CruiseMates' Readers Cruise Reviews

New Year's on the Dawn

This was my 3rd cruise, 2nd w/ NCL. I was traveling w/ friends, 3 of whom had been on many multiple cruises & 1 newbie. Two of our group had a penthouse so we were all able to board through the VIP line with them. That was great & worth the price of admission to the big category cabins. I seriously loved getting to cut what had to be at least a 2 hour wait in the terminal.

Our 1st stop on board was Pearly Kings Pub because it was the only bar open. Most passengers opted for lunch instead in the Garden Café. When our cabins were ready around 3 pm we dropped off our stuff & grabbed our life jackets to head up to our friends' penthouse for sail away. On the way we took a detour through the Garden Café to pick up a tray full of snacks -- cheese & pizza mostly -- for sail away & b/c we were all getting a bit tipsy at that point.

One member of our group had accidentally left a carry on bag on the dock. He put it down to sanitize his hands before boarding. Trying to get that back was a bit frustrating b/c the crew kept assuming we were complaining about luggage delivery, not a lost piece. It was returned before we left NY harbor. Amazingly the contents, including some cash, were all there.

We sailed a bit late because there had been some sort of problem on the George Washington Bridge and traffic in midtown was snarled. The NY Skyline at night is always breathtaking from the water.

After sail away we headed to the casino. The gamblers were anxious to get started. I was starving and we dined in Impressions. The paintings were lovely and the food well prepared. I ordered the peach soup as an appetizer but didn't care for it or most of the cold soups on board. I do enjoy cold soup but not for dinner. I wanted them at lunch where for 10 days they kept serving hot, creamed soup. I thought the Food & Beverage staff had that backwards.

We had amazing weather for the 1st sea day as we sailed down the east coast. Even the crew was surprised. Our CC meeting in the Star Bar was fun. Our wonderful CC organizers managed to get us discount coupons for additional internet time if you bought a package. You also get more minutes for signing up on sail away day and if you are a Latitudes member. Note that I paid for 1 hour, the small package, but ended up w/ 2 hours of time through these discounts. Several members of the senior staff came to meet us including JB the food & beverage director, formerly of the QM2, and Jamie the Assistant Hotel Director. Everyone I met made a point of saying hello all week. It's always fun to put names to the people you've been chatting with on the boards before your trip.

Unfortunately, I had some work to do. I found a writing & reading room on Deck 12 near the Library, the cinema, and Spinnakers. It had lovely floor to ceiling windows & good writing desks. The barrel chairs could have been a bit more comfortable. They weren't really good for curling up with a book.

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Later that afternoon they held a Latitudes party with a variety of free drinks. Almost 25% of the people on board were repeat sailors. There were speeches and they raffled off some neat stuff -- beach bags, dinner at specialty restaurants, towels, spa time, etc. They even gave out a prize to the passenger who had been on the most NCL cruises.

In the afternoon we went to a martini clinic given by Carol at the Star Bar. She is very knowledge, very funny & a great mixologist. For $15 you got 5 mini martinis of different varieties. You also make new friends. We loved Carol so much we ended up meeting there every night for a cocktail before dinner. She was such a professional, she remembered what we all drank and practically had them waiting for us when we arrived.

It was warm enough to sit outside on our second day at sea. It was very crowded. I found a cubbyhole on the side of the ship near the bow but even that became packed by noon. There is a hot tub up there. But it's raised & on a ship moving at 25 knots in 8 foot seas getting up there can be tricky. Getting out I saw a teenager lean into the wind; his body was at a 45 degree angle but the wind was keeping him up.

St. Jewelry (better known as St. Thomas) was our first stop on New Years' Eve day which is also a Sunday. We shopped in Havensight but didn't bother to go to Charlotte Amolie because everything was closed. We tried to find a bar showing the Jets game but no luck. Some NFL games were available in local bars.

New Years Eve was festive. Everyone was decked out to the hilt. There was a big band in the lobby. There was a rock band on the pool deck. They drained one hot tub & filled it with champagne & ice. You could buy a bottle of your favorite bubbly. There was a big 2007 ice block carving by the pool. There was a DJ in Spinnakers (I think) for those who didn't want to be outside. We watched all the frivolity from the top deck which provided a great overview.

New Years Day we were in Tortola. Given the holiday, things were pretty quiet in town. Friends went on a Pub Crawl which was really a ride around the island with the driver stopping every so often to give people shots of 151 rum. They ended up at some bar that was more like an open air shack on the beach where they had drinks and some lunch. My excursion booked through the ship to the Baths at Virgin Gorda was cancelled because of the holiday & it didn't sound like a good idea to hop in a taxi by myself to go swim in under ground ocean waters alone so I wandered around the town in walking distance for about and hour then returned to the ship hoping to watch a Bowl game in Pearly Kings. It wasn't being shown. When I went to the desk to ask where I could go to see the game, the girl at the desk told me that the ship didn't buy the package while in port. Then I asked for a recommendation of a bar I could safely go to by myself. I was annoyed when she looked at me & said, "Go to a beach instead, honey. You'll have more fun." After I missed the game when I found out later it was shown on the TVs in our cabins I was really annoyed. Why couldn't she have just told me that?

Our next stop was St. Marteen. We took the ship's excursion to a Divi resort. I don't recommend it but it suited our group. The tour drives you to the resort where you have lunch, get 2 free drinks and can use their facilities, including the pool. There was a small reef & you could snorkel in relatively shallow water. We ended up leaving St. Marteen about 3 hours late because the dock workers dropped one of the big lines that tethers the ship to the pier into the water and it became tangled around the propellers. They had to bring in divers to untangle everything.

Around midnight we had to make an emergency return to St. Thomas. Scuttlebutt said a passenger had his appendix burst and he had to be evacuated to a hospital. I wouldn't have even known this happened except friends in the casino had to unexpectedly stop gambling when we reached port.

San Juan was, well, San Juan. Basically we were in a major city on a work day. I walked the path along the ocean side of the Fort which was peaceful but long. The streets were crowded with tourists in the old city and the sidewalks are extremely narrow. Back on board, the crew was setting up an outside pig roast. Just as they got everything in place & started carving, it began to rain. It was a surprisingly cold rain. The efficiency with which that crew cleared those decks was amazing. It was still too warm to go inside so I headed down to deck 7 -- the promenade -- for a catnap outside under the covering provided by the life boats. If you can manage to not think about what happens if one of them falls on you, it's a pretty cozy place.

I felt extremely claustrophobic and crowded on our day at sea. I was up & on deck by 9:05 a.m. but couldn't get a deck chair! The chair hogs had already staked their claims with various towels. This was on every level & even my hiding space on the bow was full. I ate breakfast & attended one of the lectures. After lunch I finally found a lounger & took a nap in the sun. When I awoke I was startled to see the pool empty. Apparently, some genius stepped onto the sides where you can cool yourself in a few inches of water and dropped his beer bottle sending glass into the pool. The whole pool had to be drained to clean up the glass. I was impressed to see that there was actually a lifeguard at the pool.

Great Stirrup Cay was about what you'd expect. It's a day at the beach. Tendering went smoothly but the beach was crowded. I was unpleasantly surprised when I came downstairs to disembark to find that unlike every other time I had ever gotten off a ship, there were no towels. I had to get out of line & go back up to the pool deck to sign out towels. What a pain. The water was cool but clear. It's a coral island. If you have the right shoes I recommend walking to the far side of the Boathouse for some alone time. I was surprised to learn that Great Stirrup Cay is next door to Coco Cay, RCCL's island, & you can actually see the other line's island from there. The snorkeling was OK but you have to swim out past and behind the lifeguard to see anything good and it is rough out there. I was actually grateful for my free life vest.

The final day was unseasonably warm but still too cool for me to sit outside in a bathing suit. I did manage to catch a few rays out on the balcony where I was relatively sheltered from the wind & very far away from the crowds. I attended one of the lectures on board and was pleased with the quality of the speaker.

Overall I thought the food was OK. It's hard to make food for 2500 people perfect all the time. I wasn't overly impressed with Le Bistro, even though we ate there twice. The first night my duck was horribly overcooked. The wait staff was slow and seemed unorganized. They do have a lot to do because certain entrees are carved tableside and they do a flourish to uncover your meal once everyone at the table has been served, but it wasn't the amazing place I had been promised. Even the chocolate fondue didn't live up to expectations. I love angel food cake but they only supply fruit for dipping. The second night everyone in our group had surf & turf but my filet mignon had no flavor. It actually required the variety of sauces they supply, which was sad.

The crew was delightful. Everyone had a smile & a story to share. I got towel animals almost every night which I loved. I was thrilled to learn that the bathrooms in the balcony cabins were bigger than the bathrooms I'd had on previous trips. On other ships there was always a nautical theme on the carpet & the fish swam in one direction, usually toward the front of the ship. This time the sea horses alternated -- kind of like a ying & yang symbol -- which confused me to no end because I could never figure out what direction I was headed.

I did get up early one day to go to the fitness center. I thought I would be taking a workout class. Instead it was a sales pitch for some herbal product. That wasn't too cool.

Although I wasn't traveling with children I saw the T-Rex pool which was absolutely adorable. The video arcade never seemed overly crowded. The best thing for kids was they had their own section with small chairs and a tiny buffet in the Garden Café. Every kid I saw seemed proud to have his or her own section.

Finally, one friend had a problem on board. Somebody from NCL input a charge to his credit card incorrectly. What should have been $2,000 was entered as $20,000. It took some doing but after about an hour was straightened out. The cruise line was extremely accommodating and provided him with great compensation for the inconvenience they caused.