Screen looks better than prints

[Milspouse]

I had my MacBook Pro calibrated by a friend with their Spyder 3, ordered prints from professional printer (NC Tricolor) and the prints returned darker than the prints on screen.  So I went back to my friend and we re-calibrated the screen, and he used his "professional printer" to print the photos.  I still didn't feel they matched (my friend thought they did - friend is long time photographer and used to calibrates his monitor regularly).  

I decided to take advantage of the great sale Amazon had on the Spyder 5 Pro recently and just calibrated my monitor (using Damien's instructions and in a completely dark room).  Wow what a difference!  Only problem now is the photos on the monitor look amazing, and the prints are way dark.  I have checked the lighting in the room, it is white light vs yellow, and a pretty bright room.  Do I need to resend the photos to be printed?  I have NOT re-calibrated using the white balance suggestions in the troubleshooting instructions.  Mostly because the photos on the screen look so awesome (wrong answer I'm sure since the goal is to have the screen match the prints)     

[Damien Symonds]

Just to check, have you browsed the FAQs?

The short answer is, if your screen doesn't match your prints, your screen is wrong, no matter how much you like it.

[Milspouse]

I did check out the FAQ's.  

I understand completely the "short answer," I ask because I wasn't sure if it's possible the prints are the error vs the screen.  When do you know when you need to reprint or choose a different printer?  But what I'm hearing you say is that it's the monitor, not the prints that are the issue and I should be able to use these prints (from NC Tricolor) and just need to calibrate my screen to match them, is that correct?  

[Damien Symonds]

Your original post seems to suggest you have lots of prints to choose from?

[Damien Symonds]

Make sure you're only using prints from the lab that you will be using into the future.

[Milspouse]

I decided to send some more prints off to NC Tricolor that included a range of photos, I concluded that the two photos I had printed originally were not a good enough selection and both were about the same time of evening (just be sunset) so didn't really have colors in them to help judge the calibration adequately.  They should arrive by week's end and then I will begin the process all over again.  I made sure again that "do not correct" was selected, and even added it in my comments.  This will be the company I plan to use for future printings.  Thanks so much for the help, and keeping the goal (not my likes) in the forefront.  

[Milspouse]

Update:  Received my new prints, re-calibrated using 5800 and 6500K with no success (although I do think they are closer with the 6500K).  I'll be going to the lighting store tomorrow to change lightbulbs to see if that helps.  If not, I have an external monitor that I can get next week and will see about calibrating it and go from there.