mugtech

Will be traveling on Liberty as our first Diamond cruise this September. We do not drink alcohol, was wondering what other drinks will be available, such as milkshakes.

I just did Spectrum of the Seas out of Singapore in March, had the best meal I ever had at sea in the Sichuan Red specialty restaurant, there were 5,000 passengers on that cruise, most traveling on Asian passports.

Bar Harbor is drawing the line at 1,000 cruisers a day. No NCL ships will be stopping in.

And they can sail out of NY at Cape Liberty.

There are 12 step program meetings available, usually in the afternoons on sea days. You need not be an alcoholic or addict to attend, perhaps you have family members who could benefit from attendance. Could help you to understand these diseases.

The good thing about a 3 day cruise is that it is too short to get bored with the food selections. We very much enjoyed the great variety of asian food avalable at all meals. My wife was surprised, first time she had congee for breakfast on a ship. The first night we did the mdr at our assigned time of 5 pm. A little early, but with a 7 pm show, worked out ok. I especially like the mdr because every night they have a vegan starter, main course and dessert. Makes ordering easy and it was very good, as it was previously in 2023 on liberty and explorer. There were plenty of other choices. The second night, while we were docked in penang, we ate at sechuan red. At lunch we were offered a 50% discount for dinner that night by ariel from the philippines. Perhaps he spotted my wife or heard her speaking ilocano. We had been debating whether to go to a pay extra restaurant on such a short cruise, but 50% helped make up our minds. The spicy sea scallops i had were excellent, got a side dish of garlic broccoli, very good. The wife enjoyed her lobster with noodles, and we both got started with hot and sour soup. We both agreed it was the best food we ever had on a cruise. Therevwas only one other table of 4 guests in sichuan red between 6pm and 7:30 pm. The last night we did windjammer and enjoyed the wide variety available, as there had been at lunch every day. We are hoping to book spectrum for a longer cruise in the next two years.

We went to all three shows in the theatre, enjoyed them all. There were no reservations required, but there were many reserved seats in the first three rows in the middle down front. I would advise getting there at least twenty minutes before show time for seats below, even the balcony was full 5 minutes before the shows started. I speak of early shows, there were two shows every night, plenty of kids at the early show. The show the first night was the effectors, about 4 super heroes and their fight against crash and his gang. Started with film animation and then the life performers took over. The music and special effects were amusing, trite story line, butvwell done in 45 minutes time. The second night featured pengfei su doing juggling, magic, kung fu and comedy. Quite the variety show, done very well and i'm not much of a juggling or magic fan. Worth seeing once. The third night was showgirl! Past. Present. Future. It was the most extravagant song and dance show i ever saw on a ship. Featured a can can number and other historical classics. It was very well done. We did not attend any shows in the two 70, heard a lot of good reports about the silk road, the only show requiring reservations. There was a different show there the second night, do not remember the name. Also did not get to music hall, usually saw good bands there on anthem, often tribute bands. There was bingo in music hall one night, bands the other nights. This is a reason why three daysbon spectrum is just not enough. Henry played piano in different venues, when we saw him at lunch time in the schooner bar he was playing all requests, kniws a variety of types of music, did it all so well, the 45 minutes went fast. Dan camelo played guitar at the leaf and bean coffee house, also showed a wide variety of different types of music, found him very relaxing. Had fun playing trivia with sergio from mexico, he made up his own trivia questions, not using the standard "name the 7 dwarfs" type of rci trivia. Did true or false trivia without paper and pencil, you stood up if the statement was true and remained seated if it was false. He did 6 of these in 30 minutes, gradually eliminating players with each question. Got to win a game because i knew the capital of honduras. Sorry my tablet is only allowing me to put capital letters at the beginning of sentences. Please digest this info while i prepare to write about food on spectrum of the seas.

My wife and I took the Spectrum for 3 nights out of Singapore. We previously took two cruises out of Cape Liberty on Anthem, so the layout was familiar. We had taken Norwegian and Princess out of Singapore, so we knew the routine in Singapore. The difference these days is having to submit e travel info to get into Singapore. We had employees from Singapore do them for us, even they got one wrong. We did it online the night before, said we were ready to go, but got rejected at the cruise terminal. Allow yourself extra time, for even though you took a cruise round trip fron Singapore, you need to go through it all again to get off the ship. The Spectrum of the Seas was a great ship on which to spend time, a longer cruise would have been preferred. Our inside cabin, 9303, was the largest ibside we have ever had on any ship. The door was not opposite a balcony cabin, but rather was on a short hallway with two other inside cabins. The only time it felt crowded was the usual boarding day buffet traffic jam. There were 5,129 passengers on board including 800 children. It was a very Asian cruise, the number 5 nationality on the ship was over 600 from the Philippines, not counting my wife, a duel citizen traveling on her USA passport. 4th was India, then Malaysia, then Indonesia. The largest group was from Singapore with over 1,200 on board. More on food and entertainment in a few hours, lunch tine here on South Bridge Road in Singapore.

Most of us will never get to see or meet your kids.

We found the veggie burgers to be sufficient for protein, plenty of vegetarian choices in the buffet. We found slightly better choices on Royal Caribbean, as every dinner has at least one vegan starter, main course and dessert. But our 20 days on Sky fed us well enough without getting boring.

DSC is optional, also you can cut your tip to the steward in half if you think you are only getting half service.

He is difficult to get ahold of since they named a ship and a port after him.

Hey Teach, looks like Game of Thrones not too well used.

On the Sky a few hundred people showed up for the game shows, the theatre was packed, every seat taken, for the Beatles and Queen tribute. An indication. Even the female vocalists had many more fans than Deal or No Deal.

Saw Deal, No Deal on the Sky. For future purposes all game shows are No Deal.

Perhaps if enough people remove DSC the crew members will decide to work for a different cruise line next time. The front line troops always take the brunt of the assault.

Cancel the cruise one day before sailing? Why screw yourself?

Currently many people still wearing masks, required at all health facilities. Went food shopping today, they still expect people to stand in line at least a meter apart.

Or you could become the Jack Reacher of cruising, just hand wash your clothing every night and wear the same every day. An alternative is to buy new clothing in a port and throw the old stuff out or give it to a charity. No luggage, no problem.

This is why we carry our luggage off the ship.

What did NCL tell you?

We found ourselves doing land tours instead of cruises, much cheaper. We spend October through March in the Philippines, used to do cruises out of Singapore to Hong Kong. This year we rented a two bedroom apartment in the mountains, Baguio City. For $450/ month we got WiFi and big screen smart tv in a barangay a few blocks away from downtown and the park. The food was very cheap, we spent less than $1,000 on food, transportation and entertainment per month. We do not drink alcohol. The temperature was in the high 70's every day, got down to 60 at night. Rained two days out of 30. At the mall we got 10 pieces of sushi with senior discount for $2 each. The Greyhound Cafe, specializing in Thai food, only was $16 total including service charge for the two of us much less than half what we pay for the same quality food and service in the USA. Cab rides from the mall, a 30 minute walk, were less than $2. Will be going back next year.

Could be weeks before the cruise could be two days before or the day of the cruise, depending if they oversold it.

If you are interested in pinball, come to Pinfest in Allentown, PA May 3 and May 4, $20 to play hundreds of machines all day, $10 for children. Also colorful t shirts for $20.

Found Ms Pacman on Royal Caribbean, still not worth the time and money.