Carnival Pride Review
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Additional details
We are in our young 60's and this is our 14th cruise; 5th on Carnival, 5 on NCL and 4 on Royal. This is our first cruise with our sons, their wives and our grandchildren. Our children gave us this cruise for our 40th anniversary 3 years ago but for a variety of reasons we could not coordinate all of our schedules until we were finally were able to book a cruise Thanksgiving week, 2018. So, this has been in the works for a long time. We spent countless hours discussing and booking excursions, planning our trip down from Massachusetts the day before so we wouldn't have to worry about making the ship on time. Finally the day came and we drove down on Saturday and spent the night at the Best Western Plus Hotel & Conference Center in Baltimore. They have the stay and cruise package that included a hot breakfast on Sunday.
We received a message in the morning that our departure time was delayed and to please arrive an hour later than scheduled. No problem, check out was at noon, so we just sat in the lobby and waited for the shuttle to arrive. KD Elite provided the shuttle service from the hotel. No problems, they were nice and we got to the ship in no time. Check in was a breeze and we were on the ship within an hour. Cabins were ready so we went straight there and dropped off our carry on luggage and met everyone at Guy's Burgers for a late lunch. We then toured around the ship, went back to our cabins where our luggage had already arrived, unpacked, attended the muster drill and waited for sail away at 5PM.
5PM came and went...they announced it would be delayed due to routine maintenance but our itinerary would not be changed. We had late seating on deck 2 and met up with everyone for our first dinner of the week. Loved our table, all the way back, against a window which the grandkids loved playing in. At 8:20 the captain came on and told us they could not complete the work needed and the ship could not make max speed and because of this we would have only one port - Freeport on Thanksgiving Day. You could hear the moans and groans all over the dining room. The cruise director, Cookie came on to explain the situation more clearly and told us our options. If you wanted to leave the ship, you would receive a full refund and you would have to leave by 11PM. IF you wanted to stay on board, you would receive a $50 OBC and a 100% future cruise credit! I would say that's a no brainer! But, we were amazed by how many people did leave...rumor had it that 700 people left but I don't believe that. Maybe 300 or so. I would love to know how many actually did leave. So, as disappointed as we were to miss the ports we were just happy to be on the ship, the whole family finally together. I'm not sure what time we actually did leave Baltimore as we were fast asleep...heard it was around 1AM.
Cabin Review
Balcony
Perfect location, mid-ship, one deck up to Lido. There is noise from Lido, sounds like thunder when they are pushing carts around, but it didn't bother us. The room is a little worn around the edges, no big deal. The bed, sheets, pillows were the most comfortable ever. The shower ran hot and cold, the shower head didn't work when you tried to use it upside down. The temperature in the room was too warm, then perfect, then too warm again. But the balcony....oh my, the balcony. The ceiling panels were removed in preparation for dry dock in February. We were looking at exposed, rusty framework and insulation. It was a very unsightly view! It was very distracting...I kept thinking chunks of rust or insulation would fall into my glass of wine! I tried to look past it to the beautiful open sea but my eyes would go up. I was very surprised they didn't have a letter in our cabin saying "please pardon our appearance as we do repairs" or something! I didn't want to complain to Guest Services because, after all, we are getting a free cruise in the future, but this had nothing to do with that. After a couple of days, I did end up saying something to Guest Services and the girl asked what was bothering me and I showed her pictures and her whole attitude changed - "oh, my!" she said. The next day we received a letter asking me to go talk to them again and we were offered to move but it was almost over so we declined, they did take some of our expenses off and that was very much appreciated. While docked in Freeport we could see that it was our cabin and a few on either side of us with the exposed framework and they were removing more. I'm sorry, but people should be notified that they can move or have a discounted cabin. It really was so distracting and ugly!