luckybecky

We did not cover a lot of ground on the walking tour. We learned about how the ancient walls were built from coral, which destroyed the coral reefs that won’t recover for centuries. We saw some interesting architecture. Unfortunately we had to visit the emerald “museum” which was just a shop, with a back room that had been converted into a mock up of an emerald mine. I am not into these forced shopping adventures. We will have another similar experience later. The walking tour was followed by a boat tour of the harbor which was fun. Beautiful city views, unlimited rum punch, and a couple of young dancers demonstrating typical Colombian dances. The Virgin watching over the harbor Entertainment on board

March 1 Cartagena So here’s one of my complaints about this itinerary: our port time today was 6am to 2pm (back on board time 1:30pm). This is just ridiculous. We aren’t morning people, I admit, so early port times are off-putting to us from the get go. But nothing is open in virtually any port at 0600. If you want to just explore on your own there is almost no point because no stores, restaurants, museums or anything else are going to be open for at least 3-4 hours after docking time. I usually use private tour providers, but in this case I could not find any providers whose tours began early enough to get us back on time. Sunrise in Cartagena So we went with an NCL tour: Amazing Cartagena Bay and Walled City. $79 per person, but we had $50 off as one of our perks so it was pretty affordable. We began with a 6am alarm, in order to be in the Manhattan Room for our 0700 meeting time. Pretty soon we were directed to our bus. We had a friendly, talkative guide. It was about a 20 minute or so drive to get to the starting point of the walking tour portion of this excursion.

We checked out the observation lounge; light fare very similar to 1st day onboard. Took a nap. Washed some clothes in the sink. Then lost some money in the casino but met a guy who said he had won $14,000 playing keno. Watched a silly balloon tying class that people seemed to be enjoying. Tried to get in line for dinner around 5:45. I counted 60+ people in line at the Manhattan room. We went to Savor but they said the wait was 45 minutes. Then of course it would be 1.5 hours or so for supper, and we have things we want to do tonight. So we elected to go to the buffet again, even though we really prefer the dining room. The buffet isn’t bad, but we just aren’t big fans of buffets. This is one of the better ones we have had at sea, however. Went to the atrium and watched the Temperature Band. They are very good! Then watched the 55 To Stay Alive game show. And finally the Newlywed or Not So Newlywed show. This show is very popular on every ship I’ve ever been on and always hilarious. That’s why we went to the atrium so early and watched the earlier shows, so that we could have a good seat. The piano was partially blocking our view, but fortunately they show it on the big screen so you can see it wherever you are sitting. Finally, immediately after the Newlywed show, we went directly to the main theater for Six (reservations required). It was about 20 minutes before showtime and the theater was already quite full, but we were able to get good seats near the front but off to one side. The show was one hour 15 minutes. Excellent performances by the all female cast and band. No photos, sorry; they don’t allow any photos at this show. The show was over about 10:50 and we had to get up early tomorrow so we headed to our room and went to bed around 11:30 or so.

We got to the Social comedy club in time to get good seats. The comic Larry Omaha was good. Didn’t quite wow us as much as the first one, but we still had fun. The comedy shows seem to run a little over 30 minutes, 40 minutes tops. After the show we had another short spin in the casino but the luck we had earlier has run out. We called it a night pretty early for us. We are night owls but after a long, busy day of cruising we often go to bed earlier than we normally would at home. Tuesday Feb 28 Sea Day Slot pull with CC members at 10am. We had 20 people participate for a $20 buy-in. It was a lot of fun but our machine was a dud! We (as a group) blew through the $400 in less than half an hour. We really enjoyed doing this (our first time to do a slot pull) and appreciated our CC members who organized it. I was sorry that I forgot to take pictures. Lunch in Taste, took one hour for apps and entree. Skipped dessert. Asked for 2nd glass of wine which never came until we stood up to leave. Philly cheesesteak was excellent. Cobb salad Roasted tomato soup Philly cheesesteak Fish and chips

Back on board around 1:30pm. Showered then went to lunch. Buffet very busy for 2:30pm. Probably everyone else doing what we did, an excursion and then a late lunch. Our port time here was scheduled to be 7am – 5pm, but the last tender was at 4:00. So unless you were planning to swim back to the ship, our port time was effectively shortened by one hour. Had a lazy afternoon after that. Only one bar open – an announcement about local regulations only letting them have one while we are in port. Met some CC members who said the bar line was long. Sitting on our balcony watching the tenders. Last one was supposed to be at 4pm. A very full one pulled away from the dock at 3:50. Cutting it a little close in my opinion! Then began a series of announcements calling for certain guests to call Guest Services, seven in all, including 4 with the same surname. This was repeated several times. The number of guests being paged diminished, until finally only one name was left, a name that sounded foreign. A tender brought the shore crew and gear back. The announcement was then made several times in one or more foreign languages. Around 4:30 or 4:45, the thrusters came on and we rotated a little so I thought we were leaving, but then we stopped again. Finally started moving just before 5pm. I don’t know if the person ever made it on board. We have noticed that our shower is draining very slowly and threatens to overflow by the time I can finish showering. I went to Guest Services and asked for service. A plumber was in our room within 15 minutes. I was impressed by the fast service. Wish I could get that kind of service at home! We had a busy evening. The bars opened at 5pm and the casino shortly after, maybe 5:20. Since we had such a late lunch, we weren’t up for an early supper. So we played in the casino for awhile and both came out ahead. We like to sit at the casino bar and play video poker, and received very good service from the bartenders. We had a stunning sunset! Then we went to the 7pm show in the theater, a comedy magician named Rob Rasner. He was good, entertaining. The theater was very full. The show ended around 8. We had 9pm reservations for the comedy show so we didn’t have time for anything other than a quick dinner in the buffet. I had a burger. It was good. Didn’t really check out the other options since we were short on time. I've got to run to an appointment but I'll be back later today to continue our adventure.

Check out the stingrays! Our guide basically picked it up and put it into our arms. Paul even gave it a kiss!

Monday Feb 27 Woke up hearing our tender called at 0715. (Remember we had been told it would probably be around 9am) Got dressed and Paul had a quick breakfast. We got off around 8. Tendering took a little while waiting for the tender to fill up; I think we stepped on land at 0830. We were the only ship in port. A friendly islander told us where to find our excursion provider, Captain Marvin. They loaded us up early on a bus to our boat. It was a nice big pontoon boat, quite a few passengers; we got a seat up top under a shade awning and did not feel crowded. Went to a snorkel spot, then Stingray City, then the barrier reef for more snorkeling. A beautiful day, friendly staff and crew. The water was crystal clear. A couple from our CC roll call were on board with us. We had intended to head over to the meeting point with them but they had priority tendering so we just found each other on our pontoon boat. The water was as clear as a swimming pool!

I want to comment on housekeeping which has been a topic of conversation on CC lately. We most definitely noticed the cutbacks. Our steward was so nice and working hard all the time! We have absolutely no complaints about him. He was working hard all the time. But he has 25 rooms to take care of. With no helper. (Used to be a lead steward and an assistant I believe. No more.) We were not asked if we wanted morning or evening service, apparently this is a thing that they are asking some guests. Usually our room was not cleaned until at least 2 to 3pm. Since we had very early back on board times, this was annoying. Coming back from a snorkel tour, we wanted fresh towels so we could get cleaned up for the evening. Or sometimes he would be in our room when we returned from gym/pool/excursion and needed a shower. Again, not our steward’s fault – this is the fault of NCL policies. We did not even meet our steward until the second day, maybe the first time that has ever happened. I’m not sure if our sheets were ever changed or not during 15 days. Maybe? I even started making up our own bed because I felt so bad that our steward was so overworked. He got upset with me and told me to stop doing that! LOL Sometime each evening, the next day schedule would be placed on our bed. That was the total extent of evening service. No dishes or trash removed, no used towels replaced, bed never refreshed if we had napped during the day or whatever. Not a big deal. I mean, we don’t have someone making our bed for us twice a day at home! But it is nice to have used glasses or towels removed in a timely manner. Once I just pulled a clean towel off a cart in the hall so I could shower after the gym. I also wished we could have had daily service earlier in the day, prior to returning from excursions. But there is no way our steward could keep up with all this. Sheesh, I am exhausted after cleaning like two rooms in my own house – I don’t even know how the stewards are managing 25+ rooms – and forget twice daily service!

We saw the Nashville Tenors. Excellent show! Upbeat and fun. We made a point to see them again later. Went back to the casino for a little while before calling it a night. I'll be back tomorrow to continue our tale. Thanks for following along. 🙂

Food was good, roast beef just OK. Service a little faster than last night. Not that it was terrible then, but our waiter took awhile to bring wine. Sorry, my food photos tonight turned out poorly. The food looks better in person. 😅 I think this is the salmon tartare. Scotch beef barley soup Mediterranean grilled vegetables Thai spring rolls Carrot cake. Paul is trying to watch his sugar intake so he often chose the "no sugar added" options available at the restaurants and also in the buffet. They weren't bad! Chocolate mousse

Sunday Feb 26 Sea Day We slept late. Finally got up and went for a 40 minute brisk walk on deck 8. There is no way to circumnavigate the whole ship. You can go almost all the way around on deck 8 but not all the way, so we just did a few laps going back and forth. We discovered something we really dislike about this ship when we were exploring yesterday: there is no place forward to go outside and watch sail in/ sail away from a forward vantage point. There is apparently a Haven forward deck but nothing available to us in steerage. There is the indoor Observation Lounge which is a lovely space but if you want to go outside for photos from a forward vantage point, you are out of luck. Got tender tickets for tomorrow. They gave us tender #8. They said it would be approx 9am (give or take a little, no guarantees since they don’t know exactly when ship will be cleared). The next day we woke up and heard an announcement for boat #8 at 7:15! Lunch in the buffet was good. I tried the General Tso's chicken and it was good, also hot and sour soup. At 2pm we had a meet and greet in District Brewhouse. It was fun! We really enjoyed meeting everyone. Lots of people, but no crew came. That was really disappointing. During other M&G events we have always had someone from the ship stop by. On our last NCL cruise, almost the entire senior staff came and introduced themselves. The ship did reserve the space for us in the District Brewhouse and put out a “private event” sign, and made sure the bar was staffed. Thank you to our CC roll call member Henk who contacted NCL and got this done! Went to the casino for a little while before supper. Went to Savor around 6pm, roughly same time as last night, or maybe just a little later. Taste and Savor both had lines. We got a pager, they said it would be 30-45 min and it was. Probably 35 min wait. The bar in this area was very crowded. They said the pager would only work in that area so we just had to hang out and wait.

We went to the Beatles show in the theater. We arrived at 7:30 and got a good seat. Theater was quite full by the time show started at 8pm. The Beatles do multiple shows on this ship, highlighting different eras in the evolution of the Beatles. Tonight was their early years. Comedy show at 9 with comedian Flip Schultz.. We left Beatles still in progress at 8:45 to run over to comedy club, already filling up but we still got good seats, very funny show about 35 minutes. We ended up seeing four different comedians on the cruise and went to a total of I think six shows. Then we hit the casino for a little while, but not having any luck tonight so went up to our room and enjoyed a glass of wine on the balcony. Raymond in the wine bar gives a generous pour and is my new best friend. Here is that view I told you about looking down from our balcony. A nighttime shot. I wish this wasn't there LOL

We had already gone to dinner by sailaway, so we missed the scenic night views of Miami. It was probably a spectacular nighttime view of the skyline. Sorry we missed it. Dinner at Taste. We arrived about 6pm and were seated immediately, by 7pm we noticed a long line outside. Crispy crab and cream cheese wontons French onion soup Greek salad Baby spinach salad We almost always ordered two appetizers each, usually soup and a salad. You can also order an appetizer sized portion of a main course if you wish -- this works well if there is a pasta entree that you just want to sample. I once ordered an appetizer of the gnocchi that was offered as an entree. Sauteed shrimp scampi Chicken piccata Everything was excellent! Spoiler alert: we liked all the food on this ship. Everything from buffet to fine dining. All was good quality. Of course you are going to have nicer options at the specialty restaurants, but even the food at the included restaurants was generally very good.

Miscellaneous info: we had 3,919 passengers on board according to our cruise director. Of these, we had only about 60 children. I would guess that the average age on this cruise had to be at least 60+. I think this a function of the long itinerary (15 days) and the fact that it was during school time so families with kids would not be cruising now. Our bartenders told us they were bracing for the next cruise which would be only six days during spring break, and even had to undergo extra training to make sure they were prepared to deal with potential underage drinkers. Muster at 4:00, packed like sardines into the Brew house. They began the presentation at 4:15 finished about 4:25. I am so bummed that NCL had ditched the E muster process. That was the best thing that ever happened to cruising. Suitcase had arrived by the time we finished muster and we were able to unpack. There was a sailaway dance party at pool at 5pm but we didn’t actually sail until close to 7pm. Here is what turned out to be one of the most popular drinks on the ship. Dessert in a glass! I saw people drinking them all the time. The mudslide:

We noticed many international cruisers on this sailing. Here is the electric outlet situation with three US and one European plug. This was in the bathroom. I plugged a tiny night light into it, but the night light went out if we turned the overhead light off. Sorts of defeats the purpose. But I had a standby solution. We always travel with a couple of battery powered tea lights. I turn them on in the bathroom when we go to bed so if we need to make a midnight trip to the bathroom, we don't have to turn on the exceedingly bright bathroom light. There was one of these reading lights on each side of the bed. The USB port was a little awkward to access due to the padded headboard right beside it. But not a big deal. It was nice to have this right by the bed.

So I think when I left off, we had completed our blitz of a ship tour and were waiting for our cabin to be available. Finally at 3:15pm, we went to see if our room was ready, and it was. There was never an announcement that cabins were open (after two announcements telling us there would be an announcement). I asked other cruisers if we had just missed hearing it, and they said no, they never did announce the rooms open. Pretty sure this is the latest access to room we ever had. First impressions: the room is small. There are no drawers by the desk which I always find useful and missed having on this cruise. The bathroom is really nice and had plenty of shelves for our needs. The closet is awkwardly placed and hard to access just inches from the sofa. Maybe it is just me but the bed seemed shorter than standard. Both of us felt our feet hanging off the bed more than normal. I’m 5’8” and this is not normally an issue for me in a standard king bed. Not sure why it felt awkward. At any rate there were only a few inches between the end of the bed and the wall. Very little room to pass by. We did like that there was a full size sofa big enough for us to sit side by side with room to spare. This turns into a twin bed if needed, and there was also a bunk bed that could be pulled down from the ceiling if necessary. We were in balcony cabin 10770. I definitely liked that the shower had an actual glass door and not just a curtain, which we had on older ships and are a pain because they stick to you! Closet with safe. The side of the closet pictured on the left was awkward to access due to placement of the sofa. Balcony I did not like this feature pictured below. Instead of being able to look down into the water, we had a direct view into the roof of Food Republic and part of the balcony on deck 9 directly below. 😞 A couple of small cabinets Mini fridge with a couple of items for purchase. We did not use these items.

Yes we did. Cartagena.

As noted, for this cruise they asked for proof of vaccination OR a negative test result. You don't need both. And this was the only covid protocol of any kind that we ever saw. Too bad. I felt safer cruising a year ago with protocols in place. But I'm not here to start a debate about that. Just saying what our experience was on this cruise.

I believe NCL is requiring either proof of vaccine OR a negative test result.

Hi there! Yes, I did. Posted on another thread. Let me see if I can find it again.... Yep, here it is: Captain Robert Lundberg Chief Engineer Rolf Isaksson Staff Captain Robert Hammerin General Manager Zdravko Kojakovic Chief Executive Engineer Ivica Bresan Staff Chief Engineer Claudio Skalamera Assistant General Manager Marites Sonza Cruise Directo Paquito Fuchs Food and Beverage Manager Sreekanth Sundaram Senior Doctor Adrian La Rosa Chief Officer Heriela Castillo Chief Refrigeration Engineer Kjell Ake Erissson Chief Financial Accountant Windel Tormis Executive Housekeeper Jojo Orofino Guest Service Manager Manuel Japson Executive Chef Jacob Sarkar Beverage manager Haide Balon Restaurant Manager Ana Maria Malata Casino Manager Norman Punzala There were a few more like shops manager or whatever but I didn’t get them all.

So that was a lot of photos to get things started! Soon our cabin would be ready. I'll be back later to show it to you. Thanks for reading!

This was at embarkation in Miami to board the ship. We were never asked for any documents of any kind in any of our ports: not passports, vaccine cards, covid test results, nothing. All we ever had to do was show our NCL key card to get back on this ship.

Whew!! That was our whirlwind Day 1 tour of the ship while we waited for our cabin to be ready. During this time we also went to Social to make show reservations. The online reservations we had made several weeks ago were no good apparently. The lady said that if we had made them online pre-cruise they would not show up in her system. But we were able to re-schedule them and got everything we wanted. This is a helpful memo that we got at that time from the Social and kept to refer to numerous times during the cruise. It has all the musicians and comedians listed in one place so you can plan your shows for the entire cruise.

Here's Cagney's steak house And Los Lobos with the menu

Here is the Sugarcane mojito bar and menu