Stealthdog

Supper Club - Rachel Dudt. We saw Rachel Dudt at the supper club last night, without the meal. She is an outstanding singer. We heard some negative feedback about her theater show earlier in the cruise, which we didn’t go to. With the Other Guys departing tomorrow, Rachel Dudt will probably be the best show in the supper club moving forward. You can tell she has a theater background. Her final song from Wicked may have been her best one. She is hands down the best female vocalist on board. NCL - give the woman a band. This was the first performance we have seen on board where there was no live band, so it felt like her show was missing something. With a live band, her Supper Club show will be great. I imagine her Vegas shows were awesome. We would go see her again. Her voice and presence is perfect for a lounge environment. Not sure what people didn’t like about her theater show, but her Supper Club show is worth seeing.

It’s official, GSC cancelled and replaced with Nassau (6am-130pm). Eric has given me a future vacation credit for a beach weekend in a Florida location of my choice for MLK Day weekend as a makeup for our beach days getting canceled for my Bday cruise. 😁

Missing GSC is a bummer because I love the private islands and we haven’t been to GSC yet. But, we are kind of treating this B2B a little like a floating resort, so we will survive. Besides, I got 2 CruiseNext Certificates so we will have a chance again. Though I do like certainty (well, as much as I can get) and itineraries with tender ports may be low on my wish list for future cruises.

I finally was able to spend the rest of my non-refundable OBC. We really wanted to avoid scrambling tomorrow to make sure it was all used. Eric’s mother is in for a surprise with a nice post cruise present. Who am I kidding - she gets perfume every time we cruise, so no surprise. 😂

What are your thoughts on the wings? I liked them much better on previous NCL sailings, but am begrudgingly eating them. I already have next Tuesday circled on my calendar to go to Miller’s Ale House for a wing night. 😂

Not sure if you got this, but after 12 days, I finally found the officer board. They had one in the crew section I saw in the behind the scenes tour, but no photos were allowed. I finally have some time to catch up on these other reviews!

Disembarkation instructions were put in the Day 6 Daily. On Deck 6 by guest services they provide the 5 timelines for disembarkation on Saturday. Luggage tags are available at a couple places near guest services and you can choose which time you want to leave the ship. We decided to go with Purple (approximately 830). We didn’t want to do easy walk off because we do have 3 pieces of luggage. 730 appears to be the first time (tentatively) for freestyle disembarkation. It appears passengers with NCL transfers, excursions, and post cruise packages will get disembarkation instructions and luggage tags sent to their cabins.

I haven’t heard any announcements. Do you know if the app had previously said GSC and now says Nassau? All the excursions are still being sold for GSC. I’ll do some snooping once we get ready for dinner.

Day 6 daily.

My ranking of breakfast on board: 1) O’Sheehans 2) MDR 3) American Cafe 4) No breakfast 5) Garden Cafe It’s not that the food is bad in the cafe, it’s the hygiene issues for us of seeing people sneeze or cough into their hands and then handle serving utensils, or pick up items from the trays with their fingers, eat it in line, then get some more. There is also no salmon or avocado in the cafe (at least the days/times we have been in there). We prefer going to the buffet cafe off peak hours when there are fewer passengers.

After dinner we decided to see if we could get into the late showing of the Supper Club. We saw the 4 Sea Sons show in the theater the first cruise, but missed the Divas tribute in the Supper Club, so wanted to give that a try. There were plenty of seats when we got there and you are able to see the show without the meal (which we didn’t like when we tried it on the first cruise). The Divas show is another lounge act, with a performer singing songs from famous divas over the years (ie Donna Summer, Whitney, Tina Turner, etc). The selection of songs was a bit odd for us - the singer covered a couple of Alicia Keys songs and an obscure Rhianna song. I’m not too sure many people consider Alicia Keys a diva 😂 and it may be been a better choice to do a Rhianna song the audience knew. Her voice was really suited for those Alicia Keys songs and they were her best ones. There are two musicians in the act and they were both very good. I give the singer credit for trying to do a wide range of diva song, which is really challenging. The act may have been better if there were a couple of entertainers performing (like the Other Guys in their West End act) because it may have allowed a better tailoring of songs to different singers’ strengths. Overall, we love the Supper Club concept and the lounge feel to the show. We are going again Day 6 - we already have reservations. If you want to check out the Supper Club and only plan to go to one, I would probably recommend seeing a different show. Ask Cruise Director Jack or someone from the entertainment team for a recommendation.

Final night in Le Bistro. I repeated my meal of escargot, French onion soup, and filet. Eric got escargot, French onion soup, and lobster thermidor. We both had the marquise chocolate desert, and the waiter brought us the marrons et clementines desert because that was the only one we still hadn’t tried. The lobster is an up charge menu item and comes as a very large whole lobster. Eric loved it. The marrons is a Bavarian cream type of desert. It wasn’t too rich and it is something we might have gotten if we back another time. The marquise is probably the safest desert option on the menu. Overall, all 4 nights in Le Bistro were fantastic. They have indoor seating and outdoor seating on deck 6. We sat inside all 4 nights because we didn’t want a constant stream of passengers walking by us while we ate. But if you like people watching, sitting outside the restaurant may be more your style. If you only have a one to a few dining vouchers/packages, I highly recommend Le Bistro. It’s probably the restaurant you will most likely find something that you will enjoy. Note - for those with the AMEX Platinum dining perk, make sure to specify when checking in that you are using the French Dining voucher with AMEX. The default at the restaurants appear to be to use your dining packages. If you use a dining package for Le Bistro, you will have to go back again for the French Dining Voucher. Always use your French Dining AMEX perk first because it’s not transferable to another restaurant on board.

There was one runner - she sprinted the first length of the pier and then started walking when she reached other passengers. It looks like there are several late NCL tours getting back, so other passengers are either responsible or lucky. The ropes are still tied too, so maybe there are more tours that still haven’t returned.

T minus 4 minutes. Ready to toast any pier runners. Don’t disappoint me today!

We had no requirement for visas. I think the best source for visa requirements can be found from the Dep of State website that provides requirements by country. This is probably our 8-9th Caribbean cruise and we (US citizens) have never needed a visa. It may depend on your nationality. Leaving the ship while in port, all we have needed was the NCL stateroom card and a government issued photo ID - for both the east and west ports.

We still haven’t seen any eggnog on board. Maybe we are missing it, or it will be something available on the next sailing.

It’s a little hard because this 2nd leg was incomplete with Grand Cayman being cancelled - so it turned into 2 ports vs 3 ports. Cayman was the only stop where we had a planned excursion, so that was impacted as well. I think I like the eastern ports better, but this 2nd cruise has a much better vibe on board. But we are also enjoying the extra time on board this 2nd cruise with the port canceled. Let me think on it more and I’ll post something at the end specifically on itineraries. Our favorite Caribbean cruises for itinerary are Southern ones that go to the ABCs, Barbados, and Cartagena.

Sun came out around 3 and it turned into a beautiful day in port. Lots of great pier watching options - Spice H2O and the whole deck 17 area. We are still going to plan to watch from the balcony.

We got off board after breakfast in the MDR. We ended up turning around and getting immediately back on the ship. 😂 The port area isn’t as nice or developed as many other Caribbean ports. They have a several shops in the secured port area. Each shop looked like they were selling the same exact merchandise and they were a little aggressive with sales. We were thinking about walking to the little downtown area or the beaches across from the ship, but with overcast skies we decided to go enjoy an empty ship. They do post taxi prices for various locations of interest (attached), but they seemed fairly high. If we come back to Ocho Rios we will book an excursion through the cruise line or a private company. Doing it on your own didn’t seem like it was a value option, especially if you need to factor in taxis. Back on board we got tea and coffee to try to spend my nonrefundable OBC. Eric tried his luck at Mario carts in the atrium. I’m working on my reviews in the gym again. Early afternoon on a port day - the gym is mostly empty. So if you find other times too crowded and aren’t doing an excursion or leaving the ship, early afternoon on a port day may good a good option. I have a great view of the port and am watching the party ships 🚢 The only other ship in port with us is the NCL Epic. I did find an officer board near one of the stairwells (only took me 12 days 😂) - posted below.

Last night (Day 4) we went back to Bayamo. We are really impressed with the specialty restaurants overall on the Escape. If we go on a Breakaway category ship again, we will do specialty dining every night again. Im not a big seafood lover so I ordered the same as last week - jumbo shrimp, wedge salad, and filet. They were just as good as the last trip, so good consistency by the chef. Eric got the ahi tuna and avocado tower (new for him), beet salad (repeat) and Chilean Sea Bass (new). He really liked all of them, particularly the sea bass. Be careful with the sea bass because there were still some bones in it. For desert we got the vanilla cheesecake in a jar (again) and the key lime pie. I think the vanilla cheesecake at Bayamo is my favorite desert on board. We used the latitudes voucher in Bayamo that gives a bottle of wine for dinner. The bottles offered are a step higher than the wines by the glass offered in the basic beverage package, so it’s a nice gesture. We only had half of the bottle las night and the bottle will be brought to Le Bistro for us tonight. We are still debating Friday night dinner. Currently we are booked with Food Republic, but we may go to Bayamo a third time, or Moderno a second time. Tonight we are doing Le Bistro (4th time) and tomorrow La Cucina (3rd time).

We prefer 12-14 day cruises. Shorter cruises go by too quickly for us. It’s harder since COVID to find a nice 2 week cruise because it seems like most cruise lines have been moving more towards the 4-7 day cruise schedules. We normally start hitting our cruise wall around Day 12-13. Our favorite cruise was on the NCL Sun repositioning 15 day cruise from Miami to Santiago, Chile. This is our first B2B - last year we did a side by side - 8 days on Royal Odyssey of Seas and 7 days on Celebrity Beyond, so we had to pack up and go to a different ship in the same port. The B2B has been a more relaxing experience. I’ll give a few posts at the end of this review specific to B2B. We would definitely do a B2B again. Our vacation schedule has always been 2 weeks in December and 2 weeks in June, so this B2B timeline is about the time we normally take. I retired from the Army last year, so I have much more flexibility. I didn’t let Eric bring his work phone with him, but part of the reason we got the internet package is so people can reach out to him if needed and he won’t feel overwhelmed when he gets back to work. Glad you are finding this helpful!

Day 5 Daily. Today is Ocho Rios day. It is overcast and windy, with temps in the high 70s. This is our first time in this port, so we will probably explore the port area a little, but nothing beyond that. We have the perfect view of the pier from our balcony - I’ll be bringing a mimosa back to the cabin to watch for pier runners at the 430 all aboard time! Like all the other ports before (both East and West itineraries), we have free data while in port through T-Mobile, so able to leave ship wifi and airplane mode to access data while in port. I’ll do a more comprehensive “everything Internet” at the end of the cruise.

Yesterday the Trivia Dream Team racked up another victory, getting 19/20 in the Tri Bond Trivia. We won’t discuss our attempt at Flags of the World. 🙈 We also tried the Deal or no Deal game in the atrium. We were going to just cheer on the contestants, but we ended up buying the cards as well. If you purchase the cards, you have a chance of being called on stage as a contestant to win up to $1K. If you aren’t called up, you still have a chance to win prizes by following along with your card.

I have been using one of the rooms connected to the gym more this week because of how busy the main gym has been. Relatively few people have discovered this room - it’s in the far end of the gym on the left. So if you have an experience with a busy gym, check out the spin room or this other room for possible quiet and less used spaces. It has the standard floor mats, various core balls, lighter barbells, etc you will find in traditional gyms.

We don’t usually do the buffet and have only been there once in the morning over the last week and half. So, I don’t really know this answer - try asking this on the NCL board. My guess is they have a limited selection at early riser and open up to full buffet breakfast after. But that is just a guess. On the days that we missed eating breakfast in the MDR, we either skipped breakfast or ate in Osheehans or the American Diner (17th deck), which is a much smaller version of the buffet, but no one uses it so its always been empty.