Norwegian Pearl - First Impressions

[colonius]

My wife and I were lucky enough to be invited to the Pearl´s 1-day sail to nowhere on Nov. 29. This was an "invitation only" event, mainly for media, travel agents and some frequent guests. I guess that Dagmar and I are in the last category :D

 

These first impressions have to be short by neccessity, as I came back home tonight and will be flying out to London tomorrow to join the Dec. 2 transatlantic cruise of the pearl. Also, there will be no pictures, as my camera malfunctioned. :(

 

However, I was able to get the "Inaugural Lunch" and "Inaugural Dinner" menues and scanned them for you.

 

Here is the lunch menu:

 

http://www.xnc.com/~colonius/lunch-menu.jpg

 

Left side of the dinner menu:

 

http://www.xnc.com/~colonius/dinner-menu1.jpg

 

Right side of the dinner menu:

 

http://www.xnc.com/~colonius/dinner-menu2.jpg

 

The Pearl looks FANTASTIC, she is a real beauty. Suddenly the Sun, which I really liked, looks quite old. The ship's interieur is very colourful, but in a pleasant way. She looks much nicer on the inside then I had anticipated from the photos.

 

Some things I noticed, compared to the Sun (I have no idea if they have been in place on more recent NCL vessels):

 

- much larger Garden Buffet area, more buffet space, more variety.

- at least one coffee machine in the buffet area actually makes coffee from REAL beans - and even espresso and cappuccino

- kid's buffet and kid's seating area added to the main buffet

 

- larger and more elaborate spa area

 

- pool area has a big waterslide

 

- flat screen displays all over the ship display Restaurant status (open, closed, how busy)

 

- casino tucked away on deck 6, so you can easily avoid it while manuvering the ship

 

- many new dining options

 

- classy looking!

 

- all cabins (at least all out-side cabins) seem to have much improved bathrooms, with a regular-size shower stall with sliding door, toilet area with another sliding-door, small wash-basin area inbetween. Those of you that have been on the Sun or Sky will notice how much the bath-rooms have improved!

 

- regular state-rooms get 110V power only, so bear in mind if you bring european appliances. Penthouses get at least one 230V outlet too, with German-style Schuko connector.

 

- Penthouses (at least AE and better) get Saeco Espresso machines (fully automatic piston-and-pump system). Just press a button and the machine will ground the beans freshly for each cup and prepare your Espresso or coffee before your eyes. If you are so inclined, there is a steam valve for steaming milk, so you can prepare your own cappuccino.

 

There were show-cabins from most categories open for viewing, including the A1 Garden Villas.

 

Some ENTIRELY personal observations:

 

- AE looked very nice and cosy

- A3/AB is great for families, with two separate bed rooms, a separate living room and 1 1/2 bath rooms. The shower has a floor-to-ceiling outside window, the whirl-pool tub has an outside window, too. The kid's room sleeps up to three, with one upper berth. Since that room is an inside room, remember to bring a night-light. The balcony is small, though.

- A2 deluxe owner's suite: that one baffled me. Big bath-room, big deck, good sized sleeping area - but odd-sized and small sitting area. :eek:

- A1 was, well, BIG (more than 500 qm or 5000 sqft). However, I had somehow expected more "finesse" and the lay-out is odd. The "garden" has a few potted plants but is more like a court-yard.

- Regular rooms don't differ much from the Sun.

 

About yesterday's cruise: invitation only, mostly media, travel agents and some frequent guests. Most drinks were on the house (except some premium liquor and wine selection was very limited - two reds and a white, afaik) and now I know how much the average travel agent can drink.... A LOT!!! I guess that 1-day cruise easily used as much booze as a regular 4-day cruise.

 

We sailed from Rotterdam at 5:30 pm after a HUGE fireworks and returned to Rotterdam at 7:00 am.

 

The food in the main restaurants was OUTSTANDING, the best I ever had on NCL. Since the specialty restaurants featured their regular menues, we decided to try them on the transatlantic. The buffet did not look inviting at all - but I never liked NCL's buffets.

 

From an operational point of view, I did not see too many problems (who knows how many I did not see?):

 

- the electronic table allocation system in the main restaurants didn't work well. Restaurants went from "No wait / Green" to "Red / longer wait" and back within a minute. Actually, the lines for dinner were long and they issued pagers that should go off once your table was ready. Ours never went off - when I finally checked back at the Summer Palace after 50 mins, they were applogetic and told us that they had paged us 30 mins ago, but we never got a page. At breakfast, waiting time in the restaurant was long and the lines were substantial, too - even though the restaurant was mostly empty! :confused:

 

- The computer-system in the duty-free shop went hay-wire about ten minutes after opening - so all purchases had to be recorded by hand. Also, there were almost no prices on the shelf, so they had to look up every bottle of booze.

 

- A few, very few, areas that were still being worked on.

 

- Some empty rooms (like the card room)

 

- The Maltings bar had totaly flat draught beer - the system malfunctioned.

 

So NCL still has some room for improvement.

 

In short: it was a memorable evening that we truely enjoyed. I am looking forward to the trans-atlantic and hope that they can work out the remaining quirks until then.

 

If the main restaurants would always serve food like yesterday, NCL would be culinary heaven!

[dwrist]

Thanks for the first impressions.:)

[familyof4cruising]

Thank you for taking the time to writing your review.

[SailAways]

wrong thread - sorry.

[Zeno]

Thanks for your first impressions! I hope they work out that paging system etc.

[RSWBADGER]

Thanks for the review of the Pearl, we are looking forward to our 7 day cruise to the Caribbean in 3 weeks from Miami. :D

[cmdchiefthom]

Colonius

 

Please keep us posted while aboard the Pearl on the transatlantic!;)

[whatawonderfulworld]

I had a feeling that this is where there were going to be some issues. It takes time to get it right...and I know that they will eventually. New restaurants inevitably have alot of kinks to work out.

 

On the other hand, I love what you have to say about the rest of the ship.

 

Thanks for sharing your insights.

 

Ciao,

 

W A W W

[CruiseHealing]

Sounds like a few punch out items need to taken of. The ones that sound the most serious to me are the dinner page system and the flat beer. OK IMO the flat beer is really the biggest problem. I hate hearing about wasted beer.

 

Here's to you, calm seas and . . .

CruiseHealing

[colonius]

Sounds like a few punch out items need to taken of. The ones that sound the most serious to me are the dinner page system and the flat beer. OK IMO the flat beer is really the biggest problem. I hate hearing about wasted beer.

 

Here's to you, calm seas and . . .

CruiseHealing

 

I hate flat beer, too - I am from Germany! :rolleyes:

 

I guess the problem with the draft system should be relatively easy to fix - I worry more about the computer problem. I am in the IT business and I know that it is not easy to fix things like this in two days.

[colonius]

Colonius

 

Please keep us posted while aboard the Pearl on the transatlantic!;)

 

I will have my laptop on hand, so I will follow the boards (if I find time with all the activities on board). Let's see if there is anything to add after shoreguy's blog... ;)

[seahorse]

I will have my laptop on hand, so I will follow the boards (if I find time with all the activities on board). Let's see if there is anything to add after shoreguy's blog... ;)

 

I know that we would like to hear YOUR impressions too:) Thanks.

[candydane]

Did you get a chance to see a handicapped balcony cabin? I'm especially interested in the bathroom and sitting area differences.

 

Thanks.

[seahorse]

I will have my laptop on hand, so I will follow the boards (if I find time with all the activities on board). Let's see if there is anything to add after shoreguy's blog... ;)

 

Hi,

 

Are you OK with those rough seas:) Looking for YOUR impressions. Always good to get all that we can:)

[Stillfloatin']

I'm interested in your impressions as well. The more input, the varied the responses. It helps to form a good over-all view of what folks like best, least, etc.

[colonius]

Did you get a chance to see a handicapped balcony cabin? I'm especially interested in the bathroom and sitting area differences.

 

Thanks.

 

Sorry, no.

[colonius]

Hi,

 

Are you OK with those rough seas:) Looking for YOUR impressions. Always good to get all that we can:)

 

OK, glad to oblige.

 

Some observations about the first three days on the Pearl Transatlantic:

 

The weather has been horrible for the first three days (and nights!), with the first night being the worst by far. Wind speeds on that night reached a sustained speed of well above 100 knots and gusts up to 145 knots (that is about 180 mph, if memory serves) :eek:

 

Or: force 12, as there is nothing above 12 :rolleyes:

 

Or: beyond hurricane strength.

 

Waves were up to 11 meters or above 33 ft.

 

Our penthouse is on deck 11, all the way up front. The motion of the ship during these times can best be compared with a roller coaster at sea. Everthing was moving in all directions. You could not walk along the corridors, you "danced", will you, nil you. In our cabins, one of the drawers shot out of its cabinet and crashed to the floor, even though there are stops build in. Several items toppled and fell. The shower door (all glass) can not be latched and opened and closed on its own volition - hitting the wall with a loud "goooonnngggg" noise every time. Some of the breakers washed our windows and flooded our balcony (deck 11)!

 

I recon that about half the passengers were seasick, including my wife. My 6-year old son was hardly hit by seasickness, my daughter (4 years) and I seem to be imune.

 

On the other hand: lots of room in all public areas, especially the dining rooms. :D

 

While I do not like NCL's buffets (I prefer a 5-course dinner), we usually feed the kids at the buffet before they go to the Kid's Club evening session. During the first three days, the buffet was.... INTERESTING. You heard and saw things crashing all the time. I remember that crew member that piled up a real nice and high stack of plates at the buffet. About a second later, a huge wave hit and send most of the stack crashing to the floor. I am sure that NCL will have quite a bill for broken glasses and china on this trip. Also, once you reached a table and were safely seated (not all people managed this without loosing the contents of their plates) your woes were not over. The tables at the buffet have no table cloth - so all the plates, glasses and mugs had a tendency to slide - or better: FLY of the table, whenever a big wave hit. Quite a few people lost part of their meals this way. I had to catch my daughter's glass of milk - but since I was holding here hamburger with the other hand, I could not catch her plate of fries - which landed on the floor about five tables away.

 

OK, almost 12:00 noon now, I have to get my kids from the club. More to follow!

 

Yet we always felt secure on this ship, which is incredibly well built.

[colonius]

I hate flat beer, too - I am from Germany! :rolleyes:

 

I guess the problem with the draft system should be relatively easy to fix - I worry more about the computer problem. I am in the IT business and I know that it is not easy to fix things like this in two days.

 

Well, I was wrong about the flat beer being easy to fix. It turned out that they have a problem with the pipes (or whatever it is called in this case) both for the draft beer and the soda fountains. Basically, they will have to replace all those pipes once they reach Miami (according to Klaus Lugmaier, Hotel Director and Sean Wurmhoeringer, Food & Beverage Director).

 

So for this cruise: no draft beer (bad news for me) - and all sodas comes from cans, which is good news for all the people on the soda program.

[seahorse]

Thank you Colonius for your review:) Keep it coming and please post when you finish your cruise and tell us ALL:)

[mbisson]

I hate flat beer, too - I am from Germany! :rolleyes:

.

 

I just had a "taste flashback" to my 3 years in Goppingen & Boblingen (near Stuttgart), with the US ARMY. :)

 

Amazing weather you guys are sailing through! I can't begin to imagine what that's like.

 

Thanks for taking the time to keep us updated!

 

-Monte

[Twaincruisers]

colonius, thanks for keeping us informed while you are underway. I am beginning to wonder if this is just normal weather for NCL :) we were on the Spirit in Nov. about two years ago, going from Tortola to Miami when we hit a storm that ultimately registered 40' waves on the instruments in the upper, forward lounge.

 

We are looking forward to a one-nighter next week on the Pearl...take good care of her, please!

[Stillfloatin']

Wow, you folks have been having quite the ride!:eek:

[colonius]

Here I go again with another report on the Pearl.

 

After the first three days, the weather has calmed down (mostly). Unfortunately, we had only one nice day so far, on which we could enjoy the outdoor decks and the pools. Right now, we are close to Bermuda and back to winds force 9 to 12, even though the sea is not to rough at this time.

 

Talking about the pools: nice! Especially the big slide has been an instant hit, not only with the kids. Speaking of kids: the kiddie pool is now in a sheltered, roofed corner on deck 12, with a little playground next to it. Also, there is a gated glass-enclosure around it, the gate being opened by a handle that is so high up that it can only be operated by an adult. The water is only about a foot high in the kiddie pool.

 

This setup has some tremendous advantages over earlier kiddie pools I have seen on NCL: no danger of sun-burn, almost no wind exposure, more to play with for the kids - and: with the enclosure, mom and dad can actually relax a bit without watching the kids every second. The kiddie pool will probably appeal only to age 5 and younger.

 

A few words about the restaurants and food on board. Bear in mind that this is from a highly subjective point of view, so your mileage will probably vary. I last cruised with NCL in September 2005 (on the Sun), so I did not experience the dreaded "new" menues that had been around for a while this year, the Pearl started out with the "new new" menues. Food in the main dining rooms has always been acceptable on this cruise, mostly good, some times excellent. The decor of the Summer Palace is a bit rich for me, bordering on the tacy (they recreate the feeling of a St. Petersburg Palace). The other main restaurant, Indigo, with its colorful, yet clear, contemporary design, is more to my taste.

 

Le Bistro: OK, but a far cry from real french cuisine as you would experience it in France. Le Bistro is more like an American idea about French cuisine - or should I say, "Americanized French cuisine"? To make myself a bit clearer: we ordered a Chateaubriand, which traditionally is an entrecote double (sometimes also a double filet mignon) with a large variety of vegetables (each prepared differently) and a variety of potatoes, served with sauce bernaise and sometimes other sauces. What we got was a perfect entrecote double (tender, juicy, melting in your mouth), with a very good sauce bernaise and a good sauce bordelaise. So far, so good. However, we got only a small sampling of "California style" vegetables. With california-style, I mean steamed, crunchy (undercooked?) vegetables. One piece of cauliflower, one piece of broccoli, a few mushrooms, a piece of carrot. For potatoes, we only got two tiny pieces of undercooked, boiled potatoes. That was a bit disapointing. The french onion soup was OK, so was the appetizer (foie gras). The dessert (which we passed), would have been a souflé. All prepared expertly, but also a bit stereotypical.

 

Lotus Garden: excellent Asian fusion cuisine, that we truely, truely enjoyed. Great variety, great flavour, great presentation.

 

Shabu Shabu: this is like Mongolian Firepot or Fondue Chinoise, were you get a pot of boiling broth (there is an oven plate in the table), raw beef and a variety of vegetables to dip/cook in the broth. In the end, you also get to eat the broth, if you like. This was also very delicious, just don't forget to ask for seconds and thirds on the beef :D

 

Teppanyaki and La Cuccina: yet to come

 

Cagney's (dinner): no incentive for us to try, see below

 

A great feature for all people in Penthouses and better: Breakfast and Lunch are offered to you at Cagney's, with an expanded and more sophisticated menue. For example, you can have Filet Mignon and Eggs for breakfast - or "Crab Cake Eggs Benedict", Traditional Eggs Benedict, Smoked Salmon Frittata, among other items. Lunch menues vary daily, a 10oz New York Steak for all of us beef-eaters is included daily. Most of the items we had at lunch and breakfast at Cagney's have been excellent, especially the steaks, which are regular Cagney quality. With all the excellent steaks we could ever wish for at lunch and breakfast, we preferred other items at dinner, though.

 

In other words: depending on your level of experience with real french cuisine, you might be OK with "Le Bistro" or you might not...

 

Main buffet: much more buffet space means more variety and less crowds, the seating is still inadequate at peak times (lunch and late morning breakfast). The quality and variety.... I just don't like either. Too much hamburger, hot dog and pizza for my taste. OK for a quick bite, if you are short on time.

 

Facit: the food is very good on the Pearl, much better than on our last cruise on the Sun in Sep. 2005. If you have access to the upgraded breakfast and lunch at Cagney's and avoid the less inspired dinner offerings at the main restaurants, the food is excellent.

 

Service: truely, truely outstanding. The Pearl, like the Jewel last year, got the "A-Team". So called, beause the hotel director (Klaus Lugmaier), food & beverage director (Sean Wurmhoeringer) and the concierge (Ruth Hagger) are all from Austria. They also bring aboard their favorite people in many other key positions of the Hotel Operations. These people are NCL's cream of the crop and take care of all the little (and not so little) problems of a new ship in an impressive and highly effective way.

 

Of course there were things that went wrong. For example, the very first breakfast at Cagney's took forever. Nobody took your order, after they took your order you waited and waited and waited (total of more than 90 minutes for breakfast). This happened exactly once, once the A-Team was aware of the problem... they just fixed it. Before lunch, actually - which went smoothly and efficiently, like any other meal at Cagney's we had after that.

 

Another example: the Kid's Club evening session starts at 7:00pm, but they took down the Kid's Cafe buffet at 6:00pm, which made no sense. When I commented on this to the supervisor at the buffet, I got a very nosy, snobby answer - to the tone of "That is the way we do it and I could care less about your opinion". One suggestion to Sean fixed this immediately - now the Kid's buffet closes at 7:00.

 

If you are about to cruise on the Pearl, especially as long as you are in a Penthouse (AE or better), you will experience the best NCL has to offer. If you do it as long as the A-Team is on board, you will be in heaven ;)

 

(I assume the A-Team will transfer to the Gem, next).

 

I just hope you will have better weather than we had (so far). :(

[seahorse]

Thank you for taking the time. Very comprehensive:)

[SANDPEBBLES]

Just wanted to thank you for providing great information and very interesting stories about your experiences on The Pearl.

 

Your writing is vivid and enjoyable to read. Well done!