Norwegian Sky Bahamas Cruise on April 24-28

[heyallie]

Caveat: I'm a specialist in high end adventure travel, so most of my experience for work to travel on cruises have been on small luxury ships, usually with under 48 passengers, to remote exotic destinations. But this trip was cheap and I needed a break so there ya go.

 

THIS KIND OF CRUISE WAS NOT MY THING for so many reasons. I hate crowds. I rarely drink alcohol. I hate tourist traps. And ironically, I get deathly ill from seasickness. Me on a 2,000-passenger booze cruise to the Bahamas? I laughed hysterically too at the idea.

 

I came with very low expectations. And guess what, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. We had a balcony room on the 10th floor deck (#0044). Very convenient to just walk upstairs for most of our meals.

 

SERVICE: I thought it was fine, considering how many people were on board the ship. We took care to say hi to staff and tip here and there, so we were treated well.

 

PRO TIP: Look at the hallway rugs. There are fish on them. The fish swim TOWARDS THE FRONT of the boat. Once you get your bearings, this helps a lot to figure out where things are.

 

CABIN: Of course it's small, especially since we had 2 twin beds plus a sofa pull out we didn't really need. But air conditioning worked like a charm and with the help of dramamine, I slept like a rock every night. We turned off the TV - never used it. The balcony was nice, but not very roomy. But I'm so glad we opted for it. I love fresh air and I loved the sound of the ocean waves at night. Two simple chairs with a tiny table to put your book or drink. Every night they gave us towel animals, so no shortage there.

 

BATHROOM: Small, but I don't get why people complain about that. You're in it for all of 45 minutes a day at most, to shower, pee, brush your teeth. Ladies, do your make up at the desk with a chair in it and the mirror. That's where the LONE plug is anyway, so make sure you bring a long extension cord and a multi-charger to plug in all your iPads and iPhones etc. every night. Travel smart, people. I always bring a couple of carabiners which came dead handy here, since the shelves in the bathroom had little bars you could hang any additional toiletries from. They provide shampoo, body soap. Shower was an adjustable shower head, which I liked, but I'm short at 5'3". I imagine tall people would have to duck a bit.

 

FOOD: Look, people come to an all you can eat scenario and no matter the quality of food, they eat everything that isn't nailed down because heck, they paid for it. Some meals at the buffet are better than others, but with such a large variety, there's always at least one or two good dishes. My two cents: go for quality, not quantity. Some breakfasts we ate at the dedicated restaurants, not the buffets - the lines were shorter, omelets were made to order, no crowds. I loved the soft ice cream as desserts after lunch and dinner.

 

We had dinner one night at Cagney's as our splurge meal. The rib eyes were deeeelish. My sister and I were there to celebrate our birthday. We told them NO SINGING! They were sorely disappointed, but they gave us an extra special cake as a surprise.

 

STOPOVERS: Freeport was a waste - we spent less than 2 hours off deck. I'm not really fond of tie-dyed ratty knotted t-shirts and "You look good in corn rows" said to a white person said no one ever. You can get wifi in the middle of the plaza near the maritime office. It's slow, but it works. We spent an hour or two watching the pool shenanigans hosted by the ship crew. It helps to drink while watching drunk people fall into the pool.

 

Nassau - better. We splurged on a $65 pp day pass to the Hilton which was close by. We just walked over and paid at the front desk. That gave us $40 in food / drink comps and gave us a small but lovely beach where we could enjoy a lounge chair or hit the pool. Staff circulated to get drink and food orders - note they will add tipping at the end, so don't bother tipping every time they stop to bring you a drink or food. Snorkeling gear, paddle boarding and kayaking were included.

 

Great Stirrup Caye - Norwegian's private island. It took about 30 minutes to get off the ship and wait for the tender to board, same on the way back (as a nice touch, as you were waiting to board the tenders back, they provided ice water and cool refreshing towels). Food on the island wasn't very good, to be honest, but the drinks were free flowing so that's all right. A tiny little shopping plaza selling the exact same stuff at twice the price on our other two stops. We paid $30 for a clamshell for 2 and we were so happy for the shade. The beach was fairly shallow and snorkeling was limited to fish that weren't too exciting. Overall very pretty though. We chose to stay at the very right side of the beach, away from the endless music and crowds.

 

Unfortunately, we witnessed a tragedy here - one of the male passengers either had a heart attack or drowned. I hope his last thoughts were, "Oh, this was nice." From what we could tell, all the lifeguards / medics did the best they could

 

ACTIVITIES: Sure, they had some cheesy shows but others were quite funny and entertaining. I mean, come one, this is a booze cruise, don't expect extravagant Vegas shows - and frankly, I personally would've skipped those. Come early for shows in the smaller lounge - seats go fast.

 

BARS: Okay, the few times I went to the bar to get drinks, I usually was served within 5 minutes. Very fast turnover.

 

DAILIES: We came to rely on these, usually delivered the night before so you can plan the next day's activities and see the timing for things. There's a bit of endless hawking for buying art (which may be the world's worst art collection) and jewelry, so go at your own risk.

 

CASINO: What a hoot. We went for 2 nights. One night we lasted a lot longer than the other night, when our daily gambling ration was quickly eaten up. But it was fun and entertaining and we did see people win some $$$, though most were happy if they got their $20 back. They had slots and card games, but the funniest one to watch was the game where you drop coins and watch tiny little shovels push coins back and forth. It was like being in that arcade on the NJ shore when you were 13.

 

WATER PACKAGE: I think it was $15 for 6 one-liter bottles. Frankly, don't bother. Bring your water bottles to the buffets and load up there discreetly.

 

CLOTHING: For the most part, very casual. Even at the restaurants, you saw the gamut of people wearing t-shirts and shorts to more dressy skirts and jackets. Just wear what is comfortable.

 

PEOPLE ON BOARD: You know what, there were people of all different categories. Really wide mix of ages, few kids (this was not during a school break) and clearly passengers from all different classes and backgrounds. I thoroughly enjoyed casual conversations with everyone.

 

Other notes:

 

It took about 45 minutes to actually board the ship on Day 1 (we started the process at 11:30 AM and the ship didn't sail until 5:00 PM). It's a long walk from the office to board the actual ship, so wear comfy shoes. While we waited to sail, we toured the ship, had lunch, a second lunch (hahaha) and an early dinner.

 

Departing the ship in Miami - very quick process, about 30 minutes from leaving our cabin to clearing customs and walking outside. We left a cc on file, so the few charges we had were automatically billed to our room and to our separate accounts since there were 2 of us in the room using different cards. Easy peasy.

 

The pools - we barely used them. The thought of the hundreds of people who probably were drinking and peeing in them grossed me out to no end. They drained the pools nightly but we still chose the ocean over the ship pools.

 

So, hope that helps!

[heyallie]

Can anyone tell me how to move this over to the Norwegian SKY board?

[easyboy]

Thank you for your review.

 

 

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[lab_love123]

Can anyone tell me how to move this over to the Norwegian SKY board?

 

I think it automatically posts to the Norwegian Sky board. That's how I came across your post. If you're looking to do a review, you need to click on "Write a Review." This will only show up on the message boards, not under reviews.

 

I was also on that sailing, and I had a really good time as well. Sure, there were some little things that I might have liked better if they were different, but I'm a pretty low-maintenance traveler. It doesn't take a lot to please me, and it would have needed to be really, really, REALLY bad for it to be a bad vacation. Overall, I had a nice vacation. My sister and I met and talked to some really interesting people from all over and had some pretty good meals and drinks. We really just very much enjoyed ourselves, and it was pretty hard to come back to work the week after!

 

I found your opinion on the pool funny - I actually thought this was one of the nicer cruise ship pools LOL. Usually by the end of the day, you can start to see that sunblock film floating on the surface, but I didn't notice that here. However, I usually left the pool deck around 5-5:30, so who knows what happened once everyone was back on-board ;)

[NYcruzzer]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a fair and balanced review . I am curious . If you get deathly ill from seasickness , how to you deal with those small 48 passenger vessels ? I'd imagine those small ships can be quite bumpy.

 

 

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[heyallie]

My body doesn't know the difference from seasickness on a 48 passenger ship or a 2,000 passenger ship. I'm just so prone to it. I deal with it by making sure I'm loaded up on either Dramamine or the patch.

[BlueJai]

Nice review! We have done the Sky a couple of times and have had a really great experience each time. I really enjoyed reading about yours.

[NYcruzzer]

My body doesn't know the difference from seasickness on a 48 passenger ship or a 2,000 passenger ship. I'm just so prone to it. I deal with it by making sure I'm loaded up on either Dramamine or the patch.

 

Hoping you had a nice smooth voyage on the Sky..