Bliss Panama Canal Trip Review 2/25/23 - 3/12-23

[Jordan61]

57 minutes ago, LloydJr said:

Was this for a foreign port?

 

I'd like to know this as well. I thought NCL lifted vaccine restrictions.

[ggTexasGal]

Great photos and info!  Thank you.

[luckybecky]

50 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

Thank you for your pictures and information.

Did you by any chance get a list of the current Officers?

 

Hi there! Yes, I did. Posted on another thread. Let me see if I can find it again....

 

Yep, here it is:

 

Captain Robert Lundberg

Chief Engineer Rolf Isaksson

Staff Captain Robert Hammerin

General Manager Zdravko Kojakovic

Chief Executive Engineer Ivica Bresan

Staff Chief Engineer Claudio Skalamera

Assistant General Manager Marites Sonza

Cruise Directo Paquito Fuchs

Food and Beverage Manager Sreekanth Sundaram

Senior Doctor Adrian La Rosa

Chief Officer Heriela Castillo

Chief Refrigeration Engineer Kjell Ake Erissson

Chief Financial Accountant Windel Tormis

Executive Housekeeper Jojo Orofino

Guest Service Manager Manuel Japson

Executive Chef Jacob Sarkar

Beverage manager Haide Balon

Restaurant Manager Ana Maria Malata

Casino Manager Norman Punzala

 

There were a few more like shops manager or whatever but I didn’t get them all.

 

[luckybecky]

9 minutes ago, Jordan61 said:

 

I'd like to know this as well. I thought NCL lifted vaccine restrictions.

 

I believe NCL is requiring either proof of vaccine OR a negative test result. 

[Jordan61]

7 minutes ago, luckybecky said:

 

I believe NCL is requiring either proof of vaccine OR a negative test result. 

 

Interesting, thank you. I would've shown up unprepared!

Edited March 15, 2023 by Jordan61

[disneylover89]

Why were you asked for your vaccination card?  As of November 22, vaccine requirements and covid testing were dropped. 

[ggTexasGal]

https://www.ncl.com/travel-requirements-by-country

Scroll down this ^ page for the countries that DO have restrictions/requirements!

[luckybecky]

1 minute ago, disneylover89 said:

Why were you asked for your vaccination card?  As of November 22, vaccine requirements and covid testing were dropped. 

 

As noted, for this cruise they asked for proof of vaccination OR a negative test result. You don't need both. And this was the only covid protocol of any kind that we ever saw. Too bad. I felt safer cruising a year ago with protocols in place. But I'm not here to start a debate about that. Just saying what our experience was on this cruise.

 

[www3traveler]

20 minutes ago, luckybecky said:

 

Hi there! Yes, I did. Posted on another thread. Let me see if I can find it again....

 

Yep, here it is:

 

Captain Robert Lundberg

Chief Engineer Rolf Isaksson

Staff Captain Robert Hammerin

General Manager Zdravko Kojakovic

Chief Executive Engineer Ivica Bresan

Staff Chief Engineer Claudio Skalamera

Assistant General Manager Marites Sonza

Cruise Directo Paquito Fuchs

Food and Beverage Manager Sreekanth Sundaram

Senior Doctor Adrian La Rosa

Chief Officer Heriela Castillo

Chief Refrigeration Engineer Kjell Ake Erissson

Chief Financial Accountant Windel Tormis

Executive Housekeeper Jojo Orofino

Guest Service Manager Manuel Japson

Executive Chef Jacob Sarkar

Beverage manager Haide Balon

Restaurant Manager Ana Maria Malata

Casino Manager Norman Punzala

 

There were a few more like shops manager or whatever but I didn’t get them all.

 

Thank You   I was wondering if a friend had returned yet as Chief Engineer.

[ggTexasGal]

@luckybecky Your photos and review are great!

[LloydJr]

2 hours ago, luckybecky said:

 

This was at embarkation in Miami to board the ship. 

 

We were never asked for any documents of any kind in any of our ports: not passports, vaccine cards, covid test results, nothing. All we ever had to do was show our NCL key card to get back on this ship. 

Did you stop in Columbia?

[kitkat343]

I'm so sorry about Costa Rica, but hope you had a wonderful time in Cartagena and the rest of the ports!

[luckybecky]

26 minutes ago, LloydJr said:

Did you stop in Columbia?

 

Yes we did. Cartagena.

 

[Jordan61]

Thank you for all the pictures! We are on the Bliss in May; our first NCL cruise. I am beyond excited!

[LloydJr]

15 minutes ago, luckybecky said:

 

Yes we did. Cartagena.

 

Thanks.  I'm guessing that is why you needed to show your vaccination cards in Miami.

[luckybecky]

So I think when I left off, we had completed our blitz of a ship tour and were waiting for our cabin to be available.

 

Finally at 3:15pm, we went to see if our room was ready, and it was. There was never an announcement that cabins were open (after two announcements telling us there would be an announcement). I asked other cruisers if we had just missed hearing it, and they said no, they never did announce the rooms open. Pretty sure this is the latest access to room we ever had.

 

First impressions: the room is small. There are no drawers by the desk which I always find useful and missed having on this cruise. The bathroom is really nice and had plenty of shelves for our needs. The closet is awkwardly placed and hard to access just inches from the sofa. Maybe it is just me but the bed seemed shorter than standard. Both of us felt our feet hanging off the bed more than normal. I’m 5’8” and this is not normally an issue for me in a standard king bed. Not sure why it felt awkward. At any rate there were only a few inches between the end of the bed and the wall. Very little room to pass by.

 

We did like that there was a full size sofa big enough for us to sit side by side with room to spare. This turns into a twin bed if needed, and there was also a bunk bed that could be pulled down from the ceiling if necessary. We were in balcony cabin 10770.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I definitely liked that the shower had an actual glass door and not just a curtain, which we had on older ships and are a pain because they stick to you!

 

 

 

 

Closet with safe. The side of the closet pictured on the left was awkward to access due to placement of the sofa. 

 

 

Balcony

 

 

I did not like this feature pictured below. Instead of being able to look down into the water, we had a direct view into the roof of Food Republic and part of the balcony on deck 9 directly below. 😞

 

 

 

A couple of small cabinets

 

 

 

Mini fridge with a couple of items for purchase. We did not use these items. 

 

[luckybecky]

We noticed many international cruisers on this sailing. Here is the electric outlet situation with three US and one European plug.

 

 

 

This was in the bathroom. I plugged a tiny night light into it, but the night light went out if we turned the overhead light off. Sorts of defeats the purpose. But I had a standby solution. We always travel with a couple of battery powered tea lights. I turn them on in the bathroom when we go to bed so if we need to make a midnight trip to the bathroom, we don't have to turn on the exceedingly bright bathroom light. 

 

 

 

There was one of these reading lights on each side of the bed. The USB port was a little awkward to access due to the padded headboard right beside it. But not a big deal. It was nice to have this right by the bed. 

 

[luckybecky]

Miscellaneous info: we had 3,919 passengers on board according to our cruise director. Of these, we had only about 60 children. I would guess that the average age on this cruise had to be at least 60+. I think this a function of the long itinerary (15 days) and the fact that it was during school time so families with kids would not be cruising now. Our bartenders told us they were bracing for the next cruise which would be only six days during spring break, and even had to undergo extra training to make sure they were prepared to deal with potential underage drinkers.

 

Muster at 4:00, packed like sardines into the Brew house. They began the presentation at 4:15 finished about 4:25. I am so bummed that NCL had ditched the E muster process. That was the best thing that ever happened to cruising.

 

Suitcase had arrived by the time we finished muster and we were able to unpack.

 

There was a sailaway dance party at pool at 5pm but we didn’t actually sail until close to 7pm.

 

 

 

 

Here is what turned out to be one of the most popular drinks on the ship. Dessert in a glass! I saw people drinking them all the time. The mudslide:

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

We had already gone to dinner by sailaway, so we missed the scenic night views of Miami. It was probably a spectacular nighttime view of the skyline. Sorry we missed it.

 

Dinner at Taste. We arrived about 6pm and were seated immediately, by 7pm we noticed a long line outside. 

 

 

 

 

 

Crispy crab and cream cheese wontons

 

 

 

French onion soup

 

 

 

Greek salad

 

 

 

Baby spinach salad

 

 

 

We almost always ordered two appetizers each, usually soup and a salad. You can also order an appetizer sized portion of a main course if you wish -- this works well if there is a pasta entree that you just want to sample. I once ordered an appetizer of the gnocchi that was offered as an entree. 

 

Sauteed shrimp scampi

 

 

Chicken piccata

 

 

 

Everything was excellent! Spoiler alert: we liked all the food on this ship. Everything from buffet to fine dining. All was good quality. Of course you are going to have nicer options at the specialty restaurants, but even the food at the included restaurants was generally very good. 

[luckybecky]

We went to the Beatles show in the theater. We arrived at 7:30 and got a good seat. Theater was quite full by the time show started at 8pm. The Beatles do multiple shows on this ship, highlighting different eras in the evolution of the Beatles. Tonight was their early years. 

 

 

 

 

 

Comedy show at 9 with comedian Flip Schultz.. We left Beatles still in progress at 8:45 to run over to comedy club, already filling up but we still got good seats, very funny show about 35 minutes.

 

 

 

We ended up seeing four different comedians on the cruise and went to a total of I think six shows. Then we hit the casino for a little while, but not having any luck tonight so went up to our room and enjoyed a glass of wine on the balcony. Raymond in the wine bar gives a generous pour and is my new best friend.

 

Here is that view I told you about looking down from our balcony. A nighttime shot. I wish this wasn't there LOL

 

 

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by luckybecky

[brookie848]

2 hours ago, luckybecky said:

 

I believe NCL is requiring either proof of vaccine OR a negative test result. 

When we sailed a few weeks ago, neither were required. If there is any sort of requirement, it is now port-based.

[Cruise5life]

We had only 34 kids on my Jan 5th panama cruise on the joy.   
had prime rib 3 different times at the buffet.   
 

panama was my best cruise ever of all my cruises.    
 

we did have someone get sick and taken off the ship during our canal transfer. That a week later died of legionaries .    

[luckybecky]

Sunday Feb 26 Sea Day

 

We slept late. Finally got up and went for a 40 minute brisk walk on deck 8. There is no way to circumnavigate the whole ship. You can go almost all the way around on deck 8 but not all the way, so we just did a few laps going back and forth. We discovered something we really dislike about this ship when we were exploring yesterday: there is no place forward to go outside and watch sail in/ sail away from a forward vantage point. There is apparently a Haven forward deck but nothing available to us in steerage. There is the indoor Observation Lounge which is a lovely space but if you want to go outside for photos from a forward vantage point, you are out of luck.

 

Got tender tickets for tomorrow. They gave us tender #8. They said it would be approx 9am (give or take a little, no guarantees since they don’t know exactly when ship will be cleared). The next day we woke up and heard an announcement for boat #8 at 7:15!

 

Lunch in the buffet was good. I tried the General Tso's chicken and it was good, also hot and sour soup.

 

At 2pm we had a meet and greet in District Brewhouse. It was fun! We really enjoyed meeting everyone. Lots of people, but no crew came. That was really disappointing. During other M&G events we have always had someone from the ship stop by. On our last NCL cruise, almost the entire senior staff came and introduced themselves. The ship did reserve the space for us in the District Brewhouse and put out a “private event” sign, and made sure the bar was staffed. Thank you to our CC roll call member Henk who contacted NCL and got this done!

 

 

 

 

 

Went to the casino for a little while before supper. Went to Savor around 6pm, roughly same time as last night, or maybe just a little later. Taste and Savor both had lines. We got a pager, they said it would be 30-45 min and it was. Probably 35 min wait. The bar in this area was very crowded. They said the pager would only work in that area so we just had to hang out and wait.

 

 

[luckybecky]

Food was good, roast beef just OK. Service a little faster than last night. Not that it was terrible then, but our waiter took awhile to bring wine.

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry, my food photos tonight turned out poorly. The food looks better in person. 😅

 

I think this is the salmon tartare. 

 

 

Scotch beef barley soup

 

 

Mediterranean grilled vegetables

 

 

 

Thai spring rolls

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carrot cake. Paul is trying to watch his sugar intake so he often chose the "no sugar added" options available at the restaurants and also in the buffet. They weren't bad!

 

 

Chocolate mousse

 

 

 

[luckybecky]

We saw the Nashville Tenors. Excellent show! Upbeat and fun. We made a point to see them again later. 

 

Went back to the casino for a little while before calling it a night. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll be back tomorrow to continue our tale. Thanks for following along. 🙂