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I am having quite the conundrum over choosing a dining time for our next cruise. We usually do late dining since we are usually cruising to the Caribbean which is ahead a few time zones. But our next cruise is to Alaska which is behind a few time zones. I have been going back and forth about dining times. I know I don't want YTD because we love having the same table, we never have to wait for it, having the same wait staff, and meeting new table mates. So that leaves late or early. Late dining for Alaskan cruises is 7:45 which is 9:45 at home. And I feel like we would be starving and/or too tired to grab a few cocktails, enjoy dinner, and then go to shows afterwards. Early dining is at 5:30 which would be 7:30 at home, which is usually about the time I get home from work. With the exception of 1 port day, we will be back on the ship no later than 1pm and 3pm, so there is no rushing to get ready for dinner and no missing sail away. I feel like early dining is probably the choice for this cruise. But I am still torn. 

Cabland, I LOVED your file! I am an obsessive planner and your “family cruise brochure” is right up my alley. I got a kick out of your glacier pros... “you’re on a friggin glacier” 

Does anyone know if the 1/2 glass wine pairings for $18 for each course are included with Cheers

Thank you for sharing your review and your pictures.

I really liked Music Asia, they played in the casino bar. They played a variety of music from different decades and were pretty good. There was a guitar player at the atrium bar that really tried but never really did it for me. He played every song the same speed.

I was on the 1/21 sailing and I thought Adam was great. Always around but never annoying. Did a couple of trivia things with him, he was funny during the marriage show, kept everyone informed of our itinerary change and the patient being airlifted by helicopter. He even ended up in the pool during the hairy chest contest.

I was on this cruise and didn't see anyone getting sick (or evidence of it). The weather was stormy and the ship rock a bit (we were all the way aft) and I slept through the night. It is sad that your friends were put off of cruising. I hope they give it another go.

The golf ball part had me laughing so hard, I scared my cats. Hope he finds work soon (if he is looking for it)

Go Pack Go!

A dirty banana and a mocha chocolate getaway

Laughing my butt off at your review! Looking forward to more!

We brought along Peg Leg Pete in our luggage, no problems.

 

I'm curious about this process since I have a 10:10 flight.

 

If all goes well and the stars align, does the process begin at 8:00 am or possibly earlier? Is there a Global Entry line to clear customs in the cruise terminal?

 

What is the quickest way to depart the ship? We have always done self-assist, but is there now another fee-based option with Carnival? If so, what is that cost?

 

My thanks to everyone for sharing and assistance!

I just got off the Conquest on Jan 23rd. We had FTTF and we self-disembarked. We met in the Renoir dining room at 06:45 and were let off the ship after the special needs, diamonds and plats. We zipped through customs and we hopped in a taxi for the airport at 07:25.

We were on the 6 day... We went to key west, grand cayman, and Cozumel. I'm sorry, we did not save the daily activity paper.

I'm getting ready to go on this itinerary in 2 weeks (woo hoo!!!!) and wondering which nights were dress elegant. Would love to hear about the American Table menu. I want to hit up the Steakhouse and looking for which night in the MDR that I can live with skipping.

This happens to me on every cruise I've been on. The rocking and swaying sensation usually lasts for approximately the length of my cruise. So for about a week after my brain still thinks I am on the ship. I have never gotten sick from it but it can get kinda annoying sometimes. Especially in small places like the shower. I almost fell out once while trying to shave my legs. Got one done and said forget it to the other lol. I take meclazine while on the cruise and for about a week after. It seems to lessen the symptoms. I also notice the rocking is less or non-existent when I am driving or riding in the car.

I'm so sorry for your loss. I really felt like I knew both you and your dad through all your reviews. And I remember thinking "these are peeps I could have a great vacation with". Im sending you as much love and happiness that one can without being a creepy internet stalker.

What type of camera did you use for your underwater shot? BTW, Loving the review!

 

 

I used my iPhone. It's in a lifeproof case.

Loving the review! Do you remember how much it cost to rent snorkel gear in Grand Turk? This is on my husband's must -do's for next week when we're there.

 

 

I think it was $10.

Ports

There seemed to be cannons everywhere. Much to the delight of my artillery soldier. Here’s an embarrassing montage of him being an artillery geek. I love him so :)

 

Grand Turk

 

 

We got to Grand Turk and it was warm but beautiful. When coming off the pier, we headed right. There is a bunch of displays showing John Glen’s touch down in the Friendship capsule. We then turned towards the left side of the beach. This was the beachside area that was not in the Margaritaville part.

 

Lots of free beach chairs to sprawl out on. We noticed there are a few vendors renting out the chairs and umbrellas that were right on the water edge. I spoke to a few people that rented them. It seems how much you paid for them depended upon who you talked to. One guy said he agreed to pay $10 for the chair and umbrella and gave the guy a $20 and the guy never brought him change. Hubs rented some snorkel gear. And said he saw some fish and critters but nothing amazing. The water felt wonderful. We bought a few local beers from a vendor. And he had to go get change from another vendor, so the take away is bring small bills. After we had enough time in the sun, we headed back to the ship to rinse off and nap.

 

 

See those blue chairs? Free. The white ones with the umbrellas? Those were the ones for rent.

 

Grand Turk has a beautiful beach area. And you can have a nice day without spending a dime. I couldn’t hear any Margaritaville noise from the beach area.

back for a short post. College started up for me and I am going for my bachelors in nursing along with working full time. I must be crazy. Anywho... here's sea days

 

Sea Days or I’ve got nothing but time and no place to go

 

I have to admit, I really love sea days. Enjoying coffee or a bloody mary on my balcony. Watching the sun rise is only something I willingly do on vacation. Hubs and I hit up the seaday brunch in the MDR. We had both breakfasty stuff and lunch stuff. Afterwards Cory liked to nap. I would hang out on my balcony and read or listen to my iThinger and just watch the beautiful ocean go by.

 

We would often skip the 2 main pools in favor of Serenity Deck. There was too many issues with chair hogging and kids splashing and kicking people when they would be swimming. Don’t get me wrong, I like kids, just not the unruly mom-lets-me-do-whatever-I-want kind. Serenity Deck was nice. Adult only pool, hottub and bar. If you’re looking for silence as part of serenity, you would not appreciate this place too much. There was music playing overhead. Not many tunes that I recognized. It was background vacation elevator music. And the ever present whirr of the icy beverage crusher thinger was in constant use. There was chair hogging here but not as bad as by the 2 main pools. The clamshells and hammocks were taken way early in the morning. Which leads me to believe that people must have slept overnight there. I didn’t really care. I sat on the pool ledge and got appropriately sunburned and the waiters came right to me.

 

I may have stayed by the pool too long!

 

A collection of towel critters

 

It might be an occupational hazard, but I will always think that the seal looks like a vagina. I’m a Labor and Delivery nurse, remember?

 

I still need to report on Ports and my disembarking experience. Thanks for hanging in there!

That's all I have for now. It is our busy month at the hospital and all these deliveries are running me ragged. Apparently there isn't much to do in Wisconsin winters except snuggle up and make babies :) That's alright cause it is job security and how I'm gonna pay for my next cruise.

 

I'll add port stops and disembarking next.

 

Thanks for reading this far. You're a real trooper.

Social Media Package aka Making my peeps green with jealousy

 

We both purchased the Social Media package for $25 for the duration of the cruise. With this package, we could access Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, iMessage, and a few other apps on our iphones. The speed was decent and I really enjoyed being able to torment my friends and family back home with annoying selfies of all the fun I was having. There were several sites that were available for free without purchasing any of internet packages. The Funtimes were available as pdf files, you could go to Carnival.com, GoCCL, John Heald’s Blog, and the Carnival Funpoints (I am assuming this is the Carnival Mastercard).

 

Selfie on the balcony!

 

 

Entertainment aka keeping boredom at bay

 

We went to several of the Playlist Production shows which were pretty cheesy but I enjoyed watching. I noticed that a lot of the shows and bands went along a musical genre theme for the night. Like the show would be so the band in the Red Frog Pub would also play 80's music, trivia and a super fun name that tune sing-a-long in the atrium with the cruise director, Steve. The show "Heart and Soul" went along with Motown hits and trivia.

 

We also saw a few comedians. It was next to impossible to see a show in the Taj Majal followed by a comedy show. Even though the venues are right next to each other. The Punchliner fills up fast with people basically coming almost an hour early for seats. The Comedy Manager, Rebecca (from England) was a really funny and classy lady. We saw her manage several drunk and unruly passengers with tons of class.

 

We donated some money to Carnival in the form of bingo and slots. I won my first ship on a stick for One Hit Wonder Trivia. I knew 18/20. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast but song lyrics from 30 years ago??? I’m all over it.

 

Food Options aka stuffing my face

 

We were assigned late dining. Normally I love late dining, but it seemed like all the really fun activities and shows that I wanted to go to were during the late seating. We skipped dining in the MDR twice. We sat at a table for 6 in the very far corner of the MDR. One couple never showed up and the other couple was often late for dinner. We were also sandwiched in between 2 large parties that consisted of 12 and 14 people. I could see that the wait staff was working very hard to keep up with everything. But the flow of dinner seemed very disjointed. I felt this cruise that I did not get to know our wait staff like we had on previous cruises. We couldn’t see much of the entertainment because of our location but got to hear Ken, the maître d’, sing Sinatra.

 

The bar service was extraordinarily slow or nonexistent. We learned to stop by the Alchemy bar or the Raphael lounge to grab our dinner drinks before heading to dinner. The food was good and still using the old menus. I hear that the American Table will be coming soon to the Pride.

 

Guys Burgers were phenomenal! I loved the tacos and burritos at the Blue Iguana. One side had burritos and the other side had pork, chicken and fish tacos, no refried beans on this side and be aware that the fish tacos consists of a fried fish filet. The breakfast burrito was meh.

 

The 24 hour pizza place was excellent. The food on the Lido was kinda blah but what one expects from the Lido. We ate seaday brunch in the dining room twice and it was really good. My husband had the Funnest French Toast with Fruit Loops on it. Just looking at it made me get cavities. The bar service was hit or miss. Often my bloody mary or mimosa would show up after we were done eating.

 

 

We ate at David’s Steakhouse for our anniversary. The food and the service was AMAZING! The only complaint I had was my husband was wearing dress khaki shorts and he was told he needed to change into long pants. The only pants that he had available were jeans. So he felt he had to dress down for dinner. But other than that hiccup, it was an altogether great experience and totally worth the $35 per person!

Embarkation aka Faster to the Fun was so worth it

 

As I said before, the shuttle dropped us off at 1:13pm, we unloaded our suitcases and let the porter know we had FTTF. I didn’t see the infamous orange sticker but it was on our bags when they arrived in our room. Since we had FTTF, we got to bypass the long line inside the cruise terminal. FTTF cool moment #1. It was approximately a 15 minute agonizing trip thru the terminal and no line standing. They had our sign & sail cards ready and they was a hole pre-punched so we attached them to our lanyards. I love lanyards. Seriously. No pockets, no purse, no problem. We stepped onto the atrium of the Pride at 1:27pm.

 

Hello vacation! Obligatory smoochie Bon Voyage PDA picture to embarrass our kiddos.

 

I boogied over to the Shore Excursion desk to pick out my cabana for HMC. And because we were dilly dallying around waiting on a shuttle, the only ones left were 2,3,4,5 and 13. We chose 5. It is right next to the Pirate Ship Bar. More on that later.

 

I went to the FTTF guest service line to put gift cards on my S&S account. There are several kiosks aboard that you can do this at, but for some reason they were not accepting my gift cards. The kiosks were neat. You could slide your S&S card and look at your onboard balance and add money to your account (either cash or gift cards). FTTF cool moment #2. I am really digging all this avoidy of the line standing :)

 

My husband purchased the Cheers package for us at the atrium bar. $49.95 plus 15% gratuity ($7.49) = $57.44 per day x 7 days = $402.08 x 2 people = $804.16. Everyone over 21 sharing the same cabin has to get Cheers. Its all or none. We had to pay the tax on our drinks while we were still in US waters. We might have ended up paying less than $10 in sales tax on drinks that first night between the 2 of us. The positives on Cheers, it was very freeing knowing I already paid for my drinks and it didn’t matter what I got. I tried drinks that I never would have before and not feel compelled to finish them if I didn’t like them. I am starting to realize that I am not a fan of pineapple in my frosty beverages. I kept a tally of what I drank and I was pretty close to breaking even. But for my husband, it was a waste of money. That being said, I do not think I will purchase again. I might if they changed the program to a lower limit of drinks for less or made it so that not everyone in the cabin over 21 had to purchase it.

 

This is a Mocha Chocolate Getaway and it is a thing of beauty

 

We then headed to our room. 5248. Balcony cabin aft-ish on upper deck. Great location. Elevators not too far away, there was a laundry room for ironing of our fancy duds nearby. (Did you know that the laundry room is all metal? It was weirdly creepy in there.) Down 3 floors was the dining room (assigned) and Alchemy bar. Down 2 floors to your time dining and another bar (Raphel lounge). Up 4 floors to the Lido buffet, 24 hr pizza, and a small stroll to Blue Iguana Cantina and Guys Burgers and Serenity deck. This ship was really easy to get around. Lots of places to hang out.

 

Muster drill was freakin hot. I am used to muster drill on the Magic and the Ecstasy where we got to sit inside in the AC. On the Pride, however, Muster station D was out under the unusually warm Baltimore sun with no cover. Had we arrived later instead of right away, we would have been able to stand under some shade. At least it didn’t take long. At 4pm, we were on our way, right on schedule! We headed up to the lido deck to people watch and get our drink on.

Pre-Cruise Plans aka I don’t have OCD, my mother had me tested!

 

So why the Pride out of Baltimore??? To the Caribbean??? In August??? What were we thinking?!? We are gonna melt out there! Well we picked this particular cruise because it occurred during the week of our 20th wedding anniversary and my 41st birthday. And the itinerary had ports we had never been too. Somehow that will make it less hot. Actually it wasn’t that bad. The most uncomfortable heat related moment came in the form of the Muster Drill in Baltimore, of all places. Who knew?

 

This was the first time we have ever flown to port. We used to be stationed at Fort Hood, TX before the hubs retired, so we always sailed out of Galveston and we would just make the 3.5ish hour drive to port. Flying into port added an element of excitement and stress related diarrhea…

 

There’s obsessive planning and then there was the elaborate packing staging area I had on my bedroom floor. I had to pack very carefully to ensure that I didn’t go over my allotted weight for my first 2 bags fly free. I was certain that I would only make weight if I only brought underwear and a toothbrush. I had packed several times, practically a month in advance. Carefully separating my belongings into 2 Southwest approved suitcases. I guesstimated the weight by holding our 35lb puppy and comparing her. It was very scientific. My husband, on the other hand, haphazardly tossed his crap into 1 suitcase the night before. Men. My 2 bags added up to 45lbs together and his massive behemoth was 48lbs. And they say women pack too much.

 

Since we were flying in, I decided to hedge my bets and book a hotel for the night before. I had several requirements in a hotel. The hotel had to 1. Provide transportation to/from airport. 2. Provide transportation to/from cruise port. 3. Be within walking distance from somewhere I could purchase wine and soda. And 4. Not be stupid expensive. We ended up going through Trinity Reservations and got a fairly good deal on a room at the Comfort Inn and Suites BWI. Price included room and transportation (parking for week as well, but we didn’t use that). Using my super stalker skills and Google maps street view, I discovered that there was a liquor store, gas station, and Dunkin Donuts right across the street. Sweet!

 

We flew into Baltimore on Southwest on Sat (the day before our cruise), we almost didn’t make it due to a computer glitch at the airport that basically shut down all flights going to the eastern seaboard. This caused a great many people to be stranded in Baltimore. This may or may not be the reason behind our shuttle woes (more on that later). The mountain of suitcases in the baggage pick up area was ridiculous. It looked like a suitcase factory exploded!

 

We got to the hotel via shuttle and there was a HUGE line out the door of people at the front desk. Expedia kept selling rooms at the hotel even though they were booked full. Gotta give props to the girls manning the front desk. They were very level headed, polite, and were working really hard to get people taken care of despite the great amount of yelling and verbal abuse that was heaped upon them. My husband was singing my praises since I had the hotel booked and paid for months ago. Never let it be said that my anal retentive attention to detail never yielded positive results.

 

Regarding the Comfort Inn & Suites BWI shuttle... getting from the airport to the hotel was no problem. The airport shuttle runs 24/7. It picks up at BWI near the baggage claim at doors 1 & 15. Takes about 30/45 mins for it to make a round trip. When you check in at the hotel front desk, you can reserve a shuttle time back to the airport. But not the cruise port.

 

To get the cruise shuttle, you have to check out of your room and tell them you want a shuttle to cruise port. We checked out at 10:00am and told that we were behind two huge parties. Waiting for the shuttle was probably the most stressful part of our trip. Causing my 40 year old, middle aged face to break out in the sexiest of zits. They were also sharing the cruise port shuttle with the neighboring Best Western hotel. About 12 minutes before I was going to give up on the hotel shuttle and call a cab, the shuttle showed up. We got on the shuttle at 12:47pm and were standing in line at the cruise port 1:13pm.

 

The hotel was nice enough. The room was clean, the bed was comfy, and everything was in working order. The staff was professional, polite, and friendly. Would I recommend this hotel? Sure if you just need a place to rest your weary head. But if you want reliable transportation to the cruise port that isn’t going to stress you out and delay your happy fun vacation, this is not the place for you.