Pride Reviews

Lynn Madero
Oct. 22

The ship was beautiful and the entire crew and staff were wonderful. However, due to Hurricane Paul we could not go to our ports. Instead we went to Ensenada, San Diego and Catalina. We understood the need to change but expected some compensation since the ports were not at all comparable-a border town and 2 places in CA (which we can drive to) constituted a 3 or 4 days cruise and would have cost half as much. Carnival would not offer any compensation at all. In future we will spend our vacation dollars back at the Beaches and Sandals resorts we have been going to since 1998. They are more customer service oriented. They have a hurricane guarantee and you get a whole week free if hit by a hurricane. If a nearby hurricane causes the water sports to be cancelled, they give a voucher for the number of days you lost. This makes everyone happy and they come back again.

Although our group of 8 made our own fun, I found the days at sea to be boring after the second day. The routine is pretty much the same from day to day. The change of ports put us in cooler weather so it was too cold to go in the pools. With only one adult only hot tub, they were always too crowded or full of kids. We all packed for warmer weather and were often cold when on deck for walks or outdoor activities at sea.

Positives: the waiters were terrific, dinner was the highlight of each night with them putting on a show every night. food was excellent and the maitre'd and chef came around several times to check if everything was satisfactory. the balcony cabins were nice and roomy for a ship and we enjoyed the towel animals every night the shows were great and Wee Jimmy and his staff were very entertaining and friendly trivia and contests were fun

Negatives: the ports of course only one electric outlet in room - on desk not in bathroom told you not to use portable irons but ones in laundry did not work trivia and contests became boring after second day at sea public bathrooms were very smelly - not enough of the them and too far apart for so many people casino became too smoky after a few days not enough adult only pools and spas tried to go to galley tour but about 500 people showed up and we left so as not to stand on line for an hour to get a 10 minute tour. poorly handled. should have had sign ups and offered more than one tour.

We had all planned to go on cruises to Hawaii and Alaska if we did not get seasick ( we didn't) but our overall experience was not as good as expected. Not having interesting ports to look forward to really spoiled the trip. As I said before, the days at sea became really boring. It did not help that Carnival was so inflexible about compensation. About 300 people who lived in CA left the ship at Ensenada and got a refund on the balance of their trip. We did not have that option since our flight back to Phoenix from Long Beach on Oct 29 was already booked.

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