Seas2mountains

Thank you! I bet your 12/9/23 cruise won't have too many kids to drive up the numbers. We have been on the Encore, Breakaway, Getaway and Bliss so we were familiar with the large numbers with Breakaway and Breakaway Plus ships but we were told there were 5118 passengers on this cruise which made it very crowded in the atrium, pool and main dining rooms at dinner. If we were a party of 2 people rather than 5 people, they said they had more options for us to modify our reservations.

Thank you for the suggestion. When I read live reviews, I prefer to see the photos as the PDF appears as a file that I then have to download and open to view. Are you suggesting that you can download the PDF and have it appear like photos or do you have to click on the file and open the attachment to view as a reader?

I really liked Casablanca and would choose that option for the food options and views over Mike's but we were in a situation with some really hungry family members and Mike's worked just fine for our group. I would warn that there are no views from Mike's and it is a bar restaurant.

Thank you for your kind words. Do you have an upcoming cruise planned? MSC Yacht Club is definitely relaxing and their One Pool area is much better than the Haven pool area. Yes, everyone had a great time and we really enjoyed the time with our granddaughter.

We waited until about 10:40am to disembark. While the lines were shorter than they had been, it still took until 10:56am to get into the cruise terminal and it was a little after 11am when we got through customs. The area outside the cruise terminal area was very crowded between the 5000+ people getting off the ship and 5000+ people getting on the ship. Since we didn't trust that an Uber XL would fit our 5 suitcases plus the 5 of us, we walked over to the taxi stand and waited about 3 minutes for a taxi mini-van to arrive to take us to the FLL airport. We don't know if the taxi driver charged extra for the five of us or for the tolls as he used the express lane and it cost $130 before tip which was much more than we paid in early May to take a taxi from the same cruise terminal to FLL - I think it was $80 then for two of us.

Thank you! Cane Garden Bay. It was about a 20 minute taxi ride.

Our son and his fiancée absolutely loved Choir of Man and were stunned to hear it was the first full performance by this new cast on this ship. My husband and I had seen the performance on another ship and while we also loved it, we had conflicts with dinner reservations and decided to listen to Ben in The District instead. They also loved hanging out in Syd’s Norman Pour House for the different performances and karaoke. People were in Syd’s long before the performance and it looked like every seat was taken. My husband and I enjoyed the performances on other less crowded ships so we again decided to go to The District instead.

Ropes course and Spice H20 photos.

Day 7 Daily.

Good morning from the Escape! We had a great last breakfast at Taste and as of 10am, we are waiting for the disembarkation line to get shorter before we get in line to disembark. We have a late afternoon flight out of FLL.

We had another great day on the Escape and enjoyed the sea day. Bayamo is our favorite restaurant and we had wonderful service and food. Guest services said there were 5118 passengers and there were about 700 kids. A bar tender said the next cruise will have 5800 passengers. There are no states room door decorations or magnets. Some passengers who had them were told to remove them. If you have thermal spa passes and use the thermal spa pool, the side jets on the port and star bird sides don’t work very well consistently and kind of sputter and struggle to maintain pressure. We have been on the Getaway, Breakaway, Bliss and Encore and did not have any issues until being on this ship. We drank P+ wines, champagne, and the NCL ‘66 gin. It was easier to get P+ in the atrium, all specialty dining restaurants, Manhattan, Taste and Savor but not in all lounges and not by the pool. I’ll post more photos and updates tomorrow. Our granddaughter had so much fun at Splash Academy and made many friends. Tonight she had dinner at Garden Cafe so we could enjoy dinner at Bayamo with our son and his fiancée. She walked around waving and saying Hi to her friend by name. It was definitely more stressful cruising with family as we adjusted time schedules and plans to make everyone happy. It also extended dinner as we are usually in and out at specialty dining in 60-90 minutes but our travel companions eat slow and it takes longer with more people so it was a minimum of 2 hours with them. This our first cruise ever to not make it to a trivia session. We are blessed to get to do a B2B on the Spirit starting on June 21st with no family members. Just my husband and I. 🙂 We had to retrain our son to honor the “Do Not Disturb” light for our room when Splash Academy was open as he thought that meant we were in the room and he could ask us questions. We thought our granddaughter was hurt in Splash Academy if someone was knocking at the door when she was at SA and he couldn’t figure out why we didn’t answer the phone so that’s why he knocked at the door. He gets it now. Lol. 🫢😬

We did eat lunch today at Garden Cafe and there weren’t too many people. We like the salad options and can always find other decent entrees. We are still in the kid’s pool area where our granddaughter is still taking advantage of no lines for the yellow water slide and the blue water slide that involves using an inter tube. She’s waiting for her uncle to be with her for the scarier water slide. If it were just my husband and I, we would not have selected this cruise ship or itinerary for this time of year but it has been a great choice for our family members.

We enjoyed time off the ship in the pool at Taino Bay in Dominican Republic. We got back on the ship about 12:30pm which gave our granddaughter lots of time on the water slides on the ship with no lines. I’m able to post updates while half the people are off the ship and not bogging down the wifi. You can get a ride on those golf type of carts by paying tip money. It does not cost anything to use the pool or lazy river but they encourage purchasing items at the stores, bar or restaurant. We couldn’t figure out how to give tips for use of the pool. The pool is 4 feet deep in most areas. The ship kid’s pool is 5 feet deep.

A few food photos from Le Bistro. Make your reservations early as the space has limited seating compared to other specialty dining restaurants on the ship. Filet de Beef and Seabass plus desserts. The $10 supplement on the filet only applies if you want Foie Gras included.

While we stayed on the ship in Tortola, our son and his fiancée said they loved the beach they found and had a great time snorkeling and saw a lot of fish and sea creatures. We took advantage of the time to have some down time to play monopoly with our granddaughter and try the ropes course. We have enjoyed having breakfast and lunch at Taste or Savor. Our granddaughter loves spending time with her new friends at Splash Academy. They were open yesterday from 2-4pm and she only got to spend about an hour as she was busy with the ropes course. We all had dinner at Le Bistro last night and at Cagney’s on Wednesday evening. The food and service have been excellent. They still serve Veuve Cliquot in Le Bistro and mentioned a supply issue as to why it wasn’t available on the rest of the ship. Our son’s fiancée said the meal at Le Bistro was one of the best meals she has ever had. She had the steak tartare, French onion soup, lamb, and strawberry dessert. We agree with her that it was a fantastic meal. Here are some photos from Tortola and some lunch photos. Cheeseburger, fish tacos, spinach salad and shrimp fritters.

Day 6.

We are all having a great time. I may be delayed with updates due to enjoying time with family and having slow wifi.

You could easily see most of Coral World in 60-90 minutes leaving time on Coki Beach. If you want to leave earlier or later, there are taxis available at a cost of $14 per person.

You could easily see most of Coral World in 60-90 minutes leaving time on Coki Beach. If you want to leave earlier or later, there are taxis available at a cost of $14 per person.

It’s a beautiful but hot day for those of us who are not yet acclimated to summer humidify and heat. We had a leisurely morning as we arrived in St Thomas before 11am. We had an excursion to Coral World at 1pm. If you do any cruise ship excursions, be prepared to arrive early to wait for the start time with a lot of standing around waiting. NCL does have water stations and towels available for pick up as you disembark from the ship. We were lead to open air buses and it was about a 20-25?minute ride to Coral World. This might take longer during peak travel times when more ships are in port. We were told we have 2.5 hours to spend on a self guided tour with a map. Our granddaughter really enjoyed seeing the turtles, fish, dolphins, sting rays, parrots and birds. Coral World is an easy walk to Coki Beach. I’ll add photos at the end.

After we arrived at GSC, we decided to get on the tender at about 9:45am which was after all tender ticket groups were called. When we arrived at the theater which is where people were told to wait for tenders, we noticed it was nearly full with people being directed to sit in seats. Several passengers were heard yelling at crew about waiting for over an hour and they were going to be late for their swimming with the pigs excursion. The crew members kindly explained that the shore excursion team members would try to accommodate the schedule issues due to delays with the tenders. We asked about priority boarding due to our Sapphire status and were directed to the Supper Club and were told we could board the tender as soon as boarding started. There were some swells impacting the boarding process so they were holding until things were calm. We could see it wasn’t safe to board as we could see how much the tender was moving up and down. Within a few minutes, the seas were calm and boarding continued. We had no issues returning to the ship and enjoyed the great weather on the island. Our granddaughter initially wanted to eat lunch on the island but then decided she would prefer to eat on the ship after showering and changing clothes as she didn’t like the idea of eating while wearing a wet swim suit. We agreed and enjoyed a not too full Garden Cafe. We have not experienced any capacity issues with Splash Academy. Our granddaughter loves hanging out with her new friends and is enjoying the activities. We tried to pick her up at 10pm but she asked if she could stay longer so we went back closer to 11pm to get her. She was hungry for a snack when we picked her up so a stop at O’Sheehans worked out well as the food came out fast. Yesterday at breakfast I knew she would enjoy a croissant since it is one of her favorite pastries besides donuts. I asked for one for her but they brought a basket with three croissants. She bit into it and said, “I just love a good croissant.” The crew members are so kind to her and continue to ask her if she likes her food and if they can bring her anything. While the internet has been a challenge at peak times, we have been successful with using FaceTime for our granddaughter to speak with her Mom. We are also able to use iMessage to sent texts on devices that are on the ship wifi but not on a wifi package.

People who boarded the ship after we did were given a paper with the itinerary changes. We found out because we heard announcements being made for tender tickets for GSC and they kept saying we would be there on Monday. It did cause a problem for the spa appointments and we did notice the spa was busy when we went there after 2pm on Monday the GSC day. I’m sure this will be a problem for anyone who has independent travel for Dominican Republic as that was also changed.

As mentioned, we are having a fantastic cruise but do notice the very full ship. We had a great dinner in Manhattan on Monday night. It is a little frustrating that there are no separate lines for those who have reservations. We had reservations for 5:30pm but had to wait about 10-15 minutes with the mob of people waiting to be seated. They never asked if we had reservations or not. I do recommend getting all restaurant reservations made for specialty dining when boarding as they seem to be quite full and you may not be successful later at trying to get a reservation. We dined at Teppanyaki last night. When we entered, we were asked if our granddaughter wanted to eat from the children’s menu or order from the adult menu and pay the charge. We had purchased specialty dining credit for her so we selected the adult menu. There were two other children at our table who ordered from the kid’s menu but were given the vegetable, a bowl of rice, shrimp and they shared their parents other food. Our granddaughter really liked her Chicken Udon noodles but it is a tough decision to select the adult menu when so much food sharing was allowed and I was surprised to see the kids who didn’t select the adult menu were given the vegetable, bowl of rice and shrimp. To avoid the crowds, we are eating breakfast in Taste or Savor and ate lunch there yesterday during the at sea day. Here are some breakfast photos.