Sand and Seas

Does NOLA have a Platinum/Diamond/Ambassador waiting area for boarding? Enjoying following along- Hope your 'Haven-lite' cruise is enjoyable, and of course BEST OF LUCK to your wife in the Tourney. We will all share the excitement if someone in our CruiseCritic 'family' takes that prize🤞

Looking forward to another BirdTravels review😊 We love that you are already going back on Prima! Your first review helped us prepare for our recent Prima cruise. (Working on our next Prima booking now.) We disembarked at the new terminal (from Galveston to Miami) but have yet to embark there. Thanks for the great pictures of check in area. Love that they have different lines for Platinum and up plus CAS. But, what in the world is 'My Time' check in 🤔

I made the mistake at dinner of ordering the Short Rib Dosa thinking it was a small appetizer. Picture was deceiving. First time at Indulge it's easy to over-order😋 For lunch we enjoyed the pulled pork sandwich from Q. Salads were always good and the Tomato soup was delish. Also loved many of the 'small plates'. One was kind of like bruschetta, but I think the name was Pan con tomato. Absolutely loved the Pesto Gnocchi from Nudls, but it was 'sold out' later in the week.

I'm not the OP, but we found the Indulge Food Hall was fairly busy every time we were there. I hope they increase the hours for lunch.

I wonder if that was the Pesto Gnocchi? It was delicious the day I tried it, but then 'sold out' the next couple of days.

We usually walked in for lunch around 1pm or 1:30. A couple of times we just had to wait a minute or two for the staff to clear an empty table. Just before lunch closed, the staff would come around to the tables and let us know to order before the system shut down.

There is the Surfside Cafe on Deck 17 that is a buffet. It's not as large as those on other ships. It's on the same deck as the main pool.

Wow, we certainly missed that. We ate several times in Indulge but I guess we didn't walk around enough after we found a booth or table to sit at.

We spent 11 days on the Prima and never found the card swipe Coke dispenser. I have seen pictures of it that people posted. Where is it located? I thought maybe it was in the Hydration station that was never open on our cruise? Was it somewhere in the Buffet? (That we didn't go to) If anyone can tell us where that machine is located, I would appreciate it for our next Prima cruise!

We loved our Prima cruise to ABC islands so we are planning to book again for a warm weather cruise. It has some new ship quirks, but nothing that took away from our overall appreciation of the ship. I'll be interested to see what (small?) changes they make for Viva.

Will the ships still be decorated for the New Year's cruise? We will be on a cruise leaving Dec 30th and would love to see those decorations and Gingerbread villages.

If you have the CAS 'free drinks in casino' card, you can get a can of Coke or Diet Coke while the casino is open. We usually took two cans back to our cabin each day.

I don't recall ever seeing a piano. The Belvedere bar had a lot of space with good seating. I'm surprised they didn't utilize that bar for some evening music. Hopefully NCL will re-think how they use that space.

It was a great cruise and we enjoyed the extra days at sea. We were able to find some shady spots on Deck 8 to hang out and enjoy the ocean. So glad you also enjoyed Prima enough to decide to book on her again.

More random thoughts- 6- Prima's Observation Lounge is smaller than those on the Bliss size ships, but still lovely. We didn't spend much time there, but went up there a couple of afternoons to get some delicious 'just-baked' cookies. Also saw, but didn't try, quiche, sandwiches and a couple of other small snacks. 7- Syd Normans- We were fortunate to get into both shows we wanted to see, but we did have to wait in line for about an hour before it opened. (Great band!) We weren't the first ones in but we were able to get a seat each time. Love the décor but would highly suggest they remove the large comfortable couches which take up too much space and only seat three or so people. More chairs would be an improvement. It was crowded 'standing room only' on the final Rumors show. A fire marshal would have shut the doors earlier. 8- Don't miss The Local- It's a little strange that the Bar and the Restaurant are widely separated, but staff is great in each. Make sure you ask what the Soup of the Day is. Had a couple of fabulous soups that we wish they served on the regular menu. Salads were always great and we loved the burgers. They were happy to substitute the delicious sweet plantains (from the Cuban plate) in place of fries. Made me feel a little bit healthier so I could order dessert. And in case you haven't heard already, they serve awesome Hot Fudge Sundaes....and a couple of other desserts. 9- Penrose Bar and Belvedere Bar- The over-worked Penrose bar serves the casino and everyone hanging out in the Penrose atrium listening to the live music. Way too much going on for that one bar. Meanwhile, the lovely Belvedere bar at the other end of the casino was under-utilized. They should designate the Belvedere as the 'Casino' bar and allow the Penrose bar to concentrate on the atrium patrons. 10- Cancelled Ports- It's been a topic here if they compensate you for cancelled ports. We had two of five ports cancelled (Cozumel & GSC). We totally understood the cancellations as we had watched NOAA storm tracking. Never heard an announcement about it, but noticed our online accounts were credited with $20 OBC each. Guessing that the $20 each was compensation for two missed ports.

Thanks to so many here on CC who helped us prepare for our Prima cruise! I had read everything I could find here prior to our October 31st 11 Day Galveston to Miami cruise, but I thought I would share just a couple of things I noticed while onboard. With our 11 day cruise, we ended up with 8 Days at Sea due to two separate tropical storms. (Cozumel & GSC cancelled) In spite of a few quirks with a new ship, loved the Prima and are planning to sail on her again. 1- The Hydration stations were never opened when we were there....and we spent a lot of time on Deck 8. (Love Deck 8!) Not sure what was wrong. However, bar staff at Luna/Soleil were awesome and took good care of us. 2- Love the Indulge Food Hall! Excellent staff and the items you order on the tablets are delivered to your table promptly. Love this venue, but I hope they re-think the hours. Lunch time should extend to 3pm or so....especially on Days at Sea. (Did I mention we had 8 days at sea???) 3- We were in a wonderful Club Balcony cabin (MA) on the Aft rounded section of Deck 11. So much space! Huge bare space in middle of room plus additional space between bed & balcony door. I'm just not used to having that much space without having to squeeze by the bed or desk. Bathroom was great, but from pictures I've seen online I think it was the same size as a Balcony bathroom. Shower was good sized, but smaller than a Club Balcony shower on Encore or Bliss. 4- Closets- Good & Bad- I believe our closet was same as in the Balcony cabins. Three different sections with room to hang clothes! Shelves that pull down in one of the sections to give you options! However, found it strange that two sections had the hooked on (can't remove) hangers and one had hangers you could move to a different section. The ones you couldn't move would have worked better in the 3rd section for us. Not sure how to describe it, but the hangers with clips for pants/skirts were just not as usable in the section they had them in. Not a huge problem, but maybe someone at NCL should try living in the room for a week or so. 5- Did anyone else notice something different about hand washing in the restrooms onboard? There are 'all-in-one' soap, water & hand dryer sinks in the restrooms. A purple-blue light turns on when you are using the hand dryer. If you flatten your hand, you can see the word 'DRY' projected on your hand. I must have washed my hands in there 8 or 10 times before I noticed. Just amused me after that😊

It was strange! We saw some interesting book titles, and they were REAL books, but I guess they wanted to keep most of them on the shelves as decor.

Someone we chatted with on the Prima said there was some type of app offered onboard to download books. It was like something her local library allowed for downloads. Sorry I don't know more than that as I prefer reading hard copy books. Having said that, I found it interesting that Prima's Observation lounge was lined with bookshelves. There were many interesting books on those shelves, but many were 'glued' together. We enjoyed reading the variety of titles on those shelves. Actually saw a Norah Roberts book in French🤔 There are cabinets by the starboard entrance that contain Sudoko, Crosswords, Scrabble & other games. I also left a hard-copy book in one of the cabinets there for someone else to enjoy and saw a couple of others left there too. As a side-note, if you visit the Observation Lounge between 3 & 5pm, there are great fresh baked oatmeal cookies, quiche, and some nice little sandwiches. Also loved the bar there. The OL isn't as large as on Bliss & other ships, but still very nice.

Yes, we can also recommend! We had a great experience using Galveston Saltwater moms for our transportation from IAH to Galveston two days prior to our cruise.

We stayed at the Tremont for two days before our recent NCL cruise. Pricey but we loved it! Our room had 12 foot ceilings. Bathroom was nicely updated. The rooftop bar was closed for renovations so check with them if that is important to you. Many great restaurants & bars with live music within walking distance. We loved walking around the downtown Strand district and will definitely want to return. It was an easy walk with our rolling bags to the terminal, but it did look like the Tremont had some kind of shuttle available if you needed it.

We stayed two nights before our cruise in late October. Now looking forward to going back to visit Galveston again. We loved walking around the downtown Strand area. Great food & live music everywhere. Lots of beautiful historic mansions. Two nights wasn't enough so we will be planning another cruise from Galveston.

Those beautiful hot fudge sundaes were on the Local's menu and no charge. I wonder if they will be added to the Local on other ships?

Now I wished we had made it to Hudson's for lunch. That beautiful room with the expansive windows must have been quite a sight at lunch (and wasted somewhat at dinner.) The Local had some delicious soups (different each day) and salads. Really loved those Hot Fudge Sundaes! Would hate to admit here how many of them we enjoyed during the 11 day cruise😋

We went to Indulge (Oct 31st 11 day cruise) for several lunches and didn't have too much trouble finding a table an hour or so after it opened. The staff was very quick to clean the tables between guests so we would just wait a minute or two to get a table. All of the food comes out so quick that lunch never took too long.

I would love them to add the Indulge Food Hall to other ships. Ordering on the tablets was easy and we were amazed with how fast our items came out. Lunch & Dinner had great choices. Also loved at breakfast that they had ready to go breakfast sandwiches that were easy to grab. We definitely over-ordered the first time, but after that I think it's less food wasted than when you are wandering through the buffet and taking a spoonful of everything that looks interesting.