Wonderful time on the Carnival Pride Sept 16-23: Review, Pics + Comparisons to HAL

[seadrifter]

Jenn, we are loving your review of the Pride. DH and I are sailing out of Baltimore on the same itinerary in December. We have had a lot of fun at the casino and at the Punchliner comedy club in the past. This time we may also try bingo. Not sure if we will be brave enough - we'll see:eek:.

 

We have a cabin (stern wrap) that we are really excited about. And, we can easily drive to the port - yay. Only concern is how the weather will be leaving from Baltimore in December. We expect to have to wear layers/winter coats for the first day or so if we want to use the balcony.

 

But we are so looking forward to this cruise. Can't wait for your review conclusion. Thanks for adding to our anticipation.

[nodogkisses]

Jenn, I would love to see the FunTimes for this cruise. Thank you so much. You're wonderful for doing this for us. Your review is so interesting--gives us everything that is of interest to all of us waiting to go on our cruises. Thank you so much for the time you put into this review. And your pictures are fabulous.

 

It's so understandable how the day can get away from you, but I don't mind, as I kinda love savoring each day's installment. Makes it last longer and helps pass the time waiting. We are doing this same itinerary on 10/28 and I'm sure I'll spend some time before we go and read it all again--you wrote a good story. Thank you. Kari

[Room Service!]

Hey Gran ... haha, that's kind of funny, I hadn't heard of nipplegate :eek: lol!

 

But unfortunately I can't confirm if it's been repaired, since we only were in the elevators once that week.

 

I can say the artwork in the ship didn't bother us at all. Honestly if I didn't already know that it was an issue for some people, we wouldn't have really even noticed.

 

Jenn :)

 

Thank you Jenn.

The artwork didn't bother us either.

[garyf3]

Loving the review and would also love to see the funTimes!!

[dwaterhouse]

Jenn, I would love to see the FunTimes for this cruise. Thank you so much. You're wonderful for doing this for us. Your review is so interesting--gives us everything that is of interest to all of us waiting to go on our cruises. Thank you so much for the time you put into this review. And your pictures are fabulous.

 

It's so understandable how the day can get away from you, but I don't mind, as I kinda love savoring each day's installment. Makes it last longer and helps pass the time waiting. We are doing this same itinerary on 10/28 and I'm sure I'll spend some time before we go and read it all again--you wrote a good story. Thank you. Kari

 

ITA.... Great review

[jenng1976]

Hey everyone, I'm back! :)

 

And also wanted to wish my fellow Canadians a Happy Thanksgiving!

 

So, before I continue on with our trip - I do want to give a few final thoughts on the cruise portion of our vacation and also a few comparisons to HAL. I haven't done that very much this trip, since to be honest, there really aren't that many differences. I found the two cruiselines to be more similar than different.

 

Cabins:

 

Very similar - I think the balcony cabins are the same 185 sq ft, and not that much difference in appearance. Well, maybe a little less orange and a nice flat screen tv. This pic is taken on the Zuiderdam, a VD.

 

 

Balcony:

 

HAL's have WAY nicer furniture and better balconies that Carnival. Although ours was on of the "special cabins" with an extra long balcony, you can see how much wider they are. Plus the furniture was better too.

 

 

 

Tip - if you are sailing on HAL on Zuiderdam (or one of the sister ships), try to get 4164, it's awesome as you can see.

[jenng1976]

Comparisons continued:

Service:

Excellent on both. We found that more staff remembered our names on HAL, or "J&J" as we were often called, but that could have been due to two reasons:

a) We were on our honeymoon

b) We were a lot younger than a lot of the passengers on board so they could pick us out easier

c) We tended to order drinks when we went places, not as many drinkers in the shows for example on HAL.

I'm not sure - but it seemed that wherever we were on the ship people went out of their way to greet us by name. Although - while I'm writing this - I seem to recall there might have been a new policy not to do this that I read about on John's blog??

Anyway - all in all - we have always had excellent service on all the ships on Carnival. I do think we are "easy" customers though, we're not that demanding, and understanding when things go wrong. I don't think you can truly call it a vacation unless something DOES go wrong, lol. That's where the best stories comes from! :)

Passengers:

I touched on before that there were a lot of older people on HAL. I think this was partially because it was an Alaskan cruise, which seems to get a different crowd than the standard Carribbean vacation. But, it was also a bit more expensive.

However - we didn't think people were on their deathbeds or anything like that, lol. It was still a fun cruise - and you can tell by my review that we're not party til you drop people anyway since we were in bed by 11PM most nights.

On every cruise we've been on there have been a mix of passengers from young to old. Definitely there were less kids in Alaska though. Not that we are against kids, but we do try and stay away from summer sailings when they are out in full force!!

Dining:

Food was similar on both cruises, though I missed my Chocolate Melting cake (only available in HAL's version of the pay Steakhouse).

We had Anytime Dining on HAL, and liked the option to make a reservation (for up to 3 nights in a row) of a dining time. We also requested a particular section where we had seats by the window, and liked the waiters. So, even though we had Anytime, really we dined every day at 5:45 or around then. (We couldn't get Early when we booked).

So, that was a nice touch that you could make a reservation for the time that you wanted.

Other than that - there really wasn't much different in terms of Dining.

Shows:

HAL had the typical Vegas-type shows, plus a comedian, and a hypnotist I think, in their main show lounge. Plus Bingo daily. We were there most nights.

We liked the Punchliner Comedy Club this cruise since it's a fun way to spend an evening. There were a lot of options for all interests on the Pride.

Cost:

On the whole, Carnival is definitely cheaper. And have tons of options for every price range.

What surprised me, after we had gone on one HAL cruise the specials we receive by email. For example, I have received offers for $439 for an Inside 7 day Eastern or Western Carribbean, or $429 for a 7 day Alaska cruise. So, the deals are out there once you've sailed with them.

Past Guest Benefits:

Since we had sailed with Carnival before - we applied for a HAL Mariner # before we sailed. This entitled us to Past Guest Pricing if there was any for that sailing, entry to the Past Guest Party, entry to the Past Guest Brunch with the Captain, and also to lunch in the Dining Room on embarkation day.

All these benefits were great! And we took advantage of them all.

On the Pride, I was Gold and Jim was Red. This entitled us to one free drink each in the Dining Room (breakfast or lunch), and I could go to the Past Guest party (I brought Jim), and I was supposed to get a pin but didn't.

The one thing I really wish Carnival would implement is lunch in the Dining Room on the first day. How great would that be?

Decor:

It doesn't really matter to us what the ship looks like - but both ships looked nice. Not a huge fan of all the orange tones in Carnival cabins though. But not a deal-breaker either way. We would never choose a ship based on what it looks like.

So - that's all that comes to mind - if anyone has any questions on something I didn't touch on, feel free to ask!

Jenn :)

[jenng1976]

Last Thoughts - Cruise

All in all, this vacation was exactly what we were looking for. A relaxing get-away that wasn't too expensive.

Though we generally choose more exotic or interesting destinations, in this case it was more for the cruise itself than the ports.

We came to have fun and got that in spades! A big thank you once again to Cathy & Laurie and everyone on our Roll call for planning/participating in the 3 events, and we've made some new friends that will continue.

Next up for us is hopefully a January cruise on Paradise (5 day) to Grand Cayman and Cozumel with my parents.

And after that - the big one - British Isles in September 2013!! Really looking forward to that - we've never been to Britain/Europe and there's a super Roll Call of very organized people on that one too.

So much to look forward to - plus my sister who got married in March is expecting a baby - so next year I will also be "auntie Jenn"!

Anyway - I will be posting the Fun Times. And also continuing to post on the last couple of days of our trip, so stay tuned.

Thanks again for all the wonderful comments!!

Jenn

[jenng1976]

Baltimore!

 

So, where I last left off - we arrived at the Best Western by BWI to pick up our car.

 

Next up? The Microtel BWI. And I was more than a little nervous on this one. We had booked it by Hotwire and I was super suprised to get this hotel, since we had picked a 2.5 *, and Microtel seemed to be 2 * by their rating guide. But, with Hotwire, you get what you get.

 

The price was definitely right - a total of $115 including tax for 2 nights. With free breakfast and free shuttle to BWI or the train station, and I think the cruise port, since we saw a van there while we were waiting for the Best Western.

 

But, what had me worried was the numerous terrible reviews this hotel had on Trip Advisor. We're not that picky, however comments like "worst hotel ever", and "don't stay here" had me a bit nervous! What had I done? lol ... I swore I would never book a hotel on Hotwire under 4 * again. But, we had already paid, and there was no way I was going to pay to stay somewhere else.

 

And what did we find? Well, you'll have to stay tuned for that! When we got to the hotel just before 12, they told us it was too early to check in. I did ask her for a non-smoking room, and she checked in the computer and said that wasn't a problem.

 

So, instead we asked for directions to Inner Harbour and she gave us a pre-printed piece of paper with instructions. I was impressed with that!

 

And with that we headed out again - down the highway back to Inner Harbour! After a bit of circling around trying to find a parking lot that didn't cost an arm & a leg, we found a place that was $10 for the day, the only catch was we had to be back before 8PM. Sold!

 

Once parked, we walked over to the Harbour looking for the Water Taxi. It was a beautiful sunny day, couldn't have asked for more.

 

The water taxi was $12/person which got you unlimited rides for the whole day. Our first destination was Fort McHenry. We got on an the main Inner Harbour stop, and then transferred at Fell's Point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[chellebert]

Michelle, what cabin number do you have? I can tell you if it's in front of the taller lifeboats or the shorter ones.....

5191 , and i haven't heard/seen pics of anyone whose stayed in this room either.. I'm not overly concerned cause A: i'm on a cruise and B: the price was super good... I'm just curions and wnat to know

[jenng1976]

5191 , and i haven't heard/seen pics of anyone whose stayed in this room either.. I'm not overly concerned cause A: i'm on a cruise and B: the price was super good... I'm just curions and wnat to know

 

It looks to me as if you'll have a view of the water since you're not directly in front of a lifeboat, though the view to the right will be blocked by the regular balcony.

 

So, pretty good overall! And I know what you mean about the prices, just too good to pass up!

 

Jenn

[jenng1976]

Inner Harbour ... continued!

When I left off we were on the Water taxi headed to Fort McHenry. I didn't really do a whole lot of research on what was there, other than knowing that it was where the Star Spangled Banner was written.

I think I thought it was going to be a bit more theme-park-y (like Kennedy Space Centre), but it wasn't really like that. Pretty cheap though, only $7/person. And there was a Hotdog stand outside, 2 hotdogs + water was only $6. At that point I was starving though and would have paid anything!

 

 

 

 

And here's the Pride!!

 

[jenng1976]

Inner Harbour Continued:

 

Here's another pic of the Pride from Fort McHenry.

 

 

We lucked out on a great day to walk around.

 

 

 

After a couple hours at Fort McHenry, we went back to the taxi dock - and decided to get off at Fell's Point. With our water taxi purchase, we had received quite a few two for one coupons - some for buy one draft, get one free. Sounds good to us! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, or remember where we went, so I can't provide more info. We had a few pints - tasted so good after walking around all day!

 

Fell's Point was the historic district, with cobblestone streets.

 

 

 

 

We decided to head home at this point - it was getting close to dinner time and we wanted to get back to the hotel to check in.

 

Here - we were pleasantly surprised when we checked in! The clerk said we had been upgraded to a "suite". Which is really a regular size hotel room (in most other hotels), plus it had a fridge/microwave. But, it was clean and spacious, so good enough for us!

 

Phew - that was a relief. I had imagined much worse! Definitely not the best hotel we've ever stayed in, but it suited our needs. The breakfast offered was ok, at Best Western it was a bit better - but had cereal, breads, coffee, fruit, milk.

 

 

[jenng1976]

Baltimore Continued:

Forgot to mention - that night we went to Chili's for dinner, just down the street. It was very good, then headed to Walmart afterwards. Not too far - around 10 min driving.

Then back to the room to watch tv - this was the first time we had watched tv since we left on vacation! Which, if you knew us, we watch a LOT of tv, lol. Since the new fall season had started while we were away we had PVR'd a zillion shows to watch when we got back!

Anyway - another day over. One left - then we would start our trip back home.

[jenng1976]

Baltimore/Washington:

The next morning, we got up bright and early! We had pre-booked the hotel shuttle the night before to take us to the MARC/Amtrak train station by the airport at 0700. From there we would take the MARC commuter train to Washington.

We knew it would be busy since it was a Monday morning, but we had the bad luck that the train before ours had been cancelled, so there were double the normal people waiting. End result? You got it - standing the whole way to Washington (about 45 min). Sigh. Oh well, it was the true commuter experience!!

Before we knew it - we had arrived to Union Station - and though it took a while to get off due to construction we arrived in the terminal by about 0830. We had pre-reserved a tour of the US Capital for 9:20, so we had time to stop for a much needed coffee from Starbucks before walking to the Capital.

Again we lucked out with a beautiful day. Honestly, we couldn't have asked for much more for a Sept cruise/vacation.

 

 

 

 

 

The tour was very interesting/informative - would definitely recommend it. After that, we walked through the tunnel over to the Library of Congress (didn't have to go through security again).

We really lucked out here - there was a 1030 tour just starting as we arrived so we were able to join them.

[jenng1976]

Washington Continued:

The Library of Congress tour was also very good, we had a great guide! Though I wasn't feeling that great today and all the walking was seriously wearing me out. We ended up walking 6+ hours today, with only brief stops to rest on various benches!

 

 

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

Once we left the Library of Congress - we started walking the National Mall area, our ultimate destination was the Lincoln Memorial.

On our way was a lot of great sights.

 

 

Smithsonian Castle:

 

 

Washington Monument:

 

 

Zoom shot of the Jefferson Memorial. No energy to walk all the way over there! We also didn't have time to go into any of the museums, guess we will save that for a future trip!

[jenng1976]

Washington Continued:

WWII Memorial. There was some kind of veterans tour group here at the same time which was nice.

 

 

 

[jenng1976]

The Lincoln Memorial was quite the popular location - lots of people here!

 

Neat view looking back of both the Capital & the Washington Momument.

 

 

 

 

You can see in this pic that the colour of the marble in the Momument changes colour about a 1/3 of the way up. This is because they stopped construction during the Civil War, and when they re-started the marble was sourced from a different place. This piece of trivia is courtesy of the tv show Parks & Recreation, lol ... we didn't know this when we were there!

 

[jenng1976]

From here, we headed over to the White House. I don't think we were at the best viewing area, but hey - we can say we've seen it now, so good enough.

 

 

Now we decided to head back to Union Station - it was a longer walk than we thought, but eventually we made it - passing by the FBI building and some others. (Eventually you just get kind of marbled out, lol).

We stopped at a bakery in Union Station and had delicious cookies, before grabbing the train back to Baltimore. Thankfully we got a seat this time!

 

Once back in Baltimore, we called the hotel shuttle and they were back to pick us up within about 15 min.

Tonight we went to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner - I have to say I was NOT impressed. I ordered a cheeseburger - and it came on a whole wheat bun. Really? I have never ever seen that before, ever. I am not a fan, so took the bun off and ate the burger with a knife/fork, which totally takes away all the fun of a burger. Sigh. So disappointing to not have a good dinner on the last night. But, Jim enjoyed his meal, so I guess they were batting .500! We've definitely scratched Ruby Tuesday's off our future restaurant list though!

After dinner we thought about seeing a movie, since there were theatres across the street - but nothing good was playing so we just went to the hotel and watched tv and crashed out fairly early.

[jenng1976]

Last day ...

We were up pretty early today too (0630) - since we had a LONG day ahead of us. A quick continental breakfast and we were on our way.

It took about 12 hrs end to end - including lunch at Denny's, a stop at a NY gas station for gas/beer, Whitby to pick up my baby (our kitty), dinner at Harvey's (Canadian burger chain, delish!), and to our house in Toronto.

This is my little guy (not so little, lol). He loves to sit in the sink, and bats around the water when you turn it on for him. Yes, very spoiled!

And that pretty much concludes our trip! We were both really tired when we got home since Jim had picked up my cold by this point as well - but we still had another week and a half at home to rest up before going back to work after Thanksgiving (tomorrow).

I will scan in the Fun Times sometime today.

Thanks to everyone for following along and allowing me to relive our vacation!! :) :)

Any questions on anything let me know.

[Room Service!]

THANK YOU, Jenn, for taking the time to do this. Really was interesting and enjoyable. :)

[loubetti]

That was a lovely review, Jenn, and you certainly managed to pack a lot of "stuff" (that's a technical term) into that vacation! :D

 

You make me feel old! I got my pilots license in 1975 and graduated high school in 1976!

 

As an FYI: You and Jim might also want to cross "borders" and try Celebrity. Not as old a crowd as HAL, but you are both aging into Celebrity territory and, while typically more expensive, I think you will enjoy it. I first sailed Celebrity when I was 37, and first sailed Cunard when I was 34. Love them both.

 

Otherwise, enjoy your future cruises and keep writing reviews!

 

Best wishes to you both for a long and happy marriage. :)

[jenng1976]

That was a lovely review, Jenn, and you certainly managed to pack a lot of "stuff" (that's a technical term) into that vacation! :D

 

You make me feel old! I got my pilots license in 1975 and graduated high school in 1976!

 

As an FYI: You and Jim might also want to cross "borders" and try Celebrity. Not as old a crowd as HAL, but you are both aging into Celebrity territory and, while typically more expensive, I think you will enjoy it. I first sailed Celebrity when I was 37, and first sailed Cunard when I was 34. Love them both.

 

Otherwise, enjoy your future cruises and keep writing reviews!

 

Best wishes to you both for a long and happy marriage. :)

 

Haha - thanks very much! And you're only as old as you feel, lol. ;)

 

Actually, it's interesting you say that - since Celebrity is definitely on my list of cruiselines to try (along with Princess).

 

My parents have done Celebrity a couple of times, and since I do all their travel research for them, I'm sure I would be right at home! I get their Tuesday specials in my email every week and they are pretty tempting!

 

Cunard ... sounds amazing - would also love to try them one day, budget permitting.

 

Have fun on all your future travels too - maybe we will run into each other one day. :)

[sjn911]

Geez Loubetti is old..I graduated HS in '77..but was only 17 when started college..LOL..I kid I kid..i loved the review to soooo much....and thanks for the whole trip and sooo much sharing..wish you a happy happy long marriage..as well. Happy thanks giving and thanks for so kindly sharing Washington with us..

 

I too think you would love those lines Loubetti mentioned..i look forward to a longer cruise on Hal and Princess..loved both and they were too short....but think I will enjoy Celebrity even more and I had friends that loved them and still use them through all the changes from around mid-30's up and now in the present at my age. I really want to do Cunard and Crystal one day too..going to make it happen...sarah

 

Just always want to enjoy them all..and hope the few issues with Carnival that are going down will get better quick..Sarah

Edited October 8, 2012 by sjn911