Good news for more people in the United States. A Carnival Cruise is coming closer for more and more people. Carnival Cruise Line plans to have 15 ships sailing from seven U.S. homeports by mid-November, and Baltimore is the next city in the United States that can start preparing to take a cruise. Carnival Pride will set sail from Maryland on September 12.
Carnival Legend will take over the Baltimore duties from Carnival Pride in November of this year. At this time, Carnival Pride will be making her way down south to warmer temperatures in her second homeport, Tampa, Florida.
Carnival Pride From Baltimore
After a long break, guests will be able to sail from the Port of Baltimore on a Carnival cruise once again. The Spirit-class vessel is already making her way towards Baltimore and is set to arrive on Thursday to make preparations for the restart.
Carnival Pride will set sail on a series of Bahamian cruises from Baltimore calling at Half Moon Cay, Bimini, and Freeport in the Bahamas. The cruises, which include a full three days at sea, will sail continue until October 31, when her last cruise departs from the port.
The Port of Baltimore’s cruise terminal has been closed since March 2020, when the local government closed it to slow the spread of Covid-19. In May, Governor Hogan of Maryland lifted all remaining restrictions, allowing the cruise terminal at the Port of Baltimore to reopen.
In the past, both Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean International operated all year from the Cruise Maryland Terminal.
Carnival Pride will be repositioning to Tampa Bay, Florida, where she will start sailing the Caribbean. But not before the Spirit-class cruise ship, launched in 2001, takes guests on a 14-day§ sailing from Baltimore to Tampa.
The epic cruise will sail from Baltimore to seven ports of call; from Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic, to Aruba and Curacao in the Dutch Caribbean, and a Panama Canal partial transit before sailing to Mahogany Bay in Belize and Cozumel in Mexico.
Worth Reading: Which Carnival Cruise Ships Have Resumed Operations?
Carnival Pride From Tampa
As Carnival Legend takes over duties in Baltimore, Carnival Pride will be one of the first ships to start operations out of Tampa Bay, Florida (Royal Caribbean will start with Serenade of the Seas a little earlier in October).
The ship will be sailing on an itinerary that will take her from Tampa Bay on a mix of Western Caribbean and Panama Canal cruises. The Western Caribbean cruises will call at Cozumel, Belize, and Costa Maya.
The Panama Canal cruises will call at Limón, Costa Rica, after which the ship will make Panama Canal Partial Transit, and finally, guests get to enjoy the beautiful beaches of Grand Cayman.
For cruises out of Baltimore and cruises out of Tampa Bay, all guests need to be fully vaccinated 14 days before sailing, and all guests must present a negative COVID test as well.
The only exception to the vaccination rule is for kids under the age of 12 and those with medical contraindications, however, permission to sail needs to be gotten from the cruise line, while stringent testing procedures are in place as well.
Carnival Pride is one of the smaller Carnival Cruise ships; she underwent refurbishments in 2014 to upgrade it to the Funship 2.0 standard, this means the ship is now outfitted with ​​Guy’s Burger Joint, the BlueIguana Cantina, RedFrog Pub, and the BlueIguana Rum Bar.
The $375 million ship is 88,500 gross tons, with 12 decks and a capacity for just over 2,100 passengers and a crew of 930.
