Random Bliss Stuff - Dec. 1 - 12-Day Southern Caribbean out of NYC

[JamieLogical]

I don't know how thorough or organized this review will end up being. Certainly not as much as some of my past reviews. But I wanted to get some thoughts down before the Holiday break. I'll try to remember and share as much as I can.

 

First a little background. This was my second sailing on the Bliss. Our first was last February to the Eastern Caribbean out of Miami. This was my seventh cruise overall (all with NCL so far). And this was my first cruise that was more than seven days.

 

NYC

We drove into NYC a day early and stayed at the Kimpton Ink48 Hotel, which is just a block away from the cruise port. This is a pretty expensive hotel, but I felt like blowing some credit card points on something fancy to kick off our long vacation. I specifically booked a "Hudson Suite" because I had seen video that you can see the ship from the room. I had hoped to see the Bliss pull in, but when I woke up at 4:00 am, it was already docked.

 

 

 

We used the valet at the hotel for parking that first night in NYC. It was pretty pricey ($75 for an SUV), but it was certainly convenient! We walked over to Times Square that night. This was the Saturday after Thanksgiving and Times Square was the most crowded I had ever seen it. It was wall-to-wall people. I don't know how anyone got any shopping done at all. You couldn't even get INTO the stores! We had dinner at Junior's and we walked over to see the tree at Rockefeller Plaza (wasn't lit yet but it did already have all the lights on it).

 

Embarkation

We got our car from the valet and drove it around the block to the cruise port parking. This was our first time parking at the cruise terminal. We usually park a couple of blocks down at Pier 83, because that saves us $80 on a 7-day cruise. Pier 83 charges $200 a week, whereas the cruise terminal charges $40/day. However, cruise terminal parking caps out at $400, so it would have been the same price to park at either place. We opted for the convenience of parking at the terminal, since we had no idea what the weather would be like on our return.

 

 

We were at the terminal pretty early. I think it was about 9:30 or 10:00 and the security lines were LONG. Definitely the longest I've waited for security in NYC, but also the earliest I had been there. Check-in was super quick once through security, though. Boarding started a bit late. Usually it starts right around 11:00, I think this was closer to 11:30-12:00. When I swiped my card to board, they had to retake my picture. Somehow the one from check-in didn't save?

 

We had all of our specialty dining booked online, but we had decided to add Ocean Blue. The whole time we were in the terminal and even once on board, I was trying to use the app to book it, but it wasn't saying the sailing wasn't open yet. Tried at the touch screen upon boarding, and still couldn't do it. Finally just went to the reservation desk down in Teppanyaki and got it booked while my SO went over the The Social and booked his go-kart rides.

 

We ate at The Local for lunch (as always on embarkation day). Once we had access to our room, we dropped our backpacks, changed into our swimwear, and headed to the Spa for sail away. That was actually a great spot, since it was too cold to watch from up on deck or our balcony and we knew the Observation Lounge would be mobbed.

 

After we passed the Statue of Liberty, we went back to the room and changed for dinner in the Manhattan Room (had made reservations there for 5:30 through the app once it was finally working).

 

After dinner, we staked out space in the Atrium to see Siglo for the first time this sailing. For those of you who don't know, Siglo is the incredibly amazing house band on the Bliss. We had made a point of seeing them every time we could on our February sailing and had every intention of doing the same for this sailing. I ended up seated next to some people wearing Siglo shirts, so I immediately began chatting with them. I had thought *we* were Siglo fans, but these folks were hard core! Turns out Jill, Roy, Shelly, Reg, Teressa, and Dan actually plan their cruises around whatever ship(s) Siglo will be on and they have seen them many many times over the past 10 years. They had all booked the Encore Transatlantic back when it was rumored Siglo would be moving over there for the launch. When those plans changed and Siglo was contracted to play the Bliss again, they had all tried to cancel their Encore TA and rebook for this Bliss sailing. But one of the couples couldn't rebook so they all ended up doing both sailings! Anyway, I'll talk more about why Siglo is so amazing in my post about entertainment.

[BirdTravels]

Thank you so much for reviewing your voyage. Anxious to hear about your S Caribbean experiences since we have actually never cruises the S Caribbean. 
 

it is also curious to watch how NCL is slowly rotating all of their big ships through NY (for you!). 

[tokidoki]

following!  looking forward to your review!   Just wondering if there was a gift shop raffle the first night?   thx

[JamieLogical]

Sea Days

As some of you may recall, there was quite a large storm moving through the East Coast on the day we departed NYC. Weather wasn't too bad as we were leaving, it was just starting snowing, but the front that was coming through caused the Captain to decide on a slower route that meant we were going to stay closer to the coast and also meant we were going to miss our first port of call in San Juan on the 4th. As you can imagine, a lot of people were upset by that, but it ended up being quite fortunate. Someone on board suffered and appendicitis and, because we were close to the coast, they were able to be airlifted from the ship off the coast of Cape Hatteras. Had we been further out to sea, it could have been a much worse situation for that passenger.

 

Because we were sailing out of NYC in December, we had a couple cold sea days on the way south and then also back north. Without the use of the outdoor spaces, the interior public spaced felt VERY crowded on those days. Made me wonder how the ship does in Alaska. The Observation Lounge was quite crowded and it was often hard to find seats in the afternoons on those cold sea days.

 

The first few sea days were also very rough because of the storm and the fact we were having to run near top speed. Thank goodness for my non-drowsy Dramamine!

[JamieLogical]

St. Thomas

We had been to St. Thomas before so we were least excited about this stop. We did get off the ship for a bit, just walking around the shops right near the pier. But we didn't stay on shore for long and decided to go back to the ship and enjoy the serenity of a near-empty ship after being cooped up on board for four full days.

 

Here's the view from our balcony:

 

And here are some photos we took on the Waterfront:

 

 

 

Our view from the MDR as we sailed away from St. Thomas at sunset:

Edited December 23, 2019 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

St. Kitt's

 

Sailing into St. Kitt's was beautiful. The tall mountains all around made for a gorgeous sunrise from our balcony.

 

 

 

We docked next to the  MSC Preziosa which made a nice long wind tunnel on the pier.

 

 

It was our first time in St. Kitt's. There is an enclosed shopping area at the end of the pier. Most of the shops are your general jewelry stores, duty free liquor, and cheap made-in-china souvenirs. There were also many people offering cab rides and tours, like you expect in most ports. And it is apparently a thing there for people to force moneys on you and then charge you to take your picture with them. Which, I totally did, because I don't have any pictures with monkeys and also, just, baby monkey!

 

 

 

 

 

We did venture out of the gated shopping area for a bit, but we had no idea what we were doing or where we were going. It was pretty clear that there were just normal St. Kitt's residents just going about their business and trying to live their lives out there. So, we quickly returned to the tourist trap where we proceeded to taste and buy some local rum at the duty free and buy some earrings at one of the TWO Effy stores.

 

Quick side note: This was our first time purchasing liquor in port and carrying it on board. It was much easier than I thought it would be to check the bottles and then they were delivered to our stateroom our last night on board. Will definitely be doing this more in the future as so many of these places have local distilleries that we can't buy at home.

 

 

We were all dressed up for dinner as we sailed away from St. Kitt's at sunset:

 

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

St. Lucia

 

St. Lucia was another incredibly beautiful sunrise as we sailed in.

 

 

Unfortunately, this was our least favorite port on the trip. The poverty in St. Lucia is real. It reminded me quite a bit of Ochos Rio, Jamaica with the level of beggars, panhandlers, and desperate cab/tour drivers. But it was more crowded and less safe feeling. There are some enclosed shops you get routed through at the pier, but then you are just dumped out into the city. We saw little evidence of traffic laws. The few traffic lights we saw were all broken. Trying to walk down the streets was just a constant spewing of "no, thank you" as we were bombarded. We walked to a nearby "mall" that was in terrible disrepair. We stopped at a few other local (non-tourist catering) shops. And we tried to walk around the bay to where we understood there to be a more tourist-friendly area, but we quickly gave up and headed back to the ship. It's my understanding that had we docked on the other side of the bay, we might have had better luck, but there were already two other ships docked there when we arrived.

 

Here's a nice view of the Bliss as we walked to the other side of the bay:

 

 

The best part of St. Lucia was sunset as we sailed away:

 

 

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

Barbados

 

From the worst stop to the best! Barbados was our favorite port. The walk from the ship to the end of the pier is LONG. The had a little trolley shuttle you could take, but we chose to walk. Here's a pretty photo looking back at the Bliss as we walked:

 

 

At the end of the long walk was an indoor mall-type area you had to pass through on your way out to where the cabs and shuttles are. We quickly learned that everything in town was closed, because it was Sunday. We decided to go exploring anyway.

 

It was a very long walk from the pier area to the actual town. I would say, in all, we walked over 5 miles. However, it was incredibly cool to see the whole town while everything was closed and it wasn't at all crowded. Plus, there was a marathon going on, so we got to cheer some of the runners. We talked to some locals (everyone was incredibly friendly) and found out that one department store would be open at 10:00 am, so we hung around that area and checked out the store when it opened. It was actually a really cool store. My SO ended up finding a nice leather belt there (which he desperately needed) and we got a few Barbados souvenir's: a deck of cards and a cloth patch with the Barbados flag on them. As we were walking around, we also got to see the beautiful Parliament buildings. I have no idea why we didn't take any photos of any of this! We also sat on a boardwalk for a while and watched some catamarans sail out.

 

Closer to the pier was a lovely waterfront park where we got to see some crabs climbing around on the rocks and we did actually manage to take a few photos:

 

 

 

 

 

I did get terribly sunburned as I was ill-prepared for so much walking in full exposure. But it was still my favorite stop for sure. We will definitely be keeping an eye out for future itineraries that include Barbados. Would be nice to go back on a week day and see how different it is.

 

 

Edited December 23, 2019 by JamieLogical

[EllieinNJ]

Very interested in your trip report.  We are on the Bliss 21 day Panama Canal cruise in April with 12 sea days.  Looking forward to your thoughts on food and entertainment and what you did on sea days.

[JamieLogical]

Antigua

 

Our final stop was in Antigua. It had yet another beautiful sail-in.

 

 

 

 

 

We docked next to a P&O ship that looked terrible. I didn't get any photos of the actual ship, but it was covered in rust and all the varnish on the railings was worn off. It looked particularly sad next to the Bliss. Every single day we were in ports, the crew was painting the hull, keeping the artwork looking clean and fresh. Here's a picture I got of a pelican with the rusty P&O ship in the background:

 

 

Antigua was celebrating a local holiday, so nothing was open beyond the tourist shop area at the end of the pier. However, there was a food fair going on in celebration of the holiday in town. A lot of booths and tents were set up with local vendors selling their local foods. We didn't try any of it as they were just getting set up as we walked through and we had free food available to us on the ship, but it was still cool to see.

 

The best part of Antigua was our discovery of a little hand-made jewelry store on the upper level of the tourist shops at the end of the pier. The owner, Debbie Gibson (no relation to the singer) finds shells on the island and combines them with sterling silver to make one-of-a-kind jewelry. She had a lot on display, because she had just made several showy pieces for a local fashion show. I purchased a pair of octopus earrings with tiny shells as the head/body of the octopus with sterling silver arms. I highly recommend stopping in her shop if you find yourself in Antigua and you like hand-crafted, locally-sourced jewelry.

 

 

[JamieLogical]

Spa

 

Now that I've covered the ports, I want to get back to aspects of the ship. This was my second time getting a Thermal Spa pass. The first time was on the Escape last April. The Bliss' spa is very similar to the Escape's in amenities. The pools are pretty much identical, just mirror image of each other. Both ships have a salt room, a steam room, a sauna, a sanarium, an ice room, and thermal loungers. The main difference was in the location and layout. I definitely preferred the Escape here. I preferred the forward view on the Escape and I definitely preferred the windows in the sauna and sanarium on the Escape to the windows in the locker rooms on the Bliss (just why?)

 

On this specific sailing, we decided to book the spa because we knew there would be a lot of cold sea days and the interior public spaces would be crowded. Apparently everyone else had the same thought, because the spa was completely PACKED on sea days. I feel like they way oversold the passes. We had multiple days where we couldn't even get a normal lounger in there, forget about a thermal lounger or two loungers together. So many people used their stuff to reserve loungers instead of putting it in lockers. It was pretty frustrating. There were was one time when I couldn't get into the salt room because it was full and one time when the "lobster pot" portion of the pool was full.

 

On port days it was much more peaceful in the spa, as expected. Though the first port day, I walked past the sauna and into the sanarium to find that both spaces were being used to dry someone's personal laundry. Someone had shirts, pants, and even socks hanging from the railings around the heating elements and even spread out on some of the benches. At the time, I was actually pretty mad. I didn't pay $300 to sit next to someone's dirty socks! I reported it to the front desk and they took care of it very quickly. In hindsight, I find it hilarious! Who would even think to do that, much less think it's OKAY!?!?!

 

Overall, I am glad I had the spa passes. It really can be a truly blissful and therapeutic experience. And with the 12-day itinerary, I didn't feel like I needed to use the spa every day to get my "money's worth" the way I did on a 7-day sailing.

[JamieLogical]

Christmas Decorations

 

This was my first cruise near Christmas time and I was looking forward to a decorated ship. I was disappointed to find no decorations up when we boarded. At the Q&A with the captain on the first sea day, he said that he too was surprised and disappointed. He had just boarded with us for his contract. Apparently the decorations also boarded with us, but they weren't put up until the first port day, which does make sense since there are far more demands on the crew on sea days.

 

Once the decorations did go up, everyone seemed to love them. There were trees all around the ship, garland along the railing at The Local above the Atrium, and a crazy gingerbread village at the base of the glass staircase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JamieLogical]

Entertainment

 

I was surprised to learn that no reservations were being made for comedians on board this sailing. I don't know if this was because it was a 12-day sailing or if the Bliss has switched to first-come-first-served seating for comedy shows in The Social in general. We did make it to one stand-up show in The Social on one evening and it was very good. We got there about 45 minutes early and had no issue getting a seat. There were two comedians on board and they had several shows in The Social as well as one in the main theater on our sailing.

 

The main theater shows of course still required reservations and we had made ours online for Six. We had seen Jersey Boys back in February, as well as Havana, which has now been replaced with Six. I really enjoyed Six, but my SO did not. He felt it was "too much". It was very high-energy. I actually liked the story-telling and was surprised, because I originally thought the concept was kind of dumb. The overall message was a good one.

 

We saw the comedy hypnotist in the main theater and that was definitely NOT my thing. My SO had see a similar act way back on his honeymoon cruise with his ex-wife and liked it so I thought I would give it a try, but nope. I thought it was embarrassing and ridiculous. I just felt so awkward for the participants.

 

We saw Britain's Finest several times, both in the Cavern Club and the theater. As I recalled from our previous sailing on the Bliss, you needed to get to the Cavern Club very early to get seats. One night we tried going directly to The Cavern after we saw Six to try to make the show, an hour early, and it was standing-room-only already. The guys were pretty good this time. The George and John especially. I found out that Britain's Finest actually consists of a bunch of guys in each role and they get mixed and matched based on their cruise contract. Anyway, it was all good fun.

 

But, of course, the main attraction for us was Siglo. We went into this sailing knowing that we would try to see every performance of their's that we could and that's exactly what they did. They had two days off on our 12-day sailing. We saw them perform in the Atrium, the Cavern Club, the main theater, and the pool deck. The definitely built up a following throughout the cruise as people "discovered" them and we would see the same audience member show after show and set after set. They were every bit as amazing as we remembered and some of the songs they played were just amazing. As always, Randy absolutely KILLED it on guitar. I cannot believe how good he is. It's stunning. I am so so so excited they will still be on the Bliss in March when I sail again! If you are sailing on the Bliss between now and the end of their current contract in May, make sure you see them early and often! They had our last sea day off, unfortunately, but their final performance was at the pool deck on the second-to-last afternoon and their rendition of Free Bird had people 5-deep circling the stage with their phones out recording the performance. 

 

[JamieLogical]

I will try to finish up with posts about specialty dining, included dining, and an other random thoughts tomorrow. In the mean time, if you want to see more of the Bliss, you should check out all the 360 degree videos was posted on YouTube after our February sailing. You can pan the camera around with your mouse or by swiping on your phone. It's pretty cool.

 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbilSH3PDThpZMOiyXJJGDA

[Arzeena]

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

The best part of Antigua was our discovery of a little hand-made jewelry store on the upper level of the tourist shops at the end of the pier. The owner, Debbie Gibson (no relation to the singer) finds shells on the island and combines them with sterling silver to make one-of-a-kind jewelry. She had a lot on display, because she had just made several showy pieces for a local fashion show. I purchased a pair of octopus earrings with tiny shells as the head/body of the octopus with sterling silver arms. I highly recommend stopping in her shop if you find yourself in Antigua and you like hand-crafted, locally-sourced jewelry.

 

 

Looks very nice.

What was the name of this store?

[JamieLogical]

3 hours ago, Arzeena said:

Looks very nice.

What was the name of this store?

 

The business card I have says Shells By Gibson, but I think the shop may have had a different name, because she shared it with a woman who made clothing. It was on the upper level on the left as you are walking towards town, away from the ship and it was in the main touristy shopping area, not in the actual town.

 

Edit: Just Googled "Shells By Gibson" and found her social media at least.

Edited December 24, 2019 by JamieLogical

[Cafedumonde]

Following!

[April42749]

Is Siglo on youtube?  I'm finding a Filipino group....is that them?

[JamieLogical]

15 minutes ago, April42749 said:

Is Siglo on youtube?  I'm finding a Filipino group....is that them?

 

That is them.

[JamieLogical]

17 minutes ago, April42749 said:

Is Siglo on youtube?  I'm finding a Filipino group....is that them?

 

A youtube search for "Siglo Bliss" returns some results. Though they performed on other ships prior to the Bliss.

[cementhands]

Unfortunately, this was our least favorite port on the trip. The poverty in St. Lucia is real. It reminded me quite a bit of Ochos Rio, Jamaica with the level of beggars, panhandlers, and desperate cab/tour drivers. But it was more crowded and less safe feeling. There are some enclosed shops you get routed through at the pier, but then you are just dumped out into the city. We saw little evidence of traffic laws. The few traffic lights we saw were all broken. Trying to walk down the streets was just a constant spewing of "no, thank you" as we were bombarded. We walked to a nearby "mall" that was in terrible disrepair. We stopped at a few other local (non-tourist catering) shops. And we tried to walk around the bay to where we understood there to be a more tourist-friendly area, but we quickly gave up and headed back to the ship. It's my understanding that had we docked on the other side of the bay, we might have had better luck, but there were already two other ships docked there when we arrived.

 

If you read about crime on this island it’s a real concern.

 I couldn’t agree more with you about St. Lucia. We used to enjoy the pigeon island beach area but the safety concerns are real. It’s simply not a safe place to visit.
Enjoyed all your post.

Excellent.

Many thanks 

[schmoopie17]

I always enjoy your reviews, but I don't understand the attraction of Siglo.

 

We were on the Bliss last April and walking through the Atrium we heard them doing their rendition of "Save the World" by Eric Clapton. It happens to be one of my all-time favorite songs and I have to say they absolutely butchered it. Our group of six all looked at each other with looks of "What the hell??"...and then we walked away asap. From that point on, we made a point of avoiding Siglo for the rest of the cruise.

 

However, based on your raves about them, we may have to give them another try if we ever encounter them on an another cruise.

[erdoran]

I looked Siglo up on YouTube and watched some of their version of “the wall”.  I wasn’t super impressed but maybe it’s just me.

 

Hubs and I were super turned off to the “general” ship band on Jade - I don’t remember the band name but they had a strong Eastern European accent.  They tried to do a Beatles cover one night and the accent made it really hard to take seriously.  

 

We are hoping Siglo will be a step up from that.  Maybe seeing them live will be better.

[JamieLogical]

5 hours ago, schmoopie17 said:

I always enjoy your reviews, but I don't understand the attraction of Siglo.

 

We were on the Bliss last April and walking through the Atrium we heard them doing their rendition of "Save the World" by Eric Clapton. It happens to be one of my all-time favorite songs and I have to say they absolutely butchered it. Our group of six all looked at each other with looks of "What the hell??"...and then we walked away asap. From that point on, we made a point of avoiding Siglo for the rest of the cruise.

 

However, based on your raves about them, we may have to give them another try if we ever encounter them on an another cruise.

 

I feel like they definitely fall flat when they try to do ballads and "easy listening" stuff, but excel when they do more classic rock and especially when they do "deep cuts".

 

And they are definitely better live than on video. They have a great energy in real life.

[Sand and Seas]

Nice to hear about ports we haven't been to since many years ago.  I remember we loved walking around Barbados too🌞