LIVE from the SUN Jan 4-11, 2015

[Loucat]

Great review and youare so sensitive to the power of the ocean!

Most reviews only touch on what draws us to the sea.

Thank you and I look forward to your final posts.

I feel bad that your cruise comes to an end but there are lots of anxious folks waiting to experience what you did.

Thanks again; safe travels and keep warm on your return home.

[troyphoto]

5:47 am: And we're slowly pulling into Tampa.

 

Thanks to everyone for the comments.

 

I'll try to catch up and respond while sitting in the airport later.

[NJLVW]

I have enjoyed being along with you on this cruise. Oh well it felt like I was anyway.. You have a flare with your writing and it has been a joy reading. Looking forward to more, more, more... We leave on the SUN next Sunday and I am so excited. She is to date my favorite ship. This will be my 5th time cruising on her and I still can't get enough!!! Thank you for taking the time to write your review. It has been much appreciated.

[troyphoto]

Troyphoto, did you use Flickr to upload your photos or some other program; or did you just upload from your computer? Thanks

 

I've got a semi-professional account through SmugMug. I use it as online backup for my high res files.

 

I exported and uploaded very small photo files once I was onboard. Wasn't going to waste internet time uploading 3.5 to 5 mb files.

[troyphoto]

Loving your review, we will be on the Sun for our 4th time in March, (she's our favorite ship)

Is there any way of finding out who the butler and concierge are for the forward suites, it's only our 2nd time in a suite, we got spoiled by our butler on the Pearl.

Hope you continue to have a great cruise, I booked our cousins in a balcony cabin on our cruise, hope the shower curtain behaves, it's their first time on the Sun, they might have to use our shower.:eek:

 

Apologies. The few times I wondered past the front desk to ask, they were busy with other folks, and I forgot to ask when I walked by this morning.

 

However, judging by the crew we had, you should be in good hands no matter who you get. :)

[troyphoto]

We are getting on the Sun as you are getting off. As a first timer, I love reading these reviews from different perspectives.

 

I saved you a seat in the Great Outdoor. Enjoy your cruise!

[troyphoto]

I have one quick question (and I apologize if this has been asked before): Does the Sun have the new menus in the main dining rooms yet?

 

Thanks!

 

According to the HD, they are the only ship still waiting on them. He expects them to be rolled out by April.

[troyphoto]

Annnnd we're home.

 

Post cruise blues setting in... Frigid cold, etc.

 

Flew out on Delta... Was originally scheduled to go to sunny Ft Worth TX for first leg, then to Indy. That would avoid the weather.

 

Delta, instead, decided we should fly to Detroit, where our connecting flight sat on the tarmac for an hour waiting to be de-iced. Smooth move Delta.

 

Here are some finishing thoughts I put together yesterday in the airport:

 

 

Staff

First kudos to a hard working and friendly staff. We're always happy to cruise with NCL based just on how friendly and helpful the staff is.

 

Turns out our room stewardess was only a week ahead of us on boarding the ship. We were among her “second week on the job” guests. We suspected she might have been new. Little things like following the “towel on the floor = replace it” policy strictly. Other cruises we’ve had stewards that sneak in fresh towels anyway, or take one that we re-hung away and replace it as extra service.

 

Another give-away that she was new: we had a limited number of towel animals while our Canadian friends were got new ones daily. We got three of them, if I recall.

 

I especially liked the dog that stayed around for three days (I finally stole his head one day when I needed a towel to set our freshly washed water bottles and coffee tumbler on). It was like having a little “fluffy” friend hanging out on our couch for several days.

 

 

Saturday evening, we were in the room packing the dirty clothes away in our luggage, when she stopped in to turn down the room. I handed her a gratuity in cash and chatted for a few minutes (I hate blocking passageways to chat, so this was the first time we had talked for longer than a “hi-how are you?” in the passageway).

 

She was rather shy, and we could tell she was processing English back and forth with her native language slowly. She said she was new, and seemed surprised we had a separate gratuity gift for her.

 

Other than the minimal towel animals, she did great.

 

Our stewardess did notice that our AC wasn’t working properly. It was frigid on day 1, so I turned it warmer. Day 2, it stayed kind of muggy in the room. I thought this was just because of us using the balcony door a lot – and from showering with the bathroom door open to keep Mr. Shower Curtain from attacking us. I turned the thermostat cooler, but didn’t think about it. Day 3 (we stayed on ship) a maintenance guy shows up with parts, and asks if he can fix our AC.

 

Props to our Stewardess for noticing and putting in a work order. We wouldn’t have discovered the issue for another day at least

 

Walking/jogging on deck 6

 

Wife’s one complaint was that deck 6’s walking track wasn’t open completely until 8 a.m. There always seemed to be a maintenance “Section Closed” set of ropes stretched across some section or another. Maintenance guys were spending a lot of time in port sanding and repainting the underside of deck 8 in the areas above the life boats. They’d usually get the ropes down about 7:45 to 8 a.m.

 

 

This delayed Mrs. Photo’s morning walk, and kept us in our room longer in the morning. Wife wanted to get her exercise, return to the room, shower, head to breakfast. Had deck 6 been open at sunrise, she would have been out of the room by 8 am or so. Often she didn’t get out of it until almost lunchtime, due to waiting for Deck 6 to open, then showering (the archaic hair dryers didn’t speed up the process). This made our room one of the last for the stewardess to get to in the morning. Only on our excursion day were we out early enough.

 

Wife says that walking on deck 12’s track is OK as long as sightseers don’t come against traffic. The sides of it are narrow, and you get real friendly with any passengers coming the opposite way.

 

Coffee:

Since the machines in the buffets use the ground coffee instead of the liquid condensed syrup, this ship has better coffee in the buffets than I’ve had on other ships. I never once hit the coffee bar on deck 6.

 

The dining room coffee wasn’t bad either. Tasted like brewed, not reconstituted syrup like the French Gnome machines in the buffets on other ships normally deliver.

 

The way they deliver the cream and set of sweeteners to the dining room tables does need improvement. The little carafe or ‘boat’ the creamer is in, and the rectangular one the sweetener packets are in barely fit on the plate they rest on. Both are riding the edge and tilted toward the center of the round plate. I found that picking up the creamer-boat was awkward. (Does anyone actually use the little handle on the boat? Or does everyone hold it by the sides?) In their next china restocking order, I’d recommend getting some flat, rectangular plates/trays that would better accommodate the presentation of those items.

 

Use of public spaces:

Chatting with some our new cruise friends who have sailed on other lines, they commend NCL for having a wide variety of entertainment and live music in the lounges. I realize that a large portion of the responsibility for what we the passengers do is on US. We have to explore and find the acts we like. But, there seemed to be a concentration of activities in one part of the ship. Cruisers had no reason to head anywhere else outside of that "action alley" in 6-aft to mid in the evening.

 

 

The kink in the system is Dazzles. It’s the space that works best for almost all activities: Dancing, Game Shows, Lectures, etc. It’s right in the middle of the ship on deck 6, and therefore it's part of the main thoroughfare for getting fore to aft. One has to walk through it, or the smokey casino to move about the common areas of the ship. Having all of the lecture type activities there makes sense, but, with the more "fun activities" it becomes a magnet for people stopping and staying on their wandering about.

 

The photo above is looking toward the fore of the ship, with the main walkway through the ship to the right (starboard), and the seating area to the left.

 

This creates a block of people in one section of the ship most evenings. Perhaps it's for stability reasons. Keep in the middle deck, midship and aft, to get better pitch on the bow of the boat!

 

This cuts down on exposure to other music acts for evening entertainment. Having only one area on the ship for these larger activities seems to guide everyone to that area. Since it’s the main thoroughfare, it gets crowded early. The same with the Windjammer, just behind Dazzles. James and Riley were able to draw crowds based on foot traffic past their performance venue. Riley interacting with the passers by (as the shows let out, usually) often got some them to swing in and see what the crazy guy with the guitar and funky beat-looper-recording device was (you have to see it in action to understand) was doing.

 

Other than the one night they had “Drift” in the Champaign Bar (eg the atrium, due to the open nature of Deck 5 to 7 in that area) – they had the right music groups in that area. The Caribbean Jazz group, the Tuxedo (Big Band/Swing) group all were good sit and chill background music for the casual bars like the Champaign and Coffee bar on 7 and 5 in the atrium.

 

This left the Observation lounge (what would be Spinnaker on the Jewel class) under populated. That was a shame. This area isn't set up the same way the Spinaker Lounges are. Similar, but without the tiering of the seating area. That means it's not going to work for activities where seeing the dance floor/stage is ideal.

 

Like I said in an earlier post, the SUN class of ships had some good ideas, with poor execution. By the time NCL was building the Jewel class ships, they had the bugs worked out of the designs.

 

The act which was based there most nights, Into the Drift, played the widest variety of music of all the groups we heard, and had a small number of passengers dancing most nights. IMO, Into the Drift should have been based more than one day only in Dazzles, not the Observation deck. OR, move a few of the “game show” activities up to Observation to get folks headed that way.

 

 

The silliest place to put the "Drift" couple was in the Champaign bar one evening (see photo above). Unless you move all the chairs out into the walkway around the railing, the listeners couldn’t see the performers (see photo above). One youngster still in diapers really enjoyed their act and spent about half an hour entertaining us with her dance moves (since we couldn't see the performers)

 

If you like oldies/pop/80s etc – be sure to catch this act. We, along with our Canadian friends spent last evening up listening to them.

 

Entertainment:

The “We Will Rock You” show by the performance company on Friday was very energetic and well worth the time. The house band provided the instrumentation, and did an excellent job.

 

For my fellow The Who fans:

Their guitarist during The Who set (Who Are You? Pinball Wizard etc) missed some great opportunities to get some Pete Townsend high jumps and windmill jams in. I was hoping he’d do the slide across the stage on his knees while playing (Watch “The Kids are Alright” – Pete slides across the stage right to left, then it cuts to him entering from the right again – poor editing between fake concert takes in the soundstage). I would have given huge props to the show designer if they had worked that in.

 

I will give the guitarist a shout out for playing with his teeth during a later song.

 

Also, the drummer looked like he wanted to go full Keith Moon during The Who set, but was able to keep himself in control… NCL probably would’ve been upset if he started trashing his drum set in mid show.

 

The comedy show with Russ Rivas on Saturday night was worth it. Followed by the traditional FOUNTAINS by the cruise staff.

 

After the later show, Russ headed to… yep… Dazzles for an “Adults Only” comedy show. We had originally planned to catch some music then head to Dazzles to get good seats for that show, but found our Canadian friends up in Observation, so we sat up there and listened to Into the Drift on the ship until they finished for the night.

 

And, to top everything off, when we got back to the cabin that night, I forgot and left my keycard in my shirt pocket, packed the shirt in the luggage, and set the luggage out for pickup. I couldn't find the keycard the next morning... I panicked a bit - without the key card, they might not let me off the ship. That means they might co-opt me for the photo team to pay my passage. I'd be stuck wearing the dolphin suit in every port until my wife got home, unpacked, and mailed the key card to me. She might actually wait a year, and take another cruise, and finally deliver it then.

 

We stopped by the front desk, and they said I could just give my room number when I disembarked, and security would check me off that way.

 

 

So, I’ll apologize to the persons behind us in the disembarkation line. I’m the guy that slowed the line down. Wait? Isn’t that a good thing? Another two minutes onboard? I extended their vacation for them!

 

NCL Busses

We had purchased the NCL bus transfer to the Airport. Once we got through customs, we weren’t sure where to go.

 

Perhaps the NCL commitment to NOT making a lot of announcements during the cruise is a little too far the other way.

 

I’m one of those who grumped about the every half hour “BING BONG… This is _______ your Cruise Director/Port Consultant/Art Gallery/Specialty Dining Consultant/ Spa Manager/ Fitness Director/Towel Exchange Guy/Ping Pong Director/ Librarian/ etc… Today, in just 15 minutes it’s time for BINGO (or whatever)” announcements. Back in 2005 they were one of the few downsides to the cruise. Now, we rarely hear those. That’s good. But, we do occasionally need some info.

 

Adding a bit more info in the morning of disembark would be a good thing. Like, where to find the NCL transfer busses.

 

BTW: As you exit the port terminal – they are in the parking lot to the RIGHT. Ours were big red and white busses. Neither wife nor I saw a sign in the terminal pointing the way. Fortunately, a security person pointed us the right direction.

Edited January 12, 2015 by troyphoto

[Lollygil]

Thanks for the review...my countdown is getting closer. Any discounts on specialty restaurants while onboard? I always like to wait to see if they toss them out

[noche_caliente]

Loving your review, we will be on the Sun for our 4th time in March, (she's our favorite ship)

Is there any way of finding out who the butler and concierge are for the forward suites, it's only our 2nd time in a suite, we got spoiled by our butler on the Pearl.

Hope you continue to have a great cruise, I booked our cousins in a balcony cabin on our cruise, hope the shower curtain behaves, it's their first time on the Sun, they might have to use our shower.:eek:

 

We were in 9003 and had Randy Romero as our Butler and Kelly as our stateroom attendant. They took wonderful care of us!

[mitsugirly]

Thanks so much for your awesome "as it happens" review. That rocked and was really neat to be reading shortly after it happened. Great review and thanks for sharing and keeping sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for you to come back and post the next thing. :D

[troyphoto]

Thanks for the review...my countdown is getting closer. Any discounts on specialty restaurants while onboard? I always like to wait to see if they toss them out

 

Apologies, but I don't remember any, but wife I are happy to dine in the MDR while we're there. We'd rather use our discretionary dollars for cocktails.

[troyphoto]

Interestingly, wife and I got our NCL Post Cruise Survey notices today. I took mine, she skipped hers, figuring one per family was enough.

 

In the short little comments section, I put the link to this live-blog. Figured that was easier than trying to condense twitter style everything into 1,000 characters allowed in the comment field.

 

Also: for the closing of the Walking area for deck 8, wife said it was usually the bow of the ship roped off before 8 am. She surmises that crew needed to spend a lot of time crossing between the bow work areas on either side of the track.

 

This is probably connected to that annoying half-deck drop in the bow (why deck 6A passenger cabins are accessed only via stair). Another one of those pesky design flaws that later iterations of the NCL ships got rid of.

Edited January 13, 2015 by troyphoto

[bostongal965]

Is the area that was blocked off where the deck six oceanview cabins portholes are? I seem to remember they closed that area sometime at night and didn't open it again until the morning so there wouldn't be noise in those cabins.

[coscab]

We were in 9003 and had Randy Romero as our Butler and Kelly as our stateroom attendant. They took wonderful care of us!

 

Thank you so much, we are in 9202. How did you enjoy the front suite, we always sail aft (the aft mini suites on the Sun are so wonderful) I am afraid we might miss the wake but thought we should try the bow at least once, I was rethinking it after I booked but when I decided to change to aft there were no suites left on the deck we wanted.

[zounds]

Thanks again, Troy. Well done !

[OceanDreaming2]

It was great cruising with you again, even if it was through your blog and photos. We will try to do it again in real-time. We're on the Jewel in September if you want to see Alaska. :)

[troyphoto]

Is the area that was blocked off where the deck six oceanview cabins portholes are? I seem to remember they closed that area sometime at night and didn't open it again until the morning so there wouldn't be noise in those cabins.

 

That would make sense. I wasn't aware those were staterooms along the walking track in the bow.

[troyphoto]

It was great cruising with you again, even if it was through your blog and photos. We will try to do it again in real-time. We're on the Jewel in September if you want to see Alaska. :)

 

That would be nice, but I hope to have a teaching (college) job by then. Taking a week off in the first month on the job might not be wise. ;)

 

We did do the future cruise credit again while onboard (that's how I pay for the internet). If I'm going to spend the money anyway, might as well book another cruise.

Edited January 13, 2015 by troyphoto

[OceanDreaming2]

That would be nice, but I hope to have a teaching (college) job by then. Taking a week off in the first month on the job might not be wise. ;)

 

We did do the future cruise credit again while onboard (that's how I pay for the internet). If I'm going to spend the money anyway, might as well book another cruise.

 

Our cruise is 10 days; probably wouldn't work out with a new employer. Unless you can convince them they need to have you write a blog on the wonders of Alaska!

Edited January 13, 2015 by OceanDreaming2

[noche_caliente]

Thank you so much, we are in 9202. How did you enjoy the front suite, we always sail aft (the aft mini suites on the Sun are so wonderful) I am afraid we might miss the wake but thought we should try the bow at least once, I was rethinking it after I booked but when I decided to change to aft there were no suites left on the deck we wanted.

 

I am also a fan of the aft. In fact we fell in LOVE with the aft! I booked our cruise last year on the Gem, and only forward penthouses were available. It was good, so when there was such a price difference between forward and aft when we booked this one, we went forward. It's pretty neat being able to see where the ship is going. It is a different experience, but I think you will enjoy it.

 

That said, next time we will go aft. I prefer being able to use my balcony without being blasted by wind constantly. And maybe it was all in my head, but I was feeling the effects of the seas much more on these last two cruises with forward balconies than I was with the aft balconies.

 

Also, I will be posting a review of my own at some point (with pics of 9003) in the near future when I get caught up on the other things that need attention post-vacation!

[GoofyCrew]

Thanks for your review! We were on the Sun at the same time. As I read this, (and before I stumbled upon your selfie pic) I had figured out that you were probably that guy with the laptop on the aft deck. The guy who liked popcorn. :)

 

We were that family of four who ended up sitting out near you quite a bit in the Great Outdoors. Mom and Dad's lunch usually involved a blue bucket. ;) The Great Outdoors was our favorite place for breakfast and lunch. Hopefully we weren't too disruptive to your writing when we were out there!!!

 

We were also on the same Ruin excursion. I couldn't help but smile when I read your review of Diana. You described her perfectly!

 

I also agree that walking through Dazzles wasn't always the easiest due to the congestion. And the intoxicated woman who grabbed our daughter by the arm and roughly tried to jerk her out onto the dance floor while we walked past...sigh. We learned after that incident that our best option was to just go up to our cabin's hallway and then back up/down if we wanted to be in the atrium or observatory.

 

This was our first cruise. Can't wait to sail again someday! Until then, we are back in Michigan dealing with the cold and snow. Brrr.

[Sammy Sailor]

Enjoyed your review! Makes me excited, sailing on the Sun February 22 !! Cannot wait for some warmth. Driving to work today, car thermometer -15!!:eek:

[coscab]

Noche = Thanks so much for letting me know how you liked the forward suite, I am afraid the wind might bother us, and we like to leave the door open to hear the ocean, we were just in an aft suite on the Pearl in Dec. and it was wonderful, we live about a block from the atlantic and are used to being lulled to sleep by the waves hitting the shore, I think we will probably return to the aft after this!

[suzieq2cruise]

We were in 9003 and had Randy Romero as our Butler and Kelly as our stateroom attendant. They took wonderful care of us!

 

Thanks for this note - good to know the staff was great!

We will be in 9203 in a few weeks - did you like being on the front of the ship? Also, another question - who was the concierge?

 

Thanks! Suzie:)