Carnival Pride Review

4.0 / 5.0
1,595 reviews

Family Summer Vacation

Review for the Eastern Caribbean Cruise on Carnival Pride
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Teej75
6-10 Cruises • Age 40s

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Additional details

Sail Date: Aug 2018
Cabin: Extended Balcony
Traveled with children

We are trying out various cruise lines with the family to see what fits our vacation style best. We needed a last minute summer vacation with the kids and since we live so close we wanted to try cruising out of Baltimore. The Carnival Pride fit the bill since their pools looked nice and I saw they had some water slides. We knew going in that it was an older ship and not the most exciting out there for kids. This was our first Carnival cruise with kids (9 and 11). With these expectations in mind, we had a great cruise.

MDR food was great. My husband rated it higher than Disney and I would rate it as just below but better than RC (Anthem). One night we had free steakhouse selections from my husband's casino activity and while it was OK, we were glad we did not spend the extra $20 on it. The Sea Day brunch was great - good variety, good food. Buffet breakfast was OK but crowded as usual - we only did this on port days when the MDR closed early for breakfast. Buffet lunch was below average and there is no kid food - no nuggets, no mac and cheese, no hot dogs, no good fruit selections for the kids, no plain pasta. My kids mostly ate at Guy's burgers for lunch which was very good but if my kids had been 3-6 when they ate less variety it would have been challenging at lunchtime. I enjoyed the tacos as well for lunch most days.

Your time Dining - since we booked late it was Your time or the 8:30 seating so we chose Your Time. The first night we showed up at 5:50 (opens at 5:45) and walked right in. Super fast seating. As the cruise went on it seemed many people were arriving early. We would get here at 5:30 and wait in a long line (long people wise, but it went fast once they started seating people). Dinner was slow, which we expect on cruises but one night we hit 2 hours without yet seeing the dessert menu so we left early that night - most nights we were done within the 2 hours timeframe. For some reason this felt extra long on this cruise - maybe because we have mostly done Disney where there is a lot of entertainment during dinner and RC anytime dining really got you in and out a lot faster so they could seat the next people waiting. The Your Time sections filled up pretty quickly and then everyone after that had to wait for tables and with dinner taking 2 hours, it was little different than the actual 5:30 and 8:30 seatings. If you wanted an 8PM seating maybe it would work out but don't show up at 6:30 and expect a table in less than an hour. Also the 2 hours dinner made it difficult to make activities at 7/7:30PM.

Cabin Review

Extended Balcony

Cabin 8K

Deck 8 is right below the Lido deck and we definitely heard some noise throughout the night and early morning. The nights of the deck parties you can hear the bass until about midnight. You can hear the deck chairs being moved around. Now if you are the type that are out late, it would be less disruptive. I would not recommend if you have kids that still need naps or go to bed at 8PM since the noise is disturbing even through a white noise machine. This was not the noisiest room we have been in but it took some getting used to and definitely was not ideal.

The balcony was great and we had reclining chairs thanks to the extra space out there. We enjoyed the extra overhang from Deck 9 that kept us in the shade on sunny days (I know some people complain about this but for us it was a plus).

Bed was very comfortable. It had the newer/slimmer TV. For a family of 4 there was more than enough closet/shelf/drawer/bathroom shelf space for a summer cruise. If the weather were colder it might have been a little tighter with more pants/sweaters etc. I was worried about space for clothes from pics but we had enough space in this cabin. They did leave the bunk beds set up the whole time but that also worked for since it was comfier when the kids wanted some downtime to relax.

It certainly is an older ship and the fabrics/carpet etc are looking worn, but it was comfortable and clean. Only rated poor due to noise and lack of sleep, which is usually the best of my life on a ship.

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