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Pride Review to BERMUDA...9/18-9/25 lots of pics & details!!!


GRTKJ

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We just got off the Carnival Pride that went from Baltimore, Maryland to Bermuda. What a GREAT trip we had, and wow Bermuda is BEAUTIFUL!!! We had a wonderful trip together, we have been together a total of 5 years, and we love traveling together! Joe & I have a race car company, he builds race cars & I do marketing for the company and several other clients needing marketing collateral. This is our 4th cruise overall, and 3rd with Carnival....OK, enough about us, lets get to the review!

We flew to Baltimore, MD on Saturday Sept 17th. We stayed at the Hampton Inn, and like most Hamptons, it was nice with awesome beds & free breakfast in the morning! For those interested in this hotel it was reasonably priced at $109 a night. Here is some pics:

 

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So that was our hotel! By the time we got from the airport to the hotel, it was about 2pm, we were tired as we had to get up early that morning for our 7am flight out of LR. We ate at a restraunt nearby for dinner that was connected to the Marriott hotel, we were wanting to watch the football game that night so we went to Champions, its a sports bar with about 15 tvs with different games, so any game you wanna watch they have it going on.

So we wanted to have an easy evening and relax because we knew we had a long anticipated day tomorrow, boarding the Pride!!!

 

Sept 19, 2011

Today was the day we had been waiting for over 300 days since booking! So we took a cab to the Inner Harbor port. Here is our first sighting of our ship!!!:

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I think we were about to be exiting off of I-95 when I snapped the pic, so we were getting so close!!!!

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Sept. 17th cont....

We got to the port at about 10:45am. Once we got there we were dropped off with our luggage, went inside had to show our passport & boarding pass, go thru security, get our s&s card, etc....I must say we will ALWAYS go early. There were ABSOLUTELY no lines at all, we couldn't believe it!! :D I wanted to take a pic to show everyone how there were no lines that early, but knew they weren't allowed in the customs area, so I followed the rules. :p

Once we got our s&s card, there was a section of people sitting down, there was probably about 40 other people sitting there that got there before us. So we sat with the others and the carnival port employees were interacting and doing all sorts of fun things. They were asking ship trivia and giving away ships on sticks, and other prizes for correct answers....questions like "How many eggs does the ship go through typically"....I don't remember the answer but it was astronomical!! Anyway so they made sitting there waiting to board fun!

We had to wait because the ship coming in was late because of some storms, so we normally would have been boarding by about 11:15, but this time we had to wait until about 11:45-12:00 to board since the ship was late getting back in port, so no big deal! We knew the time was coming soon!.....and sure enough, we were called to head to the ship! Here is Joe with our carry on bag & several other walking toward the ship!

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So finally we are on the ship! We were onboard at about 12:00 noon. First thing, I had to have a pina colada! So here I am with my first drink ;):

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The above pic of me and my first drink was the sitting area to the left as soon as you walk on the ship, next to the bar, on deck 2.

So after we got to enjoy our first drinks ONBOARD, we went to the Lido deck for some lunch. We couldn't believe how few people were on the ship this early, we were amazed. So a tip to you all - GET TO THE PORT EARLY --- Avoid the lines! :)

Once we got to Lido we both decided to have hot sandwiches, so that is what we got - I got turkey & Joe got ham. They were both very good! Here we are, first lunch onboard the Pride:

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After we enjoyed lunch we decided to go explore the ship some since there were very few onboard. By this time it was about 1:00pm, so we thought we would explore, then go see if our rooms were ready.

TIP: In case you don't know this, its true. Even though they tell you your room isn't ready until 3pm or after, its usually ready before that. The time will depend, but we checked about 2:00pm and ours was ready! We were excited to see our room & to set down our carry-on and my purse, for some reason I never can have a light purse, I don't know how some of you ladies do it, mine probably weighs 10 pounds, seriously...LOL. So I was ready to set that down too! :p

Here is a view of our room, balcony cabin #7273 port side:

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...and our bathroom:

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....and of course I had to make a door decoration:

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Don't stop NOW!!! We are sailing on her Sunday. Need info!!! :D

 

 

You will LOVE this cruise!!! I've got a TON of info for you, as well as all the fun times!....and 100's of pics! So stay tuned!...:)

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We are scheduled for the pride for our wedding next september. I'm secretly hoping our ship will switch to this itinerary!

 

Congrats on your engagement!! Yes, Bermuda is beautiful & would be a great place for a wedding!, hopefully your wish will come true! :)

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Sorry, but this made me chuckle, since I was on the cruise before yours, and we didn't return till Sept. 18th! So if you'd gotten to the port on the 17th, you'd have had quite a wait... ;)

 

 

LOL!! I have too much on my mind right now and I obviously have my days confused! You're right, that would be QUITE a wait! :eek:.....ok everyone, boarding day was Sunday, Sept 18th, not the 17th!! Sorry for the typo!! :rolleyes:

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Let me try to get the date right this time...LOL....ok so Sunday, Sept 18th continued.....

 

Once we were able to go to our room, we immediately met our room steward - Harry. He was the best! It's unbelievable how how these guys work & how many hours they work at a time. We asked him to please keep our small 12x12x12 ice chest full of ice, and he always was on top of it. We gave him a $20 tip and continued to explore the ship. Here he is, very hard working room steward! I hope each of you that decide to sail on the Pride get the treat of having him as your room steward:

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Here is a pic outside our balcony, of downtown Baltimore:

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Here is a pics of the parking lot where you can park to cruise. To the left is the area you check in for customs, s&s card, etc...

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So after the pics, we unpacked our bags into our "home for the week". It took us a little while, we wanted to be sure and hand the formal clothes up first thing. So once we did this it was about 2:45. We had a cruise critic meet & greet on deck 9, aft, in the Serenity area. So we headed off for that!.....

 

I would give anything if we would have taken a pic of our group. We had probably about 25-30 people attend this. We basically met & just chatted for awhile. It was great, and I met some awesome people, some that I will stay in touch with for awhile - yes Carol I am talkiing about you for sure!!!!:) More on this later...

 

So I didn't get a picture of our group, neither did anyone else I don't believe, but I did take a few of the Serenity deck. This is the "Adult only" section of the ship, VERY NICE & RELAXING AREA!

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Loving your review so far. I am from Baltimore but currently residing in GA so your pics took me home for a moment. Keep going, cant wait to read more.:)

 

Glad to remind you of home, it is always nice to think of when you are away. I have a couple more pics of Balitmore I'll post before sailaway......

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Here are a few more shots of the Serenity area, and I got this pic before sailaway, after that I never saw a hammock empty, there were 4 total, 2 on each side of the serenity area:

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Joe relaxing in the Serenity area. These were interesting chairs, so big two people could lay down in them, when you tried to get up off them, it was a bit difficult since they are so long and wide, but very nice & comfy!:

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Here is a pic of the main pool on Lido, Deck 9, so serene:

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LOVING IT SO FAR!!! Sailing the Pride in February and I am going to share this with my girlfriend who believes in doing NO research at all and leaving it all up to me to insure her good time LOL. This is a must read for her. Thank you for posting this. Waiting for the next installment. :cool:

 

I'm glad you are loving it and going to share with your girlfriend! I CAN NOT imagine not doing research before a cruise, its kindof funny, you ask Joe what I do the 6 months every night just about before our cruises, RESEARCH & lots of it. But the more you do the more you know! And I couldn't imagine going on a trip not knowing things in advance.

Speaking of all this, it was kindof funny, I'll get into this more when I get into what we did in Bermuda, but when we got to Bermuda our first day we took a cab to the places we wanted to visit, I kept asking the cab driver, is this such and such road, is that over there the such and such, he was like wow you did your research!! :cool: Joe said, oh if you only knew!! LOL :p So it is well worth the time to do it!

I've got a TON of info on this trip, this is just the beginning! :)

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By now, its almost 4:00 and time for the great safety briefing that we ALL love....kidding! So here we go to the safety briefing, I don't know what it was about this one, but it seemed so much shorter in time and so many more groups of people and not packed like sardines. We stood in rows like all the other ones we have done but this one just seemed quicker and easier, then again maybe it was all the cocktails we had by that time! :p

 

We headed to our room balcony for sailaway. We thought that would be a good place to enjoy it. So we get there and look down, they still have atleast 15 pallets FULL of food & drinks they are loading on the ship, so it was obvious at that time we weren't leaving anytime soon. By now it was after 5:00pm, so we assumed we were leaving late since the ship before us got in late. No big deal, we are on vacation! So we snapped a couple pics:

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And finally about 6:30pm, we finally sailed away from Baltimore! Here is another sailaway pic of Baltimore area. Theses were some boats docked not far from where the Pride was:

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After sailaway, we decided to hit the casino....and we were there until almost 3am. :rolleyes: I had no clue it was this late or I would have left sooner. We love to play blackjack, so thats what we played for hours on end....we ended up a loosing a little bit, but not much, we knew we would be back to try and get it back at some point!

 

So when we finally decided to head to the room, here was our first towel animal, a swan:

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By now, its almost 4:00 and time for the great safety briefing that we ALL love....kidding! So here we go to the safety briefing, I don't know what it was about this one, but it seemed so much shorter in time and so many more groups of people and not packed like sardines. We stood in rows like all the other ones we have done but this one just seemed quicker and easier, then again maybe it was all the cocktails we had by that time! :p

 

We headed to our room balcony for sailaway. We thought that would be a good place to enjoy it. So we get there and look down, they still have atleast 15 pallets FULL of food & drinks they are loading on the ship, so it was obvious at that time we weren't leaving anytime soon. By now it was after 5:00pm, so we assumed we were leaving late since the ship before us got in late. No big deal, we are on vacation! So we snapped a couple pics:

DSC01545.jpg

 

DSC01557.jpg

 

And finally about 6:30pm, we finally sailed away from Baltimore! Here is another sailaway pic of Baltimore area. Theses were some boats docked not far from where the Pride was:

DSC01561.jpg

 

After sailaway, we decided to hit the casino....and we were there until almost 3am. :rolleyes: I had no clue it was this late or I would have left sooner. We love to play blackjack, so thats what we played for hours on end....we ended up a loosing a little bit, but not much, we knew we would be back to try and get it back at some point!

 

So when we finally decided to head to the room, here was our first towel animal, a swan:

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Lol looks like a snake to me!

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Lol looks like a snake to me!

 

LOL...now that you mention that it does kindof!! :rolleyes:

In person the back part was wider than the neck and stuff like an actual swan, I don't think my picture does it justice! Btw....I hate snakes!!!!

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