Georgia Pearl Turns Bermuda Girl: My Pride Cruise to the "Island Paradise" & TS Karl.

YAY! A GApearl/NVpearl/Kim review! We have had super crappy weather here in NE NJ for days and days and it has put me in a "mood." :mad::( Finding your review has made me feel better already! :D

More shelf space.

Lots of drawer space.

Half a suitcase full of shoes. smh

#BracesProblems

We got this letter saying that our itinerary was changed due to Tropical Storm Karl. Instead of having 2 sea days at the beginning, we would now have 1 and then 2 on the return. We would now be in port Tuesday afternoon-Thursday afternoon.

I unpacked in record time and our cabin steward came by to introduce himself. I guess this is something new, but there were no bathrobes in the closet. I asked him if he could bring two and he disappeared for a minute returning with a piece of paper. It asked if we would like morning, evening, or both turndown service (knew about that) and did we need anything special like bathrobes or extra hangers. I guess that’s another cutback by making them available only upon request. Also there was no hand soap in the bathroom. I usually bring my own little bottle of Softsoap with the pump but forgot one, and I had to use the shower gel to wash my hands until he brought it that evening. I took a nap until the muster drill and we were lined up outside. It was maybe 20 minutes tops. The sail away party after was pretty empty.

Not too many people were out there wobbling.

Told you the party was empty.

How can you not love this guy?

Me with Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Hi all!

So glad to see you've started your review, ga (lv) pearl!;)

Looking forward to seeing what you did in Bermuda since I'll be going there this month on the Vista.

Isn't Havana amazing? Being Canadian I've been to Cuba several times, twice on cruises. I love those old as me cars, lol!:p

~ Jo ~ :)

I'm lovin your review.

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Time for a funship special.

Cheesin'.

I snapped a few pictures after the party before the sun went down.

A very full parking lot at the Port of Baltimore.

More of the city.

Sean taking a picture.....

Of me taking a picture of him lol.

Couldn't resist this one.

Cruise Day 1- Baltimore

 

I was up bright and early at 7:30 am to start getting ready. I showered and ran downstairs to Rite Aid to get some sodas, wine, and a few toiletries. Our ride to the port was with BT Shuttle, $80 for us one way and it took about 50 minutes. The port was closed early in the morning, which made the Pride late docking. I heard it was because the FBI thought they found the NY shooters in the area and then I heard there was an active shooter on the loose, but ultimately I don’t know what the real reason was. The port was reopened sometime between 9-10 am and the Pride could finally dock. The traffic backup was ridiculous and the driver said he’s never seen a line this long.

 

It was a barricade situation a short distance from the pier. The Police shut down part of Interstate 95 as well as the Port out of an abundance of caution. We left on the Pride the day you got back and after waiting in that horrible line to be dropped off, I noticed a lot of crew walking over to the shopping center that is basically on the other side of 95 from the pier. Since the barricade was near that shopping center, I was glad that none of the crew would have been able to get themselves into trouble with that situation!

Looking forward to the rest of your review. The Pride is one of my favorite ships (back today from our 5th cruise on her) and Bermuda is one of my favorite destinations. I sure hope you loved both of them as much as I do!

Lisa

It's not quite as scenic leaving from Baltimore as Miami.

Yes!! A GAPearl review just in time to get me excited for our Pride cruise in November.

PS: I saw that little bitty peek of your mama's sail away outfit from the stateroom pics. We need to see who you get your fashion sense from - show us Miss Dorothy! :)

Yay - happy to see a new gapearl review! And for Bermuda - never been yet, so looking forward to your experience.

Guess I can stop looking for you every time I travel through the Atlanta airport, lol.

So happy that you got a Chick-fil-A fix! :) - something us people in Atlanta take for granted.

We had late seating for dinner and were at a large 10 top in the Normandie Dining Room. This ship only has the one MDR, not two like other classes of ships.

Tonight's menus.

Just putting this out there but I'm a terribly picky eater and have been my entire life. Most of the food I'll be posting from dinner I would never eat, but I took pictures of other people's food in addition to mine for you guys.

Bread basket for my side of the table.

Vietnamese spring roll.

Corn chowder.

Strawberry bisque.

I think these are the honey glazed pork loin. One might be the pork chop.

Just a plain salad.

Roasted chicken.

My favorite dessert ever! The warm chocolate melting cake with two ice creams.

Apple pie.

Sean and I being silly.

My nightly staircase picture I forced him to take lol.

After dinner I caught one of the comedy shows and then met up after with Sean in the club. It was pretty empty so we went up to the lido for a quick snack.

The blind bunny rabbit my cabin steward left. I mean where are his eyes? :confused:

These are the free water bottles Carnival left us for return guests.

Finally here are the internet prices. I bought the social media package the first day.

I highly recommend downloading the Carnival HUB app before you leave. You can connect to it for free and see what's happening around the ship as well as get most basic information.

Ok that's it for now! I'll be back later to respond to comments and will try to get day 2, our first sea day, done tomorrow. Thanks for following along!

Odd, we had 2 bars (rounds) of soap in our room. Maybe the bunnie's eyes were lost with your soap!:D

Agree with the HUB, we all had it, except for my mother ... we all loved it, easy to stay in touch and a great value for $5.00 total.

I think the sail away wasn't that populated due to the roof being partially closed. Spent most of our time at the forward pool as the Serenity was packed and to avoid the mid-pool area as it was hot and loud. I noticed it was never really crowded/used the entire cruise.

Great review so far!

Yay!!!! It's a GaPearl review. Congrats on your move to Nevada. Looking forward to reading more of your review of your cruise with your mother & Sean. I will also be on the look out for Sean's review also.

I will have a balcony for the first time for my upcoming cruise(Decided to splurge & go for a spa balcony on the Breeze for Halloween.).

So excited to read about your Bermuda adventures! I'll be heading to Bermuda on the Sunshine at the end of the month. My first solo cruise!!! Nervous but excited at the same time!

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Hey Kim,

Always a fan of your reviews.

NEVER thought I would see a neighborhood bar on a cruise critic review. I live about 2 minutes down the road from The Salsa Room! Crazy to see it on here.

Subscribing for sure. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for posting what the app looks like during use! I'm excited to try it out in two weeks.

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Always enjoy your reviews:):):) Thanks so much for doing another one....Our first trip to Bermuda was on the Pride:D

Yea!!! Another GAPearl review!!! I'm really enjoying this one and it's so funny to see some places almost literally in my "backyard" featured in a review...DC! :) Even though about 30 miles southwest of DC, we hardly get down there. The last time was in 2012 to see the cherry blossoms, which were spectacular. And I cracked up at the "Forest Gump" reference. For our first Liberty cruise (April 2014), we flew out of Dulles, taking off to the north then looping around before heading south. We were on the right side of the plane and got great aerial views of DC and actually got a picture in which all monuments, memorials, etc. can be seen. So glad you didn't rent a car...Metro is great for getting around.

Even though we can drive to Baltimore, we've never cruised on Pride, but we're very interested in an Bermuda itinerary on her, so really looking forward to following along. Thank you for taking the time to do another review.

Enjoying your review!