Stealthdog

Day 2 daily. We just backed into port - watching a huge cruise ship back into a port was awesome!!!!!

I’ll post the Day 2 and Day 3 dailys this morning. My Day 2 are upside down, so have to retake them. We are Day 3 onboard and approaching Puerto Plata. I’ll post day 2 reviews today - Eric wants to have a spa day on board, so we probably wont be doing much. Yesterday we did the Latitudes Behind the scene tour, cruise critic meet and greet, putt putt, supper club, howl at the moon, and a few other things to write about.

After our engagement with guest services, we had 3 different people reach out to us. One was the Executive Housekeeper. Everything has been resolved and we will chalk it up as just bad timing or miscommunication on Day 1. 😁

Now for a negative critique. We are more than 24 hours on the ship and in the room and we still haven’t seen our room attendant. We only had 2 towels in our bathroom and there was no turndown service last night, so we had to use still wet and dirty towels this morning. After we left this morning for the ship tour, we had a late breakfast before heading back to the room late morning, and the room still hadn’t been serviced. If this keeps up, we will be making several visits to guest services or will just call the hotel manager directly.

Last night we did Le Bistro, and overall it was fantastic. We used our AMEX dining perk, and I don’t know if it made a difference, but we were told we could only order one from the appetizer/soup/salad list and one from the entree list. We ended being to get one appetizer, one soup/salad, and one entree. The escargot was ok - it’s standard for cruise ships with 6 pieces of escargot in the buttery sauce. Eric loved the scallops, but one of them was undercooked. So, always be careful with scallops and cut into them first to make sure they arent raw. The onion soup and goat cheese salads were both great. One of the better onion soups I have had on a cruise ship. It wasn’t overly salty and the cheese wasn’t too crusted on top. Eric loved the lamb - it was cooked exactly medium rare, which is often a challenge in restaurants (both ship and shore), and he thought the quality of the meat used was very good. Eric did think the sauce used in the lamb meal was too salty. I had the Coq Au Vin and it was pretty good - especially the sauce and the way the mushrooms were sautéed. I wouldn’t normally use a dining for chicken, but because we will be in Bistro a couple other times I went with it. It wasn’t a disappointment. We had standard deserts - I got the flottante (a variation of crème brûlée) and Eric got the strawberry desert. Both were very good. We both got an ok port wine that is covered in the beverage package. The service in Bistro (from the maitre D, to the server, to the sommelier) was fantastic. We will keep our future reservations and go back on the second cruise again. Definitely recommend Le Bistro as a solid option to use a dining package on.

One of the perks of the club balcony is the size of the bathroom. It’s is really nice. Many other room classes don’t give you much space. The shower is a tub/shower which may be challenging for taller people. I’m 5,8” and I only clear the ceiling by an inch or two. So for anyone above average height, you will have to duck while taking the shower. A few bathroom pics below to show how it’s laid out. Standard shampoo/conditioner combo and body wash are in dispensers. If you prefer bar soap, or need more specialized shampoos, bring them with you.

After boarding yesterday, we knocked out all of our required reservations. First stop was Cruise next to book the Latitude loyalty events - ship tour and wine tasting event. The line was really short and we got the reservations completed. After that we split up to do the box office and restaurant reservations. At the Box Office you can make reservations with a NCL rep or at a kiosk for Choir of Man and the Supper Club. We already booked Choir or Man online, so only needed Supper Club. When I tried to book them, I was told I could only book 1 show, even though there were different shows. Not a big deal to me, because we are B2B, but pretty crummy for other cruisers who can’t see all the shows. We will see the West End show this cruise and the Divas on 2nd cruise. The Box office also gives all the information for all shows that require and don’t require reservations. So even if you aren’t making a reservation, stop by and get the pamphlet. Dinner reservations were able to be done at Teppanyaki. We canceled and added the extra dinings we needed to make with no issues getting reasonable times. We made most of our reservations already when the app opened reservations.

Some pictures of departure. It was fun watching the parade of ships leaving. Carnival left first, then Royal, then us. I think there was a MSC ship elsewhere in port, but couldn’t tell. Disney left after us so we didnt hear their horns.

Day 1 Daily. I’ll have some time this afternoon to post Day 1 things. Have the loyalty ship tour this morning the and M&G. Will provide some info on the box office, first impressions of Wi-Fi, Le Bistro (dinner last night), and some ship photos.

Got into the stateroom and they do a really fun setup for vets and military - ship patch, challenge coin, pin, and code of vacation. Well done NCL! They do have a military reception, but they do it in the middle of dinner hours on the first sea day, and we already have reservations for the supper club, so we will probably miss it. This is probably the best gesture I have seen a cruise line do for military. (I hope I don’t get in trouble for publishing “for your eyes only” information 😂).

And we are already onboard!

We can see the ship from the seating area, and the ship Wi-Fi is listed as an option, but we can’t connect to the Wi-Fi to make dinner reservations. So, we will have to go in person once boarded to make reservations. Cruise Next for wine event and ship tour, box office for supper club, and teppanyaki for restaurant reservations. Should be the 2nd group to board after the Haven.

4 ships in port today for boarding. Escape, one Disney, one RCL, and one Carnival. Pier 10 is the NCL Escape. They were still deboarding people from the Escape when we arrived, so a little chaotic. They did start sending people into the checkin area shortly after the 930 checkin in time, and the processing was fairly quick. There is a priority line for Platinum and above once inside the terminal, but general boarding was moving just as fast because it’s the first group. Note - no one asked our assigned checkin time, but it’s listed on the boarding pass. It’s possible you could show up earlier than checkin time - I’m not sure they are checking the times. We are currently in the seating area waiting for the ship to start boarding.

Last night we saw Funny Girl in Orlando. We typically find ship board shows to be lower quality than off-Broadway or National Tours, so we enter a ship with that expectation. I don’t recommend this 3rd national tour of Funny Girl to anyone - the sets were boring and with empty scenes, the male lead was off pitch most of night, and the dancer choreography was not synced (and they were used in chorus and their singing is not what you would expect for a national tour). The female lead character was over the top with physical comedy compared to Barbara Streisand’s original version, which made it a little harder to enjoy. The kicker was Melissa Manchester was supposed to play the role of Mrs Brice, but wasn’t in the show. Don’t know if she left the national tour or just taking a vacation. That said, we have high hopes for Choir of Man and think this will be the opposite experience with it being better than a national tour!

I am so excited for you. We have never done Haven - that is going to be awesome. We have done suite category on NCL ships without Haven, so not the same thing!

Enroute to port via chauffeur (aka TA). Beautiful day in Orlando and great day to travel aboard a ship! I (JC) am a morning person, so have been up for hours and got to enjoy the Florida sunrise. Eric is NOT a morning person. 😂 Eric and I have been on about a dozen cruises in together - Celebrity is typically our favorite, but we don’t necessarily care about loyalty just for the status. We have sailed NCL, RCL, Princess, and Disney as well. Our travel is usually December (my birthday month) and June (Eric’s birthday month), so we have a lot of experience in Caribbean in December. When we sail, our most important factors are itinerary, dates, and departure port, followed by cost, then ship and cruise line. Because we had so many Cruise Nexts to use, NCL Escape out of Canaveral was a no-brainer to us.

Its boarding day today! We will probably leave here ~ 830 for our 930 checkin. Should only take us about 45 minutes to get to the port (won't be any traffic this early on a Saturday morning), but will need to stop off at an ATM to get some cash out (we never have any on us anymore). I'll post the boarding process, and initial ship impressions tonight, unless there are delays boarding then I'll start posting from the port holding area. Have my checklists in hand and my boarding to-do list ready. Tonight is Cagneys!

I've never had to monitor OBC like this, and it is a bother that I have to. NCL appears to be a lot stricter on what specific OBCs can be used for than other lines. Hopefully it is all clear on the on-board folio. Safe travels and see you onboard!

They don't describe the on board credits specifically as shareholder benefits. Its listed as generic OBC. On the NCL App, go to "My Plans." At the bottom of that folder are two categories "Vacation Add-Ons" and "Purchased Items." The shareholder credits should be listed under vacation add ons as two $50 certificates. On my account they read as "Free $50 USD On-Board Credit Certificate Non-Refundable." I can't log into the NCL website right now, so not sure if its in a different place than where it is on the app.

I'm with you. If you are going to spend on a cruise anyways, may as well get the cash back! 🙂

OBC these cruises will be the most complicated we have experienced and sadly, I'm going to have to track everything to make sure we use it all, particularly the non-refundable so we don't lose it. We have a total of $300 non-refundable OBC per cruise. $100 for shareholder benefits. The benefits submission for NCL was quick and the approval was applied within a day. Kudos to NCL for streamlining this process and making it easy. $200 for AMEX Platinum benefits - our TA did whatever training or partnership necessary with AMEX to be able to apply the AMEX benefits. Only requirement from our part was to pay for the cruise with the AMEX card. For NCL (7 day sailing), the benefits are $200 OBC and 1 dining at Bistro (for two). Non-Refundable OBC is very specific on what it can be used for - don't think it can be used for DSCs, Casino charges, or Cruise Next (someone can correct me if I am wrong). So, the plan is to use it for Spa charges, individual drink upgrades, and Starbucks, and whatever the balance remaining on the last day to make purchases in the on-board stores. We also have $300 refundable OBC ($50 TA, $250 purchased) for the first cruise and $325 ($75 TA, $250 purchased) refundable OBC for the second cruise. We are not as concerned about these because we will get back any remaining balance. We will probably spend these on bingo and casino charges.

We have a number of free at sea, pre-paid packages, and mixtures of OBCs we have to track this cruise. We of course have the standard Free at Sea: $50 off shore excursions 2 meal specialty dining 150 minute internet package Beverage Package We did not pay for the whole Free at Sea Plus upgrade, because it just didn't make $ sense. We really aren't using the NCL excursions (1 per cruise) and don't really care about the alcohol package upgrade (for a few reasons, which I will get into later). We did get portions of the upgrade. We had an AMEX Platinum promotion offer to spend $1K on NCL and get $200 credit back. We got the offer past final payment, and because we were going to spend the $ anyways, we wanted the free $200 back. We both had the promotion, so each of us had to spend $1K. We did get the 2 pack Free at Sea dining upgrade per cruise. For us, being happy with the food on a cruise is probably the most important factor into our overall enjoyment of a cruise ship. So, we think it was worth getting the two extra speciality dinings. We had already booked this before the AMEX promotion, so we cancelled the upgrade, and repurchased it so it would apply to our required $1K spending. We also purchased 1 internet upgrade to the unlimited premium wifi per cruise. We were having some challenges with doing the upgrade on the app because its default is to force the upgrade for everyone in the cabin, with no way to edit it. ***You can buy the internet upgrade for just one person in the cabin by using the website***. We don't need 2 unlimited wifis. The last couple of ships we were on have all have great internet speed - on one we brought our laptop and logged into a server of a MMORPG (online game). There was no lag and connection was stable. We will see how good it is on the Escape. We prepurchased gratuities on both sailings to apply that towards our Amex purchases. Normally we will not pre-pay (unless they are part of a promotional booking) and have them charged to the onboard account. We did buy 1 excursion per cruise through NCL. Cruise 1 we got the Virgin Gorda and the Baths excursion, and Cruise 2 we got the Discover Cayman excursion. Georgetown is a tender port, and we prefer to go through the cruiseline at tender ports just for the ease and not have to worry about getting back to the ship late. Typically, we prefer private excursions because they are usually cheaper with fewer guests. Note - the fine print of the AMEX offer specifically excluded excursions from the promotion, but when this charge hit out AMEX accounts, it applied to the offer. We finished our AMEX offers by each buying $250 OBC....and the $200 credit has already hit our AMEX accounts. We did not buy the Thermal Suite pass this cruise - just didn't seem like it was worth the 7 day price. In previous NCL cruises, buying a spa treatment also gave a day pass to the Thermal Suite for the day of the treatment. Not sure if the Escape does that, but will find out soon! We also did not buy the Vibe pass. We just don't spend that much time at the pools to make it worth it to us. We will be trying both the Platinum wine tasting and Platinum ship tour (at least for the first sailing). First thing I do Saturday when we get on board will be to go to Cruise Next to make those reservations.

We are really looking forward to Breakaway class. We have typically preferred the older, more traditional cruise ship feel, but went on RCL Oasis class ship last year (Symphony) and loved it. Even though there were so many people on board, the ship design did a really good job of making it feel like it wasn't so packed. I think the waterfront concept, it may be the same on Escape too.

Paul - We are only a few days out. See you and Chuck soon. We will probably stop by the LGTBQ+ social the first night (715 at the Skyline Bar).

Thanks! I love the private islands. I would go on a cruise that just goes to a private island and stays there for 3-4 days. First time for Great Stirrup, and have some research to do this week (though running out of time). Of the recent islands, Coco Cay is my favorite, followed by Castaway Cay.