Dorhead1230

Yes, we got that too and we knew about that part. It was more that we didn’t know the deadline for when we would have to LEAVE the ship. The Daily said Garden Cafè breakfast until 11, and there were even activities listed in the Daily for like 11-11:30, so we didn’t know what time we’d have to be ready to leave by. We had already planned on going to Miami to kill time until the ship was cleared, but we just wish it had said everyone off by 10:30 or whatever so we would have known when the leave now now NOW announcement would have come lol.

I know they say that CruiseCritic is one of the websites that you can post to without using paid minutes, but I was not able to get anything to load beyond the main page when I tried earlier in the cruise. Maybe if I had waited a reallllly long time it would have loaded, but I couldn’t get it to work in a reasonable amount of time. I didn’t post anything earlier today because even the paid internet was taking forever to load and I kept having to log out to do other things. I finally got it to load now but my minutes are almost up, so I’ll have to log out and start using LM’s to keep posting. I’ll have to look at the Dailies from earlier in the week to see about the prime rib in O’Sheehan’s and/or Garden Cafè. I didn’t see it on the MDR menu, but there were 3 nights so far we didn’t eat there.

It is very late, but I figured I’d post a Cagney’s review while I’m sitting here watching DH play in the casino because I lost my allotment for the night pretty quickly tonight 🙄, but he’s doing a little better tonight. Cagney’s was okay overall. The service was definitely a highlight—everyone was very attentive and efficient. The food had some hits and misses. We were able to order an extra full meal because LM was entitled to a regular SD meal. He doesn’t eat anything on that menu, so we ordered for him off the kids’ menu and ordered one extra item from each course for ourselves. DH and DM had shrimp cocktail, which were fresh and fine. DH also tried the tuna tartare (our extra app from LM’s meal), which he liked. I decided to try the oysters Rockefeller for something different, and they were not good. I don’t know if it’s just maybe me and oysters that have an issue, but I thought they tasted fishy and gross so I didn’t finish them. Then DH had a Caesar salad, which was good, and DM and I had lobster bisque. The soup was, frankly, disgusting. I never say that about almost any food—usually my worst comment will be meh it’s ok, but that soup was completely inedible. It was watery and strongly, unpleasantly fishy. Not like lobster stock taste, just gross fish stink. We sent the bowls back pretty much full. I also got a wedge salad because of the extra from LM’s meal and that was fortunately very tasty. The entrees and sides were much better. I have always thought Cagney’s filets are delicious, and this was no exception. DH had the ribeye and liked his too. Both of our steaks were cooked perfectly. DM had the fisherman’s platter and DH and I also ordered a fisherman’s platter with LM’s meal. Those were pretty good. The scallops and crab cake were comically small (quoting DH: “You can have the whole crab cake because you can probably shove it in your mouth in one bite.” 😂). DM did not like the branzino, but I think that may have been a matter of personal taste (I didn’t taste the one on the extra entree). The sides were all fine. We didn’t order extra sides with LM’s meal. DH had broccoli (very plain), and the mushrooms, which I had too. The mushrooms were good. I also got a baked potato, which is nice because they bring over the toppings and top it tableside for you. DM had the infamous 3 slices of zucchini, which she really liked, and the potatoes au gratin which she said were ok. Dessert was a highlight for me because the chocolate layer cake at Cagney’s is my other favorite NCL dessert. LM took on his own dessert and had the cake as well, as did DH. DM ordered the apple pie, which she didn’t seem enthusiastic about, but she said was good enough to eat at least. All in all, the staff there made it a very pleasant dining experience and we ate several very good items, but I would never order the oysters or the lobster bisque again. Oysters Rockefeller…just nope. lobster bisque…triple nope. cake was slightly started and ice cream was removed because LM decided we don’t like vanilla today 🤦🏻‍♀️

You will have a good time! Glitches aside, we’re still talking about what cruise to do next, so it can’t be that bad lol.

@mking8288 they put a letter with the Daily the other day explaining about the immigration check. I commented to DH and DM that it’s almost guaranteed that 1/2 the ship probably didn’t read it. I read every word and was still confused, and I read for a living 😂. I said to DH and DM this morning that I think they needed to go over the PA and explain it to the whole ship as though we were all toddlers! DH said it probably would have been useful if the letter flat-out stated everyone needs to get off by 10 or 10:30 or whatever; just set a hard deadline for getting off so everyone would know. I think that would have helped! Maybe they’ll change the settings in the casino on the way back now 😜…hope springs eternal! At any rate, it’s a beautiful night onboard and I’ll be eating steak soon!

The Captain announced that everyone made it back on, but I’m assuming that must have still been pretty stressful for the latecomers…gotta watch that clock when you’re ashore! Farewell, Miami!

Heading away from the terminal now at 6:30 PM—not sure if everyone made it back onboard, though. I was heading to DM’s cabin and I heard a list of people they were looking for, maybe 10 or so? We went on her balcony to look for runners because the starboard side was against the pier. At least some of the people must have made it but more towards the aft because we couldn’t see them but heard some clapping and cheering. Hopefully no one is on their way to the airport right now!

Going backwards a bit again… Since the GSC stop was extended to 6 PM yesterday, we didn’t rush off the ship. We knew LM wouldn’t last too many hours out there. We didn’t feel like lugging our phones, so I have no pictures besides a few of the whole island that I took from the ship as we were pulling out. We walked right onto a tender when the time came to head over, and I’m such a dork because I was so impressed by how nice the new tenders are. It has been years since we went to GSC, and I remember the old tenders being like glorified rafts with engines lol. The weather was beautiful, the island is beautiful, and it’s just such a nice, relaxing time. It’s the perfect Bahamian beach day without having to worry about anything because it’s all so clean, nicely-maintained, and you can still get all your food and drinks just like you’re on the ship. We also made it right onto a tender to come back, but as @Treasure Hunter mentioned, you may wait just a little while as they keep filing more people on to run the tender back full. We figured a lot of people spent more hours there than we did so a lot of the kids might be pooped, so we took LM to the kids’ splash area. It’s very cute and the “pool” part of it is nice and shallow, with a couple of very small slides they can go down. I was wondering if they don’t turn on all the squirting features at times they anticipate it being less busy, because I know there are way more spots that squirt water than what was on yesterday. But he still had such a good time and there were not more than maybe 1/2 dozen kids there total. We went to Taste for dinner and again did not wait. We haven’t been doing any shows, so I don’t know what that’s been like as far as lines and all, but we haven’t had issues as far as lines and waiting. Maybe we just do things at odd times 🤷🏻‍♀️. Last night, the service was totally on-point. Bread and butter came right away without us asking, drinks were delivered quickly, and it didn’t feel like a long wait for any of the food. Everything we ordered was good, too. I decided to get LM the fettuccine Alfredo without the mushrooms or shrimp, just so he could get something other than the kids’ menu items for once. It came out just as ordered and he liked it (although the little kiss-up told me I make it better lmao). Stuffed mushrooms (good, but a little too much of an herb I couldn’t put my finger on) French onion soup (DH says it used to be better but it’s still ok) Caesar saladShort rib ragu over pappardelle (very tasty; had a weird garnish of a quarter shallot—the shallot wasn’t weird, but the fact that it wasn’t peeled was) fettucine Alfredo LM’s very fancy brownie dessert 😊 flourless chocolate cake (I asked for the chocolate ice cream with it in case I didn’t like it, but it was pretty good!) Not pictured is DM’s corn and chili bisque, fried chicken entree, and the Black Forest cake she and DH had for dessert. All of that was pretty good, too. It was pretty late by the time I got LM to bed, so we went to the casino only for a little while (wasn’t very busy at all last night, as I think a lot of people got a bit too much sun). Again, we lost and again, I didn’t see anyone winning anything significant. I have been really pacing myself so I can enjoy a little time in there each night since it has been so tight and we have two sea days coming up now.

Ok glad it wasn’t just us! We completely understood we had to get off, but it seemed like we would have time, or that if you weren’t in a rush to go anywhere you could hang back a bit longer. Then all of a sudden it was everyone off the ship NOW! Lol. We have our Cagney’s reservation tonight.

Well, we were thoroughly confused by the procedure for the immigration check this morning, even though we read the letter. We didn’t realize exactly what time everyone would need to get off the ship, so we weren’t hustling enough. By the time we would have gone to eat breakfast, they were announcing that everyone had to get off now. I felt pretty dumb that we didn’t know how it would work, but then I realized maybe they didn’t communicate the whole process entirely clearly—a lady by the elevators who said she’d been to Miami on cruises several times before didn’t realize she had to get off even if she didn’t intend to go into Miami, and one of the cruise director staff was still doing trivia with some people in the Atrium as we were being directed off (we heard her suddenly tell them they needed to leave now as we were leaving lol). So, all we did when we got off was Uber over to Bayside Marketplace so we could eat. We ended up going to Margaritaville, which is obviously touristy, but we really weren’t going to start wandering all over. And LM is very tired today—he didn’t nap yesterday because we were at GSC in the afternoon, and between the sand, sun, and water there and the fact that he ended up staying up pretty late he’s just wiped out. The food was decent there and the server was super nice and efficient. Then, we just wandered around Bayside for a while, LM picked a new pair of crocs, and we Ubered back to the ship because this kid needs to sleep. Miami is beautiful though, and I am thinking of checking out some cruises that leave out of here so we could add on a couple days here and really check it out. Food from Margaritaville:

I can’t even imagine what Disney must have been like. I am glad you survived! 😳 SeaWorld was busy for a Tuesday, I think, but totally navigable and we did get a decent amount of stuff in. But LM is 4 and didn’t know where he was or that Disney was an option, so he was just like yayyyyy SeaWorld 😂.

Photos of days 5 and 6 Dailies: Day 5- Day 6-

I think I am at a little under 50 of my wi-fi minutes remaining, but haven’t dipped into LM’s yet, so I’ll probably try to post more the next couple days after we leave Miami later to burn through those minutes. It has been taking a long time each time I post just to get the thread to load back up, but then once I have it, uploading the photos and actually posting works fine. We were just discussing what we plan to do today in Miami. We don’t want to schlep too far off the beaten path with a 4-year-old considering the fact that we couldn’t do too much advance planning and research. There’s a children’s museum close enough that I can see it from our aft view right now, so we’re thinking of just Ubering over there. We got the great view from the aft this time. LM called me from DM’s room when he woke up and told me he could see cars and trucks and vans and my mom said all she can see is the industrial port stuff. Then I stepped outside and saw that our view is this…guess the aft wins this time lol. 69885346245__6B8360A2-18CD-4E96-B072-72E470D633A4.MOV Good morning, Miami! Based on what I saw on Google, that brightly-colored building is the children’s museum.

I am very behind posting because this was a long and busy day, so I am going to back up to last night because this morning I only commented on the itinerary change. We ended up going to Savor on the later side by the time we got back on the ship (after dropping off our rental car, we got back in our Uber at 5:35 and stepped back onto the ship at 5:45) and got cleaned up. It was just DH, LM, and me because DM was exhausted. Everything was fine. There are still little glitches that are obviously just the result of the short staffing—being given bread without butter, having to ask 2 or 3 times for a lemonade for LM, things like that—but overall it was fine. Our waiter was so nice, and at the end of dinner when LM asked him for a chocolate chip cookie, the waiter brought him 4 lol! I actually really enjoyed the pork belly with mashed sweet potatoes and slaw (menu said pineapple slaw but I didn’t taste any pineapple). That dish was right up there with an entree from most decent land restaurants, in my opinion. DH was underwhelmed by the red snapper entree, and to be honest it did look a little meh. LM was not a fan of the kid’s mac and cheese. I tasted one piece when it came to make sure it wasn’t too hot, and it was so-so, not really creamy and not too flavorful, but I guess they kind of try to keep it bland for kids? Anyway, not LM-approved. Always skeptical of NCL’s desserts, I didn’t try the cannoli, but DH said those were really pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised by the carrot cake. Pork potsticker appetizer (was good but not the wrapper I think of for potstickers; this was more of a wonton wrapper). jalapeño cornbread snapper entree pork belly entree kids’ Mac and cheese cannoli carrot cake After I got LM to bed, I went to check out the late show of the comedian Mike Gaffney in Headliners. It was full already, but I just stood in the back (figured it’d be easier to leave if I didn’t like the show anyway 😅). It was okay. He did get a few real laughs out of me; some of it was just eyeroll-inducing. Some people seemed to be in stitches through the whole thing, though (alcohol-enhanced laughter, maybe?). But comedians, like food, are definitely totally subjective and if he’s still on the ship in the coming weeks, I guess it’s worth checking him out.

Greetings from the ocean adjacent to GSC! (We’re still on the ship so I can’t greet you from beautiful GSC yet.) I am so excited we actually made it here. We are not rushing to get off the ship because when the Captain made the announcement last night about swapping Miami in for Bermuda, he also said we are going to stay at GSC until 6 PM today instead of 2:30! Miami’s port stop tomorrow will also be a decent length—7:00 AM until 6:00 PM. I do believe this worked out for the best. The weather forecast down here is incredible for the next few days and I think that because we’re not departing Miami until tomorrow evening we’ll also catch pretty nice weather still on Friday hopefully, rather than battling wind and big waves to try to get in and out of Bermuda. Just gives us an excuse to take an actual Bermuda cruise, anyway 😉. Also, just a quick casino report for anyone interested in that. For us, it continues to be tight. And I’m not sure it’s just for us. We’re spending way less time in there than we normally would, but neither of us has seen a hand-pay yet. And DH does sometimes spend time playing in the higher-limit area, and he still hasn’t seen anyone getting paid out. I’ve been managing to stay alive going up and down, up and down, but no really good pays. The best I was doing was last night on a Wonder 4 with the wheel when I kept getting bonuses on Pelican Pete that would pay maybe $100-$150. I was betting anywhere from $4-$6 a spin on it and the best bonus was a little under $300. But I’m no quitter so I’ll probably squeeze in a little time again tonight!

Quick photos of today’s Daily before we set sail (apologies for the shadows!).

Not gonna lie…Bermuda is my favorite place on earth and I’m still not disappointed. Six hours (five?) or whatever it was is not enough there, and I’d rather stay down south here where the weather is going to be gorgeous than have high winds and rough seas and meh weather in Bermuda.

We are heading back from SeaWorld now. I have not been there since I was a little girl. It’s a great park! We definitely would have needed the full 8 hours from park open to park close to even come close to doing most of what’s there. I think even then you couldn’t take in all the animals plus all the rides. It worked out okay for us only having about 5 hours there because we were lugging around a napless LM, who is out cold in the backseat right now and was asleep before we got out of the parking lot. He got to see dolphins, stingrays, manatees, walruses, belugas, sharks, gators, etc. He also did a few of the rides in the Sesame Street area, played for a few minutes on the little playground in Sesame Street land, and saw the end of this little Oscar the Grouch show they do in the street there. Also, we made sure we saw the noon orca show, because the other one is right before the park closes and we knew we wouldn’t be there for it. LM was completely awestruck by the orcas and how smart and agile they are. I was, too! The park appeared clean and well-maintained. I would definitely go back when we have more time to spend there. I would not recommend ever planning to do it if you’re on a day port stop when it’s possible that you could be delayed arriving or getting off the ship. Even with us being here already this morning and getting off the ship early, it was a time crunch. I just don’t see how it would be enjoyable with even less time, but that’s just my two cents. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Some animal photos: A few other random park photos, including their new roller coaster that’s still under construction (don’t know why I can’t get it to upload right side up but you get the idea lol): Having trouble uploading any orca videos right now but I’ll try again later. When I bought the tickets, SeaWorld was doing a deal for a meal included with each ticket. They could be redeemed at any of the places that accept SeaWorld’s all day dining deal. We first walked into Waterway Grill and it was bedlam. No joke, a girl walking out with her food looked at us and said “Don’t do it. Don’t’ wait.” Lol. It clearly was about an hour line so left and kept walking. We ended up at Lakeside Grill and waited only maybe 15 minutes or so in line. We all agreed it was pretty decent food for theme park stuff. But boy oh boy is theme park food expensive. Good thing we had that deal because it saved us about $70. LM had a cheeseburger and waffle fries, DM and I got Greek salads with chicken kebabs, and DH got a platter with rice, vegetables, and chicken kebabs. We also got a Mediterranean nachos, which was pita chips with hummus, feta, Kalamata olives, and cucumbers, and DH and LM shared a slice of chocolate cake. It was all surprisingly good considering we were at a theme park. We especially liked the “nachos”—the chips were nice and crispy and the hummus was tasty. I only took a picture of mine, but it gives a decent idea since almost everything we got had the chicken kebobs. The only complaint was that the chicken was a little dry, but I think that’s to be expected when they’re making mass quantities like that.

Good morning from sunny Florida! Had a nice breakfast at Savor today. Did take a while for the food to come, and I’m sure the buffet would have been a little faster, but the little bit of extra time was worth it to avoid the gladiatorial battle 😛. A few breakfast photos: On the road to SeaWorld now. Will get there within 15 minutes of the park opening. It was definitely worth it to get the rental car as we have made good use of it and are having a nice, comfortable ride. Also, the exit gate to the parking at the port was in the up position today, so parking ended up being free 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Well, nothing much ship-related to convey for the rest of today. When we were cleared to get off around 4, DH and I thought the lines to disembark would be terrible, but we walked right off the ship. I don’t know if a lot of people maybe just didn’t bother getting off because the late arrival ruined the day’s plans for them? Despite the fact that it seemed that maybe a lot of people did not get off, the ground level outside the terminal was pretty chaotic. Every time a shuttle for one of the car rental places showed up, it was swarmed with people. I said screw it we’ll just pay for an Uber, but I had to try repeatedly for about 20 minutes to actually get one because they must have been so busy. We made it to Avis, got our vehicle (ended up giving us a minivan instead of the full-size sedan we booked but no worries), and headed back to the ship to get LM from DM. We didn’t want to take him for the car pickup because we were unsure how we were getting there. We spent a fabulous evening at our friends’ house in Viera. We are now returning to the ship around 11 PM. I am a little concerned because earlier when we checked out the parking lot, the machines to collect a ticket from were not working, but one of the gates was just in the up position so we came in and parked. Hopefully we won’t have a problem pulling out in the morning, but there are many other cars parked here, so I guess they all drove through, too. Planning to pretty much head right to bed when we get back on right now so we can get up bright and early for SeaWorld. But first, 30 seconds of zen recorded earlier today. IMG_2770.MOV

I apologize because I feel like this is all disjointed today, but the late arrival threw me a bit and the ship’s wi-fi was very slow this morning. It also took basically until we fully docked to get a good enough Verizon signal to start posting again. I scanned the first 3 days’ dailies and am going to attempt to attach the PDFs here. If you can’t open them, let me know because I have photos I can post instead!Getaway 8-day Day 1.pdf Getaway 8-day Day 2.pdf Getaway 8-day Day 3.pdf

You called it on the lateness to PC. So glad this happened on an overnight stop and we didn’t miss most of the port. The navigation channel is still showing our route going to Bermuda. Which I find shocking lol. I’m still waiting for the cancellation but I haven’t taken the time to check the forecast since I got Verizon service back.

Thanks for the compliment on the review 😊. I am not sure what is on the Local’s menu because I haven’t been on a ship with it, but in principle I think it is pretty much the same idea. Maybe someone on this thread with more experience with the Local can comment a little further!

A photo of LM’s penguin and my fruit salad from breakfast at Taste today. MDR breakfast is so much calmer and more pleasant than the zoo at the buffet. When we make it in time we greatly prefer it! I didn’t take any other pictures because we were really thrown for a loop when the Captain announced that we had faced headwinds and unfavorable currents on the way down and we’re arriving hours late to Port Canaveral. We had read so many bad reviews of the Budget rental car here that we went with Enterprise. They, however, close at 4 PM and are not open on Tuesdays. So I had to scramble during breakfast right after our food arrived to make a new rental car reservation and ended up going with Avis. It’s 3:59 now and we’re still waiting for the announcement to be able to get off the ship and go grab our car so we can go visit our friends. All shore excursions except the shuttle to Cocoa Beach were cancelled today due to the late arrival.

We just had a good lunch there today. The chicken wings are pretty bad now, though. We had gotten them when we went late-night the other night and they really are soggy. I just baked chicken wings at home a week or two ago and they came out great, but they need to be cooked for about 40 minutes at I think it was 425. And then I sauced them and baked them some more. I gave up on them at O’Sheehan’s after the other night. There are way better things to have there. Plus, the Buffalo sauce is weird. It just tastes like cayenne and nothing else—there’s no vinegar bite to it or anything but pepper. Anyway there’s my 2 cents in the baked chicken wing saga lol. We did have to wait before we were seated today, but we were able to go play some arcade games near O’Sheehan’s with LM, then we went to get drinks from the bar, and then the pager went off. It was maybe 1/2 hour? Getting drinks from the bar was interesting…they have no cider, I presume no mango mix because my mango meltdown request was rejected, and I think no strawberry daiquiri mix because no Miami Vice. Piña coladas it was, then! I feel pretty bad for the crew with the amount of stuff that obviously didn’t get to the ship in NY. I’m sure some people must be busting their chops when they keep getting told no and the crew members seem a little uncomfortable when they have to keep saying no. At breakfast this morning, no chocolate milk (it was the chocolate, not the milk, that they don’t have) and no bananas. Our waiters told us they are hoping to take on a lot of these missing items in Florida, but it still puts them in a bad position to keep saying no so that sucks. We had nachos, pretzel bites, fish sandwiches and a chicken salad sandwich. LM had a hot dog. Everything came out pretty quickly and correct (LM’s hot dog was completely plain as requested) and it was fine. The fish in the sandwiches was nice and crispy. DH said the chicken salad was meh because he said other than onion overpowering it, it was pretty bland. But he stuck some potato chips in the sandwich and soldiered on lol.