review of the Pearl Western Carribean sailing/11-25-07

[wxtrix]

Background Information

This was our first cruise. We decided on NCL based on family members who had sailed it in the past, the freestyle concept, and the lure of a new ship.

 

Travel To Port of Embarkation

We flew down the morning before the cruise into FLL since it was so much cheaper and use the GO van to get to Coral Gables. The GO personnel at our shuttle stop were completely inept, but a driver took pity on us and took good care of us. As we stopped at the other shuttle stops to pick up people, it was clear that we had found the only stop where the staff were useless.

 

Hotel Info

We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Coral Gables. We booked this through Hotwire for IIRC $70. The hotel was wonderful. We were given a room with a small balcony overlooking the pool. The weather was great so we had a poolside lunch (with a complimentary second round of the drink of the day from the bartender!) and a nice swim and soak in the hot tub. The hotel staff was uniformly professional and pleasant, the hotel is located near tons of shopping and dining, and it was a breeze getting to the terminal on Sunday. We will stay there again.

 

Embarkation

We arrived at the port about 11:20 a.m. Bags were swiftly transferred, we went inside and there was no line for check in. Went upstairs to get our room key and were directed to sit down. We waited no more than 10 minutes, and although we kept being told that the ship would be open for boarding no earlier than 12:30 p.m., we were on the ship by 11:40 a.m. Our first stop was Mambo's to make dinner reservations for Cagney's for that night. Cabins weren't ready so we killed some time until going to the Summer Palace for lunch. Unfortunately it was closed for a private party so we made our way to Indigo where we had a great lunch. About 1:15 we headed to our floor and were in our cabin. The official announcement was made at 1:30 and we had our bags delivered by 3 pm.

 

Stateroom

We had a mini-suite and had seen a bunch of photos on the internet so we knew more or less what to expect. We were pleasantly surprised by the size of our balcony and the bathroom, especially the deep tub in the shower. Very comfortable, and we had drawers and closet space left over once we unpacked. We also came to appreciate the convenience of being on the 11th floor to the pool, buffet, and library.

 

Activities

There seemed to be plenty of stuff going on. We went bowling, played some bingo, used the library, spent some time in the pool and hot tub, played trivia (and came back with a bunch of swag as a result!). We also went to one of the martini tastings which we really liked. We tried to attend the margarita one on Thursday, but there were just 2 of us and the surly bartender said we had to wait for 6 people. We left to have a beer at Maltings instead, and when we returned to Mambo's that evening for dinner, our bad margaritas made us happy that that tasting had been canceled. We also hit the casino (and won a fair amount on Monday afternoon!). We also attended the captain's digital photo tour of the ship which was very informative, and he stayed to answer literally every question from the audience. Also, don't forget to go up to deck 11 and watch the bridge from the observation deck. We never made it to the spa--next time for sure.

 

Dining

This was a mixed bag, which is what I was expecting. I wasn't going on a cruise for gourmet food, and as I have plenty of access to excellent restaurants where I live, all I needed was for the food to be decent.

 

Cagney's--We ate here the first night, using a 2for1 certificate we had in our coupon book. It was OK. The shrimp cocktail tasted weird to me, and the rib eye I ordered was OK. My fiance had prime rib, which tasted better. I can't remember what we had for dessert. I doubt we'd pay for Cagney's again as it was very underwhelming.

 

La Cucina--When we went to make the Cagney's reservation, the hostess suggested we make one for La Cucina too since it gets booked up so quickly. We hadn't planned on eating there, but we decided to try it. This was a much better meal--the antipasto cart is a nice idea and we both enjoyed the 'land and sea' entree (although the shrimp scampi was WAY too salty and the pizza was undercooked and not very good). We had dessert too--I had macademia ice cream which was good. We would return.

 

Mambo's--Just awful. Maybe we are spoiled by some excellent TexMex and Mexican restaurants at home, but we did not enjoy anything we had as starters or entrees. I had the ribs and they were terrible and my fiance had the fish which had the same pico de gallo on it that was on every one of his other dishes.

 

Lotus Garden--We went for lunch on the last sea day. My fiance had sushi and I had the Korean ribs--they were both excellent. We almost skipped this restaurant b/c we have excellent Thai, Chinese, sushi, and Japanese food at home, but we would definitely return.

 

Blue Lagoon--We had one lunch here, after our excursion on Cozumel. I had the famous fish and chips which were very good, and my BF really enjoyed his burger. There was a Carnival ship on the other side of the pier and we enjoyed people-watching (the highlight being a woman limboing her way under the low doorway back on to that ship).

 

Indigo--We had lunch here on embarkation day since the Summer Palace was closed for a private party. It was really crowded every night after that so we didn't try it again since you could get the same menu and be seated immediately at the Summer Palace.

 

Summer Palace--We ate 2 lunches here, 2 dinners, and 2 breakfasts. We enjoyed all of them. I was amazed so many people would choose the buffet over this beautiful, sit down, restaurant.

 

Buffet--we ate here for one lunch and 2 breakfasts strictly out of necessity (Summer Palace being closed). Luckily I had read the board and knew that we could get basically the same food at the Great Outdoors and that we could sit in La Cucina, so that made it less annoying. The food was fine enough, but definitely the second-to-worst on board (the worst, of course, being Mambo's). We didn't eat at the pool side buffet b/c it didn't seem appealing when freshly cooked food was available elsewhere on the ship. We watched the sail away from Cozumel from the Great Outdoors--pretty neat.

 

Bars--We never made it to the Star Bar or Sky High Bar, and never had a drink in Bliss, mainly b/c after our martini tasting we decided we loved Bar City, so we quickly started a routine where we stopped in at teatime (!) for a draft beer at Maltings ($6.50 or so for a huge glass of beer--I could not believe people were paying over $20 for six packs of Bud Light) and at Shakers for nightcap martinis. We'll hit the rest of the bars on our next cruise.

 

Service

I didn't see that service was compromised with freestyle cruising, and we even had the same wait staff at different venues throughout the cruise. The staff at Bar City knew after our first night that my fiance liked his martinis 'extra dirty' with extra olives so I didn't have to ask for the modification more than once, and they took very good car of us. Our stateroom was immaculate, and our room steward always greeted us in the hall, as did every single other staff/crew member, from the guys in T-shirts who do the painting and cleaning outside, the room stewards, the room service waiters, to the officers we met in the halls and throughout the ship. I've never confused good service with obsequiousness, and we definitely felt that the crew and staff were friendly and attentive.

 

Children's Clubs

We don't have children so we did not use this service.

 

Shore Excursions

Cozumel--We did the Playa Mia beach break from the ship (as it was our first cruise, we decided to just stick with ship excursions). We were quickly transported to the beach, and apart from the weird, cheap loungers, it was pretty nice. We tried the margaritas they were good, and while I didn't eat from the buffet, my fiance did. He said it wasn't that great. There was also I believe other food available if you wanted to pay. The beach is a bit rocky, so bring water shoes, but the water is clean and clear and there is an iceberg and water trampoline, as well as those pedal boats, floats, and Hobie Cats (the staff does the actual sailing) for free. Then a quick trip back to the pier. It was good enough--next time we will probably either just take ourself to try the other beach club or do something else (like deep sea fishing).

 

Grand Cayman--We booked the "Rays and Reefs" tour through the ship. Once we tendered to shore, we waited a bit to be called to our bus. We probably rode 10 minutes (due to the traffic) to our boat. The sand bar with the rays was pretty amazing and then we went just a few minutes away to the edge of the reef to snorkel. The water clarity was exceptional and the variety and number of fish amazing. I swam with a parrot fish for a good 10 minutes and my BF saw a barracuda. He is an oceanographer and has 1000+ SCUBA dives under his belt and he rated this reef a 9 out of 10, and the rest of the tour group seemed very pleased with it as well. Kudos to our excursion operators for finding such a great spot with minimal time wasted after leaving the ray area in order to maximize time in the water.

 

Entertainment

Music--I loved Los Trios Hermanos, but didn't hear much of any of the other bands as we didn't spend a lot of time in the Atrium or up on the pool deck. There were musicians at the piano bar and the female singer in the evening was not bad, although her cold got a lot worse as the cruise went on. We didn't make it up to the Spinnaker Lounge for any of the dance bands--maybe next time.

 

Shows--We didn't attend any of the dancing shows. We thought the magician was pretty lame and left after about 20 minutes (we could see him hiding things or pulling things from pockets, etc.). The worst of all was the Second City Group. We even went up to the improv show in the Spinnaker to see if they would be funny in an all audience format, but sadly they were not. To call their shows "lame" would be to give them an undeserved compliment.

 

Disembarkation

We took the self-disembarkation option as we had an 11 am flight out of FLL. I got us down to the Atrium around 7:10 and we noticed some people already in line on the deck. At that point, the staff member let us go out and get in line too. By 7:35 we were moving and by 7:45 we were in a cab and on I-95. We arrived at the airport with 2.5+ hours to spare before our flight. We each had one large rolling bag so this was very manageable.

 

Odd and Ends

--Although this was ostensibly a sailing that was sold out except for the high end suites, we never waited in line except for entering and exiting the ship. At one point we had a hot tub all to ourself at noontime on a sea day, and as long as you avoided the mid-ship elevators, you could move easily around the ship.

 

--The stupid photography right after you exit the gangway and right before you can actually enter the ship is very annoying. Once we realized that the line was for pictures we did not want, we ran by in between photos so we could get on the ship.

 

--The ship was constantly being sanitized, right down to room stewards cleaning room handles with a bleach solution. I appreciated that.

 

--I used the laundry facilities and my word of wisdom--although the first soap bin has a "II" marking on it and the second one has a "I" marking on it, if you put soap only in the second one, your clothes will only be rinsed. ;)

 

Summary

The Pearl is a beautiful ship and we will sail her again! :)

 

[AandCsmom]

Thanks so much for your thorough review. We are sailing on our first cruise this Sunday (Pearl). I'm a bit nervous that it'll all be overwhelming and we'll get caught up in tons of crowds. In any event...I'm glad you had fun. Thanks again.

[wxtrix]

my fiance just read this thread and said I forgot to mention that we had our "real" introduction to cruising when the plumbing on our corridor was stopped up on embarkation night, ahahahaha!

 

also, I really did have a fabulous time on the Pearl and we are probably going to book the back-to-back for our honeymoon next fall--any criticisms I had are offered as commentary and not an indictment of the cruise as a whole. the ship is beautiful and the service was great, and I had several very good meals (in fact, one night in the Summer Palace he and I ordered a pork dish and a steak and split them up. I hadn't had any starters and the steak was grilled so well, I got another one for myself! I never went hungry (and I am a picky eater).).

[JRinBalt]

We are also leaving this Sunday for the same cruise and I very much enjoyed your review. THANKS!

 

So looking forward to it!

[ute_fan]

Great review! Thanks for sharing your opinions. I loved the Pearl last summer when we went to Alaska, and am glad to hear that others are too.

[cynbar]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed review -- it is nice to see one that is mostly positive. Could you give a little more info please about the laundry facilities???? I'm trying to decide how much to pack!

[dancemom50]

Thanks so much for that great review. We sail on the Pearl this Sunday and are really looking forward to it.

[beachseasand]

Thanks for posting such a detailed review. Made me miss the ship had a great time on her last spring.

[tommy]

Thanks for taking the time to write the review.

[wxtrix]

Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed review -- it is nice to see one that is mostly positive. Could you give a little more info please about the laundry facilities???? I'm trying to decide how much to pack!

 

this is the thread I used to find out info about the laundry: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=618048

 

 

and thanks everyone for the kind words! I envy you those who are sailing her soon!

[katiel53]

Thanks for the review. We are going on Pearl in May to Alaska and love reading the reviews.