Unfortunately, I was having too much fun to keep detailed notes of everything I did, so I can't give a complete day by day review. Too much fun indeed as it will be hard for any future cruise to top this one. I traveled with my boyfriend; both of us are in our early 20's - this was his first cruise and my sixth (fifth on Carnival). I knew Carnival would be a great introduction for my bf and we both had a wonderful time!

The ship: I won't expound on the dEcor as most other reviews have enough detail. I will say that the ship carries a Renaissance theme so the nudity is appropriate. Some have called the Pride pornographic - well, walk into any art museum and you will find the same thing. Everything is very ornately decorated which I thought was beautiful, but may not fit all tastes. The Pride is very well maintained and taken care of - besides a couple of signs of wear and tear mostly in the elevators, everything still looks great. The Taj Mahal theater is absolutely gorgeous - I love the little lights on the walls and ceiling. Be sure to check out all the butterflies enclosed in the glass walls in Butterflies lounge and the busts in Club Beauties. I took a lot of pictures of the sitting areas in the Promenade deck - plenty of comfortable couches and chairs, paintings, and candelabras. My favorite place to sit was near the sushi bar, in front of the staircase that circled around a huge fountain - so pretty! The Atrium is too small and narrow, though; there is a huge mural spanning the entire length of the ship that is impossible to see without riding up the glass elevator.

Embarkation: A family member dropped us off as we live close by; we arrived around 10:15 and did the early check in. Very quick process - I highly recommend it. We got in the Zone 1 line at 11:15. We were near the front but the line quickly grew. The other lines quickly grew after that - sure glad we would be one of the first to board as it was hot and all the lines were out in the sun. A Carnival rep told us to deal with the sun as we would be getting a lot of it in Mexico after moving the second line out of the shade. We boarded at 12:30, dropped off some stuff at the room, and were eating lunch in an empty ship by 1. I heard a few complaints about the long process but I think most people were just glad to be going on the ship! Read more