ceilidh1

Bristol in the UK? I was born and raised right across the bridge in Wales! He sounds like my spirit animal...I, too, like those three things. Lol

I just realised that today should be the best experience ever for embarkation on Bliss - she sailed empty from Vancouver, so romms should be ready immediately, and there should be zero delay to board as there is no one disembarking. Now I'm feeling a little jealous...

I'm here for the ride (or cruise)... If turnaround day is in Whittier, I highly recommend the 26 glaciers cruise. It's one of the best we have ever done! If I can be any help on the 1st (bag storage, dad storage) I'm at Hastings/Bute - you are welcome to my place. We will be at work, but I can leave you a key. Just let me know!

Final Thoughts - Was this our best cruise ever? No. Would I cruise this ship again? ABSOLUTELY! In fact, I'm in the process of booking the exact same repositioning cruise for next year as I type (it's a tradition - glutton for punishment...). While much of this review has talked about the negative aspects and the decrease in service, etc. it's important to note that this doesn't seem to be unique to NCL. My preferred line has always been Princess and, even pre-Covid, I started noticing cuts on that line. In fact, it was some of those cuts that made us stray away and try NCL. Post Covid, Princess has also increased charges while reducing services, so don't believe the grass is always greener - it's not. However bad life is on a ship, it's a million times better than being at work!!!!

Yes, we ended up just removing the entire plug and leaving it out! The shower was an anomaly - I searched back through my pics to the club balcony we had this time last year (also Bliss) and I'm not crazy. It WAS a large, round, rainforest shower head that allowed you to adjust water pressure. This time, the skinny shower head had one pressure only. You couldn't take the wand off as it was clipped on to the pipes. It moved up and down (with difficulty) but that was about it!

We were in 11200. I much prefer the layout that has the sofa near the balcony as the one we had with the sofa and bunk next to the closet meant that it was impossible to get into the closet since the bunk was always down. For 5 days we made it work, but it wasn't ideal.

Disembarkation At 7:30am, our steward knocked on our door to see if we were leaving soon. Rude. Two kids were still asleep - we have until 8:30 in the room, so no, we are not leaving soon. That ruffled my feathers a little. We didn't bother with breakfast, knowing how insane the last morning is all over the ship. Instead, we did walk off with our bags, leaving the room at 8:20am. Forget trying to get an elevator - the line of folks waiting was too long to even contemplate, so we hauled our bags down from deck 11 to deck 7. The route to get off the ship took us on a snaking path through the Local, through the casino, around some of the machines, out onto the deck and all the way back the way we had just came (basically walked from aft to forward and back to aft) but once off it was a straight walk through the terminal with no passport/immigration stuff. We live an easy walk from the port and were in the house by 9:15am.

The Ugly 1. Service: Across all outlets, service was pretty bad. Waitstaff were clueless. Bar staff were snippy/impatient. Guest services staff were overwhelmed. Room steward wasn't present. Constantly given conflicting info by staff members. Probably the worst service I have ever had on a ship - and not just one department, but all departments. 2. Lines: The ship was packed. I've sailed Bliss full before, but never, ever, experienced hour long waits EVERY time we tried to do anything. NCL promotes Freestyle, yet you can't actually do things (like eat) when you want. The only solution was to line up at least 40 minutes before you wanted to do anything. That's not my idea of Freestyle. Every venue was crowded, very few areas to sit, elevators were a joke (we actually gave up even trying and just walked the stairs). We didn't attempt to get off in Victoria, but it looked like a long line/wait for those that did!

The Bad 1. The Room: First off, the fact that rooms weren’t ready until 5pm meant I couldn’t truly relax and start my vacation until then. Club balcony costs more for a few reasons - the bathroom/shower (our shower was not the nice rainforest head we have had before), ability to pre book dining and shows (that never happened - 21 days same as everyone else), bottle of bubbly (never materialized), one free laundry (no mention of this / no laundry bags in room), treats (first treat wasn’t enough for 4 of us, second treat was cookies we could have got from the buffet). The room itself was the set up with sofa next to closet so it was impossible to actually use the closet as there isn’t enough space to maneuver. It was very hot in the room with four people. Even with the thermostat at the lowest, there was no cool air or air circulation. At night I felt like I was melting and woke up bathed in sweat - not ideal since the bedding never got changed the whole 5 days. 2. The Servicing of Rooms: I have no issue with once a day service but have a huge issue with not being able to use the room. This impacted our use of the room as the bunk was always down over the sofa, which was always a bed. This meant there was nowhere to sit and little space to move. Additionally, service usually wasn’t until late afternoon so no clean/dry towels if we wanted to shower later in the day or needed to get ready later. 3. Kids Club: This sailing had a lot of kids but, apparently, only room for 90 of them at the kids club. That’s a really low number! My DS wasn’t able to get in at all and many other families seemed to have the same issue. This is surprising for a line that markets to families.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly The Good 1. The Food: All of the food we ate was top notch - from Garden Cafe through to Food Republic. No complaints on that score. 2. The Entertainment: Hands down the best entertainment at sea. Jersey Boys and Six knocked it out of the park, Siglo, Archie, Stephen, Heartbreaker Duo all great. Only saw one comedy show and missed all Beatles shows, but everything we saw was outstanding! 3. Most of the staff: Ordinarily, no matter what the issues, the staff look to be doing their best and trying hard. This wasn’t as evident this time - for the most part, the majority of staff were friendly, helpful, and happy but a lot were outright grumpy and most seemed to just be going through the motions. Shout out to the washy washy crew and the pastry sisters at breakfast who had a song for every occasion!

And just like that, it was all over! If I were a passive aggressive person, I would play NCL at their own game. You want me out of my room at 8:30? Sorry, there’s an hour delay on that. Lol

Hands down, the food everywhere (when we got it) was outstanding! The Indian station at Garden Cafe was to die for!

Amazing

The hits just keep coming

Oh dear…more from our group

@YVRteacher this is for you!!! IMG_6769.MOV

For all that has sucked, I cannot stress how amazing the entertainment and food has been!

Someone else on our group posted this so I wanted to add it as it really does sun it up. There are issues and frustrations but we are having a blast!

Then this happened (Red Sox fan through and through ) IMG_6877.MOV

Flourless chocolate cake and banana split. Delicious!

Desert

I swear I’m not THAT drunk

Crap. Upside down

We are docked in Vancouver now

Credit where it’s due - ordered a Corona and a Sprite when the mains were delivered and they came within 5 minutes