NLC Joy Panama Canal - LA to Miami 2/24/23

[ChiefMateJRK]

5 minutes ago, Sailing12Away said:

He is, last night was an older crowd so they were not giving him a good list of songs to play. They're just a handful of folks that can do Tina Turner justice and he isn't one of them.

 

It would be like asking him to play Oops I Did it Again by Brittany Spears. Sure, he probably could... But that doesn't mean he should.

Songs that NCL dictated?  That's disappointing.  When we were on the Joy with him last October, he was able to play whatever he wanted to.  I'm really sick of this woke-mandated "here's what you can play" stuff.  Our last two cruises have clearly suffered from it in many venues and it's time for NCL to get over it.  I had at least two great one-on-one discussions with Ryan and he's very much aligned with music that people like us appreciate.  Hopefully you'll be able to enjoy his true talent at some point.  At least there's good beer in the DBH! 😎

Edited March 3, 2023 by ChiefMateJRK

[Sailing12Away]

Oh no, it wasn't NCL picking a bad play list. It's my fellow travelers who were average age of 65-75. Will give him another try and sit in the front asking for queen and see how that goes over.

[Sailing12Away]

Laundry bag in Haven is about the size of a pillow case. 13 shirts, 3 shorts, 10 socks, 11 undies.

[ChiefMateJRK]

16 minutes ago, Sailing12Away said:

Oh no, it wasn't NCL picking a bad play list. It's my fellow travelers who were average age of 65-75. Will give him another try and sit in the front asking for queen and see how that goes over.

Good.  That's a relief.  He's new to the US and doesn't have a large US repertoire.  Queen?  He does a great "Fat Bottomed Girls" (seriously, ask him).  Also, he does a great job (and likes) Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here.  He told me it was the only Pink Floyd song he had learned.  He also likes Dylan.  He told me he liked "dark" songs and I encouraged him to learn Dylan's "Not Dark Yet."  If you get a chance, you might ask him if he's done that.  Hopefully he'll do some of his Irish Pub sing alongs.  He actually broadened my musical interests!  I miss Ryan and hope to sail with him again.

[rainmakerjjo]

11 hours ago, Sailing12Away said:

Laundry bag in Haven is about the size of a pillow case. 13 shirts, 3 shorts, 10 socks, 11 undies.

 

Is it priced by the bag or by the item?  Curious how much the full bag cost.

 

Thanks

[Sailing12Away]

For laundry if you're platinum and above you get a free bag. Otherwise it's $29 for as much as you can stuff in the bag.

 

I've got about 140 mins left of my 300  mins and we're halfway through the trip. Then I still have hubby's 300 minutes. So again, for us, no need for unlimited internet even with as much posting I've been doing. It's so freaking slow anyway it would just frustrate me to try and use it more than we have.

[Sailing12Away]

Day 5 – Acapulco

I’ve fallen a bit behind in my day-to-day summaries as I would typically type them up in word on the laptop while waiting for breakfast to come. We’ve had so much left over snacks and sandwiches in the room lately that we haven’t been getting breakfast delivered, and so no typing to remember what we did or what we saw.

 

Our room is on the starboard side, and we were next to the dock at this port. Around 6:45am I started hearing what sounded like the beating of drums, then shortly after there was a full on 12+ piece mariachi band right outside my balcony serenading us as we finished tieing up to the dock. Traditional Mexican music at first, then it moved into covers of American pop songs – Eye of the Tiger, I will Survive…. It was so odd, and sooooo early in the morning.

 

For Acapulco we didn’t have an excursion booked. Met up with our new friends from the UK at the Haven bar in the early afternoon and walked off together to just look at some things on our own. Safety in numbers and all that jazz. When you get out of the port area there are a ton of people looking to give you rides to anywhere you want to go. We just wanted to walk on our own. They all said head right for the beach, head left for shops and eating. So we went left. Pay attention to the cars driving past on that main road and you’ll see how safe (not safe) it is over there. Every ~5^th car passing by was a military jeep with 3 men armed with machine guns patrolling the area. And not just carrying a machine gun on them, but actively holding it up as if they would shoot someone very easily.

 

So 5 of us headed left, and there’s a land bridge to take you across the roadway and up to the fort that is right there. We walked around the fort for a bit – you can’t go inside, but you climb up a ways and get good views of our ship right there across from you. One friend stayed behind to walk the entire perimeter of the fort and head back to the ship, the other 4 of us headed downhill into ‘town’ to see what we could see.

 

The streets are filled on both sides of the walkway with little tents/shops selling trinkets and things. The best description I can think of is dollar store meets flea market. If you want something cheap to remember Acapulco, bring small bills and bargain it down to $1-2. We didn’t see any restaurants, but there were a lot of, what shall I call them…. ‘open air cookeries’…. Where folks were making and pressing fresh tortillas and brewing up vats of mysterious brown/orange liquid that they were selling to people in ziplock bags with a straw sticking out. We passed on local food for a change and eventually found a sports bar to go to for beers.

 

Bit of a language barrier, but we managed to get 4 beers for about $5. Place to sit and cool off for a bit, got to tinkle, then started to make our way back to the ship together. If you do wander this way, the first chance you get to properly cross the street and get on the side with our ship – do it. Otherwise you have a much longer walk to be able to cross the 6 lane roadway safely and get on the correct side of the road. Just outside of the ship there was the standard marketplace with other small shops, so you could always just go there and save yourself the hike and adventure.

 

When we were back on the ship we talked with some of the crew who said that you would need to take a taxi far off to the right for the ‘nicer’ parts of town. That’s where they have real restaurants and nicer shops. We were hoping just to find a liquor store to bring some things back home as it’s always dirt cheap in Mexico, but didn’t see a single one. Granted we weren’t looking too hard, but still.

 

            

[Sailing12Away]

 

[Sailing12Away]

Lunch that day was in the Haven restaurant where I think I already informed you guys that they’ve now started to introduce a daily special up there for both appetizer and meal. Come to find out it’s not too special, just one of the offerings from the MDR, but still…. It’s nice to have more options, especially on a 15 day cruise. Saw Footloose that night as well, and it sounded like the female lead may not be able to make it through the show. She was coughing a bit, and forgot to turn her mic off at one point backstage when she was saying she wasn’t sure if she could finish. But she did manage to get through it.

 

We had seen it back in September with a different cast, so we were trying to not compare it to them but that was hard to not do. It was fine, some of the actors/actresses were stronger than others. That’s all I’ll say, good entertainment still regardless.

               

[Sailing12Away]

Drinks from that night…

     

[Sailing12Away]

Day 6 – Sea Day

I honestly don’t remember what we did this day…. Most likely slept in very late, missed our chocolate & wine tasting for the 2^nd time, and just wandered around the ship. We might have sat in the observation lounge playing a board game for a bit, but it’s all becoming a blur. A good relaxing blur, but a blur none the less.

 

That night though we did have dinner with the officers. I already chatted about that in the other thread so I won’t carry on too much again here, but it was enjoyable to us and I’m glad we did it. For folks who think they have no interest in having dinner with strangers, then skip it. For us, part of what we love about going on cruises is getting to meet new people and hear their stories. Sure, some folks are batshit crazy and we’re thankful they live in other parts of the world far away from us. But some folks are fun and interesting or just good kind people and we’re glad to have gotten to hear a bit of their story.

 

The next day at port when we got off the ship one of the senior staff members recognized us (I really need to find that list of photos and names and take a picture of it). I don’t remember her official role, but she covers the desk at both Food Republic and also something up in the Haven, so she recognized us. She asked how our dinner went the night before and we told her that it was a good experience. She went on to say how one of the officers at our table talked about how much he enjoyed it to her. It was his first time being invited and him and my hubby were chatting the night away about IT related stuff. So that made us feel good knowing that he wasn’t just being polite and chatting with us because he had to, but it was something different for them too and to hear that he enjoyed our company as much as we enjoyed his was nice.

 

[Sailing12Away]

Day 7 – Guatemala

This was an early day…. Too early. We booked an NCL tour of Antigua and beer tasting, which had a meeting time of 7:45am. There’s a short bridge to walk across from the pier into the shops area, then when you get all the way through the busses were there. You had to take a coach bus about an hour into Antigua, then transfer to a smaller van for the ride in town. The streets in Antigua are all uneven cobblestones and too narrow for the full coach.

 

The ride in was nice, the guide was talking about the different volcanos there and some of the stories of the eruptions and loss they had previously. After transferring to the smaller vans it was about another 15 or so minutes into city center. Short walk through town pointing out a few things, little bit of free time in the city square, then a short walk to the brewery.

[Sailing12Away]

The beers were good and all 4 were paired with some small tapas. Everything just felt a bit rushed. The 4 of us would have loved to sit there a bit and have another pint or 2, but we were rushed out back onto the streets to return to the busses. Only instead of turning right back to the square, they turned left. When we questioned them the guide said she wanted to point out more scenic stuff since the busses weren’t there yet. They went left, we went right to the center square. And waited. And waited. And waited…..

 

There was a sweet shop we passed on the way in, but we had no time to stop, just literally walk in and walk out. So when we started walking back hubby ran ahead to get some sweets, and even he beat the group back. We ended up waiting at least 20 mins for them to show up, which means he didn’t have to literally run down the street to get to the sweets shop, and we could have had another beer. Eventually the vans came back for us, to switch back to the busses, for the hour or so ride back to the ship.

 

One of the stops on the tour was the jade museum. Listen to the talk – it’s not a salesperson, it’s a legit archeologist who helped find and mine the jade many years ago. Very interesting talk. But again, at that stop it was very rushed. After the talk you only had 10-15 mins to shop. If you want coffee – buy it there at the jade museum. $10/bag whereas at the shops near the port it was higher.

 

[Sailing12Away]

The shops near the port all have the same things. If you truly want something, show an interest, ask the price, then tell them you’ll come back. Go to the next shop and do the same thing, then end up going with whoever gives you the cheaper price, or the price you feel comfortable with. They all have the same tchotchkes. We got a bag of coffee for $12 (they wanted $15, I said $10, they wouldn’t budge below $12 and I wasn’t hopping on a bus for an hour to get back to the jade museum to save $2), a large tote bag for my sister with a dia de los muertos image sewn on it for $25, and 3 beers for $11.

[Sailing12Away]

Skipped lunch and munched on the snacks and sandwiches in the room, then headed to dinner at the Haven restaurant. Specials were gnocchi with sausage for an appetizer and lemon pepper chicken skewers for a main. I got both of those as I’m in the minority and not a huge fan of the Haven restaurant. We asked if we could get Indian food as we were told it would be no problem, and essentially they offered to go to the garden café and make a plate for us and bring it up. So we passed and made a mental note to find that woman officer who said they would make it up here for us. The gnocchi was great, the chicken skewers were just ok. I liked the coconut rice better than the chicken – should have just asked for a second scoop of that.

 

Lots of drinks at the bar (no shots though – we’re all still recovering from that tequilla night), lots of long chats with many new friends, then finally in bed a bit past 1am with the time zone change. Tomorrow (today) we’re trying to make it to the wine & chocolate tasting for the 3^rd time this trip. They put out a fresh list of wine events after we passed day 7. Then the next day we’re scheduled to arrive in Panama City around 6pm.

[www3traveler]

At the bottom of the front staircase to the right as you come down, should be pictures of all the Senior and Mid-Management staff.  The pictures should be between the staircase and the restrooms.

[CptBoatface]

We love Antigua, cool old city.

[dcipjr]

Antigua was such a surprise. We went in with no real expectations and were thoroughly charmed. Kind of reminds us of Old San Juan but in the mountains instead of at the beach.

 

Hope you enjoy the canal transit. Still my favorite cruise memory after a lot of cruises.

[Sailing12Away]

On our way to Panama today, enjoying the quiet of the Haven sun deck, had the hot tub to myself. 

 

Woke up late and skipped breakfast and lunch to do a wine & macaroon tasting instead before coming up here.

[cruisebeachgirl703]

We will be onboard 3/18. Would love for you to post the names of any haven personnel that you had a positive experience with. Thanks.

[Sailing12Away]

Everyone in the Haven is fabulous, you can't go wrong.

[Sailing12Away]

Looks like what I typed up disappeared, so for now you just get photos from Panama. Too lazy to type it all up again on my phone.

[Sailing12Away]

This is from dinner off the ship in Panama City, right where the shuttle bus drops you off.

[Sailing12Away]

If anyone can translate we would love to know what they were saying. When I'm home I'll upload the longer video on FB here as well when things went wild and people were dancing on tables.

 

Back on the ship now sitting on my balcony and it's noisy. Starboard side coming in we had great views of the city while port side saw the line of ships waiting to enter the canal. Now at dock our side is the disembarkation side - lots of activity with loading the ship with supplies. So no peaceful nighttime balcony sittings tonight.

[LloydJr]

Great review!   I'll be weighing in for the time being.