spenecer

I did eventually figure out how to see other cabins but not on the day that I first booked my trip. Thankfully, NCL randomly gave us a well-located room that isn’t under the gym or pool or above an entertainment venue.

Inside Cabin Review I booked an inside cabin with the Free at Sea package. This meant that I was able to pick my stateroom. However, I couldn’t figure out how to pick my stateroom so I ended up with whatever random stateroom that NCL assigned to me. This inside stateroom ended up on Deck 12 at the front of the ship right next to the elevators. Since I’m not off the cruise yet, I am not posting my cabin number (but I’ve got an extra sea day, so I have time for this review). There will also be no photos of my messy cabin but it looks just like the photos on the NCL website. There is a hallway between the elevator bank and the room so the room is fairly quiet. We do not hear noise from the elevators, only from people walking up and down the hallway in front of the room. When you enter the room, there is a little card for enabling the lights. I’m sure the designers regret not putting in a standard light switch now since the card acts as a very strange little light switch since we slap it into/out of its slot as we enter and exit the room to turn off all the lights in the cabin rather than each individual light. The toilet is to the right and the shower is to the left. Each of these have their own light and light switch which is operated from a set of three switches by the door. The third switch operates the light above the beds which is on the other side of a red curtain separating the toilet/shower from the rest of the room. From our lovely ‘foyer’, we can see our two beds, separated into twins on either side of the cabin with the two nightstands in between the beds. The beds are against the wall. There is no room between the bed and the wall. The light is above the nightstands. There are also two lights on the back wall in the corners of the room operated by their own switches (so many switches!) that can rotated to point in any direction. There are no USB outlets by the beds. The sink is on the same side as the shower. The closet is on the same side as the toilet. The closet has a mirror on one door. This door also has baskets on the inside for storage. Opposite the baskets is the space for hanging clothing with many hangers. The other closet door hides shelves. The closet has a light inside it that is activated by opening/closing the door. You can leave the closet open a crack so that the circuit does not complete and the closet light works as a night light glowing out the cracks in the door. The sink area has 2 lights. One light is directly above the sink and the other light is above the vanity area. Our vanity light was broken when we arrived. I reported its non-function and it was fixed (new light bulb!) on Day 6. The sink does not have a plug and if you wear contacts like me, then I needed to sit at the vanity to put them on for fear of dropping one down the drain. There are shelves to the right of the sink which hold the mini-bar, the TV and a large empty space for the remote and anything else you want to store. The vanity light is under these shelves. Before the vanity is a little round stool which sits out in the room because it is in front shelves with the precious, precious two outlets in the room (if you are US) or four outlets (if you brought an international adapter). I brought a multi-port block which blocked the second outlet. There is a hole on the vanity top to thread all the wires so they aren’t sticking out of the shelf like snakes. Under the sink is a tissue dispenser which we used generously and a hamper (probably for wet towels) but we used it to store dirty clothing. Between the hamper and the all important electrical outlet shelf are three drawers. Now, there is one more bit of storage in the sink area. The mirror above the sink opens and becomes a medicine cabinet. It has holders for cups and plenty of storage for all your toiletries. It also has bars on the shelves to keep toiletries from falling on your head when you open the cabinet. We brought one suitcase and two carryons which we stored empty under the beds. There is plenty of storage for us. We also agree that the inside cabin is larger than my son’s college dorm room by a third (which I call a prison cell due to the concrete walls) so very roomy for two.

Today’s challenge is to see how much I can drink without becoming falling down drunk. I apologize for the spelling in my posts yesterday. It is really hard to see my screen up on the sun deck. The connection to the Wi-Fi router is also only two bars and there is much more waiting for a response (and much more drinking in-between). I have started today with a Venti Grande Caramel Macchiato (#1) and a trip to the gym because there isn’t any snorkeling to burn calories.

With the loss of St. Lucia, my Freestyle Daily is now different though the GLOW party is still on Day 6. Here is the PDF. Freestyle daily 6.pdf

NCL counts your seconds. If your cabin member has an NCL account and it is linked to your reservation before you sail then that person can use their own account. If the person does not have an NCL account then they use your account. NCL then counts the number of devices connected simultaneously on the account. I bought the unlimited through the Free at Sea Plus. I have both my device and my daughter’s device logged in simultaneously using my account (I get two devices). Do not hotspot your phone. The router connectivity is already very slow. Turning your phone into a hotspot will slow it down even further. Also, you have to be in airplane mode on your phone which on most devices automatically turns off personal hotspots. If you want to hotspot, buy an external hotspot and take the hit in decreased speed.

I’ve had the Aviation before and I’ve made my own. This one is with a London Dry Gin and is a bit more junipery. I like making the Aviation with Empress 1908 Gin for both the color and the more herbal nature. I had to think up a drink to give the waiter in the Manhattan Room wasted the Lavender Patch on my lap. He noticed my empty glass when I asked for a new napkin. I was very sad because the Lavender Patch was very tasty but I’m not repeating drinks.

So, the Maitre D at the Manhattan said that if you are having trouble getting reservations once you are onboard, you can contact her directly. She also manages Shanghai’s. Her card:

Aperol Spritz (#7) in the very dark Bliss Lounge where the first couple singing the Love Shack were accompanied by ‘chipmunk’ backing vocals and then a poor guy named Bob stepped up three times and each time they were experiencing ‘technical difficulties’ and could not play his song. He finally sang the Star Spangled Banner a capella and the whole room sang with him. This is a very drunk, curse word-filled Adult Karaoke Madness laden with ‘technical difficulties’.

Day 5, Drink #6 - The Aviation This is a bit of a cheat because we are at dinner at the Manhattan Room and I spilled my Lavender Patch all over my lap. I had only drink half of it.

The original schedule for St. Lucia was 1pm - 7pm so really we spent almost our entire time allotted for St. Lucia sitting at the Bonaire pier.

Fellow passengers seem very upset about the cancellation of St. Lucia but it’s the only port where I didn’t have anything planned. I didn’t book any excursions because it seemed like we wouldn’t be there very long in the daylight (sunset being around 6:30). I’m trying to claim that I saw the future but my daughter claims not.

We left at 6:30pm. As I was getting Drink #5 (Lavender Patch), the captain or Daniel the Cruise Director came on to announce that St. Lucia would be cancelled and we would have an extra hour in St. Kitts. We will be arriving at 8:00AM instead of 9:00AM.

The little boat is back and the last lines are being thrown in the water! Almost on our way to St. Lucia.

The captain just came on the tannoy(sp?) to announce that the Chief Engineer and his staff have changed out a pipe for the steam system and now ‘everything is in excellent working order’. We are preparing to sail!

Day 5, Bonaire I pre-booked the Bonaire Marine Park Snorkel and Klien Beach Break through the NCL website. You meet at the end of the pier, sign liability waiver and get wristbanded (or as I like to think of it, tagged like deer). Then you are led through the little set of port shops and a street to another pier where you get on a catamaran. And, if you are super lucky, the coast guard will drive up in their boat and demand to see your documents (well, the catamaran’s documents). One of the Coast Guard guards (person? sailor? cop?) was wearing body armor. My daughter thinks he just wanted to look fierce. I’m wondering if he really thought a bunch of tourists were really smuggling dope in our waterproof knapsacks and, since a lot of us were Americans, a semi-automatic if we were denied our snorkeling trip. Anyways, all our papers were in order and our catamaran was allowed to sail off toward the Marine Park. We did not have a shootout Die Hard-style. The excursion provides snorkel equipment and fins. The catamaran comes with a marine toilet (bonus!). The first bottle of water is on them. Additional water, soft drinks, beer, canned cocktails are available for purchase after the beach portion of the excursion. Don’t damage or lose your provided snorkel or fins, there is a replacement charge. Today’s masks had a very wide rim, there was additional instructions on how to wear the face mask, and they sprayed the inside of the masks with baby shampoo. This means that 1. My mask did not fog (the Curaçao Turtle Bay people need to get in on this baby shampoo biz), 2. My mask did not leak for the first time in my life and 3. I snorted baby shampoo up my noise (but I only had to adjust my mask once so I consider it a win). I did not tear but I could taste baby shampoo in my mouth. Not a taste sensation but I would do it again because today was really windy and there may also be a current in the marine park and if I had to be adjusting my mask all the time, I would have been swept out to sea. There was a lot more people on today’s excursion so they had guides (waving pool noodles) herding us and the guides sort of said things but mostly we swam around and looked at stuff. I did figure out today how to take pictures with my phone in the bag. My pictures are all blurry because my AF Lock kept coming. I think if you want great pictures then don’t buy this bag (JOTO Universal Waterproof Phone Pouch Cellphone Dry Bag Case), get an underwater phone case. We saw a turtle today as we were returning to the catamaran. It was busy eating fish. There is a very blurry turtle-shaped dark smudge in the middle of the photo (just trust me that it is the turtle, I did just write that the bag didn’t work very well for photos). After maybe 45 min-1 hour, we got back on the catamaran and went to Klien Bonaire where it was recommended that we drift snorkel or as I thought of it, get sand in our suits and try not be be dragged out to sea. We had 1 hour at Klien Bonaire. You could beach but the catamaran does not drop you on the beach, you have to swim over from the boat. I could tell that we were in a Marine Park. The quantity and density of life was much higher on the reef and shore/beach today than yesterday in Curaçao. I really enjoyed the snorkeling even with the baby shampoo up my nose. Worth it. Totally worth it. You can, of course, rinse out the baby shampoo from your mask but I wanted to see clearly. Not fogging was a much higher priority to me than the baby shampoo up my nose. I would highly recommend this excursion through NCL if you like wildlife and swimming. Do not do this excursion if you want to go to the beach.

Day 5, Drink #4 - Blue Lagoon (maybe?) I’m not sure what I am drinking. I asked the waiter for the drink that was blue. I can taste Lemonade in it so I am guessing it is the Blue Lagoon. I have been very bad up on the secret sun deck. My lounger was formerly located in the front of the deck but it is too sunny there and a bunch of us have dragged loungers over to the next area which was empty because all the loungers were tied up. So, a dozen loungers just went AWOL into the shade.

Here is the Freestyle Daily for Day 5. All the afternoon events involving gambling have been cancelled and replaced with other events (seconds ago) because you can’t gamble in Bonaire waters. I guess this also means that the casino is closed. Freestyle daily 5.pdf

The captain just came over the tannoy (sp?) and announced that a ‘technical issue’ is keeping us in Bonaire, they don’t know how long it will take and that the Engineer and crew is working on it. In my mind, I am imagining bunches of people staring at a computer going, ‘well, I guess restarting the ship didn’t work.’

Something is wrong. I don’t know what but we were supposed to leave Bonaire an hour and 20 minutes ago and we are still docked. 10 minutes ago, the boat docked at the pylon with the ropes (lines?) that keep the ship from floating away left and we are still attached to Bonaire. I have had a Strawberry Daiquiri and a Classic Margarita while waiting. At ten past one, NCL had a table with water or drinks at the gate to the pier which would suggest that they were waiting for a late excursion. Then they removed the table. So, I’m not sure is holding the ship.

Day 5, Drink #1 - Grande Caramel Macchiato By the messed up nature of my caramel, today the barista remembered to add the whip cream before the caramel so when I took off the lid for the photo, the caramel was sticking to the lid.

Can you recommend a gin cocktail?

The teenagers just sang ‘Before He Cheats’ at ‘Family’ Karaoke Night in the Bliss Lounge. I’m definitely too drunk to care but my daughter is like, ‘That’s not a Family song.’ (Broken family, maybe)

Day 4, Drink #6 - Rum Cake

Day 4 Drink #4 - Wasabi Cocktail Drink #5 - Shaku Shaku Our waiter came by after the first round of drinks and asked if we wanted any more. I was only halfway through my Wasabi Cocktail but I said, ‘Yes.’ Our waiter asked if I would like to try to Shaku Shaku and I said, ‘Yes!’ again (because I’m pretty drink now and monosyllabic) and our waiter said, ‘That is exactly what I am trying to sell you.’ Haha, he hasn’t looked at that + on my card yet.

I think ‘Not Available to Book’ means they are all gone. The space is very small.