Carnival Pride April 2013 cruise review
Написала впечатления о круизе для нашей фэйсбуковской родительской группы. Времени не будет столько написать по русски, поэтому остаётся в оригинале. Под замком потом будет несколько фотографий.
Carnival Pride April 2013 cruise review (traveling with a non-potty-trained toddler, 2y 8m) Baltimore-Florida-Bahamas
I thought this might be of some interest to people who are considering a cruise. I am composing this during nap times as we cruise, so there may be more details than you need. I'll try to break it up into sections (in CAPS) to make it easier to jump around to what matters most to you.
ABOUT ME: This was my first cruise and I was never interested in taking one, but it was a gift from my mother-in-law, so we went. I'm the parent that has strict rules and routines, but see no problems with straying if there is a good reason.
GETTING THERE: Parking at port is $15/day, so $105 for the week. You can also park at the airport and take a shuttle, but we went for the easier option. Check-in was quick and painless.
FOOD AND DINING: We signed up for the early dinner (6:15pm) since my son's usual dinner time is between 6:45 and 7:15. We were wait listed and told to see that maitre d' at the main restaurant for a dinner time change request. Our assigned dinner time was 8:15. The maitre d' was unavailable until dinner time, my son was full of adrenaline, so we waited until our assigned dinner time. The maitre d' told us very politely that he'll see what he can do. Our dinner party included a toddler and an elderly woman with a walker. Who's a better candidate for the early dinner? By lunch time the next day we received a note that nothing could be done and our dinner time is still 8:15. What ended up happening was that I would take my son back to our room before dinner was over for the rest of our party. I didn't really mind the minor annoyance, but it was an annoyance nonetheless. It meant that my husband asked for my dessert to be brought to our room. Out of the blue, on the third day the maitre d' ran into mother-in-law and told her he was able to move us to the earlier dinner after all. Not sure why the card system couldn't be used, but whatever. This made things significantly easier and I was grateful.
The food in the main restaurant is delicious! There is a kiddie menu/coloring book that has mostly chicken nuggets, burgers, hot dogs, fries, and the pasta of the day (a kiddie portion of the adult pasta of the day). My kid is used to having fresh veggies with lunch and dinner, and the first day he was picking his favorites out of a salad. On the subsequent days, however, the waiter asked what he would like and there was a plate of his favorites already on the table waiting for him by the time we sat down to dinner. Overall, I smiled through a week of my kid enjoying food he only gets as a rare treat at home. By the time we landed in Florida, the only answer to "what do you want for lunch?" was: "Chicken nuggets, hot dogs, French fries, and ketchup!" Siiiigh. Whatever, his IQ and percentiles won't drop significantly if he has a week where mommy and daddy loosen the rules a little bit. Over all, there is a lot of variety for adults, not so much for the younger kids.
POOL: This was perhaps the thing I was most upset about the entire cruise. The website boasts "fun for the whole family," one of the reasons I decided to go. (Those who know me know that going without my son was not an option.) I browsed the website for information, but did not have time to read the fine print. I arrived to the info session and discovered that none of the pools are kiddie pools and kids need to be potty trained in order to get in. (Insert my most polite "WTF?!" face here.) This means that the three full days at sea my kid can't go swimming with me?! How is that fun for the whole family? The staff member also failed to mention that there is a wading pool on the very top sun deck, I found that out from a family we met. That pool is not heated and is filled by a pump that brings in ocean water. However, that pump was broken our week so no pool and no water slide. They were unsuccessfully trying to fix it the entire duration of the cruise.
CLUB CARNIVAL: Day care is provided for kids as young as 2, but the parent can't be in the room with them. What's great is that they issue you a cell phone to let you know if you need to pick your child up, but the phone is yours to keep whether your kid is in day care or with you. This was very convenient to get in touch with family members. The kid activities are divided into age groups and they have a full day's worth of fun, regardless of when you drop your kid off. We told Will that there is a day care on board the ship and asked if he wanted to go play. He said yes, we dropped him off, watched him on the monitor (outside of the day care room), and left to do our own thing. And got a call 10 minutes later to pick him up because he is crying and asking for us. His complaint is that he wanted HIS day care, with HIS teachers and HIS friends. He didn't want THIS day care. :) Well, at least this was a feather in the cap of our day care back home, music to the working parents' ears. :) Maybe we should have told him he was going to a kid's club instead. However, if we were in a bind for a sitter, I would have been very annoyed that they can't calm down a toddler. They also have after hours sitters for an additional fee.
EXCURSIONS: We did SeaWorld in Florida, the Atlatis Resort's aquarium and beach in Nassau, and the close dolphin encounter in Freeport. (Husband did the Harley Davidson ride in Freeport, if any dads care about that one.)
You can either buy the excursions through the cruise or on your own. The cruise option includes transportation, the tickets, and lunch for some excursions. You also get the added assurance that either the ship will wait if your shuttle is late or the company will pay to get you back on the ship if it sails away. In Florida, the price seemed a little insane to us so we chose to go by ourselves. The taxi company at the Cape Canaveral port has sole rights there and charges an arm and a leg, so we just rented a car for significantly less money. If you're the kind of couple/family that gets upset about unexpected [and maybe avoidable] hiccups along the way, the 45-minute wait while we figured everything out would have been stressful. This helped me cement the opinion that it makes more sense to get the excursions through the cruise ship and leave the headaches to them. Especially once we get to a country where we are less informed about options.
For me, the entire cruise experience got a lot better as soon as I stopped comparing it to an all-inclusive Caribbean vacation. When we travel, we always take a day or two to get off the resort and away from the touristy areas. We either make friends with an employee and go with them to where they are from, or hop in a taxi and ask them to take us to a neighborhood, or in Jamaica, we took advantage of the people-to-people program. This is obviously not an option when you only have a few hours in each port, and even a bus trip to the famous landmarks isn't an option with an energetic toddler. So we picked things we thought would be most fun and manageable.
SEA WORLD: A huge disappointment to me as a parent of a toddler. The kiddie area is tiny and the food was atrocious. Since SeaWorld and Sesame Place are owned by the same capitalist overlords, I expected the same quality. Oh, so wrong. Half of my salad had to be thrown out because I don't eat brown lettuce. We went on three rides and Will splashed around in the kiddie fountains for an hour. If his laughter wasn't priceless, I'd be loaded about the price. ;) We also went to the whale show, but he only lasted about 10 minutes in the nosebleed section. The Polar Expedition thing was cute and the line wasn't long.
ATLANTIS: This is a huge resort with an aquarium, beach, water park, casino, etc. The packages you buy can include all or some of those. We chose the aquarium and the beach. I was completely blown away by the aquarium and this is after being spoiled by the Adventure Aquarium in Camden. The entire thing is presented as if in the middle of the found city of Atlantis (hence the name) and is very, very cool. Almost all of the fish are ones that can be found in the region. Since there aren't any information plaques by the fish, you rely on your tour guide to tell you about them, but that was good for me since it was also an opportunity for me to find out about the islands and the people/culture. They also move as quickly or slowly as you want them to. Definitely don't miss the aquarium. For the beach, you can either go to the ocean or they also have a little cove that is waist-deep to an adult. We chose that for the calmer water.
UNEXSO CLOSE DOLPHIN ENCOUNTER: This was the highlight of the week for me and for Will. I have always passed on these things in the DR and elsewhere, thinking it's only fun for little kids. Bad call on my part. :) You can sign up to wither swim with the dolphins or play with them, depending on age and swimming ability. From the port, it's a 20-minute drive, 15-minute wait, and then a 15-minute boat ride to the encounter. In groups of 20-30, you sit on a U-shaped pier, listen to the trainers while your feet dangle in the water and the dolphins and other fish swim around you. Our three trainers were very entertaining and if there weren't any questions, the punishment was being splashed by the dolphins. Will loved this. We got some information about the dolphins, they did some tricks, and then six people at a time walked to a platform and got to pet, kiss, hug, a dolphin. There were three dolphins, so two people per dolphin. After everyone had a turn, the dolphins did another short show and they let the kids feed the dolphins. Once again, my kid loved it. I was talking to a father of two girls who was from our ship and shared how wonderful this was and he told me that if all dolphins encounters were done like this one, he'd do them more often. So, people who have done them before, please share if you have had a negative experience and what made it so. I would recommend this to everyone.
BEHIND THE FUN TOUR: This was another highlight for me and something I would recommend to anyone who has ever wondered "How do they_____?" while traveling on a cruise ship. It's somewhat pricey, but it's a three-and-a-half hour tour of everything that goes on to make your cruise what it is. (No kids under eight allowed.) We met with several chefs, saw the guest and crew galleys, met with the head engineer in the control room, spoke with the captain on the bridge, with the food and beverage manager in the beverage fridge, and other really great stuff. Considering what I do the other 51 weeks of the year, the training manager and I had a great conversation about training and recruitment. I'll write more about this later.
STAFF: Most of the staff was very friendly and helpful. The waiters went out of their way to make sure Will had everything he needed and our room steward was just the nicest guy who made sure Will felt special the entire time. Even if we were walking away and he was at the other end of the hallway, he would catch up just to give Will a high five or ask him a question. The staff is from 52 countries, the ones that you see most often are India, Philippines, Indonesia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, and Peru. I'll leave for another post in another place my opinions of our former countrymen and their customer service skills, but everyone else was very pleasant. :) One evening, Akhmad (our room steward) saw us in a hallway and told Will that he saw his Cheburashka DVD on the table. "Do you like Cheburashka?" he asked. Will nodded and smiled and Akhmad called to a housekeeper in another room that here is the little boy who has the Cheburashka DVD and Russian books. A Bulgarian woman came out with a huge smile on her face and said that she remembers watching the cartoon when she was a little girl. She forgot all of her Russian, but she remembers the song and asked if Will knows the "Cheburashka song." He said yes and right there in the middle of the hallways on deck 7, the Bulgarian housekeeper and my two-year-old sang in a hilarious duet "Pust' begut neuklyuzhe..." The smile on my son's face was unforgettable and for the rest of the week, Maya called him "my little Cheburashka." That's just one example of the customer service on the ship. I also bought a book at the gift shop about the adventures of a little cruise ship and had people we interacted with most often sigh it for Will as a souvenir and to go back to when we talk about his first cruise. When the captain heard about this, we asked that I get the book to him through guest services and when I got it back, he had not only signed it with a sweet message, but also included a large photo of our ship with his signature. Yes, you can roll your eyes and say that it's lame or pointless, but for a little boy, it was a big deal and I thought it was very thoughtful.
STATEROOM: Our stateroom was on deck 7, on the side that faces the sea when the ship is docked. We had a king-size bed (two beds together but one mattress) and Will had his own bed. There was enough drawers and storage space, but the bathroom only has a shower, so guess who learned to take showers. The balcony had two chairs and a small table. There is a TV, but we brought our own portable DVD player and a Nook.
I think that's all. Did I miss anything? Let me know if you have any questions. I was very pleased with the experience by the end of the week, but am not planning on a cruise as my next vacation. Maybe in a few years.
Carnival Pride April 2013 cruise review (traveling with a non-potty-trained toddler, 2y 8m) Baltimore-Florida-Bahamas
I thought this might be of some interest to people who are considering a cruise. I am composing this during nap times as we cruise, so there may be more details than you need. I'll try to break it up into sections (in CAPS) to make it easier to jump around to what matters most to you.
ABOUT ME: This was my first cruise and I was never interested in taking one, but it was a gift from my mother-in-law, so we went. I'm the parent that has strict rules and routines, but see no problems with straying if there is a good reason.
GETTING THERE: Parking at port is $15/day, so $105 for the week. You can also park at the airport and take a shuttle, but we went for the easier option. Check-in was quick and painless.
FOOD AND DINING: We signed up for the early dinner (6:15pm) since my son's usual dinner time is between 6:45 and 7:15. We were wait listed and told to see that maitre d' at the main restaurant for a dinner time change request. Our assigned dinner time was 8:15. The maitre d' was unavailable until dinner time, my son was full of adrenaline, so we waited until our assigned dinner time. The maitre d' told us very politely that he'll see what he can do. Our dinner party included a toddler and an elderly woman with a walker. Who's a better candidate for the early dinner? By lunch time the next day we received a note that nothing could be done and our dinner time is still 8:15. What ended up happening was that I would take my son back to our room before dinner was over for the rest of our party. I didn't really mind the minor annoyance, but it was an annoyance nonetheless. It meant that my husband asked for my dessert to be brought to our room. Out of the blue, on the third day the maitre d' ran into mother-in-law and told her he was able to move us to the earlier dinner after all. Not sure why the card system couldn't be used, but whatever. This made things significantly easier and I was grateful.
The food in the main restaurant is delicious! There is a kiddie menu/coloring book that has mostly chicken nuggets, burgers, hot dogs, fries, and the pasta of the day (a kiddie portion of the adult pasta of the day). My kid is used to having fresh veggies with lunch and dinner, and the first day he was picking his favorites out of a salad. On the subsequent days, however, the waiter asked what he would like and there was a plate of his favorites already on the table waiting for him by the time we sat down to dinner. Overall, I smiled through a week of my kid enjoying food he only gets as a rare treat at home. By the time we landed in Florida, the only answer to "what do you want for lunch?" was: "Chicken nuggets, hot dogs, French fries, and ketchup!" Siiiigh. Whatever, his IQ and percentiles won't drop significantly if he has a week where mommy and daddy loosen the rules a little bit. Over all, there is a lot of variety for adults, not so much for the younger kids.
POOL: This was perhaps the thing I was most upset about the entire cruise. The website boasts "fun for the whole family," one of the reasons I decided to go. (Those who know me know that going without my son was not an option.) I browsed the website for information, but did not have time to read the fine print. I arrived to the info session and discovered that none of the pools are kiddie pools and kids need to be potty trained in order to get in. (Insert my most polite "WTF?!" face here.) This means that the three full days at sea my kid can't go swimming with me?! How is that fun for the whole family? The staff member also failed to mention that there is a wading pool on the very top sun deck, I found that out from a family we met. That pool is not heated and is filled by a pump that brings in ocean water. However, that pump was broken our week so no pool and no water slide. They were unsuccessfully trying to fix it the entire duration of the cruise.
CLUB CARNIVAL: Day care is provided for kids as young as 2, but the parent can't be in the room with them. What's great is that they issue you a cell phone to let you know if you need to pick your child up, but the phone is yours to keep whether your kid is in day care or with you. This was very convenient to get in touch with family members. The kid activities are divided into age groups and they have a full day's worth of fun, regardless of when you drop your kid off. We told Will that there is a day care on board the ship and asked if he wanted to go play. He said yes, we dropped him off, watched him on the monitor (outside of the day care room), and left to do our own thing. And got a call 10 minutes later to pick him up because he is crying and asking for us. His complaint is that he wanted HIS day care, with HIS teachers and HIS friends. He didn't want THIS day care. :) Well, at least this was a feather in the cap of our day care back home, music to the working parents' ears. :) Maybe we should have told him he was going to a kid's club instead. However, if we were in a bind for a sitter, I would have been very annoyed that they can't calm down a toddler. They also have after hours sitters for an additional fee.
EXCURSIONS: We did SeaWorld in Florida, the Atlatis Resort's aquarium and beach in Nassau, and the close dolphin encounter in Freeport. (Husband did the Harley Davidson ride in Freeport, if any dads care about that one.)
You can either buy the excursions through the cruise or on your own. The cruise option includes transportation, the tickets, and lunch for some excursions. You also get the added assurance that either the ship will wait if your shuttle is late or the company will pay to get you back on the ship if it sails away. In Florida, the price seemed a little insane to us so we chose to go by ourselves. The taxi company at the Cape Canaveral port has sole rights there and charges an arm and a leg, so we just rented a car for significantly less money. If you're the kind of couple/family that gets upset about unexpected [and maybe avoidable] hiccups along the way, the 45-minute wait while we figured everything out would have been stressful. This helped me cement the opinion that it makes more sense to get the excursions through the cruise ship and leave the headaches to them. Especially once we get to a country where we are less informed about options.
For me, the entire cruise experience got a lot better as soon as I stopped comparing it to an all-inclusive Caribbean vacation. When we travel, we always take a day or two to get off the resort and away from the touristy areas. We either make friends with an employee and go with them to where they are from, or hop in a taxi and ask them to take us to a neighborhood, or in Jamaica, we took advantage of the people-to-people program. This is obviously not an option when you only have a few hours in each port, and even a bus trip to the famous landmarks isn't an option with an energetic toddler. So we picked things we thought would be most fun and manageable.
SEA WORLD: A huge disappointment to me as a parent of a toddler. The kiddie area is tiny and the food was atrocious. Since SeaWorld and Sesame Place are owned by the same capitalist overlords, I expected the same quality. Oh, so wrong. Half of my salad had to be thrown out because I don't eat brown lettuce. We went on three rides and Will splashed around in the kiddie fountains for an hour. If his laughter wasn't priceless, I'd be loaded about the price. ;) We also went to the whale show, but he only lasted about 10 minutes in the nosebleed section. The Polar Expedition thing was cute and the line wasn't long.
ATLANTIS: This is a huge resort with an aquarium, beach, water park, casino, etc. The packages you buy can include all or some of those. We chose the aquarium and the beach. I was completely blown away by the aquarium and this is after being spoiled by the Adventure Aquarium in Camden. The entire thing is presented as if in the middle of the found city of Atlantis (hence the name) and is very, very cool. Almost all of the fish are ones that can be found in the region. Since there aren't any information plaques by the fish, you rely on your tour guide to tell you about them, but that was good for me since it was also an opportunity for me to find out about the islands and the people/culture. They also move as quickly or slowly as you want them to. Definitely don't miss the aquarium. For the beach, you can either go to the ocean or they also have a little cove that is waist-deep to an adult. We chose that for the calmer water.
UNEXSO CLOSE DOLPHIN ENCOUNTER: This was the highlight of the week for me and for Will. I have always passed on these things in the DR and elsewhere, thinking it's only fun for little kids. Bad call on my part. :) You can sign up to wither swim with the dolphins or play with them, depending on age and swimming ability. From the port, it's a 20-minute drive, 15-minute wait, and then a 15-minute boat ride to the encounter. In groups of 20-30, you sit on a U-shaped pier, listen to the trainers while your feet dangle in the water and the dolphins and other fish swim around you. Our three trainers were very entertaining and if there weren't any questions, the punishment was being splashed by the dolphins. Will loved this. We got some information about the dolphins, they did some tricks, and then six people at a time walked to a platform and got to pet, kiss, hug, a dolphin. There were three dolphins, so two people per dolphin. After everyone had a turn, the dolphins did another short show and they let the kids feed the dolphins. Once again, my kid loved it. I was talking to a father of two girls who was from our ship and shared how wonderful this was and he told me that if all dolphins encounters were done like this one, he'd do them more often. So, people who have done them before, please share if you have had a negative experience and what made it so. I would recommend this to everyone.
BEHIND THE FUN TOUR: This was another highlight for me and something I would recommend to anyone who has ever wondered "How do they_____?" while traveling on a cruise ship. It's somewhat pricey, but it's a three-and-a-half hour tour of everything that goes on to make your cruise what it is. (No kids under eight allowed.) We met with several chefs, saw the guest and crew galleys, met with the head engineer in the control room, spoke with the captain on the bridge, with the food and beverage manager in the beverage fridge, and other really great stuff. Considering what I do the other 51 weeks of the year, the training manager and I had a great conversation about training and recruitment. I'll write more about this later.
STAFF: Most of the staff was very friendly and helpful. The waiters went out of their way to make sure Will had everything he needed and our room steward was just the nicest guy who made sure Will felt special the entire time. Even if we were walking away and he was at the other end of the hallway, he would catch up just to give Will a high five or ask him a question. The staff is from 52 countries, the ones that you see most often are India, Philippines, Indonesia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Italy, Hungary, and Peru. I'll leave for another post in another place my opinions of our former countrymen and their customer service skills, but everyone else was very pleasant. :) One evening, Akhmad (our room steward) saw us in a hallway and told Will that he saw his Cheburashka DVD on the table. "Do you like Cheburashka?" he asked. Will nodded and smiled and Akhmad called to a housekeeper in another room that here is the little boy who has the Cheburashka DVD and Russian books. A Bulgarian woman came out with a huge smile on her face and said that she remembers watching the cartoon when she was a little girl. She forgot all of her Russian, but she remembers the song and asked if Will knows the "Cheburashka song." He said yes and right there in the middle of the hallways on deck 7, the Bulgarian housekeeper and my two-year-old sang in a hilarious duet "Pust' begut neuklyuzhe..." The smile on my son's face was unforgettable and for the rest of the week, Maya called him "my little Cheburashka." That's just one example of the customer service on the ship. I also bought a book at the gift shop about the adventures of a little cruise ship and had people we interacted with most often sigh it for Will as a souvenir and to go back to when we talk about his first cruise. When the captain heard about this, we asked that I get the book to him through guest services and when I got it back, he had not only signed it with a sweet message, but also included a large photo of our ship with his signature. Yes, you can roll your eyes and say that it's lame or pointless, but for a little boy, it was a big deal and I thought it was very thoughtful.
STATEROOM: Our stateroom was on deck 7, on the side that faces the sea when the ship is docked. We had a king-size bed (two beds together but one mattress) and Will had his own bed. There was enough drawers and storage space, but the bathroom only has a shower, so guess who learned to take showers. The balcony had two chairs and a small table. There is a TV, but we brought our own portable DVD player and a Nook.
I think that's all. Did I miss anything? Let me know if you have any questions. I was very pleased with the experience by the end of the week, but am not planning on a cruise as my next vacation. Maybe in a few years.