Sun Review 11/27/04

For those that want the quick and dirty and don't want to read my entire review, the bottom line is the cruise was great. No complaints, NCL Sun is a great ship and NCL should be applauded.

Now for the long review. My demographic is that I am 27 years old, I was traveling with my pregnant wife and my parents. I would consider myself a typical middle class American. This was my 5th cruise overall and my second on NCL (sailed the Sky last February, have also sailed Holland America, Royal Caribbean, and Princess). This was my parents first cruise experience. To get my parents comments out of the way, they simply said they couldn't think of 1 thing that could have been done better. I am sure they are hooked now.

We flew into Fort Lauderdale a day early, rented a car from Hertz ($43) and stayed in Miami the night before embarkation. Dropped the car off Saturday morning at the Hertz Port of Miami center and took the free shuttle right to the ship.

First off, the Sun is a beautiful ship.

We arrived at the ship around 11:15. There were no lines and we went right in. We sat in their hall for about 15 minutes and boarded the ship at approximately 11:30-11:40. Our rooms were already ready so we went straight there. We had a BB balcony cabin (9055 and 9061).

I thought the balcony was very nice. We had the door open almost the entire trip. It was also nice that the door had a latch on the outside so you could leave it open. Room was very clean, and plenty big for the two of us. There was a slight vibration in our room, I think this was due to the rear thrusters and stablilizers being below our cabin. It was slight however and never bothered us. My parents cabin did not experience this.

The food on the Sun was excellent. No complaints whatsoever in this department. I tried many different things and all of them were very well prepared. We mainly ate in the Four Seasons for dinner, the Seven Seas for lunch, and then had room service for breakfast or the buffet. We did eat in Le Bistro one night. This was also excellent but we didn't really feel the food was any better than the main dining room. Although I must admit that the filet mignon in Le Bistro was probably the best I have ever had. Service in all the restaurants was 5-star!

Our cabin stewards were also great. The greated us the first night and gave us everything we needed. We rarely saw them after this but our room was always cleaned and made up when ever we left, be it morning, noon, or night.

I find the sea days boring so I won't say much about them. The crew did have plenty of things to do to keep people busy, but most of that stuff doesn't do it for me so I usually just read or watch TV in the room. The first sea day is formal night, and I was glad to see that the crew of the Four Seasons was strictly enforcing the dress code. They must have told 50 people to go change or go to another restaurant.

The first port was Grand Cayman. It was a sad sight to see. The island really doesn't look anything like it did before in my opinion. Entire forests of trees were literally leveled with not 1 tree left standing. Broken windows abounded the many building and it seemed that almost every building either had roof damage or no roof at all.

We did the Stingray City tour using Nativeway. The tour was excellent. They were waiting at the tender area for us and were great about leaving on time and having us back on time. They were all very professional and we all had a blast. There were about 10 of us in the group to Stingray City and to the reef for snorkeling. I felt like it was a steal at only $25 per person.

Roatan is a very beautiful and primitive island. They only receive cruise ships twice a week and it shows. They are somewhat disorganized at the dock and its total chaos getting in and out of the dock. People and cars everywhere. I am sure they are experiencing growing pains but I am sure that the tourism is desperately needed money for that poor island. We did the ships island tour here, and we wouldn't do it again. Our tour guide didn't have anything important to say and it was boring. Next time I would definately rent the scooters that are right outside the docking area for $40 a day and see the island for ourselves. We did however see a few ship wrecks that we got a bit closer too:

Belize was the next port. I really enjoyed this port! The tender into the docks was a bit long (about 20 minutes) but they were good about keeping a steady stream of boats to tender people in. We did the Lamanai tour here through grandcaymancruiseexcursions.com and it was great. Our tour guides were extremently knowledgeable about Belize and answered every question we had. They were also great about time, which was very much appreciated given this is a 7 hour tour. It was also nice that there were only 6 people in our group. The bus ride was somewhat boring but the boat ride up the river was very neat. My wife really liked this part. We saw many birds and crocodiles. The ruins of Lamanai were impressive:

It was amazing how un-excavated these ruins were. We also saw and heard plenty of howler monkeys. This one was a baby and was very curious as to what I was doing and came out of the trees right up to me:

Last port was Cozumel. I have been here before so nothing new. I did scuba diving here with Eagle Ray Divers. We did the Santa Rosa wall, a very impressive dive site! Clarity was a good 150 feet and this wall should not be missed. Mountains of coral dropping off to a cliff that descends over 1000 feet down. Internet access was only a dollar an hour here right outside the dock, while it was 75 cents a minute on the ship. You do the math :) .

The last day was a sea day. It was nice to have a slow down. And the sunset on this day was unbelievable:

We arrived back in Miami, and instead of renting a car (hertz wanted $85 now to go back to FLL) we found a van right outside the debarkation area for $15 per person to FLL.

Overall, the cruise was excellent. I really enjoy the freestyle idea. The service was excellent, which cleaned up my doubts about the automatic tipping policy.

The entertainment on the ship was pretty good also. The dance company was very talented and so were the acts they brought in. The cruise director Colin is hilarious. He fits that job perfectly!

I certainly will cruise NCL again. Compared with the other lines I have cruised on, its a pair of 6's in my book. They all have pros and cons, in the end, any cruise is a wonderful experience I think if you have the right attitude. If anyone has any questions, i would be glad to answer. Hope you enjoyed the review!

WOW! Great review, great pictures..thank you so much for sharing.

Fabulous review, and spectacular photographs! Very well done, indeed! Thanks so much for sharing all of the wonderful highlights, and the beautiful views. Much appreciated!

Great review, wonderful pictures. Can't wait until New Years Day.

Dropped the car off Saturday morning at the Hertz Port of Miami center and took the free shuttle right to the ship.

Are the Hertz offices within the secured port area? How far is it from the NCL terminal?

Your photos and review were great! What kind of camera did you use?

The pics were awesome. I'm getting really excited here...1/1/05...here we come!

They are not in the secure area. The Hertz office is about 10 minutes from the port and NOT within walking distance. Their free shuttle will pick you up and take you there however.

Great review, wonderful pictures. Can't wait until New Years Day.

 

 

Are the Hertz offices within the secured port area? How far is it from the NCL terminal?

Your photos and review were great! What kind of camera did you use?

Thanks for the compliments everyone. The camera was a Canon Digital Rebel.

Great review, loved your pictures. We too just returned from the Sun, the 11/13/04 cruise. Its true the Sun is a beautiful ship, and Colin does a great job. He really helped make this a great first cruise for our 16 yr old granddaughter. The only disappointing part was on the day we stopped at GC we had signed up for the Stingray City, unfortunately that excursion was cancelled, due to some really strong winds on that side of the island. We have done it before, this would have been our granddaughters first time swimming with the rays. So next time maybe it will work.

Great detailed review and lovely pictures. We are on the Sun this coming Saturday - I can hardly wait.

Great picturess and review, This is our first cruise on NCL and my inlaws first cruise, we will be a family of 11. yikes:eek: We too will be on the Sun 12/18 we can't wait and the pictures and review make it even harder. Great job.

Debra:)

I enjoyed reading your concise review! I love the pictures! Thank you for taking the time to post them!

Coka

We were on the same cruise and fully endorse your comments!

I used Budget attempting to get a shuttle ride from Miami IAP Budget to Port of Miami. UNSUCCESSFUL! We had to take a taxi from the Budget place.

This was in spite of personally calling this Budget location and asking whether shuttle ride was available. When I brought this to the manager's attention, his reply was : well, they lied to you.

NO MORE BUDGET

Colin was a riot.

I just got back from the same cruise. I had a wonderful time. What's funny is that I have almost identical pictures of the ship wreckage, the Sun herself, and that beautiful sunset. I'm sure we passed right by each other at one point or another.

In November on the Dream, I dove not far from that wreck you photographed :) Roatan is a great place to dive :)