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

Oh my goodness the Giant Eagle gas discounts lol. I did the same thing. Don't fell ashamed. I go this all the time, even paying for the whole cruise. I paid $3000 and got free gas forever haha

As the cruise got closer, we started to make some decisions about what we wanted to do onboard. On the Glory we had Faster to the Fun and we loved it, so we decided to do that again. We also booked a cabana on Half Moon Cay (there will be pictures, I promise). In an effort to save money somewhere though, we agreed that we wouldn’t go to David’s Steakhouse, and that would make this cruise our first where we didn’t visit the ship’s steakhouse.

 

Well, it didn’t take long before I broke our agreement and made reservations on New Year’s Eve for David’s. One of my favorite things to do in life is surprise Ashley, and I really considered not telling her about it until we were on the ship. In the end I figured it might impact what she wanted to wear that night, so I ended up telling her about it.

 

Beginning in October, we began purchasing Carnival gift cards from our local grocery store. The loyalty program at our store has awesome gas discounts, especially when you purchase gift cards, so this was a great way for us to save up for that Sail and Sign bill that tends to add a little insult to injury when they kick you off the ship after a week.

 

 

Happy Halloween! With only 8 weeks to go, we are almost halfway there!

 

Hi guys

A few turns and less than an hour later we were on I-95N approaching Baltimore’s Locust Point, and we got our first glimpse of the Pride!

 

 

Soon after we took exit 55 onto McComas Street and eventually found ourselves in line to get dropped off.

 

 

If you are parking your car at the cruise terminal for the duration of your cruise (which we have done twice), you are sent around to a line of baggage cars closer to the waterfront to drop off your luggage. Then you line up to pay for parking. In our experience, using the cash line to pay the $105 fee saved an immense amount of time, as that line was usually much shorter than the credit card line. This was before the days of staggered check-in, so I can’t say whether or not that’s still the case. Since we were being dropped off, we were directed to a separate line of baggage cars directly in front of the terminal.

 

 

After we gave our luggage to the porters, my parents were able to briefly pull into a parking spot so we could say our goodbyes, and my mom could take a picture.

 

Matt and Ashley,

I just found this review (thanks to the last poster who resurrected it)

What a great review and wonderful pictures! Loved it! We were on the Pride's repo cruise this February. Going again next year.

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for an awesome review! I love cruising on the Pride out of Baltimore and your review has me already looking at upcoming cruises!

Great review! I too live in MD-Owings Mills and have cruised the Pride twice. It's a great ship!

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Really enjoyed your review and sorry it had to end just like a cruise vacation. At least you have another one planned.

Happy New Year!

I too was sad that your review had to end. Do you have any other reviews on your other cruises? I felt like I was out to sea with you. Excellent writing and pictures.

We are cruising on the Conquest in December. We go every 2 years. We have been on the Pride 2 times and love cruising out of Baltimore as we too can drive there from home in about 4.5 hours.

Thank you so much for your review!! Enjoy your next cruise :cool:

Thanks for the great review! We cruise on the Pride May 28 - reading this made me even more excited about our trip!

Sorry for the delayed response here, but I hope you had a great trip!

Oh my goodness the Giant Eagle gas discounts lol. I did the same thing. Don't fell ashamed. I go this all the time, even paying for the whole cruise. I paid $3000 and got free gas forever haha

Yeah, but they seem to have revamped their program recently and I worry it may not be as good. We will see.

Matt and Ashley,

I just found this review (thanks to the last poster who resurrected it)

What a great review and wonderful pictures! Loved it! We were on the Pride's repo cruise this February. Going again next year.

Thank you for reading! The Pride is a great ship to sail multiple times I think. We love the Spirit class layouts.

Thanks for the review.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for an awesome review! I love cruising on the Pride out of Baltimore and your review has me already looking at upcoming cruises!

Haha, reviews tend to have that effect on me too. Happy cruising!

Great review! I too live in MD-Owings Mills and have cruised the Pride twice. It's a great ship!

 

 

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So you're even closer to the Pride! We love having such a great ship so close. Thanks for reading!

I too was sad that your review had to end. Do you have any other reviews on your other cruises? I felt like I was out to sea with you. Excellent writing and pictures.

 

We are cruising on the Conquest in December. We go every 2 years. We have been on the Pride 2 times and love cruising out of Baltimore as we too can drive there from home in about 4.5 hours.

 

Thank you so much for your review!! Enjoy your next cruise

Wow, thank you so much for the kind words! No, this was our first review, but we are planning to review our Sunshine cruise in August (2 months from tomorrow!).

Hey Matt, IDK how I missed this great review when you lst posted it, but I'm glad it was bumped up and I found it this morning and just did an 11 page reading in one session! We are "the opposite" from you as we live about 20 minutes from the port in Manhattan and cruised out of NY all the time. But we like to cruise in winter or spring and CCL pulled out of NY :loudcry: so we have trekked to Baltimore the past 2 years to cruise on Pride. We did a B2B in May, 2015 and a Journeys cruise in March, 2016. We are booked on Journeys cruise for January, 2018 also. Since CCL is not going to have any ships in NY for a year (or so) we went ahead and booked the Sunshine for the end of September. Maybe our last cruise from our homeport and Destiny was our lst CCL ship and we sailed her a few times and we are anxious to try out a "new ship." I hope I can read your review before we leave. You booked an aft wrap around balcony??? They are AWESOME and you will be spoiled forever. We always booked 8268 on Spirit, Miracle and Legend when those great cabins were a secret, then they got wise and started charging a lot more, so we haven't been in one in a while, but man, you are going to be spoiled forever! HAPPY CRUISING to you and Ashley and thanks for sharing your cruise with us!

Great review and pictures. Thanks :)

Matt, I had a few minutes and thought I'd go on the Carnival boards since I'll be going to Hawaii onboard the Miracle in Dec., with my daughter. I had to read your review because the Pride was my dear husbands favorite Carnival ship.

We had such a wonderful cruise onboard her and shared lots of laughter, good food and made lasting memories. Now that he's gone [he passed away shortly after our amazing cruise], I will have, in my head and heart a love for the Pride, always. I'm so glad that young couples, like yourselves, are making these memories with and for each other still!

Thank you for sharing your days with all of us!

Hey Matt, IDK how I missed this great review when you lst posted it, but I'm glad it was bumped up and I found it this morning and just did an 11 page reading in one session! We are "the opposite" from you as we live about 20 minutes from the port in Manhattan and cruised out of NY all the time. But we like to cruise in winter or spring and CCL pulled out of NY so we have trekked to Baltimore the past 2 years to cruise on Pride. We did a B2B in May, 2015 and a Journeys cruise in March, 2016. We are booked on Journeys cruise for January, 2018 also. Since CCL is not going to have any ships in NY for a year (or so) we went ahead and booked the Sunshine for the end of September. Maybe our last cruise from our homeport and Destiny was our lst CCL ship and we sailed her a few times and we are anxious to try out a "new ship." I hope I can read your review before we leave. You booked an aft wrap around balcony??? They are AWESOME and you will be spoiled forever. We always booked 8268 on Spirit, Miracle and Legend when those great cabins were a secret, then they got wise and started charging a lot more, so we haven't been in one in a while, but man, you are going to be spoiled forever! HAPPY CRUISING to you and Ashley and thanks for sharing your cruise with us!

Hi Karen! Thanks for reading! I can totally relate to the "binge-reading" of reviews. I got this review going a day or two after we got home so that everything was relatively fresh on my mind, and that worked for me, so I should have our Sunshine review done well before your September cruise. Since it's a shorter cruise, a wrap-around was a little more affordable for us than a typical 7-day cruise, and I think it will be great for the sailaway. We'll be sure to take lots of pictures!

Great review and pictures. Thanks

Thanks for reading!

Matt, I had a few minutes and thought I'd go on the Carnival boards since I'll be going to Hawaii onboard the Miracle in Dec., with my daughter. I had to read your review because the Pride was my dear husbands favorite Carnival ship.

 

We had such a wonderful cruise onboard her and shared lots of laughter, good food and made lasting memories. Now that he's gone [he passed away shortly after our amazing cruise], I will have, in my head and heart a love for the Pride, always. I'm so glad that young couples, like yourselves, are making these memories with and for each other still!

 

Thank you for sharing your days with all of us!

Hi Roz. Ashley and I really appreciate your kind words, and I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your husband. We're so happy to hear that this review helped to rekindle some of those fond memories you have. I hope you have a great time en route to Hawaii (Ashley and I want to visit all 50 states, and we've decided this is the best way to cross off Hawaii, so it's on our to-do list!).

Enjoyed your review so much. Thank you

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