"Princesser" does Carnival... lots of photos

Hi;

The reviews I enjoy the most include LOTS of photos so I am going to attach as many as I can and as many as you wish to see.

Background:

My wife and I are in our late 50s and have taken only one cruise before this so my review will be based on our limited experience. In June 2009 we sailed Caribbean Princess out of New York on a 10-day Caribbean cruise.

We were booked on a 14 day LA to Hawaii cruise on Golden Princess departing March 2011 when our traveling companions encountered health difficulties with Cancer. So, while we wait for them to win their battle we decided to take a “Filler” cruise, something to hold us over until Hawaii is again a possibility for the 4 of us.

The price and departure point played the biggest role in our decision as to which cruise we would book. For a 7 day cruise I did not want the hassle of traveling by air so we decided our only viable departure points were either New York or Baltimore.

After some research we decided on the Carnival Pride out of Baltimore, 7 days with stops at Port Canaveral, Nassau and Freeport.

My passion and hobby is taking 3D photos that are viewable on the computer using the “Cross-eye” method, if anyone is familiar, or by printing them and viewing through those old fashion 3D viewers you can purchase at just about any antique shop. Should anyone wish to try viewing these I would be happy to provide you with a link on viewing instructions and then I will post some for you.

Travel to, and layover in Baltimore:

We departed Canada with one snow storm just ending and another in the forecast. We decided to depart 2 days early and overnight in Scranton PA leaving us with just a 4 hour drive the next day into Baltimore. We arrived in Baltimore at 11 am on Saturday with misty rain and chilly. We stayed at the Brookshire Suites. This was a wonderful hotel with lots of room and very friendly.

The room cost us 125 dollars for the night, but they gladly kept our car for the duration of the cruise thus eliminating the 105 dollar fee for Pier parking. That resulted in a total cost for the room being about 20 dollars for the night. They also provided us with free transfers to and from the ship at our time and convenience, and this service was wonderful. Also provided was a delightful morning breakfast at no extra cost in a room at the top of the hotel with a great view of the city and inner harbor.

While in Baltimore we spent Saturday afternoon at the National Aquarium and touring the Inner Harbor. It was a great day in spite of the weather.

Here are a few photos.

Hotel living room

Hotel bedroom (without Mohamed from Carnival Pride taking care of it for us)

Hotel Breakfast area (1)

Hotel Breakfast area (2)

Baltimore National Aquarium

Jellyfish

Dolphins....

more dolphins ...

AND more dolphins.

I will continue with embarkation on my next post. “Our First views and general impressions of the Carnival Pride”

Any questions? I would be happy to try and answer them.

Great pictures. On the Pride in a little over 6 weeks! Keep this review coming!!!

I am looking forward to reading your review. My SO saw a Carnival ship sailing out of Baltimore, and from his perch on the bridge, he decided it was a beat up, old ship and he would never sail from B'more. I think he is slightly insane, so it will be fun to read your opinions and see the pictures.

Post away!

Some great pix so far but could you clarify the Chesapeake one- are those buildings actually as tilted as they look? What are they? They look like they have just been through an earthquake.

Love the jellyfish. And will have to read up on 3-d picture taking. These new-fangled technologies!

Some great pix so far but could you clarify the Chesapeake one- are those buildings actually as tilted as they look? What are they? They look like they have just been through an earthquake.

 

Love the jellyfish. And will have to read up on 3-d picture taking. These new-fangled technologies!

That is the National Aquarium and it is designed that way. It is a unique building built mostly of glass on the exterior that becomes seethrough at night so you can view the tropical forest area of the aquarium.

We are now entering that part of my review that is based on My Personal Opinions, likes and dislikes. None of my opinions are intended to be offensive to those who might disagree; it is just how I feel about our experience.

Our first view of the Pride was the same as when we saw our first cruise ship. You must understand that I have a deep love of the sea and all ships. I could spend the rest of my life just watching the operation of a harbor as ships arrive and depart. This being the case there is a thrill in seeing the Pride for the first time that is difficult to express in words.

I saw a beautiful ship with wonderful lines and overall appearance that was clean and elegant. The glitter of the glass from the blue tinted balconies shining in the sunlight glittered like that of sparkles on a dancing showgirl. Even though Pride is a significantly smaller ship than Caribbean Princess she is still an impressive sight as you first view her from the highway.

We departed the Brookshire Suites at 12:30 and were on board Pride by 1:45pm. The embarkation process was swift and hassle free. I would say that, while Princess seems to have a reputation for easy embarkation, Carnival Pride was equal in all respects. Absolutely everyone we encountered, longshoremen, Carnival Assistants, Ticket agents and even the tired fellow travelers, were happy and fun to encounter. I can’t imagine an embarkation that could have been easier or more efficient.

When we boarded the Pride we entered into the Main Atrium. This was my first shock at the interior of the Pride. Having sailed Princess the décor of Pride was “somewhat” different.

I understand that each ship and even each cruise company cater to different demographics and as such we encountered our first difference between Carnival and Princess. I must state here that I found Princess to be a comfortable fit for our likings. I enjoy their interior with it’s elegant marble staircases and beautiful art to be more to our taste.

That being said, my first impression of Pride’s interior was that it was heavy, dark and “in your face”. I could never escape the feeling during our cruise that the Atrium was designed after a pirate ship. The main staircase always reminded me of a staircase one might encounter at the aft section of the upper deck on a wooden sailing ship.

This was most evident on Formal Evenings. There were beautiful women of all ages dressed to the nines and all of them gathered in the atrium that, to me, seemed to be completely out of place. Jeans and tee shirts seemed to be more the order of the day for the décor surrounding the guests (again IMHO).

While most of the art is reproduced art of some of the greatest masters know to man, I felt that there was no need to extend this to the wallpaper in the hallways of the ship. I felt this gave the ship a feel of being a theme park rather than the glamorous hotel this ship could have been.

Continued below:

Pride is an easy ship to navigate. She has wide hallways on all the main decks allowing for easy free movement of the guests. I particularly enjoyed the layout of the shops on board Pride. There was thought and design put into this area that gave it a wonderful feel and I am not a shopper. So for me to say that I like a shopping area means a lot. I found the curved hallway different and inviting.

The Promenade Deck, my favorite on ships, was wide and enjoyable to walk, I was disappointed that there was little or no place to sit and enjoy. I would put seating benches on this deck as it is far to nice a place to allow go relatively unused as was the case on the Pride.

Pride is a very clean ship with a crew that obviously took pride in their jobs and their ship. While I am not the type of person that boards a ship and then dedicates myself to finding flaws in carpet quality or such things, I found Pride to be in fantastic condition and I could not find fault with anything on board.

Tomorrow: Our Stateroom and David's Steakhouse.

The Promenade Deck, my favorite on ships, was wide and enjoyable to walk, I was disappointed that there was little or no place to sit and enjoy. I would put seating benches on this deck as it is far to nice a place to allow go relatively unused as was the case on the Pride.

 

 

 

i am assuming this is a pic of the promenade deck, and the reason for not having chairs would be that it looks like this is where muster stations are and if there was an emergency the chairs would be in the way, like your review so far, and yes it seems like Carnival likes their ships to be over the top in decor.

i am assuming this is a pic of the promenade deck, and the reason for not having chairs would be that it looks like this is where muster stations are and if there was an emergency the chairs would be in the way, like your review so far, and yes it seems like Carnival likes their ships to be over the top in decor.

You may very well be correct as I do not know the difference between a muster station in a bar (on the Caribbean Princess) and a muster station on the Promenade deck (on the Pride).

But just to compare here are 2 photos of the CB Promenade deck with the lockers and benches that I was suggesting.

In an emergency I assume these obstacles would be as problematic on Pride as they are on CB, yet CB seems happy with the setup and it makes for a lovely place to spend some time. It was my favorite deck on the whole ship.

Just getting into photography! I would love to see some of your 3-D pictures. It sounds very interesting. You can email me a link at stacytuck0419@yahoo.com. Great review by the way.

Just getting into photography! I would love to see some of your 3-D pictures. It sounds very interesting. You can email me a link at stacytuck0419@yahoo.com. Great review by the way.

The link for how to view them is : www.stamperspad.com/wilfros and it is the second from the bottom post titled "Tutorial Blog Posts". It is an interactive post so you need to click on the "next" button to go through the tutorial.

This will inform you on how to view the photos. Taking the photos is a whole different matter and I would direct you to search the web as there are a number of sites that provide detailed information in much more detail than I could here on CC. Should you still have problems let me know and I will do what I can to assist.

During the cruise Kirk (the cruise director) kindly arranged for the showgirls to meet me and allow me to take their photo. Here is the original photo I took and then the photo as it is now (it is a work in progress so may yet change before I send it back to Kirk on the Pride).

Any questions please let me know.

Good luck and please let me know if you have any success, as I will gladly post more.

Very cool, thanks. I will look into this immediately.

That is the National Aquarium and it is designed that way. It is a unique building built mostly of glass on the exterior that becomes seethrough at night so you can view the tropical forest area of the aquarium.

It is indeed unique- fun but somewhat disconcerting. Must be lovely at night.

Subscribing to this wonderful thread since I too am a Princesser at heart but will likely be sailing the Splendor (our first Carnival) for the holidays 2011.

Katherine

It is indeed unique- fun but somewhat disconcerting. Must be lovely at night.

It is stunning at night, here is a photo I took just after we ate supper on Saturday night.

All the green inside the glass area is the tropical Jungle area where the birds and such are kept.

Font went funny will try again

We had balcony cabin 5123 (obviously on the 5th deck) and found it to be large and comfortable.

The room was larger than we expected and kept in immaculate condition. Our room steward, Mohamed, was more than attentive to all our wishes and every evening we were welcomed back to the room with a new and different towel animal. By the end of the cruise Mohamed seemed to be getting as much joy in watching my wife’s reaction to these animals as my wife was in receiving them.

The bathroom was a very comfortable size and there was never the feeling of being cramped. I was especially pleased with the size of the shower and the force of the water flow from the showerhead.

What can I say about the beds? I was informed here on CC that the beds were comfortable, BUT I could hardly believe just how comfortable they really were. It was nice to have a sofa in the room with a small table in front of it and still have a sitting space in front of a mirror (where we kept our laptop). The whole layout of the room was nice but I did miss the division of the bedroom from the closet/bathroom area that is found on the Caribbean Princess. The doors on the closets in our room, if opened, would hit the door of the bathroom if someone wanted to enter or exit. This was definitely not a big deal at all but just a little different.

The design of the superstructure of Pride was such that our cabin balcony extended out further than other balconies. The glass protection was slanted inward toward the cabin thus giving the impression or feel of a larger than normal balcony. There were 3 chairs and a table on the balcony with plenty of room to spare. I did miss the sliding balcony doors found on Princess, as Pride’s doors open outward onto the balcony. Again, this was no big deal but just a little thing rendering the movement between balcony and stateroom just a little awkward at times.

We had a TV in the room (not flat screen) and found the number of available network channels limited. ONE BIG PLUS is that there was a channel where you could access your on board account for up to date totals owing on your account. I really appreciated this feature, as I did not have to visit the customer service area every second day for an update. This is something every ship should have in this day and age. Congratulations to Carnival for this invaluable feature.

One thing I am baffled by is that there is only one outlet in the whole room that accepts North American electrical plugs. I know the ships are built in Europe but they must know that these ships are going to spend the better part of their life in North American waters with North American passengers. Why not allow us at least one more plug we can use? I was able to find 4 European outlets but only one North American outlet. It almost seems to defy logic (IMHO). When packing, the most important thing to include would be an extension cord with multiple outlets at the end or a power bar. Without this you are doomed to just powering one thing at a time, quite an inconvenience in this day of electronic gadgets, laptop computers and in my case a CPAP breathing machine.

More tonight .......... with David's Steakhouse and room service

love this review thank you! I did the pride last april and we're doing it again this April....I love the Pride and I love seeing the ship through your eyes! Can't wait for more:)

We only used room service one day and found it to be a great way to start the day. The delivery was timely and the presentation and quality of food was excellent (see photos below).

We boarded the ship on Super Bowl Sunday, thus found everything just a little chaotic. By this I mean that some guests were going to the main dinning room for supper, some to the Super Bowl party held in the theatre. Thus we decided to eliminate all this and we reserved a table at David’s Steakhouse for 6:30 pm. This allowed us to dine and still catch the second half of the game on the theatre screen with all the other fans.

There was some discussion on CC prior to our cruise about whether or not there was a free bottle of wine provided if you book on departure night. In our case, whether it was because of embarkation night or the Super Bowl, I am not sure, but we did receive a complementary bottle of red wine.

To be continued .....

"Princesser" does Carnival

i prefer "prancer".

The food was delicious and prepared to perfection. I thought the serving staff was a little disrespectful of the chef as they served our surf and turf with a steak knife. The steak was so tender it could easily be cut with a butter knife (lol).

How does the old saying go? “A picture is worth a thousand words” So here are thousands and thousands of words in picture form. I hope these photos do it some justice.

More photos to come....

AND NOW... DESERT!!!

We enjoyed a wonderful meal at the top of the ship as we sailed out of Baltimore with all the lights along the shore. The serving staff had so little to do that they even took photos for us as we dined. It was a real experience that we will remember for some time to come.

Tomorrow... Public Areas.

i prefer "prancer".

Hey!! I like that!

Looking forward to more of your review since we're going to be in the same "boat" pretty soon! (Pun intended!) We too have only been on Princess and are trying Carnival for the first time. Thanks so much for giving us a preview!