Mitsugirly takes great PRIDE in bringing her Spring Break extreme review

[retiring soon]

Hi all!

 

mitsugirly ~ looks like you had a fantastic time at HMC. I was there in 2003 & it didn't have all that stuff there then. I do remember the baby powder soft sand which didn't burn one's feet.:D

 

I liked having FTTF & it looks like it helped you too.

Your pictures are sooo beautiful!

 

I've been on Getaway & liked it better than Breakaway but not quite as much as Epic, in some respects pertaining to solo cruising.

 

Loving your review!

 

~ Jo ~ :)

[thomarvin]

Do you happen to have a picture of the BP&J? Sorry. Weird question. My son is autistic and we have always brought "his" stuff (PB, Jelly and yes even the bread). I have never ordered him one. I know shame on me. I am curious to see it and if it is something he would eat.

[KPfromCT]

Still following along......This review is just plain AWESOME!!!

The pics at HMC are beautiful and it IS our favorite island.......:D:D

 

Patiently waiting for more......:o

[fair-winds39]

Mitsugirly-I'm thoroughly enjoying your fabulous review of the Carnival Pride. We'll be on the Pride this September for the third time. We love the size of the ship, and the crew is great. You've taken so many beautiful pics too!!! Our other Pride cruises have been in February, but next Feb., we're going to try the Grandeur from Baltimore.

 

Now, onto Bermuda....we are frequent cruisers, always to warm places, but my favorite island of all is Bermuda. I hope you enjoy it. I started doing land vacations to Bermuda many, many years ago, sometimes twice every year, and then in the early 90's we started cruising to Bermuda. Well, I'm hoping I can rope DH into another Bermuda cruise sometime in 2016, because I definitely need to get back there.

 

Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to share your trip. I can't wait to get back onto the Pride, and one more thing, have a wonderful time in Bermuda. It's definitely another world!!!!!

[mitsugirly]

It was time for our desert and here's how I'm also weird with eating.

 

I don't (and have never) liked things like steak, so don't ever ask me about going to any specialty restaurants that involve something like a steak house. I'm not a big meat eater either (I would make a good vegetarian) and don't eat things like pork chops or most red meat and so on. I WILL eat things with hamburger in them and hamburgers with no problems. I do love my seafood and chicken though. I also absolutely positively hate tomatoes. I will pick them out of everything. I will pull up my pizza and swipe off the sauce. I like the sauce on my spaghetti to be really light or I will ordered pasta with Alfredo sauce on it. The other thing that I can't stand is chocolate (unless it's white chocolate or chocolate milk). But to eat chocolate cake, icing, ice cream or anything like that...NO! However, I do like brownies every now and then.

 

So...all I ever read about on these boards is how wonderful the chocolate melting cake is. I just knew I HAD to try it and form my own non-eating-chocolate-self opinion. I was afraid I wouldn't like it, so I told the hubby to order the apple pie so I would have back up...just in case.

 

Now I have to say the apple pie wasn't anything to write home about and what you see in the picture is all I ate of it.

 

 

The chocolate melting cake...

 

 

YES! I liked it. Surprise. It tasted like a brownie to me and the added vanilla ice cream made it even better. Hmmm, I may have a deep desire down inside to like chocolate that I don't know about.

 

After dinner we dropped off the munchkin at the kids club...wait where are they this time? You just never know.

 

We headed to the casino to donate $40 and then decided we just wanted to sit and relax some.

 

We caught the tail end of the show and it was a little crowded so we headed upstairs.

 

 

 

 

 

After that we headed over to watch some karaoke in the lounge and had some great laughs until it was time to pick up Sakari at the kids club.

 

 

After picking up Sakari we headed back to the room to watch more commercials telling us to "Cruise Like A Norwegian" while laying in our hard uncomfortable Carnival bed and Sakari played with her new towel animal for the night.

 

 

 

We talked about what we were going to do while in Freeport the following day. I had really struggled with this port and it being such a short day there. We were just there in November and went to Paradise Cove/Dead Man's reef, but we were there much longer. It was really hard to plan anything and afraid of getting back too late, I was torn.

 

I originally planned on doing the Carnival excursion with the kayaks to Gold Beach. NOT because of the kayaks, but because I have really been wanting to see this beautiful Gold Beach at Lucayan Park. I knew with it being a Carnival excursion, they "should" wait on us to return. It was a 6 hour tour and with the time it left, it would actually put us back at 1:15pm. Only 15 minutes before the ship was due to pull out.

 

After Kendra & Brayden decided to book, I knew that excursion would be more than what they would want to spend while there, so I decided it was out of the question.

 

I started researching either Grand Lucayan or Junkanoo (Taino Beach) and figured I'd head to one of them.

 

The more I thought about this and the time frame, the more I got worried. Not because I haven't done this before in other ports, but because we had 2 of the S-L-O-W-E-S-T people known to anyone with us. It just wasn't a good match.

 

So, the hubby and I just decided to give my nerves a rest and not go anywhere in Freeport the next day. I wouldn't have to stress over whether or not we could make it back in time with Kendra & Brayden in tow and we could sleep in, have a nice breakfast and just get off the ship for a quick stroll around the port, a souvenir and then back on to enjoy the ship.

 

I drifted off wondering if I was making the right decision....

[mitsugirly]

I am enjoying your review, thank you for taking the time to share with us.

Your daughter and grandson are adorable and your pictures are breathtaking.

We leave on the Pride in 37 days and you have gotten me super excited!!

 

Thanks for the comments and I hope you have a wonderful time on the Pride. :)

 

Hi all!

 

mitsugirly ~ looks like you had a fantastic time at HMC. I was there in 2003 & it didn't have all that stuff there then. I do remember the baby powder soft sand which didn't burn one's feet.:D

 

I liked having FTTF & it looks like it helped you too.

Your pictures are sooo beautiful!

 

I've been on Getaway & liked it better than Breakaway but not quite as much as Epic, in some respects pertaining to solo cruising.

 

Loving your review!

 

~ Jo ~ :)

 

Hi Jo.

 

Actually....FTTF really didn't do us any good and my final thoughts are is was a waste of money. Kendra got on to the ship the first day about 5 minutes after we did. We ended up being able to have our soda delivered to the room. Our luggage didn't come as early as I had hoped it would in order for me to decorate our door prior to eating, exploring, safety drill and sail away. Then Kendra was on the 2nd tender after us. :cool: So honestly, it made no difference and I could have saved the $$ and it would have been the exact same. :o

 

I know the Epic is a "love it or hate it" type of ship. She is my number 1 favorite ship to date. I loved everything about it (and we had 2 studio connecting rooms when we sailed her). The Breakaway was nice, but I guess what I didn't like about it was the Latino themed atmosphere. It seemed like that's all the music they played and never played any of the "dance" music that the ships normally do. :(

[theump]

Really like the review so far that I jump and got a cruise out of Baltimore on Royal Caribbean. :D Well might have had it pland and book for awhile now, about 8 months. But the review has kept me going and making the wait time a little quicker. We leave Dalla tomorrow and board the Grandeur Tuesday for 10 days. You asked about the Granduer, it is on older and smaller ship then a lot of their others but have done some upgrades sine I was on it last time in 2009. Look forward to reading more about your adventure after I return. So far see you haven't broken anything. :D Hope my wife doen't this trip either. Know she is ancious to have a vacation, haven't been for almost 2 years due to my back surgery last year.

 

The Ump

John

[mitsugirly]

Do you happen to have a picture of the BP&J? Sorry. Weird question. My son is autistic and we have always brought "his" stuff (PB, Jelly and yes even the bread). I have never ordered him one. I know shame on me. I am curious to see it and if it is something he would eat.

 

Yes, I do.

 

 

Still following along......This review is just plain AWESOME!!!

The pics at HMC are beautiful and it IS our favorite island.......:D:D

 

Patiently waiting for more......:o

 

 

Glad you're still here and liking the review still.

 

We absolutely loved HMC. I hope to go back again some day.

[mitsugirly]

Mitsugirly-I'm thoroughly enjoying your fabulous review of the Carnival Pride. We'll be on the Pride this September for the third time. We love the size of the ship, and the crew is great. You've taken so many beautiful pics too!!! Our other Pride cruises have been in February, but next Feb., we're going to try the Grandeur from Baltimore.

 

Now, onto Bermuda....we are frequent cruisers, always to warm places, but my favorite island of all is Bermuda. I hope you enjoy it. I started doing land vacations to Bermuda many, many years ago, sometimes twice every year, and then in the early 90's we started cruising to Bermuda. Well, I'm hoping I can rope DH into another Bermuda cruise sometime in 2016, because I definitely need to get back there.

 

Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to share your trip. I can't wait to get back onto the Pride, and one more thing, have a wonderful time in Bermuda. It's definitely another world!!!!!

 

What do you think of the RC ship from Baltimore? I did go and check the itinerary out after it was mentioned and I really don't want to cruise to Key West or Port Canaveral. That's like not even cruising to me. I really don't care for the Bahamas (unless it's a private island) and would rather go down to the Caribbean, so I'm not sure if I'd do RC from there. Hmmm

 

I can't wait to head to Bermuda. Everyone always says it's their favorite place and once you go there, you'll never look at the Caribbean the same again.

 

Really like the review so far that I jump and got a cruise out of Baltimore on Royal Caribbean. Well might have had it pland and book for awhile now, about 8 months. But the review has kept me going and making the wait time a little quicker. We leave Dalla tomorrow and board the Grandeur Tuesday for 10 days. You asked about the Granduer, it is on older and smaller ship then a lot of their others but have done some upgrades sine I was on it last time in 2009. Look forward to reading more about your adventure after I return. So far see you haven't broken anything. Hope my wife doen't this trip either. Know she is ancious to have a vacation, haven't been for almost 2 years due to my back surgery last year.

 

The Ump

John

 

Hey there UMP!!! Glad you are here and good to hear from you John. I hope you have a terrific vacation for 10 days!!! Nice!!! I think a 10 day cruise would be absolutely the perfect amount of time for us. Some day I hope to try it.

 

Nope, didn't break a thing this cruise (can you believe it???). Not even a nail and I grew them out just for the occasion. :D

 

Glad you are able to go now after the back surgery. I hope it's a relaxing and stress free time for you and the wife. :)

[mitsugirly]

Day 6-FREEPORT-GRAND BAHAMAS

 

 

 

 

 

So we didn't communicate our decision with Kendra last night. Oops. The phone was ringing at 6am that morning. When I finally decided to get out of bed after several calls it was 6:45. I let her know that we were just going to relax and not do anything in port. She said it looked like it might rain and be cloudy today so she was fine with that. So much for me sleeping in....

 

I headed out to the balcony after we hung up and we were pulling into the port. It was still dark out. I can't even imagine heading off the ship at that time to head to the beach. It just felt wrong. We did that once before (another Carnival ship of course) in Costa Maya and headed to the beach. Once we arrived at the AI, they were already trying to feed us and stuff alcohol down our throats. Um, I know I'm on vacation, but I'm not going to start drinking at 7am in the morning. Yea, I think I made a good decision of not going anywhere....or did I?

 

I laid back down, but couldn't sleep on the uncomfortable hard bed. I tossed and turned. Once I'm up, I just can't ever get back to sleep.

 

At 8:30am, I couldn't take it anymore and decided to just get up and stay up. The family woke up and we decided to head up to the Blue Iguana and check out their breakfast burritos.

 

 

I ended up with the wheat wrap (once again, not much to chose from) and added the Mexican eggs, um...some type of meat I think but can't remember, hashbrowns and cheese and that was good enough for me.

 

 

 

It was actually pretty yummy or at least better than the lunch burritos I had from there.

 

 

 

 

[PurdueChefAmber]

Day 6-FREEPORT-GRAND BAHAMAS

 

 

 

 

 

So we didn't communicate our decision with Kendra last night. Oops. The phone was ringing at 6am that morning. When I finally decided to get out of bed after several calls it was 6:45. I let her know that we were just going to relax and not do anything in port. She said it looked like it might rain and be cloudy today so she was fine with that. So much for me sleeping in....

 

I headed out to the balcony after we hung up and we were pulling into the port. It was still dark out. I can't even imagine heading off the ship at that time to head to the beach. It just felt wrong. We did that once before (another Carnival ship of course) in Costa Maya and headed to the beach. Once we arrived at the AI, they were already trying to feed us and stuff alcohol down our throats. Um, I know I'm on vacation, but I'm not going to start drinking at 7am in the morning. Yea, I think I made a good decision of not going anywhere....or did I?

 

I laid back down, but couldn't sleep on the uncomfortable hard bed. I tossed and turned. Once I'm up, I just can't ever get back to sleep.

 

At 8:30am, I couldn't take it anymore and decided to just get up and stay up. The family woke up and we decided to head up to the Blue Iguana and check out their breakfast burritos.

 

 

I ended up with the wheat wrap (once again, not much to chose from) and added the Mexican eggs, um...some type of meat I think but can't remember, hashbrowns and cheese and that was good enough for me.

 

 

 

It was actually pretty yummy or at least better than the lunch burritos I had from there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yum! I will definitely be trying one!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[thomarvin]

Yes, I do.

 

 

 

 

Thanks!! Looks like white bread. Good. Was it good?

Edited April 24, 2015 by thomarvin

[mitsugirly]

 

 

Once we were done eating, we decided to go ahead and get off the ship for awhile and do some shopping. Like I said, we had already been here a little over 4 months prior and we knew what the port was like.

 

But first I would take some pictures of the port from the ship. Not that I didn't already have these pictures already, but we were actually "parked" in a different spot than the last time we were here, so what the heck. Why not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tammylyne]

Loving your review!!

Glad the hotel worked out for you I remember how nervous you were. I am heading there right now, we have a college visit so decided to try the hotel before we cruised! Did you eat at the breakfast buffet they offer..can you tell me what was on it?

Edited April 24, 2015 by Tammylyne

[mitsugirly]

It was a beautiful sunny day. Absolutely no sign of rain or anything as Kendra had thought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We headed off the ship and had our "Freeport" pictures taken. Now I'm not a photographer, only a photographer at heart. I do dabble around in it and do family photo's (with backdrops and props) for my family. So I know a thing or two about it. However, any person with half a brain knows that it's never a good thing to have your subjects FACING the direct sun. You get squinty eyes or closed eyes and it's just not an attractive picture. I know in 1 port, one of the photographers actually gave Brayden a pair of sunglasses to wear so that you couldn't tell that his eyes were closed in the pictures. LOL. How about you just turn around the other direction???

 

So with this picture (and it was the first time we have ever had a photographer say this), they told Sakari to "close your eyes and I'm going to count to 3 and when I say 3, you open your eyes....1, 2, 3!!" Snap! She tried it several times and this was the end result. Still not impressive if you ask me.

 

 

 

We headed into port and explored while taking pictures...OF COURSE. hehe

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

I actually discovered shops this time around that I hadn't seen last time and a fountain too I must have missed the last time.

 

 

 

The place that you wait if you are taking a ship excursion and also to catch any other "outside" excursions or taxi's as well.

 

 

 

 

Sakari is proudly holding up her new toy iguana. Last time we were here, she got a wooden fish that wiggles and this time she got the iguana that matches. "Friends for my fish at home" she stated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

Now these were new since we were here a few months ago. It looks like they had just added them on to the row of other shops, poured the sidewalk and are waiting on "new owners" to come.

 

 

 

 

 

I had to laugh at the way they did this sidewalk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[KPfromCT]

Sakari is just WAY too cute!!!!!!:D:D

So many pictures of her on here that just totally capture her personality.

She's a spunky one!!!!! She's a fish in the water and just so adventurous.:D

 

Absolute favorite is the one of her at HMC with the Pride in the background.

 

That needs to be framed.

[mitsugirly]

There really isn't much to do here other than buy a few tee's and trinkets...unless you are a drinker and like to head to Senior Frogs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hubby decided to buy us a throw away bottle of pop and I knew that when you get back on the ship, they do not allow you to bring open bottles.

 

We headed back to the area that had seats where you wait for the buses to take you on excursions to drown ourselves in pop as quick as we could. Yea, you know when you drink so much too quick that when you move around you can hear it sloshing around in your stomach? That was us.

 

As we sat there, it was seriously really hot. I just kept thinking and regretting that I hadn't actually went to the beach after all. Sigh. I will know next time not to waste any port day. It was just boring. I kept looking at the middle of the port area and thinking, "I wonder why they haven't put in a pool at this port like they have so many other ports"? I mean at least it would give people that didn't want to adventure off something to do and get them off the ship which usually brings in more revenue. They certainly have enough room for it.

 

 

 

 

 

[fair-winds39]

What do you think of the RC ship from Baltimore? I did go and check the itinerary out after it was mentioned and I really don't want to cruise to Key West or Port Canaveral. That's like not even cruising to me. I really don't care for the Bahamas (unless it's a private island) and would rather go down to the Caribbean, so I'm not sure if I'd do RC from there. Hmmm

 

I can't wait to head to Bermuda. Everyone always says it's their favorite place and once you go there, you'll never look at the Caribbean the same again.

 

 

 

Hey there UMP!!! Glad you are here and good to hear from you John. I hope you have a terrific vacation for 10 days!!! Nice!!! I think a 10 day cruise would be absolutely the perfect amount of time for us. Some day I hope to try it.

 

Nope, didn't break a thing this cruise (can you believe it???). Not even a nail and I grew them out just for the occasion. :D

 

Glad you are able to go now after the back surgery. I hope it's a relaxing and stress free time for you and the wife. :)

We've cruised with a number of cruise lines; some, more than others. The Grandeur will only be our 2nd time sailing with RCCL. We first booked the Breakaway from NY for 2016 winter cruise, but 2 days later, I cancelled that and decided to book the Grandeur from Baltimore, because we love leaving from that port. First, because we can drive to the port, and secondly the ease of boarding. We have only cruised on one other RCCL ship; an older and smaller ship years ago. I'm a bit skeptical about the Grandeur cruise, but we're going just to escape the winter weather for a week, and it makes a stop in Key West, which we visited once before, so we might do something there. For the most part though, we've been cruising so long, that we just stay on the ship in places like Nassau, Freeport because we've been there before. So the Feb. 2016 cruise is strictly to relax and warm up. I wish the Pride would attempt some other itineraries, because we really like it.

 

I'll be looking for your Bermuda cruise review too. Have fun!!!

[mitsugirly]

Yes, Sakari really has taken on our personalities...

 

 

 

She seen something green go by and ask to chase it...and chase it she did.

 

 

 

 

 

Now this is something I hadn't noticed:

 

 

Any ideas? Did they put this up for just this day or did I totally miss it on other port days?

 

Is it maybe the blinds up there? Someone enlighten me.

 

So here we sat, still trying to down our pop in record time.

 

 

 

[mitsugirly]

 

 

 

 

I finally gave up on my pop, as much as I love pop, I just couldn't do it. It was hot outside and I just wanted to get back on the ship and go swimming or do something fun.

 

We never did run into Kendra and Brayden, but learned later that night that she must have gotten off the ship within a few minutes after we did (according to the time she gave us) because when we looked for our pictures taken from the port in the photo area on the ship, they were only a few down from each other.

 

We headed back toward the line (small line) to get on the ship and we see 2 girls go up to the lady checking the ship cards and ask her if they were aloud to take their drinks back to the ship. THE LADY SAID YES!!! Seriously? They didn't even have drinks like a normal drink in a container, they had the coconut drinks with the top sliced off of them and a straw hanging out. Um ok. I wish I would have known this before I wasted time sitting there trying to drown myself in pop.

 

We got up to the lady and she looks at our ship cards and says "Are you all 3 together?" Then says "Ok, you 2 stay here" (pointing at my husband and daughter) "and you (pointing at me) go back to the ship and get your ID's". Um what?? We weren't told we needed our ID's for this port and we have never needed them before. She was mean.

 

The hubby and Sakari stepped aside and I sprinted for the ship, scanned in and basically ran to our room, which OF COURSE was at the opposite end of the ship in the aft. Opened the door, threw down my bags, got our ID's out of the safe, and sprinted back.

 

As I made it around the corner to hand the person my card to scan me out I looked up and there was my hubby and Sakari scanning in. Wait, what??? I grabbed my card back and said "Wait, maybe I'm not going back out". The employee looked at me with a weird look.

 

Once the hubby got in, he told me that people were complaining about having no ID and were getting rude with her saying "I can guarantee that you have let people by today with no ID". Then he said a big group of people came up together and none of them had ID's and only the ship card and they started raising h3ll. Well, I guess it worked because she said "Just go in!" and off they all went, including my husband and child! Geesh.

 

We headed to the room and by then I was exhausted from all that. We changed into our bathing suits and I snapped a few last pictures of the port from our balcony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hulawho]

Your HMC pictures are amazing! I've seen tons of pix from there (haven't made it myself yet :mad: ) but yours really stand apart from the rest! I also never knew there was a shopping area there. Thanks so much for your extensive review.

[mitsugirly]

Yum! I will definitely be trying one!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Although I have had better breakfast burritos, I think it was definitely better than the lunch burrito and definitely a change in the normal eggs and bacon buffet meal.

 

 

 

 

Thanks!! Looks like white bread. Good. Was it good?

 

It was white bread. To be quite honest with you, I didn't try it. There were just too many other good things on the menu for me to worry about the pb&j. hehe :p ;)

[mitsugirly]

Loving your review!!

Glad the hotel worked out for you I remember how nervous you were. I am heading there right now, we have a college visit so decided to try the hotel before we cruised! Did you eat at the breakfast buffet they offer..can you tell me what was on it?

 

I was so freaked out about it and I have never taken that long to pick a hotel before. It was just weird. I don't know what it was. But so glad it worked out and I made the right decision.

 

Yes, we ate at the breakfast buffet.

 

Per my review:

 

We all got up and got ready for the free hot breakfast down stairs which consisted of the powdered mixed scrambled eggs, sausage (which I admit looked really weird and light in color but tasted decent), french toast (that looked even weirder than the sausage and tasted nasty), 3 different types of cereal, white and wheat toast with various jellies, bagels, mini muffins, milk, apple juice, orange juice and coffee. It wasn't the greatest breakfast, but it was enough to keep us tied over until we made to the Pride.

 

Sakari is just WAY too cute!!!!!!:D:D

So many pictures of her on here that just totally capture her personality.

She's a spunky one!!!!! She's a fish in the water and just so adventurous.:D

 

Absolute favorite is the one of her at HMC with the Pride in the background.

 

That needs to be framed.

 

She is definitely a spunky one for sure. I have never seen another child her age that has had the guts to do most of the things we have done while cruising. She continues to amaze me every time.

 

I really like that picture too.

 

Thanks for the comments. :)