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Carnival Cruise Line

MS Carnival Pride

Your Rating:
Reviewed by: Katie O'Girl
# previous cruises: 0
Date of Trip: February 23, 2002
Itinerary: Caribbean - Eastern

The cruise was fun and having a balcony made it really lovely as the views were marvelous. A good value for a holiday for the money. I wouldn't take a small child on this ship but that's just my opinion.

The lounges were nice and well-decorated in different themes. Most were tasteful and quite pretty.

I disliked the Butterfly lounge. I thought it was "tacky" and tasteless but it was unusual and a lot of people LOVED it. The Ivory Piano bar was nice but the guy left the piano and chatted-up the girls too much at times. If there was less than a good crowd around the bar where he got a lot of attention then he'd take a break. That was not very professional. The guy, Greg, in the Piazza Cafe played much better, and was more personable. He had class and style both in personality and in the presentation of his music.

The Renaissance Lounge was simply beautiful with velvet couches, thick carpet and brocade drapes. A lovely baby grand piano and chandeliers graced the room and the walls were decorated with replicas of artwork from the 14th to the 16th centuries.

The atrium of the ship was somewhat the same in decor and really lovely.

The Taj Mahal where most of the activities took place was pretty.

I had to laugh as there was MASSIVE space in the public areas and Tom said they could fit another thousand people in just the public places if they utilized them for cabins. The ship was CLEAN.

The service was excellent EVERYWHERE. Things appeared to be quite clean. The food in the Mermaids Grill where most ate their meals was average to good in taste, although I heard a lot of raves about how "wonderful" it was around me. I wondered if they were not used to an ABUNDANCE of food presented as nicely as it was or if they really thought that it TASTED good. (The bacon was terrible quality. The cheap, fatty kind. My ONLY complaint.) The Piazza Cafe was extra and you had to pay for desserts there. The chocolate-covered strawberries were EXCELLENT and all perfectly ripe without being overly so. The milkshakes were good, too.

The pianist, Greg, was one of the best that I've heard in a lounge environment.

Dinner at night in the dining room tasted VERY good and the servers Dimitrios and Eon were more than nice. Pleasant and just sweet-natured in general. The food was presented nicely. The stem ware was "spotless".

The bathroom was adequate and bigger than some hotel room bathrooms that I've been in. I was surprised. There was an assortment of toiletries left the first night in a large shell-shaped bowl. Soap, shampoos, makeup remover wipes, razors, antacids, mints. There was also a shampoo dispenser and a soap gel dispenser in the shower itself and it was always full. Four sets of clean towels were placed there daily with a bathmat. There was a rubber mat in the shower to prevent falls. I usually hate those because they are dirty but these were clean and new with no mold or mildew on them. There was also one of those large circular mirrors on the wall that you could adjust to magnification or regular image. (like the ones in the the good hotel rooms in Las Vegas) Lots of glass shelves on either side of the large main mirror and sink. Great lighting. The cabin had a king-size bed and a good firm mattress. There was a sofa that made into a bed. Lots of space. Three closets. Big fluffy white robes to wear. A good-sized balcony with a little chaise lounge and a chair as well as a small table. Large, long dressing table and mirrors. A safe operated by your credit card.(No charge) Lots of shelves and huge drawers under your sofa bed as well as the small bureau drawers. You could bring up your Sign and Sail account on your TV to check what you were spending. You could check your position, speed and ETA on the TV, too as well as see movies and shore channels. Room service was unbelievably QUICK and the food was fresh and good and still hot.

Our stewards, Pedro and Andy were nice and EFFICIENT. Always had fresh ice, day and night. Always cleaned and straightened the room when we left for a meal. The different towel animals were cute and the bed was always turned back and neat with mints on the pillows at night and the lights dimmed.

The shows were of pretty good quality. Similar to Vegas type shows. I was surprised at the talent and the quality of the backgrounds and costumes. Much BETTER than I had expected being in the entertainment business myself.

There was a Motown show and it was great. As well comedians and jugglers.

There was CONSTANT activity on shipboard days at sea. I won 2 medals on ribbons for trivia games and $47 at bingo. I lost miserably on the slot machines but the lady next to me won 1,500. with just one quarter so SOMEONE was winning. Later at the blackjack table a guy won $5,000. That was right after we LOST $300 playing Caribbean Stud Poker.

Tom won 2 "Solid Gold Plastic" Carnival trophies for Quiz games and that was fun. We left feeling like geniuses. In the Bahamas we rented a Limo with a driver named "BIG D" and he was great. He was standing on the pier and calling out "Taxi" and we took a chance. We really got our moneys worth on the 3 hour tour of the island with lots of history, advice on where NOT to shop, beaches, government buildings, historic forts, etc. He kept asking if there was anywhere that we WANTED to see in particular. He took us to Atlantis and several places after he showed us the "MUST SEE" sites. It was $50 for both of us. He was good and quite informative. We saw a LOT in a short time.

In St Maartan we used a guy named Alain Hodges that we found the same way. He was great. He took us all over in his van. Told us the history of the Island, who owned it and when and drove us all over both the French side and the Dutch side. Explained a lot of political things to us as well as the interesting tax laws (Tom is an accountant/tax consultant so he was very interested) After we got back on the ship we found a tour guide brochure and Alain was positively right on everything. Both men stopped when we wanted to shop and stopped when we wanted to eat and had a regular itinerary and lecture of the sites on the island. We were very impressed with the pride that they had in their islands and with the enthusiasm they had when answering our questions and showing us around. The three pools were nice but small. The hot tubs were nice. They all closed at dusk and that I didn't like. The one adult hot tub closed at 10 pm.

There was a small childrens pool on the top level which seemed silly to me because it was NEVER in use. The children were down in the adult pools where their parents were.

The majority of the people were between the ages of 40 to 75. That surprised me because I'd heard that Carnival catered to the very young adult. There were about 45 to 50 teens and several young families with toddlers and babies.

We shared a table at dinner with a doctor and her pilot husband. There were quite nice and we did a few things together on the ship like teaming up for the team trivia games, etc. I was surprised at the great diversity in occupations of the people that we met. We met an NFL player, a lawyer, a farmer, a harbour pilot, a prison warden, a LOT of retired people, a few entertainers. We met people that had never been anywhere at all before and a few that were well-seasoned travelers. There were almost no Europeans at all as far as the guests on board.

Yes, I liked some of the people well enough to invite to dinner.