Majesty 9/6/08 - Days 1 and 2

[KatWag]

I learned so much from prior posters and just wanted to share our experiences to give back a bit. Bottom line - one of our favorite trips ever.

 

A little bit about us. I'm 47 and DH is 50. We live outside Philadelphia and absolutely love to travel. No kids, just an 18-year old cat named Victoria who is spoiled rotten. Both of us have fairly stressful jobs and travel is our favorite stress reducer and a chance to "reconnect" since we seem to always be going in different directions at home. This was our 13th cruise so far. We've sailed Princess (5 times), Regent (2 times), Windstar (once), Carnival (2 times) and NCL (3 times). Love cruising and can honestly say we've never had a bad cruise yet. We discovered NCL a few years ago and really like the Freestyle way of traveling. Our last two cruises have been on NCL.

 

Pre-Embarkation

Very easy process. We arrived at the Philadelphia Cruise Terminal complex about 11AM. Hadn’t put the luggage tags on before we left home so when the staff member asked us if all of our luggage was tagged, we said “no” and she directed us to a holding lot. Big mistake – should have said “yes” since all I needed to do was place them on the bags when we arrived at the LT parking site. When we got to the holding lot we placed the tags on our bags and asked the person across from us what we were supposed to do next. He said they were all waiting for the cruise staff to come and replace their online tags with the laminated colored versions NCL sends. So we got back in the car and headed down the road, following the directions to the long-term parking. The woman at the lot greeted us and told us to park anywhere we liked, adding that we would pay upon our return and it would be $10 per day. Grabbed our bags and headed for the entrance to the lot, where a trolley was waiting to transport us the block and a half or so to the terminal. Finally, after months of anticipation, we were on our way!

 

Embarkation and Day 1:

As we entered the terminal, an NCL staffer asked if we were in a suite or if we were gold or platinum latitudes members. No luck this time, we were in a regular room and have only sailed with NCL twice before, so we headed for the main line. As we entered the building, we saw rows and rows of chairs. They were filling the third row of seats and we both sat down. The staff announced that in an effort to leave earlier and to avoid the storm, they were checking people in onboard the ship that day rather than in the terminal. (We were later told by another passenger that he was informed it was because the terminal building leaks when it pours rain.) We only waited for a few minutes before they called us to the front, checked our tickets and IDs and then sent us to the next line. This second line was the main security line, with the X-ray machines. I’d say we were there for maybe 15 minutes or so at most. After we passed through security, we headed up the longest gangplank apparatus I’ve ever seen and onto the ship. As we boarded the ship, we were diverted into one of the lounges where they again sat us by rows. They called the rows in order. (I thought they did a really good job of keeping things straight here.) As soon as our row was called, we were directed to the next open agent for the check-in process. Our agent was new and just learning, so she had to ask the person next to her for assistance frequently. I think some folks must have given her a hard time about it earlier because she thanked DH and I profusely for being so patient. What the heck, we’re on vacation. What do a few extra minutes matter?

 

We got our key cards about 12:45. Rooms were not ready until 1PM so we decided to just walk around a bit to kill some time then drop off our carryons in the room and head for lunch. Thanks to prior posters, we knew about lunch being available in the Seven Seas Restaurant on embarkation day.

 

We were in room 637 (superior outside) and decided to head up the aft stairs toward our room. As we approached the stairs (next to the Seven Seas Dining Room) we were accosted by the requisite staffer letting us know that a buffet lunch was available on the tenth floor. We thanked her for the information, told her we were heading to our rooms to drop off bags, and started up the stairs. (By this time, it was 1PM and the staterooms were available.) We found our room, took a quick look around, dropped the bags and headed for the dining room. Since we were approaching from the aft stairs, we missed the staffer this time around, and were quickly seated at a nice table for two in the dining room. As previous posters have indicated, the chilled banana soup on the first day is fabulous – definitely try it. After lunch it was time for a quick exploratory trip around the ship before heading for the room to do some unpacking.

 

By the time we got back to the room one of our two bags had already arrived. Unpacked the available bags quickly (lots of storage space available). This room was probably amongst the smallest ones we’ve ever had, to be honest. But they definitely made very good use of space. We had two closet areas, DH and I each had our own. Plenty of hangers.

 

Inside the closet was a chest with a safe and two lower drawers. We had not brought an over the door shoe bag for toiletries so we found that one of these drawers worked perfectly to store the day-to-day toiletry items. Very easy access to the bathroom. No real storage space available inside the bathroom itself. The shower was probably my biggest challenge over the week. Seems like every cruise I hear the comic tell the joke about soaping the shower walls and spinning around. I commented to DH that this may well have been the first time I truly understood it. The shower is definitely on the small side and be prepared for the floor to get wet when you shower, especially when the ship is moving. But it was perfectly adequate. And to be honest, the other aspects of the ship more than made up for it.

 

The bedroom had a larger chest of drawers with four larger drawers on the right-hand side and four smaller ones on the left. Under the TV were a fridge and a cabinet to the side of it where I was able to store bags and some of our purchases. We had the bed in the queen configuration. That created some challenges for DH since he had to climb in from the bottom and had no place to set a drink if we read in bed for a while before turning out the lights. You may want to consider having the beds set in the twin configuration for easier access to the bed and a night stand.

 

The room was immaculate. And that continued throughout the week. Our cabin steward was terrific. Kept me stocked with extra bath towels and left us a great towel animal every night. One afternoon we came home to a towel monkey hanging from the ceiling. :)

 

Still no sign of bag two when we were finished so we headed off to the coffee bar. Bag two had all of our nicer clothes so I was glad I had dinner clothes for each of us in my rollaboard carry on.

 

The ship was originally scheduled to sail at 4PM. By this time, it was 3PM, (1 hour past the all aboard time) and the staff was making announcements apologizing for the delays in boarding and promising the passengers that once the boarding formalities were complete, they’d be off on a “smashing” cruise to Bermuda. (While unpacking, I had looked out the window in our stateroom and had seen a long line of people waiting to board the ship.) The next announcement informed us that we would not be sailing until 6PM due to delays in the boarding process. They never explained the cause of the delays and I didn’t encounter anyone who was caught up in it, so I’m not sure what actually happened. DH and I were guessing that perhaps PHL airport was backed up and folks were arriving late on flights which caused a big backup in the check-in process? PHL is notorious for problems in bad weather. But we don’t honestly know – just a guess.

 

Next stop was the Crossroads section of the ship to check out the nightly dinner menus. We decided to try the pasta café for our first night and also made a reservation for Le Bistro for Thursday night. (Noticed that carbonara was on the menu for the sail away night in the pasta café so that was an easy choice – DH loves carbonara and I rarely make it at home since we usually seem to be on some sort of diet or another.)

 

Our reservation for the pasta café was fairly early (6:30PM) so we were able to see a lot of the sail away from up there. Although we’ve lived in the Philly area for years, we’d never been down the Delaware on a ship before – it was interesting to see the sights, even though the rain kept visibility low.

Passing under the Commodore Barry Bridge helped us to understand why only the smaller ships can sail from Philly – we didn’t seem to clear it by a lot. It’s sad to think that once Majesty leaves we may not get ships into Philly. Since they can’t raise the bridge they need to lower the river level. And there is an ongoing battle between PA and NJ on the subject of dredging. Knowing how things work around here it will likely be years before anything is resolved in that area.

 

We took in the welcome aboard show, took a walk out on deck and then checked out the entertainment in a few of the lounges, before hitting the sack to be ready for our first full sea day.

 

Day 2 –

Decided to check out the buffet on deck 10 for breakfast. I was the first one up (used to getting up at 5:30 for work), got a table and coffee and then checked out the various stations. Coffee and tea were available at stations inside the buffet area. The omelet station and the waffle station were located just outside on opposite sides of the ship. This was our one and only breakfast at the buffet. I had the waffles (tasty although not the Belgian waffle style I originally expected) and DH had an omelet. But we both found carrying everything a bit tough without trays. Hanna had passed through the area and left what the Captain described as “confused seas”. It was rough walking around – tough to walk in a straight line sometimes. There were lots of folks doing a little dance on the way to the table and a lot of spills. Although 2.0 has made some welcome changes in the buffet offerings, this is still an area where I think NCL needs some work fleet wide – more on that later.

 

DH had to work a bit so he headed down to the internet café after breakfast while I headed for one of our favorite spots, the coffee bar. Great coffee and very comfy chairs for reading (and you can’t beat the view). We met up at the 12:15 shopping presentation. We really liked Rishi, the Shopping consultant. Incredibly nice guy – genuinely enjoys people and it shows. We attended several of his presentations and also took advantage of one of the “power hours” he had at Crisson’s in Hamilton to buy DH a Movado watch.

 

Right after the shopping presentation we headed right outside the Palace Theatre to the Polo Club for the Martini Tasting. What a bummer – it got cancelled since not enough people showed up. We only had 6 people and they have a minimum of 10. They gave us a consolation prize, though, everyone got a free cosmo. (Funny story here though – they couldn’t get 10 people to show up for the martini tasting at $15 pp. But the last sea day they offered a free martini sponsored by Grey Goose and the Palace Theatre was PACKED! I was astounded.)

 

Took in Rishi’s gem seminar after enjoying our cosmo and then raced back to the Palace Theatre for the “Destination Bermuda” talk with Sherry. Thankfully this ship is small enough that you can get places very quickly. The one recommendation I might make for the cruise staff would be to allow a bit more time between events. We literally tore from one event to the next sometimes. But that’s not an option for passengers who have mobility problems, and there were a number of folks on this cruise who definitely had some mobility issues. Just an extra 15 minutes in the schedule could make a big difference for them.

 

Next up after Sherry’s talk? The beer tasting. We thought that would be cancelled as well, but we were able to recruit a few more folks and the bar staff agreed to do it with 8 rather than the normal 10. It was fun, tasted six different beers and they also had trivia questions and prizes. We had a good group and I think everyone had a good time.

 

We decided to try the Four Seasons for dinner that night. Ended up going early since we had missed lunch with all our running around. A few minutes after we sat down, we saw Tim (a passenger we had met during our beer tasting) and his wife, Patricia, come in. They came over and joined us for dinner. Very nice couple – we’d encounter them several more times during the week. That’s one of the nicest things about a ship this size – you run into people frequently. And DH and I both really liked the size of the Four Seasons. It tended to be quieter and more intimate than the larger Seven Seas.

 

Took in the early show after dinner – a Broadway review – the production company did a really nice job with it and then stayed for the “Not-So-Newlywed Game”. I think John, the CD, learned a valuable lesson that night. He selected a Honeymoon couple and then was looking for a couple in the ten year range. A guy at the side kept raising his hand and shouting out, they’d only been married five years but he was desperate to be included. So John gave in and picked them. (I’m guessing he’ll never do that again.) The other two couples were married around 20 and 55 years.

 

Overall it was pretty funny and there were a lot of laughs. But the 5-year guy was pretty drunk before he got on stage and some of the things he said about his wife were getting crude and went well beyond funny. Then, after making one of his ruder comments about his wife, he got up from his seat and went over to the side of the stage to sign for two more beers. We assumed one was for his wife – but no – both were for him!

I heard a number of folks commenting that they wondered how long that marriage was going to last. And I'd guess a lot of wives did what I did and informed DH what would have happened to him in a similar circumstance. ;)

 

Ended up at the coffee bar enjoying one of their specialty coffees – the Nutty Irishman – delish! Tomorrow – Bermuda!