Karen Eisele  

Age: 40
Number of Cruises: 3
Cruise Line: Carnival Cruise Lines
Ship: Carnival Pride
Sailing Date: May 11th, 2002
Itinerary: Western Caribbean

This was my third cruise and my husband's first. We had to choose a port we could drive to from SC because my husband doesn't fly. Port Canaveral was an excellent choice and so was the Pride.

As everyone seems to agree, the Pride is a beautiful ship. Room service was excellent and on time to the minute. We had a room with a balcony, which was great, and had our coffee delivered every morning. No better way to start the day. We were seated on the second floor of the Normandie Restaurant. We were fortunate to have been seated with a great group of people. The food was very good, but I thought it could have had a little more variety. We had prime rib two nights which isn't bad, but I would have been happy with one and had something else. On some nights the Maitre' de would sing, but we never saw him. As a matter of fact, he never came upstairs or by our table once the entire week which we thought was in poor taste; but we got over it.

We had been to Key West the year before, so we didn't go on any excursions. Key West is such a unique place, just walking around it an experience. There is a good snorkeling trip offered, but we just did the Mel Fischer Museum and found it interesting.

Belize is what you make of it. Yes, it is a very poor place, but you can still find beauty there. We took the Mayan Ruins/River excursion which from what we heard later was probably the best tour offered there. This trip consisted of a bus ride to the Ruins and a 27 mile trip back on the river (or vice versa depending on which leg of this tour you got on.) After climbing the Ruins the bus took us to a "Riverside Cafe" where we were served baked chicken, red beans and rice and potato salad. We passed on the potato salad because we didn't know how long it had been out and the last thing we wanted was food poisoning. It must have been good because we did not hear of anyone getting sick. The river trip back was great! We had an excellent guide, named Val, on this fast, "cigarette-style" boat. We saw monkeys, alligators, parrots, tree bats, iguanas and manatee in their natural habitat. If anyone saw anything interesting the boat would speed over so we could get a good look or take pictures. As I mentioned before, we had a great guide and good people which added a lot of laughter to the trip. They offered you bottled water in Belize, but we chose to purchase our bottled water off the ship. There are no speed limits and the town is much to be desired, but the people of Belize are making an effort. On the down side, our video camera was ruined on the tender you have to take from the ship to Belize. Even though we had our video camera on the seat with us, no one told us water gets in the boat until we were half way there. Needless to say, when we picked the camera case up, we had water in it. So, we were unable to film any of our trip and we still can not even get the tape out of the camera.

Of all the ports we went to, Cozumel was the one I liked the least. We did go snorkeling at the Marine Park, which was nice and I recommend. There were six ships at port when we were there which means six ships of tourists' dollars. I don't know what Cozumel does with all the money, but they don't use it to maintain their streets or sidewalks. You have to look where you are walking at all times because there are deep holes, and chunks of concrete that once was a sidewalk all over the place. They place plywood over these hazards to fix them, but with thousands of people walking across them the boards become weakened and it is just a broken or twisted ankle waiting to happen. As far as shopping goes the best deals are at the Duty Free Store located right on the pier where the ship is. The Cruise Director tells you where to shop in Cozumel, but I priced an onyx chess set and found it $8 less in the Duty-Free store. Another plus is you don't barter and it is easier to shop because they have everything. The only thing I can say about Cozumel is "Carlos and Charlies". Bring you camera and video, sit back and watch the show! I couldn't believe how wild this place was. It was just fun to watch.

All of the ports are completely different from one another which made things a little more interesting. Progresso will be a favorite if they continue as they have. Progresso is building new buildings with ships at the pier and new restaurants on the beach which were not quite open when we were there. Even though there is a pier, you have to take a bus into Progresso because the pier is four miles long. The bus drops you off in front of a very nice straw market. We bartered a hammock for $20! We also went on a double-decker bus which took us on a short, but informative tour of Progresso for only $1. The beach is two blocks from the market and easy to walk to. The beach was nice. The only thing that bothered us was children coming up to sell you something while you were trying to relax on the beach. We did not go on the excursion to Merida, but enjoyed Progresso.

We had a great time and would recommend this cruise to anyone!

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