Carnival Pride Comments 12/14/03 sailing…

Carnival Pride Comments 12/14/03 sailing…

As many of you know, I am no big fan of Carnival but again decided to
give them another try because of a new class of ship right in my
backyard without having to fly out of Long Beach, CA. With all the
Carnival fans on the group praising the new Spirit class and how it is
so much better than its predecessors (Fantasy and Destiny class), I was
cautiously optimistic going in. I had low expectations going in but I
am glad to report that overall, this has been my best Carnival cruise to
date and Carnival exceeded my expectations for their product. I have no
vendetta against any line; I just call it as I see it. Currently, I can
confidently say that Carnival has surpassed Royal Caribbean in the food
department.
Getting to the dock in Long Beach was a bit confusing and a bunch of
other travelers seemed to have the same problem getting lost as well.
To get to the parking lot, there is an alley that you have to turn into
which doesn’t resemble an entrance or street at all. There needs to be
better signage. The Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro is much easier to
find as you just drive in straight off the freeway. Parking is $10 a
day, which is pretty standard, same as San Pedro. Embarkation was a
mess. We got to the pier around 12 noon, and it was raining with people
still standing outside the terminal building which was the old Spruce
Goose dome. The dome is too small to accommodate everyone inside, and
too dark inside for my tastes as well. We were onboard by 1:30 or so.
First impressions of the ship were the low ceilings, which emersed a
very claustrophobic, feel. It reminded me of older generational ships
of yester year like the Monarch of the Seas. The ceilings I estimate
only had about a 7 feet clearance. The reason for this is because
Carnival likes to add an extra passenger deck to increase revenues at
the expense of lowering each deck a little. The condition of the ship
is acceptable and pretty clean except for some light stains in
hallways. Most of the public areas have dark carpet, which hide stains
pretty well. The ship had hardly any decorations for Christmas compared
to other ships I have been on during Christmas time. Barely a few
Christmas trees around, and not a sight of poinsettias anywhere. As
with the food, this is the area that Carnival has dramatically
improved. On the Lido deck buffet, there are 4 different stations,
which include a deli sandwich station, Rotisserie where they have a
carving station, BBQ, and other meat items, along with an Asian station,
and one station that changes daily from Japanese, Italian, French to
American cuisine. In addition, there is a dessert station, 24-hour
pizza station, salad and fruit bar along with 24-hour ice cream/frozen
yogurt machines outside the Lido. The fruit selection was weak though
with only apples, oranges, pears, bananas, and pineapple along with the
standard melons (watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe). No site of any
exotic fruits, or even any strawberries nor chocolate covered ones even
in the Gala buffet. Both the selection and food quality has improved.
The desserts are more in line with other lines, being European style and
not the typical sugary too sweet and tasteless desserts. The
cheesecakes are light and fluffy and not too sweet anymore. The pastry
chef needs some help making napoleon though as every time it was served,
it was soggy. Some items remain mislabeled like the baby back BBQ ribs
in the Rotisserie. The ribs were decent but definitely were not baby
back as I have been to Tony Romas enough times to tell the difference;
they were just regular spare ribs. They should have just labeled it as
BBQ spare ribs instead of being so pretentious about it. The service in
the Lido has improved as well with two attendants moving a cart along
the café asking guests if they want a drink such as coffee, tea, juice,
lemonade, water, etc. Kudos to Carnival for still keeping the midnight
buffet open every night. However, tea time was only offered two days a
week in a lounge and the rest of the time, just “Sweet Treats” were
offered in the afternoon which basically consisted of frozen yogurt/ice
cream which is available 24/7 anyway along with some cookies/brownies,
etc. An addition of some fruit and small sandwiches like other lines
offer would be a nice addition to complement it.
The food in the main dining room has improved dramatically as well.
However, the two-story dining room itself was far from impressive. It
was very plain and drab looking with mostly smaller tables of 2 and 4.
The cuts of beef served were pretty high quality as well as the fresh
catch of the day. The cuts were pretty tender for the most part, better
than RCCL this past September on the Explorer, which were tough. The
portions served were larger than Royal Caribbean as well, which serves
half a lobster tail when a 2nd portion is served. That is being
chintzy. Royal Caribbean has eliminated toothpicks and mints in the
dining room according to the headwaiter because too many Americans like
to sue and they are a choking hazard. Carnival still provides
toothpicks. However, RCCL still serves better bread and salads, which
change with variety. Presentation is better with the waiters using
crumb scrapers, tea chests when ordering tea, and the busboys serving a
variety of salad dressing. On the topic of amenities, Carnival now
provides liquid soap and shampoo in the shower as well. However, this
time we had the worst room steward in a while on any cruise line. The
first night he forgot to refill the liquid soap in the shower and left
it empty from the previous cruise. His excuse was he ran out of soap.
Again, he forgot on the 7th day of the cruise when it ran out again. He
is supposed to check for that. He finally opened up our mini bar fridge
after numerous requests to do so. We had 4 people and only provided one
glass to brush our teeth even after we politely requested him extra. We
gave up and just used the plastic cups from the Lido to brush our teeth
with. On that topic, this is where Carnival gets very tacky again.
They use these cheap neon colored plastic cups in green, yellow, and
blue. The reason they do it is probably to avoid broken glasses from
them being dropped. I took pictures of these to prove it and will post
them shortly.
This ship has very bad stability and to borrow a phrase from Tom K., it
bounced around like a coke bottle. It was most noticeable in the aft
where the dining room was. Carnival is known as the fun ships and the
Travel Channel even rated the Carnival Pride as the “Best Activities
Ship.” However, I still cannot comprehend that now or in years past as
Carnival has the least activities of any line. Comparing my favorite
line Celebrity that is supposed to be lower key and more subdued has far
more activities offered. Carnival offers very little trivia or any
games at all. In fact, no tournaments such as basketball, ping-pong,
darts, etc were offered for the entire cruise. There are no activities
offered at all on port days during the port day. Carnival assumes all
guests will just go out to port unlike other lines, which offer
something for guests to do who choose to stay onboard. Another bad
thing is that Carnival closes the dining room for lunch on port days as
well and only opens up the Lido buffet for lunch.
We tried David’s Supper Club and it definitely wasn’t worth the $25
surcharge per person. This is the worst alternative restaurant I have
tried comparing NCL, RCI, Celebrity, Holland America, and Princess.
First, the restaurant limits you to one selection per section of the
menu. One starter, one salad, one main entrée, and one dessert.
Although I don’t like cheese and don’t care, there is no cheese trolley
like other high-end alternative restaurants for your information. If
one wants to choose let’s say a soup and another starter appetizer like
shrimp cocktail, an extra $25 is charged according to the waiter. I
also subsequently learned from the headwaiter that the rookie trainees
below busboys work at David’s instead of the best wait staff. Carnival
uses David’s as a training ground for new wait staff since it’s much
easier to work there carrying less plates, etc. and each table in the
restaurant is only used for one seating the entire evening. The
headwaiter claims that the main restaurant is a lot harder to work in
because the wait staff has to serve more people synchronized in a short
time frame for two seatings. Having said that, the only thing that was
better at David’s was the presentation for the most part. The portions
were actually pretty small as well, smaller than the main dining room
except for the main entrée. The shrimp cocktail was served in a glass
cocktail glass instead of just on a flat plate in the dining room. For
tea, a tea chest was presented. I had the lobster bisque soup and it
was overloaded with salt. Usually, the specialty of the restaurant is
the stone crabs from Joe’s Stone Crabs in Miami but they were out of
season. The rack of lamb served was tough and tasteless. The rack of
lamb served in the main dining room the first night was better. My
brother and father had the Porterhouse steak and it was very tough as
well, the main dining room cuts of beef were tenderer. The best entrée
was the Chilean Sea Bass, which I had which was very fresh and flaky.
The dessert was excellent though. It was crème brulee served in three
different flavors on small dishes (mocha, vanilla, hazelnut).
As for entertainment, there certainly was a noticeable cutback to the
production shows as well. Usually, there are 4 lead singers for a ship
this size, now there are only two and the two didn’t have that strong a
voice either. The first show, “Wonderful World”, was billed as the #1
rated show on the seven seas according to Cruisecritic.com. It was
certainly a unique show with great costumes but I wouldn’t say it was
the best. In Puerto Vallarta, the same mariachi band performed again as
on previous cruises. Mariachi Popular, “the best mariachi in Puerto
Vallarta,” and the state of Jalisco according to the bandleader, which
is the same speech he gives all the time. Carnival continues to use the
guest talent show as one night’s entertainment to save on entertainment
costs. Other cost cutting measures that Carnival continues is to not
stock cloth towels or even paper towels, just hand air blow dry in the
public bathrooms. There is a sanitary issue as well as I usually wash
my hands and use a towel to open the bathroom door. As you may know,
there are a sizable percentage of people who don’t wash their hands
after using the restroom and you really don’t know what dirty hands have
touched the bathroom door handle. Some ships have automatic doors for
the bathroom to avoid that problem as well. However, overall, this
Carnival cruise still exceeded my expectations of Carnival and while it
still remains my least favorite cruise line, I will definitely consider
them in the future if the right deal or itinerary comes along.


--
Best regards,

John Szeto -------------- We treat your cruise booking as if we were
going ourselves.
Cruise and Travel Company
If you don't book from us, you're paying too much!
E-mail me at:
Cruise Review Library http://www.cruisereview.net

John! Nice to see a post from you again!

Thanks for the review. It was interesting to hear your impressions of a
Spirit-class ship.

Hate to pick one little thing from your nice long post, but I will tell
you that I love those cheap neon colored plastic glasses of which you
took pictures, because they are very large!

Eileen

John Szeto wrote:

Carnival Pride Comments 12/14/03 sailing…

As many of you know, I am no big fan of Carnival but again decided to
give them another try because of a new class of ship right in my
backyard without having to fly out of Long Beach, CA. With all the
Carnival fans on the group praising the new Spirit class and how it is
so much better than its predecessors (Fantasy and Destiny class), I was
cautiously optimistic going in. I had low expectations going in but I
am glad to report that overall, this has been my best Carnival cruise to
date and Carnival exceeded my expectations for their product. I have no
vendetta against any line; I just call it as I see it. Currently, I can
confidently say that Carnival has surpassed Royal Caribbean in the food
department.
Getting to the dock in Long Beach was a bit confusing and a bunch of
other travelers seemed to have the same problem getting lost as well.
To get to the parking lot, there is an alley that you have to turn into
which doesn’t resemble an entrance or street at all. There needs to be
better signage. The Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro is much easier to
find as you just drive in straight off the freeway. Parking is $10 a
day, which is pretty standard, same as San Pedro. Embarkation was a
mess. We got to the pier around 12 noon, and it was raining with people
still standing outside the terminal building which was the old Spruce
Goose dome. The dome is too small to accommodate everyone inside, and
too dark inside for my tastes as well. We were onboard by 1:30 or so.
First impressions of the ship were the low ceilings, which emersed a
very claustrophobic, feel. It reminded me of older generational ships
of yester year like the Monarch of the Seas. The ceilings I estimate
only had about a 7 feet clearance. The reason for this is because
Carnival likes to add an extra passenger deck to increase revenues at
the expense of lowering each deck a little. The condition of the ship
is acceptable and pretty clean except for some light stains in
hallways. Most of the public areas have dark carpet, which hide stains
pretty well. The ship had hardly any decorations for Christmas compared
to other ships I have been on during Christmas time. Barely a few
Christmas trees around, and not a sight of poinsettias anywhere. As
with the food, this is the area that Carnival has dramatically
improved. On the Lido deck buffet, there are 4 different stations,
which include a deli sandwich station, Rotisserie where they have a
carving station, BBQ, and other meat items, along with an Asian station,
and one station that changes daily from Japanese, Italian, French to
American cuisine. In addition, there is a dessert station, 24-hour
pizza station, salad and fruit bar along with 24-hour ice cream/frozen
yogurt machines outside the Lido. The fruit selection was weak though
with only apples, oranges, pears, bananas, and pineapple along with the
standard melons (watermelon, honeydew, cantaloupe). No site of any
exotic fruits, or even any strawberries nor chocolate covered ones even
in the Gala buffet. Both the selection and food quality has improved.
The desserts are more in line with other lines, being European style and
not the typical sugary too sweet and tasteless desserts. The
cheesecakes are light and fluffy and not too sweet anymore. The pastry
chef needs some help making napoleon though as every time it was served,
it was soggy. Some items remain mislabeled like the baby back BBQ ribs
in the Rotisserie. The ribs were decent but definitely were not baby
back as I have been to Tony Romas enough times to tell the difference;
they were just regular spare ribs. They should have just labeled it as
BBQ spare ribs instead of being so pretentious about it. The service in
the Lido has improved as well with two attendants moving a cart along
the café asking guests if they want a drink such as coffee, tea, juice,
lemonade, water, etc. Kudos to Carnival for still keeping the midnight
buffet open every night. However, tea time was only offered two days a
week in a lounge and the rest of the time, just “Sweet Treats” were
offered in the afternoon which basically consisted of frozen yogurt/ice
cream which is available 24/7 anyway along with some cookies/brownies,
etc. An addition of some fruit and small sandwiches like other lines
offer would be a nice addition to complement it.
The food in the main dining room has improved dramatically as well.
However, the two-story dining room itself was far from impressive. It
was very plain and drab looking with mostly smaller tables of 2 and 4.
The cuts of beef served were pretty high quality as well as the fresh
catch of the day. The cuts were pretty tender for the most part, better
than RCCL this past September on the Explorer, which were tough. The
portions served were larger than Royal Caribbean as well, which serves
half a lobster tail when a 2nd portion is served. That is being
chintzy. Royal Caribbean has eliminated toothpicks and mints in the
dining room according to the headwaiter because too many Americans like
to sue and they are a choking hazard. Carnival still provides
toothpicks. However, RCCL still serves better bread and salads, which
change with variety. Presentation is better with the waiters using
crumb scrapers, tea chests when ordering tea, and the busboys serving a
variety of salad dressing. On the topic of amenities, Carnival now
provides liquid soap and shampoo in the shower as well. However, this
time we had the worst room steward in a while on any cruise line. The
first night he forgot to refill the liquid soap in the shower and left
it empty from the previous cruise. His excuse was he ran out of soap.
Again, he forgot on the 7th day of the cruise when it ran out again. He
is supposed to check for that. He finally opened up our mini bar fridge
after numerous requests to do so. We had 4 people and only provided one
glass to brush our teeth even after we politely requested him extra. We
gave up and just used the plastic cups from the Lido to brush our teeth
with. On that topic, this is where Carnival gets very tacky again.
They use these cheap neon colored plastic cups in green, yellow, and
blue. The reason they do it is probably to avoid broken glasses from
them being dropped. I took pictures of these to prove it and will post
them shortly.
This ship has very bad stability and to borrow a phrase from Tom K., it
bounced around like a coke bottle. It was most noticeable in the aft
where the dining room was. Carnival is known as the fun ships and the
Travel Channel even rated the Carnival Pride as the “Best Activities
Ship.” However, I still cannot comprehend that now or in years past as
Carnival has the least activities of any line. Comparing my favorite
line Celebrity that is supposed to be lower key and more subdued has far
more activities offered. Carnival offers very little trivia or any
games at all. In fact, no tournaments such as basketball, ping-pong,
darts, etc were offered for the entire cruise. There are no activities
offered at all on port days during the port day. Carnival assumes all
guests will just go out to port unlike other lines, which offer
something for guests to do who choose to stay onboard. Another bad
thing is that Carnival closes the dining room for lunch on port days as
well and only opens up the Lido buffet for lunch.
We tried David’s Supper Club and it definitely wasn’t worth the $25
surcharge per person. This is the worst alternative restaurant I have
tried comparing NCL, RCI, Celebrity, Holland America, and Princess.
First, the restaurant limits you to one selection per section of the
menu. One starter, one salad, one main entrée, and one dessert.
Although I don’t like cheese and don’t care, there is no cheese trolley
like other high-end alternative restaurants for your information. If
one wants to choose let’s say a soup and another starter appetizer like
shrimp cocktail, an extra $25 is charged according to the waiter. I
also subsequently learned from the headwaiter that the rookie trainees
below busboys work at David’s instead of the best wait staff. Carnival
uses David’s as a training ground for new wait staff since it’s much
easier to work there carrying less plates, etc. and each table in the
restaurant is only used for one seating the entire evening. The
headwaiter claims that the main restaurant is a lot harder to work in
because the wait staff has to serve more people synchronized in a short
time frame for two seatings. Having said that, the only thing that was
better at David’s was the presentation for the most part. The portions
were actually pretty small as well, smaller than the main dining room
except for the main entrée. The shrimp cocktail was served in a glass
cocktail glass instead of just on a flat plate in the dining room. For
tea, a tea chest was presented. I had the lobster bisque soup and it
was overloaded with salt. Usually, the specialty of the restaurant is
the stone crabs from Joe’s Stone Crabs in Miami but they were out of
season. The rack of lamb served was tough and tasteless. The rack of
lamb served in the main dining room the first night was better. My
brother and father had the Porterhouse steak and it was very tough as
well, the main dining room cuts of beef were tenderer. The best entrée
was the Chilean Sea Bass, which I had which was very fresh and flaky.
The dessert was excellent though. It was crème brulee served in three
different flavors on small dishes (mocha, vanilla, hazelnut).
As for entertainment, there certainly was a noticeable cutback to the
production shows as well. Usually, there are 4 lead singers for a ship
this size, now there are only two and the two didn’t have that strong a
voice either. The first show, “Wonderful World”, was billed as the #1
rated show on the seven seas according to Cruisecritic.com. It was
certainly a unique show with great costumes but I wouldn’t say it was
the best. In Puerto Vallarta, the same mariachi band performed again as
on previous cruises. Mariachi Popular, “the best mariachi in Puerto
Vallarta,” and the state of Jalisco according to the bandleader, which
is the same speech he gives all the time. Carnival continues to use the
guest talent show as one night’s entertainment to save on entertainment
costs. Other cost cutting measures that Carnival continues is to not
stock cloth towels or even paper towels, just hand air blow dry in the
public bathrooms. There is a sanitary issue as well as I usually wash
my hands and use a towel to open the bathroom door. As you may know,
there are a sizable percentage of people who don’t wash their hands
after using the restroom and you really don’t know what dirty hands have
touched the bathroom door handle. Some ships have automatic doors for
the bathroom to avoid that problem as well. However, overall, this
Carnival cruise still exceeded my expectations of Carnival and while it
still remains my least favorite cruise line, I will definitely consider
them in the future if the right deal or itinerary comes along.


--
Best regards,

John Szeto -------------- We treat your cruise booking as if we were
going ourselves.
Cruise and Travel Company
If you don't book from us, you're paying too much!
E-mail me at:
Cruise Review Library http://www.cruisereview.net

I loved those colourful plastic cups.

SUNNY.........cruised on the Pride with 100 + friends from RTC. Great
ship, great time, all posiive.

S'nd I

Carnival cruise still exceeded my expectations of Carnival and while it
still remains my least favorite cruise line, I will definitely consider
them in the future if the right deal or itinerary comes along.
-
Best regards,

John Szeto

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, John.
We enjoyed our experience on the Pride and pretty much agree with your
assessment of David's restaurant.
We just didn't think it was worth the extra money, plus the service was super
slow.
However, we found the salads in the regular dining room to be quite good, and
the Ceasar's salads especially good.

Ermalee ---objected to some of the art work on the Pride

On Sun, 28 Dec 2003 00:10:30 -0800, John Szeto
wrote:

However, overall, this
Carnival cruise still exceeded my expectations of Carnival and while it
still remains my least favorite cruise line, I will definitely consider
them in the future if the right deal or itinerary comes along.

Nice but I have one question.

You were on a cruise ship that had 13 decks, 900 feet long, 80,000
plus tons and, what, 3,000 people, dozens of things going on and more
than half your review is about food?


The Not So Fine Art Of Google
http://makeashorterlink.com/?E29A321E6

In article , John Szeto
wrote:

However, overall, this Carnival cruise still exceeded my expectations
of Carnival and while it still remains my least favorite cruise line,
I will definitely consider them in the future if the right deal or
itinerary comes along.

I am not sure why you would consider them in the future. Even though it
exceeded your expectations it seems from your tone that your
expectations were pretty low.

Also your review seems to be filled mainly with food quality and food
issues. Did you have a good time? I can't tell.

--
Charles

In article , Charles
wrote:

In article , John Szeto
wrote:

However, overall, this Carnival cruise still exceeded my expectations
of Carnival and while it still remains my least favorite cruise line,
I will definitely consider them in the future if the right deal or
itinerary comes along.

I am not sure why you would consider them in the future. Even though it
exceeded your expectations it seems from your tone that your
expectations were pretty low.

Also your review seems to be filled mainly with food quality and food
issues. Did you have a good time? I can't tell.

That has always been my problem with John's reviews. He is meticulous
in his 'inspection' of the ship, but never seems to enjoy the cruise.
Or at least never lets anyone find out that he did!

Subject: Carnival Pride Comments 12/14/03 =?iso-8859-1?Q?sailing=85?

Hi John:

Just an FYI........the Stone Crab catch this season is just dreadful. Read an
article in yesterday's Miami Herald.

Babette

Lloyd Parsons wrote:
In article , Charles
wrote:


In article , John Szeto
wrote:


However, overall, this Carnival cruise still exceeded my expectations
of Carnival and while it still remains my least favorite cruise line,
I will definitely consider them in the future if the right deal or
itinerary comes along.

I am not sure why you would consider them in the future. Even though it
exceeded your expectations it seems from your tone that your
expectations were pretty low.

Also your review seems to be filled mainly with food quality and food
issues. Did you have a good time? I can't tell.


That has always been my problem with John's reviews. He is meticulous
in his 'inspection' of the ship, but never seems to enjoy the cruise.
Or at least never lets anyone find out that he did!

Ok, you can have that problem, but I don't need to know what John
enjoys. John is a TA giving a report on a cruise and recent generation
of ship class from a cruise line. We know his bias and what he chooses
to point out cruises. I think he does what he does well. I get a lot out
of his cruise reviews.

I think John bolsters the notion that the Pride ships are a significant
improvement for Carnival. And there have been many posts on improved
food, in particular, on the Spirit ships vs. older Carnival ships. This
may be a reason for John's focus on food in the review.

Ben S.

Charles wrote:

In article , John Szeto
wrote:

However, overall, this Carnival cruise still exceeded my expectations
of Carnival and while it still remains my least favorite cruise line,
I will definitely consider them in the future if the right deal or
itinerary comes along.

I am not sure why you would consider them in the future.


Maybe because he lives in southern California and the ship leaves from
southern California... and for him it is like a back yard sailing.

Like Norwegian Dawn is for us.

--Tom



Even though it
exceeded your expectations it seems from your tone that your
expectations were pretty low.

Also your review seems to be filled mainly with food quality and food
issues. Did you have a good time? I can't tell.

--
Charles