spenecer

The Snorkel Trip to Turtle Bay involved a lot of snorkeling. At least an hour, maybe close to two hours of snorkeling but the turtles clearly had other things to do today because we didn’t see any turtles. I had bought an underwater bag for my phone to take pictures. The bag kept my phone completely dry. It also prevented my phone from recognizing any touches under water. The only photos that happened were from me taking photos above water. So, my phone floated in Turtle Bay for two hours unscathed but I don’t have any photos to show for it. On the other hand, the excursion was a LOT of exercise, like at the end my legs were more tired than after an hour on the exercise bike. I am exhausted. My daughter said she is fine (I hope she feels the same way when she is 50-mumble-mumble years old). I was going to take a nap in the sun but I feel completely rejuvenated after two frozen drinks from the Waves Pool Bar (thank you liver for your generous creation of alcohol dehydrogenase, amen). The excursion puts you on an air conditioned bus from the pier to a ‘launch’ somewhere on Curaçao. You get to fill out some liability disclaimer forms on the way. Don’t sue anyone. They are not liable. I got to ensure them that i would not hold them liable for my daughter. There is a driver for the bus and a tour guide who talks a bit about the island as you drive. It was a little informative but not very informative (a historian is not a prior occupation for our tour guide). Then we got on the dive boat which had a ‘marine toilet’. If you have an old lady bladder, you will appreciate the inclusion a toilet. I did (a lot). You then zip very fast in the boat to turtle bay while they explain the snorkel mask, the fins and how to use the toilet. There is no time for anything else. Once at the snorkel site, one guide led us around the area with informative information while the other made sure nobody drowned. I got to see one person get a cramp rubbed out. The snorkel mask and fins are provided. I, once again, ended up with a mask which was too big so it kept loosening and leaking during the entire excursion. I’m sure I have a small head or some kind of issue since this always happens when I snorkel. My mask did fog, but I spit in it which I noticed wasn’t being advised by the tour operators. I think is probably too dangerous now with HIV and other diseases, but I spit in mine! And my view was crystal clear after that! Wild animals cannot be guaranteed and I thought it was a good tour even sans turtles.

Day 4, Drink #3 - Melon Margarita im allergic to melons so this is a bit of dangerous drink for me but I can report that there are no actual melons in this drink because I’m fine.

I said no to all the upselling because they can make claims that their products work a certain way and I could show you how chemistry does my work that way but I suck at languages so they would never understand me. No is much simpler.

Day 4 Freestyle Daily i just realized that my post for uploading the Freestyle Daily didn’t go this morning. My phone kept switching between cellular and Wi-Fi and it was lost in the Aether. Here is today’s daily as a PDF. Freestyle Daily 4.pdf

Day 4, Drink #2 - Pina Colada I am ensconced on the secret sun deck hoping to watch Sailaway and I missed the arrival this morning. The deck loungers on the port side are all stacked like legos. This was the same yesterday in Aruba. The only places with sun loungers on the secret sun deck are the front of the ship and the deck right by the stairs/elevator. There were no pier runners yesterday. I’m wondering if it will be different today.

As a followup, I paid $179 for my spa treatment which is the same price as a port day special. I’m fairly certain that this was not the ‘special’ price given by the manager but the time to dispute the charge would have been before I signed the receipt so it is too late now. Getting a massage while drunk, don’t do it if you intend to argue about cost.

Day 4 I’m seated at the buffet on the port side waiting for my daughter to wake up and come eat. She needs some protein before we go off to snorkel with torkels (I mean, turtles). I’m watching people walk down the pier through the really blotchy windows. All the windows on the Epic are heavily salt-covered. With the employee shortage, I’m not sure how they could manage to clean the windows regularly when we are on the ocean and get new salt every day but it is definitely not a view you want to take photos through.

Day 4 I left my sunglasses at home so when we got to San Juan, I stopped at Sunglass Hut to look at another pair of Raybans. My daughter very quietly excoriated me for considering spending $400 on a pair of sunglasses so I ended up getting a cheap pair at CVS on Sunday morning before we embarked. I am pretty sure I have lost the cheap pair of sunglasses somewhere yesterday between the glass of Champagne and the Eastern Legacy. And now we all know why excessive drinking is bad for you. Am I going to stop, no, because I have three days left on this cruise. My cruising co-worker also told me that a drink package wasn’t worth it because there was no way to get 5.3 drinks in the evening after a day on land. I am sure proving him wrong! Here are two photos of Curaçao taken from Deck 15. I’m writing this post on my AT&T International Day pass as I wait for the girl to rise. She was pretty crabby yesterday during the excursion because we got up early for an 8:15, so today we have a late (11:00) excursion. I would walk to the city and see the pretty buildings but I’m afraid to leave her on the ship since it is a ‘remove from cruise’ offense to leave a minor on the ship by themselves. And they definitely flagged her yesterday when we got on/off the ship. As my daughter says, ‘I have no rights yet.’ We are booked for the Snorkel Trip to Turtle Bay through NCL so I think all of my views of the town will be long distance.

Day 4, Curaçao Drink #1 - Grande Caramel Macchiato I didn’t make it to Starbucks this morning until almost 8. There was no line and two items: caramel ribbon crunch and peach green tea lemonade were marked as sold out. And this morning, my drink was taken back right before being handed to me and whip cream was added even after I changed it up on them by getting a grande instead of a venti. After last night, I didn’t think my bladder could handle a venti this morning. Howl at the Moon got more and more raucous as the night went along which means the more you drank, the more fun it was but I don’t think we’ll do it again as they performed mostly older songs. There was a short bit of dueling pianos which was fun but it was mostly alternating song requests. My song suggestion was not played. I’m not sure if they knew it. It is newer and I chose it because then my daughter would know it. I also didn’t turn it into a request with a tip because I’ve figured out how to use the safe and I left all my cash in the safe.

Belated Review of Shanghai’s Noodle Bar We are at Shanghai’s Noodle Bar on Day 2 but I wasn’t able to live blog due to my daughter interdiction against blogging at the dinner table (or bar in this case). There are almost no recent reviews of Shanghai’s Noodle Bar. We showed up at Shanghai’s at approximately 5:30 to see if there were any tables. There was a line which moved quickly and revealed that there were no tables available at the restaurant, only the bar. As sitting at the bar is not one of my daughter’s favorite activities, this put our visit to Shanghai’s at the deficit immediately. The menu at the noodle bar is done on the dim sum style where you mark the items on the menu that you would like except you are limited to a single main. This was not a problem for us as we did not order any mains. Sitting at the bar at most noodle joints means that you can watch the chef’s cook and you are served over the bar. Unfortunately, the Shanghai cooks are assembly line prepping dishes so it isn’t very artistic or interesting. When we arrived, there were a dozen bowls of the Seafood Udon sitting on the counter (A dozen pork char sui noodle bowls were on the other side of the counter) and we got to watch the chefs just heat them briefly in a pot of water/soup and then put them in a heated holding area until waiters could take them to passengers. It was fast and let them serve many passengers at once but it wasn’t interesting to watch. Other passengers definitely did not seem to want to sit at the bar. I saw one group leave when they were told only the bar was left and they could not get the restaurant. As for the food itself, somehow my Seafood Noodle bowl came without all the components. Since I could see all the bowls being prepped, I know that each bowl was supposed to receive 1-2 pieces of imitation crab, one piece of squid, 4 shrimps and a cups worth of noodles. My noodle bowl had one mouthful of noodles (about 4 pieces), one piece of squid, two shrimps and no imitation crab. Fortunately, I was very full from the surfeit of food from other meals so I didn’t miss the imitation crab. My daughter’s bowl was very filling. the food was tasty but my daughter said she would only go back if the restaurant was available; she would not do the bar a second time. The venue is very small and reservations for Shanghai’s Noodle bar and Restaurant can be made ahead on the NCL website or app. We did not make reservations. We walked up asked if there was a spot for 2.

Day 3, Drink #8 - Pineapple Gin Collins I haven’t had a good gin drink on the Epic yet and sadly this isn’t it. It is impossible to sing along with Howl at the Moon without a drink.

Day 3, Drink #7 - Eastern Legacy The bar line at Headliners is really long and now that the hour is later, there are many empty seats, so I snuck off to Maltings to get a drink. My daughter has abandoned the field for bed. It turns out the 18+ really means that all the songs were written decades before she was born and she didn’t recognize anything. On the hand, I could sing along.

Day 3, Drink #6 - Honey Lemonade We are off to hear the dueling pianos / Howl at the Moon.

Day 3, Drink #5 - Macallan Quest I wanted to see if the Quest lived up to the hype. Sadly, no. The 35 year is better.

In more mistakes made today, my daughter took the second pill in the seasickness packet which she claims is a different color and now she’s very groggy so we abandoned dinner before dessert (and I love dessert) so that we can catch the Titou, the Comedy Magician. And I forgot my unfinished champagne on the table!

Day 3, Drink #4 Champagne (Moët) We are at Taste for dinner and they are out of both Champagnes offered by the glass on the menu. This was offered as a substitute. I asked if there was any Moscato by the glass, but the answer was no.

I think it did have booze but you can ask for a virgin. This did not have very much booze.

Day 3 Kukoo Island Tour and Beach Getaway on Aruba We made two mistakes today which led to the mistake in the previous posts. Mistake #1, I did not bring cash. Mistake #2, One of us assumed there would be water provided by the excursion. The other one assumed we could buy water with a credit card. I bought the excursion on the NCL website in December. At the time, there was only one time slot offered, 8:30. The excursion is listed at $49 and after our excursion credits of $50/person (with Free at Sea Plus)…free. We picked up towels from NCL as we left the ship. The towels were being given out on the pier and we returned the towels when we got back on the ship. We had to give our cabin number at both towel checkout and checkin but there was no card swipe. NCL had crew members directing to shore excursions and when we reached the busses, there was not just one Kukoo Kunuko bus, but three busses. We were wristbanded and directed onto the first bus. There were maracas on the window and I totally shook one. We were warned that it was windy and not to stick anything out of the side off the bus or we would lose it. Their island portion of the tour consisted of two stops, the Casibari Rock Formations (for 20 minutes) and the Chapel in the Middle of Nowhere (Alto Vista Chapel for 10 minutes. We were taken to Eagle Beach which was a white sand beach with no vendors hawking wares and the only food vendor opened at 11AM. We got to the beach at 10AM. The beach portion was 2 hours. The first two stops were cash-only and we soon became rather hot and thirsty. I checked with the bus driver to see if the stand accepted credit cards (yes) before he left to pick up people who had signed up for later tour time slots. So, at 11AM, I got in line at the vendor and stood in 40 minutes only to find out that the only credit card that I had on me, Discover, was not accepted (Mastercard and Visa, only). They did take Apple Pay but not Apple Pay connected to Discover. I almost cried as my daughter was very crabby about the entire outing. A nice gentleman in line behind me took pity on me (it was a super slow line) and bought me a $3 bottle of water. So, we hydrated and when the bus came back at 12:15pm, we discovered that there was ice cold water on the bus. But, the upshot is I thought I should check my cash when I got back to the ship to be better prepared for this afternoon or tomorrow. And we know how that went down. I love credit cards and Apple Pay. I rarely carry cash with me and I’m obviously terrible at keeping track of it. Additional thoughts: The water was cold! There aren’t a lot of waves. I enjoyed the excursion but I think it should be marketed as Beach Plus (we go to the beach plus we stop at some places on the way) as there was a passenger on the bus who complained that she had signed up for the island part which was only 1/5th of the excursion time. But she also asked about the water which I had forgotten about so we had cold water service before driving back.

Day 3, Drink #3 - Mango Madness I’m not sure this is alcoholic. I can’t taste any alcohol.

I couldn’t figure out how to work the safe on Sunday when we boarded but the instructions seem really clear now. We haven’t eaten yet so buffet first before it closes but maybe I will use the safe afterwards (before I start drinking for the day).

No, I’m an idiot and my daughter found the money in my carryon. I am blaming the martini. I must have moved the money when we unpacked but I don’t remember moving it. If you report a missing item, you have to make an official statement, describing the items. Then NCL searches your cabin to make sure the item is really missing. If you find your missing item, you have to write another statement. I wrote that I was drunk and mistaken.

I’m sad to report that it looks like $70 was stolen out of my purse while it was in my stateroom so I will be able to do a review of the security process following a missing item report. NCL is preparing to search the room.

We got Carlos.

I finished my bacon, ahem breakfast, and went to the sun deck above the pool for an unclouded view of the sail in. It turns out, the secret sun deck on 18 (my first choice) is closed from 6pm to 9am so I couldn’t go there. I got to see our ride for today pull into the parking lot.

Day 3 Drink #1 and #2 are a Venti Caramel Macchiato and a Grande Vanilla Bean Frappuccino I’ve headed to the Buffet for the breakfast of champions, bacon, after my morning Starbucks run. Today is Aruba and this was the first excursion that I booked for us through NCL because after our excursion credits, it was free. For $49, we are getting on the Kukoo Kunuku bus and shaking some maracas. This is sure to mortify my daughter. The tour is described as going to Casibari Rock Formations and then the beach. I wanted to see natural sights and my daughter wanted beach so 4 hours of a little something for both of us. And maracas. If we get maracas, I’m shaking them.