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

[GRTKJ]

So after filling our bellies with great food, we called it an early night because tomorrow was BERMUDA!!! We were scheduled to be there at 7:00am. So here was our towel animal for tonight and our fun times for Wednesday, Sept 21st ---- Bermuda Day 1!!!:

Thank the good lord we didn't get any snakes tonight!! LOL :D

 

 

 

[I Luv Crusin]

We are doing this sailing in 36 more days!! Loving your review. Can't wait to read more and see more photos!!! Fabulous! :D I am a little confused though. According to our cruise schedule, we arrive in Bermuda on Tuesday afternoon. When did you get to Bermuda? Our cruise goes from Sunday to Sunday.

I really appreciate the Fun Times you are posting! Thank you!!!!!

Please get back on here soon and post more~ I'm addicted....

 

I looked at the schedule on the Carnival website and it does look like you will be there at 1p on Tues and leave at 3pm on Thursday.

[GRTKJ]

Wonderful photos! This will be our first experience of the steakhouse. It is also our first time to Baltimore and to Bermuda and first time on the Pride. I am just soaking in all of your review. Please keep it coming!!:D

 

Yes, we will be there Tuesday afternoon, all day Wed., and leave @ 3:00 on Thursday and 2 sea days on the way back.

 

Thank you! :) Funny thing, it was the same for us - 1st time to leave from Baltimore, 1st time for Bermuda, but we had been to steakhouse before, if you haven't, go, you will love it, and will realize its well worth the $30 p/p. These steaks alone are steaks you would be $60 for in steakhouses like Morton's, its very good, you will be glad you went! :)

 

So sounds like we had similar itinerary's......I'm just about to get into Bermuda details on my review! :cool:

[GRTKJ]

Ok................DRUM ROLL.................................thank you! :)

 

 

Before I get into the BERMUDA details everyone has been waiting on, I want to say, I spent ATLEAST 6 months researching and getting info on this wonderful place. My first suggestion to those of you that are going and have never been:

1. Contact the Bermuda travel & tourism and request a package on Bermuda. They send it for free, its a map (which comes in so handy), some info on things to do, and all sorts of info about Bermuda. This is all great info. I'll have to look and see if I can find where the # or website is I requested this info.......here's a shot of the map:

2. Buy the Bermuda Frommers guide. I bought mine off of Amazon.com for like $10, its the best money you will spend and is full of ALL kinds of info!!! Here's what the book looks like:

3. Spend a lot of time researching Bermuda online and tripadvisor.com on activities & the companies that offer services, such as snorkeling, etc.

So, here is the Carnival Shore Excursion guide. I posted this only because someone asked for it earlier in my review so here you go. By all means, there is a TON more and cheaper things to do by NOT booking thru Carnival. Let me next say, the crime rate in Bermuda is less than 1%, very, very, very safe country, in fact I would almost say the most safe and every single person you meet are so nice and so willing to help. I wish the US was like this!!!!! I will get into more details on all this later but just wanted to throw that out there:

 

[GRTKJ]

Here is the last page of the Carnival Shore Excursions:

Here is another sheet Carnival had, this was actually useful, shows a detail of Dockyard, which is where we were docked, Hamilton, which is the capital of Bermuda, and St. George, a historic area of Bermuda:

 

 

OK, I hate to do this to everyone but we have a dinner date with some friends tonight. So depending on what time we get back, I will try tonight to post more info later tonight, but if its late, it may be tomorrow....

[Crusin Karen]

Have been to Bermuda 6x, but the last time was years ago so am anxiously awaiting YOUR reaction to this little paradise! Thanks for sharing! ;)

[Delta Dear]

What currency do you use for shopping, although I'm sure they probably accept our currency. Is it better to purchase using a credit card? a debit card? cash ?

[Ms. Fun Bunch]

I am really enjoying your review.

[Room Service!]

What currency do you use for shopping, although I'm sure they probably accept our currency. Is it better to purchase using a credit card? a debit card? cash ?

 

We use cash.

[jmwg49]

What currency do you use for shopping, although I'm sure they probably accept our currency. Is it better to purchase using a credit card? a debit card? cash ?

 

Jane, they readily accept US $$. We used cash and/or credit card and had no issues at all!!!!

[GRTKJ]

What currency do you use for shopping, although I'm sure they probably accept our currency. Is it better to purchase using a credit card? a debit card? cash ?

 

Hi Jane. The USD is equivalent to the Bermuda $, so we used cash mostly but did buy our lunch & dinner on a crefit card, but again there were no transaction fees or anything like that since our money is equal. I did exchange a USD for a Bermuda $, which is a coin like in Canada. Also I got a $2 bill, which I will share all those later. I've collected money from several different countries and so I got some of theirs too. :)

[jmwg49]

Hi Jane. The USD is equivalent to the Bermuda $, so we used cash mostly but did buy our lunch & dinner on a crefit card, but again there were no transaction fees or anything like that since our money is equal. I did exchange a USD for a Bermuda $, which is a coin like in Canada. Also I got a $2 bill, which I will share all those later. I've collected money from several different countries and so I got some of theirs too. :)

 

We exchanged alot of USD for Bermudian dollars...Their money is very colourful and pretty! Lots of birds on it!

[GRTKJ]

Good morning everyone! Back to the review.....

So like I was saying before be sure at the least you buy the Frommers book, its got a lot of really good info in it......so today is the day we arrive in Bermuda!!!!! Yipeeeeee! It's the day we have been waiting for a lonnnnngggg time! So we were to arrive in Bermuda at 7:00 am, well I decided I wanted to get up at 6:00am and watch us pull into Bermuda. So when I got up and went to the balcony at 6:00am, this is what I saw, another ship in the distance:

 

Then a couple minutes later, one of the boats that is hooked to the side of our ship, let go and was heading out, I assume to meet the people that give the ok for us to go in. Here is that little boat:

 

So it was pretty dark outside still, so I went back in the room to pack our bag up for the day for everything we needed. It was getting close to 7:00am, so I assumed surely we were getting close to docking, but I looked out again and here is what I saw:

 

The interesting fact about Bermuda is there is reefs everywhere around the island. So because the Carnival ship is so large, it can ONLY dock at the Kings Warf - Dockyard. The smaller ships can dock at Hamilton, which is right downtown. So we had to make a sortof circle around Bermuda to not mess up any of the reefs. So we didin't go straight in once we saw the island we went around to miss the reefs. So anyway, we didn't actually get there until about 8:00am, but thats ok just an hour difference. So since the sun was up, we were ready and took a couple pics pulling around and into Bermuda:

 

[GRTKJ]

We exchanged alot of USD for Bermudian dollars...Their money is very colourful and pretty! Lots of birds on it!

 

Yes, its very pretty & colorful!! For those that want to see it, I took a picture of it! Will post in a bit.

[GRTKJ]

The pictures we took of each other pulling into Bermuda, that is the Commissioner's House in the background. Here is some closer up photo's of it:

 

 

 

This is a picture of the edge of Snorkel Park, that is a man-made snorkeling area and a beach area. We didn't go to it, but lots of people say its good for families with kids, since its a 10 min walk from the ship at Dockyard. So here you go:

 

As we get closer to the dockyard, here is another closer up picture of the Commissioner's House:

[GRTKJ]

This is our tugboat to pull us in.....

 

We were to be docked at Kings Warf, which is the left side of the dock, there was another ship, the Norwegian Gem parked on the right side, which is called Heritage Warf, both are considered at Dockyard. Here is a picture of their ship as we are docking:

 

 

 

And since we kept getting closer and closer and closer, another one of the Commissioner's House:

[GRTKJ]

ALMOST THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We decided to go eat breakfast on the Lido Deck 9, until we got clearance from customs. While we were there they announced that it may be awhile before we got clearance, so they said go enjoy breakfast! So while we were finishing up, they announced that we had clearance! So we were just in time!

 

We headed down to Deck A, which is the lowest deck and we and several others got lost on the way to getting to Deck A, there were no signs and of all the 16 elevators on the ship, only 2 of them went to deck A. Bascially you have to go all the way to the fwd of the ship, then down. So that is what we did.

We were finally in BERMUDA!!

Here was our plan for the day. We planned on getting a taxi and having them take us to the following places:

a. Somerset Bridge

b. Gibbs Hill Lighthouse

c. Horseshoe Bay Beach

d. Hamilton

Trust me, I have pics of all these places and lots of details on each, so I will cover all that as we go.

Just a side note about transportation in Bermuda. Almost every Bermudian owns a scooter. That is the main transportation in Bermuda. Each married couple is only allowed 1 vehicle and can have as many scooters as they want. Gas was $8 p/gallon in Bermuda, yea we think our gas in the US is high, wow! And their minimum wage is $18 p/hour, so that kindof compensates some of the higher prices. EVERYTHING is imported, so as you can imagine, everything is higher in Bermuda. The 1 and ONLY good made in Bermuda is Rum. Bermuda's main industry is insurance, explained as seconday insurance, some companies offer insurance but there is certain things they don't cover, so the companies in Bermuda sell a lot of additional insurance on existing policies. I'll get into more Bermuda details later....back to our adventure!

We had read about all the bus strikes and we had heard several times that the buses were so slow and so croweded and that some people had to wait over an hour to be picked up from one location, so we thought that was ridiculous and we didn't mind paying a cab, knowing it would get there 10x quicker anyway!

We got a cab very easily, and met Jerry, our driver. He was born and raised in Bermuda and so he was a good source of info and facts. He was very nice and nothing like the US cab drivers!!! LOL :p:eek:

Here are some pictures along the way:

 

 

 

From these pics along the way, you can already tell how beautiful Bermuda is!!

[GRTKJ]

Our first stop was to the Somerset Bridge.

---It's the smallest drawbridge in the world, in fact it is in the Guiness World Record Book, the bridge only opens once a year, and according to Jerry, our taxi driver its a yearly commenceration and a big deal for the island. Most Bermudians come to watch. He said they have to open it once a year to stay in the record book. So its so small, that only the mast of a sailboat can fit thru. I believe the openeing is only 18"...........thats pretty small!!

This bridge connects Somerset Island to the rest of Bermuda! The other cool fact about this bridge, is it was one of the 1st three bridges to be constructed in the 1600's when Bermuda was established. Here are some pictures:

 

 

Here we are at the Somerset Bridge area:

 

We took a piece of bread off the ship to feed the fishes at the bridge, here they are going crazy!!!

 

Here is a picture of the Somerset Island area, called Ely's Harbour as we were leaving the bridge:

 

[GRTKJ]

On our way to our next stop, we drove by the Port Royal Golf Course, it was very nice looking. We are not into golf, but Jerry said its the most famous and popular course on Bermuda. He continued to say the PGA tour will be there in a couple weeks, can't remember exactly when he said but he said they come there a couple times p/year. So I got a picture as we were driving by:

 

The next exciting place was Church Bay Beach. This is a beach we had planned to go to for a couple hours snorkeling on the last day we were here, but our plans changed and we didn't get to snorkel there afterall. The locals all commented this was a great place to go with lots of reefs and fish around. You can see from the picture that its not a great place for just swimming but for snorkeling you can see all the reefs and would be a great place!!! Jerry was nice enough to stop and let us take a couple pictures:

 

 

 

Our next planned stop was Gibbs Hill Lighthouse.

---It was about 10:00am when we got to the Lighthouse, and we couldn't believe it but NOBODY else was there!! Sweet!! So we got there and went inside the store at the bottom and paid our $5 to climb the 185 cast iron steps to see the best sites in Bermuda!

 

A little history on Gibbs, it was built in 1846, and is the oldest cast iron lighthouse in the WORLD!!! Cool! The panoramic views from the top make all the exercion in climbing that many steps worth it!! We were hot and a little sweaty when we got to the top but man the view was amazing!!!!! Here are some pictures:

 

[GRTKJ]

Oh my!! Look at all the steps we have to climb!!! Oh we can do this, no problem!!

 

 

 

.........................AND WE MADE IT!!!..............................................

Here is Joe at the VERY top, beside where the lighting aparatus is.

 

Here I am about to go out onto the top, I was a little scared at first, but once you get out there its ok!

 

Here is a picture to show just how high up we were!!!:

[Eimmat]

Yeah! She's back! Fabulous review!!

Were there plenty of the taxi tour guides available at the dock?

[GRTKJ]

Here are some views from the top. This is the famouns and very expensive Fairmont Southhampton Resort. The rooms are like $500 p/night here and go way up from there! Jerry said this is where all the PGA people stay, and usually when celebrities are in town they stay here.:

 

There is our ship & the Norwegian Gem! This picture shows how far you can see. If you look at the Bermuda map, The Kings Wharf Dockyard is on one side of the island and Gibbs Hill is on a total different side of the island, on the Southhampton Parish.:

 

 

This is Hamilton in the distance. It's the area to the far right in the corner.:

[Delta Dear]

OH, Katie, how I LOVE your review. I am so excited about the cruise but had very little knowledge about what to expect in Bermuda. Thank you for bringing it to light for us.

[GRTKJ]

Yeah! She's back! Fabulous review!!

Were there plenty of the taxi tour guides available at the dock?

 

Thank you!

Yes, there was PLENTY of them, and actually they say the taxi's with a blue flag are the "taxi tours" that charge $40 p/hour, but we knew we only wanted to see a couple places, and so we didn't get one of the blue flag ones, just a normal one. All the drivers (bue flag and regualr ones) are very knowledgeable since most are born and raised there. So you can just get a normal taxi if you have an itinerary and know exactly where you want to go. They will answer any questions you have!

[Room Service!]

Katie this review is great. You could be a tour guide. :)