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mcpepe
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Posted: Mon Jan 14th, 2008 08:37 am | 1st Post |
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Our Norwegian Sun New Year's cruise
Who: me - 45, dh - 43, dd - 16, ds - 15
Also travelled with dd's boyfriend's family, all 9 various members
When: 12/29/07 - 1/5/08
Where: Western Caribbean
Gosh I don't know where to start with my review. So many thoughts in my head. In a word, the cruise was an adventure! And I mean that in a good way. I learned I had a new talent and I conquered a fear as well.
I guess we'll start at the beginning, in Miami the night before our cruise. I had gotten a great deal on airfare which brought us into Miami rather late and with a delay in Philadelphia (ya think? <g> we didn't get to The Chesterfield Hotel in South Beach until almost 11:00 pm. Any one who knows south beach knows that we were just in time for dinner! We had a lovely dinner at Quinn's, located at the Park Central right on Ocean. Having eaten there before, we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner out on the porch, and the people watching was at it's best. We got to bed by 1:30 am.
In the morning we strolled along Ocean Ave and Collins Ave, buying a couple things here and there. We had a great late breakfast at the Pelican Hotel, our fav. place for breakfast in south beach. We finally made our way to the pier by Noon or so. Not much of a line. I think we got onboard between one and two pm. I really wasn't keeping track.
Once on board, our rooms were ready. We had BA balconies, Deck 10 all the way forward port side....Rooms 0001 and 0002. Plenty of room for two. LOTS of storage. The bathroom shower, however, made us laugh. We can't help but wonder what larger folk do...it's tight in there!
We explored the ship. DD and I made our spa reservations. From this point on I can only give highlights since I didn't keep notes.
Spa: I got the hot stone massage. It was my first hot stone massage and certainly won't be my last! It was wonderful. My daughter got a seaweed wrap/1/2 body massage and really enjoyed that as well.
Dining: I found the food consistently good all week with only one exception. The sailaway barbecue on the pool deck saw some dried out pork chops and dry bbq chicken. The sides were good however. Two dining highlights were Il Adagio and East Meets West. Both were worth the surcharge. At East Meets West we were a party of 13, with the other family and the waitress easily split the charges how we asked. Service and food at both were just outstanding! Our family enjoyed the buffet; the pretzel rolls were a hit. I also enjoyed the vegetarian selections, which were Indian. I enjoy Indian food so enjoyed the vegetarian selections. In the mornings we at at both the buffet and the dining room. I found folks didn't realize that there were eggs made to order at two stations at the Great Outdoors. There was also a made to order waffle station in the Pacific Heights restaurant in the mornings. One of our favorite hangouts this week was the Sports Bar...the wings were excellent, small but tasty! My son loved the shepherds pie. It was just a nice, relaxing place to chill. We at dinner in the main dining room as well, with our cruise critic group. What a lovely meal that was! Who knew beef stroganoff could be so tasty! It certainly was. We also ate at Le Bistro. This meal didn't rank as highly as our others ONLY because we were so tired that evening that it interfered with our enjoyment of the meal. We'd been out in the sun all day on Roatan. When you're tired, food is secondary. So it was no fault of Le Bistro...just us that evening. The service was wonderful and the food we did pick at was good.
The most hazardous job this sailing had to be the specialty restaurant reservation desk. Being a New Year's cruise, many folks wanted to eat in specialty restaurants. They booked up.........quickly. On a given morning you were allowed to make reservations a day ahead. This usually meant that same day bookings were not possible since they were fully booked. We did have to be at the desk very early (between 7 and 8am) to get our desired reservations. Despite being there at 7:20 am, I was able to get only 5:30 or 9:30 for a party of 13 at East meets West. The only time when openings were very freely had was the night when the ship was rocking and rolling and most were seasick. My husband witnessed one woman hollering at the poor girls at the desk b/c she couldn't get a place at the teppanyaki table...the maitre'd had to be called, the very large male maitre'd, to deal with the crazy lady. Geez, who knew teppanyaki, or lack thereof, could make you crazy? The girls at the desk, who I spoke with later, said this week was particularly difficult. I felt bad for them.
Excursions/ports: For Roatan, I booked with Diana and Cynthia for the day. Cynthia was our driver. WE've used her before so we knew what to expect. She is an absolute doll! We loved our day here, stopping first at Memba ziplining. I should say I have a fear of heights......I was terrified to do this! And a look at that very first platform to the other side...holy @^$%!! My husband chickened out at the mere site of it. My teens, daughter's boyfriend and I did it....ALL 14 lines. Those were alot of lines!!! For the first few, one of the guides zipped with me, kinda holding onto my harness. Hard to explain. FInally I got the courage to go at it alone. Of course my teens and the boyfriend did it no problem. I was so proud of myself afterward, having done it! It was the scariest thing I've ever done. I don't know about any other canopy/ziplining, but this was awesome. It took us over an hour for the 4 of us to complete the platforms. One of the guides took pictures of us too. The look on my face is too funny. We then went to the beach, or I should say the bar at the beach. I needed liquid refreshment after my ziplining! lol We had an amazing local lunch of chicken and rice and beans, delicious! We hung out there for a while then headed to see the iguanas, which we love. It's so much fun feeding them.
Belize was scheduled for Jan 1. I didn't think we'd be up to getting up early on New Year's day so I didn't book anything except spa reservations for this day. We'd been to Belize before and done cave tubing. We had a nice relaxing pool day on the ship instead.
Cozumel was cancelled due to weather,which I WILL get to. LOL
We headed to Nassau instead of GSC. I was pretty excited since we'd never been there. We took a walk around the local area, did the Pirate museum, which was fun. We took a walk all the way to Fort Charlotte only to find...not what I thought. It was a lovely walk though, it was sunny, breezy and warm and it was along the shore. We had lunch at an excellent Greek restaurant which was next to the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was expensive, but quite good. We then took a taxi to Atlantis to see what that was like. The huge fish tank was very cool. We also enjoyed looking at all the yachts in the harbor.
THE SEA........Woohoo!! The sea was fierce for 2 days. We had 12 to 18 feet waves and almost gale force winds. We were rocking and rolling!! I LOVED IT. Not everyone shared my joy. ;-) I must have the sea in my blood; I never get seasick. My son and I were lucky in that respect. My daughter and husband didn't fare as well and were seasick one day. Mind you this was my husband's 7th cruise and his first time this seasick. He had some mild symptoms one day sailing from Seattle to Juneau, but this was a whole new level! My daughter's boyfriend also got seasick, so the two of them were just cuddling together napping most of one day. His family saw his mom, sister and his brother's girlfriend also seasick. I discovered I could actually walk with an open cup of coffee, up and down steps, in 12 to 18 foot seas without spilling a drop! Impressive! Who knew I had such talent? LOL
Cruise Critic Friends: We had a small but GREAT group of people from CC on this sailing. From sailaway through our meet and greet to dinner to New year's Eve, we consistently seemed to find each other and enjoy each other's company. I would sail with any of them again! Kathiean organized our meet and greet and it was well attended by senior staff, who were genuinely nice people. You can always tell when someone is being nice b/c they *have to*....these guys and gals were just nice all around. I wish I remembered their names and exactly who they were. Anytime we saw them around the ship they always said hello and exchanged pleasantries.
New Year's EVE!! What a fun party we had! The weather cooperated beautifully...it was before the seas turned on us. The band was very high energy! I loved the fact that we got to see the Times Square ball drop too! We were an ahour behind so we got to then celebrate OUR New Year an hour later. It was so cool hearing the ship's horn blaring during the final countdown! Watching the young people diving into the pool with clothes on...it was all a blast! We'd ordered a bottle of Moet white star champagne and found our cruise critic buddies, Kathy and Ron (aka Imelda and Mario) to share it with. I loved celebrating on the sea!
Disembarkation: We had a 12:15 flight out of Miami. We were doing self disembarkation, which we've done in the past. We took our time, deciding to get off the ship around 9:15 or so. Customs was a 10 minute line at most; they had 3 lines open. What I found interesting is that the customs officials had in front of them a list of about 30 names from NCL with corresponding amounts of money. I'm guessing these were folks whose bills were not settled? Maybe their credit cards didn't go through? Who knows...but they weren't going anywhere once customs saw them! We were at the airport by 10:15 or so. It amazes me that people don't use (or don't know?) about curbside checkin! There was a long USAir line inside but no one was using curbside. We did...took all of 5 minutes. Then we had 2 hours to kill. The security lines were pretty light as well. Flight home was uneventful.
It's always a bummer when your vacation has ended. But I'm lucky enough that my family and I will be on the Gem for Easter! In fact, I just got my edocs this evening! LOL Best cure for post cruise blues ever! Thanks for reading!
Maria
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Maria
mpepe84@aoldotcom
Upcoming cruises:
Norwegian Gem 3/22/08 Florida/Bahamas
Yes, that's me in my avatar!
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hstrybuf
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Posted: Sat Jan 19th, 2008 01:10 am | 2nd Post |
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| Maria, you write a very good and entertaining review! Ahhh, I too love adventures! Our first cruise was in a tropical storm to ports we'd never seen on land trips. That was very memorable. Congrats on overcoming your fear of heights! Someday, I'd like to try that ziplining.
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Deb
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson
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Hank Freid
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Posted: Fri Apr 11th, 2008 09:07 am | 3rd Post |
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Hi,
Maria, It was very nice and entertaining informaton. I like travel very much. I am also traveling in different country. So traveling is very interesting hoppy.
Last edited on Fri Apr 11th, 2008 09:08 am by
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