Pearl review - Rock Boat and Live Loud

With all the chatter about the Pearl charters, have you wondered what a cruise on a music charter is like? I'm going to review the two Pearl cruises I recently finished and hopefully that will give you some insight into what it's like.

The Rock Boat XIV - Feb 22 to 26 - full charter, run by Sixthman [TRB]

Live Loud Festival - Feb 26 to March 2 - an NCL music cruise with entertainment curated by Sixthman [LLF]

I'll try to include photos as I go and please feel free to ask any questions you may have about the ship or the experiences.

Background - I've sailed on many "normal" cruises (see my signature). Last year I found the Rock Boat when looking for a trip to take with a friend. It was so much fun and I made so many friends, I knew I'd be back by the end of the first day. This year's TRB was only 4 days (last year it was 5), so when LLF was announced and I saw the prices, I knew I wanted to be a part of that.

Cost differences - Cabins on a music charter are a LOT more expensive than a normal cruise. Even interior cabins are at least double the price. But when you consider the volume of entertainment, it's not surprising. On TRB, there are as many as 4 or 5 shows going on at the same time during the evening. Music starts around lunch time and goes until 2, 3, or 4 AM.

TRB had 31 bands, a DJ, and headphone disco.

LLF had 12 bands, a DJ, headphone disco, and a yogi.

There was also the closing of the Port of Miami for a radioactive compass on the switchover day between the cruises. I'm glad I didn't need to be anywhere at a specific time that day!

Day 1 - Thursday Feb 20 - Travel Day

I fly Southwest whenever I can because I have their credit card and can often fly on points. I also like not paying to check my bags and may be one of the few people who don't mind their seating method.

My flight was completely uneventful, which was fantastic, since last year I was delayed for hours and missed the pre-party in Miami. They were offered $300 for people to take a bump to a flight 3 hours later, but with the weather issues around the country, I didn't want to take any chances.

Since I have the SW credit card, they send me four drink tickets each year. I got my 2014 stash right before this trip, so I used one to enjoy a Fat Tire on my flight since they don't sell it in NY.

When I arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, it was about 15 min from the moment I stepped into the airport, got my bags, and was seated in an upgraded rental car. Enterprise had amazing service that evening. I was quite happy with them.

Side not on car rentals - I originally made reservations directly through agency websites using coupon codes. About two weeks prior to my trip, I checked rates through hotwire and they were about half of what my reservation was for. Of course I booked through them. Hotwire now lets you see the car rental agency prior to booking so you can confirm location, hours, and policies. They also did not charge my card, it was just a reservation and I paid the car rental agency directly.

I chose to stay in the Ft. Lauderdale area the first night since hotels were cheaper, most had free parking, and I had some errands to run.

I stayed at the Holiday Inn Sawgrass Mills. It was a fine hotel. I believe I paid a little over $100 through hotwire. Free parking. Close to shops for a liquor, water, and pop run. I heard the desk agent say the hotel was at capacity, but I never had an issue with noise. My room was in a smaller hallway, however, so not sure if that played a role.

Following along! :)

Looking forward to more!!!

Day 2 - FL day

On Friday, I used yelp to find a place for breakfast and found a diner near by that was really busy when i got there at 10:30, which I took as a good sign. The food was decent and not horribly priced. Service was great, but I can't remember the name of the place.

I then drove to my next hotel to check in and drop off my bags - the Holiday Inn Port of Miami. I took a route that avoided toll roads but ran into a bit of traffic so the drive took a little over 45 min. Thankfully, the hotel had a room ready and I was able to drop off my bags before returning the rental car. It did not like that there is NO place to park to unload bags. Because the main entrance was on a major road with no pull in area, I'm not familiar with Miami, and I was driving a rental car, I had to pay $6 to park in the public lot just across the street. While I didn't mind bringing my stuff across the street, I was annoyed at having to pay to unload my luggage. Not sure if there was some place I could have parked for a few minutes.

The location of the Holiday Inn Port of Miami was pretty great. Close to many shops and restaurants, as well as the Port.

My next step was to drop off the car at the Miami airport. That was easy, but it's annoying that the gas stations near the airport were priced at more than $1 per gallon more than other stations. I hadn't used that much gas so it wasn't a big deal.

I then took the bus to Biscayne for a spa day. I purchased a groupon for a massage and facial to start my vacation with a bit of pampering. My therapist was great and it was very relaxing. When I was done, I decided to treat myself to a cab ride for the 2.5 miles back to the hotel. Sadly, the receptionist had a tough time finding a cab company willing to send a car. That took 15 min. Then I waited 30 min and still no cab. I could have been back at my hotel if I'd started walking when I was done, so I gave up and walked 1.5 miles to the free monorail station and took that back to my hotel.

By that time, the hotel was filling up with rock boaters. There were at least 30 in the pool area catching up and enjoying the warm weather.

[Taking a breather to figure out photo hosting since I have a bunch of photos to share]

We are going to need photos!:)

Definitely looking forward to seeing how an NCL music cruise goes compared to the Carnival ones I've heard about. (one of the guys I worked with used to get free cruises, if he did security for sixthman, so I got to hear a lot of backstories)

Bill

I can't wait to read more. I'm going to be on the Pearl for the Florida Georgia Line cruise in November.

Here we go. I figured it out.

So, when I got back to the hotel I showered and got ready for dinner.

Here's a view from the pool area at the Holiday Inn as I waited for folks to gather for dinner.

We went two blocks away to the b2 for dinner. They have a nice draft beer selection and everything is half price until 7. We go there at 6:45 and our waiter put in two rounds worth of drinks for us at the happy hour price. The food was good, but a bit pricey. I bet anything in Miami is more than I'm used to paying, though.

We decided to go to the official pre-party being held at The Stage. A $12 cab ride from our hotel. Three bands from the boat were playing that night.

Radio Birds - they were OK

Courrier - I liked them a lot better the first time I saw them. That show was acoustic. I told the band that I wasn't the only one who preferred them unplugged.

The last band was Melodime. I really liked their music, but I was so tired. It was after 11, and I wanted to save my energy for the next day, so I headed back to the hotel with people.

Boarding Day!!!!! Saturday, Feb 22.

Sixthman sends out luggage tags before their events:

I like to have them on my carryon when I travel to and from the event in case someone else sees it and is going to the same place.

Saturday morning, I was too excited to sleep in. We found that there was a McDonalds around the corner from the hotel, so we headed off to grab a quick breakfast.

Our group of friends planned to meet in the lobby at 10:30 to grab cabs to the port. The port of miami was so busy that day, we boarded through the auxiliary tent. We were told not to show up before noon, but I convinced everyone it was better to arrive early and be near the start of the line rather than wait around the hotel then have to wait in line to board. There were so many people leaving the hotel for the port I was worried getting cabs would be tough. All it took was a quick request of the doorman, and we were good to go. I did feel bad for the people hoping to check in that had just gotten off cruises, but there were no early rooms to be had.

I hopped in a cab with three others. I had to point out to the driver that we needed to go right at the port, rather than left with the rest of the ships. He actually had to stop and back up. Many many others had to go all the way around and try again. We ended up getting separated from the rest of our group for a bit because their cab drivers missed the turn, too. Glad I was paying attention to the signage!

The line was not moving at all when we arrived just after 11. Apparently we couldn't even enter the tent until the ship was ready for boarding as there wasn't a real holding area in there like in the terminals. So no boarding numbers, just board once you have your key cards. We hopped in line and immediately started making friends and saying hello to others we'd met before. People are *extremely* friendly on these cruises.

The Tent:

Once the tent opened, it was on. But here is where I was the most frustrated. I was in a 2 bedroom suite with four other girls. There was a Suite boarding banner with the rock boat graphics on it, but NCL employees insisted there was no suite boarding for this cruise. I'd heard this can happen on charters, so wasn't surprised, but unsure why the sign was there.

The rest of my cabinmates were in cabs that had to go the long way around, so I figured I'd get my key card and such then wait for them before actually boarding the ship. There wasn't a place I could sit and wait for them to board together. The woman who assisted me was friendly, but couldn't find my key card. They had to make me a new one. Why couldn't she find it? It was in the suite boarding area!

By the time my cabinmates arrived, 10-15 min later, there was suite boarding. So I went with them as they checked in. I explained to an employee what happened to me and she was concerned about what happened. I knew the tent probably increased chaos, but she wanted to know exactly who had given me the bad information and who I'd checked in with.

There's no traditional forced boarding photo in the tent, but they did have two green screens set up. Some of our group stopped for a quick photo and I'm so glad we did.

This is great - thank you! Looking forward to the rest of your review.

This is great. Please keep it coming. My wife and I will be on the Pearl for the Welcome to Jamrock Reggae Cruise in October.

Hello fellow Rock Boater! That was the BEST. TRIP. EVER! Looking forward to reading how your experience compared to mine. I won't hijack your review, but the one thing that struck me more than anything was how the bands were just as happy to be there as we were. I'd seen some of those bands live before, at different venues, but they performed on that ship with so much more enthusiasm and often with huge smiles on their faces. That was so neat.

Best set for me - up front in the Spinnaker for the Red Wanting Blue set at 1am on Sunday. They are my favorite band and I'm not lying when I say I lost my voice right there in that lounge that night. Took over a week until I could speak normally again. I could not have been alone, either; that show was one big RWB sing-a-long. So cool.

For a while after being home I was still seeing rock stars around every turn. I got used to that very quickly on the cruise! What a life.

I just felt like the whole thing was a vacation custom made with me in mind. Which, of course, is not the case. It was just a cool gathering of people just like me. As I told a friend, I feel like, "these are my people!"

Feel free to comment! It's not a hijack, just another viewpoint.

I'm sure you went to shows that I didn't and vice versa. If you want to post about some of your experiences, please do. I'd rather have one thread with all the info.

rigs32: Thanks for posting your review (with more to come). I'm one of the ones who got bumped from a 21-day cruise in Jan/Feb 2015 because of charters, so I'm hoping NCL will move the Pearl to another itinerary so the music folks can have their fun while I'm cruising the eastern and southern Caribbean.

Those luggage tags are awesome! And you seem to be a craft beer fan; I'm interested if the music cruises have more interesting beers than regular NCL cruises.

BabsinTX - look at the 2016 Pearl itineraries. There's a gap in her schedule for Jan - March, I'm assuming for charters. So NCL did realize the issue it appears.

As for craft beer, last year there was an expanded selection - nothing to exotic - but I don't believe we had the same this year. I only purchased one drink on TRB, but had the UBP on LLF. They now have two types of cider, oddly Strongbow was included on UBP but Angry Orchard was not.

Boarding Day (cont)

So we take our boarding photo and we enter the gangway. Another disadvantage of the tent is that we boarded through deck 4 like when you return from port rather than into the atrium on deck 7. A little anticlimactic.

Sixthman high fives their guests when they board charters:

When you board through the atrium, all Sixthman staff, NCL officers, and a smattering of other NCL employees all line up to high five you. For TRB XIV, only Sixthman CEO Andy Levine was there to high five us.

At this point, our group had to split up. Those of us in the suite got escorted to Cagney's for lunch. The theme for day 1 was "rep your sports" so it felt funny eating a fancy lunch in Cagney's wearing jerseys rather than dealing with the crowds at the buffet. We all really enjoyed our food and the calm start to the day.

Just as we finished lunch, the announcement was made that rooms were ready, so we headed to the Topaz Suite on deck 11. I have always been the type to book cheap cabins. And OMG I am now forever spoiled. Even with five in this cabin, it never felt crowded.

Living room before the couch was converted to a bed:

I slept on the couch in the living room. It converted to a single bed, was much higher than the couch, and was quite comfy. It was more comfy than the couch bed in the second bedroom.

The only thing I didn't like was the see-through doors to the toilet and shower in the master bath. Yes, we were all girls, but we often had people in the cabin and we knew the folks in the adjoining mini-suite, so that door was usually open. Why couldn't they have at least used frosted glass? I was in the shower one day and heard male voices. With all the windows in the cabin, I was worried that someone was getting to see more than I would have liked. Perhaps next year I'll bring something to cover the glass for a little more privacy.

See the glass:

There was a bottle of sparkling wine waiting for us, which we enjoyed to begin our vacation.

You must be wondering what does the schedule look like for a music charter? For TRB it means a ton of shows, a lot of conflicts, a lot of decisions to make. I am posting the schedule as provided to us prior to departure. There were a couple changes made once onboard that were clarified with announcements, in the dailies, and on the screens around the ship.

Here is the schedule for boarding day:

After settling into our cabin a bit, we went to explore. Our crew tends to hang on deck 13 - close to a bar, view of the pool stage, chairs to sit in. There wasn't much going on, so I went down to the atrium to check out the first show of the trip - Radiolucent.

Sixthman gives all passengers a surprise gift that is waiting for you in your cabin. This year, we got nalgene bottles with the logo on them. They were fantastic. I could take 32 oz of fluid with me to shows to stay "hydrated". Lots of people carried them all week.

This year the whole boat (and yes, rock boaters call it a boat rather than a ship, so please excuse that throughout this review) had a theme, too. We were Camp Rock Boat, since TRB is summer camp for adults. Everyone was divided into tribes based on cabin deck for a color war and the bands were divided among the tribes as their camp counselors. Some bands completely ignored color war. Others wore their color and had shout outs for their tribe during shows. I thought it was a fun addition to the boat and something to rally around.

I started using my TRB hydrator right away:

It's always a bit strange to attend shows in the atrium when it's still daylight and especially so when you can see the Port of Miami to your right.

During this show, I spotted one of the artists who is originally from my city. I'd seen his band play in a small venue here a few months prior, so I went over to introduce myself and tell him I was looking forward to their set. That's how things are on TRB. Artists are there to enjoy the music as well and most are more than happy to chat with you, pose for a photo, etc. I normally don't approach artists unless it looks like they are open to it. In this case, the man was standing alone, and I approached between songs.

Some of the music cruises with giant headliners - Kid Rock, KISS, etc - have less accessible artists or set photo ops (either included or at an additional cost). TRB has set meet and greet times, but very few people actually attend those, preferring to run into artists organically throughout the course of the cruise.

Following along! Love it!

I am truly enjoying this review. I have always wondered how a Charter Cruise was. If my DH and I were a bit younger ( 52 and 62) we would consider one but I just don't think we could keep up anymore.:o

There are plenty of folks that are in your age bracket, especially for Cayamo. I prefer the party atmosphere of TRB, but Cayamo is much more about sitting and listening, from what I hear.

Still working on boarding day.....

After Radiolucent's first show, the next thing we had to do was muster drill. Our muster location was the back of the Stardust and, surprisingly, not all seats were taken. The staff working in the theater weren't enforcing the "no drinks" rule, so people had buckets of beer and such. Folks down front kept trying to start the wave which didn't really take off. We put in our time, we learned how to put a life jacket on, and then it was over.

As part of the color war, I was on the blue tribe. Everyone with a cabin on decks 4 and 11 were in our tribe. And blue went crazy with bling. We'd arranged a "blue bling exchange" on the sports court for immediately after the muster drill. There were two different shirts designed that people purchased. Some people bought blue beads, suckers, pompoms, glow sticks, and other stuff. I arranged for custom koozies that people ordered.

The bling exchange:

Some of the bracelets:

Can koozies:

The back of one of the shirts, listing our camp counselors:

Sail away!!!!!

Sister Hazel started TRB so they are the hosts every year. They play the sail away show. But before the music, there's a few things that need to happen. A family photo is taken of all cruisers on the pool deck together. Cabo Wabo is one of the sponsors, so tequila and margarita shots are handed out to everyone to toast together. Rock boaters on their tenth boat are awarded with a coveted Sixthman bathrobe.

I struck a deal with some of my cabinmates. I would go to the bling exchange (since I needed to deal with the koozies) and pick up items for them, they would scope out space up front for the sail away show and make sure there was space for me.

When I got to the pool deck, the crowd was heavy, but not packed tightly, so I was able to join my friends without too much trouble.

Shots being handed out:

Photo of the crowd (I'm the only person apparently looking at the camera:

A view of the crowd from up near the stage:

A similar shot from the official photographer:

I enjoy being down front for certain shows, and sail away is one of them.

Beach balls come out after a couple songs:

A link to Sister Hazel singing Mandalin Moon with Edwin McCain -

A link to Sister Hazel singing Change Your Mind with Scars on 45 -

Side note - pins

People who booked TRB14 early received a button from Sixthman in the mail and we were told that Camp Rock Boat would have additional pins that you could earn on board.

My group of friends created our own buttons to hand out to people promoting some of the bands we like. The most popular was the "washy washy happy happy" button. Last year was TRB's first time on NCL, so the first time we were greeted with that at the buffet. Sister Hazel wrote and performed a song about it at the finale show, which has been a big hit on youtube.

I managed to snag 3 or 4 others sixthman buttons. They were a great conversation started as Sixthman gives lanyard to hold your key card and a placard with your name and number of boats, so they were easily displayed.