Matt & Ashley's Carnival Pride Review - (New Year's, Pictures, FunTimes)

[terri1020]

I'm loving your review and your writing style. We've been on the Pride several times. It's one of our favorite ships. We'll be on her again March 12th. Looking forward to the rest of your review!

[adam3313]

Here are some closeups of a blackjack table, for those that are interested. I was disappointed to see that the blackjack tables pay 6:5 on a blackjack, unless you want to go up to the $25 table. It also bothers me that the minimum on some of the 6:5 tables is $6.

 

 

And here’s a closeup of the craps table. Whenever I walked by, the minimum was always $5. I had read in a previous review that it went up to $10 when it was busy, which may have happened, but I didn’t ever see it.

 

 

Are you sure that it was 6:5 Blackjack at all tables other than $25 min? I know the $6 minimum tables usually are, but in November you could still play 3:2 at a $10 table....

[DCCruiser1013]

Following! Great start to the review!

 

 

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Thanks for reading!

 

Great review! Love your pictures and writing style!

The Pride was our first cruise, well, theoretically our second, but first after a looooooooooong hiatus.:D:D

 

Patiently waiting for more......Thanks for taking the time to do this.:D

 

I'm happy to do it! Thanks for reading.

 

I love this. Thanks for taking us along for the ride.

 

I'm glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for reading!

 

wow to that holiday village! incredible art.

 

Yep, it's pretty impressive.

 

Following along, enjoying your pictures and I love the Pride! I haven't been on her since the 2.0 upgrades. she looks really nice.

 

Yep. She's still a beautiful ship. Thanks for reading!

[DCCruiser1013]

Great review so far! I have 96 days to go until I am on the Pride. I will follow along.

 

Looks like you need a countdown of your own! Have a great time!

 

great review!! We are on the Pride out of Tampa on 01/15 and Love seeing the pictures.

 

She's on her way to you! Enjoy your cruise!

 

I'm loving your review and your writing style. We've been on the Pride several times. It's one of our favorite ships. We'll be on her again March 12th. Looking forward to the rest of your review!

 

Have a great time!

 

Are you sure that it was 6:5 Blackjack at all tables other than $25 min? I know the $6 minimum tables usually are, but in November you could still play 3:2 at a $10 table....

 

Unfortunately, yeah I'm sure. I took more pictures of the blackjack tables, but the signs didn't come out clear, but when I was taking pictures I did notice that the $10 tables were also 6:5. When I was playing the dealer accidentally paid me 3:2 on one blackjack, but then on a later one paid me 6:5.

[DCCruiser1013]

Alright everyone, I'm back at it.

 

Once we finished walking around the lower decks, we decided to go see if our luggage had arrived yet. Sure enough, it had, so we brought out suitcases in. Here’s a quick tour of Carnival Pride’s stateroom 7200. Once again, please keep in mind these pictures were not taken on embarkation day. We were already pretty well settled in by the time we took them.

This is the view when you first enter, it’s a standard balcony stateroom.

 

 

Our door hangers

 

 

The couch with our stuff on it

 

 

The desk area with the older television. We had the usual one plug and we didn’t bring any power strips, so Ashley and I took turns charging our phones.

 

 

 

This bed was so comfortable. The mattress is a little more firm than the one we have at home, and I love it. I slept like a rock every night.

 

[DCCruiser1013]

And a couple more things in the stateroom, here is the refrigerator, which I actually thought kept things nice and adequately chilled.

 

 

And our room service menus

 

 

 

[DCCruiser1013]

And here’s the balcony. Don’t be fooled by the industrial background, folks, this ain’t Baltimore.

 

 

This is an extended balcony, which I think adds an extra 18 inches (I could be wrong about the exact figure). The upcharge to go to an extended balcony is worth it for me. I love the extra legroom it provides, and it allows us to enter and exit the balcony without crawling over each other.

 

 

[DCCruiser1013]

We decided to run down to Deck 2 to put the gift cards we had purchased onto our account. I brought them to the kiosk just outside the casino, but they would not scan. This meant I had to bring them to guest services. Luckily there was no line, but unfortunately this was not a quick process. Each gift card took about 30-45 seconds to process, and I had 7 of them. Nelly at guest services was very kind and patient about getting them all onto our account, but she had to notice the line was growing behind me. Eventually we got all the gift cards up, and headed back to the room to put them in the safe. If you ended up being in line behind me during this time, sorry about that.

 

We hung out in the room for a bit, when our stateroom steward, knocked on the door. He welcomed us back, and was very friendly. He asked what our preference was as far as service, morning, evening, or both. He seemed almost reluctant to offer both, but that’s what we wanted, and he said it was no problem. He did say he would start servicing the room the next day, which was fine with us.

 

Soon after it was time to muster. It was a pleasant change to stand out there in the cold, as I will take cold over blistering heat any day. It didn’t seem to take very long, which was nice. The only annoying thing was the folks that showed up a little after we did, and no more than 30 seconds later started loudly complaining, accusing everyone that walked by of being late.

 

Immediately after the muster drill we moved away from the pier and were underway, down the Patapsco River towards the Chesapeake Bay. See you in a week Baltimore!

 

 

Normally my review would include at least a dozen pictures of Fort McHenry, as the Pride sails right by it, and it is an important part of American history. Alas, it was too dark to get a good picture of the fort.

[DCCruiser1013]

We had some time before dinner, so I took some time to purchase the Value internet package. The cost for the entire cruise was $72. We primarily used the internet service for email, which worked pretty well. For regular internet, it was a little spotty. When everyone on the ship was using the internet, it was slow. When the ship was empty, though, the internet was about as fast as it is at home.

 

While we’re talking about internet, we did use the Hub App. We went into the cruise a little skeptical about it, but it honestly worked great. It lets you favorite activities throughout the ship, then reminds you 15 minutes before they begin. It also provides open times for the various restaurants, bars and shops. Here are a few screenshots:

 

 

[DCCruiser1013]

We also purchased the chat feature. This functionality was definitely spotty. If one of us happened to not have wifi connection, any message the other sent would never go through. On the app, you can set a picture to be your avatar in the chat feature. Never taking anything seriously, and taking advantage of the Renaissance theme of the ship, Ashley set this lovely lady to be her avatar:

 

 

Not to be outdone, I set this gentleman to be my avatar:

 

 

 

Here's a fun little activity: If you are ever on the Pride, and can identify exactly where this gentleman is to me, I will buy you a 101 oz. tube of Thirsty Frog or a drink from the Alchemy Bar if we are ever on the same cruise.

[DCCruiser1013]

After we purchased the internet package, we headed down to the Taste Bar to get a little pre-dinner snack. Tonight’s featured Carnival eatery was David’s Steakhouse, and they were serving short rib croquettes. We snacked on those and wandered into the sports bar to watch the Maryland Football Team’s bowl game against Boston College. I had high hopes for Maryland going into this game, but they were pretty disappointing. This made it easier to head over for dinner, as 5:45 was fast approaching.

 

The menus that I took pictures of were posted behind glass outside the dining room every day. Because of the glass, some of the menus are going to have a glare on them, but they should still be pretty readable. Here are the menus for the first evening.

 

 

[DCCruiser1013]

The whole day, I was very happy to be on vacation, but I don’t think it was until we sat down for dinner where I really got excited about the week ahead.

 

Ashley got the heart of lettuce salad and fried calamari for starters. I got the soft shell crab and a Caesar salad. We both asked for the barbequed beef brisket, but it wasn’t available, so I got the fried shrimp, and Ashley got the roasted chicken. Ashley wasn’t crazy about starting a cruise with roasted chicken, but she said it was surprisingly really good. She really liked the sausage stuffing that came with the chicken. The fried shrimp were really good too. I’m pretty sure they used to be called sweet & sour shrimp. For dessert Ashley got the Nutella tiramisu, while I got the chocolate melting cake. Ashley said the tiramisu was good, and I’ll just go ahead and say that whoever made the chocolate melting cake this cruise was on their game. I got it a lot, and it was great each time. I also want to take some time to point out that our wait staff, led by head waiter Adrian, was excellent for the whole cruise.

 

After dinner we went back to the fun shops to purchase this little guy. We bought one on our last cruise on the Glory, and have wanted a Pride counterpart to join the Glory on our refrigerator ever since.

 

[DCCruiser1013]

Afterwards we kept moving forward and stopped in the Red Frog Pub to check out the house band Adiktion. We hung out for a few minutes, Adiktion was pretty good. Then we headed up the stairs to get ourselves established in the Piano Bar. We could only stay for a few minutes, because we were headed to the Welcome Aboard show at 9:45. This would be our introduction to our CD: Steve. The Welcome Aboard show has always been a must-do for Ashley and me, but the new format of the shows is making it less imperative. I swear we usually aren't picky about entertainment, but in the future we may find something else to do during the Welcome Aboard show.

 

Overall, we like Steve as a CD, and can really appreciate his dry sense of humor. Immediately after the Welcome Aboard show, we headed down to Butterflies to see the comedian, Jason Andors, whom we were not crazy about. Most of his shtick just annoyed us. We’re pretty open minded about comedians, but Jason wasn’t doing it for us.

 

At this point it was getting a little late, so we headed on off to bed. To our surprise, our steward had actually visited, just to drop off our FunTimes for Tuesday, and this little guy showed up.

 

 

Coming this evening (hopefully): Our first day at sea!

Edited January 4, 2017 by DCCruiser1013

[TracyESQ]

Thanks for your review! The Pride was my first cruise with my now husband back in 2005. Your pictures are making me nostalgic for that vacation and I can see those parts of the ship where I remember taking pictures ourselves. Looking forward to reading the rest and possibly considering the Pride again.

 

We just sailed on the Sunshine in October to Saint John and it was lovely. I hope you enjoy it.

[nicole9s]

Really enjoying your review!

 

We're looking to sail on the Pride next year, so I look forward to hearing as much as I can about the ship and the itinerary!

 

Thanks for taking the time to share!

 

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[DCCruiser1013]

Day 2 – Tuesday December 27 – First Day at Sea

 

 

 

Except for a few parts, the pictures are going to slow down for the remainder of the review.

 

We woke up at around 7am, as the Pride was just rounding Cape Hatteras. As the ship was headed south, and our cabin was on the port side (facing east), we thought we’d be able to get a decent sunrise, but it was too cloudy. The ocean still looked beautiful.

 

[DCCruiser1013]

We headed up to Lido to get ourselves some breakfast burritos and bring them back to the room. On this cruise we definitely took advantage of Blue Iguana Cantina being almost directly 2 decks above our room. Ashley and I give their breakfast burritos two thumbs up. The only iffy thing about them are their meat options. Basically you’ve got chicken sausage or ham strips. For this burrito we both got chicken sausage. GET THE POTATOES. They make the burrito nice and crunchy. Oh man I want one right now.

 

Afterwards Ashley went up to the gym, while I decided to hang out on the balcony. The ocean was already starting to churn a little more.

 

 

The ocean was a little rough for the majority of our cruise, particularly the first couple sea days, and while we were en route from Grand Turk to Half Moon Cay. While we never felt sick, we did see a couple of people getting sick, and these were available at all of the elevators.

 

 

I decided to go down and hang out in the atrium for a little bit. So I went down, found a comfy chair and did a crossword puzzle. Ashley kept me posted on her progress in the gym via the Hub app’s chat feature. We met back up in the room just before 9:30.

[DCCruiser1013]

At 9:30 was the Morning Show with Steve, which was live in the Taj Mahal. Afterwards Ashley and I just strolled around the ship. We played cards in the Sunset Garden for a bit, then headed up to Blue Iguana for tacos, which we enjoyed with a plate of fries from Guy’s.

 

A goal on our cruise was to win a ship on a stick. We had never won one on any of our previous cruises, and we were hellbent on bringing one home on this trip. Our first trivia session was Harry Potter trivia at 12:45, so we headed down a little early to get our first black and white milkshake of the cruise. The previous trivia session (Trivial Pursuit) was pretty packed, and most of those folks stayed for Harry Potter.

 

Ashley is a huge Harry Potter fan, where I enjoy it in small doses. A few questions in I realized it was going to take a while, and asked Ashley if she minded me going to play some blackjack while she kept going with the trivia. She ended up getting 25/32 correct (one question was worth 7 points), and I think she reported that the people who won got everything right. There were folks there in Harry Potter clothes - they were definitely dressed for the occasion.

 

I ended up losing some at blackjack, then I headed over to the craps table and lost some more. There was only one other guy at the craps table who was giving the dealers hell about the dice being “rigged” to only bring up 7’s (which, most of the time, is not what you want to see). When he started talking to me about it, I suggested he bet the Don’t (which is like betting on 7, but not a lot of people do that). He stopped complaining after that. Never

changed his bet, though.

 

When we got up this morning, it was still a tad chilly, so I had on jeans and a hockey jersey. Eventually it got pretty warm, so we went up to the room so I could put on shorts. We decided to enjoy the new warm air on the balcony, but at 2pm our room Steward came by for the early room service, so Ashley and I decided to go up to Lido for some margaritas.

 

Because we had way too much time to plan the cruise, in the months before we decided to make a checklist of all the bars on the cruise and try to visit each one. That fell by the wayside once we came aboard, but we still made an effort to go to the themed ones. Ashley and I enjoyed our margaritas from Blue Iguana over by the window looking out to the ocean. By the way, a tour of the top decks is going to be coming later.

Edited January 5, 2017 by DCCruiser1013

[DCCruiser1013]

We headed back to the stateroom to see that it had been made up, but our steward may have forgotten that I asked for ice. I called room service to have a bucket delivered, and when we left for dinner that evening I left a note asking for him to keep it full, which he did for the remainder of the cruise.

 

Tonight was a Cruise Elegant evening, so Ashley and I got dressed up and headed down for to the Taste Bar for the pre-dinner snack. Today’s featured eatery was Bonsai Sushi, and I did not partake.

 

Carnival pulled a fast one on us on this cruise. Traditionally, Ashley and I go to David’s Steakhouse during the second elegant evening, because that evening’s MDR menu just doesn’t really appeal to us. Because of the timing with New Year’s on this cruise, Carnival went ahead and switched the menus, which meant that the menu that we anticipated to be on the first elegant evening was moved back to New Year’s.

 

 

Sorry about the glare on the dessert menu.

 

 

Ashley got the crab cake and stuffed mushrooms to start, while I got the crab cake and shrimp cocktail. For our entrees we both got the duo of filet mignon and shrimp. We both finished off with the melting cake.

[DCCruiser1013]

We got out of dinner in time to go back to the room and change, and head down to the Taj Mahal for the 8:15 88 Keys show. Other than the Welcome Aboard Show, this was the only Playlist Production show that we went to. They just aren’t as good as the previous types of shows with the live bands and 2 main singers. 88 Keys wasn’t bad, though. Before the show Brad (the Piano Bar entertainer) warmed up the crowd and mentioned that we could vote on what the final song would be. The options were Tutti Frutti (Little Richard), I’m Still Standing (Elton John), and something by Rod Stewart. We voted for I’m Still Standing, but the winner was Tutti Frutti. We were wondering if that song ever loses. Anyone?

 

Immediately after 88 Keys, we went to the Red Frog Pub for a while to watch Adiktion, then headed down to Butterflies to see the other comedian, Paul Lyons. He was slightly funnier than the previous guy, and certainly less annoying.

 

Afterwards we decided to call it a night, so we went upstairs, and kicked the dog off the bed.

 

 

Coming either later tonight or tomorrow afternoon, our second day at sea!

[riclop]

Thanks for the review.

[lsbgvaguy]

Great review, thanks! We live in Leesburg and haven't done the Pride yet. We're looking at booking July 2018 and January 2019 on her and your review is helping seal the deal!

 

 

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[norwane]

Great review! We are on the Pride in 10 days, so I love seeing all of the pictures. Since we will be sailing out of Tampa, I wonder if the menus and fun times will be different?

 

Thanks for the review and keep up the great work! :)

[DCCruiser1013]

Thanks for your review! The Pride was my first cruise with my now husband back in 2005. Your pictures are making me nostalgic for that vacation and I can see those parts of the ship where I remember taking pictures ourselves. Looking forward to reading the rest and possibly considering the Pride again.

 

We just sailed on the Sunshine in October to Saint John and it was lovely. I hope you enjoy it.

 

I'm glad you're enjoying it, thanks for reading! We're definitely looking forward to the Sunshine, we just wish it was a longer cruise. It was nice having something else booked when we got off the Pride.

 

Really enjoying your review!

 

We're looking to sail on the Pride next year, so I look forward to hearing as much as I can about the ship and the itinerary!

 

Thanks for taking the time to share!

 

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Have fun, the Pride is a great ship!

 

Thanks for the review.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Great review, thanks! We live in Leesburg and haven't done the Pride yet. We're looking at booking July 2018 and January 2019 on her and your review is helping seal the deal!

 

 

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Hey there neighbor! That's great, we highly recommend the Pride.

 

Great review! We are on the Pride in 10 days, so I love seeing all of the pictures. Since we will be sailing out of Tampa, I wonder if the menus and fun times will be different?

 

Thanks for the review and keep up the great work! :)

 

Thanks! I imagine some things will be different, perhaps similar activities but rearranged to fit the new itineraries. I'd suspect the menus will be the same, except for the Port of Call menus. I could be wrong though. Have a great time!

[Clarea]

Really great photos, enjoying the review.:)