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I honestly didn’t even realize it was spring break as, here in Canada, our break was in March. I guess spring break plus Easter long weekend was the perfect storm! Lol.

Arts and crafts in the atrium

It’s 5 o’clock somewhere

Just wanted to say that we are still having a great time despite the lines, crowds, slow service, etc. i would rather be here than at work and I’m always grateful to be able to do these trips. However, this is definitely a different experience than I’m used to with this ship. Had this been my first cruise or first with NCL I doubt I would return.

In Victoria? We aren’t getting off. Hoping to hit the pools and slides while it’s quiet

These are some comments from our cruise group (I cropped out names due to privacy)

Not off to a good start. The cream for the coffee came with the salmon bagels that two of us ordered. By this time, the coffee was cold. The salmon bagels were eaten and the other two of us still had no food. I asked for pastries- I guess they no longer bring them around. We got a basket of assorted pastries but no plates. I then got a refill of the coffee - it was hot but had both weird taste and smell ( like fish?) nope. The food finally came after 40 minutes- two Belgian waffles with caramel sauce and whipped cream and the loaded hash browns. The hash browns and one waffle were good. We ran into problems with the second waffle. I spread the cream over and thought it was kind of thick, but with everything else that had gone on I didn’t pay too much attention. One bite and I realized they had given me cream cheese rather than whipped cream, and now it was all over my food. After an hour of waiting this was the final straw. I called the waiter over and pointed out the error…and he laughed. Yeah. Not impressed. I just got up and walked out.

On the way down, we passed by the line to get off the ship. It stretched all the way from the gangway on deck 4, up the stairs to deck 6, through the elevator lobby, and out into the atrium. They are calling lots of names so I assume they are still trying to clear Canadian customs. No line this morning at savour so we walked right in. Sadly, the hostess couldn’t find the table we were meant to be at so we wandered the restaurant for a while. Finally got seated and coffee was poured. But no cream. I’ve been sat here for 10 minutes and still no cream - just requested again and the guy snapped “it’s coming.” Ok then. It’s odd, we experienced some of this on the bar crawl yesterday too - one bartender snapped at us as they had just finished a tasting and needed to reset the bar. Okayyyy. It’s obvious they are overwhelmed, overworked, and tired but in this industry you can’t take that out on your customers. We also found a duck in the way down

It’s 9am now and folks have started getting off the ship so we are going to attempt to get breakfast at taste or savour. Wish us luck!

Someone was asking about entertainment in The District. Last night it was a piano player named Steven. He was excellent! Place was packed. Tonight it’s Heartbreaker Duo who I’ve enjoyed listening to in the atrium. I also watched Siglo last night in the Cavern. Did I mention they are my fave cruise band?

Dailies from yesterday

Not sure if I posted the line at 4:45pm for taste/savour. They open at 5:30!

Bar crawl highlights

Day 4 - Victoria At 10:30 last night, I got a call from guest services asking where our Canadian declaration card was. I explained that I followed instructions and left the completed card on my bed for the steward to take. She asked what time he took it. Uhmm, I don’t know. Whatever time he finally serviced the room. Definitely after 1:30pm. She said she would follow up. Didn’t hear back so assume it was located. We aren’t planning on getting off in Victoria but hope everyone else will so we can hit the hot tubs and slides. As always in Canada, only one bar per deck is allowed to be open in port so that will be horrendous if the ship is packed. We shall see. I appear to have cell service so will try to get pics uploaded. The 74 minutes free wifi is all used up - internet was slow and it all hit taken by this review. So much for checking in with work. Ha ha.

It was so epic that I managed to mess up the order of events in my posts. Obviously the bar crawl happened before dinner. Ha ha. The one rule was that you had to try a different drink at each bar. I had some interesting concoctions that i would never have ordered. Kahlua and orange juice. Who knew that combo would be so good!

Tomato. Lol.

Found out there are 4087 guests on the ship, with just over 800 kids. I haven’t seen that many kids around the ship but my 11 year old hasn’t been able to get into the kids program at all as it’s always at capacity. The teens have gone to the teen program and most of the activities have involved them going around the ship in groups in scavenger hunts, etc. So all those folks who complain about “unsupervised kids” around the ship may need to look to NCL and the programming it offers. None of the kids I’ve seen have been unruly or problematic. Went back to the room at 1:30 and no service as of yet. Beds are not made, towels not replenished, no sign of steward in hallways. Definitely not worth the additional increase in service charges! After lunch I rejoined the pub crawl and it was even more fun than the morning version. Hands down, the Cavern Club were the most accommodating bar tenders! They decided to do “shot o’clock “ for us (by this point some of us were barely standing). I managed to complete the scavenger hunt first, but gave up my prize to one of the other gals who was the life of the party and worked REALLY hard on checking it all off. No one managed to complete bar bingo - I think we missed out on someone celebrating 21st birthday and a bachelorette. Oddly enough, we were able to find tramp stamps, whale tails, and public make outs. Yup, it reached that level! We finished the bar crawl around 4pm and went our separate ways. A bunch decided to do the waterslides but no way was I up for that. I met up with the kids and staked our place in line to eat at an actual restaurant. Hopefully taste or savour will let us in before 9pm. Did I mention how much I despise this system? At 5pm we got in line for savour. It opens at 5:30 and this was the line at 5. Something is not working with this system. If NCL wants freestyle dining then make it freestyle and stop taking reservations. First come first served. Or make it all reservation and allow people to have an idea of what’s going on ahead of time so they can make those reservations. Frustrating. Once again, I’ve sailed this ship full many times and I have NEVER seen lines like this.

Success! First in line (we were there at 4:40pm) and seated right when they opened at 5:30pm. By this point the line was HUGE! The host told us that even on full sailings it wasn’t normally like this. Different demographic and lots of big groups (one of his bookings tonight was for 28 people). He also told us that 30% was available as reservation and the rest for walk in. The problem arises when everyone is in line at 5:30 as by 5:40 it’s full and there is at least an hour wait from there. Once again, if everyone wants to eat at 5:30 then freestyle dining isn’t working. Despite being seated at 5:30, we just finished dinner at 7:30. It was fabulous food, but it took so long! Between us we ordered mozzarella ravioli with lobster sauce, bruschetta, sirloin, New York strip, bang bang chicken, and pesto rigatoni. All were great! My only gripe was the loaded baked potato was literally just sour cream. I asked for the toppings and our server looked at me as if I had two heads. She did go in search of the “loaded “ components and came back 10 minutes later with bacon and cheese. Dessert was lava cake and the girls both got their birthday cakes!

Day 3 - At Sea Woke up bright and early to get showered and dressed for the 9am pub crawl meet up. Hopefully more show up for this than the meet and greet. Grabbed a snack breakfast at the Observation Lounge since this was where we would be meeting. Just a few pastries, cereal, and coffee. At this hour, the lounge is peaceful and lots of seats! Met up with a group of around 20 of us for the bar crawl. So well organized and fun! We had a passport to check off each bar we visited and also a scavenger hunt. We took a break for lunch at 12:30. Once again, every restaurant was an hour wait so we went to the Garden Cafe. Once again it was completely packed with no tables, so we had to grab our food and eat outside. Really not loving this dining situation!

Found out there are 4087 guests on the ship, with just over 800 kids. I haven’t seen that many kids around the ship but my 11 year old hasn’t been able to get into the kids program at all as it’s always at capacity. The teens have gone to the teen program and most of the activities have involved them going around the ship in groups in scavenger hunts, etc. So all those folks who complain about “unsupervised kids” around the ship may need to look to NCL and the programming it offers. None of the kids I’ve seen have been unruly or problematic.

The pay more for less service kicked in tonight. I had told our steward that I didn’t care about the room being cleaned but we needed extra towels (3 females with long hair) and the bunk bed put away in the morning and taken out at night. He agreed and I thought all was good. The bunk was put away when we went back to the room at noon. However, when we got back this evening at 11pm it wasn’t pulled down. Ugh. I managed to pull it down myself and have to hope that there’s no secret trick to get it to stay in place. This shouldn’t be my responsibility as I paid for a room to accommodate 4 and paid gratuities for 4, so basics such as this should be a given in my opinion.

The kids went down to the arcade, so I watched the 18+ comedy. No reservations but no line up . It did end up filling and it was quite good. Not the best comedian I have seen but definitely not the worst. Next up was Jersey Boys. I’ve seen this six times on the Bliss and every time wows me. This one was no exception. I have to hand it to NCL - they know how to do entertainment! By the time the show was done it was after 11. I really needed a drink of water or lemonade so I figured I would grab one from the machine at Garden Cafe. Wrong. Doors were closed. Headed down to machines at observation lounge but there were no glasses. Luckily I had my water bottle and was able to fill it with ice (I didn’t dare fill it straight from the machine). Now I need to wait for it to melt. I don’t recall everything closing so early, but maybe I’m just not usually out this late!