I don't think we boarded until about 1-1:30pm and we were one of the first on. There WAS a seperate line for VIP check in, tho.

 

YIKES :eek: ......well I will hope that is all done by the time we get there in June!

[pirate4me2]

Sorry for the delay in posting anything new yesterday, we had a get together with family and friends that lasted until almost 11, and then we had no power for a while. We are back up and running now though, so let's power on!

Today we are in Antigua! I was excited for this port, and it did not disappoint! We docked at 9, but since our excursion (Devil's Bridge and Beach) didn't meet until 11, we decided to get off the ship and go find our Christmas ornament ahead of time. We ran up to Lido to grab breakfast, and guess what happened today?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[pirate4me2]

 

 

 

 

 

[pirate4me2]

 

I have to say, out of the ships that I have sailed on, I like the towel animal invasion on the Pride the best. They really, really go all out, my pictures don't do it justice!

When we got off of the ship, we went into the port area and once we got outside the gates, I began to feel like a deer in a herd of coyotes. The taxi drivers and hair braiders will REALLY come after you. Before I was done saying "No thank you" to one taxi driver, another would already be approaching me. Yikes! We made our way into and out of some stores, and we found our Christmas ornament and headed back to the ship to put it away and grab our bag with our beach items.

 

Pride docked in Antigua

 

We got into line for our excursion at 10:45. We met right on the pier, and at 11 we were taken to a nice bus that held about 20 people. Devil's Bridge was about a 20 minute ride from the pier, and our guide was very knowledgeable and told us the history of the island on the way there. We had about 15 minutes to take pictures when we arrived at Devil's Bridge, and it was a pretty cool spot.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2016 by pirate4me2

[happy cruzin]

Hope to see ALL the towel critters when we sail the Pride in May. Looks like a lot of fun and I've only seen photos - I'm sure it's even better in person!

[pirate4me2]

 

After our stop at Devil's Bridge, we took a short 5 minute (if that!) bus ride to Long Bay Beach, where we would be spending 2.5 hours. IT WAS FANTASTIC! Oh my gosh, I love this beach, and the ONLY thing that might make it better was if there wasn't seaweed down on the ocean bottom. I am a little (OK, a lot) nervous of seaweed, I don't know why but it freaks me out. But back to the beach...it truly is white sand, the water was clear and felt great, and it was just 2 hours in heaven for me!

 

 

Our excursion entitled us to a beach chair with a shared umbrella and 1 drink. Chris and I each got fruit juice, which was really good, and then we went to spend the rest of our time at the beach where we wanted to be most...in that beautiful water!

All too soon, our time in paradise came to an end. We were taken back to the ship at 2:45, and at this point we were able to breeze right thru the security checkpoint and get back on the ship. We dropped off our beach bag, and then Chris decided he wanted to go buy a pair of sunglasses since his were broken. Back on board was at 4:30, and since it was only 3 we had plenty of time. Steve had told Chris about Del Sol and their guarantee on sunglasses (if they break, they will replace them, if you loose them, they will replace them) a few days before, so when Chris saw a Del Sol store in port he wanted to get a pair. We went back off the ship and into Del Sol and holy cow, let me just say....IT WAS A MADHOUSE. We should have gotten the glasses that morning when it wasn't so packed! Chris found a pair he liked and we stood in line to pay for them. That's when I realized the CRAZY line to get back on the ship. It was LONG, I mean, REALLY really long. I told Chris to stay put in line to pay for the glasses and I would go get in the line to get back onboard, and he could find me when he had paid. I guess it was such a crazy line since Adventure of the Seas was in port as well, and both ships were to set sail at 5. My plan worked out good, I was pretty much at the Del Sol storefront when Chris finally was done paying, and we made it back on board at 4:15.

After we cleaned up, we decided to get ready for dinner. We were both HUNGRY since we hadn't eaten any lunch! While I was waiting on Chris to get ready, I snapped some pictures of AOS following us out of Antigua.

 

 

[pirate4me2]

Upon arriving at the MDR, we found that Liza's section was full, so we couldn't have her for dinner service tonight. :( That's OK, we didn't mind sitting somewhere else, so we ended up in the section next to Liza's. Now, I have a confession to make: my last note for the day was short and simple: Tonight's dinner service was the WORST we have had on any of our cruises. That was my last note for the day. I have no idea what we ate, other than what my 3 pictures tell me. I can say that I ordered the flatbread as an app, as well as a Caesar salad.

 

 

However, my salad was forgotten, until the servers realized it and brought it out with my main course, which I have no idea what that was! We ran out of water, the bottle thing that they keep on the table was never refilled, and service was so painfully slow. I hate to complain, but it really was a bad experience all around. When the time for dessert came, Chris ordered this for his dessert...I think it is Bitter N Blanc?

 

 

I ordered Chocolate Melting Cake, but I somehow ended up with this...

 

 

It was the pumpkin pie, and I like pumpkin pie, so I figured I would just eat it and not worry about it. But oh my gosh....DON'T ORDER IT! I took a bite and wanted to spit it out, it tasted terrible. I set my fork down and we exited the MDR.

Like I said, my notes ended after the comment on dinner service, so I am not sure what we did the rest of the night. I know it was an early night for us as we had an excursion planned that left right when Pride docked in St Maarten at 8 the next day, but I don't know what we did. Sorry for my horrible notes today!

[pirate4me2]

It has come to that time, our very last port of call on our Journeys cruise. Today we were in St Maarten, and the day started early for us. Ginger from our roll call had arranged a group excursion for us with Bernard's Tours, and we were all going to meet in the Sunset Garden at 7:45 to pay her our $5 per person deposit that she had pre paid. Pride was docked and cleared at 8, and we were missing some people, but the rest of us went ahead to where we were told to go pay the remaining $40 per person and get on our buses.

I believe Ginger stayed behind to wait for the missing people, but after a while we were all checked in and paid and they still had not shown.

Now without going into too much detail, let me just say that if you sign up to do a group excursion, and if you cannot make it, don't just be a no show. Let the coordinator know so that they can either find someone else to take your place or work something out with the tour vendor. This whole thing turned into a mess and a very expensive excursion for Ginger, and it was just extremely rude of the 14 people who did not show. Let me just say now that Ginger, I and many other people appreciate you taking the time to arrange this tour! I'm sorry for how things were handled.

Ok, off my soapbox now. The total cost for this excursion was $45 per person, and it was a 5.5 hour tour. We were taken all over the island, from the Dutch side to the French and back to the Dutch, we had two beach breaks, shopping time, and lots and lots of information about the island shared with us. It was a great excursion. Now let me show you some pictures.

 

Random scenery

 

 

 

 

 

[pirate4me2]

 

We had a stop where some guys were feeding iguanas.

 

 

Our first beach stop was Orient Beach, where we had about 1.5 hours to fun in the sun.

 

 

 

The water was clear, although it had quite a bit of seaweed in it. We put our beach bag down next to some friends we had made who rented a beach chair and went to play in the water. There were vendors trying to sell their shirts, skirts, etc., and they could be kind of pushy, but overall I felt it was a very nice stop.

[pirate4me2]

Next we went to Marigot to do some shopping. We had about 30 minutes here, and a bakery called Sarafina's seemed to be highly recommended and popular, so we stopped in there. That place was hopping! To be totally honest, I have NO idea what we ordered, but it was yummy!

 

 

I literally just pointed at those 2 items and said that's what we wanted. All together they came to $9.

We still had a few minutes before we had to be back on the bus, so Chris and I stopped in some of the tents set up to find a Christmas ornament. We found one at the last minute and bought it. Yay, we have an ornament from every port except Grand Turk, where we already had one from!

Next stop, Maho Beach! We had 40 minutes there, and boy, that airport is BUSY! I think 3 or 4 planes came in, and 2 left.

 

 

 

 

We did the tourist thing and stood on the beach as the planes came in and took off. When they take off that sand HURTS! I also got in the water, it felt great, but it drops off QUICK.

After Maho, it was back to the port.

 

 

We had the option of being dropped off downtown to do shopping and either walk or find our own way back to the ship, or we could go right back to the ship. Most of the group chose to just go back to the ship.

[pirate4me2]

We walked around the shops in the port area, then made our way back on board one last time.

 

Pride and Celebrity Reflection

 

 

 

 

 

Silver Wind and Celebrity Eclipse

 

We went to clean up after our day of playing, and then we went to the upper decks to catch sail away.

[pirate4me2]

The two Celebrity ships sailed away first.

 

 

 

 

We went to the Red Frog and played some shuffleboard, then decided at 6:30 to go have dinner. To our surprise, there was no line whatsoever for dinner tonight! We got to sit with Liza again, and after last night's service, hers was even more outstanding than before!

Tonight, I ordered the corn fritters as an appetizer, and they were VERY good. The pineapple salsa that was served with them....oh my. It was fantastic. Let me put that on a Blue Iguana burrito!

 

 

I also ordered not just one, but TWO orders of the shrimp taco appetizers. I adore shrimp tacos, and these did not disappoint! I felt like such a pig ordering two orders of them, and eating both orders completely, but dang...they were SO GOOD.

 

Now, I forgot to take a picture of my main course, sorry guys. I ordered the fried shrimp and fish, and the shrimp was fantastic. The fish however....it was really, really yucky. I heard several other people say the same thing, so I do not think it was just me. The curly fries that came with the dish were undercooked and soggy. So I guess I shouldn't feel too guilty for ordering, and eating, 3 apps tonight, right?

For dessert I went off menu and asked Liza's assistant if there was any way I could just get an order of strawberries and cream. She said she would check, and when she came back with Chris's ice cream and sherbert, she had this for me:

 

 

Mmmm, it was so yummy! The perfect ending to my meal.

We headed to the Red Frog Pub to listen to some live music. There was a jam session going on with Andy, the house band, and another soloist, a female who I think was named Courtney. They all sounded really good, and we spent probably 30 minutes in there listening to them. Then we decided to go see the juggling show in the Taj Mahal. The juggler was good, and we enjoyed it. On our way back to the room we decided to stop by Cherry On Top to get our frog for the frog racing in tomorrow's Throwback Sea Day. There were only 2 left in the bucket, so we got the one we felt would be lucky and win us dinner in the steakhouse. Did our frog live up to our expectations? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

[pirate4me2]

Ok everyone, my plan is to wrap this thing up tomorrow with our final 3 days at sea. I thank you all for hanging in there with me, I will finish the review tomorrow! :)

[aztekpm]

Enjoying your review and looking forward to the finale!:)

[pirate4me2]

Enjoying your review and looking forward to the finale!:)

 

Thanks, I will be finishing it tonight. Then I will have to figure out what else to do to keep my post cruise blues at bay...

[mikechass]

Well that was wonderful! I realize you aren't finished but I have LOOOOVED this review.

Thanks again!

Chass

[pghsteelerfan]

I finally got caught up with your latest installment and want you to know I'm really enjoying your review. I had really wanted to go on this cruise since we can drive to Baltimore but DH didn't have enough vacation time to allow for it. The islands in the southern Caribbean are our favorites. We have done the southern itinerary out of San Juan, twice, recently (2013 and again last September). We were also in Martinique and Dominica on our honeymoon in 1992 and would love to get back to both. I only had a film camera then, not many pictures, so I'm enjoying yours. Thank you for doing the review and looking forward to the rest.

[Crusin Karen]

I finally got caught up with your latest installment and want you to know I'm really enjoying your review. I had really wanted to go on this cruise since we can drive to Baltimore but DH didn't have enough vacation time to allow for it. The islands in the southern Caribbean are our favorites. We have done the southern itinerary out of San Juan, twice, recently (2013 and again last September). We were also in Martinique and Dominica on our honeymoon in 1992 and would love to get back to both. I only had a film camera then, not many pictures, so I'm enjoying yours. Thank you for doing the review and looking forward to the rest.

Holly, just to let you know, Spencer Ambrose in St. Lucia was the HIGHLIGHT of our cruise!!! It was worth every single penny!

[pghsteelerfan]

Holly, just to let you know, Spencer Ambrose in St. Lucia was the HIGHLIGHT of our cruise!!! It was worth every single penny!

 

Hi Karen! That is great and I knew you'd have a wonderful time with Spencer and crew. They really do provide great tours and we've been so happy with both that we did. Which one did you end up doing, the Land, Sea and Beach Adventure? How was the rest of your cruise? It looks like you had great weather. I hope you had a very enjoyable time.

 

Not to "hijack" pirate4me2's review, which I'm really enjoying seeing as how we couldn't do this one ourselves. :)

[Crusin Karen]

Hi Karen! That is great and I knew you'd have a wonderful time with Spencer and crew. They really do provide great tours and we've been so happy with both that we did. Which one did you end up doing, the Land, Sea and Beach Adventure? How was the rest of your cruise? It looks like you had great weather. I hope you had a very enjoyable time.

 

Not to "hijack" pirate4me2's review, which I'm really enjoying seeing as how we couldn't do this one ourselves. :)

Yes, we did the land, sea and beach. They don't serve lunch at the beach anymore, but rather at a "restaurant" and I use the term very loosely! :eek: Food was "okay" but we are not very adventurous eaters, but I remembered what you said about the potato salad and it was yummy! As you can see by Stephanie's pictures, we had perfect weather at all the islands.

[pghsteelerfan]

Yes, we did the land, sea and beach. They don't serve lunch at the beach anymore, but rather at a "restaurant" and I use the term very loosely! :eek: Food was "okay" but we are not very adventurous eaters, but I remembered what you said about the potato salad and it was yummy! As you can see by Stephanie's pictures, we had perfect weather at all the islands.

 

The lunch with Spencer's...I think it depends on how many are on the tours (how large of a crowd) on a particular day whether lunch is served at the beach or at the restaurant. Both times we did the tour, we were the only ship in port, so we didn't have as large of a crowd on the tours we did as they get when it's a large ship or multiple ships in port.

 

Yes, it definitely looks like you had perfect weather in each port, I'm so glad for that. :)