We're so excited to be taking our second cruise on a Carnival ship.  We took our first in January on the Liberty and it was so much fun!  Only bad thing was that our youngest son wasn't quite old enough for Camp Carnival.  But our next cruise is right after his 2nd birthday, so we will finally get a couple hours of free time to ourselves, and we can't wait!!!  Of course we'll have fun with the kids, too, but oh, to have five seconds to ourselves for once?  The last time we sat by a pool with a drink in our hands and no kids by our sides was five years ago on our honeymoon!  Wish we were leaving tomorrow! 

My husband and I will be on the Pride also on the 29th. We are bringing our 2 kids ages 6 and 12. This will be our 1st cruise as a family although my 2nd cruise. Last was the Sensation in 1994. It's nice to see other people will be on the ship that week. I posted a roll call a while back and had no responses, thought we'd be the only ones going. We also wish the cruise was tomorrow...can't wait!!!   

44 days to go!  So excited!  Anyone else on this cruise?

We are booked on the Pride with our 2 children.  Debating what we want to do about the dinner.  Booked for early but may switch over to the Your Time Dining. 

How old are your kids?  Ours are pretty young, but my parents will be with us, and we all had fun at dinner together last time we went.  We're planning to bring the kids to the buffet for lunch, then put them in Camp Carnival so my husband and I can have a nice quiet lunch in the dining room, then we'll all have dinner together (early seating in the dining room) because the kids get a kick out of the "shows" the waiters put on, and the waiters are always so great with the kids.  We figure this is a good way to have both "couple time" and "family time".

Less than a month to go!  Hooray!! 

We just booked this date for our very first cruise!  It'll be me, my husband and our 12 year old daughter.  Any advice for first time cruisers is much appreciated!  I'd like to get my daughter involved in a few hours of the camp carnival (so mom and dad can have an hour or so of couple time)..but she's of the more teenage years and not so much into the kiddie things any more.  Do they have an age range camp you'd advise for ***? 

Plenty for a 12 year old to do.  They have the teen disco at night and teen karokee and so many activities during the day.  My friend goes with her now 14 year old and she always has a great time.  My kids are 1 & 3 so we will not be dropping them off at any of the camps.  You may want to invest in some of those walkie talkies for you and your daughter as once she makes a few friends on there you may not see much of her!

Kids are 1 & 3 and while the older one can go to the camps I am not comfortable leaving him there.  If they were older maybe but since the little one will still be with us might as well have both.  This is our 15th cruise (7th carnival) but the first with the kids so it should be an adventure.  We tried to talk my parents into joining us but they wouldn't go for it, we even offered to pay.  We forgot to book a dinner time so are wait listed for the early and the your time dining.  WIll have to bribe the Maitre'd when we get there.  Mine will love the after dinner shows.  My son will be dancing in the aisles.  I cannot wait to see his reaction when he sees the size of the ship.  He thinks we are going on a boat like daddy's boat which is a 19 foot bayliner. 

Our children were 1 and 3 when we went on our last cruise (they will be 2 and 4 on the cruise we'll be on in 2 WEEKS!!!! YAY!)  Sorry, difficult to contain the excitement.  :) 

 Anyway, we had requested early dining and somehow it got screwed up (travel agent's fault, not carnival's).  When we got on the ship, we immediately headed over to the maitre d to ask him to switch us to early dining.  When he was unable to do this for the first night, we were kind of ticked off, but the next day we were witched, high chairs were there for us, and the remainder of the cruise was perfect.  And we realized that the matre d probably gets hit up with tons of requests that first day and just cannot switch people around the first night, especialyl since there wouldn't be any way to really notify people of the switch before the first dinner.  We got a notice in our mailbox (outside the cabin door) about the switch the next morning. 

Anyway, just telling you this so you don't get too disappointed if he can't make the switch the first night.  You may have a hectic first dinner with such little ones that late in the dining room (and may even want to consider buffet the first night if your little ones can't stay up that late), but the rest of the week will be wonderful, I'm sure!  :)

One other thing - the Camp Carnival is open for family time 2 hours every day, and you can take both of your little ones in there and play with the toys, games, puzzles, etc.  we did that last year and it was a great way to play with both of the kids since the 1-year-old couldn't go to Camp Carnival on his own.  This year we'll let both of them go to the camp for a couple hours a day for activities on their own, but I'm sure we'll also take advantage of the 2-hour family time!  Maybe we'll see you there!!

I am sure they will love the family time.  It will be a good thing to do the Monday when the weather to be on deck still may be a bit too cool for the pools.  I have changed the seating on cruises before.  Nothing that $20 to the Maitre D' cannot fix!!!

Thanks