Date Posted: Tue, Jan 10 2006 3:02 AM

We enjoyed every minute of our cruise

Ship: Pride | Sail Date: 08/14/2005 | Destination: Mexico

We enjoyed every minute of our cruise, and the anticipation. The ship was beautiful. The booking advice from my Carnival Cruise representative was extremely helpful and efficient, and the accommodations could not have worked out better. I mention the anticipation because the website is really great. We checked on the countdown to our cruise almost daily, and took the advice of our representative, and checked in on line. This really sped us through the line at the terminal. And, this cruise gave us our “lottery winning moment”. We attended the art auctions whenever we could. The information the auctioneer shared with us and the audience about the painters was fascinating. We made a winning bid during our first visit, and one during our second visit to the auctions. Near the end of the cruise, the auctioneers gave us some red raffle tickets as reward for our purchases, and we collected a few blue tickets at the door before the last auction. The auctioneer selected tickets from separate buckets, one for red tickets and one for blue. He pulled a blue ticket, and called our number! We were so excited, and we chose one of the six paintings available to raffle winners. After he auctioned a couple of more paintings, he dipped into the red ticket bucket, and pulled our number again! We were stunned, whispering to each other about what the odds must have been to have won twice. We were delighted that each of us could choose the paintings we liked. Then, just before the end of the auction, he dipped into the blue bucket again and, against all odds, pulled our number out a third time! It was like winning the lottery! We wondered for the rest of the cruise how we could have been so lucky. In a matter of moments, we became true art collectors. I spoke with the auctioneer afterward. He was as stunned as we were, and confirmed that he has never pulled a passenger’s raffle ticket even twice. I asked him if I could have the matching tickets that he selected, and promised him that I would properly, professionally frame the winning number pairs of raffle tickets, along with our cruise tickets and our bidding number. Otherwise, I wouldn’t expect anyone who wasn’t there to believe our luck. The food was excellent. Our wait and cabin staff were wonderful. Dinner was always lots of fun, especially when the wait staff performed. The entire crew was always smiling, and very personable and informative about their diverse heritages. It was truly a wonderful vacation, and we can’t wait to cruise again. We think perhaps next time we’ll cruise in other parts of the world, such as Alaska, through the Panama Canal, or maybe into the Mediterranean Sea. Wherever we choose, we already know that we’ll go with Carnival. Suzanne Kelman