Carnival Pride Photo Tour and Commentary

Carnival Pride and her three Spirit-class sister ships are like the high performance sports cars of the Carnival fleet. Longer but yet smaller than Carnival’s Destiny-class megacruise ships, Pride can whip through the water at 24 knots. Her azipod propulsion system makes her highly maneuverable although I must admit that the Destiny-class ships are surprisingly maneuverable with their traditional propeller system. In any event, her technological prowess carries over and gives the ship something of the same feeling of superiority that comes with owning a performance car.

While Pride is smaller than the Destiny-class ships, especially the latest evolutions of that design such as Carnival Splendor, she offers many of the passenger choices that Carnival features. Indeed, there is even a specialty steakhouse and a flexible dining option in the main restaurant.

Inside, Pride is flamboyant. Carnival designer Joe Farcus has made use of numerous reproductions of Old Master artworks in a tribute to the “icons of beauty.” There is probably not another ship afloat that makes such extensive use of the works of Raphael, Van Gough, Michelangelo, and other renowned painters. These are not lined up one after another as in a museum but rather are blown-up to giant proportions or blended into the décor in interesting ways. Not only does it create a fun, Pop-style environment but it leads one to look around at the detail work and say “Hey, isn’t that from . . . .”

Aside from the hardware, I was impressed by the friendliness of the crew during my recent voyage on Pride. Everyone was friendly and confident in what they were doing.

My profile of Carnival Pride is at: http://beyondships.com/CarnivalPride-Profile.html and the multi-page photo tour and commentary begins at: http://beyondships.com/CarnivalPride-Tour-1.html.

Pride is the 50th ship that I have profiled on Beyondships.com including 10 other Carnival ships, 8 Royal Caribbean ships, 8 Holland America ships, 7 Princess ships, four NCL ships, three each from Cunard, P&O Cruises, and Celebrity Cruises as well as individual ships from three other lines. There is a dedicated section on the website for each ship with a photo tour, copies of menus and daily programs and in many cases interviews with the captain and/or other officers.