NCL Getaway 1/31 - 2/14 B2B Week 2: Superbowl 50

[cavok]

in the meantime, we are back home in switzerland...

here is our update on week 2 (2/7/16 - 2/14/16) on the getaway, including the B2B turnaround and superbowl...

review from the first week here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2312067

 

in many ways, our observations from the first week apply. but there were also a surprising number of differences. (besides missing grand cayman due to winds and rescheduling shows due to rolling waves).

 

there was a very large organized group of chinese guests onboard this second week. other than for very few public announcements in mandarin and sometimes having to revert to clumsy sign language in the buffet, this was mostly a very welcome "relief"! they were on their own schedule (early, i guess) and are just a very different crop of travelers, who value other aspects in cruising than us. this in turn took away significant "pressure" from all things we are into, ranging from whirlpools, bars, sunbeds, late dinner to late night comedy. we never hit the casino, so can't really tell how it looked there.

 

the B2B experience wasn't bad, but also has room for improvement. really nice was, that we could leave all our stuff in the cabin and got the keycard for the second week without any further paperwork. we were only 16 B2B cruisers, who were to meet at the sunset bar inside at 10:15. communication/planning in advance was really good. we even received a call from guest services a day or two before, whether we had gotten the B2B info letter and if there were any open questions. the bad thing was that once on the actual day, there was quite a lot of sitting and waiting. first on the ship in the bar, then at the exit to the gangway, and again for quite a while in the terminal. certainly far from walking off, getting the passports checked and right back on to the ship... the process took closer to 2.5+ hrs. we also had to sit in for another boat drill (which, compared to celebrity, the airlines and even ferries BTW is a lightweight alibi exercise in my opinion). you basically waste 40min to see one crew acting like a prison guard during the whole drill (constant "no food, no drinks, no electronics or we will reschedule you/delay everybody" threats...) and get to see a 10s demo how an obviously very motivated philippino dons the simple lifevest. no movie or anything. and after it's over, you get to enjoy the already mentioned poor pax flow. (particularly poor on deck 7 in the casino and between the rear elevator banks)

the many small "orifices" make walking past even a group of 3 hesitating chinese impossible. we already mentioned the issue in the review for week 1.

 

now on to the good stuff:

 

+ the second week, we liked better overall than the first. an observation we have already made in the past, which leads us to attempt to only cruise on the same ship for a minimum of two weeks. no matter whether it being a 14-nighter, a B2B, or double the same ports. in fact, if we had time and money, a B2B2B2B would suit us just fine *G* you get to know preferred crew, know which spots to avoid and where to enjoy.

 

+ superbowl 50. o'sheehan's/the atrium lend themselves perfectly to this kind of event. the crew did a fantastic job and provided special food baskets and beer buckets (even for us with the UBP). great ambiance, really nice first evening!

 

+ vibe beach club. was easy to get as B2B. very nice place, never felt even half full. great way to getaway from the crowded feel. friendly bartenders (caution, drinks poured much stronger! ;-). we very much appreciated the double sunbeds. we would probably book vibe again, but not at all cost. at basically 198$ extra for two, it's not exactly a bargain. decided against taking a cabana and didn't regret (too isolated for us). that being said, the week before without vibe, we also were quite ok with just spice H2O and always found a decent spot. further downsides of vibe besides the cost: sometimes the sun would set invisibly on the port side of the ship. and on the last seaday, vibe was basically unusable as it was so windy that they had to secure mats away from the loungers.

 

+ moderno's churrasceria. great service and a really nice salad buffet. excellent meats, but they give you very large chunks of meat at once. we ended up only getting one serving "for one" at a time and then sharing between the two of us. otherwise we would not have managed to even try almost all meats, and the meats didn't get cold too fast. by the way, the lamb chops that were especially hailed by the servers and other guests did not exceed the lamb chops from the MDR (at least in the first week, see further down), the MDR ones were that good.

 

+ late night comedy was great. all three comedians (one host did a warm-up each night and two main acts put on a 30min show each) were great and their shows were all original in their own way. even though both late night shows showed as fully booked and unavailable on the stateroom tv, there were ample seats available each time. the interactive tv locks up and needs to be restarted after trying to make a reservation nonetheless *g* they did however scan keycards at the door.

 

+ howl at the moon, we again enjoyed immensely. different cast, save for whitney maxwell. every single time during both weeks, she just rocked the show and was clearly the standout. the changing in the cast from the first week was clearly noticeable as they first had to adjust to each other. the "old" team from week 1 had sensibly a better spirit (and not as much spirits as the "new team" - pun intended) going.

 

+ stateroom attendant Londi was again great, pleased the mrs with a whole zoo of towel animals and took great care of us. one of the few that really earned a special tip.

 

+ the ship technical Q&A with the captain and chief engineer was honestly quite good and well done (i always frequent those, have visited Meyer Werft last summer). that is the second, interactive part of the hour or so scheduled in the daily. good mix of fun answers to stupid questions but also beyond the mickey mouse level of detail explanations. And no, i did not ask anything ;-) the first part, a powerpoint presentation however was only given by the car-salesman meets drill instructor type cruise director and there was much less depth and mostly boring, brochure type info.

 

+ the experience at the entrance of the MDR significantly improved over the week before. for one, i think because of the mentioned chinese group. plus we had backed up with a reservation for every night and they started to know us.

 

+ Guershwin, a waiter from south africa in MDR (taste) was really good (but one of very few)

 

+ bar drink service, despite the UBP (and no tipping on top) was again quite good.

 

+ crew really works hard and tries hard with varying success.

 

some food and drink items that were specifically memorable to us / fit our tastes and are recommended, in no particular order:

+ chicken pot pie at o'sheehan's

+ warm coco pastry (sweet) at flamingo's

+ bushwacker, rebellious fish and dalé drinks (especially at the vibe bar)

+ pork dumplings at shanghai's

+ norwegian smoked salmon tartar appetizer at MDR

+ every day, they have a different type of warm roll at the breakfast buffet (you have to look hard to find it)

+ herb crusted lamb chops from the MDR menu

+ red wines that are in the package: 1st place: merlot, 2nd place: ncl red blend (surprisingly tasty!), 3rd place: malbec

+ various hot sandwiches at lunchtime in the buffet

+ (buffalo) chicken wings in o'sheehan's. very late at night, there were even more/different flavours on the menu, like BBQ! quite a different menu than during the day (almost better)

 

 

now to the negatives:

 

- tendering process (only at great stirrup key as grand cayman had to be skipped for weather). we thought we are being smart this week and book a tender group number through the stateroom tv. to get less wait times and be off the ship a bit earlier, in a more plannable fashion. that went even worse for us than the open tendering the week before. in the end we simply remained on the ship, up in vibe. we intentionally booked a later group "K" that was sold as 0930 on the tv, so that we didn't have to get up too early, yet get off before noon. by 1130, they hadn't even called "I" yet... we were fully ready to be up next (already two hours past the "advertised" time) that "I,J,K" would be called next, but instead they called on everyone that didn't have any tender number to proceed to the theater for tendering. we seriously felt screwed, what an empty promise. when they continued with calling our group, just after noon, it was just a bad joke. so our lesson learned: book groups A, B or C and do not trust any times put on TV. also, you can start booking the first tender port immediately once on ship. if there is a second tender port, it's a bit trickier as you must catch the right moment sometime in the evening when departing from the first tender port.

 

- dinner service in MDR was really hit or miss, depending on waiters. sometimes it was hilarious. one night we had seriously 5! different guys show up in short order "hi, my name is XYZ and i will be taking care of your table tonight". alright, we tip, but not that much *G*...

another night, we were just being served our main course, having wine and soft drinks, another waitress came by "coffee or tea, madam?" like for desserts... really?

one time, our wine glasses got removed without any comment or explanation before even taking the food order. trivial service blunders like that. many nights, we were neither handed a wine/drink menu nor asked whether we wanted something other than the water they automatically poured. food courses between us two were always hot and in sync, however, drink service was severely lacking and out of whack. it also appeared to be organized overly complicated (waiter having to walk from N.Y. to L.A. to get the drinks, then to scan the card etc... maybe contributing to the lackluster result.

 

- crew appears, in significant numbers, unhappy and overworked. grinding with little joy or pride.

 

- inconsistency in food quality and preparation. some food items that were great the week before both in buffet and MDR were lacking in the second week. makes us wonder what fine tastes we may have missed because we obviously skipped things that did not impress during week 1?

 

- very hard to know what to expect in terms of serving size from the menu. some items sound like small appetizers and end up being almost full courses and the opposite. had to ask the waiter and snoop the neighbours every night to get an idea. unlike others, we aim to not produce much food waste.

 

- we know salt is a hot topic and i won't go too much into detail. there tended to be a few items with too much and more often, too little salt / bland taste. if you use less salt, then more herbs&spices are needed to offset that!

and the biggest salty-sin of all: linguini (pasta) in the MDR cooked in unsalted water. a very big NO-NO. Olive Garden tried that once and it fired back big time. and no, the salt can't be just added later, not the same pasta!

 

- pillows (apparently had just been refurbished) were way too thick hence uncomfortable for us. our stateroom attendant tried his best but could only find some comforfoam pillows with about the same height/thickness. we tried, not much difference.

 

- more often than we would have liked, did we get a "not possible" as an answer to really simple requests. felt like a number in the process and not individual guests. trying to make a reservation for a specialty restaurant at the end of the first week for the second week? "not possible". well, the system probably doesn't allow it straightforwardly. yet people from home can access it over the internet? so maybe NCL should do it also through the web (if not otherwise possible). but at their internet cost. or for a hostess it shouldn't be too much effort to write down one cabin number/two cruisers out of only 16 B2B cruisers and promise to call back or handle it. you know, we are flexible and patient, but more often than not was there not even an attempt made to find a solution to the guests problem. a "go help yourself later" attitude.

one night we wanted to cancel a reservation for the MDR by phone. called from the cabin, dialing the key "restaurant reservations". "unable. you have to walk down to the hostess and tell her." no offer of taking over the issue or maybe a direct phone number to the maitre'd etc... no wonder there are so many no-shows everywhere, when you cannot even cancel anything in an easy way.

one last example: wanted to grab a few delicious pork dumplings on a plate from shanghai's as a snack to the room before getting ready for dinner. (ambiance, noise and smoke prevented us from really going back to shanghai's again for real). but we knew from the week before that they have them dumplings ready-made sitting, waiting to go and aplenty. there were also enough waiters around, that were not hurried at all. initial answer was: "we do not do take away". fine, i mean, we're not talking a fried rice menu or noodle soup here. well, then let's quickly sit down, grab the plate and take off with it... but hold on, wait time is: 82! minutes, all seats taken!!! no effort whatsoever was undertaken to make them dumplings happen. totally inflexible. no wonder you probably need to book the Haven - with a butler!

 

so all in all, a good cruise, with a few highlights and a few lowlights.

came away rather unimpressed by NCL and "frestyle". the value, all things added at the bottom line, was also just ok. there definitely had been firesale pricing in the week(s) leading up to the cruise. to us it felt more like a 4 star hotel experience with good entertainment and good options for families with kids (plus good booze for the grownups). not so much the 5-star extra levels of service and food (compared to e.g. resort vacations) we have gotten accustomed to from cruising.

if cruising as a whole goes in that direction, then it's really not good!

so, until we might eventually be crusing with kids, we're unlikely to go back to NCL.

[Clarea]

Thanks for the report.

[S.S.Oceanlover]

Thanks for the report.

 

Hey Bob have you gotten lost?:D

 

Bill

[S.S.Oceanlover]

in the meantime, we are back home in switzerland...

here is our update on week 2 (2/7/16 - 2/14/16) on the getaway, including the B2B turnaround and superbowl...

review from the first week here: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2312067

 

in many ways, our observations from the first week apply. but there were also a surprising number of differences. (besides missing grand cayman due to winds and rescheduling shows due to rolling waves).

 

there was a very large organized group of chinese guests onboard this second week. other than for very few public announcements in mandarin and sometimes having to revert to clumsy sign language in the buffet, this was mostly a very welcome "relief"! they were on their own schedule (early, i guess) and are just a very different crop of travelers, who value other aspects in cruising than us. this in turn took away significant "pressure" from all things we are into, ranging from whirlpools, bars, sunbeds, late dinner to late night comedy. we never hit the casino, so can't really tell how it looked there.

 

the B2B experience wasn't bad, but also has room for improvement. really nice was, that we could leave all our stuff in the cabin and got the keycard for the second week without any further paperwork. we were only 16 B2B cruisers, who were to meet at the sunset bar inside at 10:15. communication/planning in advance was really good. we even received a call from guest services a day or two before, whether we had gotten the B2B info letter and if there were any open questions. the bad thing was that once on the actual day, there was quite a lot of sitting and waiting. first on the ship in the bar, then at the exit to the gangway, and again for quite a while in the terminal. certainly far from walking off, getting the passports checked and right back on to the ship... the process took closer to 2.5+ hrs. we also had to sit in for another boat drill (which, compared to celebrity, the airlines and even ferries BTW is a lightweight alibi exercise in my opinion). you basically waste 40min to see one crew acting like a prison guard during the whole drill (constant "no food, no drinks, no electronics or we will reschedule you/delay everybody" threats...) and get to see a 10s demo how an obviously very motivated philippino dons the simple lifevest. no movie or anything. and after it's over, you get to enjoy the already mentioned poor pax flow. (particularly poor on deck 7 in the casino and between the rear elevator banks)

the many small "orifices" make walking past even a group of 3 hesitating chinese impossible. we already mentioned the issue in the review for week 1.

 

now on to the good stuff:

 

+ the second week, we liked better overall than the first. an observation we have already made in the past, which leads us to attempt to only cruise on the same ship for a minimum of two weeks. no matter whether it being a 14-nighter, a B2B, or double the same ports. in fact, if we had time and money, a B2B2B2B would suit us just fine *G* you get to know preferred crew, know which spots to avoid and where to enjoy.

 

+ superbowl 50. o'sheehan's/the atrium lend themselves perfectly to this kind of event. the crew did a fantastic job and provided special food baskets and beer buckets (even for us with the UBP). great ambiance, really nice first evening!

 

+ vibe beach club. was easy to get as B2B. very nice place, never felt even half full. great way to getaway from the crowded feel. friendly bartenders (caution, drinks poured much stronger! ;-). we very much appreciated the double sunbeds. we would probably book vibe again, but not at all cost. at basically 198$ extra for two, it's not exactly a bargain. decided against taking a cabana and didn't regret (too isolated for us). that being said, the week before without vibe, we also were quite ok with just spice H2O and always found a decent spot. further downsides of vibe besides the cost: sometimes the sun would set invisibly on the port side of the ship. and on the last seaday, vibe was basically unusable as it was so windy that they had to secure mats away from the loungers.

 

+ moderno's churrasceria. great service and a really nice salad buffet. excellent meats, but they give you very large chunks of meat at once. we ended up only getting one serving "for one" at a time and then sharing between the two of us. otherwise we would not have managed to even try almost all meats, and the meats didn't get cold too fast. by the way, the lamb chops that were especially hailed by the servers and other guests did not exceed the lamb chops from the MDR (at least in the first week, see further down), the MDR ones were that good.

 

+ late night comedy was great. all three comedians (one host did a warm-up each night and two main acts put on a 30min show each) were great and their shows were all original in their own way. even though both late night shows showed as fully booked and unavailable on the stateroom tv, there were ample seats available each time. the interactive tv locks up and needs to be restarted after trying to make a reservation nonetheless *g* they did however scan keycards at the door.

 

+ howl at the moon, we again enjoyed immensely. different cast, save for whitney maxwell. every single time during both weeks, she just rocked the show and was clearly the standout. the changing in the cast from the first week was clearly noticeable as they first had to adjust to each other. the "old" team from week 1 had sensibly a better spirit (and not as much spirits as the "new team" - pun intended) going.

 

+ stateroom attendant Londi was again great, pleased the mrs with a whole zoo of towel animals and took great care of us. one of the few that really earned a special tip.

 

+ the ship technical Q&A with the captain and chief engineer was honestly quite good and well done (i always frequent those, have visited Meyer Werft last summer). that is the second, interactive part of the hour or so scheduled in the daily. good mix of fun answers to stupid questions but also beyond the mickey mouse level of detail explanations. And no, i did not ask anything ;-) the first part, a powerpoint presentation however was only given by the car-salesman meets drill instructor type cruise director and there was much less depth and mostly boring, brochure type info.

 

+ the experience at the entrance of the MDR significantly improved over the week before. for one, i think because of the mentioned chinese group. plus we had backed up with a reservation for every night and they started to know us.

 

+ Guershwin, a waiter from south africa in MDR (taste) was really good (but one of very few)

 

+ bar drink service, despite the UBP (and no tipping on top) was again quite good.

 

+ crew really works hard and tries hard with varying success.

 

some food and drink items that were specifically memorable to us / fit our tastes and are recommended, in no particular order:

+ chicken pot pie at o'sheehan's

+ warm coco pastry (sweet) at flamingo's

+ bushwacker, rebellious fish and dalé drinks (especially at the vibe bar)

+ pork dumplings at shanghai's

+ norwegian smoked salmon tartar appetizer at MDR

+ every day, they have a different type of warm roll at the breakfast buffet (you have to look hard to find it)

+ herb crusted lamb chops from the MDR menu

+ red wines that are in the package: 1st place: merlot, 2nd place: ncl red blend (surprisingly tasty!), 3rd place: malbec

+ various hot sandwiches at lunchtime in the buffet

+ (buffalo) chicken wings in o'sheehan's. very late at night, there were even more/different flavours on the menu, like BBQ! quite a different menu than during the day (almost better)

 

 

now to the negatives:

 

- tendering process (only at great stirrup key as grand cayman had to be skipped for weather). we thought we are being smart this week and book a tender group number through the stateroom tv. to get less wait times and be off the ship a bit earlier, in a more plannable fashion. that went even worse for us than the open tendering the week before. in the end we simply remained on the ship, up in vibe. we intentionally booked a later group "K" that was sold as 0930 on the tv, so that we didn't have to get up too early, yet get off before noon. by 1130, they hadn't even called "I" yet... we were fully ready to be up next (already two hours past the "advertised" time) that "I,J,K" would be called next, but instead they called on everyone that didn't have any tender number to proceed to the theater for tendering. we seriously felt screwed, what an empty promise. when they continued with calling our group, just after noon, it was just a bad joke. so our lesson learned: book groups A, B or C and do not trust any times put on TV. also, you can start booking the first tender port immediately once on ship. if there is a second tender port, it's a bit trickier as you must catch the right moment sometime in the evening when departing from the first tender port.

 

- dinner service in MDR was really hit or miss, depending on waiters. sometimes it was hilarious. one night we had seriously 5! different guys show up in short order "hi, my name is XYZ and i will be taking care of your table tonight". alright, we tip, but not that much *G*...

another night, we were just being served our main course, having wine and soft drinks, another waitress came by "coffee or tea, madam?" like for desserts... really?

one time, our wine glasses got removed without any comment or explanation before even taking the food order. trivial service blunders like that. many nights, we were neither handed a wine/drink menu nor asked whether we wanted something other than the water they automatically poured. food courses between us two were always hot and in sync, however, drink service was severely lacking and out of whack. it also appeared to be organized overly complicated (waiter having to walk from N.Y. to L.A. to get the drinks, then to scan the card etc... maybe contributing to the lackluster result.

 

- crew appears, in significant numbers, unhappy and overworked. grinding with little joy or pride.

 

- inconsistency in food quality and preparation. some food items that were great the week before both in buffet and MDR were lacking in the second week. makes us wonder what fine tastes we may have missed because we obviously skipped things that did not impress during week 1?

 

- very hard to know what to expect in terms of serving size from the menu. some items sound like small appetizers and end up being almost full courses and the opposite. had to ask the waiter and snoop the neighbours every night to get an idea. unlike others, we aim to not produce much food waste.

 

- we know salt is a hot topic and i won't go too much into detail. there tended to be a few items with too much and more often, too little salt / bland taste. if you use less salt, then more herbs&spices are needed to offset that!

and the biggest salty-sin of all: linguini (pasta) in the MDR cooked in unsalted water. a very big NO-NO. Olive Garden tried that once and it fired back big time. and no, the salt can't be just added later, not the same pasta!

 

- pillows (apparently had just been refurbished) were way too thick hence uncomfortable for us. our stateroom attendant tried his best but could only find some comforfoam pillows with about the same height/thickness. we tried, not much difference.

 

- more often than we would have liked, did we get a "not possible" as an answer to really simple requests. felt like a number in the process and not individual guests. trying to make a reservation for a specialty restaurant at the end of the first week for the second week? "not possible". well, the system probably doesn't allow it straightforwardly. yet people from home can access it over the internet? so maybe NCL should do it also through the web (if not otherwise possible). but at their internet cost. or for a hostess it shouldn't be too much effort to write down one cabin number/two cruisers out of only 16 B2B cruisers and promise to call back or handle it. you know, we are flexible and patient, but more often than not was there not even an attempt made to find a solution to the guests problem. a "go help yourself later" attitude.

one night we wanted to cancel a reservation for the MDR by phone. called from the cabin, dialing the key "restaurant reservations". "unable. you have to walk down to the hostess and tell her." no offer of taking over the issue or maybe a direct phone number to the maitre'd etc... no wonder there are so many no-shows everywhere, when you cannot even cancel anything in an easy way.

one last example: wanted to grab a few delicious pork dumplings on a plate from shanghai's as a snack to the room before getting ready for dinner. (ambiance, noise and smoke prevented us from really going back to shanghai's again for real). but we knew from the week before that they have them dumplings ready-made sitting, waiting to go and aplenty. there were also enough waiters around, that were not hurried at all. initial answer was: "we do not do take away". fine, i mean, we're not talking a fried rice menu or noodle soup here. well, then let's quickly sit down, grab the plate and take off with it... but hold on, wait time is: 82! minutes, all seats taken!!! no effort whatsoever was undertaken to make them dumplings happen. totally inflexible. no wonder you probably need to book the Haven - with a butler!

 

so all in all, a good cruise, with a few highlights and a few lowlights.

came away rather unimpressed by NCL and "frestyle". the value, all things added at the bottom line, was also just ok. there definitely had been firesale pricing in the week(s) leading up to the cruise. to us it felt more like a 4 star hotel experience with good entertainment and good options for families with kids (plus good booze for the grownups). not so much the 5-star extra levels of service and food (compared to e.g. resort vacations) we have gotten accustomed to from cruising.

if cruising as a whole goes in that direction, then it's really not good!

so, until we might eventually be crusing with kids, we're unlikely to go back to NCL.

 

We were on the Super Bowl cruise with the Chinese group who were celebrating Chinese New Year.

 

Overall we had a pretty good cruise. The pool area is pretty small for a ship that holds 400 pax.

 

Like the entertainment but the comedian Avi who introduced the other comedians used the same tired Carnival jokes each time we saw a different comedian.

 

We had good service. i was especially impressed with the bar staff who just made drinks all day long with a smile on their faces.

 

I figured with everybody having the UBP we would have long waits.

 

Bill

[Keith1010]

Enjoyed your writeup.

 

Keith

[rstackjd]

If you don't mind my asking, since the Superbowl was on the first sea day, which is also normally "Dress up or Not" night, did they still have that or did they put that on a different night? We have a good sized group on the Escape for February 4th so will be on the ship for the Superbowl Most of us want to watch the game and have that party, but we also enjoy getting dressed for that evening. If they hold both on the firs sea day, we may need to do our "formal night" later in the cruise.

 

Any insignts?

 

Thanks!