After a year of detailed planning, our family embarked on a 50th wedding anniversary cruise aboard the Carnival Pride. The cruise departed from the Port of Baltimore on July 18, 2010, with scheduled stops at Grand Turk, Half Moon Cay, and Freeport, Bahamas.

The cruise was a wonderful family bonding experience and a great opportunity for family members to reconnect with others living some distance away. This alone was well worth the expense of the voyage. The convenience and efficiency of the Port of Baltimore operations was also an unexpected pleasure.

I only wish the same could be said of the Carnival Pride and much of her crew. In the opinion of this nine time cruiser, the Pride is clearly showing her age and this elderly ship is in great need of updating and renovation. Her crew is in dire need of rejuvenation or replacement. One major area in need of prompt attention, the Security Department, and numerous other relatively minor inconveniences, seriously detracted from the potential of a fun experience. I had heard unconfirmed rumors that Carnival ships did not live up to the standards of other lines but I relented, upon perhaps mistaken advice of my travel consultant, and booked the family celebration on the Pride. The most compelling reasons for booking the Pride was the convenience of the Baltimore departure and a seven day cruise length that went somewhere other than Bermuda. Unfortunately, this trip on the Carnival Pride was clearly the worst experience of all my other eight cruises, including wonderful voyages aboard two other ships that are "World's Leading Cruise Lines" affiliates of Carnival. A more appropriate name for the Carnival Pride would be the Carnival Embarrassment. Read more