I said this before, so I’m sorry to tread over familiar ground…again, but I’m just not a resort person.
Doing Nothing Can be Everything
I get the appeal of the “do nothing” vacation. There’s the inherent release of lounging around, relaxing, and doing as little as possible. Nothing compares to shedding the existential drag of your professional obligations for the relatively weightless and what-happens-at-xxxxx-stays-at-xxxxx choices of:
Do I go to the spa or the beach?
Is it a Mai Tai, Pina Colada, or Bacardi 151 Faceplanter kind of night?
Will the concierge know what I mean by the “Charlie Sheen Special” or should I just go hit the streets?
And there’s the ease of drinking and dining without needing to yank out your credit card every time. I certainly enjoy spending a day on a beach with music, cold drinks, and a good book. But as you’ve previously seen in this blog, my preferred vacations involve tours or independently exploring places (though admittedly, I’ve taken and/or been pulled into some very touristy excursions). On the plus side, not being the most outdoorsy person has spared family, friends, and former partners the undignified “adventure” of survival training roughing it camping.
This has resulted in my being a little resistant to the idea of a cruise vacation. Oddly enough, I began my professional career at a company that owns cruise.com, but never once took advantage of the employee cruise perks. Over the years, friends and family went on cruises and sung praises about them, but the need or urge to go on one never quite grabbed me. With a trip to the Cayman Islands back when I was in college, I’ve fantasized about going back to the Caribbean more than a few times, but never got around to it. And truth be told, I imagined more of a prolonged visit rather than spending a few hours on the beach whenever the boat came to a stop.
However, fate stepped in with an opportunity to scratch an itch I’m not certain I ever really had.
Cruising Along
Michelle hit a milestone birthday that year, and she decided that taking a cruise was the way to celebrate it.
She began tirelessly obsessing over researching cruise vacations and pored over every YouTube[SW3.1] cruise trip video or blog she could find. While she picked up some good ideas and helpful tips, she ran across more than a few stories about people going missing from tours or children falling off ships. This led to MANY discussions about how those stories are very rare and only get attention because cruising is a statistically and monumentally safe travel option.
Anyhow…she took the extra step of checking out and joining almost every big box wholesale chain there is to take advantage of their travel deals. After researching, consulting, and back and forth decision making, we opted for a week-long cruise on Carnival that would take us to Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.1 Admittedly, this appealed to me since one of my favorite historical periods is the Republic of Pirates from the early 18th century, so it was an easier sell on me (I still would’ve preferred exploring the islands, but I’ll take what I can get).
Throughout our on and off research, we did as much prep work as we could for the trip – investing in some cruise-specific clothes and shoes, a shit ton of sunscreen and bug spray, over-the-counter meds, lanyards for our cruise cards and ID, etc. Needless to say, when we boarded that ship, we were ready for anything the trip could throw at us (or so we thought…just keep reading).
The Pride of Carnival
So, a little background on our ship.
The Carnival Pride (Call Sign H3VU) is one of the smaller ships in the Carnival fleet, weighing in at 88,500 gross tons, 963 feet long, and capable of carrying more than 2,100 passengers and a little less than 1,000 crew members. It was built in Finland’s Helsinki New Shipyard, launched in 2001, and is registered in Panama. It’s based out of Baltimore, MD and typically sails to the Bahamas, Bermuda, other Caribbean destinations, Greenland and Canada, and the Panama Canal. Not having spent much time on ships, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, which added to the excitement of the whole thing.
On a side note, despite the overwhelming urges, typical “dad joke” duties, and general jackass mentality I might present sometimes frequently once in a while, I showed I a TREMENDOUS amount of restraint from never cracking a single, obvious Love Boat one-liner throughout the entire trip. I’ve no doubt that the crew members heard them all and didn’t need some dipshit who thinks he’s dropping those little “humorous” jewels as if no one else thought of them before.
Trust me, it was a painful achievement on my part.
For this set of entries, I’m attempting a different tack (sailing pun very much intended). Since one takeaway from this experience is that cruising can be a bit routine and repetitive, I’m not going to bore the living Hell out of anyone reading with a play-by-play account of our time at sea (i.e., there was a lot of down time, walking laps around the ship, and pool time).
Instead, I’m delving into the experience by categories and comparing the destinations we traveled to.
Carnival Cruise – Bahamas / Turks and Caicos – Day 1 (June 2024)
Carnival Cruise – Bahamas / Turks and Caicos – Days 2 and 3 (June 2024)
Carnival Cruise – Bahamas / Turks and Caicos – Days 4 and 5 (June 2024)
Carnival Cruise – Bahamas / Turks and Caicos – Days 6 and 7 (June 2024)
Carnival Cruise – Bahamas / Turks and Caicos – Day 8 (June 2024)
1 On a very sad note, one of the people I consulted with was the late, great Paul Cathcart, someone I’ve mentioned in previous entries. He was the travel architect for the Bordeaux, Hawaii, and Iceland trips, and I enjoyed following him on social media and living vicariously through his social media posts about his world class adventures, cruises, and other travel industry experiences. Paul was famous for his larger-than-life presence, boundless love of travel and adventure, and enduring service to his friends, clients, and fellow travel professionals. I believe he went on more than 100 cruises, and was instrumental in offering us advice and tips for finding the right cruise options. Unfortunately, he unexpectedly passed away in December 2024, leaving a very big hole in a lot of friends’ lives. He is badly missed.
WineAbout 