A photo review of our Carnival Pride Cruise July 28, 2013

On Saturday, July 27th, my family made the 7 hour drive to Baltimore from our home in North Carolina. the next day, we set sail on a 7 day journey aboard the Carnival Pride. We stayed in cabin 5151 which is an obstructed view balcony. the Gramdmothers in our party stayed in room 7229, which is an interior cabin. I will post pictures of both cabins.

In retrospect, I probably didn't take enough pictures, but luckily I have access to everyone elses pictures, so I will do my best to keep it interesting. I took several panorama photos. Hopefully those will show correctly.

If you have any questions along the way, let me know.

Here we are setting off on our adventure. In attendance is (from Left to right) Me, my Stepmother, my Daughter (6 years old), My Mom, and my Wife (you can just see her shirt sleeve.) you can tell this is early in the 7 hour drive because we are all still smiling. (it was a long drive, and we left very early).

Once we reached Baltimore, we decided to go to the inner harbor and see the National Aquarium. Being a busy Saturday afternoon, we we not able to enter for 3 hours, so we walked around awhile.

My daughter and I really enjoyed touring the ships that were on display. Here is a picture aboard the WW2 submarine.

The Submarine Engine Room

Still at the inner harbor. this is a picture of my daughter with a civil war Marine on board the Constellation

the next stop was the National Aquarium. Although alot of fun, it was very expensive. Especially annoying was that they claimed to validate parking, but by the time we waited our turn to enter the aquarium, toured the facility, and got back to our car, it had been 6 hours and thats longer than the validation is good for. It cost me $24 to leave the garage.

Just a warning to anybody looking to follow in my footsteps and go to the inner harbor the day before the cruise leaves. between parking, dinner, Aquarium tickets, and ship tour tickets, we spent a little over $200. Its not horrible, and I expected some of that, but still alot of money considering this is only a warm up to the "real vacation" starting the next day.

I dont have any pictures of the hotel, but we stayed in an airport hotel that offered the "park and sail" package. for roughly $140, we got a room for Saturday night, a place to park the car for a week while we were on the cruise, and a free shuttle van ride to and from the port. This turned out to be a pretty good deal. I would do this again.

Sunday morning finally arrives, and now its time to get some serious fun and relaxation going. Its embark day and we are all excited!!! First of all, let me suggest that you completely ignore the email Carnival will send out a week before your cruise urging to to not arrive at the port before 1:30pm. We boarded the 10:30am shuttle van from our hotel, and got to the port around 11am. There were about 100 people that arrived before us, but the lines were very short, and we had gone through security, got our sail and sign cards, and were sitting in a comfortable chair in the waiting room in under 15 minutes. boarding started around 11:45am, and it was our turn by noon. We were on the lido eating lunch by 12:20pm

As a side note, we had a roll aboard suitcase with us that had three 12 packs of soda, and two bottles of "wine". Going through security, they gave our "wine" bottles about a 2 second glance, but the soda cases were each opened, and every single can was taken out to verify it wasnt anything against the rules.

Our first view of the ship

no pictures allowed in the security area, but here we are about to board the ship.

first ice cream cone of the trip

The Lido deck got very busy about 12:40pm. getting their early meant we got a good table.

Embarkation day continued.....

How can you tell its embarkation day? the pool is not slammed packed with people.

Upstairs in the dining room

Everybody's favorite, the muster drill.

Next up, the sail away party.....

Great start! Thanks for posting. :)

A fan favorite during sail away is to watch the ship "barely" make it under the Francis Scott Key Bridge (695) Im sure theres plenty of room to spare, but it sure did look pretty tight.

Are we going to make it?

BARELY!!!

Your family is lovely! Can't wait to read more.

Sent using the Cruise Critic forums app

Nice review so far. I can't wait to see more. We leave on the Pride in September - I can't wait!!!!

Seaday 1 and 2.....

I honestly dont have alot of sea day pictures, but heres a couple you may find interesting.

They had a display in the atrium that would show you your location. I also found out you can see this on your room TV, this was a very nice thing to have.

The first sea day is a formal night. Here is my lobster tail. Small, but good.

at one of the sea day brunches in the main dining room, they offered french toast coated in cereal, my 6 year old chose fruit loops. Im sure the cup of fruit made up for the sugar bomb she was about to eat....lol

I had steak and eggs for breakfast. the steak is a little hidden in this picture

I strongly suggest you give the main dining room a try for breakfast. They had table service, its less crowded, and the food is better than the buffet.

Next up, on our 3rd day at sea, we make our first port stop in Cape Canaveral....

Port Canaveral, our first port call.......

In port Canaveral, we decided to book the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) day. Its only about a 15 minutes ride from the ship, and we had about 6 hours to look around. I would have preferred about 8-9 hours in order to see everything. I will recommend below area you should skip, and areas you should not miss.

After arriving at the visitor center, watching a very good imax movie about the hubble telescope, and a few minutes in a KSC gift store, we jumped on a shuttle bus that takes you out to see the launch facility, and then another facility housing a Saturn 5 rocket.

waiting to board the bus. Notice the cooling towel around my daughter's neck. These things really work....

Quick tip, sit on the right side of the bus!!! otherwise your view looks like this.

The first of two stops is a viewing tower to see the launch pads. It was nice, but considering the time crunch, we should have just stayed on the bus and skipped this part.

The second bus stop was the saturn 5 rocket facility. this was a dont miss stop. That thing is huge.

My Daughter got to touch a moon rock, and for her, this was a very big deal.

More KSC to come....

Great review and pictures. Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Please excuse any typographical errors.

Kennedy Space Center (KSC) continued.....

The vehicle assembly building was huge. Hard to tell the scale of this thing, but the flag on the side of the building is 209 feet tall. the stripes are 9 feet across.

Next we went back to the main visitor center and went into the space shuttle Atlantis building. the boosters on display are mockups, but still huge.

After a couple of movies, we are finally allowed into the shuttle area.

Its awesome....

Loving the review so far. When did you pass under the first bridge?

KSC continued....

Lots of interactive stuff for the kids.

My Wife even got in on the fun. Here they are learing how to land a shuttle.

Really could have used a few more hours, but it was time to head bat to the ship.

Somebody asked me in another thread about shuttle bus availability from the port to the beach, so heading back onto the ship, I took a picture of this sign that you see immediately after stepping out of the terminal.

I talked to several people that went this route, and they all had a good experience.

Next up, Port stop #2 in Nassau...

Loving the review so far. When did you pass under the first bridge?

first bridge was 30-45 minutes after we set sail.

Good review

You're doing a great job so far. Was worth waiting for.

Loving it!! This gets me all fired up for our sailing in 2 weeks!!! ;)

Port 2 in Nassau, Bahamas.

luckily, we were the only ship in port at Nassau.

We decided to take a glass bottom boat tour.

it turned out to be a very nice tour. we even saw Elvis's vacation home.

once we got to the reef, we went downstairs to see the fish.

We saw Barracuda, lion fish, and lots of schooling fish. the reef was pretty sickly, but still a nice place to visit.

Nassau to be continued......

Loving it!! This gets me all fired up for our sailing in 2 weeks!!! ;)

Woo Hoo I know the feeling...I get on when you get off!!!!

Nassau continued.....

After the boat took us all the way around pleasure island, we made it back to the port just in time for the rain to start falling. We ate a very loud lunch at senior frogs, then did a few hours of shopping before we had to head back to the ship.

Bye Nassau, it may be the first time we have met, but I doubt it will be the last...

Day 5 at sea, and our last port of call was Freeport. This port had a very short stay, arriving at port at 7am, and leaving port at 1pm.

welcome to the beautiful Freeport harbor area.

OK, so it was much prettier on the other side of the ship.

The port area has a Senor Frogs, a Del Sol, a Cariloha, a small straw market, and a place to eat conch. Many people chose to visit these attractions, then get back on the ship, but we had heard about the Port Lucaya Marketplace, and were not going to let a little rain stop us. A van ticket to the marketplace was $10 for round trip.

It was nice, and the prices were good, but it rained like crazy

We remembered our umbrellas. (notice the hello kitty purse my Daughter picked up in Nassau)

bye Freeport....

Freeport continued....

rocky outcrops leaving freeport.

Since Freeport day coincides with the second formal night, we went back to our rooms and got ready. BTW, formal night is not that formal on a Carnival ship. For a guy, closed toe shoes, pants, and a collared shirt is about par for the course.

Here is my Chateubriand

After dinner, we went to the piano bar

Next up, David's Steak House......

We've run into to some pretty good rains on our cruises. We now carry those poncho's from the dollar store. They fold up very small and weigh nothing.

Just mentioned because you may want to consider getting some. Free's up the hands to carry all your purchases. ;)

Loving the review.

We've run into to some pretty good rains on our cruises. We now carry those poncho's from the dollar store. They fold up very small and weigh nothing.

Just mentioned because you may want to consider getting some. Free's up the hands to carry all your purchases. ;)

Loving the review.

I do the same, but on my hurricane Sandy cruise it served no justice & my family laughed at me, said it looked like I was wearing the plastic bag your clothes comes in from the cleaners.:eek:

You tried. lol