Just back from the 6/27-7/4 NCL Crown

[smeyer418]

What a wonderful cruise/ We had a great time. I am totally spolied by Butler service. :) I'll write more later. But as you see it 11;15 and I have been home for more than a hour.....The worst thing about the cruise was leaving the ship...

[patandcd]

Welcome back! Glad you had a good time. Can't wait to hear the details.

[smeyer418]

We had a great time. The cruise was very full with 1200 people and 300 kids. The pool and decks were very crowded but we had an owner's suite(very large and well laid out) with a 160 sq foot balcony which we could just lay out on. You get three bottles of booze with the room(I ordered one bottle of port which was very good as well)The food was good as good as the regular resturants on the Dawn. I recogized the resturant manager from the Norweigan Sea from last September. We ate at chopsticks one evening and while the service was exceptional the menu is too limited and there is a strange noise in the resturant that can become annoying(a high pitched sound that they couldn't locate). I went snorkling on our own at St. Catherines beach and Horseshoe bay and saw many many exotic fish. One was black when coming at me and when it turned it was a shocking color of purple. I said "oh wow" out loud not that best thing to do with a snorkle in my mouth. You get priority disembarkation with the AA but we left after the walk offs with their own luggage and there was NO traffic at all at the pier. We were in our car with the luggage on our way by 9:30. We though the shows were good but they don't have a nice a lounge area as the Dawn. We spent a lot time in The Casino bar and the pianist was ok. He also played a pan flute. Our butler(it was his first week) was great(Karin) as were the truely outstanding room stewards. I actually liked the Crown very much. I am amazed how even after some cruises people know so little(it was one couples second NCL cruise and they thought you pay extra for room service) at the first days lunch the senior people were coming around and some women complained to them about the small portions and he very nicely said, you can have a second or third if you want. I do tend to stop at two. The deserts were excellent and a tip of my hat to the people who said to order the chocolate mousse from room service. It was by far the best mousse I have ever had. The only time we saw a problem was the first sea day for dinner about 8:30 there was a terrible line. After that it was fine. No more than a 5 minute wait to be seated. The cruise was very full with over 1200 and more than 300 kids. The kids seemed to have a good time but by Thursday night I think they were getting bored as they started pressing all the elevator buttons. I thought the shops had a better selection of stuff at reasonable prices than the Dawn.

The chocolohics buffet was Saturday 3-4. This was the best one I had so far on NCL. Great chocolate macdemia nuts brittle. Strawberries and fresh fruit chocolate cups. While there was a line, The manager sent wait staff out with trays of chocolates so you could start early eating them a nice touch.

The entertainment staff and CD were excellant and very approachable. I had a long conversation with the CD at a party and the next day he sent me maybe 20 pages of the latest news on the NCL fleet. With his working so long days I was impressed by his follow up.

The Post and Cruise consultant was far and away the best I had seen on any ship ever. Knowledgeable about the ports, not too pushy on buying things from NCL and short and to the point.

We liked both St. George and Hamilton., The dockyard was ok(it rained Thursday night and Friday morning). We went into Hamilton by Ferry for dinner Thursday but the ferry schedule back sucks and we decided to eat a snack at the Fairmont Princess and make the 7:15 ferry back(a 20 minute ferry)-The next Ferry leaves at 9:45 and makes every stop and doesn't get back to the Dockyard until 11. Well the 7:15 ferry turned out to be the one non a-c ferry they have(even the fans don't work) and it poured(lightening and thundering-I started singing Gilligan's Isle) on the way back and it was an adventure-oh when we were getting off the Crown to take Ferry the Captain saw I had an umbrella and he told me it never rained much in Bermuda...turns out when we were on the Ferry back he went out byclcling and got soaked to the bone shoes and all. He and I had a good laugh at that later...Bermuda needs to add a direct Ferry around 8:30 so you can eat dinner on shore and get back at a reasonable hour. The voucher for the Fairmont would be a good deal and the food we had there was good but NY hotel prices. It is a well run ship with a good crew in good shape for a 16 year old ship. It is small but then again all the ships in Bermuda were relatively small.

 

St Catherines beach in St. George is much less crowded than Tobacco bay.Getting around Bermuda was extraordinarily easy, even with a taxi strike. Mostly you can take Buses or the Ferry which are relatively inexpensive(compared to a ship sponsored excursion) and easy. You don't need to get a $12.00 one day or the three day one for whatever pass. You can buy tokens for 2.50(bus) or 4.00(Ferry) for a ride unless you are going to take a lot of trips on the Bus or Ferry, the tokens are less expensive. We took the Bus from the Dockyard to Horseshoe Beach. It was a 25 minute very interesting ride. You walk down the hill or to take a $1.00 per person jitney ride down and back up- We walked down and bussed upIn the Dockyard there is a free shuttle bus that makes the rounds every 15 minutes or so. Especially when you come back from the Beach its a good idea to catch this bus which takes you right tup to the ship. . At the pier in St. George you can take a cab(even though there was a strike there were some cabs) for $5.00 each way for two(not per person). Remember its your vacation and about a mile or so walk with a fair amount up hill. We went to St Catherines and not Tabacco bay-which was we hear very crowded. We rented two lounge chairs and an umbrella-- $35.00 per day and worth it(for two chairs and an umbrella) at St Catherines- good snorkling too. Available for rent (I bring my own). At Horseshoe its $10.00 to rent an umbrella and $10.00 for a sand chair. If you go early on Thursday( we made the 9:30 bus) The beach was empty. When we left at 1 or so it had crowded up but it still wasn't bad.

 

Shopping- All three have ports have shopping very close.

 

Davidson sells Bermuda logoed shirts at discount prices and other very good and reasonable clothes(both Men and Women) We bought a lot at the AS Coopers in Hamilton. They have a Balik artist there for the next month or so who will personalized the Balik for you(sign the botton i.e Bermuda 2004 etc) relatively reasonable Balik at that. There was also a wedgewood artist doing the same thing. This is an old style service oriented department store. There used to be many of these smaller department stores in every town in the US they are gone and replaced by you know who. It reminded me of B Altman's in NY and Sideys in western NY. The shopping was ok and in the heat of the day its a good place to go...and since we won a couple hundred dollars at the slots we stayed at least even. There is a street fair tueday night in St George and Wednesday in Hamilton.

The only thing that upset us was leaving the ship and one person who said I had bumped a line(I didn't)

 

 

 

Whales ho! Both going of NY and on the way back there be whales. I saw on the first night spouting of water and took a second to realize there be whales! These were large but I couldn't see what kind I called my wife out who I scared but yelling come quick! On the way back there were also small mink whales.

 

The weather other than the rain was very hot in the mid 80's and it was nice to get back to the a/c some times. I did get rained out of my helmet dive on Friday :(

 

any questions just email me

 

Smeyer418@yahoo.com

[patandcd]

Thanks for a great review Smeyer. Appreciate the info. One question tho...what does "bump a line" mean? Am guessing "cut in front of" as we say in Texas.

[smeyer418]

does mean cut in.

[tug]

:) did you, by any chance, have a purple disembarkation tag?

[smeyer418]

no, red VIP :) I didn't knock anyone over LOL