AKR2011

Spittal Pond was open and all was well in the world! This place is a gem and I highly recommend it. The path meandered up and down, over rocks and onto overlooks by the ocean. The path had the pond on one side and the ocean on the other, and there were lots of cool things to see along the hike, including many interpretive signs. I highly recommend this hike! It ended with a farm and took about an hour and a half for us, but you could probably finish in an hour. You see, DH Alex is a birder. Not someone who enjoys bird watching. He is a real citizen scientist with the binoculars and ornithology apps to boot! My job is to use E-Bird to input the birds as he calls them out, use Audobon if he has questions about any new feathered friends, and use Merlin to listen for birds when asked. These are just a few of the apps that Alex has and I'm just a scribe who likes to hike. We break for birds a lot. Sadly, it was later than we wanted, so it wasn't too active for birds. However, the hike made up for that. I'm going to go ahead and let the photos do it justice.

The other hiking spot that I researched in Bermuda was Spittal Pond. It was not very close, but I knew that us #1 would take us there. We just had to catch that bus. So we went out to the bus stop and I looked at the map to make sure that we were heading in the right direction. A bus pulled up and told us to cross and go back to the bus terminal in Hamilton. Then the bus that stopped there explained that it would be easier to just get off at the hospital and then get Bus #1 to Spittal Pond He gave us a transfer ticket so it wouldn't cost anything extra. This driver explained that Bus #1 left the terminal at 9:15, and by going to the hospital a couple stops back, we would not be at risk of passing it. This made sense, so we went for that. It was about 9:00 now, so I thought we would be still making good time. Well, buses are not as reliable as they should be in Bermuda, unfortunately. We waited at the hospital with a local woman who was coming out of her overnight shift and wanted to go home. She also needed Bus #1, which by the way is a very long route that runs through much of the island. It's also the only one that goes to Spitta Pond. The ride from the bus terminal in Hamilton to the hospital was supposed to be 7 minutes, and remember that the bus was scheduled to leave said terminal at 9:15. It was almost 11am when Bus #1 finally pulled up to the hospital. We were really bummed about wasting time but kept our feelings to ourselves, After all, this poor nurse just worked an overnight and was also stuck. She said that this is the norm on the island. About 20 minutes after we got on the bus, we made it! But will Spittal Pond also be a bust? Stay tuned! I do have a couple of photos from Hamilton itself. I wish we had more time to spend here.

OK, I am back for a bit tonight to get another day or two in. We were still in Bermuda on Day 4, and you can bet that I was up for another lovely sunrise! This was an overnight and we could get on and off anytime we wanted. After enjoying the sunrise I woke up Alex and we grabbed a quick breakfast up at the Garden Buffet. The Washy Washy crew on this ship was awesome! They had a singer and guitar player up there who truly made my day each time I walked through. So many different songs! I would sometimes go in just to fill my water bottle and listen to them. They were midship, so if you don't like the songs, just go in from the aft entrance. Today we had a lot of plans. The day before I forgot to mention that we were going to hike at Paget Marsh Nature Preserve, but we were on the wrong end of the island for that and super hot after the caves. We decided to go today instead and took the 8am ferry to Hamilton. It was right on time and a quick walk to the bus terminal where lost of buses were waiting. I knew that we needed #7 and we jumped right on. Our driver was great and told us a bit about the island on the way since we were seated up front. We were dropped right at the entrance and planned to hike here and then to the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute when it became really hot again. It was only 8:45 when we approached the gate at Paget Marsh...and it was closed. It was just a short gate so we decided to just go over it. Perhaps it was there to stop bikers and cars? At least this is what we thought. Once down the hill and entering the preserve, we saw construction. I did research this spot prior to coming to Bermuda, but I guess I didn't read up on it enough. They were replacing foot bridges and the nature preserve was closed! We were very sad and headed out to catch a new bus. I did have a back-up plan, and I will share that in my next post...

Thank you all for your patience! The Cruise Critic Team has deleted the posts without photos and I hope to get another day or two up later tonight. I appreciate all of your encouraging words and will reply as well later ❤️⚓️

We had a new friend in our stateroom again! I played some Tribond, Alex joined me for Ring Toss, and then we played the first round of Progressive Trivia. It was just the two of us and we only had 9 correct answers, but there were not a lot of teams. Progressive Trivia isn't usually popular during port days. We went to O'Sheehan's for dinner after and were quite hungry since we didn't really have lunch - just ice cream and banana bread. We decided to just order a bunch of appetizers and always order the wings plain and extra crispy with buffalo sauce on the side. I've read all the complaints about the wings, and I will say that the wings themselves were not horrible. However, the sauce was more like a BBQ than a Buffalo. We could not finish them. Pretzel bites, nachos, and dip were all great. We then headed to the Pure Variety Show. This one does not have a plot, but the singing and dancing are pretty great, and there are sets and costume changes. I especially loved the ballet parts. That blond singer was still not our favorite, but we had a nice surprise when Elvis came out and let us know that he would be performing in the Legends show later in the week Afterwards Mojitos were calling, so we headed up to Sugarcane for drinks and some Settlers of Catan on my tablet. We wandered into the atrium after and enjoyed some of Seaside Duo's show before heading to bed. They were our favorite musicians on board, and we started to make it a point to get to as many of their shows as we could. The bartenders and wait staff in the atrium were especially fabulous. I tipped often and received many AMF's with Jameson as well as Irish Mules with Jameson. I am definitely more of a whiskey girl. The crew also loved Seaside Duo just as much as the guests and would be singing and dancing along too. This was such a great day, and we still had another in Bermuda. I am going to end it here and will pick up again soon. Thanks for all those following along. Please let me know if you have any questions. I am always so thankful to everyone here on Cruise Critic and like to pay it forward by posting reviews afterwards. I have to get back to work tomorrow but will try to post throughout the week. This is going to be a long one since it is a back-to-back after all...

There was plenty to do for those who stayed on the ship today:

There is an ice cream shop next to the caves, so we stopped by for a snack afterward. We then jumped on a bus and a ferry back to the port area. We buy Christmas ornaments when we travel and I found one in the port. I also grabbed a rum cake made with Bermuda Goslings Rum to try. There was a Vegan Festival going on by the dockyard too. While researching Bermuda I learned that they eat a lot of raisin bread there. I tried to find some but could only find banana bread at the Vegan Festival. That was a good snack, though. The festival had drumming and dancing in traditional costumes, and that was a lot of fun to watch It was getting really hot, so we just continued to wander around the dockyard. Eventually we went back to the ship to shower and enjoy the activities on board.

Emilie and Luca headed out to snorkel and Alex and I stayed for Fantasy Caves, There was less of a wait for this tour, and there were less people as well. It was also more free. We could walk around more at our leisure and the guide let us hold a rock so that we could get an idea of its heaviness. It was definitely very heavy! Crystal Caves has no wildlife at all, but Fantasy Caves has some algae, so it also has a small animal named Neal the Eel. We were able to take some time trying to seek him out and we did spot him!

Each cave tour is less than 45 minutes long and both involve walking down and back up over 100 stairs, so just a heads up. Crystal Caves are the main attraction and very cool to walk through. The water is a bit of an optical illusion. It doesn't look very deep but actually goes down over 100 feet!

Today's plan was to go to Crystal and Fantasy Caves. We were in port with a smaller Royal Caribbean ship and hoped that we could get in. The ferry was a little over a half over long and then we walked to a bus stop. There was a store next to the bus stop that also sold tokens. We only had to wait a few minutes before a bright pink bus came by and the caves were a short ride away. I really loved this tree that was next to the footpath to check into the caves Emilie and Luca wanted to snorkel and decided to just do Crystal Caves, but Alex and I booked the combo tour and opted for Fantasy Caves as well. They were in between tours, so we had to wait a few minutes. Lots of beautiful trees and flowers were around us, and we had some roosters entertaining us as well.

I then woke up Alex and we headed into the Main Dining Room for breakfast. Hostess Mary Rose was one of my favorite people on board and always greeted me with a smile at Summer Palace. I loved the breakfast specials, especially when they had the Pretzel Roll Breakfast Sandwich and Avacado Egg Wrap. The waiter filled up my water bottle again and we headed to The Atrium for the 10-Minute Mystery and Morning Trivia. We sat with CC and Raymond again and then Emilie and Luca joined us later for Trivia. I will note here that Alex was mostly unimpressed with the coffee on board. Before the cruise, I used my credit card rewards to order him a Starbucks Gift Card. I've heard mixed things about the cards working, but it was accepted on The Pearl, and prices were similar to land prices. We didn't buy a lot of coffee, but the card was nice to have. After finishing Trivia, we were quickly cleared to go ashore. There was really no line and we were off quickly. We all had a lot that we wanted to do but decided to start by getting bus tickets/tokens. You can purchase passes for 1-3 days, or you can buy individual tokens. They also have a book of 15 rides that I wanted to get and split with Alex, but these are only available at the post office, and it was Sunday and therefore closed. The Bemudan and American dollar are worth the same and used interchangeably on the island, so that is really convenient. I used a lot of cash and also my credit card that does not have foreign transaction fees. This worked out well. Since this was a long cruise, I wanted to save money wherever I could. We purchased some rides at the visitor center and had a nice look around the beautiful port. We then jumped on the free NCL Ferry to St. George's. Here was the schedule:

Bermuda Day!! I had been planning this for so long and was once again too excited to sleep. I did rest until about 5:30, so pushing the clocks forward helped a little. The crew at O'Sheehan's were always up with me and filled my water bottle for my walks each day. They were awesome in there. I took my sunrise sea shanty walk and hid some more ducks. It was looking like a beautiful day:

After the game we got ready for dinner. Edit to my previous post, THIS was the Cagney's night together. The first night was the main dining room. Alex and I went up early and played some Cribbage at the Mojito Bar. We absolutely love this place and appreciate that our old favorites are still there after all these years. So yes, dinner was fabulous as I already said. We were very stuffed and went outside to walk some laps. Alex wanted to play Shuffleboard, so we played a little until the staff came to put everything away. It's only open until 8:00, so don't wait like we did! We headed to Spinnaker next for more drinks, and we caught the end of The Funky Root Band. They did not sound fabulous on the pool deck during sailaway, but they sounded pretty good here. After the show, we played the Awesome 80s Game Show all together. This was a lot of fun. They split everyone in half and asked questions. You had to run up and answer before the other team. I felt awful that someone fell running up to play, but overall it was a blast. I definitely recommend this activity. After this, we headed to bed and looked forward to a beautiful day in Bermuda tomorrow.

We then wanted to play games, so I ran back to the room to grab a few options and I found my first friend of the cruise. I always top my steward at the beginning and ask for animals. I am a big kid and love finding these. I also learned that we would lose an hour of sleep tonight. That's ok, maybe I could sleep in a little tomorrow. We all met up at Garden Buffet for some games. We wanted a bigger table to play at and most of the bars had small tables. We also wanted drinks. The original plan was the Great Outdoors area, but it was really windy. We ended up settling into a booth by the back door of the Garden Cafe instead. This gave us easy access to the bar and it was not a highly sought-after place for people to eat. Before our cruise, there was an anonymous poster in the FB group for the sailing complaining about the buffet. This person insisted that everyone quickly choose their food to not hold up the line and then eat within 10 minutes of sitting down. I found that to be a bit ridiculous, but we also didn't want to take a table away from people trying to eat. It was after the lunch crowd, so no worries there. To be honest, I never had an issue finding a table when I went to the buffet. Anyway, we settled in and played a newer game called Abducktion. It is perfect for a cruise since it involves little plastic ducks. They get abducted into the space portal after completing patterns on your individual boards.

Next up was The Galley, and everything was so shiny and clean. They were prepping all kinds of things and it was a brief stop but still very cool. We had a great time on this tour and definitely want to check it out again on our next cruise. We didn't go the following week since it would be a repeat and we wanted to make sure that others had the chance to go. We met up with the ladies again in the atrium after and then headed to Lotus Garden for lunch. I wanted to friend rice with just the shrimp and not the other meats. However, the chef interpreted that as wanting just the rice and shrimp and no other veggies or flavors that come with the fried rice. Definitely my fault for being complicated, but overall it was not my favorite and I never returned. I also had dumplings and found the sauce to be too spicy for my palette. We had drinks after and then went to Deal or No Deal. None of us were chosen to play and we only ended up with some instant win pull-tabs that amounted to nothing, but it's always fun to go.

Next up was the food storage. They have more than 1 million dollars of meat on board, and wholly potatoes! The produce room was wild!! Even though it seemed like there was a lot of food, they only have enough for the cruise. After that they have dry storage for just a few days. Good thing we didn't get stranded. Later in the cruise we learned that they ordered 900 dozen eggs for our cruise, and that number actually seems low with over 2700 passengers and crew eating breakfast for seven days and consuming all kinds of baked goods. This was a fun end of the ship to check out:

I forgot to mention that before I started my walk I also hid some ducks. I purchased 24 for each leg and was excited to play along in this game. Originally Alex was willing to help too, but then he decided that it was too wasteful and wanted nothing to do with the ducks. I do get that, but I also saw how much people liked finding them. It was easy to hide when most of the ship was sleeping. Luca hid ducks as well, but she had to be extra sneaky about it since it was later in the day for her. She found one duck; I did not find any, unfortunately. I did see a couple of people find mine and they were excited. I also gave a couple to crew members. They would see me hiding the ducks and ask for them. Luca gave a couple as tips along the way too. The crew really enjoy the ducks and some have little keychain ducks that they carry too. After my walk I read a book for a bit until the main dining room opened a 7:30. Did I mention that I started my walk at 4:30am? Yes, I really am an early riser! After breakfast I did the Sudoku Challenge and the crew joined me for Trivia. Everyone was up by then, and we had a great time. We befriended a sweet older couple, CC and Raymond, who have been on 72 NCL cruises. They knew most of the answers since they cruise so much, and we had a great time with them all week as teammates. Funny story, the following week we met friends of CC's while playing Trivia again. It really is a small world sometimes. Emilie and Luca stayed put for the Sushi Demo, but Alex and I had the Platinum Behind The Scenes Tour. There were 17 of us, and this was our first time getting to do it. The last cruise was still during Covid and they weren't doing the tours. First was laundry, and that was really cool in case you have not seen photos of this. The washers and driers are HUGE, we watched how they made the little yellow clothing tags, and they have some really neat folding machines as well:

Here is today's Freestyle Daily too:

I am a true early riser on cruises. I think part of it is my excitement and part of it is that I wake up with the need to pee after consuming so many beverages. Whatever the reason, I have trouble sleeping in and always pack my clothes for the next day on the shelf under the bathroom sink. That way and I can get up and dressed without disturbing Alex. I love walking laps around the promenade while the sun is rising. I signed up for a free trial of Pandor Premium a couple weeks before we cruised so I could listen to sea shanties on my morning walks. I even had a cruise playlist made that took us from home to Albany on that first day. I don't think I'm keeping this service after the trial is over next month, but it was lovely to have all my music ready for offline listening. I tried to walk around 20,000 steps each day and had close to half most mornings by the time I finished what I liked to call my Shanty Walks/ Soon the sun was coming up and I was excited that it looked like a great day!

Here is the first Freestyle Daily:

Spades is often our game of choice, and we enjoyed playing while The Funky Roots Band was playing poolside. We heard that rooms were ready and headed out, just as the rain started coming down really hard again. Sadly, the announcement was not for our decks, but it didn't take long before we were allowed to get inside. Our room was small but efficient Is anyone else following Saint Greg's review? He posted a photo of the weird toilet on The Jewel and we had the same one. You had to sit sideways, unfortunately, but we made it work. Our two smaller bags arrived and soon the bigger ones did too, so we unpacked and got settled in. We played some Trivia at 5:00 and then had dinner together at Cagney's. I had my first lamb of the cruise and it was amazing, as was the 7-layer cake. That evening Comedian Jose Sanduy was supposed to be on board for the opening show, but he didn't make his flight and would have to join us in Bermuda instead. They had a Broadway Cabaret in the theater, but this was a show meant for Spinnaker, and sadly it showed. There were no sets or costume changes, and this was really needed for a theater show. The singers were mostly good, although the blond girl always sounded like she was screaming into the microphone. I know that they had to have an opening show of some kind, but this one was a bit disappointing, to say the least. We were all very tired after being up so early and ended up retreating to bed shortly after.

After lunch we walked outside to tour the ship from top to bottom and get photos of the port. The Black Falcon Cruise Terminal is very industrial, and there is a lot of non-cruise traffic rolling through as well. We noted that anyone driving in would want to leave some time to navigate and find parking. Soon we decided to grab drinks at the pool deck and grab a table to play our first game of Spades. We are all gamers and play virtually a few times a week. Lots of our downtime on this cruise was spent with the games that we brought with us. Although the pool deck was hopping, bartenders were walking around taking orders. I typically throw a dollar at my bartenders when they bring me drinks, so I started this immediately. Our table was not forgotten. They have some sangria here that I like, although I miss the days when NCL made it fresh every cruise. Does anyone else remember that? I even did a tasting where they gave me their recipe for it and I made it when I came home. Cruise Critic does not want me adding more photos to this post, so I will make a another one. I was just asked about the officers on board too, so here you go: General Manager: Cary Turecamo Cruise Director: Will Oliva (We had him both weeks and then the previous CD Carol came back this week) Food & Beverage Director: Oscar Fernandes Guest Services Manager: Ana Roncesvalles Executive Housekeeper: Osley Ollivierre Executive Chef: Rodney Bennet Beverage Manager: Rodelio Raydanas Restaurant Manager: Furtoso Gonsalves

Alex will make fun of me, but he had to have a martini too. His was just a regular Lemon Drop, though. I realize that the drinks look pretty identical, but I can attest that Limoncello is always the better option. We then ducked into the atrium quickly for the Freestyle Daily and so Alex and I could sign up for the Platinum Behind the Scenes Tour and Wines Around the World Program. Schedules in hand, we headed to Summer Palace for lunch. A bit of a warning, Alex hates it when I take photos of food and menus, so I do not have many photos of this, but I highly recommend Professor Cruise's website for all of the NCL menus. She runs a terrific blog! Another one of my many traditions is having Fish and Chips on Embarkation Day, so I definitely ordered that. There are three rotating lunch menus. My favorite desserts are on Day 2 (Milk Chocolate Cheesecake) and Day 3 (Peanut Butter Cheesecake). In general, the food in the main dining room is delicious and the crew are always fantastic!

Although we were check in very quickly, it took a while to be let on the ship. Alex and I are Platinum, and the check-in team allowed Emilie and Luca to join us in Group A. The Haven guests went first of course, and then we made our way on board next. It was about 11:30 when we were finally able to walk across the gangway. We had different muster stations and did that first, then agreed to meet at the bars on Deck 6 for drinks before lunch. We were all starving, but embarkation drinks are a must! My traditional beverage is a Limoncello and Vodka Martini. The bar was supposed to open at 11:15, but they were not quite ready for us. Luca and I waited at the bar while Alex and Emilie made faces at us and were none too quiet about their hunger:

I can't believe the photos are not showing. I am SO sorry!! I am going to try and restart here. I don't know what else to do 😭 From the beginning... Alex and I have used Yankee Trails' Cruise Express bus in the past, and it has worked out well, so we went ahead and booked that again. We live in The Catskills of NY two hours south of the terminal outside of Albany, an easy county road and then straight up I-87. Our friends and family also booked the bus and were coming from the Syracuse area. That about 2.5 hrs. straight across I-90. Alex and I woke up very early and left around 3:30. We wanted to find something to eat for breakfast one we got closer, and we weren't sure about the weather. There were torrential downpours from 4-5am, so I'm glad we had ample time. There was very little visibility and we made a quick stop at a Stewart's once we got close to the bus station. They have a covered pavilion at the bus terminal, and we arrived first. Soon Emilie and Luca joined us and we had our big reunion. There was a Tornado Warning for the Boston area as we were riding along, and we were very thankful to have booked the bus at this point. I hate driving in general, and it was good to have someone else in charge. We arrived in Boston around 10am and tipped our driver and the porters as we ran into the terminal to check in. I always carry a small travel umbrella, and this came in handy. A few weeks ago I fell flat on my face walking to my car coming out of work. Luckily I was ok, but my right knee was very bruised and my left one had a cut that was just not healing. I decided to get a spray tan the day before this cruise, which I hadn't done since college. With the rain, tanner was getting on my clothes and would eventually leave my body streaks. I don't think I will be getting one of those again! But I wanted to point this out since you will watch my tan fade a lot throughout this review 😄 Once in port we were checked in quickly and had our Embarkation photo together. I always buy this and look forward to it every cruise: