Carnival Pride Trip Report - LIVE UPDATES - June 10, 2022 - Norwegian Fjords from Dover

shiner6 · June 19, 2022

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cruises42 · June 20, 2022

9 hours ago, ScratchTheRat said:

Sorry for the delay! What was supposed to be "LIVE" will in fact now be a review. I will post reports of each day as we go, starting tomorrow!

I didn't end up getting the wi-fi package and so I just took a LOT of notes and content for YouTube! 🙂

What time did they make you get off the ship today?

ScratchTheRat · June 21, 2022

On 6/20/2022 at 2:40 AM, cruises42 said:

What time did they make you get off the ship today?

We had to be out of our rooms by 06:15 and then there were three options:

1. Self Assist which was between 5am-7:30am

2. Early Disembarking: 07:30-08:00

3. Late Disembarking: 08:00-08:30

We left our room at 6am, went to Lido for a coffee and a "goodbye" to the ship, then checked in on the app for MDR breakfast at 7, left the ship at 8am 🙂

ScratchTheRat · June 21, 2022

My first blog post here will be up tomorrow, I was straight back to work the day after the cruise so have had a lot of catching up to do!

debsjc · June 21, 2022

1 hour ago, ScratchTheRat said:

We had to be out of our rooms by 06:15 and then there were three options:

1. Self Assist which was between 5am-7:30am

2. Early Disembarking: 07:30-08:00

3. Late Disembarking: 08:00-08:30

We left our room at 6am, went to Lido for a coffee and a "goodbye" to the ship, then checked in on the app for MDR breakfast at 7, left the ship at 8am 🙂

You had to be out of your rooms by 6.15am? We are on the Pride in a couple of weeks, and that is shocking! Never been asked to be out the cabin before 8am before

cruises42 · June 22, 2022

6 hours ago, ScratchTheRat said:

We had to be out of our rooms by 06:15 and then there were three options:

1. Self Assist which was between 5am-7:30am

2. Early Disembarking: 07:30-08:00

3. Late Disembarking: 08:00-08:30

We left our room at 6am, went to Lido for a coffee and a "goodbye" to the ship, then checked in on the app for MDR breakfast at 7, left the ship at 8am 🙂

Thanks!

ScratchTheRat · June 22, 2022

9 hours ago, debsjc said:

You had to be out of your rooms by 6.15am? We are on the Pride in a couple of weeks, and that is shocking! Never been asked to be out the cabin before 8am before

Yes, it's a Dover requirement for transportation reasons. As Dover is mainly used for ferries and not cruise ships, they require the taxis etc to be serving their ferry customers too so ask cruises to disembark before 9am.

cruises42 · June 22, 2022

On 6/21/2022 at 3:07 PM, ScratchTheRat said:

We had to be out of our rooms by 06:15 and then there were three options:

1. Self Assist which was between 5am-7:30am

2. Early Disembarking: 07:30-08:00

3. Late Disembarking: 08:00-08:30

We left our room at 6am, went to Lido for a coffee and a "goodbye" to the ship, then checked in on the app for MDR breakfast at 7, left the ship at 8am 🙂

Was there a big line to get off when you left the ship at 8? We're trying to schedule transportation and want to know what time we need to start getting off the ship if pickup is 8.

ashkir · June 23, 2022

Thank you ! Looking forward to the review! I have a 25 day trip booked next year on the Pride!!!

backbiter · June 23, 2022

On 6/21/2022 at 8:52 PM, ScratchTheRat said:

My first blog post here will be up tomorrow, I was straight back to work the day after the cruise so have had a lot of catching up to do!

Looking forward to reading it. We chatted to you in the Piano bar near the end of your cruise. My wife and I were the couple from near Cardiff.

We had a great time on the cruise, and loved the itinerary. We really liked the Pride, and the staff were all excellent. The guests were all exceptionally friendly, so there was a great atmosphere on board.

Like everyone, we were pretty startled by having to vacate our cabin by 6.15, but my wife helpfully left her phone on Norwegian time, so we got up at 5am UK time, and were outside the Normandie restaurant by 5.30 wondering why it wasn't yet open.

We didn't disembark until after 8, and the process was very smooth. The only issue was our car-parking service buses could barely cope with the numbers waiting for the shuttle bus, and we had to wait for well over half-an-hour. At least it wasn't raining, though.

ScratchTheRat · June 23, 2022

6 hours ago, backbiter said:

Looking forward to reading it. We chatted to you in the Piano bar near the end of your cruise. My wife and I were the couple from near Cardiff.

We had a great time on the cruise, and loved the itinerary. We really liked the Pride, and the staff were all excellent. The guests were all exceptionally friendly, so there was a great atmosphere on board.

Like everyone, we were pretty startled by having to vacate our cabin by 6.15, but my wife helpfully left her phone on Norwegian time, so we got up at 5am UK time, and were outside the Normandie restaurant by 5.30 wondering why it wasn't yet open.

We didn't disembark until after 8, and the process was very smooth. The only issue was our car-parking service buses could barely cope with the numbers waiting for the shuttle bus, and we had to wait for well over half-an-hour. At least it wasn't raining, though.

I remember our chat! Was lovely and nice to see such a happy couple! 🙂

I'm an early riser so Im always up before 6 anyway hah!

cruises42 · June 24, 2022

13 hours ago, backbiter said:

Looking forward to reading it. We chatted to you in the Piano bar near the end of your cruise. My wife and I were the couple from near Cardiff.

We had a great time on the cruise, and loved the itinerary. We really liked the Pride, and the staff were all excellent. The guests were all exceptionally friendly, so there was a great atmosphere on board.

Like everyone, we were pretty startled by having to vacate our cabin by 6.15, but my wife helpfully left her phone on Norwegian time, so we got up at 5am UK time, and were outside the Normandie restaurant by 5.30 wondering why it wasn't yet open.

We didn't disembark until after 8, and the process was very smooth. The only issue was our car-parking service buses could barely cope with the numbers waiting for the shuttle bus, and we had to wait for well over half-an-hour. At least it wasn't raining, though.

Was there a big line to get off when you left the ship? We're trying to schedule transportation and want to know what time we need to start getting off the ship if pickup is 8.

ScratchTheRat · June 24, 2022

5 hours ago, cruises42 said:

Was there a big line to get off when you left the ship? We're trying to schedule transportation and want to know what time we need to start getting off the ship if pickup is 8.

There was, but it went down fast. In fact, the biggest line we saw was actually the amount of B2B cruisers lined up to go into the lounge haha

ScratchTheRat · June 24, 2022

First post of the review will be up later today 🙂 Thanks for the patience.

kwokpot · June 24, 2022

2 hours ago, ScratchTheRat said:

There was, but it went down fast. In fact, the biggest line we saw was actually the amount of B2B cruisers lined up to go into the lounge haha

No line at all at 7:15. It was amazing just to walk off without needing any Customs inspections.

backbiter · June 24, 2022

9 hours ago, cruises42 said:

Was there a big line to get off when you left the ship? We're trying to schedule transportation and want to know what time we need to start getting off the ship if pickup is 8.

We lingered a long time in the restaurant so didn't even attempt to disembark till about 8. There was no waiting time at all by then.

coffeemom67 · June 24, 2022

We are looking at booking this cruise for June '23 so very interested to see what you thought. We have cruised on the Carnival Vista before but typically cruise with Disney. This itinerary looks incredible and my son is 17 now so the upcharge for Disney, especially for Europe, isn't worth it.

ScratchTheRat · June 25, 2022

PRE-TRAVEL AND EMBARKATION DAY REPORT

June 9/10th 2022

Here we are, the cruise we had postponed twice since it was originally the Legend in 2020! It was going to happen.

June 9th, the day before the cruise and we had a half day at work to finish though in all reality, not much work would be done! As the work portion of the day came to an end, we headed to get our COVID tests and then lunch at IKEA (cheap and easy but gave us a Scandinavian meatball preview!)

Once home, I printed our test results, all negative, putting them into our binder of documents before having a lovely bubble bath while the others packed the car. We then drove part way to a nearby shopping mall for shopping, coffee and a cake!

For dinner, we had the classic here in the UK, Nando's! It's the place everyone seems to go when out and about and though relatively simple food, it's always consistently good!

After food, we headed to our hotel which was on the Motorway so we lessened the length of our drive to the port the next morning. We stayed at a cheap hotel as it was just for a sleep and nothing fancy!

JUNE 10TH - EMBARKATION DAY

When we awoke, we showered and had breakfast, simple english muffins and such, before getting in the car for the short 1 hour drive to Port Parking. When there, we parked up, gave our keys to the attendant and then they took our luggage from us and loaded it into the minibus which swiftly took us to the cruise ship! Oh that feeling when you see the funnel in the distance and it all becomes real!

We headed into the terminal and were surprised with just how quiet it was. My guess is that most US visitors would want to board later so they could see Dover first, plus there were a lot of B2B'ers from the previous cruise.

Our boarding time was 11am but we got to the terminal around 10:20 and we were onboard and sat on the Lido deck by 10:45! Wow! That's a new record.

When I sat down, I saw a familiar face at Guys Burgers, John Heald, Carnival's Brand Ambassador! So of course I got a selfie!

(Not sure why it keeps posting upside down though hah!)

We then grabbed a sandwich from the deli and some cake to share.

We headed to our room shortly after to drop off our bags and we found that our luggage was waiting so that was great! We checked out our view from our balcony and shared some delicious chocolate covered strawberries which had been delivered to our room as a gift from a fan of my Youtube Vlog! (Thankyou!!!)

Then, 2 of us left so the organised one could unpack. Where else, but the bar for the first cocktail of the cruise! I opted for "The Cruiser" and was provided with an edible chocolate straw which I thought was great!

After unpacking, we completed our Muster which was super easy. We headed to the muster point and had our cards scanned before watching a brief demonstration of lifejacket usage then we were done!

We watched sailaway from our balcony and got dressed for dinner after a good explore of the ship!

DINNER MENU FOR NIGHT ONE:

Carnival Dinner Menus, Updated May 2022 night 1a