Our Pre-halloween Oct 25th 5-day Mexican Riviera Cruise in Cabin 18100 (DOS) on the Bliss

[Grimix]

So it’s been about 12-13 years since my last cruise review so it’s time to do another! I’ll tell you the tale of what I think we (my family) would universally agree was one of our best vacations, but not it was not without it’s bumps! Please apologize as I’m not doing this off of an outline, and it’s from a pretty much stream-of-conciousness point of view so I may jump around a bit (and I may have a love of parenthetical statements (because I’m of a software engineer?) So you may see many nested ()’s that I will attempt to close properly!) This might be a little lengthy, as I already have several pages written before we even get onto the boat! (Or ship if any captains are reading....)

I’ll give a little bit about the backstories of the players in this drama. I’m the dad. As I said before I’m in software. I’ve been on 3 prior cruises all with Carnival. The first one was a 3-day booze-cruise in my younger years. Shared an inside 4-bunk cabin with some friends. Obviously don’t remember much of that one because it was probably 30 years ago (I’m on the low side of the mid-50’s so…) We can just attribute it to age, and not the booze part right? The two I took with my wife where about 12 & 14 years ago on Carnival in a suite. I believe one was a western Caribbean and the other an Eastern. My wife (who is MUCH younger than me! (In case she’s reading!)) has two more Carnival cruises she took with her mother before she met me (plus the 2 we took together.) We have a 15 year old son (Who did make an appearance on our second cruise, but was only 2 so didn’t really remember anything about it), a 12 year old daughter, and a 10 year old son (some would say accident, including him, but it is what it is. :)) My oldest is diagnosed with Autism. Some don’t realize it when they meet him, but he has a flat tone, has a very short attention span, and will script movies and stuff out loud and very inappropriate times. He does love to be the funny man of the group as he likes to make people smile. (I mention this here just for background on our experiences.) The final participant is Grandpa (my wife’s dad) He is a surely individual that went on the last of our cruises. I’m sure there will be more to say about grandpa as this develops! Ooo! Stream-of-concious thought, I wanted to say the 13 year absence from cruising wasn’t because we didn’t enjoy our cruises. Just life, and other choices. We did love our cruises on Carnival!

 

This is the family sans wife. I do not post any pictures of her without her explicit permission as she hates 90% of every picture taken of her. Grandpa wears a monster energy hat because his son is a profession BMX jumper sponsored by Monster.

[PistolPete13]

From one former programmer to another, I'm looking forward to this!  Don't forget to comment the code thoroughly...LOL 

[Grimix]

Now that we’ve met everyone we’ll go back to the beginning a little over a year ago. My wife decided she want to do an Alaskan cruise. She’s the planner, but I’m the researcher. So I was given the task to find the cruise-line and best itinerary. My wife is a physician, and she actually rarely gets multiple days off in a row. The fact that she was able to get the 9 days for this 5-day trip, was a miracle, I can’t remember her having more than 4-5 in a row in the last several years! Needless to say, when we get the time to do a vacation we do tend to spend more to make it special. While researching I found this thing called Haven (which most of you on this forum knew much more about than me at the time (and probably still do!)). It sounded just like what my wife would love. Get the big boat experience the kids would love, and the luxury that my wife desired (and deserved!) I priced an early October sailing (about 2 weeks before the one we ended up on, I told you we weren’t going to Alaska!) and I believe I found a 2-bedroom with the large balcony around $14-16k. It’s a lot, but as a family of 5 we either needed 2 bedrooms, or 2 staterooms. And at haven prices it seemed better to do a 2-bedroom. I booked the cruise, and we were all excited. I annoyed my wife with all the things I found out by reading these forums and reviews. I kept up watching prices almost daily and had got us down another $2k in about 4-5 jumps. (I’m sure our TA loved us. :)) I even bought the insurance because of this whole COVID thing; something I had never done before.

 

At this point my wife was feeling a little guilty. Grandpa’s backstory! He was living about an hour north of us (he’s followed her around the country.) He had just destroyed his ‘new-to-him’ car by running it without any oil. Luckily for him his brother decided he would buy him a newer one (we were done buying him cars after he destroyed the last one) He then got lost several times driving home (ended up in Reading CA once 2 hours from his home before he realized he was lost.) So in the span of a couple weeks we sold his home, sold his car, and moved him into an assisted living facility about a mile from our house. (He wasn’t able to take care of his home, and had a hard time walking.) So he had lost all his freedom, and had to start using a walker. So in addition to all this he was turning 80 while were on the cruise, so my wife felt guilty not taking him. (Backstory too that is that she and him do like to argue, and he drives her crazy, but family right?) The nail in the coffin to our Alaska trip was when our close neighbors invited us to their wedding. Sure enough it also fell on a date during our cruise! Signs were pointing to no Alaska. Doing more research we found a 5-day to Mexico (less time to argue with dad) leaving a little later in the month so we could go to the wedding. Research further showed that both Deluxe Owners Suites (DOS hence forth as most here know) were available, and only about 2k more than what we owed on the Alaska cruise, granted you could get the 2 bedroom for about 10k on this cruise…) While we thought the 2-bedroom would be enough for our family, the wife didn’t want anyone sharing grandpas room or bathroom (he’s not that clean.) So we were thinking about getting another cabin for him. Didn’t want a non-haven because the wife wanted to spend SOME time with him. When we priced another smaller haven and the 2 bedroom and it came around the same price as the DOS. After hemming/hawing about it for a couple weeks we pulled the trigger on the DOS. I chose the port side one (18100) because when we had been to Cabo a year earlier I saw a princess ship anchored with the port side facing the arches. Kept checking prices on the off chance they would drop, and only a couple days later the other DOS was gone. Probably someone thinking about it and after one disappeared they figured they need to pull the trigger. The plus side to this is I was no longer required to check for price drops because if they aren’t available they aren’t going to get cheaper! I bought 100 shares of NCL stock when it hit just below $11, and that netted me an extra $50 OBC for a 5 day sailing! Plus another $250 for a cruise first and this thing was practically free! (or not...)

 

So now we still had months left to go (I promise we will someday get to the ship, but I had to wait so you’ll have to wait a bit longer too!), and I kept up reading all the threads on cruise-critic and continued annoying my wife with all the ‘new’ facts I uncovered. I moved our insurance over which cost me another $200, and then decided I needed to add some for Grandpa in case he needed to be airlifted off the boat, and that came to $160. I had to buy him his own policy because he couldn’t be added to our old one. Being Marriott people, we chose the Residence Inn Downtown Long Beach for our stay before the cruise, and booked a room for the night.

 

[Grimix]

3 minutes ago, PistolPete13 said:

From one former programmer to another, I'm looking forward to this!  Don't forget to comment the code thoroughly...LOL 

// You prefer single line comments?

/* Multiline? */

% Or Matlab?

CPlease don't tell me you want Fortran 77 comments because unfortunately I can do those too...

[Grimix]

DANGER! DANGER! 3 weeks before our vacation my wife and son get sick. Son has a fever. Government ‘free’ test shows him positive for COVID. Wife is negative… Crap! We’re going to lose another vacation! (Had a 5 day Maui canceled in early 2021 that the hotel had upgraded us to a suite for all 5 days, after paying for a normal room, because we tested positive on the test to board the plane… kids, but mostly wife were devastated. This was pre-vaccination time.) I get a fever the next week, but test negative. It was mostly a head cold for me. I was really stuffy, not much coughing, but hammered my nose with Afrin which killed my sense of smell (hence most taste) (I know COVID can do that as it did when I had the real COVID, but I was testing negative so thought I'd be ok.) I stay down in the guest bedroom to avoid going near anyone else just to be very safe. Week before the cruise we’re all testing negative (but that pre-board check would have had us on pins and needles no matter how much I pre-tested!.) Tested once more the night before and all negative so we’re a go, but darn that was close! (My son was out of school. For a little more than a week. They requires 24-hours no fever, and a negative test) I had insurance, but after doing all the research for months I might have been more disappointed than the others!

 

About 4 weeks before the cruise one of the other haven guests in the sailings group posted the arrival of his luggage tags. Being days from the cruise, and anticipating it for months, the arrival of luggage tags is a big issue! Days pass, but no tags for me! A couple days later I get an email from the on-shore concierge telling me I should get ready to be pampered. Ok. I guess I can do that. It includes a list of things you can request like pillows and if in a high enough suite liquor selections. Being a 5-day sailing our suite is entitled to a single bottle of alcohol (not 3 like on 7+ day sailings) I requested Titos with cranberry, grapefruit, and diet coke mixers. (Diet Coke wasn’t a mixer, but they give you soda’s and water in the owners suite. Let me tell you, it was a happy day when we heard the Bliss changed to Coke a couple sailings before ours! I know some of you prefer Pepsi, but like my identical twin brother you are wrong.) In addition to the mixers I also requested a roll-away bed. The plan was to put grandpa in the second bedroom with it’s own bathroom, and have the kids stay in the living room. 2 on the couch conversion which I believe is a queen, and the other on the roll-away. (They all fought for the roll-away and they rotated through it each night) The concierge said they had forwarded the request to the ship and asked if I needed anything else. My wife told me I needed to also request diet sprite. So I added that. And in a couple hours they let me know that the ship had confirmed my request for a roll-away, and did I need anything else? I figured I’d either have to keep adding requests or stop it right now. So I thanked them and said I think we’re good for now! About a week after this exchange I finally received my beloved purple luggage tags from my TA! The excitement lasted about 10 minutes, and then I went to catch up on cruise-critic to see if I could learn something new.

 

[Grimix]

12 minutes ago, PistolPete13 said:

From one former programmer to another, I'm looking forward to this!  Don't forget to comment the code thoroughly...LOL 

<!-- Forgot to add our pictures won't look as good as yours! -->

[Grimix]

My wife does the packing, and I do the loading. I told her we would have to pack light because we have to drive to the airport, and while our car seats 7, I need to put the bags in there, and we also have to take Ubers to the hotel and port. 10 bags later she’s decided she’s as light as she can get… Luckily I was good at Tetris and able to fit everything in the car. Had to have the youngest sit on the wife’s lap for the 35 minute ride to the airport, and a couple bags had to be held on laps because we also had to stuff in a wheelchair and walker for grandpa!

 

We make it to the airport. Unload everything. Wife and I pretty much man-handle all the bags over (the kids are mostly useless at helping, and grandpa even more so.) We get an airport wheelchair for Grandpa so we don’t have worry about him until we get to the gate. I get back in the car an head to long-term parking. Park the car and walk back to the terminal to join my family who had just gotten to the trams to the real terminal (This is Sacramento) I had just gotten the platinum amex partially to take advantage of future cruise benefits I learned about here. One of the other benefits is that it will pay for Clear membership (and your wife if you have a Delta account, $129 for discount with delta, and another $60 for a family member to the $189 yearly credit with Clear. It is normally $189 per person, so you need to use one of the discounted prices from an airline to get both.) I had pre-registered online, but once at the airport they take your biometric info which takes about 5-10 minutes. Future visits you just need to do the scan, and then they escort you to security line right after the people that check your boarding passes. Since we do TSA-precheck we were escorted to the pre-check security gate. Depending on how long the pre-check line is it can save a lot of time waiting for the guy to check your id and passes. Didn’t save us any this time because the line wasn’t long, and we had to finish the registration.

 

We get everyone to the gate and board our little over an hour flight to Long Beach. Having a wheelchair bound individual did allow us to pre-board, so the only controversy on board was that they had sat in bulkhead front row which didn’t have tray tables. For some unknown reason (to me) this caused great annoyance to my kids… Southwest had inexplicably sent me 4 drink coupons the month before (And my wife received none, so she wasn’t happy about that!) I don’t know what I did to deserve them, but we each used one to pre-lubricate our vacation (Saving the other 2 for the return trip.) We landed; managed to get Grandpa off the plane. A supplied wheelchair person took him to baggage claim without our intervention where we able to get him and our bags too! We waited for our luggage to be offloaded and retrieved all 10 bags, and 2 medical devices (wheelchair and walker for those forgetful ones) Luckily Southwest still allows 2 bags/person so we didn’t have to have the kids carry on their carry-ons (Because you know I would somehow have been left to schlep those bags around the airport and put them in the overhead bins… I told you how helpful my kids are right? When they finish something they immediately hand the trash to my wife…even if there is a trash can right there!)

 

Cat proofing the furniture while we're gone!

 

For those counting that 10 bags, 2 medical devices, and 6 people... We did it very light...

 

Flying over the coast.

 

I saw this sign and knew my wife would love it. Now I need to get one and not just a picture of it!

 

Welcome to Long Beach! Remember baguette. It plays a big part of the story!

[seemoreroyals]

Enjoying your review.  We have to cat proof our house when we travel as well.  Even though our cats have a cat door and about 1500 sq ft of screened in porch/catio they are still prone to mischief on trips we are gone for more than a few days.  How full do you think the ship was?  Did it seem crowded?

[Grimix]

(Editors note, this one is short because I believe cruise day should start with it's own post and I didn't realize we were almost there in the story!)

 

We get to the curb and order 2 Ubers. An XL and an X. I told you about the 10 bags right? Not fitting in one Uber. Luckily they both arrive within a minute of each other. Now we have 2 Uber drivers and me playing a cooperative game of Tetris to load up all of the suitcases between the 2 cars. Ends up with me driving in the X all by myself with a bunch of suitcases as passengers… We get to the Hotel and I find a luggage cart to haul all the suitcases up to the room. (This is a residence inn, not a normal Marriott so no bell-hop.) Their carts are the worst! They have pneumatic wheels (Most luggage carts have hard wheels) that weren’t properly inflated for the 2-tons of luggage I was moving…. I finally to get everything to our 2-bedroom suite (smaller than our suite on the ship) which ran us about $350 for the night. Grandpa had his own room though; one of the wife’s requirements! Our room overlooked the Queen Mary so that was kind of cool! Members from a cruise group I had joined that were staying at the Crowne mentioned the ship hadn’t arrived yet. It had just finished its Alaskan season, and was sailing down to San Pedro without passengers to pick us up the next morning.

Thought I had taken pictures of the room (believe me it wasn't much to write home about) but here's a picture of the Queen Mary from our hotel window.

 

We ate at Islands about a mile from our Hotel. The wife grew up in Orange County and went there all the time growing up. When lived in Upstate New York (Syracuse) for about 12 years before moving back 6 years ago (Both originally born & raised in California, all kids born in Syracuse) When I was looking for a job to move back to, and company in Roseville offered me a job. Both of us had no idea where Roseville was (20 minutes east of Sacramento right near the foothills of the Sierra Nevada). My wife did the research this time and learned the schools were all 10s, and it was a great location. Not only that, they had an Islands!  Unfortunately, they didn't survive COVID closed down so we try and hit Islands where they are available (The last one was when we went to Monterey. That Islands kind of sucks by the way...)

[Grimix]

3 minutes ago, seemoreroyals said:

Enjoying your review.  We have to cat proof our house when we travel as well.  Even though our cats have a cat door and about 1500 sq ft of screened in porch/catio they are still prone to mischief on trips we are gone for more than a few days.  How full do you think the ship was?  Did it seem crowded?

We started with one. I bought a catgenie (add .com for their website.) The thing is LIFE CHANGING with a single cat. It hooks up to the water line in your laundry room (with a supplied T-valve) and a drain goes into the laundry drain (You can do it in a bathroom by T'ing off the toilet supply, and hook the drain over toilet and under the seat, but laundry is a much better install.

 

You literally never scoop the litter. When it senses a cat has entered it it starts it's cleaning cycle. The litter is sprayed with cleaning solution. It scoops the solid waste into a hamper where enzymes liquify and and it is sent down the drain. You aren't changing bags or anything. It's literally like a cat toilet. It then blow dries the litter until it's dry and ready to be used again. (Cycle takes about 15 minutes...)

 

This works great with 1 cat, but once my wife moved to 4 (She decided to get a bonded pair, and then we ended up with grandpa's cat when he moved into the assisted living center) cats are impatient and they started going when the genie was running because they couldn't bother to wait. So when we travel we put in a traditional cat-box, and make sure the furniture isn't appealing!

 

As to your other question, I believe I heard there were about 3k passengers so not that full. I never thought it felt very full, and definitely not empty!

[Grimix]

Have to take the kids Trick-or-Treating, and since we almost got to the ship part I feel it's a good cliff-hanger! I'll continue tomorrow. I still have a page or 2 typed up for the first day, but then have to write the rest...

[Grimix]

We wake up. Cruise day! I want to get to the port early because I figured we might be able to get on early since there were no passengers getting off. We took advantage of the hotel's included breakfast and ordered a couple Ubers, as I once again had to haul all 10 suitcases and 2 medical devices down to the curb, and into 2 different Ubers.

We get to the pier! Yay! Life is so good! I find a porter, and give him a $20 (which is probably underpaid for the 10 suitcases, 1 medical device I handed off to him. We kept grandpa in the wheelchair) We get through security and see a lady with a Haven sign. We tell her we’re in the haven. She says great! We’re already boarding! (It’s 10:10 when we arrived) I see you have a wheelchair let me escort you to the elevator! We get in, and she tells us to have a wonderful cruise! Getting to the second floor (you experienced cruisers might have noticed something here was off… but we didn't. We're just following instructions!) we look for another haven sign. Walking to the gangway there is just someone asking for our boarding passes. We say what passes? They escorted us here to the elevator. Yeap, we were supposed to get our passes on the first floor! My wife asks if we really have to drag my dad all the way back down saying this isn’t a great start to the cruise (it wasn’t… From my research part of the "annoying things" I told my wife that embarkation should be a breeze; we'd wait in a lounge where they would check us in quickly and then escort us onto the ship as one of the first passengers) Sure enough we do have to drag him back down. They do escort us right to an agent who checks us in and says we're good to go, and we head back to the elevators. Back at the gangway the guy looks at our cards and says you’re in the Haven you need to be escorted onto the ship. My wife who just wants to get the vacation started starts telling them those whole story. An officer overheard, and she kindly offered to escort us on. (I unfortunately didn’t get her name (I'm horrible with names as you will learn later),  but we did see her at the buffet the next day where she remember us, and after hearing our kids desire for soft-serve took them to the machines.)

We're finally being escorted up the gangway and to the ship so maybe we can now start to get into vacation mode! Halfway up the gangway my youngest son starts screaming and crying. My wife and  I look at him and ask him what the problem is? He screams he left baguette back at the hotel (Baguette is a stuffed ‘animal’ bread that looks like a baguette. His favorite stuffy he drags everywhere with him. But apparently doesn’t care enough to keep track of…) While we’re walking my wife starts calling the hotel to make sure they can find it and how we can get it back. The officer continued to walk us on to where the dedicated Haven elevator was. Our butler Lea was stationed at the elevator and introduced herself, and offered to escort us to our stateroom as she saw we were in one of her rooms. On the way up to the room my wife has tried to get the hotel to put Baguette in a Uber and she would go down to meet it before sailway. The manager said, no he’d drive it over. My wife explains this whole ideal to Lea and she offers to take her back down on the staff elevator after walking us to our room. We make my son go with her so he learns at least a little from his mistake… About an hour later she comes back. Apparently she had told the manager the wrong port (long beach). He had called her to say he was at the Carnival ship and asked where she was. That’s when she realized what happened and told him she was at the port of Los Angeles. The manager got back in his car and headed to our ship to deliver Baguette. My wife tried to give him a big tip to thank him, but he refused to take any money, and my son was reunited with Baguette. Big shout out to the manager, and we plan to send a big thank-you to corporate on his behalf! He might have saved the cruise of our youngest passenger!

 

My food from the hotel breakfast. The food got much better later in the cruise, I just didn't take pictures of it.. (Plenty of food-pron pictures on this site though!)

 

 

I believe I started with this pic, but this was us just before going up the gangway. Don't have many pictures of embarkation because of excitement and baguette-gate.

 

My youngest son reunited with baguette, and my wife's well deserved first ship-board drink. (Don't tell her I posted this as it did not go through the approval process, but it was the only baguette re-united pictures I had!)

[Grimix]

Because the ship traveled from Seattle with no passengers our room was ready right away. This stateroom was beautiful (I know many have seen the videos/pictures, but I’ll add a couple more, and actually have a picture of the second bedroom with the bed down that you don’t often see) In addition to the room, the balconies, omg! Never been in an aft, but I hear their balconies are spectacular as well! Right in front of us is the USS Iowa! After exploring the room, we realized because of Baguette-gate we did not get our tour of the Haven. This was our first time on NCL, and thus our first time in the Haven… I called our Butler Lea telling her we had missed out on the tour because of the toy issue, and she promptly sent someone to show us around.

 

Most of you have seen the videos, and I almost felt I knew my way around by heart from all the research, and it is just as beautiful as it looks in the videos (I would say more, but don’t want to slip into hyperbole!) Of course our next stop after sending the kids back to the room was to get a drink at the Haven bar. We met the bartending staff, got our drinks and headed back to our room. (I slipped them a $20 and told them I was pre-tipping because I don’t want to hand out $1 every time I get a drink (mostly because I only brought $20’s and $10’s) Lets say most nights they made out ahead (and a theme you will see throughout the review, they really deserved it!)

 

I was one of the ‘annoying’ people on our cruise-group (the know-it-all with all the answers (thanks to everyone here) but no experience to back it up. I did try to equivocate with my answers that ‘I heard’ etc so they wouldn’t take my word as 100% gospel, but I do believe most of my answers were correct from what I learned here… and now in my own experience.) I convinced my wife we should go to the shot-glass-exchange they were hosting in the observation lounge at 1:30 that day (an hour and a half before sail-away.) We definitely wanted to have our butts planted on our front facing balcony as we pulled out of the harbor so the timing was just about perfect! At the Haven before heading down I recognized my partner in crime (in the group) from a ridiculous captain’s costume he had threatened to wear for departure (but I believe most thought he was joking…) I introduced myself and we headed down to the Observation Lounge together.

 

I had ordered a pair of Rocklin CA shot glasses that I found on Amazon. When they arrived they were horrible! The company didn’t care about the heat transfer at all and they were all wrinkled and horrible looking. I found another site on amazon that let you custom make a shot glass. I stole (probably broke several copyright laws) a picture of the Bliss for the front with the words Bliss Oct 25th 2022, and Mexican Riviera, Rocklin CA on the back. Came out great! We only put one into the exchange (in a sewing kit bag my wife found in her luggage since I forgot to get a bag for the glass) and kept the other for our own souvenir! The exchange was fun putting faces to name, but it was getting close to sail away so we headed back to our room.

USS Iowa right in front of us!

 

The vanity bath in the entrance hall. For the kids and my use (wife gets her own toilet...)

 

Grandpa's bedroom before it stayed as a bed the rest of the cruise. You can see the rollaway for the kids in the background.

Grandpa's bathroom all to himself

 

Already lounging in the massive living room!

 

The crown jewel of the suite!

 

Something nobody talks about, but we absolutely loved. The walk-in closet which almost seems about the size of my first inside cabin on Carnival. We had our main suitcase opened on that bench the whole cruise to make getting things pretty easy! Safe is behind the door on the right.

 

The front balcony. Might not be as deep as aft, but I think it runs about a 1/4 of the width of the ship. (Might be exaggerating?)

 

The side balcony right off the main forward balcony. I forgot to take pictures of the third balcony right off the master that has 2 chairs for sitting with a little privacy from the rest of your group.

 

The giant master bath...

Picture of the one place I wasn't allowed to use in the suite, oh, and the soaking tub....

 

View out of the shower got better as the cruise went on! (Mind out of the sewer people, I'm talking about the ocean views...)

 

Front of the shot glass I had custom made

 

And the reverse!

 

 

 

[Grimix]

Out of order thought! I remember after we went to the bar for our first drinks we headed to the concierge to update our plans. For those who haven't been, the concierge is literally right around the corner from the bar. So we got our drinks and went over there. They had to people at the desk. The main concierge (Qian, pronounced 'sheen' hope I spelled his name right!) was handling miscellaneous issues, and one of his assistants was at the other end of the desk with a sign saying 'dinner/show reservations.' The only bookable shows where the comedy shows in the social. The main-theater were first-come/first-serve. Of course we were offered to be escorted down earlier. We changed our dinner reservations now that we knew the day/times of the shows (my kids were VERY excited to see both. They love their broadway theater...) Scheduled for us is Day 1: Q, Day 3: Cagney's, Day 4: La Cucina (just the wife & I). We also scheduled the 9pm comedy show on the last night.

 

If you're interested in our show times on our 5-day...

 

They had a little wallet card-holder thing for each of us. I found it was good to put my card in one side, and a few tipping bills in the other. My wife & I used them, but it was lanyards for the rest...

 

Our nicely stocked fridge; all included in the owner-suites. (Pitchers are available for everyone if you ask, but they'll charge you if you drink the soda or water.) Sorry Pepsi-people Coke is the real thing!

 

I promised you a bed-down picture. Soon after we arrived we met Glen our cabin steward. Grandpa wanted his bed made right away. He rarely left it outside eating times, and Ensenada (although he wishes he had stayed in it at that stop!)

[seemoreroyals]

4 hours ago, Grimix said:

Because the ship traveled from Seattle with no passengers our room was ready right away. This stateroom was beautiful (I know many have seen the videos/pictures, but I’ll add a couple more, and actually have a picture of the second bedroom with the bed down that you don’t often see) In addition to the room, the balconies, omg! Never been in an aft, but I hear their balconies are spectacular as well! Right in front of us is the USS Iowa! After exploring the room, we realized because of Baguette-gate we did not get our tour of the Haven. This was our first time on NCL, and thus our first time in the Haven… I called our Butler Lea telling her we had missed out on the tour because of the toy issue, and she promptly sent someone to show us around.

 

Most of you have seen the videos, and I almost felt I knew my way around by heart from all the research, and it is just as beautiful as it looks in the videos (I would say more, but don’t want to slip into hyperbole!) Of course our next stop after sending the kids back to the room was to get a drink at the Haven bar. We met the bartending staff, got our drinks and headed back to our room. (I slipped them a $20 and told them I was pre-tipping because I don’t want to hand out $1 every time I get a drink (mostly because I only brought $20’s and $10’s) Lets say most nights they made out ahead (and a theme you will see throughout the review, they really deserved it!)

 

I was one of the ‘annoying’ people on our cruise-group (the know-it-all with all the answers (thanks to everyone here) but no experience to back it up. I did try to equivocate with my answers that ‘I heard’ etc so they wouldn’t take my word as 100% gospel, but I do believe most of my answers were correct from what I learned here… and now in my own experience.) I convinced my wife we should go to the shot-glass-exchange they were hosting in the observation lounge at 1:30 that day (an hour and a half before sail-away.) We definitely wanted to have our butts planted on our front facing balcony as we pulled out of the harbor so the timing was just about perfect! At the Haven before heading down I recognized my partner in crime (in the group) from a ridiculous captain’s costume he had threatened to wear for departure (but I believe most thought he was joking…) I introduced myself and we headed down to the Observation Lounge together.

 

I had ordered a pair of Rocklin CA shot glasses that I found on Amazon. When they arrived they were horrible! The company didn’t care about the heat transfer at all and they were all wrinkled and horrible looking. I found another site on amazon that let you custom make a shot glass. I stole (probably broke several copyright laws) a picture of the Bliss for the front with the words Bliss Oct 25th 2022, and Mexican Riviera, Rocklin CA on the back. Came out great! We only put one into the exchange (in a sewing kit bag my wife found in her luggage since I forgot to get a bag for the glass) and kept the other for our own souvenir! The exchange was fun putting faces to name, but it was getting close to sail away so we headed back to our room.

USS Iowa right in front of us!

 

The vanity bath in the entrance hall. For the kids and my use (wife gets her own toilet...)

 

Grandpa's bedroom before it stayed as a bed the rest of the cruise. You can see the rollaway for the kids in the background.

Grandpa's bathroom all to himself

 

Already lounging in the massive living room!

 

The crown jewel of the suite!

 

Something nobody talks about, but we absolutely loved. The walk-in closet which almost seems about the size of my first inside cabin on Carnival. We had our main suitcase opened on that bench the whole cruise to make getting things pretty easy! Safe is behind the door on the right.

 

The front balcony. Might not be as deep as aft, but I think it runs about a 1/4 of the width of the ship. (Might be exaggerating?)

 

The side balcony right off the main forward balcony. I forgot to take pictures of the third balcony right off the master that has 2 chairs for sitting with a little privacy from the rest of your group.

 

The giant master bath...

Picture of the one place I wasn't allowed to use in the suite, oh, and the soaking tub....

 

View out of the shower got better as the cruise went on! (Mind out of the sewer people, I'm talking about the ocean views...)

 

Front of the shot glass I had custom made

 

And the reverse!

 

 

 

 

What a nice suite!!!  Also liked your custom made shot glass.  If NCL  had those in their gift shop they could sell a bunch of them.

[Grimix]

1 hour ago, seemoreroyals said:

What a nice suite!!!  Also liked your custom made shot glass.  If NCL  had those in their gift shop they could sell a bunch of them.

Thanks, it was a perfect size for six. Never felt crowded at all even when the beds were made in the living room! We loved it so much I just booked an Alaskan cruise in it for next year (same suite, but Encore this time...) Hope to get my twin brother to be a paying passenger this time. If that succeeds the 7 day Alaskan might end up cheaper than our 5 day Mexican! (We had to pay for grandpa.)

 

As for the shot glasses this is the amazon item I used. $20 for both of them.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09XVLW8KV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

(We are allowed to post links to Amazon since they don't sell cruises?)

[PistolPete13]

Thank you for the review so far!  Looking forward to more.

Just curious, is the band Siglo still on the Bliss during your sailing?

[Grimix]

4 hours ago, PistolPete13 said:

Thank you for the review so far!  Looking forward to more.

Just curious, is the band Siglo still on the Bliss during your sailing?

Yes they were. I listened to them once while at the local (I think they were playing the atrium?) Also heard them playing at the pool stage. They were really good!

[Grimix]

Couple thoughts on the room I remembered! Only one side of the master bedroom had a normal US plug.The other side had a European style plug (In our suite it was my side, nearest the bathroom (left side of bed when laying down.) Luckily I had remembered to bring my Euro plug converter I'd bought a while ago because I heard there lots of Euro plugs on-board. If I hadn't I would have had no power on my side of the bed.

 

I had purchased 4 multi-plug adapters (non-surge-protected) with USB ports as. These worked out great for the somewhat limited plug situation (and I think we had more plugs than in a normal stateroom!) There are a bunch of drawers and cabinets in this cabin so if you're in it you'll have no problem bringing 10 suitcases and 2 medical devices...

 

I had planned on eating lunch at the American Diner this day (Alternate lunch for Haven guests on embarkation day), but because of baguette-gate and the gift exchange it was closed before we could get there. From what I've read it's not a big loss, but figured it would have been nice to try it once.

 

With the shot exchange over we headed to the Haven bar to get a drink for sail-away. We walk in and the bartenders all call out my name. This is the second time I've been in this place! I wave and say hi, and order our drinks. Have a little small talk with them and the other guests. By the time we're able to get out we have to order another so we'd have something to drink on the balcony. (For those wondering I was drinking Tito's-Soda, the wife was usually ordering a skinny Margaritta or anything not-too-sweet.)

 

We made it back to our balcony before the 3pm sail-away, and the kids were already out there enjoying the last of their internet for the cruise! My wife and I had unlimited internet on our plan, and I had planned on seeing if I could get the internet working going through my travel router which will rebroadcast a wifi signal (with the same SSID as my home network, so that any devices we bring from home can connect to it without having to change settings) but whenever I tried getting my phone to connect to the NCL internet I was getting an error, and never bothered to attempt it. I would need to travel down to the Internet cafe to get it working at some point!

 

Around 3:15 or so the ship started moving sideways and then forward out to the Pacific Ocean. It was a beautiful day in the 70s. Bright and sunny, but not too hot. We sat and watched as we sailed away for an hour or so and were getting hungry. Because this was a 5-day cruise we needed to pack a bunch of things in, so we had decided to see the Jersey Boys early showing, and figured we should just drop by the Haven Resturant for an early (for us) dinner. My wife is a vegetarian and thought the menu was a little light on choices for her. I told her they would probably make what they could for her if she asked, but there was something on the menu she was happy with. My boys would eat off the kids menu the whole week. Limited palettes. My daughter, to my wife's chagrin, would be happy as a carnivore. She's been looking forward to steak all week (and the soft-serve), and ordered one first thing. Grandpa ordered a little of everything. Usually when we go out with him he will order the most expensive thing on the menu, and several other things as well (and eat half of it.) (He tried ordering the Tomahawk steak at Ruth Chris' once, which serves two, and my wife shut him down on that one!) I ordered the chicken. As I mentioned early I had been hammering the Afrin and I still couldn't taste a thing. I was getting worried I would spend the whole cruise tasteless. Trying all the food is one of the great pleasures of cruising so I feel I was justified in this worry! We also had a couple bottle of wines taking advantage of our premium plus package. We finished dinner, and I don't think we even had any of the deserts. One of the nice things about the Haven restaurant is that they have relatively small portions. That means if you need to eat a lot you can try more things, but also keeps from getting the over-eating feeling. I had meant to take the remainder of the wine back to the room for later as I heard about here, but completely forgot!

 

We head back to the room to get ready. Since the grandpa's bathroom was off-limits for the kids that mean five of us needed to take showers in our bathroom. I go in and try and get the shower working. It's a weird thing with 3 knobs (I think it might be standard in all the haven staterooms.) I managed to get the water on, and out of the top (not before spraying myself with the hand wand which was unfortunately pointed right at the door when it activated...) but couldn't manage to get the water to get hot. (In my defense I had had most of a bottle of wine, and several drinks before so my problem solving skills weren't at their best.) I sheepishly called Lea our butler from the phone one the master bedroom (I think we had 2 phones. One is a handheld which you might need to dial the butler's number from the card she gave us, and the other is a plugged in phone with a dedicated butler button.) She sent someone to show the idiots in 18100 how to operate the shower. He went over the 2 knobs I had figured out, the third (actually the middle) adjusted the temperature. I turned it all the way to the right (because that's how we turn on knobs in the western world at least) but that actually turned it to cold. It's the only knob that needs to stay to the left. Hopefully this will help someone in the future from making this embarrassing mistake!

 

Dinner with a view. Absolutely great service! I tended to tip $20 for dinner because they were so great, and put up with my family with a smile. Grandpa's whispering at dinner are actually more of a shout... My kids act like kids, and love to fight everywhere.

 

From sail-away he had gotten into his pjs as soon as he could. Little did he know he would have to get out of them again for dinner and a show!

 

[Grimix]

So now that the shower was working we were able to all get ready, and head down the concierge to be escorted to Jersey Boys. (As I (think) I mentioned before the main theater shows were not bookable so being escorted down and not having to wait is a pretty nice perk!)

 

Since grandpa was coming with a walker we needed to use the elevator to get down to the 17th floor. This elevator is located right outside the Maitre-D station of the Haven Restaurant, and takes your down to the Haven Bar lounge, which is right next to the Concierge station as I mentioned before. (One thing I should note for those who are mobility impaired Is that there seem to always be housekeeping carts in the hallway, and sometimes they needed to be moved for Grandpa to be able to get by. Luckily he had us to move it, and if one of the stewards sees him coming they may move it for you, but it does make it tricky because the halls are not very wide to begin with!) The minute got out of the elevator I head my name again (and my wife's.) I guess it would have been rude to pass the bar without getting a drink so we obliged. Waited about 2 minutes for the concierge to say they were ready. They took us down the staff elevator to the Theater level, and escorted us in about  30 minutes before the show. Grandpa got one of the handicap seats right as you enter, they said one other could sit there with him which my eldest son elected to do. The rest of us went a row down to the left where there were plenty of seats. Even after show time there did seem to be plenty of space to sit. Maybe because it was the first night, and people were excited to see what else was available?

 

The show was pretty good, and my kids absolutely loved it (although my daughter was still more excited to see Six, which my wife had never heard of, but my daughter already knew many of the songs...) They really do a good production!

 

We headed back to our room, all pretty tired after the first big day. The wife and I had plans to go down to the bar for a night-cap, but first needed to get the kids into bed. The steward had converted the couch and had their bed made, and set up the roll-away while were at the show, so the only thing we needed to do was get the kids to brush their teeth. While they were doing that I decided to look for the door to the master bedroom which we hadn't used before so that I would know how to close it when we got back. It's a pocket door, and was flush with the wall. I looked for a handle on the door, but couldn't find anything. I tried getting my fingers into the side to pull it out, and was unable to. Scared because I already felt stupid for calling about how to work the shower, I called Lea the butler again... Once again she sent someone up (probably thinking oh the idiots in 18100 are back at it!) At least this person couldn't get it open either, and called someone else (in an officer uniform, and probably someone from engineering.) They tried to get out for several minutes and told me the door isn't supposed to be all the way in. The handle is supposed to be on the side. They told me they would have engineering work on it tomorrow (because by this time my kids were half asleep) They apologized, and I told them I was just glad that I wasn't being stupid this time.

 

My wife and I headed out to the bar for an hour or so (Yes I was greeted again as I entered. I felt like I was some kind of rockstar...) and talked to some of the other Haven people and the bar tenders. One of the nice things about the Haven is that it is so small so you see the same people over and over, and it is fairly conducive to getting know your fellow passengers. We saw the same people all week (well work week since only 5 days :(), and lots of great conversations. It was time to head off to bed so we said our farewells telling them we'd be back, and headed off to bed. Walking through the pitch dark of the cabin I needed to use my phone flashlight so I didn't run into anything and wake up the kids (Although grandpa had the sound on his TV blaring which he did whenever he was away which is at odd hours of the night.) The bed was pretty comfortable, maybe not quite as nice as the one we have at home, but soft and firm at the same time. While I didn't really feel the ship sway in our cabin, it did feel like it was shaking side to side when we were lying down. It put me to sleep in about 5 minutes... Thus ends our first day at sea.

 

Unfortunately I ran out of photo's for today so don't have any at the end of this post like normal!

[Wink87]

1 hour ago, Grimix said:

So now that the shower was working we were able to all get ready, and head down the concierge to be escorted to Jersey Boys. (As I (think) I mentioned before the main theater shows were not bookable so being escorted down and not having to wait is a pretty nice perk!)

 

Since grandpa was coming with a walker we needed to use the elevator to get down to the 17th floor. This elevator is located right outside the Maitre-D station of the Haven Restaurant, and takes your down to the Haven Bar lounge, which is right next to the Concierge station as I mentioned before. (One thing I should note for those who are mobility impaired Is that there seem to always be housekeeping carts in the hallway, and sometimes they needed to be moved for Grandpa to be able to get by. Luckily he had us to move it, and if one of the stewards sees him coming they may move it for you, but it does make it tricky because the halls are not very wide to begin with!) The minute got out of the elevator I head my name again (and my wife's.) I guess it would have been rude to pass the bar without getting a drink so we obliged. Waited about 2 minutes for the concierge to say they were ready. They took us down the staff elevator to the Theater level, and escorted us in about  30 minutes before the show. Grandpa got one of the handicap seats right as you enter, they said one other could sit there with him which my eldest son elected to do. The rest of us went a row down to the left where there were plenty of seats. Even after show time there did seem to be plenty of space to sit. Maybe because it was the first night, and people were excited to see what else was available?

 

The show was pretty good, and my kids absolutely loved it (although my daughter was still more excited to see Six, which my wife had never heard of, but my daughter already knew many of the songs...) They really do a good production!

 

We headed back to our room, all pretty tired after the first big day. The wife and I had plans to go down to the bar for a night-cap, but first needed to get the kids into bed. The steward had converted the couch and had their bed made, and set up the roll-away while were at the show, so the only thing we needed to do was get the kids to brush their teeth. While they were doing that I decided to look for the door to the master bedroom which we hadn't used before so that I would know how to close it when we got back. It's a pocket door, and was flush with the wall. I looked for a handle on the door, but couldn't find anything. I tried getting my fingers into the side to pull it out, and was unable to. Scared because I already felt stupid for calling about how to work the shower, I called Lea the butler again... Once again she sent someone up (probably thinking oh the idiots in 18100 are back at it!) At least this person couldn't get it open either, and called someone else (in an officer uniform, and probably someone from engineering.) They tried to get out for several minutes and told me the door isn't supposed to be all the way in. The handle is supposed to be on the side. They told me they would have engineering work on it tomorrow (because by this time my kids were half asleep) They apologized, and I told them I was just glad that I wasn't being stupid this time.

 

My wife and I headed out to the bar for an hour or so (Yes I was greeted again as I entered. I felt like I was some kind of rockstar...) and talked to some of the other Haven people and the bar tenders. One of the nice things about the Haven is that it is so small so you see the same people over and over, and it is fairly conducive to getting know your fellow passengers. We saw the same people all week (well work week since only 5 days :(), and lots of great conversations. It was time to head off to bed so we said our farewells telling them we'd be back, and headed off to bed. Walking through the pitch dark of the cabin I needed to use my phone flashlight so I didn't run into anything and wake up the kids (Although grandpa had the sound on his TV blaring which he did whenever he was away which is at odd hours of the night.) The bed was pretty comfortable, maybe not quite as nice as the one we have at home, but soft and firm at the same time. While I didn't really feel the ship sway in our cabin, it did feel like it was shaking side to side when we were lying down. It put me to sleep in about 5 minutes... Thus ends our first day at sea.

 

Unfortunately I ran out of photo's for today so don't have any at the end of this post like normal!

Love your son's dinosaur shirt!

[Grimix]

14 hours ago, Wink87 said:

Love your son's dinosaur shirt!

Thanks, bought that for him for a Hawaii trip a year or so ago. He's obsessed with dinosaurs.  He can tell you what age a dinosaur came from and many facts about them, even if you've never heard of that dinosaur before. When he tries to tell me he doesn't have a good memory I tell him you only have a bad memory things you don't care about!

[Grimix]

Day 2 is our first sea day as we head down to Cabo. We head over to the Haven restaurant for some breakfast a little after 10 because we slept in a little and relaxed in the cabin for a while. Luckily it was a sea day because as we found out breakfast stops around 9:30, but I believe it's 10:30 on sea days so we just got in. As I didn't take notes, mostly I will tell you what I ordered. First off, I'm not a foody, nor am I that adventurous. My loves are chicken (occasionally a good steak) and potatoes, my hates are seafood and mushrooms. I already told you my wife is a vegetarian, my kids (other than daughter who is a carnivore) will eat the same thing everyday if given the choice, and FIL will eat anything he deems to be expensive like seafood, steaks, etc.

 

I started off with coffee and orange juice. I wanted to cry because I could finally taste the coffee! I wouldn't be going through the whole cruise eating just for sustenance! The orange juice was terrific as well, and tasted fresh-squeezed. I ordered the steak (medium rare) and eggs (scrambled) with hash browns instead of country potatoes. While the food was being prepared we went to go look at the buffet they have on the side. They have selection of meats, cheeses, fruits, and pastries. Down at the end they had the almond crusted croissants I had heard so much about! My daughter loaded up on everything that looked like bread, coming back with a covered in carbs. My wife gave her that 'for real?' look... I will say I did like the croissants, (while many here may disagree) my wife and I felt they could have done without the almond extract (my wife hates it, I'm just not fond of it, although I LOVE almonds!) My failure to love them didn't stop me from having one for every breakfast!

The steak was perfectly cooked medium rare, but not really that high quality. Lots of gristle, but I ate what was edible. (I know you can pre-order filets as I learned on the main Gary's Haven thread, but decided I would try and avoid that for my first time here.) Once again the service and attentiveness at the Haven restaurant was absolutely incredible. If you had an empty glass it was because you said you didn't want anymore. My wife was having Veuve Mimosas for breakfast,. grandpa was allowed one, and I was holding off until later (Not really a fan of mornings as it is...)

 

We headed back to the room. Our plans for today was to walk the ship, and go exploring. After that we decided we would hit the pool and slides. We had gotten earlier reservations for Q because we wanted to attend the captain's reception in the Haven's Horizon Lounge. Finally the wife and I wanted to catch the Beatle's show in the Cavern Club. (I thought it would more fund to see them in the smaller venue)

[Grimix]

I will start off and apologize that my grammar/spelling may not be doing so well. I'm pretty much typing this right into the box for the last several posts and haven't been going back and re-reading/editing them.

 

I decided it would be best if we went to the bottom and worked our way up. So we headed down to deck 5 where the kids clubs and arcade are. We walked and peeked into the venues. We had thought about signing our kids up, but it was a short cruise, and my daughter being 12 (going on 15) was offended that she wouldn't be allowed to use the Teen club and would be stuck the 'little' kids. They all liked what they saw in the Teen club, but only my eldest would have been allowed in, and he would rather hang with his family than be by himself so no kids club this cruise. Making our way to the arcade the kids liked what they saw. We were just surveying and said we could come back later. These arcades are not the arcades that I/we had growing up. They are breeding grounds for future gamblers.  Most of the games give tickets where if you have enough you can buy some crap. Let me tell you the return on the games in the arcade are MUCH lower than the returns on the slots on the ship (which are much lower than the returns you would get in Vegas.)

 

Up to deck 6 we explored the atrium area, and the kids looked around Coco's and my wife ended up getting a couple of the bon-bons in the front window. There was some show going on in the Atrium so the wife and kids decided to watch that. I wanted to go to the internet cafe which was opposite the starbucks and see why my internet wasn't working. I see people hanging out looking at their phones, but no line, just a couple talking to the internet manager at the desk, and another behind them. So I stand a little behind them, and look at my phone, once again trying to see if I can figure out the internet (I am in software (unmanned aerial vehicles), not IT, but I can usually figure this stuff out because I think like the people that write this software...) After about 5 minutes a fellow cruiser comes up to me and asks if I'm there to get help with the internet. I said yes thinking they're looking for the line. She says that they and all these other people (who are not in a line) were waiting first. I told her I was in the Haven, and they would just have to stay behind me or I would bring the wrath of the Haven concierge down upon her! No, just kidding, I looked at everyone there,  and the fact the line hadn't moved in 5 minutes, and decided the internet wasn't that important to me on this cruise and went off to find my family. I'd stop by later in the cruise when the 'line' would be shorter.

 

I'll skip the details of the other floors as you can just look up the deck plans. When we get deck 8 I told her we need to go look at the waterfront because everyone raves about it. We go out and my kids run for the railings. My wife (who is ER by training, so used to seeing all the bad outcomes, and so biased towards seeing those outcomes in everyday scenarios) get really nervous. We're much closer to the water down here on 8, than on 18 where our stateroom is. My wife eventually pulls the abort switch and I gather all the kids and usher them inside. Our look at the waterfront will have to wait for another time.

 

We skip the intervening levels because those are all staterooms. On the 15th we check out the observation lounge, and my kids grabbed some snacks (read bread/pretzel rolls) from the buffet stations there.  At 16 we go to see the buffet because the kids are now anxious to try the thing they wanted most of all on this cruise. The soft-serve.

 

We enter buffet, and off to our left we see the officer who had helped us onto the ship the day before. She recognized us and said she hoped things were going smoother for us now. We said yes, that the ship was beautiful, and that everyone was so warm and helpful. We told her we were just there because the kids wanted to get some soft-serve. She says Oh! It's right this way come, I'll show you. She took us to one (of what I later learned were about 4) soft-serve stations and our kids made their first cone of the cruise, and were in heaven (I may have had one myself...)

 

Our tour was over, because what was mostly left where the pool decks which we planned to explore later that day so we headed back to our stateroom and decided to get ready for the pool!

 

Her nervousness will not prevent the wife from taking pictures. This is from the waterfront. We have about 8 of these exact shots. 7 my youngest eyes are closed. We tell him your eyes are closed. He responds no they're not. He still denies it even after I have literal photographic evidence...

 

Obligatory Chandelier shot. I'm pretty sure you're required to take a picture of it if you fully read your terms and conditions of the cruise which none of us do...

 

[Grimix]

Change of itinerary alert! I remember we packed everything into this day. We have go-carts at 1:15pm and laser-tag at 8pm (concierge recommended doing it at night.) Will make sure to slide those important details in because I have somewhat good info on kids riding the go-karts and how to win at laser tag!