Our Carnival Pride Repo Journeys Cruise (with pics) - 2/26/17

[Crusin Karen]

Do not worry, sir, we all appreciate the fine details of your itinerary. I love the reviews with all the pre-cruise trips and flights and out to eats and wanderings. Please feel free to post all that you do. I have been following you for quite some time and am always entertained. I am new to cruising and an avid traveler and I research all there is to do, so I understand the detail you go into. Thank you so much!

(y):D:D

[aztekpm]

What day do you sail? We are on the Pride 9/23-9/30.

 

This Sep 10 - 17 and Nov 4 - 18, 2018 Journey Cruise. Sailed her last year to Bermuda and love sailing from Baltimore, easy & cheap to get to from Toronto area.

[sammee]

Wow, I'm going to be following this. I wanted to do this cruise, BUT, work gets in the way. We'll be seeing the Pride again May 27th. I'll be reading your review, you definitely do the best.

[sararebekahquinn]

I have been waiting for this for months! So looking forward to another review from you. In 2015, before we went on the Fascination, I obsessed over your review. And, in August, we get to go on the Pride!! Thank you for all of the details and the awesome review to come!

[KPfromCT]

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So excited to see this posted here, today!!!!

Patty looks SO relaxed. Hope you two had an AMAZING cruise!!!

I am here for the duration, and am patiently awaiting the next installment!!!:D:')

[Delta Dear]

Hi Jeff, Always excited to see you have a new review. I had several friends on that cruise, so I've been enjoying some of their posts on Facebook during the cruise. How I wish we'd been along too, but we just returned from NCL Epic cruise with family members. Hubby wants to do the Panama Canal so I' m reading all of these reviews with interest. Can't wait to read your review.

 

Tell Patti congratulations on her retirement. I know she is enjoying it.

[Crusin Karen]

This Sep 10 - 17 and Nov 4 - 18, 2018 Journey Cruise. Sailed her last year to Bermuda and love sailing from Baltimore, easy & cheap to get to from Toronto area.

My bad....we will be on the Sunshine that week (9/23-9/30) We are going to be on Pride 1/7-1/21/18. Also a Journeys cruise. We did a B2B on her 2 years ago and a Journeys cruise on her last March (sailed out 3/13/16!!) She is a great ship and yes, Baltimore is an easy port to sail out of.

[Namelocg]

Yeah, another Jamman review to keep me occupied for the 6 weeks till my transatlantic. 14 nights, Ft Lauderdale to Barcelona, unfortunately not on Carnival.

Gale

[Patty421]

We had a few friends on your sailing. Loving the review so far. We are also from NJ but have never sailed from Baltimore. Not sure why. I'm sure we will get around to it one day.

[Jamman54]

We board the pride on 4/30, love all of your reviews. Looking forward to all of your commentary and pictures.

 

Thanks for following along! Enjoy your cruise on the Pride.

(y)(y) Cannot WAIT to read this! Even tho I am sure I will be kicking myself that I did not book it as I had originally planned to. And I ordered tomorrow's blizzard special so you could have another day off to work on your review! ;):D

 

Hey Karry!! Thanks for coming along for the ride once again. Wish you could have booked this one with us. Thanks for the blizzard and the day off from work! :D

[Jamman54]

Do not worry, sir, we all appreciate the fine details of your itinerary. I love the reviews with all the pre-cruise trips and flights and out to eats and wanderings. Please feel free to post all that you do. I have been following you for quite some time and am always entertained. I am new to cruising and an avid traveler and I research all there is to do, so I understand the detail you go into. Thank you so much!

 

Thanks for all of your kind words, and glad to have you aboard with us!

Wow, I'm going to be following this. I wanted to do this cruise, BUT, work gets in the way. We'll be seeing the Pride again May 27th. I'll be reading your review, you definitely do the best.

 

Sorry you couldn't swing this cruise, but glad you have a cruise on the Pride to look forward to. Thanks for following along.

[Jamman54]

I have been waiting for this for months! So looking forward to another review from you. In 2015, before we went on the Fascination, I obsessed over your review. And, in August, we get to go on the Pride!! Thank you for all of the details and the awesome review to come!

 

Thanks for following along once again, and for your kind words. You will enjoy your cruise on the Pride.

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So excited to see this posted here, today!!!!

Patty looks SO relaxed. Hope you two had an AMAZING cruise!!!

I am here for the duration, and am patiently awaiting the next installment!!!:D:')

 

ALWAYS glad to have you along for the ride!!! Thanks once again for reading!!! :D

[Jamman54]

Hi Jeff, Always excited to see you have a new review. I had several friends on that cruise, so I've been enjoying some of their posts on Facebook during the cruise. How I wish we'd been along too, but we just returned from NCL Epic cruise with family members. Hubby wants to do the Panama Canal so I' m reading all of these reviews with interest. Can't wait to read your review.

Tell Patti congratulations on her retirement. I know she is enjoying it.

 

Hey Jane!!! Hope you had a great cruise on the Epic. Patti is really enjoying her retirement. Thanks for joining us once again!!

Yeah, another Jamman review to keep me occupied for the 6 weeks till my transatlantic. 14 nights, Ft Lauderdale to Barcelona, unfortunately not on Carnival.

Gale

 

Glad to have you along for the ride once again. Enjoy your TA cruise!

[Jamman54]

We had a few friends on your sailing. Loving the review so far. We are also from NJ but have never sailed from Baltimore. Not sure why. I'm sure we will get around to it one day.

 

Thanks for reading. You really should give the Pride a try!

[nat_mychelle]

I've been waiting for this review! So excited to continue reading it! We will be on the Pride April 2nd!!!

[Jamman54]

I've been waiting for this review! So excited to continue reading it! We will be on the Pride April 2nd!!!

 

Thanks for reading! More coming up shortly.

[Jamman54]

Once off the plane we made our way to baggage claim, claimed our bags, and then made a call to the Bay Harbor Hotel to have their shuttle pick us up.

While we are waiting for the shuttle to arrive, now would be a good time to explain why we are staying at the Bay Harbor Hotel. Our roll call leader gingerma had negotiated a very good group rate with the hotel, and I mean a VERY GOOD group rate! It saved us a good amount of money. She was responsible for 163 rooms being booked at this hotel. She also arranged for shuttles to get over 200 people to the pier on Sunday. This was a tremendous amount of work for her to take on, so THANK YOU gingerma!!!! On top of that, she is such a lovely, charming lady. Here are Ginger and I in the hotel lobby…..

 

Now I just want to say right up front, that any negative comments made by me or any other posters concerning the hotel and / or shuttle service, have NOTHING to do with gingerma, and EVERYTHING to do with the hotel and the shuttle providers. I just wanted to make that point perfectly clear in advance.

The shuttle arrived in about 20 minutes, and along with several other people we arrived at the Bay Harbor Hotel just before noon…..

 

Though we had requested early check-in, our room was not yet ready. It was here that we met our first roll call members, KrusinKris and her husband Ken. They had also requested early check-in, but their room also was not ready. The girl behind the desk suggested that we go have lunch and return at 1:30. No problem, so we made our way to the Beach Bar & Grill……

 

They had seating both inside and outside, but we chose to sit inside…….

 

Here I am having my first beer in Tampa…..

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

Here we are at lunch……

 

We had a very nice lunch with great service. Since we had a little time to kill, Patti went around taking some shots of the Bay side of the hotel…..

 

To be continued……

[Jamman54]

We went back to the front desk at 1:30 and asked the guy manning the desk if our room was ready yet. He rudely said “check-in time is 3:00pm!” When I explained to him that we had requested early check-in, and that we were told to come back at 1:30, he became even ruder. “Check-in time is 3:00pm Sir”. Okay, so we took a seat in the lobby to wait. There were quite a few people there in the same situation as us.

What made it even more frustrating was watching people getting off the shuttle, walking up to the desk, and getting their rooms. I even saw a guy with no reservation walk up to the desk and get a room. KrusinKris and Ken had gotten their room. What’s going on?

Then I noticed that those people that were waiting with us still had their luggage on luggage carts. We were told we had to take our luggage off our cart and store them in a room behind the front desk when we went to lunch. So now, when we finally do get a room, there will be no luggage carts available!

Magically at 3:00pm all rooms were ready. Of course there was now a huge line of people waiting to check-in, but fortunately we were up front. Their check-in process was extremely slow, taking a good 10 to 15 minutes for each room. Finally with room keys in hand, it took another 10 minutes for someone to get our luggage out of the back room.

Since there were no luggage carts available, we had to drag our luggage around the corner to the elevators. We got on an empty elevator and pushed the button for the 6th floor. These elevators were real slow. It seemed to take forever for us to reach our destination. We reached the 6th floor, the doors “dinged”, but did not open. Patti pushed the “open door” button several times, nothing. She pushed the “6” button several times, nothing. It seems like we are stuck in the elevator! Patti thought we should try to go back down, so she pushed the “5” button. The doors opened. Needless to say, this elevator would be out of service for the next day and a half. Not good, since now there was only one elevator to service the entire hotel!

We were in Room 607 on the City Side. The room was functional, but outdated. I understand that they are currently updating rooms, but ours was not…..

The drain in our bathroom sink would back up if you ran the water for more than 5 seconds. Several calls to the Front Desk resulted in nothing being done for the three days that we stayed there. Hey, send up a bottle of Drano and I’ll pour it in myself!

 

We were very tired since we were up at 2:30 this morning, so we napped until it was time to go to dinner. We decided to just go to the Beach Bar & Grill again. We went outside just in time to catch this beautiful sunset over the Bay…..

 

To be continued……

[canadaman111]

Very excited for you review. I love these long in depth reviews!!

[ItsAllAboutTheSass]

Once off the plane we made our way to baggage claim, claimed our bags, and then made a call to the Bay Harbor Hotel to have their shuttle pick us up.

 

While we are waiting for the shuttle to arrive, now would be a good time to explain why we are staying at the Bay Harbor Hotel. Our roll call leader gingerma had negotiated a very good group rate with the hotel, and I mean a VERY GOOD group rate! It saved us a good amount of money. She was responsible for 163 rooms being booked at this hotel. She also arranged for shuttles to get over 200 people to the pier on Sunday. This was a tremendous amount of work for her to take on, so THANK YOU gingerma!!!! On top of that, she is such a lovely, charming lady. Here are Ginger and I in the hotel lobby…..

 

 

Now I just want to say right up front, that any negative comments made by me or any other posters concerning the hotel and / or shuttle service, have NOTHING to do with gingerma, and EVERYTHING to do with the hotel and the shuttle providers. I just wanted to make that point perfectly clear in advance.

 

The shuttle arrived in about 20 minutes, and along with several other people we arrived at the Bay Harbor Hotel just before noon…..

 

Though we had requested early check-in, our room was not yet ready. It was here that we met our first roll call members, KrusinKris and her husband Ken. They had also requested early check-in, but their room also was not ready. The girl behind the desk suggested that we go have lunch and return at 1:30. No problem, so we made our way to the Beach Bar & Grill……

 

They had seating both inside and outside, but we chose to sit inside…….

 

Here I am having my first beer in Tampa…..

 

To be continued……

 

I'm really looking forward to this. Taking my GF on her first cuise on 5/21 on the Pride. It will be my first time on her (the Pride that is), since the 2.0 upgrades. I have a feeling this pic is going to be a recurring theme....

[jimbri]

Looking forward to another great review!!

[Jamman54]

Here are a couple more sunset pictures…….

 

We had a great dinner. Here we are with drinks in hand toasting the start of a great vacation……..

 

Afterwards, we just went upstairs and crashed. Tomorrow, we will explore Tampa by land and sea.

To be continued……

[pe4all]

Loving reading this review on a snowy, snowy day day here on Long Island. Especially interested in hearing about the Panama Canal partial transit! This cruise is on my bucket list.

[Jamman54]

Very excited for you review. I love these long in depth reviews!!

 

Thanks for following along!

I'm really looking forward to this. Taking my GF on her first cuise on 5/21 on the Pride. It will be my first time on her (the Pride that is), since the 2.0 upgrades. I have a feeling this pic is going to be a recurring theme....

 

Thanks for reading. You will love the Pride with the 2.0 upgrades!