Semi-live from the Bliss 12/19

[OrcaGirl]

No official or unofficial communication re: passengers, just about the cancellation of Jersey Boys and Prohibition due to sick cast members.

 

 

[OrcaGirl]

Just now, nona0541 said:

Why did you not notify front desk that evidently someone smoked in the room and put the bag around the detector.  That way the management could rectify the situation.  

 

What makes you think we didn't? Aside from the fire safety concern, we also didn't want the hotel to think we were the ones who did that and get charged for smoking in the room. It took about 20 min but they sent up a maintenance person with a ladder to remove the bag.

[nona0541]

Just now, OrcaGirl said:

 

What makes you think we didn't? Aside from the fire safety concern, we also didn't want the hotel to think we were the ones who did that and get charged for smoking in the room. It took about 20 min but they sent up a maintenance person with a ladder to remove the bag.

I only asked because you did not indicate that you had addressed the situation.  

[Jldevlin]

We were on this cruise as well ...you did a great review that I actually read while on board lol.   We differ slightly on dining...we dont go to the buffet at all...I find that I do get a bit of everything ,,,literally everything and then feel overfull. I really enjoy the dining rooms and this time I felt the choices were great    had a hard time choosing.   We had 4 specialty dinners and had 2 at Cagneys that were as good as always and Le Bistro was dissapointing with the Dover Sole...over the top lemon flavour and a very thin piece..... First world problems lol.   I agree with you on the mask wearing getting worse as the cruise wore on.....and the covid parties in the spa hot tub!!! 6 strangers all happily yelling at each other in that little tub made it not as nice as usual.  I am glad we went when we did now that Omicron has changed things for so many.    Really enjoyed reading along as I sat on my balcony sipping my wine.

[styxfire]

Oh, didn't realize Prohibition was cancelled as well.  Bummer.  I've always assumed the ships have understudies for their actors, like theatres do... but maybe they don't.

 

QU #1:  Any locations on the ship that were closed?  I think one of the cruise lines is starting to use "medallions" to track every passenger's location history while on the ship, in order to do past-contact-tracing after a passenger tests positive.  I don't think NCL is doing that.  But I want to have confidence that NCL is doing SOMETHING to figure out where covid spread has occurred on-board.

 

QU #2:  How many "formal nights" were there on the 7-day?  I know Norwegian has done away with "formal", but did they have any fancier nights...  if so, how many?

 

QU #3:  If you've cruised in the Caribbean, how did your Pacific weather compare to a similarly-timed cruise in the Caribbean?  Breezier?  Cooler?  (Trying to figure out wardrobe for mid-January)

 

[debenson0723]

12 minutes ago, styxfire said:

Oh, didn't realize Prohibition was cancelled as well.  Bummer.  I've always assumed the ships have understudies for their actors, like theatres do... but maybe they don't.

 

QU #1:  Any locations on the ship that were closed?  I think one of the cruise lines is starting to use "medallions" to track every passenger's location history while on the ship, in order to do past-contact-tracing after a passenger tests positive.  I don't think NCL is doing that.  But I want to have confidence that NCL is doing SOMETHING to figure out where covid spread has occurred on-board.

 

QU #2:  How many "formal nights" were there on the 7-day?  I know Norwegian has done away with "formal", but did they have any fancier nights...  if so, how many?

 

QU #3:  If you've cruised in the Caribbean, how did your Pacific weather compare to a similarly-timed cruise in the Caribbean?  Breezier?  Cooler?  (Trying to figure out wardrobe for mid-January)

 

I was on this ship last month so can answer a few of your questions.  Most cruise ships can trace your whereabouts by the tapping of your key card so every time you tap into a restaurant or into your room, they are aware.  On some of the larger ships (including Bliss) you can look on your TV and it will show you where you have been at a certain date and time.

As you mentioned, there is no more formal night but the evening of the first sea day is 'dress up or not' night.  In my experience it has been more not but feel free to wear what you want, when you want. I will typically wear a dress to Cagney's and LeBistro but that is about it, no matter what night it is.

The weather will be cooler the first two days until you get to Mexico so make sure you pack a pair of pants and a jacket of some sort. I made this mistake the first time I sailed on the Panama Canal cruise from Miami to Los Angeles.  I did not take any long pants because it was June and thought it would be warm/hot the whole time.  Once we left Puerto Vallarta I froze at night sailing back up the coast to Los Angeles.  This time I took jeans, sweatpants and a sweat shirt and I was much happier.

[danny6514]

1 hour ago, styxfire said:

Oh, didn't realize Prohibition was cancelled as well.  Bummer.  I've always assumed the ships have understudies for their actors, like theatres do... but maybe they don't.

 

QU #1:  Any locations on the ship that were closed?  I think one of the cruise lines is starting to use "medallions" to track every passenger's location history while on the ship, in order to do past-contact-tracing after a passenger tests positive.  I don't think NCL is doing that.  But I want to have confidence that NCL is doing SOMETHING to figure out where covid spread has occurred on-board.

 

QU #2:  How many "formal nights" were there on the 7-day?  I know Norwegian has done away with "formal", but did they have any fancier nights...  if so, how many?

 

QU #3:  If you've cruised in the Caribbean, how did your Pacific weather compare to a similarly-timed cruise in the Caribbean?  Breezier?  Cooler?  (Trying to figure out wardrobe for mid-January)

 

 

debenson has already given a great explanation above, but just thought that I would add that Le Bistro and Ocean Blue do have dress code for dinners, nothing fancy, just a shirt with long pants I believe.

[phillygwm]

6 hours ago, debenson0723 said:

As you mentioned, there is no more formal night but the evening of the first sea day is 'dress up or not' night.  In my experience it has been more not but feel free to wear what you want, when you want. I will typically wear a dress to Cagney's and LeBistro but that is about it, no matter what night it is.

 

I was on the 12/12 sailing.  One odd thing I noticed was that some people got dressed up more often than just Monday night.  By no means a majority, but a number of families/couples.  I don't think I've noticed that on any other cruise I've been on.  

[phillygwm]

4 hours ago, danny6514 said:

Le Bistro and Ocean Blue do have dress code for dinners, nothing fancy, just a shirt with long pants I believe.

That is correct.  Bistro staff always left me a vm reminder.  OB did not, which resulted in one person in my party running upstairs to put long pants on. Any collared shirt is fine; I wear golf shirts a lot and never had an issue.

[debenson0723]

1 hour ago, phillygwm said:

That is correct.  Bistro staff always left me a vm reminder.  OB did not, which resulted in one person in my party running upstairs to put long pants on. Any collared shirt is fine; I wear golf shirts a lot and never had an issue.

Thanks to you both @danny6514and @phillygwm. I am a woman so don't think about the men's attire :-)  And I agree that some people are dressing a bit nicer onboard lately...I think a lot of us missed that the past two years.

[Niffernay]

On 12/26/2021 at 2:07 PM, OrcaGirl said:

Assorted photos from the NCL Beach Resort Getaway excursion that I don’t think ever posted…

 

 

 

 

And what is this magical concoction?  

 

Thanks so much for your review!

[OrcaGirl]

On 12/27/2021 at 12:09 PM, styxfire said:

Oh, didn't realize Prohibition was cancelled as well.  Bummer.  I've always assumed the ships have understudies for their actors, like theatres do... but maybe they don't.

 

QU #1:  Any locations on the ship that were closed?  I think one of the cruise lines is starting to use "medallions" to track every passenger's location history while on the ship, in order to do past-contact-tracing after a passenger tests positive.  I don't think NCL is doing that.  But I want to have confidence that NCL is doing SOMETHING to figure out where covid spread has occurred on-board.

 

QU #2:  How many "formal nights" were there on the 7-day?  I know Norwegian has done away with "formal", but did they have any fancier nights...  if so, how many?

 

QU #3:  If you've cruised in the Caribbean, how did your Pacific weather compare to a similarly-timed cruise in the Caribbean?  Breezier?  Cooler?  (Trying to figure out wardrobe for mid-January)

 

 

Others have chimed in, but my answers:

1. No locations closed as far as I noticed.

2. The 'official' Dress Up or Not nights were the first sea day and the second-to-last night (so, Monday night and Friday night for our sailing). But because it was a holiday cruise, way more people were dressed up in the evenings on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Waaaaay more people and waaaaay fancier than I've seen on a typical NCL cruise in say, October or March. There were young adults in full length ballgowns. (Repurposed prom dresses maybe?)

3. Generally cooler for the sea days vs Caribbean, but as mentioned a few pages back, I'm the worst judge of temperatures since I run warm. The husband would be grabbing a hoody because he was chilled while I was sweating profusely.

 

[OrcaGirl]

7 hours ago, Niffernay said:

And what is this magical concoction?  

 

Thanks so much for your review!

 

That was the mango margarita from the Beach Resort Getaway excursion... with a tajin spice rim, I think? It was okay, but their pina colada was better.

[OrcaGirl]

Wrap up of getting home, possibly only of interest to my fellow Canadians...

 

Our flight home eventually happened (two hours late, due to snowy weather in Vancouver for the plane coming down.) It was thankfully uneventful compared to the flight system malfunction shenanigans of our flight down last week.

 

 

 

 

 

Arrived at Vancouver International Airport around 6pm. The Nexus machines weren't working, so we had a bit of a longer wait than normal to get through Customs.

 

When asked about the purpose of our trip to LA, I answered "we were on a cruise" to which the agent's eyebrow raised and we were 'randomly selected' for arrival testing. I had expected that might be the case before we left so I had pre-registered with LifeLabs which allowed us to skip part of the testing lineup.

 

The testing itself was a swab into the mouth and both nostrils (glad they went in that sequence)... again, the staff administering the tests were great, but there was a lot of confusion on the part of a few other passengers and a few people were getting a little riled up.

 

Once the testing was complete, we were free to leave with instructions to head immediately home and quarantine until we got our results back. Note: no one looked at or asked to see our ArriveCAN receipt.

 

But getting home was easier said than done. Vancouver is not usually a snowy place. We were not expecting to have to clear our vehicle of snow and ice; we don't even own an ice scraper! (I know, I know, bad Canadians...)  It wasn’t even a lot of snow but took us about 20 minutes in -15C temperatures to get the car ready to drive home. And guess what we used to scrape off the ice from the windshields? Our NCL cruise cards! 🤣

 

 

Our test results eventually arrived via email around 3pm yesterday; negative! So in the end our quarantine period was approximately ~20 hours. Per current government rules, we no longer need to quarantine but must self-monitor for symptoms and keep track of any people we see and places we go for 14 days.

Edited December 28, 2021 by OrcaGirl
Adding photos

[OrcaGirl]

Final thoughts and reflections...

 

It was a fun cruise, I had a good time, I ate well, I drank well, I enjoyed the thermal spa, really loved the onboard entertainment (specifically Six and the band Siglo), and liked the ship overall. We appreciated the lower capacity on board, especially for a holiday cruise.

 

But I'm not sure I'm going to book another cruise for a while.

 

We booked the Encore to Alaska back in October because of NCL's 100% vaccination policy and the day-of testing requirement. Once on board, I felt as safe as one could reasonably expect to be while cruising during a pandemic. We had such a good experience that when the husband suggested we go somewhere warm for Christmas, booking the Bliss felt like a no-brainer. When cases started rising again, we discussed our options and decided to proceed, knowing the situation and policies would continue to evolve. We were comfortable with a certain level of risk and ready to adapt as needed.

 

Then the mask mandate was introduced last minute. And again, we are incredibly supportive of masks as one of the measures to protect public health and although I didn't love wearing a mask indoors, I did. What I didn't anticipate was how much it bugged me having so many people disregard the mask requirement. Like, blatantly not giving a *%&# about the risk to themselves or to others, be they other passengers or the crew. (I don't know if it's the same in other regions but since the beginning of the pandemic our province really emphasized "my mask protects you, your mask protects me" in their messaging. To the point that I just assume that anyone not wearing a mask in an indoor public setting is also an anti-vaxxer and/or just generally an inconsiderate @##$%&*... excusez mon francais...)

 

And so, based on that experience sucking some of the joy out of cruising for me and knowing that NCL isn't going to be requiring testing immediately-before-boarding after January 2022, I just don't think I'm going to be comfortable cruising again until the pandemic is well in our rear-view window.

 

 

[danny6514]

2 hours ago, OrcaGirl said:

Wrap up of getting home, possibly only of interest to my fellow Canadians...

 

Our flight home eventually happened (two hours late, due to snowy weather in Vancouver for the plane coming down.) It was thankfully uneventful compared to the flight system malfunction shenanigans of our flight down last week.

 

 

 

 

 

Arrived at Vancouver International Airport around 6pm. The Nexus machines weren't working, so we had a bit of a longer wait than normal to get through Customs.

 

When asked about the purpose of our trip to LA, I answered "we were on a cruise" to which the agent's eyebrow raised and we were 'randomly selected' for arrival testing. I had expected that might be the case before we left so I had pre-registered with LifeLabs which allowed us to skip part of the testing lineup.

 

The testing itself was a swab into the mouth and both nostrils (glad they went in that sequence)... again, the staff administering the tests were great, but there was a lot of confusion on the part of a few other passengers and a few people were getting a little riled up.

 

Once the testing was complete, we were free to leave with instructions to head immediately home and quarantine until we got our results back. Note: no one looked at or asked to see our ArriveCAN receipt.

 

But getting home was easier said than done. Vancouver is not usually a snowy place. We were not expecting to have to clear our vehicle of snow and ice; we don't even own an ice scraper! (I know, I know, bad Canadians...)  It wasn’t even a lot of snow but took us about 20 minutes in -15C temperatures to get the car ready to drive home. And guess what we used to scrape off the ice from the windshields? Our NCL cruise cards! 🤣

 

 

Our test results eventually arrived via email around 3pm yesterday; negative! So in the end our quarantine period was approximately ~20 hours. Per current government rules, we no longer need to quarantine but must self-monitor for symptoms and keep track of any people we see and places we go for 14 days.

 

You definitely dodged a bullet by not booking the WestJet later in the evening, we didn't arrive at YVR until 2:30am after a 3+ hour delay. Walking out of the airport I was blasted back to reality by the -10C temperature, I already miss the warm Mexican weather :')

[Cyclospora]

9 hours ago, OrcaGirl said:

9 hours ago, OrcaGirl said:

What I didn't anticipate was how much it bugged me having so many people disregard the mask requirement.

I think this is going to be me! I work in public health too so already don't touch handrails on ships. I thought I picked up noro on a ship once but realised it was the free champagne on Captain's night! 

Thanks for a great review - it's been very helpful 🙂 Loved the "8 is a lot of legs" comment too - my kids are in that film 🙂 (Son is one of the boys dancing when the little girl is singing and my daughter is a wise man!)

 

 

[OrcaGirl]

The husband has started uploading his videos from scuba diving in Cabo:

 

More to come.

[Travelicious]

Thanks for the review!  I enjoyed it and your sense of humor.

[jmklade]

On 12/25/2021 at 12:12 AM, brad0576 said:

They seem to be extra bad in frozen drinks - and generally not great at all.

 

We bought plenty of metal straws after outlast cruise.....somehow they were left in Orlando

The paper straws are brutal.  I was on Oasis of the Seas Dec 12th-19th seeking and spent the entire week seeking an alternative at each port unsuccessfully until the last day and then it was too late.

[jimdee3636]

@OrcaGirl

I hope when you do go on a cruise again you'll do another "Live from....." thread. You have a delightful---but not self-indulgent---way of expressing yourself, and you provide a lot of useful information and great photos. Thanks.

Jim

[ECCruise]

On 12/27/2021 at 11:48 PM, debenson0723 said:

 I agree that some people are dressing a bit nicer onboard lately...I think a lot of us missed that the past two years.

I guess it may vary a bit by ship.  Just got off 28 days on Getaway and in our 20+ years of cruising, on 9 different lines, never saw such sloppy dress everywhere in the ship.  Ripped shorts and tank tops on men in Haven for dinner.  Dirty t-shirts and old jeans in Cagneys.  And collared shirts in Ocean Blue and Le Bistro.  With ragged pants and old flip flops below.  Nighttime attire in the Atrium and the entertainment venues (where there are no dress code, of course, and shouldn't be) was, at best, laughable.

[swanhaven]

On 12/20/2021 at 11:26 AM, OrcaGirl said:

Random notes as I enjoy my first mojito of the day and wait for the husband to get back from the gym:

 

The husband thinks the Garden Cafe is smaller on the Bliss vs the Encore, I just think it’s a slightly different layout, e.g. the bar is at the very front and easy to miss. Cruise ship hash browns may be my favourite thing, but I didn’t see a single one this morning! Buffet remains self-serve but they seem to have staff at the juice/coffee stations.

 

I love the fact you refer you refer to your husband as 'the husband' - that's how I refer to mine also - - people either look at me funny or laugh when I first say that to them when talking about him.

In my phone his name is 'The Husband is Calling'

 

On Bliss in April from LA also so thanks for the review