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Complete Power Failure: Carnival Pride March 23-30, 2014 w/Pictures


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Welcome to our cruise review. This was my 8th Carnival cruise and my first during the Spring Break season. It was also the first cruise for my girlfriend, who can only cruise during school breaks as she is a school teacher.

 

We chose this particular cruise because of the close proximity of the Port of Baltimore (a 7-hour drive for us) and the ease of getting in and out of Baltimore vs. trying to park in New York. We had originally planned on cruising out of Florida, but with it being Spring Break season in Ohio, airfare was in excess of $500 per person to all of the ports in Florida, as well as to Texas or New Orleans. By process of elimination, we chose the Carnival Pride 7-night sailing to Port Canaveral, Nassau, and Freeport.

 

Before I go any further, I will address the title of this thread. Yes, the Carnival Pride did experience a "complete power and propulsion failure" early in the morning of Monday, March 24 while sailing South off the East Coast of the United States. The ship lost all power, including lighting, elevators, toilets, and propulsion for approximately two hours between 9:00am and 11:00am ships time. I will go into more detail later, but the Captain and Cruise Director did a great job of keeping us updated on the situation, with announcements every 10-15 minutes. By 11:00am, some ships systems were restored, starting with elevators and toilets, and then lighting and propulsion.

 

It is important to note that since the Carnival Triumph incident in February 2013, the Carnival Pride, and I believe all Carnival ships have been equipped with emergency backup generators that can power major hotel systems (toilets, elevators, etc.), as well as reduced speed propulsion to get the ship back to port in the event that the ship loses all main power. The Pride does indeed have one of these generators and while it was available and working (they conducted their normal weekly test of the emergency generator system on Wednesday when we arrived in Port Canaveral), they were able to get the main generators running again before it became necessary to use the emergency generator. It was just nice to know that it was available if we needed it.

 

Here is a picture of the emergency generator installed on the Pride. Newer ships, including the Carnival Breeze, have a secondary generator room installed below decks with fully redundant power systems, but all of the older ships in Carnival's fleet have received these deck-mounted emergency generators until they can have a more permanent system installed.

 

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I have over 400 photos to sort through and plenty of notes from our trip, and look forward to sharing our full review of the trip over the next few days.

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FYI: The Breeze also has a temporary emergency generator just like the one you have pictured. It is strapped down to an upper deck between the rear of the funnel and the basketball court.

 

 

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FYI: The Breeze also has a temporary emergency generator just like the one you have pictured. It is strapped down to an upper deck between the rear of the funnel and the basketball court.

 

 

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It gives me piece of mind knowing that Carnival went to the extra expense of putting these emergency backup generators on every ship in their fleet. They aren't required by maritime law, and to my knowledge the other major cruise lines have not followed suit, but should their use become necessary, it is nice to know that they are there.

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Back to the review.

 

10176229_894117456291_7941691685027015314_n.jpg

 

Before I go any further, I will give you a little background about us. I am 26 and am a manager hospitality industry in Ohio. My girlfriend is 23 and is a school teacher. This was my 8th cruise (all on Carnival) and her first.

 

This was my first cruise on the Carnival Pride, and the first on a Spirit class ship. I have previously sailed on two Fantasy class ships (Imagination and Paradise), two Destiny/Triumph class ships (Triumph and Victory), and a Dream class ship (Dream). I still prefer the layout of the Dream and Fantasy class ships over the Spirit class ships, but the Pride was definitely nicer than the two Triumph class ships that I have been on. All of the public areas on the Pride are condensed on decks 2 and 3, but they are buried down in the bottom of the ship, a long way from the Lido Deck and the daytime activities. I felt like we spent a lot more time climbing stairs and waiting for elevators than we did on some of the other ships.

 

Speaking of the ship, I was impressed with the overall condition of the Pride given that it has been nearly five years since she has seen a dry dock (she is going for her next dry dock in October 2014). The Triumph and Victory both showed a significant amount of wear only a few years out of dry dock, so I was worried that the Pride would be in poor shape, but that was not the case at all. Her crew does a great job of keeping her up at sea, and other than a few small items like the piano at the piano bar not rotating, one of the hot tubs jets being broken, and some wear-and-tear on the carpet and elevators, the ship seemed to be in good shape. The Pride, and really all of the older Carnival ships are probably comparable to very clean 2.5-3 star hotels (Hampton Inn, Courtyard, etc.), and the Pride is reasonably well kept. She isn't as nice as the newer Dream class ships, which I would classify more in the 4-star range (think Hyatt or a newer Hilton), but still provides a great vacation value.

 

As I said earlier, we chose the Pride based upon a process of elimination based upon our vacation week, budget, airfare, and distance to the port. We had originally considered the Carnival Dream, Carnival Legend, Carnival Sunshine, Carnival Ecstasy, Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Splendor, Carnival Magic, Norwegian Breakaway, Royal Princess, and Freedom of the Seas. We quickly ruled out the Florida, Texas and New Orleans departures due to high airfare during the Spring Break season. Airfare to Florida normally runs in the $200-250 per person range, but for Spring Break, it was in excess of $500 to every major port in Florida, and as high as $800 to New Orleans. New York, Baltimore, and Charleston are all within reasonable driving distance, so we quickly narrowed down our choices to the Carnival Pride, Carnival Splendor, Norwegian Breakaway, and Carnival Fantasy. Norwegian Breakaway was less expensive than we expected given that it is a brand new ship, and was originally our first choice, but with the cost of parking in NYC and the logistics of getting into and out of the city, we decided that we really did not want to depart from New York for this cruise. Our choices were down to the Carnival Pride out of Baltimore and the Carnival Fantasy out of Charleston. The Pride was a 7-night sailing to Port Canaveral, Nassau, and Freeport and the Carnival Fantasy was sailing a 5-night itinerary to Nassau and Freeport. For a little over $100 more, we decided we would rather spend an extra two nights on the ship instead of in hotels driving to and from Charleston, so it was the Pride for us on this trip. We would have really preferred the Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay, Freeport itinerary, but due to my girlfriend's work schedule, it looked like the Port Canaveral, Nassau, and Freeport itinerary was the only choice for us. This would be my first visit to both Nassau and Freeport, so at least we had something new to look forward to.

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March 22, 2014 - Pre-Cruise in Baltimore

We departed Ohio on Saturday, March 22 and drove to Baltimore via I-70 and I-68 through West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. I-70 is more direct, but the tolls in Pennsylvania are outrageous and the road was in very poor condition during my last trip to Washington D.C. in 2011. Taking I-68 avoids most of the tolls and only adds 20 minutes to the trip.

 

The weather for our trip to Baltimore on Saturday was partly sunny and in the 50's, making for an enjoyable drive. We left in the late morning and made a few stops along the way, arriving in Baltimore around 7:00 local time.

 

I reserved the Park and Cruise package at the Holiday Inn Express Baltimore at the Stadiums based upon reviews here and on TripAdvisor. The hotel was about $20 more expensive than the other park-and-cruise hotels in the area, but it is also 5 miles closer to the port than most of the other hotels offering the package.

 

harbor-baltimore-home1-top.jpg

 

The hotel isn't in the best neighborhood, but it does have a fully gated and fenced parking lot and security in the lobby. The hotel itself is very nice for a Holiday Inn Express and met or exceeded my expectations. Check-in was a breeze (less than 90 seconds from counter to elevator), and the room itself was clean and appeared relatively new.

 

The only cons to this hotel are the tiny outdoor pool (still closed during our stay), which is located essentially in the middle of the parking lot, and the construction currently going on across the street for the new casino. My understanding is that work starts very early during the week, and the hotel has signs about noise kits and two free sets of ear plugs in every room. At least they are trying to provide some relief and acknowledging the temporary noise problem from the construction next door.

 

Upon check-in, the front desk staff had us select a time slot and reserve our seats on the shuttle to the Cruise Maryland port for the next day. Earlier in the week Carnival sent out an email and automated phone call letting us know that boarding would be delayed until 3:00pm to 5:00pm due to "systems testing". I called the hotel in advance and asked how late the shuttles ran and explained the notice. The person that answered the phone told me that this was normal and they do it every week to try to spread out the crowd and we could still get to the port early and they would let us on the ship by lunch time. She went on to state that the shuttles would run at their regularly scheduled times between 10:00am and 12:30pm and that the last shuttle we could take would leave the hotel at 12:30pm.

 

Upon arrival at the hotel, the shuttle story had changed and the hotel had pushed back the shuttle reservation times to between 2:00pm and 4:00pm. The earlier shuttles were already filled, so we selected the 3:30pm shuttle. They also informed us that since we had the park-and-cruise package, we had automatically received a free late checkout time of 3:00pm so we could sleep in and relax in our room until it was time to go to the port. We were very happy with this service.

 

Around 1:30 on Sunday afternoon, we received a call letting us know that the shuttles were running ahead of schedule and we could come down any time we wanted and they would have shuttles running every 30 minutes for us. We wanted to have lunch before heading to the port, so we opted to wait until 3:00 to check out of the room and head down to the shuttle. By the time we got to the lobby, they informed us that we were the last two waiting to go to the port and they would take us as soon as the shuttle came back around. We only waited about 10 minutes for the shuttle to return and were on our way to the port even before our 3:30 scheduled time. We were the only two on the shuttle!

 

The trip to the port was quick and we were unloading our luggage and headed to security less than 10 minutes after we left the hotel.

 

Up next: Embarkation

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Before I go any further, I will address the title of this thread. Yes, the Carnival Pride did experience a "complete power and propulsion failure" early in the morning of Monday, March 24 while sailing South off the East Coast of the United States. The ship lost all power, including lighting, elevators, toilets, and propulsion for approximately two hours between 9:00am and 11:00am ships time. I'll ask a question that I also asked about the Royal Princess' reported loss of power a few days back. Did you lose all lighting, or just most of it. A percentage of lighting is powered by the emergency generator, and a smaller percentage is required to be powered by batteries, for a minimum of 4 hours, if the emergency generator fails. Total loss of lighting would have turned most passageways into total darkness, even in the day. I ask, because a total failure of lighting would be extremely rare, and also point to a severe problem with the Pride's systems.

 

It is important to note that since the Carnival Triumph incident in February 2013, the Carnival Pride, and I believe all Carnival ships have been equipped with emergency backup generators that can power major hotel systems (toilets, elevators, etc.), as well as reduced speed propulsion to get the ship back to port in the event that the ship loses all main power. The Pride does indeed have one of these generators and while it was available and working (they conducted their normal weekly test of the emergency generator system on Wednesday when we arrived in Port Canaveral), they were able to get the main generators running again before it became necessary to use the emergency generator. It was just nice to know that it was available if we needed it. Don't know who told you that the back up generator could provide limited propulsion, but that is not correct. While they have made significant changes to the power generation scheme to allow this generator to power specific hotel loads, it is a 480v generator, and the main propulsion is 10,000v. It is also at most a 2Mw generator, and the hotel load alone for this ship is in the range of 7-8Mw. Air conditioning compressors are also 10,000v motors, so if the back up generator is needed, there will be no A/C.

 

Here is a picture of the emergency generator installed on the Pride. Newer ships, including the Carnival Breeze, have a secondary generator room installed below decks with fully redundant power systems, but all of the older ships in Carnival's fleet have received these deck-mounted emergency generators until they can have a more permanent system installed.

 

 

What you state about the Breeze is not quite correct. The Breeze is the only Carnival ship delivered since 2012, when the IMO's Safe Return to Port (SRTP) requirements went into effect. Only ships built since the Breeze will meet these requirements. Nearly all cruise ships have two engine rooms where the diesel generators are located. And most have segregation between them so that loss of one engine room does not affect the other. However, from the Carnival Splendor fire (which was eerily similar to the Triumph), where fire in the aft engine room burned the electrical cables from the forward engine room, the IMO promulgated the SRTP, which mandates further separation of all systems between the two engine rooms. Loss of one engine room, or one propulsion system will not black the ship out completely, but will provide full hotel functions, and reduced (65-75% of full speed) propulsion.

 

All ships, of any type, have emergency generators, which are required by law to provide whatever power is needed to evacuate all persons from the ship in the event of an abandon ship event. For cruise ships, this involves steering, bridge navigation and communications equipment, limited lighting (as noted above, including the battery chargers for the lighting), fire pump, and the lifeboat davits.

 

What Carnival did after the Triumph fire, was to add another generator which is designed to come on when needed (as this is not the emergency generator, I'm not sure if it automatically starts, but due to the closures on the container, I think not) to power hotel functions when main power is not available. These temporary generators are to bridge the gap until the ship goes to drydock, when it will be replaced with a permanent back up generator inside the ship.

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I'm sailing Pride on 5/4. I booked the HIE Stadiums based on someone's recommendation in the "All Things Pride" thread. And then I started to 2nd-guess that decision because of things I'd read about the neighborhood. I'm a solo female, and will probably want to venture out that evening to go into the Inner Harbor area, so that's a concern to me. But then I read fairly good recent reviews on Trip Advisor.

 

Plus, thanks to that recommendation, I booked the cruise parking package through Stay123 and got the room for considerably less than the hotel site price.

 

I doubt I'll want to use the pool, but thanks for including that info. So, I'm assuming that construction noise isn't an issue on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, right? Or is that a poor assumption to make?

 

I don't understand why the shuttles start so early when Pride NEVER boards super early. I'm Platinum, and want to board as early as I can, but I'd rather relax and sit around the hotel than in the port terminal. If she doesn't even dock until 9 am, why would I want to be there before 10:30? They can't possibly begin boarding for a couple more hours, can they?

 

I'm not too worried about power issues. As long as I can board the ship, I'll be happy. Well, I won't be happy if we miss HMC (missed it last try for the first time after 5 successful visits).

 

Looking forward to the rest of the review. Post lots of photos, please! :D

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I'm sailing Pride on 5/4. I booked the HIE Stadiums based on someone's recommendation in the "All Things Pride" thread. And then I started to 2nd-guess that decision because of things I'd read about the neighborhood. I'm a solo female, and will probably want to venture out that evening to go into the Inner Harbor area, so that's a concern to me. But then I read fairly good recent reviews on Trip Advisor.

 

Plus, thanks to that recommendation, I booked the cruise parking package through Stay123 and got the room for considerably less than the hotel site price.

 

I doubt I'll want to use the pool, but thanks for including that info. So, I'm assuming that construction noise isn't an issue on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, right? Or is that a poor assumption to make?

 

I don't understand why the shuttles start so early when Pride NEVER boards super early. I'm Platinum, and want to board as early as I can, but I'd rather relax and sit around the hotel than in the port terminal. If she doesn't even dock until 9 am, why would I want to be there before 10:30? They can't possibly begin boarding for a couple more hours, can they?

 

I'm not too worried about power issues. As long as I can board the ship, I'll be happy. Well, I won't be happy if we miss HMC (missed it last try for the first time after 5 successful visits).

 

Looking forward to the rest of the review. Post lots of photos, please! :D

Agree - happy to read this review including the HIE info. I also booked via stay123 and got a great deal, but mostly was concerned about the parking for the week. Knowing that it is a gated lot clears all my concerns.

 

Also, I bought FTTF for the 4/27 sailing (first cruise in 20 years, so wanted to be on ship as early as possible) - based on what I am reading, I am starting to wonder if it was a good idea, since it seems Pride is embarking later and lare

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Pride doesn't always dock as late as 9:00. Checked cruise ship tracker at 7:20 this A.M. and she was almost docked and that was with traveling home at 8 to 9 knots yesterday with the mechanical problems.

 

We are leaving today and I watched Pride come in at around 715 this morning. We are skipping the Freeport stop so we have more time to get back; I am assuming we will be early next Sunday as well.

 

I thought the max speed it's now 19 knots? Why we're they traveling at 8-9 yesterday?

 

I thought they were

 

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We are leaving today and I watched Pride come in at around 715 this morning. We are skipping the Freeport stop so we have more time to get back; I am assuming we will be early next Sunday as well.

 

I thought the max speed it's now 19 knots? Why we're they traveling at 8-9 yesterday?

 

I thought they were

 

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They will reduce speed to make their timed arrivals. Is the published arrival time for the modified itinerary the same as the 10am one for the normal cruise? If so, she just got ahead of schedule, and slowed down to save some fuel and arrive at a time where they don't have to pay a lot of overtime to port personnel for an early arrival.

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They will reduce speed to make their timed arrivals. Is the published arrival time for the modified itinerary the same as the 10am one for the normal cruise? If so, she just got ahead of schedule, and slowed down to save some fuel and arrive at a time where they don't have to pay a lot of overtime to port personnel for an early arrival.

 

Again, thank you!!

I'm just going to get on the shop and have a drink!

 

Hijack over....sorry! :-)

 

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Before I go any further, I will address the title of this thread. Yes, the Carnival Pride did experience a "complete power and propulsion failure" early in the morning of Monday, March 24 while sailing South off the East Coast of the United States. The ship lost all power, including lighting, elevators, toilets, and propulsion for approximately two hours between 9:00am and 11:00am ships time. I will go into more detail later, but the Captain and Cruise Director did a great job of keeping us updated on the situation, with announcements every 10-15 minutes. By 11:00am, some ships systems were restored, starting with elevators and toilets, and then lighting and propulsion

 

we were on this same sailing, and I agree - the staff handled this beautifully. The servers in the MDR served Danish and coffee with smiles in their faces and Kirk kept us informed. We did have lighting in the hallways, and we were in a balcony so it was nice to have that natural light.

 

They will reduce speed to make their timed arrivals. Is the published arrival time for the modified itinerary the same as the 10am one for the normal cruise?.

 

Our published arrival time was 9:00 - I think that is pretty normal for her, but I could be wrong.

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Wow, that thing does not give me an extra sense of security at all. It looks temporary/last ditch/unsightly. I'm also thinking about the amount of containers that spill off of container ships all the time. It is redundant though so hopefully everything will be fine.

 

OP, when the power went out did you hear reports of anyone stuck in an elevator? If they waited two hours- just wondering.

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I'm sailing Pride on 5/4. I booked the HIE Stadiums based on someone's recommendation in the "All Things Pride" thread. And then I started to 2nd-guess that decision because of things I'd read about the neighborhood. I'm a solo female, and will probably want to venture out that evening to go into the Inner Harbor area, so that's a concern to me. But then I read fairly good recent reviews on Trip Advisor.

 

Plus, thanks to that recommendation, I booked the cruise parking package through Stay123 and got the room for considerably less than the hotel site price.

 

I doubt I'll want to use the pool, but thanks for including that info. So, I'm assuming that construction noise isn't an issue on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, right? Or is that a poor assumption to make?

 

I don't understand why the shuttles start so early when Pride NEVER boards super early. I'm Platinum, and want to board as early as I can, but I'd rather relax and sit around the hotel than in the port terminal. If she doesn't even dock until 9 am, why would I want to be there before 10:30? They can't possibly begin boarding for a couple more hours, can they?

 

I'm not too worried about power issues. As long as I can board the ship, I'll be happy. Well, I won't be happy if we miss HMC (missed it last try for the first time after 5 successful visits).

 

Looking forward to the rest of the review. Post lots of photos, please! :D

i am very familiar with baltimore and recently retired from the baltimore city police department. as far as the HIE stadiums hotel it is fine for doing what you are doing park and cruise. especially if the lot is secured inside a fenced area. if it wasn't fenced in i might think twice about it. as far as walking to the inner harbor as a solo female don't attempt it, take a cab. you are really not close enough to walk safely to anything. the hotel is located on russell st which at that location is pretty much a highway. once you get through the light it turns into 295 a highway connecting baltimore and D.C. between the hotel and the inner harbor there are stretches of isolated roads that are between and through some tough neighborhoods. you don't want to get confused and lost in the wrong area. everywhere you want to go is probably a 10 minute cab ride. but a sketchy long 45-60 minute walk. just research ahead of where you want to go and take a cab. closest bar area is federal hill. you also have power plant live in downtown baltimore which is a location with numerous bars within an area that is grouped together. a longer cab ride would be canton square which is the go to area these days for young adults 25-35yrs. and also fells point which is like canton but not as popular now. and of course the actual inner harbor pavilion. all these locations you should not have a problem catching a cab back. just be aware of your surroundings even the actual inner harbor has had its share of problems with groups of kids causing havoc especially on weekends(i assume you are staying on a saturday since carnival cruises on sundays out of baltimore) i will be cruising on the pride apr 13 and can't wait.

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Got back early today because we skipped freeport. Apparently one of the engine thrusters stopped working (electrical). They announced last night we would disembark at 8 versus original 1015. After we left HMC we sailed fine at 17 knots or so. Really slowed down around dinner and in to the night. Based on early arrival and speed they went really disappointed to skip freeport.

 

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Got back early today because we skipped freeport. Apparently one of the engine thrusters stopped working (electrical). They announced last night we would disembark at 8 versus original 1015. After we left HMC we sailed fine at 17 knots or so. Really slowed down around dinner and in to the night. Based on early arrival and speed they went really disappointed to skip freeport.

 

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From Freeport to Baltimore is 839 nm. At Pride's full speed of 22 knots, this takes 38 hours. At her new speed on one pod of 19 knots, that same distance now takes 48 hours. I've discounted the effects of the Gulf Stream, as it would be equal between the two cases. So, if you stopped in Freeport, you would have had to leave 10 hours earlier than advertised, so maybe 1 or 2 hours there?

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The issue I see with this ship, is that Carnival had it scheduled for drydock this past february to update this ship. However, because they were leaving Baltimore in Oct of this year, they pushed back the drydock date. If they had kept the original schedule maybe none of these issues would have happened, as their original determination was the ship needed the work in february. However, they pushed the envelope and decided to put the drydock off. Now its coming back to bite them.

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From Freeport to Baltimore is 839 nm. At Pride's full speed of 22 knots, this takes 38 hours. At her new speed on one pod of 19 knots, that same distance now takes 48 hours. I've discounted the effects of the Gulf Stream, as it would be equal between the two cases. So, if you stopped in Freeport, you would have had to leave 10 hours earlier than advertised, so maybe 1 or 2 hours there?

 

Good insight. Guess it's hard to say. Stayed 1 hour later in HMC and home 2 early. Could rest be picked up in the many hours we floated 6-10 knots?

 

I think what's more frustrating is I believe they knew of this issue early on in cruise but didn't announce it. Only heard from captain once for 30 seconds to announce it.

 

Ship did feel a bit dated. Probably because dry dock like previous poster stated. We don't use but I guess Internet was down all week as well.

 

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I'm sailing Pride on 5/4. I booked the HIE Stadiums based on someone's recommendation in the "All Things Pride" thread. And then I started to 2nd-guess that decision because of things I'd read about the neighborhood. I'm a solo female, and will probably want to venture out that evening to go into the Inner Harbor area, so that's a concern to me. But then I read fairly good recent reviews on Trip Advisor.

 

Plus, thanks to that recommendation, I booked the cruise parking package through Stay123 and got the room for considerably less than the hotel site price.

 

I doubt I'll want to use the pool, but thanks for including that info. So, I'm assuming that construction noise isn't an issue on a Saturday night/Sunday morning, right? Or is that a poor assumption to make?

 

I don't understand why the shuttles start so early when Pride NEVER boards super early. I'm Platinum, and want to board as early as I can, but I'd rather relax and sit around the hotel than in the port terminal. If she doesn't even dock until 9 am, why would I want to be there before 10:30? They can't possibly begin boarding for a couple more hours, can they?

 

I'm not too worried about power issues. As long as I can board the ship, I'll be happy. Well, I won't be happy if we miss HMC (missed it last try for the first time after 5 successful visits).

 

Looking forward to the rest of the review. Post lots of photos, please! :D

 

I'd take a cab or a shuttle (not sure if the shuttle offers service to the Inner Harbor?) as the neighborhood is probably not safe for walking after dark.

 

There wasn't much noise during the weekend; my understanding is that most of the work takes place during the week. Just something to be aware of.

 

Once power was restored after a two hour outage, we didn't have any issues for the rest of our trip. I'm honestly surprised that they are cancelling Freeport as we still made that stop and made it back to Baltimore in time, but we were also doing more than 19 knots. They must have found something else that is requiring the shutdown of one azipod.

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What you state about the Breeze is not quite correct. The Breeze is the only Carnival ship delivered since 2012, when the IMO's Safe Return to Port (SRTP) requirements went into effect. Only ships built since the Breeze will meet these requirements. Nearly all cruise ships have two engine rooms where the diesel generators are located. And most have segregation between them so that loss of one engine room does not affect the other. However, from the Carnival Splendor fire (which was eerily similar to the Triumph), where fire in the aft engine room burned the electrical cables from the forward engine room, the IMO promulgated the SRTP, which mandates further separation of all systems between the two engine rooms. Loss of one engine room, or one propulsion system will not black the ship out completely, but will provide full hotel functions, and reduced (65-75% of full speed) propulsion.

 

All ships, of any type, have emergency generators, which are required by law to provide whatever power is needed to evacuate all persons from the ship in the event of an abandon ship event. For cruise ships, this involves steering, bridge navigation and communications equipment, limited lighting (as noted above, including the battery chargers for the lighting), fire pump, and the lifeboat davits.

 

What Carnival did after the Triumph fire, was to add another generator which is designed to come on when needed (as this is not the emergency generator, I'm not sure if it automatically starts, but due to the closures on the container, I think not) to power hotel functions when main power is not available. These temporary generators are to bridge the gap until the ship goes to drydock, when it will be replaced with a permanent back up generator inside the ship.

 

They did have emergency power for the low level lighting, intercom system, etc. That worked flawlessly. They never did use the emergency backup generator on deck during the outage on Monday.

 

We were on the ship on Wednesday in Port Canaveral when they did their test on the emergency generator. It has to be started manually, but it worked fine and the power transitioned flawlessly from the main generator to the emergency generator when they did the test. They just asked that no one use the elevators for 5 minutes while they conducted the test in the event that there was a gap in power that caused the elevators to get stuck.

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Wow, that thing does not give me an extra sense of security at all. It looks temporary/last ditch/unsightly. I'm also thinking about the amount of containers that spill off of container ships all the time. It is redundant though so hopefully everything will be fine.

 

OP, when the power went out did you hear reports of anyone stuck in an elevator? If they waited two hours- just wondering.

 

We never heard anything about anyone getting stuck in an elevator. Life went on almost as normal except for the toilets being out for a short period of time and the reduced power. Kirk kept us informed from the bridge and Calvin (Asst. Cruise Director) put together some extra activities in the lounges that have natural light via the windows. Another poster said that they even continued serving danishes, etc. in the dining room. It really wasn't much of a disturbance at all aside from the announcements every 10-15 minutes. We just slept in a little later than we otherwise would have and watched the water from our balcony. Having personally experienced it, I would have no problem getting back on the Pride today. It was only a minor disruption and they handled it marvelously.

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Just back from the "Faster to the Flood" cruise, what a messy embarkation, lol! I believe that this week they changed the itinerary to exclude Freeport and added Charleston to ensure that they have time for 3 stops. That would have made my day, because a day in Charleston beats a day in Freeport for me every time. Losing the short stop in Freeport was no big deal for me. We're never there long enough to do anything but get tipsy at Senor Frogs anyway, lol. Hopefully they'll get her up and running for the cruisers on board now. If not, maybe the itinerary will change permanently until she goes to dry dock.

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