Bliss 1/12/19 - 1/19/19 Review (ft. MDR menus, The Baths, & Atlantis)

[alyssazoll]

Finishing up my review today because I had an adult snow day! Yay! Except for the fact we're getting 5-8 inches of snow today, with windchills of -20 coming later this week. 

 

Saturday - Disembarkation & Fort Lauderdale: 

Back to Miami.

 

We had an arranged pick up with JiffyJeff from the port to our post cruise hotel in Fort Lauderdale, so we were doing self walk off that began at 7:45am. On our last cruise, we booked the NCL shuttle to the airport and we were the last group off the ship, so it didn't seem chaotic at all. This time was much different. My brother and sister traveling with my mom did not have passports, which meant they had to use the forward exit off the ship. The rest of our group did have passports, and were told to use the aft exit. Since we needed to exit together for our transfer, we asked which exit we could all go through, especially because my sister and brother are 17 and 14. They told us to use the aft exit. The line for the aft exit was basically at the forward of the ship. While in line, a staff member saw my sister and brother's immigration stickers and said they couldn't be in this line, and needed to use the other exit. My group stayed in the passport line and agreed to just meet them outside. They went back to the other line, where they were told no, everyone should go back through the US passport line. They were super frustrated, and for good reason. I am sure that this is a common scenario and it shouldn't have taken three different times to get it right. 

 

For us passport holders, the process was really quick. They were using the facial recognition tool which was interesting. No filling out a declaration form, no agent reviewing it or asking you questions. We were off the ship by 8:10am, and my mom met us at 8:30 with her group. 

 

Our JiffyJeff pick up was easy. It was $200 from the port to our 2 different Fort Lauderdale hotels. We also picked up another couple from a different ship and dropped them off at the airport. We were staying at the B Ocean Resort in Fort Lauderdale. We stayed there 3 years ago and very much enjoyed the private beach and amenities. We were dropped off before 9:30am, obviously our room wasn't ready, but we were able to leave our bags and use the resort. We went to the beach until 11:00am, and then went down to the Las Olas Beach area for lunch and shopping, which was about a mile from the hotel. 

 

While we were out we got the call that our room was ready. 

 We swam in the ocean and pool for awhile. There was also another pool right across from our room where they do mermaid shows at the hotel. Super cool. We laid out by the pool and soaked up every last minute of sunshine that we could. It was 10 degrees at home! For dinner we went to Duffy's Sports Bar which is one of my favorite chain restaurants in Florida. We had an 8:00am flight home, so we went to bed early since JiffyJeff was picking us up again, and my mom's group at their hotel, and taking us to FLL. This was $100. 

[alyssazoll]

Sunday - Travel Day Home

5:00am came way too early and our vacation was officially over. Our JiffyJeff van was there 5 minutes early and we got to the airport with no problem. TSA was fast and we even encountered the nicest TSA agent I've ever met. It was nice to see that even without a paycheck, this man was still coming to his job and making the best out of it. 

 

We boarded, took off, and before we knew it, it was back to the cold. 

 

[alyssazoll]

Okay, I'm ready to start planning out next cruise now! 

Just some loose ends and final thoughts. 

 

We had a great time! We were with family on a beautiful ship, going to beautiful islands, with beautiful weather. We only saw rain our first night when we were in the hot tub. We were so lucky. 

Overall, the ship was great but there were some areas that I felt were smaller and more crowded. I think the Local Restaurant space was much smaller than O'Sheehans on the Getaway. The bar space was expanded, but the service was not good for us in that area. I also thought that Spice H20 was a bit smaller with less loungers. I did like that the pool deck was more open than the other ships. The go karts and laser tag are definitely cool, but didn't interest us. If we had kids it might have been a different story. 

We didn't go to any of the shows, again, because it's not really something we're into. 

We loved our room with aft facing balcony. We never had a problem catching an aft elevator. The forward elevators were a different story, especially after getting back from a port. But we would just take the stairs to deck 6 and walk to the aft elevators. 

We also loved all our excursions. It was money well spent, and none of them disappointed. 

The service overall was good, especially when you take into consideration the size of the ship and the number of people on it. 

 

So with that, thank you for those who followed along! Feel free to ask any questions and I'll try to answer as best as I can. I'm looking forward to the reviews to come to keep me occupied until our next cruise in December 2020! 

[alyssazoll]

7 hours ago, mtns2sea said:

If anyone is interested, I posted the freestyle daily’s from this cruise week on another thread.

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2607786-ncl-bliss-freestyle-daily-from-miami/?do=findComment&comment=56634944

Thank you!