Our Breakaway... Err... Joy... Umm.. Escape... Nope! November Bliss 2021 Review!

[tripleboom]

November 14th - Boarding Day!

 

Thanks for sticking with me, folks! With the pre-cruise items now behind us, it was finally time for boarding day!  Because we booked so close to the sail date, we weren't able to get a very early boarding time, but we did get a Noon check-in time for our pre-cruise COVID testing at the pier.  So we took our time getting dressed and getting the suit cases re-packed.  Stacy's toiletry bag is a thing of beauty.  It held full size shampoo bottles, all her hair products, full-size contact solution bottles, all her cosmetics, etc. and didn't even blink.  It included a handy, sturdy hook to hang it all by as well. Pretty dang impressive.

 

 

 

With everything re-packed, we still had time to head downstairs to the small cafe for some coffee and breakfast.

 

 

I ordered a sausage, egg, and cheese toasted bagel sandwich. Not quite right I'm afraid. But it's hard for me to get too bent out of shape on boarding day!

 

 

After breakfast, we retrieved our luggage, checked out, and bid adieu to the beautiful Radisson Blu Anaheim!

 

 

[exgman]

I like that luggage. Easy to spot on the luggage belt or anywhere else for that matter. 

[LaCal]

On 11/23/2021 at 3:09 PM, roger001 said:

When you can, where drop off for porters, and then where for testing, and how far back to boarding. We’re like old.  Thanks.  

Drop luggage at Berth 93 and take the Covid test there 

 

then you either walk over next door to Berth 92 or there’s a free shuttle too 

[LaCal]

Are you going to complete this review or is it one of those ones that take a month to do? 

[tripleboom]

1 hour ago, LaCal said:

Are you going to complete this review or is it one of those ones that take a month to do? 

 

Figured I'd probably enjoy a couple of days with family out of town for Thanksgiving before getting back to it. Next time I'll know better and let my family know I need to work on your schedule. 😆

[aero777]

4 hours ago, LaCal said:

Are you going to complete this review or is it one of those ones that take a month to do? 

LaCal less than 48 hours we’ll be there. So excited!

[GALSews]

On 11/23/2021 at 4:24 PM, tripleboom said:

Joe & Sandi made a Starbucks run since they were up before us, and having spied the main pool area from our room...

 

 

We decided to make the trek downstairs to explore the hotel a bit.  We got photobombed by some of the locals, but then managed to find our way outside.

 

 

Lounge chairs were plentiful poolside at this hour, so we just relaxed for a while until Joe & Sandi could join us.

 

 

 

 

Not that we took advantage, but they had some pretty swanky cabanas you could reserve as well.

 

 

All in all, a very nice offering with a large circular pool, decent sized hot tub, and a lighted splash pad for the kiddos to enjoy, in addition to the plentiful lounge seating immediately around the pool and patio furniture throughout this pool/courtyard area.

Those locals you showed are so good with kids. Even though they are silent, it was amazing to see 2 of them interact with a 2 year old who seemed to fall in love with them. The little girl clutched the Storm Trooper's leg and looked up adoringly at him. He, in return, looked down at the child and even though you couldn't see his face, his mannerisms, expressed his confusion and at the same time displeasure with the little tyke. 

 

[tripleboom]

1 hour ago, GALSews said:

Those locals you showed are so good with kids. Even though they are silent, it was amazing to see 2 of them interact with a 2 year old who seemed to fall in love with them. The little girl clutched the Storm Trooper's leg and looked up adoringly at him. He, in return, looked down at the child and even though you couldn't see his face, his mannerisms, expressed his confusion and at the same time displeasure with the little tyke. 

 

 

That is so sweet!  I love their serious professionalism. They stay in character AND make it tons of fun for kids of all ages. So great. 😃

[tripleboom]

Our shuttle driver picked us up promptly and delivered us in timely fashion to the pier. Admittedly our hotel choice wasn't anywhere close to the port, but the shuttle ride still wasn't crazy expensive either. 

 

 

If providing an address to an Uber or similar driver, be sure to specify Berth 93 as your drop off point.  The driver seemed to have a pretty good grip on that already. After taking the exits for the Port of Los Angeles, we made a few more turns before entering the loop for the U.S.S. Iowa museum, Pier 92 (where the Bliss was physically located) and Pier 93 where we were dropped off.

 

We were able to quickly drop off our bags with the porters, and then port staff directed us to the entry.  With only a couple of backpacks left, we entered the building and headed up the escalator to the main terminal area of the building.  Here we zig-zagged through some queues, at the end of which was a member of the Port staff who inspected our IDs and vaccination cards before pointing us to a new queue. It was here that we checked in for our COVID testing, were assigned a test #, and then were directed to the "tents" where the COVID tests were administered. FWIW, they did ask that each individual go to their own tent, but it was clear that staff was flexible to allow those traveling with some older passengers (and I'd assume younger passengers too) to stay together in a single tent for testing.

 

After the shallow, nostril only rapid swab (we were spared the "brain touching" edition that's used in PCR testing), we were directed to the holding pen another room over.  And there we waited...

 

 

This area is similar to any airport or cruise terminal waiting area.  After about 10-15 minutes of waiting there, Sandi, Stacy, and I had gotten text messages corresponding to our having a confirmed negative COVID test.  Once we had the text message itself, we flagged down a port staffer who had the "Pink Bands of Bliss" that meant we were cleared to head to the ship.  The staffer looked only at the text of the text message as proof that we were negative.  If you were positive, it seemed to be that they called your name and/or your test # and no text would ever come. In fact, one gentlemen across from us stood after hearing his name called, remarked, "well that can't be good," strode away, and I'm not sure if he ever was on the ship with us. 

 

That brings us to Joe.  After 5, then 10, then 15 minutes passed without a text for him, we started sweating bullets.  I asked the "Pink Bands of Bliss" staffer if there was anything we should be doing, but she assured us that we were basically in the very peak of their traffic, and Joe's "tent" from the previous room may simply have had their basket of specimens gathered well after our own, and the lab was just working through a backlog.  Thankfully, after another 5-10 minutes of palm-sweat inducing waiting, Joe got his text, and was banded!  The four amigos were on our way!

 

 

Once we all heaved a collective sigh of relief, we were herded over to (you'll never believe this), another line.  Here we queued up to wait to board a shuttle van which would then drive us BACK over to Berth 92.  A couple of fellow passengers asked the staff if they were allowed to make what looked to be a pretty short jaunt over to the berth, but they were told due to safety concerns you must ride the shuttle vans.  No biggie. That was fine with me. After snaking through that line, we boarded a shuttle bus, and headed over to Pier 92.  If there's a better feeling than seeing your ship waiting for you, I don't know what it is.

 

 

After entering through the security structure (shown in the center of the above photo beneath the palm trees) we stood in (🤯) a line, then had our passports checked, carry-ons x-rayed, and bodies confirmed free of metals.  After all that we were finally free!!! To stand in another line...

 

 

Fortunately, this one would be the last significant one of the day.  The port staff checked our passports, re-took our photos (the ones we had provided during online check-in were apparently insufficient, though Joe's selfie passed with flying colors), were issued our stateroom cards, herded to the (SHORT!) boarding photo queue...

 

 

And then headed up the escalator to the gangway!  The masks finally came off, and we OFFICIALLY had started our cruise. 

 

Edited November 27, 2021 by tripleboom

[roger001]

Thanks for the testing walk through.  We'll be doing it soon.  

[tripleboom]

Once on board we were directed to our muster stations immediately. There they verified that we had watched the safety videos, answered any questions we had, and then we were free to do what we wanted. And what we wanted, was food!

 

We almost always opt to dine in either Taste or Savor when first boarding since it's nice to have a sit down, quiet lunch after a hectic morning.

 

I think 3 out of the 4 of us had the cajun hushpuppies which were delicious! I opted for the fish & chips and eventually had some delicious dessert that escapes me at the moment. Haha!

 

 

After lunch, I noted that I never had heard the "rooms are ready" call, and it seemed to be getting late in the day. So we went to deck 12 to see if they were ready and they were! They must have already been all set to go by 1:00 PM when we had boarded. Always good to get unpacked and organized, and the luggage had all already been delivered too, so I set about that for a while.

 

Not long before 4 PM we met back up and headed to the Waterfront for the sail away.  The Waterfront Cavern Club bar was already operating, so we camped out near the bar along the rail.

 

 

Strawberry margarita in hand.

 

 

Seeing as how I'm an Iowa boy, born and raised, I was thrilled that our sailaway would lead us right past the U.S.S. Iowa. What a magnificent ship!

 

 

 

The 16" main gun are no joke.

 

 

Check out the Coke machine for some size reference. 👀

 

 

 

Rum & Coke #1

 

And my 1st bushwhacker for good measure.

 

 

Later, U.S.A.!

 

[Wulfwyn]

Can you post the wine menu.  We are on the Bliss in 2 weeks.  This will be our 1st time on Norwegian.  Thanks.

[Oakman58]

Bushwhackers are great for sailaways...and any other time too. 😁

[roger001]

Do you remember what night Six is performed?   

[tripleboom]

18 hours ago, Wulfwyn said:

Can you post the wine menu.  We are on the Bliss in 2 weeks.  This will be our 1st time on Norwegian.  Thanks.

 

I didn't take a photo myself, but the incomparable @BirdTravels does have a list from the Encore that seems to be pretty representative of what I recall the options being.  Here's a link to his bar menu post that includes the Encore's wine list.

 

2 hours ago, roger001 said:

Do you remember what night Six is performed?   

 

For our sailing at least, it was shown twice on Monday night and another single show on Thursday night.  We went to the late showing on Monday, and it was so good we went back again on Thursday night too.  Seating was not an issue for any showing we went to thanks to the reduced capacity onboard.

[tripleboom]

With the sun finally having set, we went about wandering the ship a bit. If you zoom in a bit you can see a WHOLE bunch of ships waiting for their turn to enter the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The captain even made mention of having to "weave" our way out into international waters.

 

 

 

On the right side of the previous photo was a Carnival ship that was shadowing us as well.

 

 

Cagney's was all set for service on The Waterfront for the evening.

 

 

The chandelier in 678 Ocean Place is a mild obsession of mine. Love this space in all of the Breakaway and Breakaway+ class of ships.

 

 

 

The ship model located just outside the port side entry to the Observation Lounge really is incredible in its detail!

 

 

 

 

For future reference, Joe and Sandi would be staying in Cabin 12308 in blue, while Stacy and I were in Cabin 12312 in red.

 

[tripleboom]

For dinner on this evening we headed to The Manhattan Room and were seated along a window on the starboard side. The views of the lifeboats on Deck 7 were thrilling. 😄  Dinner was very good though.

 

I started with the Crab & Cream Cheese Wontons

 

Followed by Sautéed Shrimp Scampi

 

 

For dessert I opted for an unmemorable (no seriously, I don't remember it's name) miniature chocolate pie.

 

Stacy was wiser with her lava cake selection. So good!

 

And Joe opted for a very good crème brûlée.

 

After supper we went back up toward the pool deck, scoped out the Deck 17 hot tubs perched above the main pool deck, found them full, and then headed to Spice H2O. There we found one of the two hot tubs completely unoccupied.  A quick trip back to the cabins, and a quick trip back up to Spice H2O found the hot tubs still empty!  We camped out there for a good hour or two, the men making runs over to the bar to snag drinks as we let a long day's stress begin to drain away.  With a Day at Sea ahead, we headed off toward bed to conclude Day #1.

[tripleboom]

Day #2 - Day at Sea

 

We took advantage of the sea day and slept in a bit, but by the time we got up and around it was clear we were HAULING southward with tail winds.  The smoggy smudge against the sky didn't make for the most attractive wake view from the balcony on this day!

 

 

I have to admit, this is the only time I actually took a photo of the Daily, but it's worth noting that a paper copy was left in our room each evening without having requested to do so.  The app worked just fine for this too, but I still liked having the paper copy to peruse each evening.

 

 

Before getting the day started, we all hit the buffet for breakfast. All the standard fare, including several made-to-order omelet bars.  Stacy and I are presently fighting through the more difficult stages of chocolate croissant withdrawals.

 

 

The main pool deck was fairly crowded (though I'm sure seats could be found eventually), but we opted to head back to Spice H2O again and found four loungers positioned close to one another with ease.

 

We spent a fair amount of time lounging, reading, drinking enough to get a good buzz going; generally doing all the relaxing things that aren't possible in a home with two pre-teen boys! 😀

 

 

We also shuttled back and forth to the Spice H2O water feature a few times.  Nice to have a place to cool off when lounging in the sun all day.

 

 

[tripleboom]

I know there are plenty that love the noise, excitement, and entertainment of the pool deck, but give me Spice H2O any day!  The canceled Encore cruise was definitely a blow, but I was more excited about the Bliss than I was the Encore without a doubt!  Spice H2O is a big difference maker for me.  The attentive bar staff made it easy to relax, work on a tan (solely to make people at home jealous of course), and thoroughly enjoy the day at sea!

 

Rebellious Fish on the left and Mango Meltdown on the right.

 

Joe came back with a Bushwhacker for Sandi, and the bar staff made it special just for her!

 

I only brought my cabin card to Spice, so I quickly ran back down to Deck 12 to get some cash for a well deserved tip.  Rommel is the man!

 

 

After getting good and toasty in Spice, we all headed back to our rooms for a change of clothes and headed to The Local to grab some lunch.  I'd say the appetizer options are better than O'Sheehan's, but I prefer the entrée and dessert choices at O'Sheehan's over The Local. There's a lot of similarities between the two, but I do give the edge to O'Sheehan's overall.

 

One benefit of The Local is that The Local bar does prepare the Glacier Blue cocktail. With vodka, rum, AND whiskey in this one, it's a drink that could land you in trouble in a hurry!

 

Here's a YouTube video of the preparation (though on the ship, much of the cocktail is pre-mixed on tap).

 

And here's my actual cocktail served on board. Pretty true to the original in appearance and VERY yummy!

 

I forgot to take a picture, but I did have the Wrangler Burger for lunch.  The menu lists the ingredients as cheese, onions, bacon, jalapeno, and bbq sauce.  I ordered mine without the onion, but when it arrived it had shredded lettuce and tomato already on the burger too.  Would have been nice to have those additional items listed too, but as a picky eater I was perfectly content picking off the extra fixins. On future visits I just asked for no veggies altogether to avoid a similar snafu.

 

For dessert I enjoyed the Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake and it was very good, and surprisingly rich for the venue.

 

Edited November 29, 2021 by tripleboom

[vtroper]

@tripleboom Really enjoying your review.  We’re on the 12/12 sailing of the Bliss and appreciate the preview.

[tripleboom]

Following our late lunch we went back to our cabins to just relax for a bit before enjoying some of the evening entertainment. I'm not sure if/when The Haven will ever happen for us, but in the mean time I can't rave enough about the aft-facing balconies (B1 category) on the Breakaway and Breakaway+ ships.  As long as you can get a cabin on Deck 9 or Deck 12, these balconies are worth every penny!

 

When we arrived, there were two standard chairs, a pool lounger, and a small table on the balcony. But our incredible steward, Andi, was happy to help with bringing in a second lounger and removing one of the chairs.

 

 

 

 

If you need about 8 minutes of zen, nothing will beat watching a sunset to the tune of the churning wake of the ship!

 

[tripleboom]

SIX was set for either 7 or 9:30, but with the Not So Newlywed Game scheduled for 8:30 we figured we could catch the late show.  We bellied up to The Local's horseshoe shaped bar that overlooks the atrium below so we could watch as much of the show as possible before heading off to the theater.

 

We caught Duo Rika performing a couple of times during the cruise, and they always did a great job!  

 

The narrowness of the bar made it a little difficult to fit our food, even though it was really just snack food, in front of us.  I ordered a dozen wings and the pretzel bites, and I felt kind of guilty taking up so much space!  Also, the wings were delicious, but SUPER messy. They came with wetnaps, but even still it was a bit of an unmitigated disaster eating them, and something well south of attractive WATCHING me eat I'm sure. 😂

 

The 45 minutes or so of the Not So Newlywed game that we got to watch was absolutely hysterical! With the youngest couple having been married for 3 months and the oldest couple having been married for 62 years it was great entertainment.  Dan Dan, the cruise director, was a tremendous MC! At one point one of the ladies was struggling to come up with an answer, so Dan Dan asked if she'd like him to "go around and come back." When she readily accepted his offer, he pirouetted in place and bellowed, "Ok, I'm back!" 😆

 

Another highlight was sweet, young Zach.  When asked if he knew his wife's bra size, he guessed, "B10."  We're looking for a bra size not a bingo number, Zach!

 

Shortly after Zach's snafu we had to run off to the theater before showtime. Thanks to The Local's proximity to the theater, I was able to shuttle from place to place to monitor how fast the show was filling up.  Once I felt like we had to get going we moseyed over to the theater, grabbed some decent seats (and an adult beverage for good measure), and settled in for the show.

 

Going into the show, I knew just enough about the premise to be dangerous.  The six wives (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived) of Henry VIII are total divas (in the incredibly musically talented sense), and compete with one another for the honor of being the wife who had it the toughest in their time with Hank.  Stacy and I love musicals, and we've certainly been spoiled by past NCL Broadway quality shows, so we had high expectations going in.

 

Those expectations were met and then some! The cast of ladies of SIX were incredible!

 

 

 

 

This show is an absolute MUST WATCH while on board. In fact, at least for us, it was a Must Watch x2. But more on that later.  For now, having caught the late night showing of SIX, it was indisputably bedtime.  After all, the next day would be port stop #1, Cabo San Lucas!

[tripleboom]

Day 3 - Cabo San Lucas

 

The next morning produced some overcast skies, but still a forecasted high of 85° for the day. Nice to have a later arrival into Cabo so we could watch the approach into the bay.

 

 

 

After booking the Bliss on such short notice, there didn't seem to be a lot of excursions still available that held much appeal. Fortunately, we found a good looking excursion through a reputable excursions website:

 

 

Stacy is a big fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, so the thought of watching some pirate-y things happen, walking the plank for a snorkel tour, etc. held a lot of appeal!

 

Because Cabo is a tender port, you had to reserve your tender slots in advance.  Folks with excursions booked through NCL, Gold, Platinum, and Platinum+ passengers, etc. were allowed access to the very first tenders, and as I was staring down my watch, it was clear that it was going to be tight to make it for our Noon excursion.  I took a photo of one of the ship's courtesy phones just so I could prove we didn't make port in time should we miss our excursion.

 

 

Once they finally started to call for the tender groups by letter, we were able to proceed down the stairs to the waiting tenders.  The seas were pretty calm in the morning, so boarding quickly and heading into the Cabo Marina was done quickly and relatively effortlessly.

 

 

 

A little hard to see in this photo, but one of the resident harbor seals kept popping up on the aft platforms of the fishing boats and begging (successfully) for their scraps. He or she seemed to be very well fed, so apparently it's pretty easy pickings!

 

 

Once we made it into the marina, I knew we were going to have to book it to make our scheduled excursion.  The cruise ship tenders arrive in the area of the red circle below, and we had to make it to the opposite side of the marina to "Dock 0" where the pirate ships are shown in this photo from 2017.   As you can see from the photo, there's no good way to get from the tender arrival area to Dock 0 by foot or by standard taxi, but the excursion instructions did tell us to snag a water taxi once we were in the marina.

 

 

So a short walk and $20 later, the four of us were in a water taxi and promptly dropped off at Dock 0.  Unlike the picture above, there were no pirate ships docked at that pier, so we had to walk over to the right of that photo to the covered buildings shown.  There we found the "Wild Cabo" check-in desk.  And that's when things got a bit interesting.

 

I provided the Wild Cabo employee with a copy of the excursions ticket we were instructed to print out and bring along.  She took a look at it, whispered with a colleague for a few moments, and then told us that the pirate ship wasn't operating today!  There was no offer of an apology, a refund or anything, just an offer to take an alternative tour with them instead.  We had very little time to discuss alternatives, and I figured we could sort out the issue with the .com Excursion website we purchased it from after the cruise, so we begrudgingly accepted our fate and awaited the arrival of the Cabo Escape catamaran tour.

 

It was apparent very quickly that this was going to be a party boat for sure.  The tour's MC, I'll call him Cabo Pitbull since I can't remember his name offhand, started shouting promises of a good time from the marina as the ship pulled in, and we prepared to make some more lemonade from our week's supply of lemons!

 

 

 

[tripleboom]

With music pumping and the open bar already slinging drinks, we started to pull out of the marina; apparently at rush hour!

 

 

I know it's what they all do for a living, but it was still impressive that there were no collisions or accidents with boat traffic weaving in and out of the slips and marina.  Once we were safely into more open water, we started heading for El Arco, arguably the most famous feature in Cabo.  We were parked a healthy distance off, and the ship made a slow turn to allow folks on any side of the vessel to get a good look. Smaller boats ventured much closer, but seeing them bob and bounce so closely to the rocks made me appreciate our healthy distance. 😀

 

 

 

 

 

I'll give you one guess as to who forgot to pack a hat for the trip! 😁

 

 

Upon zooming in on one of the rocks near the Arch, it appeared that a colony of cruisers fresh from the buffet were sunning themselves on the rocks. 🤣

 

 

[tripleboom]

After our time at the Arch we started heading east to where we would anchor for some snorkeling time.  On the way there we passed the Bliss.  There's just something about passing your cruise ship in a harbor that's awe inspiring. Photos don't do this beauty justice.

 

 

One of the Cabo Tenders for size reference. Sheesh.

 

 

 

 

 

We also passed a few pretty sights along the way to the snorkeling site.

 

 

 

November is a little early for whale spotting, but we noticed some commotion and activity well south of us.  It's not much, but under 40x zoom on my camera I was able to see a couple little spouts out in the distance!

Edited November 30, 2021 by tripleboom