Carnival Pride March 11 Quick Review

[Longhorn Cruiser]

Just returned from the Pride on Sunday and wanted to write down a few quick thoughts. A little background. I am a 44 year old who traveled with my wife and son. This was my 12th cruise. Previous cruises: 6 on RCL, 2 Celebrity, 1 Holland America, 1 Princess, 1 Radisson. So yes, this was my first Carnival Cruise and since I was a loyal RCLer I went in with certain preconceived notions.

 

General Observation: I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed the Pride. It was not my first choice but since we booked very late, it was the only one available. I would not hesitate to sail Carnival again.

 

I thought the food was excellent. Dinners were very good. Had Lobster, Filet Mignon, Beef Wellington, Veal, Chateaubriand, Chicken and Beef Short Ribs. Most far exceeded my expectations. The soups were also very good and we especially enjoyed the desserts. The warm chocolate cake offered every night is possibly the best cruise dessert on the high seas.

 

Our Dining Room Waitress, Julia, was the best waiter/waitress we have had. Tremendous service and great personality. We really enjoyed having her and she added a great deal to our cruise enjoyment. Francisco, her assistant, was also very good.

 

Our cabin steward was fair at best. He often neglected to leave the Carnival Capers in our cabin and also forgot to leave the goodnight chocolates. His towel animals were nice but he also left his bottle of cleaning solution in our cabin overnight. He took our used beach towels one night but did not replace them with clean ones for the next day.

 

We had a great cabin 6279, which is a Category 9a. It is larger than most cabins and had a very nice oversized balcony. I would definitely recommend a 9a cabin.

 

We went to all of the shows and frankly I was a little disappointed. The productions shows were especially below par and I am not that critical when it comes to this. Seeing Elvis in leather chaps and a fishnet muscle shirt was a little bit odd to me. The juggler was very good and the comedian wasn't bad. Overall the show quality wasn't great.

 

I did not happen to like the cruise director, Jeff Bronson, as I did not think he added a whole lot to the cruise. I have had much better cruise directors.

 

Duane, in the piano bar, was great and we visited the sing-a-long almost every night. Highly recommend the piano bar.

 

The Pride lacks the amenities that the newer RCL ships have but we knew this going in. Given the choice, we prefer the newer ships but the Pride is very nice for what it is.

 

Lowlight of the Trip: Carnival has the worst embarkation and disembarkation I have ever experienced - by far. We took everyone's advice and registered early at the Queen Mary at 10:00 which was a snap. We then went outside to Zone 1 which would board first and waited in line. We promptly boarded at 1:30 - 3 1/2 hours later. I have never had to wait more than 30 minutes to board a cruise ship and I figured worst case we would board at 12:00. Carnival also had a representative stand outside and "scream" the important information that no one could hear. A speaker system of any kind would have been nice. Disembarkation was even worse. We had a 12:35 flight from LAX and since the ship docked at 7:00 I thought this would be no problem. I went to the purser's desk and got the early disembarkation tags and we were told to meet at 8:15 am in the theater which we did. We joined I think half the ship for "early" disembarkation and proceeded to wait in line to get off the ship for over 2 hours. We didn't leave the port until 10:45. After panic ensued and we saw the southwest airlines check in lines and security lines it was amazing we made our flight. We arrived at the gate and walked on the plane with no time to spare. Other cruise lines break the ship passengers into much smaller groups and actually only allow those with truely early flights to leave early. This was very poorly managed.

 

Overall, we really enjoyed our Cruise and I came away with a greater appreciation of Carnival. In many areas, they exceed the other cruise lines, but are sorely lacking in others. Just my humble opinion.

 

I'll be glad to answer any questions.

[barns46]

I really wanted 9a room...but wasnt sure of elevators so close..I booked extended cabin on ver.deck...for our 25th on pride in nov. ...(im only 4 days old on this site) and love it!!!

[Longhorn Cruiser]

Proximity to elevators, in my opinion, is a benefit. Never heard a sound from them and its great to be able to quickly zip up to the Grill/Pool or zip down to the dining room.

[Astronomer]

The Pride was our only Cruise so far... so as you can imagine, my glowing review last year was as much on Cruising in general as the Pride in Particular. ( more like a running novel than a review )

I’m glad you had a good time, and as positive as my review was, I actually know and agree with some of what you are saying.

The shows were just... ok...

the Cruise Director was not all that interesting

I had better luck with our room steward

Loved the waiters

and the food was way beyond our expectations.

I am actually glad to read your account from the perspective of a cruiser of other lines.....

But I would go back for another Carnival Cruise in an instant…. In fact… we are looking at one now….. woo hoo!

Thanks

:D

[SunnieD]

I found that there were elevators everywhere I turned. I did use the stairs to go down, and elevators to go up.:o