Glad you found my diatribe helpful, Fondy. A couple of incidents that really impressed us about Carnival: 1) When you go ashore you check out with security at the gangway or tender who puts your sail and sign card (also your room key) into a machine, then they hand it back. That way they know who went ashore. When you return to the ship, they put it back into the same machine to check your picture (make sure it's you) and log you back in. Apparently one family didn't make it back to the ship from Cabo, which is a tender port. They called their names over the loud speaker about four or five times, every ten minutes or so. Finally after about an hour after the ship was scheduled to depart, the ship started to move. Then we stopped. We were up on deck and noticed one tender roaring away from the docks towards the ship at a high rate of speed, and the ship opened the gangway and four people clamored aboard, to boos, hisses, and cheers depending on your mood. So Carnival really made an effort to make sure that all passengers were accounted for, and only left when it appeared as if they were definitely not going to show up. When the Captain saw the tender leave the dock, he stopped the ship to let them on.
2) The Pride was late getting in that Sunday in March when we left, because of a medical emergency. We were told that a little girl had developed a life threatening situation after the ship left Cabo. The Captain navigated through the fog toward a small Mexican Naval base, and she was helicoptered off to the small hospital there where she was treated and apparently recovered. The Cruise Director read an email letter her parents sent sincerely thanking Carnival and the Captain for taking that action. People missed flights, our embarkation and sailing was delayed, but a life was saved.
Those two incidents impressed me, I don't know if they are standard procedure, but we all felt safe and in good hands on the Pride. Hope the Spirit generates the same feeling....
