Panama Canal Sky Reviews

[sable1]

Hi Everyone,
We made it home by 1100AM. Sure was nice not to have to fly after a cruise.
WE didn't catch the cold, thank goodness. Took me so long to write because John laid a laminate floor in the kitchen and I was helping him. Also doing yard work to catch up.

Can't get used to not having the "chocolate fairy" place the mint on my pillow.
Speaking of chocolate, wasn't the Chocolate Buffet wonderful? Sorry I didn't get more of those yummy chocolate dipped macaroons when I had the chance. They were all gone when I went back.
Carol, i enjoyed reading your review. Wish I could write as well as you, I would add my 2 cents worth.
It was so nice to meet all our CC group and maybe I will see one of your familiar faces again. I met a couple that we had met in 2002 on an Amazon river cruise, so you never know. So much for my theory that I will try or do anything on a cruise because I'll never see these people again.
Happy cruising to all.
The chocoholic, Joanne & John

["workin4cruisin"]

Gardencat,

I just used the water out of the tap in our room or the water from the machine in the garden cafe. I was told that all the water on the boat is the same regardless of where you get it. I had no problems with it and never used the bottled water in our rooms. Why pay for something you do not have to. I always kept a bottle made up in the fridge so it was cold. I just added more to my ice as I needed it. Works great that way and the ice did not melt so fast.

Joanne and John - Glad to hear you are home safe and sound. You must have had a real great vacation if you have already put down a new floor. Oh to be so ambitious!! The chocolate buffet was just fantastic. It was so hard to believe that we ate it ALL!! Just imagine how much chocolate was in there! I enjoyed each and every mouthfull. I made sure I took a plate back to our room and kept it in the fridge for a snack later that night. That could explain why I gained all the weight I did. Glad to hear all of us arrived safe and sound.
Like you said someday we may meet on another cruise ship. Hopefully it will have 2 chocolate nights!! Talk to you again.

Anne

Norwegian Sky 04/04
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[carolmacey]

Hi everyone,
As I ate a delicious strawberry today, I remembered there was one thing that really bugged me about the food on the Sky. Most of the fruit was not quite ripe, i.e. melons and pineapple. We did finally get some better pineapples after Costa Rica I believe.

Also, the vegetables in the dining rooms were full of peppers, green, yellow and red. I really don't like peppers so I started a mission to get some other kind of vegetables. One night in Ciao Chow we had great brocoli and carrots perfectly cooked. Another night I asked for any other vegetable and got lovely broccoli again. The next night I asked and was told it would take too lone. I had specified we were in a hurry that night so I thanked him for making that call for me.

We are off to California for a wedding. I'll check back in next Tuesday.
Carol

Norwegian Sky Back-to-back
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[jgiants21]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by hn:
we were on the Sky from SF to Vancouver on May 12th - they were selling the soda cards on this cruise...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

hn, have you posted a review of your cruise yet. Would like to read how one of the last crews was for the Sky.

Carnival's Ecstasy (New Years 2002)
NCL's Pride of Aloha ( Inaugural- June 2004)

[gillianrose]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Also, the vegetables in the dining rooms were full of peppers, green, yellow and red. I really don't like peppers so I started a mission to get some other kind of vegetables. One night in Ciao Chow we had great brocoli and carrots perfectly cooked. Another night I asked for any other vegetable and got lovely broccoli again. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I absolutely hate the constant use of broccoli and carrots on menus. Give me those red and yellow peppers. Dueling veggies?

[donnabres]

Well, today I relived my trip. I transferred my camcorder movies I took to dvd's. I had bought a new camcorder that recorded on the mini dvd's for Christmas. None of my players would play the mini dvd-Ram's that I used. I am so electronically challenged!!!!!!!!!! Buy something, then nothing will play it.
Well,went and bought a new DVD recorder the other day. Today I hooked my camcorder into it and made dvd's. I did not take much at all of the ship. When viewing them today, I was very sorry that I didn't. I did get about an hour going thru the canal though. This was the period I was ill and didn't get as much as I wish I had.
We surely did visit some very lovely ports, it was truly a trip of a lifetime for me. I will never forget the ship, the ports, the food,( I wish that I could forget the weight I put on)the entertainment, the room stewards, the waiters and waitresses, the dropping of the dishes in the Seven Seas. Also our VIP treatment, which I think that we all appreciated so much because it was something that none of us ever, in our wildest imagination expected. Also, I'll never forget all the new friends that I made on this cruise. Thankyou all...............
Donna
p.s. this doesn't have spellcheck, so disregard any errors. [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

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Sky April 25, 2004 PANAMA CANAL

[mulvihill]

Well here it is at long last. Our review of our Panama canal cruise on the NCL Sky's last trip through. Please remember this in our account and our opinion. I rely so much on these boards to give me answers to my questions that I thought it only fair to return the favor with this review. Here goes.

Our flight from Detroit airport to San Juan was a direct one with no problems to report. We had one member that required a wheelchair to get to the end of the airport where our baggage was being unloaded. Because it requires airport personal to push their wheelchair we did not have to look about as to where we needed to go. He took us directly to the carousel where we waited for what seemed like eternity for our bags to all come off. We were four people - 1 man with 3 women! Poor guy. I must admit he did not grumble to much at all the carrying he had to do. Once we got all of our luggage we used a baggage porter to help us get to the NCL bus. There were a few NCL reps. about with signs showing us where to go. We climbed on the shuttle and were on our way within minutes. At the ships dockside we were again using a wheelchair for the elderly member we had with us. With the wheelchair comes some perks. You get to go to the first available person to get registered for your stateroom cards etc. We were then taken to our rooms. It took us about 2 hours from landing until we were on the boat. Because we had missed lunch we were all hungry and headed up to the garden cafe for our first snack!!
We were aware that the ship was going in to dry dock for some major refurbishing so we were wondering what kind of shape the ship would be in. There were some places that showed some wear but nothing major. We were very pleased with how everything looked. We had no complaints about things being clean enough.
This was our first NCL cruise and even all the advance notice about how small the cabins were, could not prepared us for their size. We always book an inside cabin as we spend no time in our room and would rather spend the money on other things. Wow they are small. We did survive as we spend very little time in it. It served the purpose! Thank hevans the suitcases fit under the bed. We would have had to stand in the hall to change otherwise!!
We had four pieces of luggage and three arrived by 11:30 p.m. We went serching for the last piece laughing all the way. I figured they were holding it hostage thinking we had packed liquor in it. Not to be. after serching the cabins on the ship for days it was finally found to still be at the airport in San Juan. I know we had it at the airport so how it got left there I do not know. As we were getting on the shuttle we noticed them put all the smaller pieces aside and load all the larger ones first. It must have been picked up by someone and returned when they discovered it was not theirs. NCL was great about this. I had all my new hats, all of our films, sun glasses etc. in that bag. They put a credit on our account so I could replace the things I needed until the bag could be found. It was returned to me in Accapulco. The fortunate thing was that it was the one bag I could manage without!
We met up with another couple that flew in from Toronto about 6:30 p.m. and our fun began. The Sky pulled out of port at 10.p.m. (after lifeboat drill at 9[img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_razz.gif[/img].m.)
We had made previous arrangements to meet with 12 other cruise critic members the next morning at 10:a.m. We had been talking with these members over the winter as we anxiously awaited our trip and we were looking forward to meeting all of our new friends. We had Carol arrange a meeting place thru NCL and we were all surprised that they supplied us with coffee, tea, juice and some pastries. We were even further surprised when the main brass were all there to welcome us aboard and let us know we had been put on the V.I.P. list. Never have I been on a V.I.P. list before and never will likely have it happen again so it was a nice treat! This was when 2 of our members enquired about the soda cards. Why we were given them free I have no idea but it was a nice perk. We are not big pop drinkers (I never did use mine) so it was no big loss to them. It was actually more special to meet all of the people I had been talking to for months. They were a great group from all over the U.S. and the 6 of us from Canada.
Free Style Dining.
This was great for us. We tend to eat early anyway so we seemed to beat the rush most nights. The most we waited to be seated was maybe 10 minutes. Most times we were seated immediately.
The meals were good. Nothing to rave about, but well cooked and served hot. We were very tired of all the peppers that accompanied every meal. I know that storage is a problem on a trip of this length and it was difficult to keep fresh veggies but peppers EVERY night. There was a different selection each night and there was always a chicken breast and a baked potato if you did not want to try what was the specials for the day. A few times we stuck with the chicken which was always good. They did have lobster one night and the ones that had it said they were small but tasty! On our last night they had a shrimp dish that a few of our group ordered that they are still raving about. Not a seafood fan myself so I ate steak!! Small serving but no limit if you wanted more. The last night the waitress automatically told them they would need two orders and did it for us. I thought this was rather thoughtful of her. Because there were 6 of us every night we were not asked if we wanted to share a table. I guess they were afraid we would scare someone else off!!
The dining staff was very much in training. The service was slow but they did try their best to keep up with everything. By the end of the 17 days you could see a noticeable improvement. They were trying their best and that is all a person could ask for. We got use to the sound of breaking dishes and it did happen less and less as we sailed on. It would often take us 2 hours to eat our supper which put us running to get to the shows. A few nights we got a more experienced waitress and we would be out in about an hour and a half. We had no where else to go we were on vacation so it really did not matter. We ate in the Seven Seas at the back of the boat for every supper except one. We much prefered it because of the view out the back of the boat.
We ate most of our breakfast in the garden cafe on the top of the boat. After a few days we discovered that you could have eggs done anyway you liked at the omlette bar thus no need to go to the dining room for breakfast just to get eggs over easy. Breakfast in the dining room often ran over one and a half hours!! There was also a waffle bar (up top)but as we did not care for these we can't say how they were.
For lunch there was always the pool side barbque. It made the best ribs. There were also hotdogs, sausage dogs and hamburgers with all the trimmings. If you did not want that there was the garden cafe, the sandwich bar or the pizza place. If you were hungry and you could find nothing to eat you are just to fussy! The ice cream bar was also open every afternoon. We did sample it a few times. [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]
We ate in two of the "specialty" dining rooms and the service was nothing but what you would expect in a fancy restaurant. Obviously the trainned staff worked in these and it showed. The food and service were excellent.
As I read through this part it definatley explains why I gain weight while we were away.
Entertainment -
The Jean Anne Ryan company I can not say enough good about. All three of the shows they put on would rival any competition. The last one would blow any of them out of the water. I hurt just watching that couple with all of their twists and turns. A++. We also enjoyed the music of the "Ironics" in the bar under the casino. They did do a show up on the top deck one night and that was great to see. The comedian Shawn Farquar (or how ever it was spelt) was a lot of fun to watch. A word of warning if you go up on stage hold on to your watch!! Can't remember the names of the first 2 comedians but they were quite funny and entertaining. There was a classical quitar player but not our thing so we could not judge. The NCL band was good and did a couple special night tributes to "Big Band" music etc. Worth watching and dancing to. The "Vibes" played around the pool area and a couple times at night. Good to listen to and a great sense of humor.
Pools and decks
We spent a couple hours each day by the pool. We had no trouble getting a chair or finding a spot in the hot tub. After a few days we did discover the "KIDS" pool at the front of deck 12. It was glorious. As there were only 7 kids on the entire ship, and it was the only one with fresh water - it soon became our spot to bake and play. The hot tub was also there to sit and watch where we were going. Our favorite spot to go once we found it. There were also people from the pool bar coming around to get your drink orders or bring pop etc. No pushing like on our previous Carnival cruises. If you said no they did not bother you until you stopped them when you were ready. There were always lots of towels available along with chairs and tables for your drinks.
Internet Use.
A sore spot for me. It is expensive to the point of being unbelievable. It cost me $22.00 to send my daughter an e-mail and I am not that bad a typist. It is .75 a minute but...there is a first time user charge of $3.95 and another 3.95 charge for your first e-mail. Absolutely crazy. There are a lot of internet cafe's at every stop. The one in Accapulco charges $4.00 for one hour!! As I had told my family I would stay in touch I had to send one e-mail. After that I phoned from the different ports for cheaper than I could send an e-mail. Something wrong with that!!
Laundry Service
We had a bag delivered to our room twice in the 17 days. All you could fit in it for $20.00. They do use hot water and hot dryers so if you have something delicate I would not send it without instructions as to how to do it. One member of our party has a much smaller pair of capri pants after one wash from them. It was the only casualty.
Kids program we can not comment on as there were only 7 kids on the boat and none of them were ours!!
That is enough for this sitting. If you are not tired of reading I am tired of typing and correcting myself. I will post a review on our ports of call on Wednesday or Thursday.I am willing to answer any question you may have if I have forgotten anything you need to know. Bye for now.

Anne

[img]http://images.animfactory.com/animations/creatures/stars/star_tip_hat_md_wht.gif[/img] NCL Sky - Panama here we come!!
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[livermorenancy]

Thanks so much Anne- great review! We are on the June 20th 12 day Pride of Aloha and everything was very helpful. Do you remeber if they had the photo package still for $149. They had it on the Crown but did not tell us until the 4th day nito the cruise. I had a feeling they'd do it so I waited to buy my photos until the package came out. I hope they do $20 bag of laundry on our cruise too. Does anyone know if this is the norm? On our 14 Crown trip they never offered it but the poor Crown had a ton of mechanical problems that trip and being so small may not have had the facilities to handle it all. Went into San Fran on Sat. morning and took lots of pix of the Sky in drydock. Now I'm really getting excited! Thanjs again! Nancy [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

[alohacrewmom]

I'm told that they will offer the laundry special but you know how sometimes things change. Not just on NCL either.

We hope you'll post some of your pictures.

[livermorenancy]

Pix are on roll call site- The june 20th Pride of Aloha site. You have to go back to page 20 and for some reason the second link on the page won't open in Internet Explorer, only opens for those using Netscape. I'll work on it. Nancy

["workin4cruisin"]

Nancy,
They did offer a photo packeage on the "Sky " but I can not remember how much they charged for it. We were not planning on buying pictures so I was aware that there was something offered but did notice how much it was.

Norwegian Sky 04/04
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[donnabres]

Anne,

Couldn't have said it better myself. I am not a very good writer, so have not even started a review. I will add that in our room, even though very small there was plenty of storage for myself and my sister. We had an superior inside cabin. We did not pack lite either. We each had 3 suitcases. We were able to store everything in the closet. The cases did fit under the bed. I was a little worried about that.
It was truly a trip of a lifetime. Can't believe that tomorrow will be a month ago that we left.
Hope you recd the pictures I sent.
Donna

[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=4169e1&cdt=2004;04;25;22;00;00&timezone=GMT-0500[/img]
Sky April 25, 2004 PANAMA CANAL

[carolmacey]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by "workin4cruisin":
Nancy,
They did offer a photo packeage on the "Sky " but I can not remember how much they charged for it. We were not planning on buying pictures so I was aware that there was something offered but did notice how much it was.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The photo package on our 17 day cruise was $199 for up to 30 photos. If you are interested, be sure to have every photo taken at every opportunity. That will allow you some choices.

Norwegian Sky Back-to-back
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[janlen3835]

Hi Fellow CC'S

Well we finally got our last piece of luggage returned to us. It arrived 5/24/04, 12 days post debarkation.The luggage had quite an odyssey travelling from San Fransisco to Miami, FL back to Watsonville, CA to Wilmington,OH and finally to Wareham, Ma.

Atleast it arrived in one piece with all its contents intact as the day we packed it.

Len & Ja

[mulvihill]

Hi Len & Jan,

It only took my bag 10 days to get to me in Accapulco. Yours obviously needed more vactation time than mine did. [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_confused.gif[/img] Glad to hear it has arrived safe and sound and all in tact just as ours did. All is fine here. Enjoying watching the pictures as they are posted of the changes to the Star & Sky. I like the paint job on the Star. Sure the Sky will be as impressive when she is done.
All are well here, hope all the same there.
Your cruising buddies [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

Anne & Brian.

[img]http://images.animfactory.com/animations/creatures/stars/star_tip_hat_md_wht.gif[/img] NCL Sky - Panama here we come!!
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[donnabres]

Hi, Jan and Len,

Glad you got your luggage, now Len has clothes and doesn't have to go naked. I made copies of my videos on DVD's for you. they are not professional by any stretch of the imagination, but not too bad.
to all the rest of you guys, hope all is well. Kathy's son gets married on Sat. and I am in the process of baking his cake. Tomorrow I decorate it. Say prayers for me. I always go crazy when I do a wedding cake.

Donna

[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=4169e1&cdt=2004;04;25;22;00;00&timezone=GMT-0500[/img]
Sky April 25, 2004 PANAMA CANAL

[mulvihill]

Hi Donna,

I sent you an e-mail but this one got sent back because your server was down??? I wonder what they do sometimes. Anyway I wish you luck with your cake. You are definately a very talented lady. I made my daughters wedding dress but decorate a wedding cake ....no way!!! [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

Anne

[img]http://images.animfactory.com/animations/creatures/stars/star_tip_hat_md_wht.gif[/img] NCL Sky - Panama here we come!!
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[donnabres]

Where was the wait person to do the crumbing last night? After baking all the cakes, and cooling on the table on the wire racks, you couldn't believe how many crumbs I had to clean. Oh, I wish I had brought one home.

[img]http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/countdown.cgi?trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00&prgb=4169e1&cdt=2004;04;25;22;00;00&timezone=GMT-0500[/img]
Sky April 25, 2004 PANAMA CANAL

[carolmacey]

Did you ever have the waitress with the flat shell she used to de-crumb. It was very unique.

Hope all goes well with the cake. Remember to enjoy yourself!
Carol

Norwegian Sky Back-to-back
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[livermorenancy]

Thanks for all your help and reviews. I feel we will have a great time!

[janlen3835]

Hi Donna

We miss the great desserts we enjoyed daily on the Sky. Save us a small piece of cake.

Have a great time at the wedding.

Jan & Len

[donnabres]

I miss the deserts too,until today when I am trying on clothes for the wedding!!!!!!!!!!11
Got on the scale finally, and up 6 lbs. That's after being careful, well, almost for last 2 weeks. Can you imagine if I wasn't sick for the 6 days?
Kathy is talking about getting together maybe in a couple of weeks. She'll have pictures of the wedding I'm sure, and will give you your DVD's of our trip.
Hope all is well with your granddaughter.
Love, Donna (auntie Deb too) she will be my date tonight!!!!

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Sky April 25, 2004 PANAMA CANAL

[donnabres]

Livermorenancy,
You will love the trip. Great ports of call, and the canal was really something. I took videos of it, and have relived it several times as I made dvd copies for my travel companions. I would love to go back someday.

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Sky April 25, 2004 PANAMA CANAL

[kdg51]

Hi Everyone
I am home and the kids are married so I can relax and finally say Hello to everyone on the message board. I sent out a few pictures of the wedding...none came back so hopefully everyone was able to see them. Joanne...I lost your email address while I was cleaning off my desk..Ooops...Email me if you can and I will be able to save your info and send you some mail and pictures of the chocolate buffet. Guess you could say we really managed to be the first to enjoy all that chocolate!
The wedding was really nice,the bride was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Donna made the cake and it was just beatiful...and everyone is still commenting on how good it tasted. From what I've heard it did not have quite enough frosting for Deb so Donna used her emergency frosting kit to sweeten the guests at her table. Donna was so excited when she called me Saturday afternoon to let me know that there were no mishaps with the cake delivery.
It's been a long weekend and I need to work in the AM so I will be back ASAP to tell everyone what a wonderful time we had on the Sky. I am also looking forward to hearing about the 1st cruise to Hawaii. Phil and I are not quite sure where we will go next time...but it will most likely be on NCL probably next spring... after tax season to make 3 years in a row. After that it will become a tradition? Keep in touch and let us know if anyone else has made any plans for next year??? Kathy

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NCL Sky 4/04
NCL Majesty 4/03
NCL Majesty 12/02

[mulvihill]

Hi Kathy,
Glad to hear everything went well with the wedding. They are so much work. Donna sent me a picture of the cake (Just beautiful) and of the happy couple. How proud you must be.
Now you have time to sit and remember how much fun we all had on the "Sky". Brian and I have booked a five night trip to Vegas in late October but nothing definate on another cruise for next year yet. After seeing the cost of going to Hawaii I think it will be back in the sunny south!!! We do want to do the Canal again. It will be nice to see the changes. I have never enjoyed a trip more. We will likely do it again in about 3 years. Maybe we can all do it again then???? I am anxious to see the pictures of the "Sky" when it is done. I refuse to call it POA until then!!! I sure like the paint job on the Star.
Glad to hear all is well. I keep watching for all of our names as we answer different e-mails. I will be glad when the "find" feature is fixed.
Talk to everyone again.

Yours in cruising

Anne and Brian

[img]http://images.animfactory.com/animations/creatures/stars/star_tip_hat_md_wht.gif[/img] NCL Sky - Panama here we come!!
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