My Review with Link to Photos is up Pearl Oct 10th-12th

[Debbie42467]

A Fabulous Weekend CruiseThis was our 5th cruise , 2nd with NCL. I chose to take this short 2 nighter to Great Stirrup Cay. I thought this would give us an opportunity to become familiar with the ship before our April 12th sailing on the Pearl. This is long and it's late so please over look any typos or grammar errors.

 

We arrived in Miami around noon. The traffic was backed up on Biscayne Blvd. for about twenty minutes. There were four cruise ships in port. I went to the latitude member check-in line and was told that I needed to get in the regular line. I said that we were latitude members. The lady asked two other employees what are latitude members and were do they check in. She said even though there is a sign that said "latitude member check in" we had to go to the regular lines. Not a big deal the lines were short.

 

Single mom with 10 yr old. Inside cabin 10553 two lower beds and one upper. I made sure I booked an upper, my son thinks it's awesome to sleep on a bunk bed.

 

The food at the Garden Café buffet was fair. The luncheon meat was dried and didn't have much taste. Lunch and dinner always had hamburgers (not good quality), hot dogs, chicken, and sausage. On the first night the carving station had veal and lamb. Second night flank steak (very good) and ham. Deserts station was fabulous. Several choices that include self-serve ice cream and hand dip ice cream. Second night they had "made to order" crepes (excellent). The breakfast buffet had lots of choice and had "make your own" omelets stations.

 

On the morning of Great Stirrup Cay we ate breakfast at Summer Palace. It is incredibly beautiful and the staff was friendly, we had a window view. (The cruise daily says that no shorts are permitted in restaurants after 5:00 pm, but we noticed people were entering and eating here at dinner with shorts and flipflops) You could see a RCCL ship anchored next to us. After breakfast we went to the lobby to pick up our tender tickets. We were lucky to get on the first tender . I wanted to get some snorkeling in before the crowds and rain clouds. We love to snorkel. We saw lots of different types of fish. Some people said that they saw a stingray. You can snorkel out to and around Susan's Rock. When snorkeling everyone needs to wear a vest. It was wonderful, no rip tides, currents, or seaweed to deal with. It was a fabulous day. I met so many friendly people. The cookout had hamburgers, hotdogs, and I think it was BBQ chicken. There are no towels at GSC. The daily says for you to take your cabin towels with you. We arrived back to the ship just after 1:00. Before we left the ship at 7:30 am I changed the outside door dial to "make up room". After a day at the beach I wanted to take a shower, but our cabin steward never made it to our room. I had to track down someone for clean towels. Our cabin steward was the worst. Two nights never saw her until the last night. She came in and said that she needed to check and lock the mini bar. I noticed that she checked the bottoms of all the cans, I guess they mark them.

 

Entertainment: First night we went to see South Beach Rave. It was so so, we left early, my son wanted to go to the kid's club and I wanted to hit the casino before the second show. The Second City show was good. It was a group of comedies doing short scripts. The second night we missed the first show. DO NOT miss Sharkbait Show. Two guys performing juggling and other stunts. They add comedy to their show and they were hilarious. My 10 yr old attend the comedy shows. They both had some adult humor, but I felt they did it in good taste and it was appropriate.

 

Kid's Crew: The first night my son went. When I went to check on him, he was sitting by himself. He wanted to go. They had all the other kids playing dodge ball. He said that he had fun playing in the jungle gym, but he didn't like competition games. It was very noisy and disorganized. My son came out of the gate and no one checked. The line wasn't moving, it was parents who were registration. Outside at the front door I saw a counselor who was sitting at a table. I told her that I needed to sign out my son. She told me to stand in line. After 10 minutes I gave up and we just left.

 

The pool slide is not very fast, but is fun. The pool is salt water and is deep, I'm 5'8" and couldn't touch. Warning, the pool deck can become extremely hot and you could burn your feet. You will have to sign out pool towels and will be charged $25 each if you don't return them.

 

If this was a longer cruise, I would of defiantly complained about our cabin steward. We never saw any towel animals, heck we were lucky to get clean towels. I've only cruised on Disney (3x) and PoAm (1x) which neither ships had casinos. I was impressed with the wide-ranging of slot machines and table games on board. I'm coming home with $49.50 extra in my pocket. The buffet food and service was nowhere nearly as good as our PoAm cruise. They never asked or handed out survey cards. There was no latitudes member reception or incentives, Disney puts on a nice reception. Over all we had an amazing cruise. We are so excited and can't wait for our April 09 cruise. I hope you enjoyed my review. You can check out my photos and downloaded dallies at

community.webshots.com/user/debbiefl1967