I will give top ratings to the ship itself (more on the good stuff below), once we were aboard, but Carnival did a terrible job in port getting us informed and onboard our shortened cruise, so a couple of paragraphs about that first. Because of a mechanical problem, the Pride was a day late returning, had to go to San Pedro for repair and debarkation, and we left later Monday night (Feb. 5 07) for a shortened cruise without Puerto Vallarta. A recorded phone call from Carnival let us know this on Saturday evening, the day before we were supposed to sail, and told us we could cancel or accept a 15% refund and 50$ onboard credit if we still wanted to go. Most people elected to sail anyway, especially those that were already here. They all had to scramble to find accommodations for Sunday night.

On Monday, everyone showed up at Long Beach, because Carnival told us we had to go there first, that we would be checked in at Long Beach and bussed to the ship in San Pedro. This wasn't true, we stood in a hot parking lot with no information from Carnival for 2 hours while they slowly bussed us and our luggage to San Pedro. Checkin there was slow, and we still don't know when or how the refund will be provided. But as I said, once on board, all was well. I traveled with another woman friend my age (we're both single and over 45), and we had a beautiful extended balcony cabin in a great area of the ship. After a brief scare that the repair wouldn't be good enough to get us to Mazatlan, we finally set sail at 9:30.

I'll break my review into categories. Read more