I have been reading about you in Currents. I finally found your site! I love it!! Am I too old to blog?? We’ll see!!

I love the picture of you and Heidi—and now there’s a new little “blogger” baby girl!! Congratulations!!

My husband and I love Carnival and Love cruising–this will be our 10th Carnival cruise since we married three years ago!! Cruising on Carnival is the most fun ever!!

Thank you for your great Blog. We are booked on the Dream in Dec. My husband used to live on Grand Turk and we can’t wait to experience those wonderful beaches again. A special treat would be getting to meet you –but at least we’ll know you are on the same cruise! How exciting is that!!

Best Wishes,

Margo & Myrl

Well, I love flip flops, wear them all the time.

Keep smiling John, you truly are one of the good guys.

My best to Heidi and Kye

I wait for the day that Carnival will go back to Europe. Even if it is not for a full season, but just for a few sailings like the Dream.

I am really looking forward to sailing on the Dream on October 3.

I do hope the Magic starts in Europe when it launches in June of 2011. My birthday in June and it would be “magical” to celebrate on the Magic in Europe!

Melissa

Love the Dream photos – please sir, may I have some more! and photos of Kye too.

I too hate what my feet look like & I never (well hardly ever) wear sandals.

Ciao, Carol

I am very late getting this posted to you after our cruise a few weeks ago – adjusting back to real life again has been exhausting! We were on the Pride on May 17th-23rd and had another wonderful, relaxing cruise.

I just wanted to give you, Jaime, and Stephanie all a big thank you for assisting with my husband’s quest for a ship on stick and say I’m sorry for causing so much trouble! I had no idea when I posted that you were going to ask Jaime to give him a special trivia question! And that she was going to go to so much trouble for us! My husband, being the competitive sort he is, refused – telling me that he only wanted one he won fair and square in an activity. So I was completely shocked when Jaime tracked us down since I don’t think I posted my name or cabin # here as I tend to not post that stuff on public internet boards. I’m not sure how Stephanie found us and got our info to Jaime but she did! We really enjoyed the lovely fruit basket and my husband did finally win his ship on a stick and came home a happy camper!  Thank you all so much. All three of you went above and beyond to help make our cruise special.

You asked for a review when we got back so here goes. We had a fabulous time but the trip did have a few minor issues.

The Pride is a beautiful ship and I loved sailing from Baltimore which means no flying for us! Even though the weather was bad most of the week, I still count this as one of my favorite cruises. Of course I am one of those weird people who thinks rough seas are fun! The food was the best of any ship we’ve been on – in particular the Asian station and pizza but also the other Lido areas as well as the dining room. Whoever the head chef is on the Pride is doing a great job! I have some background in hotel/restaurant food service and know how hard it is to serve that many people! Just about everything we ate all week was outstanding.

We spent most of our time relaxing on this trip but also loved that there were plenty of activities and trivia games as well. Thanks, Jaime! We also really enjoyed the shows and comedy but in particular the fantastic Marcus Anthony. We were lucky enough to see him on the Glory in January and I was so excited that we had another chance to hear him sing again on this sailing! He is truly one of your star entertainers. The ship was spotlessly clean even though she is showing some minor cosmetic wear and tear at her age. The showband was also excellent. We happened to wander by the Supper Club one afternoon and saw the keyboard player from the band practicing classical music and I ended up hiding behind a column and listening for quite some time as I didn’t want to intrude on his practice. He was wonderful – maybe you guys could feature him somewhere doing classical music?

Jaime and her team were also fantastic – lots of energy and fun. There were a variety of scheduled activities of all different sorts with the friendly faces of the entertainment staff always present. And Jaime – keep it up – you will be one of Carnival’s star cruise directors one day if you decide to stay with it! You belong on the stage!

As I said earlier, there were unfortunately a few minor problems. Please know I’m not upset, not looking for anything, and overall we loved this cruise! But I do know that Carnival does pay attention to what their guests think so maybe someone who can change things will read this. 

While the food was excellent, I can’t quite say the same for our waitstaff. Our head waiter ignored our table most of the week and we often sat with empty water glasses and dirty dishes for quite some time, we were never checked on, never offered coffee with dessert, and rarely offered bread. Our waiter was spending a lot of time with 3 other large tables that did appear to be pretty high maintenance, but our small table of four that didn’t require anything unusual seemed to be lost in the shuffle. The assistant waiter was rarely around, either. On the last night, we actually left the dining room in the middle of dinner and went to the Lido buffet it got so bad – we couldn’t even get our waiter’s attention to let him know there was a problem with the food (the only time we had any kind of food issue) as he would look away every time he came by. He even reached behind him several times without looking at us and removed unused place settings to give missing items to other tables! If nothing else, that’s a sanitation problem as he had no idea if we had touched or sneezed on those items, but we also felt it was bit rude. It’s the kind of thing I would have liked to address with the Maitre’D but it wasn’t until the last night that I felt things got really bad and I didn’t want to seem like one of those people who complains at the very end to get out of a tip! As a former waitress, it takes a lot for me to complain in a restaurant and that’s probably why I didn’t address it sooner but maybe I should have.

Our steward was very friendly and even knew our names when we’d see him in the halls, but he was obviously very rushed and seemed to forget a lot of little things. I truly don’t blame this on him – I just think he had too many rooms to deal with as I’d see him almost halfway down the ship cleaning rooms there, too. It was all little stuff but it added up after a while – things like no Capers a few nights, no chocolates, towels taken and not replaced, crumbs on the floor not vacuumed for several days, and a can of unopened soda and my personal coffee mug that disappeared from the room one day. I’m sure these items were inadvertently thrown away and not taken on purpose, but I feel bad that these guys are in such a rush that they can’t pay attention to something like this or take the time to make sure the basic necessities are taken care of in each room. Our ice bucket was also only filled a few times during the cruise and on one day our room wasn’t ever cleaned at all.

We’ve sailed four times in the past year, and each time we’ve noticed that the dining room and room stewards all seem to be stretched thin and barely able to keep up. Our first few cruises were so different with the most incredible service, crew that had the time to laugh and chat with us some, and a great attention to detail. Sadly, over the last year we’ve yet to get really exceptional service in the dining room or in our stateroom. For the most part everyone is friendly and trying their hardest but you can tell they just seem to be overloaded. With my restaurant/hotel background I am very forgiving of this kind of thing as long as I can tell the effort is there, but know that many other people expect more and don’t want to see Carnival lose any customers! To sum it up, the service has just been so-so in the last year and that’s not the Carnival we know and love!

I guess the point I am trying to make is that I wish someone would take a second look at staffing levels onboard for the waiters and room stewards and make sure that they can all provide truly exceptional service. Something has obviously changed in the past year with regards to staffing levels. I think there are probably still some great crew members out there who can keep up, but the majority are just stretched too thin. One of the things that has kept us coming back to Carnival was the fabulous service and it just hasn’t been there in the last year. Either I’m really unlucky or something is wrong! So hopefully Carnival can take a look at this and make some changes. It’s not just the Pride – we’ve also been on the Victory, Liberty and Glory this past year and noticed the same. Our cruises in 2006 and 2007 were very different and all the crew seemed much less rushed than they do now.

My only other suggestion is a little more variety in live music. I really do miss the jazz and classical trios as well as the rock-n-roll cover bands most ships have had in the past. I understand from other cruisers that these groups are being phased out and I really hate to see it happen. Most evenings onboard the entertainment consisted of 3 different piano players and 2 solo guitarists at various venues around the ship which I thought was a little dull – most of them were using pre-recorded backing music to sound like they were a band. The quality of live entertainment is another that hooked us on cruising Carnival so I’d like to see you guys bring back some of the larger bands and other styles of music instead of relying on so many solo performers and prerecorded backing tracks for them.

Thank you again for everything. I really hope I didn’t come off as too much of a complainer – as I said earlier we had a fantastic cruise and can’t wait for our next one. Keep up the sailings from Baltimore and hopefully the powers that be will consider adding more itinerary options and sailings from Norfolk as well. It would be fabulous to leave from Baltimore or Norfolk and get to San Juan or St. Thomas or St. Maarten and not have to fly! It was so stress-free not flying and nice to be relaxed both getting to the ship and debarking – never mind the cost savings!

Hopefully we will get to sail with you one day soon, John! Congratulations again on Kye and keep those wonderful pictures coming! She is beautiful. Hope you and family are all doing well. Thanks again to you, Jaime and Stephanie for all you did for us.

Also – one other thing to mention. I really want to compliment the Purser’s desk on the Pride for their kindness and professionalism. We visited several times to pick up copies of the missing Capers and to let them know our thermostat had broken in our room. I know they have a tough job and witnessed firsthand some irate idiots upset that their room was obstructed view. Each visit they still smiled warmly and took care of everything right away with great care and concern – even when being treated terribly by the people in front of us.