island2islandfcbc

Does anyone have any theories on Oasis for the Fall of 2019? I see a gap between the last sailing in Europe and the first one in Florida. I know it is going to be refurbished and wondering if anyone knew anything about a TA over either before or after refurbishing? Hoping to do that if it is happening....

Another option is Nikky Beach Club. You can contact them at http://www.beach-aruba.com/arubabeaches/

 

Taxi fare each way is $7 (as opposed to $10 for the Amsterdam Manor or MVC Eagle Beach). If you enjoy walking, this location is only about a mile south from the cruise terminal. Follow the main road on to the linear park which will lead you directly to Nikky Beach. This area is also known as Surfside Beach.

 

This place looks really nice...thank you for the suggestion...I love the pool option!

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Enjoyable review! :)

Great meeting you both and I agree with Slice of Life...I will never think of the Glow Party and not think of you! Thanks for all the organizing and lunch was wonderful!

Tuesday May 21

 

Breakfast - Uptown Grill

 

Today we chose to visit Uptown Grill for breakfast. It’s a great place to get away from the hustle and bustle of the Garden Café. There were only a handful of people there at 8:30. I had a very tasty sausage, egg and cheese English muffin sandwich, crispy hash browns and a yogurt parfait. My husband had an egg and cheese sandwich with sausage links on the side. Everything was great except for the yogurt parfait. It had some kind of strawberry pie type filling inside, it’s hard to describe but it was too sweet and I didn’t care for it. We also tried the very huge cinnamon rolls! They were amazing, you can get them with an orange glaze, regular glaze, or what looks to be a caramel glaze.

 

Spice H20

 

The sun was finally out so it was time to stake a claim to a sun loungers in Spice H20. The pool deck was filling up fast and to my surprise Spice was pretty empty at 10:00 am. My husband went off to try the slides and he had a great time for out there for two hours. He tried the freefall slides and now you have to wear a yellow body board on your back. Spice filled up fast after 11 and chairs were hard to come by. A couple next to me helped fuel the chair hogging and they took up 3 loungers! Two for them and one for all of their crap. Some people are just ridiculous!

 

Lunch - Garden Café

 

For lunch we stopped by the Garden Café to try out some lunch items. I had a slice of fresh out of the oven cheese pizza and a slice of Asian chicken in a mushroom sauce. Both were really good! My husband had a bacon, pineapple and teriyaki burger. For dessert a soft serve ice cream cone! We never saw the cold fruit soups during lunch or dinner and crepes are only available during dinner.

 

Afternoon Activities

 

Today was the hotdog eating contest by the pool. You put your name in a bucket and they pulled out three names for people to participate. There were two men and one woman who were chosen. The challenge is to eat up to 10 hotdogs in 10 minutes. The prize was a trophy and a bottle of champagne. One guy ended up eating 6 hotdogs, the other guy 5, and the woman 3. It was entertaining to watch. Afterwards we tried to do the ropes course that opened at 2 but the line was really long so we decided to skip out. We walked around the ship and took more pictures.

 

Dinner - Savor

 

We decided to try Savor again since it’s the only dining room open at 5:00pm and when you’re trying to make a 7:00pm show, time is of the essence. We were in line promptly at 5:00pm and were seated at 5:13pm. Again, lots of tables were being set up to accommodate huge parties. A party of 16 sat nearby and we saw other groups of 9 or 6. I don’t know if the large groups are playing a role in the slow dinner service. Our waiter came by and we both ordered the Mexican corn chowder soup and the wild mushroom and cheese ravioli. Tonight’s bread assortment was different than the prior nights. Again service was very slow, taking almost 20 minutes to get ours appetizers. The soup was pretty good, a bit of an odd consistency with the cheese melting into the pureed corn soup. It was almost a half hour by the time dinner arrived. The ravioli was very good, just a bit salty, but still enjoyable. I should mention the portion was on the small side with only three ravioli. It took a while for someone to come over and take our dessert order. Throughout this dinner our server changed four times. The previous night we did have a separate waiter for desserts. I like the idea of a different server for dessert to help free up the other waiters for dinner service. I ordered the bread pudding for dessert and my husband ordered the Kahlua tiramisu cake. Both were tasty. Tonight’s dinner service was almost an hour and 45 minutes. The line to get in when we left was insane!!!

 

Rock of Ages

 

Let me first say I have never seen Rock of Ages on Broadway or the movie. I thought the show was okay. The music was good, lots of classic 80’s music. The musical part was eh, some parts were funny. This is not, I repeat not a show for kids! It was repeated through the cruise that Rock of Ages was adults only, however parent’s don’t seem to listen or care, because we saw several families with young kids. They promptly left after the first ten minutes! About twenty minutes in a lot of elderly folks left as well. There are a lot of cruse words and some people might not like all the women in lingerie (it was all tasteful and nothing provocative in my opinion, you see much worse on the Victoria Secret runway show on TV). My husband and I toughed it out and stayed for the entire show. It was an hour and a half long (the daily said an hour and 15 minutes). The sex scene people are in a huff about really is nothing to get worked up about. The couple goes into a bathroom stall and you see legs up in the air. I don’t see what the big deal is. Anyway, I wasn’t a fan of the show, lots of people were laughing, clapping their hands and really getting into the show.

 

Afterwards we ran into Island2Islandfcbc and sat and talked for a bit until it was their turn to see Rock of Ages. They’ve seen the Broadway show so I’m curious on their take of the Breakaway version.

 

Crepes at the Garden Cafe

 

We parted ways and headed to the buffet to hunt down the crepes. My husband is a big fan of crepes so he was a happy camper when he found them up there. I had a lemon meringue tart and it was excellent. We stopped by Fat Cats to listen to Slam Allen however it was completely packed so we gave up and went to our room.

It was enjoyable to us as we love the music but it most definitely was not a NYC Broadway production although I know they did the whole show...what we found most interesting is with all the plays Broadway offers why then would NCL chose Rock of Ages? Word around the ship regarding the show was very, very mixed!

During the planning stage for Bermuda, there was plenty of talk that the government was not working fast enough on the repairs/expansion of the pier for the Breakaway. Taking this into account, I decided to plan accordingly as if we had to tender the entire time we would be in Bermuda. One of the aspects of the Breakaway that was not as appealing to us was the fact that we would be docked in one port for 3 days. Part of why we love cruising is moving from location to location and being on a moving ship. But after some research, I found that Bermuda has a lot to offer and we will have different activities to do each day.

 

I won’t go through my itinerary in this section. Instead, this will be a guide to help those planning a cruise to Bermuda. Obviously it is impossible for me to cover everything that there is to see and do in Bermuda, but I will try my best to cover the top attractions that the island has to offer. I hope this guide will be useful for some.

 

Click on the map to go to an interactive map.

Image courtesy of SailBadtheSinner

 

This is not the best map, but it is the best of one I found that can be viewed in a CC post. There is one really AMAZING map with a lot of details, but you need to zoom in on it to get a better viewing experience. However, I highly recommend that map. To get it just click HERE. I will also attach a PDF file that contains the map.

 

 

Let’s Start with the Royal Naval Dockyard

 

 

The National Museum of Bermuda seems to be the main attraction in this area. The cost is $10 for anyone over 13 and free for kids under 13. It is open from 9:30-5:00pm.

 

Snorkel Park Beach is a great area for snorkeling, with sunken cannons and such to make your experience more interesting. The cost for the entrance varies from $5 during weekdays, free on Saturdays, $10 on Sundays and children under 12 are free. They also have a night club on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with an entrance cost of $10 per person.

 

Dolphin Quest

As you can imagine, is a dolphin encounter. They have different experiences, starting from a 5 minute $60 per person dolphin moment to their ultimate hour long meet, feed and ride the dolphin for a mere $295 per person. :rolleyes:.

 

Hartley's Famous Undersea Walk. If you do some research on Bermuda, you will find tons of people give 5 star ratings to this tour. It looks like an incredible tour that allows you to touch and feed the fish. This tour departs from Heritage Wharf and the cost per person is $95 for divers and $48 for Riders/Observers. They also offer their picture package for $15 per picture, plus $10 for the CD. This tour was in our sights, but I did not think my mom would enjoy it as much as me, and I wanted to plan activities that we would both equally enjoy.

 

Glass Beach.

The real name for this beach is Black Bay Beach and is an approximate 20 minute walk from the Dockyard, although some people claim it is farther away. You can go there and collect sea glass. Some people claim that the cruise lines are 50/50 on letting the items on board, with some people said they get confiscated and some don't. There is also lots of talk about not taking the glass and just leaving it there for others to enjoy.

 

Bermuda Clayworks is your shopping place for ceramics.

 

Bermuda Glassworks is your shopping venue for glassware. They have items available from $10 to smaller items, to hundreds of dollars for larger items.

 

Bermuda Craft Market is your place for arts and crafts.

 

Bermuda Clocktower Mall is home for several stores such as Bermuda Triangle, Caesar's heath store, Calypso, Crisson Jewelers, Perfume Shop and more.

 

 

Here is a short video of the Royal Naval Dockyard

 

 

 

 

 

We went to Fun Golf by Snorkle Park beach...$15.00 for 18 holes...holes are replicas of famous holes around the world(6 Bermuda golf courses, 6 US golf courses, 6 Scotland golf courses)...a lot of fun, very challenging and beautiful, fantastic views of the beach with the ship in the background. And the owner and workers were so welcoming and informative about the Island