Norwegian Dawn Christmas Cruise to the Western Caribbean Review, Dec 20-27, 2015

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

Here is a review of our cruise to on the Dawn out of NOLA to Cozumel, Belize, Honduras, and Costa Maya! We had a few bumps, but ended up having a great time. I do reviews for two reasons: To pay it forward to those that have helped me when I’m planning my cruise, hoping that I can help someone else by giving them some information. Plus it’s a great way to have a memory of our trip.

I will be posting Freestyle Dailies, Kids club flyers (although my kids never went, so I can’t speak to how it was), and menus that I was able to get. I think I missed one dinner menu. We ate breakfast in the MDR, the buffet, and Blue Lagoon. We ate lunch in the MDR, buffet, Blue Lagoon, and outside around the pool. We ate dinner every night in the the Aqua MDR. We never got to try the Bamboo or sushi, unfortunately.

We are a family of five, Hubby is 51, I am 46, and three girls are 12 ½, 11, and 11. We were travelling with other family. My parents, who are in their 70’s, my oldest brother, 53, and his daughter 18, and her boyfriend, 17. My other brother, 50, and his wife, mid 40’s, and their son, 14. This is our fourth cruise together, well technically the third with everyone since my brother and family missed the first one, details are in my review of the Jewel so I won’t go into it here. My parents are very generous and have paid for all of our cruises, we just pay for the extras (excursions, drinks, etc). We have sailed on the Norwegian Jewel out of NOLA, Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas out of Port Canaveral, and Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas out of Fort Lauderdale. Everyone likes sailing out of NOLA better, so our only two choices for this cruise were NCL and Carnival. When we saw that NCL was offering the beverage package for free, that was a no brainer. Plus this would be a make up trip for the first one that my brother’s family missed with the same ports.

We were planning to leave asap on Friday the 18th to drive down to NOLA. It was the kid’s last day of school before break, so I knew there wouldn’t be a whole lot going on. On Thursday afternoon, hubby’s boss told him that he could leave as soon as he wanted to on Friday to get an early start because he had been working a lot of extra hours with his job. He’s a project manager in Commercial Construction so he’s had many projects going on lately, daytime ones and some that were overnight, and working them simultaneously. I’m an Independent Contractor that works from home in Customer Service, so my hours are flexible. I had already told my company that I would be gone this week before I took the job in October.

So he worked a little in the morning, I finished packing and got the kids, then we left Atlanta around noon. Easy drive down, little traffic. My parents, oldest brother, niece, and her boyfriend were driving from Pensacola, so they only had a 3 hour drive, while we had about 7 ½ hours. They made it just a little before us. Other brother, sis in law, and nephew were flying from Oregon and were expected to arrive at 7:30pm.

We were all staying at the French Market Inn on Decatur Street at the recommendation of my middle brother, he had stayed there before. It was a beautiful hotel and I wish I had taken pictures of it. The rooms had exposed brick walls, beds were very comfortable, bathroom was large, very nice outdoor courtyard area. Don’t go there in the summer if you are expecting to swim because it has the tiniest pool ever, it was more like a lap pool. Other than that, the hotel was wonderful.

My parents and crew went next door to Crescent City Brewery, literally 3 doors down. The hotel let my dad use their wheelchair because he has mobility issues and is usually good with his walker, but was getting out of breath very easily. Once we checked in, we went next door as everyone was finishing up. They told us it would be an hour wait and my parents said that they were staying at that table until we got there so we could have it, but the hostess said that they were waiting for them to finish to seat another party. I was fine with that, I didn’t expect to get that table, I wouldn’t want to cut in front of someone else that had been waiting. So we chatted while they paid their bill. Parents went back to hotel, niece and boyfriend went to walk around, and brother stayed and had a beer with us. What was odd was that they ended up giving us that exact same table about 15 minutes later, so I guess they seated the other party somewhere else, or maybe the other party never showed up (we never noticed anyone else waiting). The waitress that was serving the tables in the waiting area and the bartender were not the friendliest, but once we sat down the service was great. The food was really good, so was the wine and beer. We were finishing up when my sis in law said that they had landed, so we told them to meet us there. By the time they got there, it had cleared out, so we sat the kids at an adjacent table and they ate and we drank a little more. Then we all went back to our rooms to sleep.

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

SATURDAY, December 19th, NEW ORLEANS

My 11 year olds decided that they didn’t want to sleep past 6:30am, which was not fun when we were all in one room. Hubby and 12 year old were snoozing away, and I tried to go back to sleep until about 8:30, I was done. We all met a little later to go to Café Du Monde. Got there and line was about a 2 hour wait, so we headed back to Café Beignet near the hotel. Café Du Monde is great, but not worth that wait. Food was great at Café Beignet. Dad and brothers went to D Day Museum, and the rest of us went to the French Market and shopped, really neat place, like a huge flea market. Went to Tujagues for lunch, really good. Dad and brothers met up with us and we hung out a little while, then they went to take Dad back to the hotel and decided to meet us in Jackson Square. We were going to try to take a double decker bus tour. Hubby and I watched a magic show and he noticed Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon in the audience. We waited until after the show and he was nice enough to pose for a photo with hubby. Once everyone was together, we went to try to catch the bus at a stop and found out we had to buy tickets first, and it ended up being too late. I had actually wanted to do a trolley tour, like the St Charles Line or Canal St, but that never worked out. Just too hard with so many people. We got coffee at PJ’s next door, then the kids played UNO. We had planned to go to Chartres House or Pierre Maspero’s for dinner. I had called on Friday and they didn’t take reservations, but they told us to come around 5:30 and we should be able to get seated. At that point, no one was hungry, so we talked about heading next door to Crescent City Brewery for a snack. The kids stayed at the hotel and we brought them food back. Off to bed, cruising tomorrow!!

IrishCowboy · January 2, 2016

We sail on Th a Dawn tomorrow. Looking forward to your report :)

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

After getting out of the hotel, we dropped off the luggage at the port. The plan was for me and the kids to wait until Hubby parked the car at Fulton Garage and then board together. However, as the porter was loading our luggage, my mom saw us and came out. She offered to take the kids and check them in, so I gave her the paperwork and ID’s and hubby and I headed to park the car. Ran into brothers, sis in law, and nephew on the shuttle back, so went to boarding with them. We got into separate lines since we had sailed NCL before. We got to the port about noon and were on the boat by about 1:00. Long line, but it moved fairly fast. We dropped our carry on in the room since it was ready and headed to the MDR for lunch. Parents were there with my kids but we sat at a table for two (taking advantage of not having the kids for a minute). Lunch was good, and got a Toasted Almond to start taking advantage of the UBP!!

After lunch, we headed to the Pearly Kings to watch football and drink some more. Lifeboat drill was in the Venetian Dining room, which was so much nicer than having to be outside, and it was soooo fast. Much faster than Royal Caribbean’s. Went up to the kid’s club to sign the kids up in case they wanted to go (they never did). Then back to Pearly Kings to watch football until dinner time. One of my girl’s suitcases had not arrived yet, so there was a little bit of bartering to trade a dress with her twin.

Dinner was in the Aqua at 6:00. We got there a couple minutes late and found out that they had messed up our reservations. Since we had a party of 13, I had emailed ahead of time to ask for a table for 13 or a table for 9 and one for 4 next to each other and they sent me back a confirmation. However they had two tables of 7 next to each other. My mom had already talked to the lady in charge but she said that I had to talk to her since I made the reservations. I talked to her in the middle of dinner and she said she would get it straightened out for the next night (they did). Apparently having 13 people totally threw them off, although they had plenty of areas where a booth was against a wall, just put three 4 tops and a 2 top there and push them together, Voila! Somehow they couldn’t figure that out. At one point during dinner, my Dad had an incident where felt like the ship was lurching forward and sideways, and he actually moved forward and sideways. The maitre D came over because she saw us and called the hospital on the ship and my mom talked to them. They said to bring him down in the morning to get checked out because he was feeling better at that point.

We decided to skip the Welcome Aboard Show and watch football instead. Went to the room and called guest services because we were still missing the suitcase and they had it. Apparently the NCL tag had come off, although it had a tag with our first and last name on it, you’d think they would have looked at that and figured it out. Regardless, they delivered it within the hour. Hubby got too cozy on the bed to go to Pearly Kings. I took the girls to Spinnaker to watch the “Sing it if you know it” game show. They got bored because they weren’t playing any new songs so we decided to head back to the room. Of course, I liked most of the songs because the stuff my kids listen to today can hardly be considered music. Ran into mom, niece and boyfriend on the way out and they came to the room with us and we chatted for a while. Then off to bed.

We stayed in rooms 8660 & 8662 because we wanted connecting rooms, and by the time we booked this cruise, there was not a whole lot to choose from. Oceanview with a picture window. Everyone else got balconies on the 9th deck, rooms 9692, 9692, and 9696. My parents footed the bill for the oceanviews and anyone who wanted a balcony paid $700 for the upgrade. We didn’t think it was worth it to pay $1400 (since we had two rooms), and we were right. We were very happy with our rooms and loved the location. Room was plenty big and loved having the large window. Although I don’t think anyone has paid the $700 upgrade fee yet, LOL.

I will post the menus at the end of the review so that they are all together, but here are some food pictures:

Meat Lasagna Al Forno:

Whole Roasted Striploin:

Eggplant Parm:

Beef Meatballs:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

We sail on Th a Dawn tomorrow. Looking forward to your report :)

Oh, wow, timely I guess! I have it all written out and everything downloaded to photobucket, so I should get it all done pretty shortly.

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

DAY 2, MONDAY, December 21st, SEA DAY

Since we were on a different floor than everyone else, we just decided to do breakfast with just us when we were ready. Too much trouble to try to organize 4 different families. We went down to the Venetian MDR and got seated right away. I was enjoying my mimosa and breakfast when I saw everyone else at the entry. The Venetian was open from 7:30-9:30am that morning, and it was just about 9:30, so they got seated on the other side of the dining room, I think they were trying to clean up our side. I went over after we ate and found out that they had taken my Dad down to the ship’s hospital and he was dehydrated (no surprise there since my dad only drinks sodas and tea and lemonade no matter how much we try to explain that he needs to drink water). He has many health issues that have gotten worse because he refuses to listen to anyone’s (including family, Doctors, Physical Therapists, etc) advice. I love that man so much but I really wish he would take care of himself, but there is only so much you can do for someone else. I have tried for many years to explain that what you put into your body affects how you feel and how your body heals, to no avail. Anyway, in addition to that, the doctor also said that he was in the beginning stages of Congestive Heart Disease. I really didn’t know what that meant…is it a death sentence, does it mean you are gone quickly, is there a cure? My sis in law said that her grandmother has had it for over 10 years and it can be controlled by medication, but the lungs build up fluid and they have to be drained, and you need to be active (which my dad is not). Ugh. This information was unexpected because my dad had a stroke in April and recovered quite nicely, just some memory issues (and he had memory issues before, but some are different after the stroke, like forgetting how to use the remote, etc), and he sees his doctor and a cardiologist quite regularly. He has had issues with getting out breath quickly and has had many, many tests over the past 3 years and no one ever said this before? I have tried to get my parents to come up to Atlanta to see some different doctors, we have amazing hospitals here. I do have to say that the people in the hospital were very nice and seemed competent, and it is much larger than I expected.

So after breakfast, we went down to see if we could go in and see him. There was already a guy down there waiting to get sea sick meds. Oh, yeah, the boat was REALLY rocky since it started moving. It pretty much stayed that way for the whole cruise, getting worse on some days, but none of us had any issues with seasickness. I did see the bags at the elevators for those who needed them. Anyway, they wouldn’t let us in, just my mom, so we all went our separate ways, planning to meet up later at the pool area. I was supposed to go the Meet & Greet at 11am. We had a very slow roll call, but a member graciously set it up the week before, and I had been excited. After the news of my Dad, however, I just wasn’t in the mood to meet new people, and I certainly didn’t want to be a Debbie Downer and relay what was going on, so I skipped it. So sorry to Linda who planned it and those who did show up. I hear I missed a good talk with the officers. So update even though I’m not at the end of the review, my dad was in and out of the ship hospital the whole week, which I’m not going to include in the review, but managed to eat dinner with us every night. They were trying to drain the fluids out of his lungs. He went straight to the hospital on the Monday after the cruise, and they found blood clots in his leg, arm, shoulder, and lung…they started giving him blood thinners and oxygen, but doctor said his heart looks good. He just came home today and will be on the oxygen for a long while. We have a school break in February, so I’ll take the kids down there for a week to hang out and help.

So on with the review. We decided to put on our bathing suits and head to the pool. We got pretty good chairs right by the pool, only 3 for the 5 of us, but that was ok. The kids tried to swim a little but said the water was chilly, which is funny because they will get in the ocean in much colder water. They had a buffet by the pool, burgers and a couple sides, so we just ate there instead of heading to the Garden Café. I honestly wasn’t thrilled with it, I should have run into the buffet and brought stuff out, but it was fine. Hubby and I made good use of our UBP enjoying some fun frozen drinks for me, and beer for him.

Latitudes cocktail party was at 1:00 that day. We didn’t go. I would have liked to have gone, but the time is awful. How about mid afternoon once pool time is over?

We decided to go to the Atrium at 1:30 for the Family Circus Workshop, it was cute. I went to guest services while the kids were doing that to check on my OBC because the paperwork in my room didn’t match what I was supposed to get. It turns out that they had forgotten $50 for a travel agent perk, and also that they had put all of the OBC from my kid’s room onto my parent’s room. It also looked like one of my kid’s gratuities was being charged to my parent’s room, so I had them move the kids over to our room (the first two kid’s gratuities were covered by the NCL perk). Mom and I didn’t think about it when she took them to check in, but when she gave her credit card for the room, it automatically charged everything from the kid’s room to their room. They also opened an investigation to find the $50. When they said they moved the kids over to our room, I mistakenly thought that meant that my OBC would be moved as well. Now, I understand the charges part, but since my mom used my paperwork for the kid’s room to check them in, why didn’t the OBC just go on the kid’s room? It took days to get that figured out. The same thing happened because she checked in my niece’s boyfriend, and since he was staying in my brother’s room, we had to get that moved over as well…more on that later. They did leave me a message later that they had credited the $50 to my account. We went to look at photos. I like NCL so much better than RCCL when it comes to photos. Most of them are smaller ones, not 8x10. With 3 kids, I hate 8x10 photos! There is not enough room in the house. The photos at RCCL at $25 each, I think, even if you want them printed smaller. NCL’s were $15, plus you get the 5th free. Much better deal. We only found 2 that we liked, so we decided to wait until the end of the cruise and buy them then to get the buy 4, get the 5th free. I found out when we bought them that they give you a punch card, so we could have bought a few at a time anyway, funny that the girl I was talking to about it didn’t mention that. We wandered around and saw that Deal or No Deal was on, but by the time we got to the Stardust, it was ending. We stayed and watched the “Meet the Second City Stars”. Went back to the room for showers and bro & sis in law left a message that they were drinking martinis in Gatsby’s. We left the girls in the room and told them to meet us outside Aqua at 5:50 and went down to Gatsby’s. Had a few delicious (also strong) drinks and hung out. The girls were outside Aqua on time, and there was a line out the door and up the stairs. We waited in line to get seated, even though we had reservations. Another comparison with RCCL, where RCCL wins this time. For their My Time Dining on RCCL, they had two lines, one for people with reservations, and one without. So I asked when I got to the front if we should wait in line each night or go up to the desk (or to our table since it ended up being the same each night after this one), she said to wait in line. I thought that was silly because that meant we would be late each night since the line was so long, and no one was going to waste 15 minutes to get into line early. It did turn out that about the 4th night a woman came out and asked if there were any large parties, I told her we were a party of 13 with reservations, and she would check us in and lead us through another door. Not sure why they don’t do that all the time. So they had a table of 5 for the kids and they had us right next to it with a booth and 4 chairs on the other side. Lucky we are all small and could squeeze 5 people in the booth. They only had that set for 8, but put another place setting down. That would be the arrangement for the rest of the cruise. Loved our waiter and drink person. Another shout out for RCCL, they were much more accommodating with seating arrangements. Odd numbers didn’t seem to be as confusing for them as it did for NCL. It worked out, just odd that they were so thrown off with 9 or 13 people. There was a 2 top right next to us that could have slid over easily. It worked out, just very odd to me.

We got an invite to the VIP Cocktail reception since I am a travel agent, but it was from 6:45-7:15 that evening, smack dab in the middle of main dining time, so we missed that. Oh well.

After dinner, the boys went to watch football. Mom, niece, and boyfriend went to watch Bands on the Run and I went up to the room to get the girls and go to the Stardust as well to watch the show (they kids had finished eating and already gone to the room). I love Broadway type shows so I thought it was good. However, the costumes really should be updated. The furry coats that they wore looked pretty worn out and cheap. Just my opinion.

Came back to the room and Kevin hadn’t made it to Pearly Kings, he was asleep with football on the tv. We really weren’t doing that great utilizing our UBP to the fullest extent. Oh well, tomorrow was Cozumel and Chankanaab!

Breakfast omelette from MDR:

Mini pancakes from MDR:

Biscuit and gravy from MDR (with hash browns on the side):

My cuties at the pool:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

DAY 3, TUESDAY, December 22, 2015, COZUMEL

So today we were supposed to be in port from 8-5, but the Freestyle Daily had come the night before and the times were listed as 7-4. The same thing happened in Costa Maya three days later and I asked one of the managers in the dining room about this that evening, so I’ll go ahead and tell you the ridiculous explanation that I was given. Since Mexico is an hour ahead, they made our port times Mexico time instead of Central time (which was what time the ship was using). I am sorry, but that is just not right. When I book a cruise, I pay close attention to the times in port. I know that we are not early risers, so adding an hour in the morning and taking an hour off of the afternoon does not work for us. I don’t care what time zone Mexico is in, our port times were 8-5, so we should have been in Mexico from 8-5 SHIP TIME, because we were told to stay on ship time. I think this is really bogus, and it didn’t happen on our cruise two years ago with NCL. Maybe this is a new thing? I just think it stinks because we essentially lost an hour of our day in Cozumel. Plus, they could have explained this in the Daily, even though it’s a bogus explanation.

So on to our day. There were 7 ships in port today….yes SEVEN!! Yikes! We knew there would be at least six ships, so we thought Chankanaab would be a good choice since you have to pay to get in, hopefully it wouldn’t be as crowded as free beaches?? Either way, we had been there once before two years ago and did the Dolphin Swim, so we didn’t get to do as much as we wanted to around the park at that time. We had originally planned to meet on the 9th floor by everyone else’s rooms at 9:30, but when we saw that the time changed, we decided to meet at 9:00. Not sure what happened, but niece and boyfriend didn’t get the time change memo. My brother says he told them, they say he didn’t. Anyway, we were trying to figure out where they were and decided to get off the ship anyway. There was hardly a line to get off and as soon as we got off the gangway, it started pouring rain! We ran back in, my brother had called the room and found niece and they were on the way down. At that point a line had formed because it was still raining and everyone was waiting for it to stop. I’m not sure where we docked, but I hadn’t been to this dock before, and have been to Cozumel twice. I didn’t recognize the port area at all. Everyone was forced to walk through a small building filled with liquor, so it was pretty chaotic. We finally winded around the shopping area to the taxis. More chaos. Lines were everywhere, you couldn’t tell who was in line for what. My brother walked around to the side and motioned us over there. Apparently either the other people were doing excursions or just standing around, because he found the taxi area. We got a cab shortly. They charged us $36 for 11 people. The driver had said 10 was the max, but we convinced him that my kids were little and could all fit on the back seat.

Got to Chankanaab, bought our tickets to get inside. Of course, this was after the cab driver tried to talk us into other places like Mr. Sanchos, etc. I knew where I wanted to go, so he quickly stopped suggesting. We plopped down on the beach, a waiter found us and we got drinks, then the kids got their masks and went over to snorkel. It was pretty crowded and I couldn’t really see them from where we were sitting, so I walked over and watched them. There were fish everywhere and they had a good time together. It was shallow but then dropped off suddenly, so if they were younger, I wouldn’t have let them go out there alone. We did have one brief rain shower, but it didn’t last long. We ate lunch, it was really good. We were planning to go the Sea Lion Show, but got mixed up with Cozumel vs. ship time (another time zone snafu), so we missed it. We had seen it last time, but my nephew hadn’t, so I felt bad that he missed it. We walked around the lagoon area, saw some huge lobsters, saw some crocodiles, a huge iguana wandering around. Lots of fish in the lagoon. Checked out the Mayan Ruin area and my oldest took a picture with an Olmec head statue because she had just done a research project on them at school recently. We had a nice day and headed out to get a cab, but it was a crazy mess, it took a while. Here is a hint that we discovered at the end of the day. We walked to where everyone was first snorkeling and put our stuff down. When we walked further in the day, it was much less crowded further down, so try that if you go when there are a lot of ships in port.

My mom had wanted to shop in Cozumel, so I had texted her while we were eating lunch and told her where to meet us in the shopping port area. Hubby went back to the ship, so the girls and my oldest brother met my mom and shopped a little. Girls bought some souvenirs. I was not as thrilled with this port area. They were definitely not willing to haggle with prices at all.

Went back to the ship and showered for dinner in the Aqua again. Tonight was the Illusion show, it was really cool. I saw a magician on Royal Caribbean and was so disappointed in that show because there were about 3 tricks and the rest of the show was Royal dancers doing a show and him promoting his own show. This one was really good. Went with Mom, girls, niece and boyfriend. I went up to Pearly Kings to meet everyone else and watch Karaoke, but it was packed and I was tired. Bro & Sis in law didn’t plan to sing, so went to the room to bed. One note about Karaoke in the Pearly Kings. I really wish they would find somewhere else to host Karaoke. This was a really cool bar, but not a great layout for watching Karaoke. The bar was in the middle, so if you were on one side of the bar, you couldn’t see it. The “stage”, which wasn’t even a stage was not centrally located. And it was a small bar.

Snorkeling area at Chankanaab:

Lagoon at Chankanaab:

Big lobster in the lagoon, too bad we didn't have a fishing pole and some butter!

Big Iguana wandering around:

My oldest next to the Olmec Head:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

DAY 4, WEDNESDAY, December 23, 2015 – BELIZE

Tendering…what a complete and total nightmare!!

Four ships in port, water was choppy. The process was to go to the Spinnaker starting at 8am to get a numbered ticket. We went to eat breakfast in Blue Lagoon and hubby left before 8 to go get tickets. He said there were hardly any people in front of him and he still got number 6. After hearing all the announcements, we think that tickets 1-3 were only for NCL Excursions. That was all the CD kept saying “We are trying to get all of our NCL excursion passengers off the ship, then we will start letting everyone else off”. Basically they are more important than everyone else because they are paying 2-3 times the amount anyone on a private excursion is paying. He said this through the ridiculously slow process of calling Numbers 1-3. Then he finally called number 4-5 together and we gathered our stuff to go down and they called 6-7 while we were heading down. We got into port at 8am and we didn’t get on a tender boat until 10:30. It was really bad. They never said if they had to stop running boats because the water was choppy, or if there were limited boats since there were 4 ships that day, or what the reason was for the slow process. Regardless, we finally get off the tender at a little before 11am (Note that our private excursion was supposed to start at 9am) and there is a big tent for NCL set up, but no beach towels. I asked a guy about it, because they had a big table outside the boat in Cozumel the day before, and he told me that they hadn’t come over from the ship yet. Seriously, you’ve been running tenders for 3 hours and you couldn’t bring any beach towels? So I was going to a beach with only one beach towel that was in my room for 5 people. I later found out that the room stewards of all my other family had left them towels every night. Not ours. Our room steward was pretty non existent. She cleaned the room fine and left towel animals, but did nothing extra.

So our tour is to go to Goff’s Caye with Island Marketing. I had booked this based on many great reviews and the ease of snorkeling right off shore.

The port was a madhouse, but we asked someone and he pointed out an Island Marketing guy, so we talked to him and followed him to the indoor area. I explained that rest of our group was on the other tender and right behind us (I had seen them getting on the tender as we got on). We get wristbands and hubby goes out to find everyone else and tell them where to come to sign in. More people come and are signing in, and we finally get going around 11:15am. There were about 30 people on the boat, which was pretty much max capacity. The ride was very bumpy, but the crew was very capable. We went back out past the ships and made it to the island in about 30 minutes. They dropped us off and told us to be back on the boat in 15 minutes if we wanted to ride out to go snorkeling. We rode out not very far from the island and got our gear on. It was a little unorganized. We were the last group to get off the boat. They made us jump off the boat instead of going off the ladder, which I really didn’t like. I have to say that this was the most stressful snorkeling trip I have ever been on. The water was so choppy, really rough. You couldn’t lay still and look at stuff or else you would float backward, so you had to constantly paddle. If I had known this, we would have stayed on the island and enjoyed our time there. I like snorkeling where you can just lay on the water and look down. Even my sis in law, who is a very strong swimmer, said it wasn’t enjoyable. Not the fault of the guides, just the water conditions. I was honestly thankful when it was over and we got back on the boat. They took us back to the island and I immediately ordered lunch. We got two orders of lobster tails and two orders of chicken kabobs. They came with rice and beans and corn. The lobster and chicken were good. The corn was out of a can and the rice and beans tasted dry, like they had been sitting around for days. I would have rather had some fruit with the lobster and chicken. Hubby went and got lobster about 20 minutes later and said the same thing about the rice and beans and corn. We had free unlimited rum punch on the island and they had little bags of water which they gave us after snorkeling, but they were never offered after that. We had our hydroflasks filled with water, so no big deal. Unfortunately, we were only on the island for a short time before we were told it was time to leave, so we really didn’t get the relaxing beach break that we had signed up for. I’m not sure if I will do another excursion in Belize where I pay in advance. If the tendering is that bad, I might just stay on the ship. The island was beautiful, the guides were great, it was just a bad day for snorkeling. Sunny and gorgeous but very windy. We shopped a little before getting in line for the tender. It was a pretty short line and as we showed our sea pass, OOPS! We had been in Carnival’s line. They were both at dock 2. My bad! We headed around to the long line for the Dawn and met up with everyone else and chatted with some people in line. Made it onto the tender and had a nice ride back on the top deck. We decided to have a snack in the Blue Lagoon once we got back, then quick showers and dinner in Aqua.

The show that night was Second City Improv. I had wanted to see this, but they also had Bandaoke in Spinnaker at the same time and my bro and sis in law were going to perform, so I skipped Second City. They had other shows later in the week that I caught. My sis in law sang a song, then my bro and sis in law did a duet of “I’ve had the time of my life” from Dirty Dancing and dedicated it to my father, who had come to see it. Hilarious, because that is not a song that they would ever sing, but they had practiced a routine for my parents. Very cute. After Bandaoke, some of the crew came out on the dance floor for a New Orleans type dance party. Not my type of music, so we headed over the Pearly Kings and hung out for a while.

Backtrack: During dinner, we were discussing what was happening the next day. Now I LOVE to plan trips and I had planned what my family was going to do for each port, then told everyone else and said that if they wanted to join us, they were welcome. I don’t want to push anyone else into anything. So I had read a review of Little French Key a while ago from mitsugirly, and decided that this was where I wanted to go if I ever got back to Honduras. It is pricey, but I laid out the main packages in an email to everyone, what they included and didn’t include. I sent this information out to everyone no less than 3 times and even discussed it (or so I thought, apparently he wasn’t actively listening) with my husband as to which package was the best deal. Apparently I was just talking and no one was listening. At dinner, my brother and sis in law were shocked to find out how much it costs, as was my husband. My sis in law had even responded to an email at one point to tell me that she was going to do the $88 package because it was the best deal. I guess everyone has selective memories. I originally just said that our family would do it and anyone else could do anything else that they wanted (my niece and boyfriend would have gone with us). Then my husband got to me with the fact that we are trying to watch our finances and pay off bills, and it really wouldn’t make sense to pay that much…even with kids at half price, it would have cost us $350. So I relented and said we would just go the beach. Of course, I hadn’t researched anything else in Honduras because we had ALL agreed to go to Little French Key. I do remember reading that West Bay has beautiful beaches, but I just didn’t know which resort was best, so I figured we would just wing it. Was it worth it to save money and skip Little French Key? Stay tuned….

Goff's Caye:

Hubby trying on sunglasses...no he didn't buy these, and yes, he still has the beard unfortunately:

Sis in law trying to stay cool while in line for the tender:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

DAY 5, Thursday, December 24 – ROATAN

No tender, YAY!! So we split up today. Everyone else wanted to walk around Roatan and see churches and whatever before hitting the beach. I had seen as much as I wanted to of Roatan two years ago and had no desire to wander around that town and be harassed and chased by vendors. My kids are fish, so they could be perfectly happy hanging out at the beach every single day of their lives, and I grew up in Florida, so being in a beautiful, warm place makes me happy. We got off the ship about 10am, we weren’t really in a hurry. We went to the excursion/taxi area and the first booth was a rental car place and the woman tells us that it’s cheaper to rent a car rather than a taxi. We really didn’t know where we were going since my plans had been thrown out the window the night before, so we wandered on. A guy approaches us and tells us he will get us a taxi for $20 round trip per person. I basically told him he was crazy if he thought I was going to pay $100 to go to the beach. So they take us around to another place and say they will do it for $80. Still not the right price. We went back to the rental car place and she told us $80, I told her that’s what a taxi will charge. She comes down to $70, but $10 isn’t worth it to have hubby drive on unfamiliar roads when we don’t know where we’re going. We decided to walk outside the port and go to the store that we had gone to two years before and gotten a great taxi driver for around $50 or $60 for seven of us. On the way, there were more people calling out to us and one guy says we can get a taxi to West Bay for $50 round trip. SOLD!! We walk out to a van with a driver and another guy who is a guide. It’s always kind of odd to be getting in a car with strangers in a strange country, driving to a strange area where you have never been. These guys were great. We told them we wanted to go to a free beach in West Bay with a bar nearby. After some interesting facts about the island, they pull into a parking lot and we walk to Paradise Beach Resort. He shows us where we can lay down (in front of the flags….the chairs behind the flags were for the resort guests).

We walk to the bar to get a drink first, he says he will be there and just to let him know when we are ready to leave. We had already been approached immediately when we got there by a woman braiding hair. This always happens when they see my three girls with all of their hair. I am not a fan of those tight cornrow braids at all, so I politely say “We just got here, we want to get a drink and find a place to sit down”. I later learned that my words were not firm enough to mean “I will come and let you know if I want to get braids”…apparently my words to her meant “please continue to ask me about braiding hair”. I finally had to tell her that we just weren’t interested. I felt bad because she was really nice, just not our thing. There were many jewelry vendors and others walking along the beach, but they were really nice and not pushy. Just asked if we wanted to buy anything and walked away if we said No, thank you. However, the ladies offering massages just would not take no for an answer. So pushy and relentless. At one point, the girls were swimming in the water (have I mentioned how gorgeous the water was and so shallow?), and hubby went to get us some drinks. A woman approaches and asks if I want a massage. I said no thank you. She continues to ask and I think talk about prices, I keep saying no, I’m really not interested. She comes over and kneels down in front of my and grabs my foot, starts wiping off the sand as she puts my foot on her leg, and says, I’ll give you a free 5 minute massage”. I tell her that I really don’t want one, pull my foot away onto the sand, and she grabs it again and starts wiping off sand and putting oil on my foot and massaging. I know I should have yanked my foot away and been more firm, but I was really just so shocked that I didn’t know what to do. I kept looking down the beach to see if hubby was coming back and thinking, well, 5 minutes will be up soon. I kept saying, that’s really enough, but she would not let go of my foot. By the time I see hubby walking towards us, he has this puzzled look on his face (he knows that I am not a big fan of massages), and she is putting oil on the top half of my leg. This is getting really uncomfortable because it doesn’t look like she will ever leave. Hubby sits down and can see my face so he knows that I need help to get rid of this woman. He says “So how much did you agree to pay for this?” I said “Nothing, I kept telling her I didn’t want one but she wouldn’t let go of my foot”, so hubby gets loud and basically tells her that I didn’t want a massage, we weren’t paying her anything and she needs to leave. She huffed away. Hubby to my rescue. He was laughing, saying that he was walking up the beach and sees some woman rubbing on his wife’s leg and was like “What is going on??” I know I should have just stood firm, but she was so aggressive and I was so shocked.

At one point a kid with bracelets and necklaces comes by and I tell the girls to come up and look, thinking we can get our shopping done here and not have to shop back in port. We are all looking at them and next thing you know, there are about 6 guys around us with jewelry. They were super nice, though, and all had different things, so we ended up buying from all of them. One stop shopping, I like it.

We decided to leave around 1:30 to get back to the ship to eat lunch (more money savings, ha). Tipped the driver and guide and walked back to the ship to the buffet. I thought they had a really good selection. Went back to the room and showered and dressed for dinner. The girls were having fun making videos in the room (they love to direct and create videos, they want their own you tube channel). Hubby and I decided to go watch sailaway, so we headed to Topsiders and got drinks. The girl next to me asked me what I was drinking, then asked what we did that day. I told her we just went to West Bay beach. I asked her what she did. Of course, my dumb luck, she says “We went to Little French Key and it was amazing”. I made a face and hit hubby (a playful tap, LOL). She was like “Oh, no did I say something wrong?” I explained how I had wanted to go and got talked out of it. She said her kids said it was Paradise. That that was funny that the one person I run into had gone there. She said there were less than 100 people there (we were the only ship in port that day) and it was great. Oh well, maybe another time. I am glad that we saved a lot of money and we still had a very nice day, but I do regret that I didn’t get to experience it.

So hubby and I took our drinks and headed to the back of the ship while we sailed away and watched the beautiful sunset. Then we met everyone for dinner. After dinner, oldest brother and I went to Guest Services to see if the OBC was fixed (transferred from parents room to ours). It was not. They said that they moved the kids to my room so that I would pay the gratuities instead of my parents, but that my dad or mom had to come down to guest services to authorize the movement of the OBC. Makes sense, although I’m still not sure how it got mixed up to begin with when my mom used my paperwork with the kid’s room number to check them in. I explained that my dad would be spending the night in the ship’s hospital so he wouldn’t be able to come up. He gave us forms, put the OBC amount on each one and showed me where they needed to sign. I went up to check on my mom and had her sign the forms (I had taken my brother’s). I turned them in at some point that evening (note to self: should have made a copy). She was going with niece and boyfriend to see the Christmas Show that night, I didn’t really want to do that.

Hubby watched football in the room and I went to the Spinnaker to check out Battle of the Sexes. I was in line at the bar to get a glass of wine and saw that my sis in law was participating in the battle (did I mention that she hates to be the center of attention, LOL). I noticed my brother walking out and figured he was going to check the football score in the Pearly Kings. I waited a while and couldn’t find any of our group there (it was pretty crowded), so went next door to hang out with my bro and watch some football. Sis in law comes over later with a tee shirt that she won and we hung out for a while.

My cuties at West Bay Beach, just amazing!

Me and the hubby:

West Bay Beach:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

DAY 6, FRIDAY, December 25, 2015 – COSTA MAYA

Christmas day! The kids decided to wake up at 6am or some ridiculous hour, so we closed our door and told them not to bother us until 8am (that’s the rule at home on Christmas). At exactly 8am we feel a large body jump on top of us. We had bought just a few little things that they had gotten for each other and the real presents were at home (hopefully Santa delivered them while we were gone).

We went to breakfast then to the Java Café because I had promised the girls frozen coffee drinks and we hadn’t done it yet. I decided to check at guest services to see if they had corrected mine and my brother’s OBC. Well, they had transferred OBC, just not the right amount. My brother’s form said $50, mine said $275, and they apparently cannot read, because they only transferred $50 to my account. Now I had been very nice and patient up until this point, and I was still nice, but was losing patience. How hard is it to read the form and do it correctly? I am trying to explain this to them and the guy asks if I have a copy of the form? Well, no, because I gave it to you! Ugh! So I fill out another form to get the remainder transferred and cross my fingers.

So Costa Maya was supposed to be an 8-4 day, but the Freestyle Daily showed that we were in port from 7-3. We had only planned to go to Blue Kay Beach Resort, but again, lost an hour. So I knew that we could take the trolley for $3 pp and $2 for kids, and Blue Kay was free, just pay for whatever food and drinks we want. We took snacks with us so hopefully we could get back to the ship early enough to eat lunch there. Sis in law said that she, bro, and mom were going shopping. Niece and boyfriend were on their own. We took nephew with us to the beach. We got a late start and got to the port around 10:30. Walked towards the trolley, all the while being harassed by people trying to sell us “beach packages”….nope, learned our lesson last time on that con. I was trying to figure out where the trolley was and these people pointed around the corner, so we see it and start to get on. Then those same people start saying “you have to pay for it over here”. So he sells us the tickets, then starts tapping on his tip jar. I looked at him and laughed and said “What am I tipping you for? Handing us the tickets that I paid you for?” He keeps tapping so I put a dollar in there, only because I was afraid of what he would do if I didn’t. He was not happy and kept tapping. Well I’m not happy that I just had to tip you for doing your job, dude, so get over it. So I had already told the other guy that we were going to Blue Kay, I told the driver, and we start going. It’s just us, another family of 3 people, and 2 guys. We are driving and I see the sign to Blue Kay….and we keep going. I start waving my arm off the side, and we pass another sign for Blue Kay….and keep going. I am waving like a crazy person and he just keeps going. So he finally stops and the two guys get off. I call out, “hey, we were supposed to go to Blue Kay”, he walks back with a blank look on his face. He says something like “It was back there”, I said “I know. I told you Blue Kay when we got on and I was waving my arms”. He’s says he’s sorry and I asked if he was going back this same way and could just drop us off then. He said he doesn’t go back that way…which after we went there, I don’t know what other way I could go. So I just get off and say “I guess I’ll walk my young kids down this dangerous road all the way back there”. He mentions how far it is and I said “Yeah, I know, that’s why you should have stopped when you passed it”. Of course there is a guy there offering to sell us a “package” to his resort that is right there. I think these guys get kickbacks from the beach resorts based on how many people they bring. Apparently the legitimate places like Blue Kay don’t pay them anything. So we walked back to Blue Kay.

We finally make it there and walk through the reception hut. Unfortunately, this was one of those days when Costa Maya was filled with seaweed, so it wasn’t as pretty as I’m sure it usually is. The kids had a good time playing in the water, the sand, and eventually throwing seaweed at each other. Nephew had a quesadilla and said it was good. Hubby had a bucket of 5 beers and I had a frozen drink. It was too windy for hubby and nephew to throw the football, but we all had a good time. We decided to head back to the port at 1:00, so we walked to the reception hut and they got a cab for us within seconds. I guess the cabs aren’t allowed to go all the way into the port area, so we just walked the rest of the way in. Shopped and bought some things, then headed back to the ship. We saw my mom, bro, and sis in law on the little trolley back the ship as we were walking up. NCL had a big dance party while we were waiting in line, handed out cold washcloths again and freeze pops. NCL really does sailaway right.

We went to Blue Lagoon for lunch, then headed back to the room for showers. I decided we needed cocktails, so I headed to the Pearly Kings. Our cabin really was in a great location, PK was just below us. I saw my bro and nephew watching basketball and grabbed a drink for hubby and me. I took them up to the room, then hubby decided to go down and watch basketball with them. I really wanted to just hang out in the room and read a book I had brought, and the girls were making videos in their room, so we decided to meet at dinner.

Another great dinner in Aqua, special menu for Christmas dinner. We went to the Spinnaker for a little bit to watch Second City Improv. It was crazy crowded but fun. We were planning to take the girls to see Elements with Mom, niece, and boyfriend, but they were already in their pajamas. So we left them and went to see the show. It was really good, had a little bit of everything…illusions, acrobatics, dance. I walked my mom back to her room while Kevin went to meet everyone else in Pearly Kings. I went back to my room and realized that Kevin had my seapass card from when he went to get me a drink earlier. Found him in PK and hung out. Then off to bed.

The girls made a Christmas tree using a bedskirt, trash can, and stool, and the barrettes that I make as ornaments:

Blue Kay Beach:

Seaweed fight:

Mushroom Ravioli Appetizer, it was delicious, I could have eaten an entire meal of it:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

DAY 7, December 26th, SATURDAY – SEA DAY

Last day, boo!!! We decided we had had enough of the sun, so we wanted to wander around the ship that day instead of going to the pool. We had breakfast in the buffet with mom and brothers. Hubby wanted to stay in the room and read and relax, so the kids, niece, mom, and sis in law went to the $10 sale in Bamboo. I got a watch, kids got a watch, scarf, and necklace, mom got a few things. Wandered around the ship with the kids and played shuffleboard on deck 13, discs didn’t move very well, but had fun. On our way back, they were talking to a few of the stars from the NCL show cast in the Atrium, so we stopped to listen to them, very interesting. My dream job would be to be a singer/dancer on Broadway, but I can’t sing or dance, so that will never happen, just one of those things that I think would be really cool in another life. I went to guest services to check my account, and THEY GOT IT RIGHT! Whoo Hoo!! It only took 7 days and many trips down there. We stayed to watch the Battle of the Cake Masters, only to find out that it wasn’t even live, it was videotaped and shown on a big pull down screen. That was disappointing, didn’t care to stay for that. Grabbed our luggage tags while we were down there. We went to the Deal or No Deal game because we had promised the girls we would go and watch, and hubby met us there, sis in law showed up too. Then to the Blue Lagoon for lunch. We wanted to see the Haines Magic Up close show, but missed it because of the timing of it and Deal or No Deal show. Hung out in the Pearly Kings, went to buy photos, wandered around a little before dinner.

Dinner was great again. Tipped the waiter and the drink person a little extra cash because they were so great all week. Hubby, kids, mom, niece, and boyfriend all went to the Fly Adage acrobatic show, it was great. Hung out in Pearly Kings the rest of the evening. I managed to pack almost everything throughout the day and finished up that evening. Bags had to be out in the hallway by midnight unless you were doing self walk off.

This was the Chocolate Nutella Pot de Creme, one of the best desserts of the entire cruise!

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

SUNDAY, December 27th – TIME TO LEAVE!

So it’s really over and time to get back to real life. Called mom to see if she wanted to meet us in the Venetian for breakfast. , it was only open until 8:30. She said she would, so we got ourselves together and went down. Stupid me didn’t bring my phone and my poor mom got lost getting down there and had called me. She had taken the middle stairs instead of the back stairs. We went ahead and ordered for her because the waitress kind of pushed us to since it was close to 8:30. Mom made it and we ate. My brother had taken my dad down to the ship hospital for one last check and my mom needed a little break, she was very stressed and has blood pressure issues to begin with, but that’s a whole different story.

We had orange tags, which was 9:25 disembarkation. My parents and oldest brother, niece, and boyfriend were all meeting in the Bamboo since Dad had a wheelchair and they were all driving back to Florida together. They called orange tags well before 9:25, but we weren’t ready. I guess early is better than our last Royal cruise where everything was super late, so I can’t complain too much. We went by the Bamboo on our way out but no one was there, then when we got in line and were getting off the ship, we saw them in the other line, we must have just missed them. We got off after waiting in a long line. Oh, one issue with this port, and I’m not sure if it’s an NCL thing or the port people. When you get off the walkway, there are two escalators and some elevators. Well, we went down the escalators. At the bottom there is a hallway leading into the customs area. Apparently they had stopped people from going into the part of the port where customs is, so it ended up getting backed up at the escalator. I thought we were going to run into the people in front of us but they moved up just as we were getting off the escalator. Then we were completely stopped, there was nowhere to go and people were still coming down the escalator. At one point, a man fell and they turned off the escalator, then everyone getting off was blaming all of us in line because we weren’t moving. We were all squished closer to each other than we’d ever want to be, they wouldn’t let us move forward, so that was ridiculous, we weren’t to blame, there was literally nowhere to move unless we started getting on each other’s backs. They should have either let us go forward to free up room for the people on the escalators, or if the people downstairs were going to stop the line from moving and cause a backup, then there should have been someone upstairs to stop people from getting on the escalator when it was backed up. They finally started telling people to wind around the corner, but it was too late then, we were all packed in like sardines and couldn’t move anywhere. The line finally started moving, we went through customs easily, found a porter who took us to the Fulton Garage shuttle and loaded our luggage. I never know how much to tip these guys. I always hear $1 per bag, but I feel like that isn’t enough when I have a lot of bags, so we gave him $10 for 6 bags. The shuttle was packed, so we had to stand. I did have one guy offer his seat to one of my kids, but we couldn’t really get back there, but that was nice of him to offer. I did harass my oldest brother afterward for not offering his seat, just because he was my brother. It was a short ride, no big deal. Brother and hubby went up to get the cars while the kids and I waited with the luggage. Apparently the elevator was broken so hubby and brother headed up the stairs pretty fast and came down to load up. Then the drive back to Atlanta, pretty uneventful.

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

RECAP:

Well, this will definitely be the last family cruise, my dad is just not up for it. He is home now and doing better. We are thankful for everything the ship’s hospital did. The hospital in my parent’s hometown said that because they were draining the fluids out of his lungs, it stopped the congestive heart failure from happening/progressing, whatever the correct word is. We managed to have a great time, though, and are thankful for the memories that we made. Since we are only 6 hours away from where my parents live, we manage to get down there quite often, and spend most of the summer there. My mom is already looking forward to having us there for a week in February to have some help, and she loves having my kids there, she is an amazing grandmother, and an amazing mom.

As far as the Dawn goes, for all of us, it’s not fully about the ship, it’s a means to see many different countries and do things that we normally wouldn’t get to do. We do not cruise just to cruise. That being said, I wish this ship had more to do on sea days. While I thought the ship was clean and liked the size, they lacked outdoor activities. When we were on Royal, they had mini golf, rock climbing wall, Flowrider, etc. There just weren’t a lot of activities on the Dawn unless you wanted to go to the pool. I also have to compare the layout. I loved, loved, loved, the two ships that we went on with Royal, they have a promenade area in the middle of the ship where the bars are. It was a great place to meet up and just felt very open. There were a lot of places on the Dawn that were really funky. We were towards the back of the ship on the 8th floor, and you couldn’t go down past the 6th floor from there. You had to walk through the Blue Lagoon to get to the mid stairs to go down to get to Aqua, etc, and the layout of the ship by the elevators didn’t show you that there was no access all the way across. I felt really weird walking through a restaurant several times a day to get anywhere. I did realized on the last day that we could have gone down to Pearly Kings and walked through there to get around, but that was usually pretty crowded.

That being said, I absolutely loved the location of our cabin, it really seemed close to everything that we wanted to be near. It only took a day to figure out the best ways to get anywhere we wanted to go. What’s funny is my brother called me on Costa Maya day saying that his son couldn’t find our cabin to come meet us, and he said he had trouble finding it before as well. After talking, I realized that they had all been using the middle stairs to go everywhere, when they were actually closer to the aft stairs. So they were going away from our cabin, then having to walk through Blue Lagoon and back down cabin hallways. Way out of their way to our cabin and to Pearly Kings.

I thought the food was good everywhere. I loved that there were so many dining choices, a lot more than on Royal, especially on Embarkation and Disembarkation days, that was really nice. My kids loved the Sprinkles ice cream bar by the pool, they visited many times. I regret that I didn’t try any of the dessert items at Carlos bakery, they looked really yummy, we just never found the time. I also regret that we didn’t get to eat at Bamboo. It was only open for dinner and we had already planned to eat our dinners together and the MDR was the most convenient.

Our room steward kept our room clean, but never left us any beach towels except the one time I left a note to please leave us 5 beach towels. Then the next night she didn’t leave any again, we had to ask another steward to get some because she was nowhere to be found. Very different from any experience I’ve ever had with room stewards. One day, she didn’t even leave us enough towels for showers, luckily we had a towel animal that we took apart as one of my kids was getting out of the shower and we realized we were short a towel.

Overall, I really enjoyed the cruise. I’m not sure where all the complaints are coming from about the Dawn being worn and old and dirty, maybe I’m just not that picky, but I’m not looking in every nook and cranny and at every baseboard to see if it’s dusted. I saw one bathroom stall that was out of order the entire time, and it was right outside the Aqua, but there was never a line there. We never had problems getting a drink with the UBP. Guest Services took a while to get my OBC figured out, but they were always very nice about it, never rude, always willing to help.

Before we left on the cruise, I saw that most of the rooms were sold out so I knew it would be crowded, but it never felt crazy crowded, even at the pool. I do hope that they do something about the layout of Pearly Kings during the rehab in June, that was not good.

But seriously, I’m a mom of three kids, work part time and help with homework, do laundry, cook meals and clean up, etc, so I’ve got a week of other people cooking and cleaning for me and I don’t have to go to work? What’s not to love? Unless a cruise ship breaks down in mid ocean, I really don’t think I would ever have a bad cruise.

I am posting the Freestyle Dailies, the Splash Academy flyers (so sorry, somehow I didn’t pick up the 3-5 yr old one, I thought I had grabbed them all), and the dinner menus from Aqua (although I forgot to take a photo on Day 3). Also the menu from Blue Lagoon and a breakfast menu from MDR, also the room service menu, and a postcard of the free room service breakfast choices, you fill it out and put it outside at night. We only ate lunch in the MDR on Embarkation day and I forgot to take a photo. We didn’t use room service except one morning with the free menu.

I'll be happy to answer any questions. I'm sure I've forgotten a lot in my review, but I'll try to rack my brain to answer anything.

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

Day 1 Aqua Dinner:

Here are the dishes offered every night:

The only thing bad that we got was the Chocolate butterscotch brownie. There was no chocolate at all, it didn't have any butterscotch taste, was like a dry cake consistency.

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

Day 2 MDR Aqua Dinner menu:

I guess I didn't take a photo of the dessert part, sorry! I also forgot to take photos on day 3.

Day 4 Aqua dinner:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

Day 5 Aqua Dinner:

Day 6 Aqua dinner (I think this may have been special for Christmas because there were a lot less choices than the usual menu, so not sure if some of these are on a regular rotation):

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

Day 7 Aqua Dinner:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

MDR Breakfast:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

Bamboo and Sushi menus:

mickev99 · January 2, 2016

Blue Lagoon:

This was posted on the wall and we ate there at breakfast, around 2:00 and around 4:30 and it was always the same menu. Breakfast was served until 11am: