A (Mostly) Joy Filled Review - Norwegian Joy - 2/5 - 2/12

[tripleboom]

We scoped out the sunny side of the Waterfront for a place to sit, but struck out. So we went to the shady side and settled in behind a partition to try to cut down the cool breeze a bit.

 

 

While Stacy got working on her book, I set off to track us down some tasty drinks. It took heading to two different bars, but I got Stacy her Bushwacker from the Atrium Bar and then snagged my Raspberry Guava Mojito from the Sugarcane Mojito Bar.

 

 

Unfortunately not even the partition could save us from getting a little chilly on this side of the ship, so I periodically got up to check the sunny side and eventually lucked out. I threw my hat and book down at a pair of seats, mall walked my butt back to grab Stacy, and we hustled back over to the sunny side to settle in.  Ahhhh, Much better!!

 

 

 

You can't order up a better day than this. I love me some sea days!

 

 

[tripleboom]

After beginning to turn a lovely shade of pink we headed up to the Observation Lounge for a while to enjoy the afternoon snacks they had available there.

 

 

Stacy and I headed back to the room after a little while to relax and to start working on getting ready for dinner that night, but not without making another stop past the chandelier.

 

 

Love these types of views!

 

[tripleboom]

After a wonderfully lazy afternoon, we asked the boys to beg off for the evening from their friends in order to enjoy dinner together as a family. So as the boys returned and the sun began to set, it became clear that it was going to be a showstopper of a sunset tonight!

 

 

Fair warning, these pictures don't nearly do it justice, but I also couldn't help but take picture after picture. Just beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tripleboom]

We managed to sneak in some family photos too, much to the family's chagrin. Landon is NOT a fan of taking pictures at all, so we had to try pinching him, telling stupid jokes, etc. in an effort to get him to smile. But we found some winners amongst the fails. 🙂

 

 

 

 

[tripleboom]

Ok, I swear she loves me, but after about a dozen times of me saying, "come back out here! It's even prettier now!" I think Stacy had had just about enough of me and my sunset obsessed self. 😄

 

 

Uh oh... Those are the crazy eyes...

 

 

But I wouldn't let up...

 

 

I wonder if it'll cost me...

 

 

Yup. It cost me. 🤣

 

 

And now I'm alone. With my sunset. 

 

[tripleboom]

In my defense, even one of the crew on the bridge thought it was picture-worthy!

 

 

 

And now, your moment of zen...

 

 

[tripleboom]

Rather than risk another dining fiasco, we elected to catch the 7pm showing of Elements tonight, so we got dressed and headed out for the night, stopping by our favorite spot for a family photo.  Poor Landon was suffering after yesterday's sun-filled day in Mazatlán. His shoulders were a little tender, thus the grimace and shoulder shrug here!

 

 

This night we got to take in the "Elements" show. This was an incredible blend of Cirque du Soleil style acts, acrobatics, and illusions. Super fun, visually impressive show. All performed while the ship is rocking along in the ocean!

 

 

[tripleboom]

After the show we went to enjoy a nice, leisurely paced meal together as a family at Taste. During dinner service we tried to take a couple more pictures as long as the boys were looking so nice. Connor and I nailed it. 😄

 

 

Landon, predictably, wanted to try his darndest to ruin every photo he was in. He did a pretty admirable job!

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, after some cajoling by Mom, he caved and took one nice one.

 

[tripleboom]

Our starters were quite delicious tonight! Connor opted for the meatballs.

 

 

While my coconut shrimp were fantastic! Probably my favorite starter dish from the cruise.

 

 

My shrimp fettuccini alfredo was a little bland, but pleasantly filling still.

 

 

Connor's NY Strip w/ fries was pretty tasty he said.

 

 

Lots of good dessert options to choose from on this evening!

 

 

My Mexican Chocolate Cake was awesome!

 

 

While Landon and Stacy both enjoyed the Snickers Cake.

 

 

And we split two eclairs among all four of us.

 

 

And that was a wrap on Day #6. One last full day aboard ahead of us!

[tripleboom]

Day 7 - Ensenadaish

 

We woke up to overcast skies and a forecasted high in the low 60s. With a noon arrival, we were still a good ways out from docking.

 

 

Having put it off too long, I headed down to Deck 6

 

 

to grab a straight flush of sadness. Nothing worse than voluntarily preparing to leave the ship!

 

 

The first order of the day was to get the boys out onto the Speedway! At $15 per race, we knew that the price likely wouldn't be "worth it" given the speed these go-karts travel, but they were enthusiastic about this from the first time they heard about go-karts at sea. So up we went!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connor's kart seemed a bit zippier and Landon's height made reaching the pedals a little difficult, but he was bound and determined to put up a good fight! They both had a blast, but admitted that one race was enough for their thirst for racing to be slaked.

 

Edited March 20, 2023 by tripleboom

[tripleboom]

After racing around, we decided to squeeze in one last came of mini golf as the ship pulled into port. By this time the sun was starting poke out a bit.

 

 

 

Because we couldn't find anything super interesting to do in port, we decided to stay onboard and take advantage of the emptier ship.  First we stopped off at the cabin to grab a few items, but as we were there we noticed a few birds flying and hopping around on the roof over The Waterfront which was just past our balcony. The boys spotted this one little guy and loved him.

 

 

But when we looked a little closer we noticed that he was fighting through a disability, a deformed foot. He had very impressively adapted by hobbling around on a very calloused up nub. 

 

 

We decided we'd be ok with the boys feeding the wildlife on this one occasion. This guy works hard enough as it is just to survive.

 

 

 

[tripleboom]

Oops!  Accidentally deleted the earlier Speedway video.

 

 

[tripleboom]

On our last cruise, Stacy had the brilliant idea of sending the boys on a scavenger hunt all around the ship to take their pictures with various landmarks. This was a super fun way for them to get the explore the ship a bit, and they were practically begging us to put it together for them again this time. With a list of 30 items to track down, we sent them on their merry way, and Stacy and I headed to Spice H2O.

 

 

Knowing that the boys would be occupied for the better part of a couple of hours allowed us to enjoy the nearly empty, giant hot tub until we got pruney. 🙂

 

 

We also took the opportunity to send some texts to friends back home reminding them of where they COULD be, instead of home dealing with snow and cold.

 

 

 

While hanging in the hot tub I noticed a cleverly hidden cruise duck chilling up above a very high mounted box on the wall!

 

 

[tripleboom]

After getting dried off we headed back to the room to change into warmer clothes. While there we saw the crew hard at work on cleaning the balcony barriers.

 

 

The boys wrapped up their scavenger hunt and made plans with friends for one last dip in the pool, so we headed up to soak up one last sunset.

 

 

 

 

The boys were a bit braver in the (heated) pool than Stacy. 🤣

 

 

[tripleboom]

With the final night upon us, the boys wanted to squeeze the most out of it with their newfound friends, so they were off to the buffet and a night in the arcade, while Stacy and I went to cash in our last specialty dining credit, returning to Food Republic.

 

The Rock Shrimp Roll delivered again!

 

 

As did the crispy salmon roll.

 

On the more adventurous side, we tried these Kanpachi Wonton Tacos. With kanpachi ceviche, jalapenos, radishes, and avocado wrapped up in a fried wonton shell, it had a lot of flavorful promise, but the flavors just didn't mesh well for us. Swing and a miss.
 

 

The Tiger Roll was a hit though with spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, crab and avocado. Yum!
 

 

Our waitress on this evening, Angelica, was amazing! She took great care of us, and when I told her we were ready to head out for the night, she told us we had to try a dessert, on the house! Who am I to say "no" to free dessert?! This Chocolate Black Forest Cake was so delicious! Kirsch soaked chocolate cake, vanilla schlag and black cherry compote.
 

[tripleboom]

We closed out the night by meeting up with the boys for one last trip to the arcade, this time checking out the offerings on the starboard side of The Local.

 

 

Stacy dominated at Pop-A-Shot.

 

 

We then managed to fend off an alien invasion in the Halo game.

 

 

 

We finished off the night by stopping in at Q Smokehouse to split one last skillet brownie as a family. Couldn't ask for a tastier way to put a bow on our cruise. Despite the rough start, we had a picture perfect ending!

 

[tripleboom]

Day 8 - Disembarkation

 

We had a late afternoon flight home, so we would up with some time to kill. The brown tags meant we'd be the last non-NCL arranged transport group to disembark, so we were able to wake up a little later and make our way up to the buffet. They were working to clear us out of the buffet pretty quickly, eventually coming around to every table and telling us to head to other public areas. So we grabbed our suitcase and headed down to The Waterfront to hang out until our color was called. Oddly, they never did call brown, but instead the color groups after ours were called so we decided that must be our cue.

 

We headed to the Manhattan Room where we found an incredibly short line for disembarkation. It seem as though the aft disembarkation points were MUCH less crowded than those that were forward (where the buffet is located; I'm sure that's no coincidence). We had our cards scanned and were off the ship within about two minutes of stepping foot in The Manhattan Room. Customs was likewise a breeze. We spoke briefly with a customs officer after grabbing our luggage, and we were officially back on U.S. soil.

 

Since we had time to kill before our flight, we made plans to head one pier down to check out the U.S.S. Iowa Battleship Museum.  Best of all, because we were residents of Iowa, we were able to board for free by showing our driver's licenses (no such requirement for the boys obviously, so they were admitted for free with Stacy and me).

 

We stopped by the big donor board on our way to the gangway.  My dad and step-mom are among the donors who had their names etched onto a piece of the teak deck from the ship.

 

 

 

Once we made our way to the top of the gangway we were allowed to stow all of our luggage in a room near the entrance. Great service to allow cruisers to check out this amazing museum, even with luggage still in tow.

 

We were touring on Super Bowl Sunday, so the boys had all their Chiefs gear on for the occasion.

 

 

Here they're standing with an inert armor piercing round that would have been fired from one of the massive, 16" guns shown above.

 

 

Just how big are those 9, 16" guns? Well there's a Pepsi machine for scale.

 

 

The officers' china on display was pretty neat.

 

 

Safe to say the 1953 Christmas Menu was likely not up to snuff compared to Specialty Dining on NCL.

 

 

A view of the battle bridge where war could be waged from behind 17" thick steel. A tough nut to crack!

 

 

And a view from the navigation bridge as well.

 

 

The rear guns appear trained on the Joy. Rude!

 

 

We enjoyed one last look at this beauty.

 

 

Back in November I arranged to have a U.S. flag flown on the USS Iowa's aft deck on my dad's birthday. The staff at the museum then retired the flag at the end of the day and shipped it to me to gift to Dad, complete with a certificate of authenticity. Pretty special to then get to stand where his flag had flown!

 

 

Before long, it was time to head for home.  We hopped in a Lyft, and headed to John Wayne (SNA), making one last pass past the Norwegian Joy.

 

 

Thanks to everyone who stuck with me as I completed this review! It's a labor of love, and I wish I had the time to be able to knock it all out quickly, but something about a full time job and raising two active boys keeps me occupied. 🙂 

 

Until next time, fellow cruise lovers!

[rjm11]

thank you for such a great review! I enjoyed it very much!

[pal1]

Thank you for the wonderful review. Makes me even more excited to be onboard the Joy in a few weeks!

 

[AKR2011]

Thank you for another great review. The smiles on your boys' faces is always my favorite part. You're making incredible memories as a family. When is your next adventure? ❤️⚓️

[johnrich]

Thanks for an awesome review! Can’t wait to be on the Joy in 54 days!

[coralskygirl]

Really enjoyed your review and pics of your family!!  I’ll be heading out on Joy in just about 3 weeks!