Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 21 Author #51 Share Posted July 21 They made the announcement that our rooms were ready shortly before 2pm. We are in room 9242, which is a Club Balcony Stateroom, which basically just means we get a slightly larger bathroom with a double sink. There's less storage than what we typically have and no drawers at all (besides in the bathroom). Not ideal, but we'll make do with the storage available to us. ----- 8 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 21 Author #52 Share Posted July 21 We are off to the pool and waterslides since even though it's not warm today (75F), it's probably the warmest it's going to get and we want to enjoy the slides while we can! I'll report back later with more. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiservictor Posted July 21 #53 Share Posted July 21 Looking forward to your reports all week. If possible, try to get a picture of the screen that shows pictures of all the senior officers. It’s on deck 6, on the port side of the forward staircase, between the stairs and the bathrooms. Thanks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PittPantherDan Posted July 21 #54 Share Posted July 21 Highly enjoying your live report!! Much appreciate you doing this. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #55 Share Posted July 22 1 hour ago, cruiservictor said: Looking forward to your reports all week. If possible, try to get a picture of the screen that shows pictures of all the senior officers. It’s on deck 6, on the port side of the forward staircase, between the stairs and the bathrooms. Thanks. Added to my list... I'll make sure to grab this for you! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #56 Share Posted July 22 57 minutes ago, PittPantherDan said: Highly enjoying your live report!! Much appreciate you doing this. I'm really conflicted on how to respond to this one. On the one hand, that was a really nice post. But on the other hand...Sweet Caroline! ⛰️💙💛 (I'm fully aware the only people who will get this post are me and hopefully Dan 😂) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlGoodShips Posted July 22 #57 Share Posted July 22 2 hours ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said: Added to my list... I'll make sure to grab this for you! You can also find list of officers on front page of Day 2 Dailie. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cruiservictor Posted July 22 #58 Share Posted July 22 1 hour ago, FlGoodShips said: You can also find list of officers on front page of Day 2 Dailie. Thank you. However those are usually only the Hotel Department officers, and it is usually only their first names. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #59 Share Posted July 22 I need to grab pictures off my GoPro but we did the tube slide today since we figured this is as warm as it's going to get. The drop slide that sends you over the edge of the ship was closed today... Don't think there was anything wrong with it, they just said it doesn't open until tomorrow. The line for the slide that was open didn't appear to be very long but it took nearly an hour as they were only letting people go down every 3-5 minutes even though the slide itself was only roughly 30 seconds long. I'm not exactly sure why but we waited in any case. The slide was fun but not fun enough to be worth how long the line took. --- After the slide we had fun at the Kid's Aqua Park for a bit and then in the Kids Pool. --- Following the water fun, we went and danced and had fun at the Sail Away Party. They did a good job with this and people were definitely enjoying themselves. We got lots of great video content so I'll try to grab some for screen captures from that to share. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #60 Share Posted July 22 After the Sail Away Party we went back to the room to get changed and then went to dinner. We tried to eat in the Manhattan Room but they had a very long line so we went to Savor instead which fortunately didn't have any wait. --- Question for those of you who know Norwegian better than we do: Do all three of the MDRs have the same menu or are they each unique? --- Dinner was underwhelming but we have specialty dining booked for four evenings, so I'm confident that will get better. I had the dishes below: - Cheese Ravioli appetizer: Very good, 4/5 - Cream of Cauliflower soup: Very good, 4/5 - Pork Short Ribs: Took an hour to be served and weren't very good...2/5 We ran out of time before the show due to the slow service so we didn't get to have dessert unfortunately. Tomorrow night we're having dinner at Onda which I'm sure will be better. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #61 Share Posted July 22 Following dinner we saw The Beatles Invasion in the Encore Theater. I like the later Beatles music and this was their early stuff so not my favorite, but they did a good job with things. 3/5 Tomorrow night is Choir of Man, which I'm very excited about. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #62 Share Posted July 22 After the show we put the kids to bed and my wife went to bed as well and I went to the casino for a bit. Luck wasn't on my side tonight but the casino itself was nice. I appreciate that they have a full size casino for both smokers and non-smokers. It was nice to be able to play without worrying about breathing or my clothes stinking. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #63 Share Posted July 22 Early thoughts on our first NCL cruise: - Friendly staff - Processes don't seem efficient in all areas (Kids Club registration was unnecessarily slow, long wait for slide, long wait for Manhattan Room) - Passengers are friendly and mostly blue collar (not a bad thing, just an observation). - Ship feels less open than others we've sailed on but modern and clean with lots of things to do. - We are in a club balcony stateroom, which is the top room below the Haven, but storage is extremely limited... We had to leave one bag unpacked, something I don't ever remember having to do before but there are zero drawers in the entire room (aside from the bathroom). - No turndown service which I realize is now fully exclusive to NCL but disappointing nonetheless. - Internet is poor (4mb/down + .75mb/up) despite paying for premium Internet access. As a point of comparison, on a recent MSC cruise we had speeds of 70 mb/down + 22 mb/up. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vacation44 Posted July 22 #64 Share Posted July 22 2 hours ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said: Question for those of you who know Norwegian better than we do: Do all three of the MDRs have the same menu or are they each unique? Yes, the menu will be the same in all three MDRs, but it does change everyday. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PittPantherDan Posted July 22 #65 Share Posted July 22 10 hours ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said: I'm really conflicted on how to respond to this one. On the one hand, that was a really nice post. But on the other hand...Sweet Caroline! ⛰️💙💛 (I'm fully aware the only people who will get this post are me and hopefully Dan 😂) Yes - I do, and it was very funny. I hope your family cruise is "Almost Heaven" 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #66 Share Posted July 22 Alright, time to catch up some and show some posts with actual pictures. Note: Some of these photos may be blurry as I'm grabbing a lot of these from screenshots from video footage. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #67 Share Posted July 22 While my wife and kids grabbed breakfast, I took some time to further explore the ship. As I made my way into Starbucks I had a good look at the line for Guest Services. A good reminder that you should avoid Guest Services on embarkation day and the even day 2 if at all possible on any cruise! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #68 Share Posted July 22 I made my way into Starbucks and grabbed my go to Brown Sugar Oatmilk Shaken Espresso. The beauty of corporate franchises is the consistency of product, even on a cruise ship off the coast of Canada! For reference for anybody who enjoys Starbucks, at 9:30am on a Sea Day - from the moment I walked in to the moment I had a coffee in my hand was 18 minutes. --- 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #69 Share Posted July 22 I know the audience on CC tends to skew older but we're a family sailing with young kids (as the name suggests) so the Kids Clubs and family activities are important to us, so I'll be sharing information about those. --- Splash Academy (kids club for 3-12 year olds) The very first thing we did yesterday when we boarded the ship was make our way to the Kids Club. Not because we were dropping our kids off, but because we know during open house on embarkation day is our only opportunity to grab footage of the kids clubs (before there are kids having fun in them). Registration was already ongoing when we got there and even though we were the second boarding group (after ADA and I assume Haven), we were 4th in line to register. Their registration process seemed overly cumbersome compared to other cruise lines and even though there were only 3 families in front of us, it took us 15 minutes to be called up for our own registration. During this process they seat you at a kiddie table to discuss things and complete the sign off process and I suspect maybe some of those 3 moms in front of us were the type with a hundred questions as we were only at the table around 3 minutes and the ones in front of us were there quite a bit longer. (we cruise a lot so I'm sure that helps since we know what to expect vs families perhaps cruising for the first time) They said there are 900-1,000 kids on our sailing and the kids clubs will be pretty full as a result. --- --- The front lobby area: --- Registration Tables: --- Other Parts of the Kids Club: 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #70 Share Posted July 22 Our kids are not teens but we still wanted to take a peek at the other spaces. The Entourage Teens Club (13 - 17 year olds) is one, large open room with air hockey, foosball, a dance floor with interactive DJ screen where they can choose their own music, plenty of screens and video games, a table full of board games and crafts, and lots of open space to have fun. --- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #71 Share Posted July 22 The final kids club is Guppies, for 6 months - 3 years old. This is a smaller space than the other two (but so are the littlest ones!). --- --- Reading Corner: --- Perhaps some sage advice for us older kids (adults) as well: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #72 Share Posted July 22 Finally, the Video Arcade. This is actually one of three arcade spaces we've seen so far (in addition to the Galaxy Pavilion and a space we walked through leaving the theater, I think near Local). Kudos to NCL for having a fully functioning arcade as these are often in varying states of disrepair on cruise ships. --- --- Busting out some sweet guitar solos: --- Hugging those turns into the corners! -- Practicing his form on the perfect shot: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #73 Share Posted July 22 A note about the Kids Club... When my wife dropped my kids off she said they asked where we would be and she told them walking around the ship exploring. They told her they have to know exactly where we'll be so she just told them our room, but how would anybody know this on a cruise ship?? They gave her the card below and said we need to call any time we go to a new spot. Good luck with that NCL... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rare FamilyAtSea.travel Posted July 22 Author #74 Share Posted July 22 Alright, I'm getting the stink eye from my (very patient) wife, so I need to wrap things up for now. I'll be back later with some less kid-centric updates! 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrt.mom Posted July 22 #75 Share Posted July 22 11 hours ago, FamilyAtSea.travel said: I need to grab pictures off my GoPro but we did the tube slide today since we figured this is as warm as it's going to get. The drop slide that sends you over the edge of the ship was closed today... Don't think there was anything wrong with it, they just said it doesn't open until tomorrow. The line for the slide that was open didn't appear to be very long but it took nearly an hour as they were only letting people go down every 3-5 minutes even though the slide itself was only roughly 30 seconds long. I'm not exactly sure why but we waited in any case. The slide was fun but not fun enough to be worth how long the line took. --- After the slide we had fun at the Kid's Aqua Park for a bit and then in the Kids Pool. --- Following the water fun, we went and danced and had fun at the Sail Away Party. They did a good job with this and people were definitely enjoying themselves. We got lots of great video content so I'll try to grab some for screen captures from that to share. I had trouble on the waterslide...I'd go only halfway around the loop and then slide backwards and they'd have to open an escape door for me to get out... I like they way your room is set up with the bed by the balcony...what a view you have without having to get up! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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