Although the ship is docked at Long Beach - not Los Angeles, it's about 10 minutes from the LB airport. We stayed at a hotel the night before as we don't think it's a good logistic idea to arrive same day as embarkation. Reading previous reviews on this cruise, we were aware that this port has an early check in which is actually on the Queen Mary docked about a 1 minute walk from the Pride. We took advantage of this and had time to get a coffee at a kiosk and view a small car show on the dock. This is our 5th Carnival cruise and first on the Pride and since we booked a suite [ and we highly recommend this as it is well worth the cost - cat 11 ], we were allowed to board about 1 hour early [ 11:00am ] prior to general boarding. We knew our room was not ready but it allowed us to roam the ship, get a bite to eat on the lido deck and get our bearings down where everything was.

Our first impression of the Carnival Pride is just what the main show lounge is called - "Taj Mahal". The decor throughout the ship is mind blowing. My wife and I immediately made comment how this ship was a major departure from the greens - reds neon glitter many of Carnival ships are noted for. This ship is plush! Filled with statues, interior waterfalls, fabulous artwork and chandeliers everywhere the eye looks. 4 stars to the interior designs. Since we have past cruises under our belt, we were looking forward to seeing what the Pride offered for their Cat 11 suite. We were surprised. As with the Cat 12 suites, their 11 also had a makeup room with wide mirror and drawers for all the stuff that is important for the wife. Through this was the bathroom [ head ] and to our surprise, a double his & her granite counter sink, we turned around to see the tub/shower and again to our surprise a jacuzzi tub. These tubs are normally in Cat 12 suites. The lighting in the suite is very similar to a Cat 12 but we were in for yet another surprise...the balcony was huge! 50% larger than a cat 11 on other Carnival suites. With two chairs and a table, this balcony could have used another 2 or 3 chairs and still would have plenty of room left over. Now for the room negatives [ only 2 ]. First, the water on the ship and the room had a strong odor and taste of plastic piping. Kind of like that garden hose effect. It was too hard to drink, so we challenged the room stewart to keep our ice bucket full as it seemed not to carry the same taste. We let the ice melt and used the water from it to fill our water bottles for each day in port. The other negative was the shower door closest to the water controls was permanently screwed into place. We had to reach from the backside of the tub to turn on the water and the first night my wife reached, barely holding her balance from the distance and shot herself with the shower head [ clothes still on ]. She let out a yell and from the brief startling of being drenched with cold water, she darn near fell into the tub. We have no idea why Carnival makes the door closest to the water controls unusable. Major safety issue. Our room stewart "Tikiti" was of course excellent. We introduced ourselves and made one challenge to him, keep the ice bucket full. Typical of our experiences on Carnival, no matter how many times we left our room and no matter how long, when we returned, the bed was foo-fooed, any towel we used was replaced, and fresh mints replaced everytime we had one. The dining room food quality was a bit less than par for Carnival standards. All was good, but not quite the taste - quality we've had in the past. Of course, the dining staff sings and dances with us and for the most part the dining room experiences were good. We spent two days at sea before reaching our first port [ Puerto Vallarta ]. As expected, we heard non stop "sign up for excursions" from every direction. This cruise had excursion prices mostly in the 3 digits per person - extremely higher than Caribbean ports. A two hour RT snorkeling tour with 45 minutes in the water was $118 per person. For $236 for both of us, they should have given us snorkeling gear to take home. But since we brought our own, we did at this port and the other two ports what the ship advised us not to do. We met a local taxi driver on the dock [ no shortage of taxis ] asked him to take us to a small private beach where the snorkeling is good with food close by. $30 flat fee round trip for both of us to get to a small uncrowded beach [ about 20 miles from the ship ] was Mis Moloya Beach and from their we took a $35 flat rate private chartered 10 minute water taxi to the shore of a nearby island and snorkeled our fannies off to some of the most brilliant colored and abundant fish we've ever seen. Our water taxi driver "Fernando" just sat out and floated nearby until we were exhausted [ some hour plus later ]. We rested for about 20 minutes and Fernando took us to another spot on the other side of the island and we jumped in for another 45 minutes to an hour as he drifted near by. Fernando was very respectful and kind. He assisted my wife with her gear and helped her get back in the boat. He asked if we wanted more with a smile. We were done. He took us back to the main land and docked on the sand, helped my wife out of the boat and escorted us to his cousin who had two chairs and an umbrella set up for us about 10 steps from the waters edge. Two Coronas and a plate of real tacos, rice and the best beans we've ever had finished the day. We hung out for another hour and picked up our taxi back to the ship. All of this - are you ready.........$65 total for both of us. We basically did the same thing at Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas. With food, we spent a combined at all 3 ports about $225 total for hours and hours in the water with privately set up ground and water taxis. We met a couple who signed up for just one snorkeling excursion who paid more than $200 as they complained the time in the water was about 30 minutes and the boat ride took over 45 minutes each way.

We did this because we spent all of these days with 2500 people on the ship. We don't want to spend our time off the ship with the same size crowds. My wife and I casually walked off the ship at each port after eating a relaxing breakfast, spent not one minute under a time schedule or facing to have to meet somewhere on the ship as a group and be "sheepled" to a gathering to climb aboard a bus or a 60' pontoon boat. Good for others but we wanted to be able to relax under our timing - and we did. Cabo was excellent. We were off the ship among the first as the time in port is limited [7 hours] and adding the time to be tendered, we felt going early was smart. We were early on shore many of the traditional venders on the dock were not open yet. We had a great meal at a local eatery right on the dock. Once we emerged outside, about 1/2 the ship made it to shore at this point and were all huddled in several groups surrounding a local guide holding an excursion sign. We worked ourselves around the mass of people, found a water taxi guide and privately contracted him to take us to "the lands end" and "lovers beach". His $30 round trip flat rate for both of us sounded great vs. a 90 minute excursion to the same location was $110 per person. We spent 5 hours at the beach and in the water after our taxi driver "Witsie" took his time covering about 1/2 mile of coast line taking photos and giving us a guided verbal tour explaining many points of interest[ some of the best photos I've ever taken ]. Read more