Review: Carnival Cruise Lines - Pride - [September 26 , 2004]

[Net Reviews]

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Reviewer Comments:

Late last year, we booked a nice balcony on the Diamond Princess, its second
voyage out of San Pedro. Looked forward to the trip, made plans, bought things
to take and counted the days. A week before our trip, we went down to the docks
and watched the Diamond move down the channel amid the spray of a fire boat's
main monitor shooting hundreds of feet in the air. Two days later, my wife was
admitted to the hospital for almost a week. BUY THE TRAVEL INSURANCE. Enough of
what was and didn't.

About 30 days before our next vacation, we decide to give it another try. We
try to get something on the Diamond Princess, the last week in September, but
find the ship is sold out with a wait list. We check out Carnival and find the
Pride sails out the day after the Diamond, September 26Th. I find that not only
are there staterooms available. There are a LOT of staterooms. Looking at the
deck plans, we find an unusual cabin that's available. More on that cabin
later. We put an offer out on the net for T/A's and get six responses. Three
days later we are booked and due to the time frame, pay in full and GET the
travel insurance. Two weeks later, our tickets are mailed to us, direct from
the cruise line.

EMBARKATION

We're running late and don't leave the house until 1:30. Three bags to be
checked in and two carry-ons. Get to the pier in about 20 minutes and arrive at
the Carnival cruise center. I'm feeling great, already in cruising mode. We
drive around the four story parking structures that blocks your view of the
cruise center. As we turn a corner, I'm wondering why there are so many people
here to go on the Queen Mary tour on a Sunday afternoon. I'm sure I sat there
for a couple on seconds with my mouth hanging open. A line of people from the
cruise building, snaking back and forth into the distance out of sight. A rep
from Carnival is finally spotted, indicating that the end of the line was.
Hundreds upon hundreds of people inch along as one by one they enter the cruise
building. Fifty five minutes later, we finally get to the door. And big
surprise, the line continues for the security check. My vacation mode had long
vanished. It either disappeared when I was hit for the sixth time by a carry on
bags or the fifth time the woman in front of me whipped her head, flipping her
hair into my face. In any event, I am not a happy camper. After security, we
are directed to the check in area.

I'm sorry, but I must stop here. For anyone who does not know, Carnival had
been using the Los Angeles cruise center out of San Pedro. I assume Long Beach
made them an offer and they took it.

Many years ago, the city of Long Beach bought the original Queen Mary and made
a tourist attraction out of it, well, that was the idea anyway. Year after
year, the "attraction" lost money, the city planners got together and hatched a
plan. The "Spruce Goose", the world's largest airplane ever to fly, is up for
sale. Let's buy it and build a hanger next to the Queen Mary, what a concept,
we'll make millions. And so a hanger was constructed for the massive plane,
150% larger than what a 747 would need. After much yelling and hand wringing, a
giant dome was built and the world's largest plane was put on display. The city
fathers then waited for the crowds, and waited they did. Years later they
admitted the error in their ways and sold the plane to the highest bidder and
closed the dome. Years later, Carnival takes over and converts the dome to a
cruise center.

You now have a section of one of the nation's largest single story buildings
being used to check in people getting on a boat. I am excepting something high
tech or at least a continuation of the single line where the next available
representative take care of you. No such luck, once through security, you must
decide which of eighteen lines to get into. Just like the grocery store, some
lines are quick and some lines people die from old age. I'm guessing our line
was average, taking about 25 minutes. There were about five groups of people in
our line that were processed. The line to our right hadn't moved at all. As we
got closer to the check in counter, my blood pressure went up 20 points. It
appeared there were tip jars in front of each and every Carnival employee. It
was not until we moved closer that I could see that they were in fact
collecting money for the United Way. Wait some more and finally get to the
counter. I mention the long lines to a Carnival employee and venture that
things would move faster if everyone pre-registered before getting to the
docks. I am told all but around 200 passengers have done their paperwork before
showing up. Sign some cards and we are sent on to the next step. Get our photo
taken with a phony Mexican back drop. It's easier to pose for three seconds
than explain to some photographer you want nothing to do with a photo the
reminds you of this horrendous line. We then walk eight feet to an escalator
where a security guard wants to look at our tickets. There still in my hand, no
problem. However, at the top of the escalator, another security guard wants to
see the tickets again. No problem, dig them out of the bag where I had put then
four seconds ago. A quick glance and we are passed onto the next guard. Not to
be fooled again, I keep the tickets in hand. And a good thing to, in the last
100 feet, we have to show the tickets to four more people, each doing a
different job.

I'm sorry, Carnival has been doing this for how many years where they have been
forced to use other peoples facilities. They had a totally empty building to
start with and this was the best they could do. It took us just under two hours
to pass through a metal detector, have someone look at our identification,
swipe a credit card and get our picture taken. The two times we had gone
through the Los Angeles Cruise center, it had taken 20 and 30 five minutes
respectively. Bad design, poor planning and a general malaise by the employees
left a bad taste in my mouth as we finally exited the dome and headed for the
ship. Another ship photographer snaps away along the gangway, but here the
smiles are real as the finish line, the ship, is in view.

CARNIVAL PRIDE

The pride appears a bit smaller that some other super liners that we have seen,
but it looks clean and well maintained. The first thing I notice is the decking
is real wood, not some plastic material made to last 300 years. We enter the
ship and start by heading aft, towards our stateroom. I'm struck by how dim it
appears inside the ship. Slightly smoked glass, burnished copper and bronze
everywhere, overblown dark copies of old masters on walls ceilings and
elevators, dark mirrors and dim lighting give this overall effect. I also
immediately notice the great number of chairs and booths in all the common
areas. Row after row of identical seating for a hundred feet Identical lamps
between the chairs with muted coloring seams to suck the life out of you just
by walking through an area. I later find out that most of these chairs and
booths are many years old from other ships. In fact the seats have been
reupholstered and the backs are now starting to fall apart. The atrium is a
design highlight. Open from deck 2 up to a skylight in the roof the 11Th deck,
a vast open space that has no purpose on a ship except to make you look up and
say "WOW". Another little quirk is at the top of the atrium. Between deck 9
and 10 decks is a curved acrylic staircase. This allows people to get from the
Lido deck up into David's Supper Club, the "our food is good but if you pay
extra it's better" alternative dinning room. Anyway, going up is no problem.
When you walk down, you are looking at your feet. Since the stairs are clear
plastic, your mind is saying you have no business being eight stories with
nothing but air under you.

All in all the ship appears to be clean and workers are seen daily keeping
things tidy and maintained inside and out. However, after 7 days you start to
see things. Paint peeling, rust spots, small tears in upholstery and burned out
light bulbs not replaced.

STATEROOM 7260

This is the first time we have requested a particular stateroom. Towards the
rear of the ship, there are three tenders on each side. These are set in so
that the outside of the tenders are flush with the hull. In this area, you
will find three or four staterooms that are configured differently than the
rest of the ship. I had originally eyed 8260, but hesitated and someone else
booked it. Anyway, this particular stateroom (7260) is turned sideways. From
the door, it's only 12 feet deep, and 12 wide excluding the closet area and
bathroom. The head of the queen bed is against the hallway wall and the vanity,
TV, refrigerator unit is along the outside wall, But here is where it gets
interesting. This stateroom is designated for a wheelchair (the original pick
8260 was not "handicapped"). It was booked with the understanding we could be
bumped should someone with a wheelchair wanted on board. The entry door is a
full 36" wide and the bathroom is huge by cruise line standards, 8' by 8'
without a step over but a built in ramp in front of the door. No shower stall,
just a floor drain. The area by the closet is another 4' by 4' area with the
swinging door to the balcony. I am guessing the room is about 224 square feet.
And now for the bonus. Because of where this cabin is, the balcony is
"extended". Instead of the standard 4' depth, this balcony is 6' deep. In
addition, because of a steward's housekeeping room being close, our balcony is
a full 26' wide, three balconies worth. Another 156 square feet with three
lounge chairs, a recliner, a straight back chair and a table. The door also can
be opened all the way and does not close. The exterior light switch operates
three full length fluorescent fixtures, very bright. Just under 400 square feet
and were using every inch.

Drawbacks to this room. The carpet has a very smooth and hard, gee maybe that
has something to do with the wheelchair access? Anyway we have both slipped in
front of the bathroom because of the incline to make up for the lack of a step
over. No real injury, but a glass of water went flying and I bashed my shoulder
into the door frame. As stated, there is a floor drain in the bathroom that
works great when things are still and level. HOWEVER, go to sea with just a 3
degree pitch and water is rolling wall to wall.. As we enter or leave, other
passengers passing by want to look inside because of the strange configuration.

ELECTRICAL

Even though the room is large, I can only get to one electrical outlet. There
might be one behind the bed, but I don't feel the need to find out. It would
also appear that both the television and refrigerator are 220 volts. Even if I
could get to these outlets, it would do no good. So the trusty power strip is
used and batteries for cameras and laptop will be recharged during the trip.
The hair dryer is found in the top drawer of the desk, have no idea how it's
connected.

IN ROOM TV

In short, horrible. CBS, NBC, ABC and two movie channel (showing airline edited
films)all the time. Quality not that good, but then were on a ship in the
Pacific Ocean. The other channels are loaded with lightly camouflaged info
commercials to buy anything and everything Carnival can think of. But then you
can buy any number of in room movies. There is rumor that they will be getting
direct TV in the near future. By the way, there is no way to attach any device
to this TV. Only input is the standard coax on the back side that you can't
reach.

IN ROOM REFRIGERATOR

This is a mini bar, just another way to get your money. You have to ask at the
purser's desk to have it locked. My wife takes medicine that must be
refrigerated. We asked the steward if he could empty the mini bar for us, but
was unable to do so. Our choices are locked or unlocked. In addition,
refrigerator
is a misnomer, cooler is more apt.

SERVICE

In seven days, never saw a frown on any worker while on Carnival. Everyone was
up beat and happy. By the second day we knew our room steward, Elias, was a
professional and deserving of extra recognition. As is our custom, we tip ahead
of time in the form of a phone card. Don't know if it mattered, but from that
day on, we found different "towel animals" upon returning to the room after
dinner.

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

As I said, most of the programs on the TV are ads to buy from Carnival or
businesses Carnival suggests. The announcements over the PA are about 5%
information. The rest is a sales pitch to buy tickets, play bingo, go to the
casino, buy drinks, go to the art auction, go to the spa etc. etc.. There are
at least four of these a day lasting up to ten minutes.

It feels like there are salesmen all over the common areas selling jewelry,
future cruises and specialty food items. On other cruise lines, these people
are there, but you have to seek them out. On this ship, they stand by their
cubicle or desk, thrusting ads at any passerby.

What we have not seen are the over bearing drink runners. At one "show" the
band leader had someone make a phone call to get service people into the room.
Four showed up to take care of the entire showroom.

ENTERTAINMENT

During the day, the usual trivia, bingo and scavenger hunts are to be found. We
even stumbled upon an art class in one of the aft bars. As expected, the cruise
director is over the top whenever he has a microphone and does have to struggle
to get passengers up and running at any deck event. Seams most of the people would
rather sit in the sun and be left alone. There is a take off on the "Survivor"
TV show. 8 idiots volunteer for a two day event to win some piece of junk
prize. I get second place and get a plastic ship after eating a hamburger with
sardines and a half cup of relish. There are various musicians performing
throughout the day about the ship. Some very good, some O.K. and one or two you
think are drunk passenger who wandered on stage. We found one young man in a
piano bar who's act I thought was to play music to one song while singing
something totally different. The "Vegas" style shows consists of a cast of 16
with a main male and female singer backed by 14 dancers. There is a live
orchestra who start the show with live music, but at some point "canned" music
takes over. For the most part, the main vocals were real, but the back up
singers and some solos were on tape. For being on a ship, the production was
very good.

On the last two nights, there was a standup comedian "Jerome" who was very
good. Unfortunately, a second act appeared the last night. A ventriloquist who
thought he was headliner , went on for about 30 minutes, ignoring the people
walking out.

Along with the standard casino (as of this moment we are about $60 ahead) and
Bingo (only fools play this game-but then I won on a $200 card), Carnival has
come up with a new twist. A lottery for a 7 day cruise. $5 a ticket, three for
$10. This one may be a real money maker for the line. They have been pushing it
for six days.

On this cruise, a private company brought several dealers and rented out one of
the smaller rooms. They held three sessions of Hold'em Poker. They can be
contacted at www.USCardplayer.com to see which ships they will be on in the
future. I lasted two hours.

FOOD

The quality is excellent through out the ship. Some portions are a bit small,
but then I prefer quality over quantity, and you can always get more if you
want. We try a little bit of everything, except the sushi, just how fresh is
that fish if it's your third day at sea? I do note that there is a great deal
of waste up on the Lido deck where the buffet lines are. For some reason,
certain people take great mounds of food only to leave then to be thrown away.
None of my business except everyone's ticket price is increased to make up for
this kind of waste.

Service can be slow at time in the main dinning room, but that is to be
expected. We are at a table of 8 and our companions are nice enough, thou it's
an effort to keep the conversation up and running.

We attempted to get reservations at "David’s" the upscale restaurant. We waited
to long, 17 hours after getting onboard and the night we wanted was booked up.
Oh well, there's always the Lido deck.

Our only experience with room service is the "continental" breakfast. Stock
items at the steward's station like cereal, bagels, juice and coffee.

On the third day at sea we are contacted by David's and told there has been a
cancellation and there is an opening at 8:30. Not only is this the day we
wanted, but within 30 minutes of what we were going to request. As it is
written in the paperwork, I don a sports coat and slacks and we climb the
dreaded clear staircase from the 9Th level. David's takes up the 10Th and 11Th
floors in front of the smoke funnel and is topped by a very large sky light
that lets the sun fill the atrium. I am first hit by the lack of people. We are
put at a table on the port side with a party of four, a couple and a table of
six. There are at least 24 empty chairs when we arrive and the party of four
departs with in 10 minutes. There is no explanation as to why they're over
booked with empty tables everywhere.

Although the quality of the food is a little better here, the emphasis is on
service. Our waiter gives a five minute soliloquy of what is on the menu. The
emphasis is on presentation, fine china and crystal stem ware and the silver is
changed with each course. Everyone is given a complimentary hors d'oeuvre. I
get a bowl of tomato soup. Although the bowl is so small, it might hold 3
tablespoons, it takes me ten minutes to eat. The spoon looks like it's from a
doll set, about an two inches long. My wife's dessert shows up with a 12" hand
made hard candy "spike" attached to the plate. A two hour experience worth the
extra money.

Room service is very fast, but the in room menu is very limited.

The main dinging room menu has four or five "starters", two salads, five or six
entries and about twenty desserts.

DRESS CODE

After the second night, I gave up counting the shorts and T-shirts in the main
dining room. Even in the up scale David's I saw men in shirt sleeves.
Swimsuits in the buffet line, swimsuits in the casino, swimsuits running in the
hallway and kids dripping wet in the marbled floored elevators leaving large
puddles.

ABOUT THE KIDS

Because of the line at the cruise center, we knew that there were more kids on
this cruise than on Princess, but barely so we were not concerned. Once onboard
however, it seamed they were everywhere. There is some sort of children's
program on board, but it seams few were enrolled. There is a constant stream of
kids in the common areas morning to night. In addition, there were many
families that insisted in bringing children and strollers, I don't care, but
quit hitting my feet with the **** things.

PORTS

Puerto Vallarta-knowing in advance of the weather conditions, we book a sunset
sail. As it turned out, the weather was worse, 98 degrees with 95% humidity. We
stayed on the ship and enjoyed the air conditioning, but I ran over to Wal-Mart
looking for a spare battery for my new camera. At about 5, we went own to the
dock and the conditions were much better. Once we got out onto the water it was
great. An open bar and food with a cooling showers followed by a sunset and a
short sail, very nice.

Mazatlan-an all day bus trip into the hills East of the city. Stopped to watch
some furniture being handmade and a nice lunch after a short walk into a small
town. I am very glad the bus is air conditioned. At the end there was a stop
for shopping in the "Golden Zone".

Cabo San Lucas-woke up to the constant PA going on about getting a ticket to
get on the tenders. Looking out, I can't understand why there's a waiting line
with all the tenders heading for the docks. Only after getting topside do I
realize we are not alone in the harbor. A Holland America ship is in the
distance and the "Sun Princess" is next to us. We go into town and have a
couple of drinks, but return to the ship within a couple of hours. To many
people for such a small area. The other times we were here, the water was
green, cloudy and cool. Today it is warm and the waters are a clear blue. From
the 7Th deck o the ship we can see many feet into the water All to soon the
anchor is raised and we head out of the bay and turn North. Because the Pride
can cruise up to 23 knots, we do not leave until 4:00PM and cruise at a higher
speed than other ships on this route and reach Long Beach in 39 hours. The last
night, we pass the Diamond going South.

FORMAL NIGHTS

I have retired my $1.78 thrift store dark suit and have enlisted a $15.00
thrift store Perry Ellis suit. On this cruise I have found about 75% of the men
are in suits, 20% are in tuxedos. The other 5% are in sport shirts and appear
in the dinning room anyway.

DEBARKATION

We are allowed until midnight to get bags in the hallway, very civilized. In
the morning, were in Long Beach and must deal with the cruise center again.

OPINION

Other than the first half day, this cruise was enjoyable. This cruise line was
booked do to time frame only. Looking at this as far as value to dollars spent,
I feel Princess still a better deal.