LabRat

19 minutes ago, david_sobe said:

I don't think that is correct.  Yes, it is speculated that once you get symptoms from Covid-19 that you build immunity from future outbreaks.  However, I know of no virus that you cant spread just because you have immunity for it.  If you have it on your hands you can still spread it to other passengers even though you may not get sick.  That's the biggest problem going on now. People who are not sick are spreading it all over the place.

Yes, you can physically spread a virus by transporting the thing on your clothes or luggage or hands or something.  A danger which can be virtually eliminated by simply spraying exteriors with 70% isopropyl alcohol, and washing your hands, etc.  Habits both I and my wife have well ingrained as we both spent decades working in microbiology research laboratories.

The far more problematic spreading results from a person that actually produces virus--and gets it all over everything and possibly aerosolizes it as well.  Almost impossible to avoid if you are producing a respiratory virus. 

But people who have a strong antibody response to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (which is what I suspect the coming ELISA-based antibody tests will be using) are unlikely to be re-infected and produce virus as the antibodies will prevent the virus from infecting cells.  Disclaimer:  That last is my opinion based on related corona viruses as the real test data for SARS-CoV-2 is not out yet.

Edit: I should address this as well: "That's the biggest problem going on now. People who are not sick are spreading it all over the place."  This is an imprecise statement.  I suspect that you mean people who are asymptomatic are a major problem.  That is true--they are infected, they are producing virus, but they don't have symptoms they recognize and so go about daily life. 'Not sick' implies that they do not produce virus yet spread virus anyway, like a kid tracking mud through the house.  That is actually easy to deal with through some simple habits.  But asymptomatic producers are a nightmare. A now-mare.  

My wife and I had most symptoms (cough, fatigue, low grade fever for her) but no test kits available in Michigan so never tested.  Wasn't all that bad for us (thankfully), but we can't be sure we had CoVid-19 until the ELISA tests (antibody tests) are available.  The first of these was just approved (fast track hopey-wishy type approval) by FDA a few days ago.  We will have to see how accurate it is.  They are basically going to be testing it on all of us--but it is just a blood test, so no real safety issue, just efficacy issue.

Once I get a trustworthy positive result on one of these tests for my wife and I, I will feel that I am safe to cruise again.  We would be very unlikely to become ill again, and very unlikely to spread the virus as well.  Of course, I might still get stuck at sea with DeSantis (or some other governmental *****) preventing us from returning.  That is another new risk we haven't had to consider in the past.

18 minutes ago, BlerkOne said:

 

It isn't a cash grab or disguised charges. Carnival is more transparent than other cruise lines.

 

Gratuities are not revenue for the company as in taxable. If they raise the ticket prices, it is revenue and taxable, so they would have to raise prices even more to mitigate taxes.

 

Gratuities are paid on provided and optional services. I don't want to subsidize optional services I don't use and doubt many people do.

 

When you build gratuities into ticket prices, you eliminate what little incentive is left for staff to go above and beyond.

 

Glad you aren't in charge of Carnival.

Yes, "Carnival expenses" is ever so transparent.  I'm happy to pay gratuities TO THE SERVICE STAFF, and very happy to do so on services I use.  But vague statements by a corporation as to where the money will be allocated generally means disguised cash grab.

Glad you aren't in charge of critical thinking.

On 11/30/2018 at 1:42 PM, Micah's Grandad said:

Has it been established how much of the 18% actually goes to the crew as pay?

 Here: https://www.cruiselawnews.com/2018/12/articles/gratuities/carnival-cruise-line-pockets-portion-increased-drink-gratuities/

No info on the entirety, but 1.5% of the 3% increase goes toward server pay.    "...from the the 3% increase, 1.5% will go to the Carnival server and the remaining 1.5% will go into a pool to fund Carnival expenses including the costs of  uniforms and return airline tickets for crew members. "

I'm all for making the lives of the crew easier, but hidden cash grabs by the corporation annoy me.  Just raise the damn ticket price so that I know what I'm buying and can compare. The more a company tries to disguise charges, the less likely I am to be a repeat buyer. 

I really enjoyed Moderno a few weeks ago. Brazilian steakhouse style--lots of treats brought around to you in an unending party of meaty goodness.

Not for vegetarians.

We also enjoyed Teppanyaki.

I'm happy to hear that you had a good cruise! My wife and I were on the same cruise and had a fantastic time. With all the recent "OMG Spring Break!" posts, its good to see that some groups had fun.

And Moderno really is amazing, isn't it? Though it was cruel of those last waiters to keep coming by with tasty meatness that I KNEW I shouldn't try to eat...but I did anyway.

My wife and I (upper 40's) had a wonderful time on the Escape last week. The ports could have been more interesting, but the ship was great. I did a short review here.

Excellent review!

We were onboard with you last week!

Our 2nd time on the Escape in two years and 2nd time on the Getaway in November in two years.

We think we prefer the Getaway, although the layout is much the same on both, just a few subtle differences.

Thanks for sharing a fabulous recap and happy sailings.....

We should be on the Getaway next January :D

Thanks for sharing! Glad to see the spring breakers didn't affect your trip.

There were plenty of them (though not the 1000+ that others saw), but there were no issues that I saw. The pool was very crowded on the sea days, but that is true of every cruise I've been on.

There were even some Breakers (besides us) from our school, Michigan State. Go Green! :D

But I do have to admit that I spent a large portion of my time in Vibe, which was almost entirely an older crowd. Could be that I just missed any issues by doing that, but I think that most everyone on the ship was decently behaved.

I'm wondering if they update the menu when sailing out of NY? I would think so as currently District has a bunch of South Florida volume craft selections. I doubt they would be loading these in NY. Curious.

I didn't think about that. But I hope they always keep the Miami Weiss--that one was really tasty.

Just off the Escape, and ate at O'Sheehan's for breakfast multiple times, lunch a few, and many many snacks late at night. Only once was service slow, and I think they were having a equipment malfunction that time. They got things going and all was right again. The food was decent pub food (and the jerk wings were great) and I would not hesitate to go back, at least on the Escape.

Edit: The jerk wings (I order them at least 3 times) were not breaded. Different ships, different staff?

Yes, with a $15 upcharge on top of the dining plan.

 

If you are just getting basic dishes, may not be worth it. But if you are getting stone crab and surf and turf, it's really quite a bargain.

Wow, an upcharge too? The maitre d' didn't mention that to us. Glad I did not use the dining plan then.

Is this restaurant included in the specialty dining plan?

Yes, it is. We did not use it for Bayamo (we had previously booked others for our dining plan before the new Bayamo menu came out), but the maitre d' did ask if we wanted to use our dining plan.

Yum!! I love a good crap salad

Well, with increasing competition NCL had to makes cuts somewhere, right? And its just one letter. How bad can it be? ;p

Have you got pictures of the new Bayamo menu?

This was accurate for 3/6/2018:

GREAT NEWS (in my opinion)!

 

The menu for Bayamo has been changed as of 2/18/18. It's now basically the Ocean Blue menu

 

 

 

Tom

Cannot wait for Sept.!

 

Thanks for you great review!

 

I think I'll be camping out at the brew house!!!!!!!

I think you will love it. I went into the brewhouse one time and was surprised when no one came to take my order after almost 5 minutes. I knoooow! The nerve of those people! Then I looked around and realized it was actually closed (morning of a port day). They just forgot to lock the side doors. I stayed for about an hour (really comfy seats, ya know?) and read a book before wandering out to obtain my morning margarita at the bar in Vibe.

We bought 4 CruiseNext certificates ($1000, then $500 back in credit) on the Escape last week and the young lady was very upfront about the limitations. 6 months in advance, 4 years to use, balcony or higher. Sorry to hear that you were not explicitly told those limits :( .

Nice review. It's interesting that you didn't like Bayamo. It seems to be one of the favorites. I think it's the kind of place you get a whole lobster with the crab appetizer. The size of the stone crabs were impressive and should have been much more than the price. Though they served them with cocktail sauce - blasphemy.

 

One place you would probably have enjoyed is Pincho Tapas. It's right next to Bayamo. We had lunch there one day and it was probably our favorite meal on the ship. It doesn't look the most welcoming, but grab a seat on the Waterfront and enjoy the great small plates.

 

You mentioned excursions and tendering, it should be noted that if you have an excursion booked with the cruise line, you meet on the ship and they give you priority tendering with your excursion group.

I was really looking forward towards Bayamo--the new menu just looked perfect for me. That's what made it so very disappointing. Snapper isn't the easiest fish to cook right, I'll admit, but this was just terrible. Good thing there are so many other options on the Escape. I left Bayamo and a bit later had some jerk chicken wings at O'sheehan's. Those were excellent. :D

I kept looking at Pincho Tapas, but never tried it. Next time! There were just so many things to do and try on a ship the size of the Escape that I couldn't fit it in to a 7 day cruise.

Priority tendering really is a bonus of a ship excursion, but in my experience it is outweighed by the downside of traveling with 50-100 other people. I took a snorkeling excursion once (in Barbados?)--there were 4 of us on the boat. Despite the lack of priority tendering, our boat got to the prime snorkeling spot a full hour ahead of the obscenely crowded boat used by the ship-sponsored excursion. :cool: I guess that is a different discussion though!

Who was the nightly entertainment at the Brewhouse when you were on?

Beau Tahana or Orly depending on the day. Good stuff, but I never want to hear another rendition of 'Piano Man'.

Food (non-specialty):

Taste/Savor: We ate at these numerous times for breakfast and for lunch. Each time the staff was excellent (Kathleen was our waiter most of the times) and the food was good. In particular we liked the potato skins topped with crap salad and the roasted lamb.

 

 

 

You liked the potato skins topped with CRAP? ewwww! :D:D

 

But seriously, great review. I sailed the Escape last March and loved it.

Lol, corrected!

Edit: actually it won't let me correct it now. Huh. Crap salad it is!

Escape review: 3/3-3/10 sailing from Miami

We haven’t been on NCL for more than a decade, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Our last NCL cruises featured bad food, poor service and abundant norovirus. But more recent reviews seemed to suggest that NCL had improved so we decided to give it a try again.

Also, we normally prefer much smaller ships—the Escape is a behemoth! We booked a mini-suite with the large balcony (cabin 8130) because we figured that we might need to ‘escape’ the press of 4000 other passengers.

Finally, we booked a sailing during March—the beginning of Spring Break season. If you’re not from the USA, Spring Break is when Universities take a week off in the middle of the semester and all the students are released into the wild. The students often look for a warm location to party and drink themselves into temporary oblivion. Most universities choose a week in March for their Break.

So to say that I had my doubts would be understating things. But overall I and my wife had a great time. The staff and crew of the Escape were uniformly excellent—they were attentive and courteous the entire time. I can’t say enough about how impressive it is that they can keep up with 4000+ (often inebriated) passengers. But against all odds the ship was clean, lengthy lines were rare, and smiles were abundant! While there were a couple of issues, it was a wonderful cruise and we even put deposits down for another two NCL cruises.

Specifics:

Cabin 8130: Good layout to the cabin. Plenty of shelf space and a decent closet. Walls were steel so magnet hangers worked well to assist organization. The bed was fairly comfortable to us. There is a USB charging port on each side of the bed, but it has fairly low amperage so don’t expect to rapidly charge your giant Ipad or whatever. The balcony was large and included two chairs, a table, 2 loungers and another small table. The only downside is that most of the balcony was open to upper floors looking down—little privacy and sometimes we would find a bit of trash on the balcony (this would, of course, vary with how slobbish the others above you are—perhaps we were lucky). That same openness meant that there was plenty of sun on the balcony. That may be good or bad for you.

Our cabin steward, Jimmy, was great. He must be a damn ninja though. I would walk out of the room, turn around, and the bed would be made with a towel animal on top. Be careful pirates, the ninjas are at sea now.

Vibe: You have to pay extra for this ($100 US for the week per person), but we found it worthwhile. It is a more private area of the top deck with its own bar and hottub. We spent a lot of time here, and the staff was fantastic. They learned our names and drink preferences quickly, and there was always loungers and umbrellas available. A good choice for anyone cruising during spring break month.

Shows and other entertainment:

The Ropes Course: A lot a fun. I didn’t try it due to a bad knee, but my wife loved it despite being afraid of heights.

After Midnight show: 1920’s style blues and jazz show set in Harlem. Great singers and dancers. Fantastic show all around.

For the Record (Brat Pack show): Very 1980’s recap of about every John Hughes movie theme. Fun, worth seeing, but don’t cry if you miss it.

Levity comedy show: We thought that the individual shows in Headliners by the same guys were better than the big show in the theater, but it was not bad at all. A bit raunchy even for the family hours showings, so maybe not for children under 10 unless you enjoy awkward questions.

Food (non-specialty):

Garden Café (buffet): huge buffet, with lots of people and some lines. I only went there a couple of times and the food was only decent. But there was a crepes station that was delicious, so give that a try for breakfast or a nice dessert.

Manhattan Room (the main dining room): We ate dinner here once. Service was fast and courteous, but I wasn’t really impressed with the food. Nothing terrible, it just didn’t stand out. I don’t even remember what I ordered. But the room is quite pretty. ;)

Taste/Savor: We ate at these numerous times for breakfast and for lunch. Each time the staff was excellent (Kathleen was our waiter most of the times) and the food was good. In particular we liked the potato skins topped with crap salad and the roasted lamb.

O’sheehans: We ate here for breakfast most days, as well as late night snacks and lunches (its 24 hours and open during port days too). The menu is limited but was always tasty and service was usually excellent. Only once was there a delay—we waited about 10 minutes for water, but then several servers were bringing out entire trays of water glasses, so they must have had a minor equipment issue. We really enjoyed the nachos (they would give me extra jalapenos because they saw that I enjoyed them so much) and the chicken wings (try the jerk wings!). They also had prime rib some nights which was rather good. My wife also liked the ‘country breakfast’—the country being England because it comes with beans.

The District Brewhouse: Great beer selection, some appetizers but not much. A good place to hang out. Comfy chairs, a good view, rarely crowded and some decent live music. Our cabin was right down the hall from this place so I spent a good amount of time there just drinking beer(s) and reading a book.

Food (specialty restaurants):

Tepenyaki: A great show and good food. The fried rice was excellent, as were the scallops and shrimp. The steak my wife had was a bit overcooked, but not terribly. They have a drink called (I think) the Shaku-Shaku which has saki and cucumber liquor--it was fantastic and we had, umm, a lot of these. We had a lot of fun. Be ready to sing bad 1980’s songs during your dinner.

Bayamo (with the new ‘Ocean Blue’ menu): Major disappointment, avoid this place. The service was excellent, but the food was really bad. My wife started with a beet salad which would have been merely OK but for the trout roe on top which made it horrible. Why would anyone put trout roe (which has a fishy flavor) on beets? I had lobster bisque, in which they took lump lobster and then poured the bisque on top. The lobster was really overcooked and for some reason they decided to add strips of fried tortilla on top. Really? Stop trying so hard, guys. You’re just messing up good simple foods by making them overly fussy. For an entrée my wife had the black cod, which was OK but not well seasoned. I had the red snapper. It was obnoxiously overcooked and I should have sent it back, but by that point I was just done with this place.

Cagney’s: Basic steak house. Good service, decent food. We both had the ribeye as an entree, which was a bit overcooked from what we ordered (rare and medium rare). Decently seasoned and huge portions. For appetizers, I tried lobster bisque here too and it was much better than at Bayamo, though it could have used more lobster. My wife had the beet and goat cheese Napoleon (yes, we were directly comparing to Bayamo) which was good but needed more beet as the goat cheese was a little over-powering. I also had a crab cake, which was excellent and as good as any I have had (I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay—I know good crabcakes!). They also let us take our desserts back to the cabin because we were too stuffed to enjoy them there.

Moderno: Brazilian style steak house. This was my first experience with this type of steak house, and I loved it. The lamb chops and flank steak were great. So were about 6 other meaty things that I can’t remember the names of. Servers would just keep bringing delicious things and doing their best to get you to eat more. Then they bring you grilled pineapple as a palate cleanser—I would eat that stuff as an entrée. My wife also loved the cheese bread they kept bringing out. As for the drinks, they have a strawberry caipirinha which was great. We had many. There was much rejoicing. And later that night much regretting (2 lbs or so of meat and lots of liquor—poor life choices there).

Food Republic: Great, high quality food, but it was not really to my taste. My wife loved most of the things we ordered (its tapas style, so lots of sharing plates), especially the tuna sashimi ‘pizza’ and the salt and pepper calamari.

Ports:

Really not much info for you here. We knew when booking that we were not very interested in these ports, so we did not arrange for shore excursions in advance. I regret not doing so for the Caymans as some people I spoke with had a great time snorkeling.

Georgetown, Grand Cayman: We had to tender here, and it was rather slow going to get off the ship. Keep this in mind if you have a very early excursion booked. We just wandered a bit around the port area—which was the same touristy crap you see in every other Caribbean cruise ship port. Rather boring, but we were not looking for adventure this trip. Sunny, warm and boring was just fine for me.

Falmouth, Jamaica: A nice little port area (walled garden type) but the area right outside the port is not great and the stuff we found interesting was at least an hour bus ride away. No thanks. But the port area had music, the normal crappy tourist shops, and more than a few interesting characters. Look for the guy weaving grass baskets and hats—he will make you one on the spot. We had fun for a couple of hours, then it was back to the ship (which was docked, yay). Some passengers we spoke to really enjoyed the bobsled excursion, but the drive there and back totaled over 3 hours.

Great Stirrup Cay: Canceled due to a slight northwest breeze ;). Lots of passenger complaining going on about this one, but the captain has to be rather conservative with safety decisions. If the wind may pick up and cause tendering to be problematic, better to just keep sailing on.

Nassau, Bahamas: Not much to say about this one. Docked here (always nice not to have to tender), but excursions were very limited and most were ‘go to Atlantis’ for the day. We poked around (the pirate museum was short and overpriced but fun for what it had) and then went back to the ship to enjoy another lovely (if a bit rainy) ship day.

Someone ordered a Bloody Caesar a few times at the bar in Vibe last week on the Escape. He seemed to enjoy it (though at his level of sobriety he would probably enjoy minced garlic in Budweiser).

Like I said, I believe outside of the chargeback limits. August purchase.

But delivery or default on delivery of product/service occurred in November.

dispute with credit card company.....had to do this with another venue in past

I had to do the same thing with NCL. The MasterCard rep had MUCH less trouble than I in getting them to 'understand' the issue :rolleyes: (being intentionally oblivious is a common customer relations tactic). They actually credited me more than I was asking for once the MasterCard rep was looped in.

I've used both DEET and picaridin based repellents and never had a problem, even in jungle areas. The DEET products seem a bit smellier than the picaridin products, though that may be brand-specific rather than a reflection on the active ingredient.

Some basic information:

https://www.consumerreports.org/insect-repellents/mosquito-repellents-that-best-protect-against-zika/

Some testing results, but these are mainly USA based brands I think:

https://www.consumerreports.org/products/insect-repellent/ratings-overview/

EDIT: here is what I normally take-- https://smile.amazon.com/Bens-Insect-Repellent-Ounce-Pocket/dp/B000WY4A50/?th=1 . A little goes a very long way-spray a bit on your palm and rub on arms, legs and back of neck. I almost never bother putting any on my face, unless I'm in a truly infested area. 1 oz should last 4 people through a cruise, I would think.

Edit #2: The picaridin based repellent I tried and liked: https://smile.amazon.com/Sawyer-Products-SP544-Repellent-Picaridin/dp/B002CMQJYU/?th=1 .

The amount of pest insects in the area often varies widely with time of year (rainy season) so you may find that you don't need repellent at all. But I always take some. Also, mosquitoes are the main flying problem pest, though there are some crawling pests such as biting ants (just watch where you sit and you will be fine).