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Live Carnival Pride April 24, 2022 Tampa to Barcelona

Newly Retired Teachers
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Newly Retired Teachers "Live from...." Rare

Newly Retired Teachers

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CC Help Jenn
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""Thanks for generously sharing your time at sea with everyone at Cruise Critic!""

Newly Retired Teachers was awarded the badge '"Live from...."'

We will be boarding the Carnival Pride on Sunday, April 24th for a 14 day transatlantic repositioning, from Tampa to Barcelona.  My last cruise on Carnival Cruise Line was in June of 1985, aboard the Tropicale, for a Mexican Riviera cruise.  This will be the first Carnival cruise for my husband.  There are only 4 scheduled ports along the way (Bermuda, Ponta Delgada, Malaga and Valencia), but we love sea days!  The ports of Malaga and Valencia are both new for us, and we look forward to seeing these cities along with a tour out to the Alhambra from Malaga.  Please follow along as we share our experiences along the way.  Please feel free to ask questions about our trip that you think we might be able to answer.   

 

We chose this cruise because of a fantastic Casinos offer, and it fit in our calendar.  If you look at our Cruise Critic Signature, you'll see that we are crazily  booked through March of next year.  Most of our cruise choices have been on Holland America and NCL.  We did our first "Live" Topic (blog) during our first post COVID cruise in February, 2022 on board the Koningsdam, Hawaii roundtrip from San Diego.  It was fun to post, and to interact with other cruisers.

 

The COVID-19 procedures for this cruise require vaccinations, and a Booster if it's been more than 6 months since your last regular injection.  We also needed to apply for a Travel Authorization from Bermuda ($40 pp), and upload vaccine and testing results to Bermuda, and to Carnival using the VeriFly app.  The mask orders will still be in place for embarkation and the flight to Tampa.

 

Our journey for this trip will begin on Saturday, when we fly to Tampa one day before the cruise.  

 

Bob & Steve (Palm Springs, CA)

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airlink diva

airlink diva

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Enjoy yourself!

Just got off of her Sunday and overall a wonderful cruise.  The steakhouse was above par and I love having my drinks there because bar never was busy and after day one, knew what I like!

Love the secret garden area.  Best place to read, do puzzles and reflect.

 

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Newly Retired Teachers "Live from...." Rare

Newly Retired Teachers

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We think we have a handle on most things we need to know before we leave for Tampa on Saturday.  Based on the latest emails from Carnival, and in order to comply with CDC, and Bermuda, we can do our first COVID-19 test 3 days prior to sailing, so that means as early as Thursday.  Then we need to upload our negative test results to Carnival and to Bermuda for their Travel Authorization ($40 pp).  We can then complete our Health Questions.  We have been advised that all passengers will also be tested again prior to boarding, so we have signed our testing consent forms to take with us.  We are not complaining, but just sharing what our experiences are.  Today, by email, we received a free wine offer if we book the Steakhouse for the first night out, or the first "Cruise Elegant Night" (there will be two).  We have decided to book the Steakhouse for the first Cruise Elegant Night, but the date for that night is a mystery to all so far.  LOL.  It's not listed in our cruise documents, and Carnival's website states that it should be the 2nd or 3rd night out, but that doesn't help us to know which night to book.  We'll keep you posted when we find out.  I've been on the phone with Carnival for over 45 minutes and just found out that it should be the second night out.  See the things you can spend time on when you retire!  LOL

Bob & Steve

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Newly Retired Teachers "Live from...." Rare

Newly Retired Teachers

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Boarding the ship in Tampa went pretty smoothly considering. . .  The Carnival Pride looks better in person than it does in pictures.  It really is a great layout for spreading out the passengers.  We were told to expect a little over 1700 passengers, but that number reduces to about 1640 when we sailed away Sunday night.

We have experienced two special dining opportunities so far, and they were both wonderful.  David's Steakhouse, with its fig leaf covered huge statue of David, was worth the $38 pp.  We had a free bottle of wine because who chose to dine on the first formal night.  Then we were completely blown away by what we experienced during the Chef's Table.  Champagne, white and red wines flowed as we experienced course after course of gourmet presentations and tastes.  They converted Beauties Nightclub for the event, which lasted a full 3 hours.  There were almost as many chefs and servers as there were guests (16 passengers our night).  $75 pp may seem high, but since everything exceeding our expectations, it was well worth it.  We would definitely splurge on it again.

Our cabin, #5111 is a forward, extra large balcony.  The cabin seems larger than normal too.  Although dated in some ways, it is very comfortable and has plenty of storage.

Carnival seems to be pulling out all the stops to celebrate their 50th birthday, and they are offering many retro experiences from their past 5 decades.  We really weren't sure about being on the cruise, and we try not to compare to our other cruise line experiences, but we are enjoying every day, the staff and crew are great, and have no regrets in booking this cruise.

Yesterday we were in Bermuda and the weather cleared for a perfect day.  Gotta run to dinner now.

Bob & Steve

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kwokpot

kwokpot

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1 hour ago, Newly Retired Teachers said:

Boarding the ship in Tampa went pretty smoothly considering. . .  The Carnival Pride looks better in person than it does in pictures.  It really is a great layout for spreading out the passengers.  We were told to expect a little over 1700 passengers, but that number reduces to about 1640 when we sailed away Sunday night.

We have experienced two special dining opportunities so far, and they were both wonderful.  David's Steakhouse, with its fig leaf covered huge statue of David, was worth the $38 pp.  We had a free bottle of wine because who chose to dine on the first formal night.  Then we were completely blown away by what we experienced during the Chef's Table.  Champagne, white and red wines flowed as we experienced course after course of gourmet presentations and tastes.  They converted Beauties Nightclub for the event, which lasted a full 3 hours.  There were almost as many chefs and servers as there were guests (16 passengers our night).  $75 pp may seem high, but since everything exceeding our expectations, it was well worth it.  We would definitely splurge on it again.

Our cabin, #5111 is a forward, extra large balcony.  The cabin seems larger than normal too.  Although dated in some ways, it is very comfortable and has plenty of storage.

Carnival seems to be pulling out all the stops to celebrate their 50th birthday, and they are offering many retro experiences from their past 5 decades.  We really weren't sure about being on the cruise, and we try not to compare to our other cruise line experiences, but we are enjoying every day, the staff and crew are great, and have no regrets in booking this cruise.

Yesterday we were in Bermuda and the weather cleared for a perfect day.  Gotta run to dinner now.

Bob & Steve

Thanks for the update. On another thread I ask about Covid issues and testing for b2b Europe cruises ( I'll be on 2b2b2b starting May  19th to June 19th) and someone responded there hasn't been any mention of Covid cases and no word on B2B testing. Care to share any other information you know on either topic?

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kwokpot

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43 minutes ago, Clairescurtains said:

Please keep posting, there are lots of us on the ship in the next few months and are dying to hear all about it.

Yes! Just checked in for the May 19th sailing. Chose the 11:30-12:00 timeslot. We're on an Carnival Casino Elite sailing offer, so private transfers are included. Confirmed an 11:00am pickup from our Barcelona hotel. 

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kwokpot

kwokpot

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6 minutes ago, victory2020 said:

I thought I read somewhere that Carnival built their own cruise terminal in Barcelona?

Why would they do that? They only have one old ship that sails in Europe. Royal and Celebrity have multiple ships sailing in Europe and they don't have their own cruise terminal in Barcelona.

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jslev9

jslev9

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10 hours ago, kwokpot said:

Why would they do that? They only have one old ship that sails in Europe. Royal and Celebrity have multiple ships sailing in Europe and they don't have their own cruise terminal in Barcelona.

Carnival Corp. built the new terminal so it's open to all eight of Carnival's lines that sail to Barcelona (especially important since six of Carnival's lines used Barcelona as a home port for some or all of the year when the new terminal opened in 2018). This is actually Carnival Corp.'s second terminal they own in Barcelona.

 

Source: https://www.ship-technology.com/news/carnival-opens-cruise-terminal-port-barcelona-spain/

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kwokpot

kwokpot

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2 hours ago, jslev9 said:

Carnival Corp. built the new terminal so it's open to all eight of Carnival's lines that sail to Barcelona (especially important since six of Carnival's lines used Barcelona as a home port for some or all of the year when the new terminal opened in 2018). This is actually Carnival Corp.'s second terminal they own in Barcelona.

 

Source: https://www.ship-technology.com/news/carnival-opens-cruise-terminal-port-barcelona-spain/

Thank you for this information. I'm surprised it wasn't listed in the other Barcelona Port link.

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Newly Retired Teachers "Live from...." Rare

Newly Retired Teachers

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We arrived in Barcelona this morning about 5:30 am.  Disembarkation went quickly and smoothly.  We were off the ship, right after all the unassisted passengers left.  The terminal we arrived at seemed very new, and customs and baggage were the easiest ever.  There was a marathon in the city this morning, but the cab navigated a way around the street closures just fine to get us to our friends home.  It's nice to have internet again.  I'll post more a little bit later.

Bob

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