Review - Sun, Western Caribbean, 23 October 2004

[Globaliser]

The first thing to say about this cruise is that it hosted the 4th Annual Jazz Party at Sea, which (between musicians, jazz party staff and paying passengers) accounted for about half of the ship's capacity. However, it seemed to me from reading the daily schedules that there was no discernible effect on the entertainment available for the non-jazzers, even if some of it was in places I've not seen before on the Sun, eg both karaoke and dancing in the Great Outdoors Restaurant. If that's the impression that non-jazzers also had about the cruise, then two thumbs up for Linda Minnikin (CD) and her team, who seem to have been imaginative and creative about making sure that everyone got the cruise they had bargained for.

 

I've already posted officers and staff names in another thread so I won't repeat these here.

 

Embarkation

I took a taxi to the pier at about 1100. It was almost a shame to be going because I'd stayed with friends on South Beach who have an apartment with a view over the cruise ship berths and downtown Miami, as well as of the ocean. However, that was the time that a group of us regular jazzers had agreed to go to the pier and meet up, so off I went.

 

The only hiccup in embarkation was when I accidentally tipped $5 for my one suitcase, instead of the $1 which I'd intended. (I still get caught out sometimes by this monochrome money that you have to read, rather than just look at the edge of, to ascertain its denomination.) However, subsequent events proved one thing: tipping big at this point does nothing for getting your bag to you quickly. Mine turned up well after sailing, and only very shortly before the announcement that all luggage had been delivered. It had obviously been languishing at the bottom of the heap after getting onto the ship early and spending the afternoon having more bags dumped on top of it.

 

We were told that it was taking longer than expected to get all the luggage on board, though, because of security screening, and at one stage the ship was estimating that we would not sail until 1800 (rather than the scheduled 1600). There were rumours that this delay was actually because a flight was late and had enough passengers on board who were on the cruise line's air arrangements that it was worth waiting for them, but I never got to the bottom of this.

 

Muster drill

Boring - and bilingual (in German and English), which made it worse. Few people listened, and the loudspeakers delivering the announcements were not loud enough to drown out the conversation that so many people felt obliged to have. Nothing was said about what to do if you see someone going overboard, and nothing about how to enter the water safely, nor only to do so as a last resort. Nothing from the captain.

 

Sailaway party

A relatively low-key affair, but the proper introductions were made, a conga line was formed and the Electric Slide duly danced. Most of the cruise staff melted away quite quickly but I was pleased to be able to chat to one who I remembered had been on last year's cruise, and who also recognised me, and who introduced me to the other two who were still there leading the dancing.

 

Just one real criticism of this party - the very aggressive pushing of sailaway drinks in souvenir "yard" glasses. At one door, leading from the gym area to the pool, the bar staff were crowding so tightly around the door, pushing the glasses into your face, that it felt almost intimidating. If I want a third world bazaar, I'll go to one, thank you.

 

Latitudes

No Latitudes letter for me; I had to go to see the port & cruise to make sure my number was in. But it seemed to be, and an invite duly arrived for the party which was on Monday evening. Confusion over the time of the party - the invite said "1745 (after sailing)" but the schedule said 1815. As sailing was at 1800, I went at 1815 to find that it had after all been 1745. The captain didn't turn up because he was still needed on the bridge.

 

Dining

We ate in the Seven Seas twice and the Four Seasons once (on formal night). Ginza teppanyaki, Il Adagio, Pacific Heights and Le Bistro each got one visit. We tended to dine between 2000 and 2100. We had a two minute wait in the Four Seasons and a two minute wait in Pacific Heights when turning up without a reservation. We had the staff captain with us in the Four Seasons - we'd basically picked him up at the captain's party on formal night - and were seated at a suitably prominent table near the entrance, but I don't know whether that made it a longer or shorter wait than it would otherwise have been. The visits to the Seven Seas involved no waits and we had reservations for the three chargeable restaurants.

 

There is now a $5 per person cancellation charge if you make a reservation for a specialty restaurant and cancel it after 1700. However, we didn't get charged when only three of us arrived in the Bistro on a reservation for four, so there is probably some flexibility on this - I suspect that it's intended to be more of a deterrent against frivolous reservations than a charge to be genuinely applied in every case.

 

Captain's party

I can't remember much of previous years' parties, but what was noticeable this time was that there were no speeches or anything like that. The captain spent the entire party having his photo taken with passengers. Officers and staff had been instructed to mingle, but they were mostly standing in a clump on deck 6. However, as this was where my friends and I had also gathered, at least we got to talk to them.

[Globaliser]

Fitness activities

Getting fit and losing weight is always top of my agenda on a cruise, so it came as no surprise to my friends to find me aiming as usual for two T-shirts (= 20 fitness activities). Although they were giving credit for active shore excursions, I didn't do any - or any inactive ones either. The only double credit was for the fitness walk in Cozumel on the grounds that it was "long" - but as it was only about ¾ of a hour's walk I treated this as a bit of a bonus. The gym instructors were both great - sensitive to the group's abilities and condition in any particular class.

 

The one small disappointment was the putting tournament organised by cruise staff on the first sea day (Sunday), who refused to give a fitness credit despite the fact that it was advertised in the schedule as a qualifying activity. He said that he would give a credit if we also went to the putting on the second sea day (Friday). I didn't bother - I didn't need the credit any more by then.

 

Other daytime activities

As threatened, I was in most of the trivia sessions, together with my regular trivia partner (whom I see only on board the jazz cruises). We had great fun doing it, against some stiff competition - but one of the really nice things that has happened is that it looks like everyone who takes part now gets something to take away. The winners simply have first choice of the goodies in the bag, and on the occasions on which we won we didn't necessarily go for the best things because quite frankly we have enough NCL ship stuff at home as it is.

 

There was an interesting variety of dancing classes, including "Soulful Line Dancing" which is a regular feature of the jazz cruises - the class is taken by a regular jazzer. All dance classes were very welcome; it's too difficult to find good ones ashore these days.

 

Entertainment

Because I was trying to see a reasonable amount of the jazz, the only "show" that I saw was the Liar's Club, which I hadn't seen before (much to the surprise of the cruise staff) and which contained some gags that were new (to me). Although it was well written anyway, the two funniest things were watching the panel (CD, ACD and comedian Jeff Harms) corpsing despite what must have been familiar lines, and the more ad-libbed interplay with the audience.

 

I did get to both of the ship's deck parties - and finally got hauled off to be one of the Village People in the 70's section of the retro party. This is a distinct disadvantage of knowing the cruise staff on board - they tend to make a beeline for passengers whom they know will find it difficult to say "no". Both fun occasions despite being relatively sparsely attended because of the proportion of passengers in the jazz sessions.

 

The pianist in the Windjammer (Kathryn Farmer Stewart) deserves a special mention - she is very good. She does standards, but accompanies herself in a very jazzy idiom - exactly right for the jazz cruise, as it happens, but available to everyone. Of course, one bonus was that every so often she would do impromptu sets with some of the jazz greats who were on board.

 

Ports of call

The ports of call are usually very low on my list of cruising priorities, especially on a cruise such as this. So the only port at which I got off the ship was Cozumel - once to do the fitness walk, and then later to drop into Carlos and Charlies for the briefest possible 3-hour visit. The ship is docked at Punta Langosta, in town and directly opposite Carlos and Charlie's, which is very convenient.

 

The only thing of note was the landing arrangements at Roatan. Because we arrived at 0800 (rather than the scheduled 1100 - owing to the cancellation of Grand Cayman and the consequent short overnight sail from Costa Maya) and the Sea was arriving at 1200, we docked from 0800 to 1100, and then moved off the dock and DP'd and tendered offshore for the remainder of our stay to allow the Sea to use the dock. I'm not sure what will happen when the normal port schedule and times are resumed.

 

Disembarkation

The baggage deadline was 0300, which was much better than the earlier times I have encountered on other cruises and lines. This meant that you could really have an entire evening out, come back and then start packing. (I take the view that as you are simply collecting up everything that's in your cabin and sticking back in the suitcase which it came out of six days earlier, it can't take more than half an hour.)

 

Express disembarkation was offered, if you are able to take and carry all your luggage with you without assistance. This started at about 0700, but you needed no tags or other arrangements, and you could basically get off at any time. One word of warning if you are minded to do this: You do have to get the bags down an escalator.

 

Otherwise disembarkation groups started at an estimated 0810 and the last group was estimated at 0940. In the event, although I didn't pick tags in the very last group, some of us stayed on board right to the very end until they were calling for stragglers to disembark, as we didn't have to be in South Beach until 1100.

 

Non-US citizens have their passports given back to them in the baggage hall. Immigration and Customs are now done by a single person after you collect your bags and are exiting the hall. This was chaos and the non-US queues moved at the usual snail's pace - even without fingerprinting and photographing. Fortunately, it only took about 30 minutes to get done, as opposed to last year's 75 minutes just for immigration alone.

 

Conclusion

Overall, this was a very good cruise, and better than the two immediately preceding years which were both on the Sun. The jazz cruise is always a little difficult in that there is too much to do on a cruise already without the addition of another completely separate entertainment schedule on top. But it's better to be spoilt for choice than bored.

[Globaliser]

For anyone who may be interested, all the Freestyle Dailies have now been scanned and are available to view from this page.

[snorklinbarb]

Globaliser,

Thanks very much for putting up the review & all the other details. We were on the Sun for the 7 day Alaska & 5 night Pac. Coastal in Sept. and enjoyed the sailing very much.

 

It was great fun to dine at the teppanyaki with only 12 people and the filet was so very tender. Sushi was wonderful as well and the chefs are most accommodating about mixing and matching. We particularly enjoyed the cooking demos the chefs put on both for the alternate restaurants & the sushi.

 

Like you & a few other posters, however, we, too, noted the incredibly aggressive bar staff up on the pool deck.:eek: It was so bad during sailaway that you couldn't walk through the doorways to get outside. The line was literally backed up as the bar team clogged the doorway with outstretched arms extended just about clinking glasses in your face! We've never seen anything like it. In another review someone speculated that the barstaff work on a quota, but I've never seen this kind of behavior on any other NCL ship. Hopefully someone from the Sun will see these posts and correct this as it leaves a sour taste in what is otherwise a very pleasant experience.

[OCruisers]

Really GREAT Review -- Enjoyed All of the Details!

 

Thanks so much! Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

[travelmoxie]

Thanks for the Sun review. It was really helpful and funny in all the right places........