Analog187

Day 12 - Disembarkation 

Nothing too exciting today.  Went to breakfast and headed out before our tags were called as we saw a chance to get out between huge crowds.  Had to wait until 8:45 to get on the bus.  Bus ride is less than an hour to the airport.  It was a pretty easy process.  

Day 11 - Volos

This port was the biggest mystery since it seems like only a few cruises stop there and the ones that do mostly go for Meteora.  Since we didn't dock until noon, Meteora wasn't an option.  On top of that, an error in NCL's computer prevented us from even seeing tours in Volos let alone booking them ahead of the cruise.  When we got on, they had one tour available but they said another would be available a few days later.  So we came back a few days later and booked the Villages of Mount Pelion.  

Day 10 - Continued

We went to Moderno for dinner.  Good as always although I liked the sirloin better than anything else which is unusual.  The servers either all came around at the same time or no one came for a while.  Some stuff came out several times while we had to ask for other items to be brought out.  Not sure what was up with that.

The show tonight was Paradis which was a french themed show.  As I've said before, not really into production shows but this one way really good.  It drew the biggest audience so people seem to really like these shows.  I thought they did a great job with the costumes and the variety.  Some stuff didn't really fit in but it was still really good.  It had two aerialist sets including the aerialists from the other show.  That was really cool.   There was this really seductive type dance that was amazing.  A few things were a little goofy.  

We then went to the Weakest Link show.  We watched it for about 15 minutes and it wasn't that exciting and the people got some very easy answers wrong which was odd.  We thought we'd be much better off relaxing in the room.  

Day 10 - Izmir

For having to figure everything out on the fly, we did pretty good.  We took a cab to Angora which was really cool.  Not the largest ruins in the world but at $2.50 a person, it was really cheap.  Cab was 10 euro but it looks like using Uber to get in the same cab would have been cheaper.  We figured that out on the way back which was only 4 euro.  Oh well, no big deal.  We then walked through the bazaar which wasn't that exciting really.  The one in Istanbul is probably much better.  It's an interesting experience and I would recommend checking it out at least for a few minutes.  We then checked out the clocktower and mosque and decided our feet just can't take much more.  Took the taxi back and there's a road which a bunch of restaurants.  We had turkish tea at one place.  Less than $2 for two teas.  Really good.  Bought a few magnets and then got this amazing chocolate drinks and desserts.  Pics on my FB page.  It really was incredible and I probably gained a few pounds.  Got back on the ship and went to the hot tub for a half hour.  Felt really good.  Pool area was crowded as I think a lot of people were afraid to get off the ship.  We didn't see a ton of people out and about and we overheard a few people at breakfast saying that they were scared to go ashore.  

Day 9 continued

After lunch we went to the White Magic Workshop/Show in the Bliss.  This was really cool because it wasn't that crowded so we got to be up close.  It was part show, part magic lesson part commerical for a DVD he was selling but it was still a lot of fun.  We learned a few tricks and he did some really cool close up magic.  It was a lot of fun.  Grunway Tom came to watch and I went over to him at the end of the show to tell him how funny he was.  Nice guy.

We needed a nap after that and I think a lot of people did too.  We didn't bother with a sit down dinner since there was nothing we liked so we just went to the buffet.  It was meh as always.  The dancers had another show at 7 and it was also really good.  We went back to our cabin after that.  Just as we were about to go to sleep the captain came on to tell us that we would not be going to Istanbul due to the bombing there.  I happened to see this on the news so I kinda figured this would happen.  Instead we were going to Izmir.  We used a few internet minutes to try to get a few ideas as to what to do while there but I think everyone else had the same idea as the internet wasn't really working.  So we decided to just figure it out in the morning.  

Day 9 - Kusadasi

Got up real early for our tour.  We went with the one that went into the terrace house at Ephesus and I'm glad we did.  Those are really cool.  We ended at the Turkish rug place where we bought a rug.  I talked him down a ton so hopefully I got a good deal.  Who knows.  Lunch was mobbed since everyone was eating at the same time.  Very hard to find a table.  We are now leaving for Istanbul.  

Day 8 continued

Cagney's would good, probably a little better than other times.  The show was Grunway Tom again.  He is just amazing.  So funny.  I could watch him everyday.  They are doing two things today and the next day where they will have the NCL cast doing something in Bliss at 8 and 10 while the headliner is in Stardust.  Really cool of them to do that.  We didn't bother going to the show in Bliss because it's not our thing.  We then did the Art Scavenger hunt and went to sleep early after that since we had to wake up at 6am the next day which was really 5 am with the time change.  

9 minutes ago, glentally said:

Thanks but if I read it correctly you were just getting on the ship for embarkation.  I assume they will tell you each port whether the unvaxinnated can get off?

My understanding is that they won't let you on the ship in the first place.  If you have other questions, I would suggest starting a new thread to ask questions on this or call NCL.  

Day 8 - Santorini

What an amazing site to wake up and see the town of Fira high on the cliffs.  We had the Village and Winery tour.  I only booked the tour to avoid any problems with getting back.  Only us and the Jade in port and the Jade came in late so it probably wouldn't have been a problem but no big deal.  Instead of taking the cable car up, we went the other way where the bus was waiting for us.  The guide Agatha was good.  We first stopped at the winery.  Not really my thing.  Wine was meh but I'm a wine snob so maybe you can't really go by me.  They also had goat cheese, tomatoes, olives and this bread stick thing to munch on.  Bathrooms here are free so I advise you to stop because there are no more free bathrooms after this.  1 euro unless you are buying something at a cafe like we did.  You can try 3 different wines, red, white and a dessert wine.  My wife really liked the dessert wine, I thought the red was OK.  Some decent pics there.

Then we rode to Oia Village.  This is the famous spot where everyone takes pictures.  It was fun and the pictures are amazing but you feel like cattle.  Tons of people all fighting to get by in these narrow streets.  We stopped and got some pastries as we didn't really have time to eat since we were so busy taking pics.

We then took the bus to Fira which is the town with the cable car.  I didn't see any donkeys but I assume they were there somewhere.  A few people walked down which is crazy.  We took pics and shopped as there are a ton of shops there, much more than Oia.  The line for the cable car looked really long but it was just 10 to 15 minutes.  Once we got down, there was a big line for the tender and for some reason they were not loading anyone.  Took almost a half hour to get on a boat.  We're going to Cagney's tonight for dinner.  

3 hours ago, glentally said:

I thought unvaxinated are allowed on ships?  Did you HAVE TO show your your card for entry?

NCL doesn't require it but some countries do.  

Day 7 Continued

We went to the Latitudes party which was even more of a sales pitch than I've seen before.  10 minutes of piano and free drinks followed by 10 minutes of cruise next sales pitch followed by no more free drinks but 10 minutes of piano before trivia started in the lounge.  They brought around drinks that we already made but a lot of people don't realize that you don't have to accept these drinks.  You could order anything you like.  You just have to drink quick or double fist.   They also passed around cheese.  Since a lot of people have the drink package, this is kind of lame.  We didn't so it worked out for us.

Had the "grilled" mahi mahi tonight for dinner.  Once again NCL doesn't follow their menu or doesn't word things the right way as there is a big difference between grilled and blackened but for us this is a good thing as we prefer blackened and it certainly was.  Easily one of the better meals I've had on NCL.  Really surprised.  I had the whipped potatoes which were from another entree and they were really good as well.  Took a bit to get them because the waiter could not understand me for some reason.

Went to the acrobat show, Mallombra or something like that.  I don't have time to look it up.  They were great.  Really nice show for a cruise ship.  They should change the name because it's hard to say and remember.  Seems like they perform on a lot of ships.  They picked out this one guy to be on stage that probably doesn't know much English and it was really, really funny.   

Day 6 continued 

We had dinner at Aqua, the smaller dining room.  The seats are very uncomfortable and service was once again very slow.  We're not going there again.  I had the sliced sirloin which tasted like leather.  We bailed and went to the buffet.  After that, we were too wiped to do much else besides hang out in the hot tub for an hour.

Day 7 - Olympia

Day 6 - Corfu

We took the hop on, hop off bus although the reviews are very mixed.  The cruise terminal is a 5 minute walk but you can take a free bus to be driven right to the terminal.  In the terminal is the bus company along with a rental company.  It was about 38 euros for both of us.  Corfu is a pretty small area so I would suggest you get off at the monastery, stop 3 (which we went to before stop 2).  We didn't bother to go to the thing at stop 2 but I would go there after the monastery.  Then get off at the fort/old town.  Walk around from one side of town to the other zig zagging around the streets.  Then get picked up at Spilia Square and take that back to the ship.  It was nice but I think a half a day is good enough here unless you are doing an excursion here.  I wouldn't want to spend a week here.

We're relaxing now and we don't plant to go to the show tonight as we've already seen it and it wasn't for us.  What the World Needs Now - the music of Burt Bacharach.  We might watch the violin trio in the atrium as they've sounded great this entire cruise.  

Day 5 continued

Had the chicken at dinner again as there was nothing else I wanted.  It was good again but I think with a few tweaks it could be really good.  

We went to the White Magic show.  This was one of the best shows I've seen on a ship.  Sure, some of his illusions were classic ones that we've all seen before but he's a master of sleight of hand and that's some of his best stuff.  His show also features his wife that is an amazing contortionist so that's a nice twist on the typical magic shows.  The other nice thing is that he's on this ship a lot so if you go on the Star, you might see him.  He'll have another show later on in the cruise.

We then went to the Majority Rules game show.   I've done this before but this one was amazing.  The cruise director Victor is one of the best out there.  He's just so funny and he will do almost anything.  I was laughing so hard.    

19 hours ago, Ladyshopper23 said:

Do the menus in the main dining room have allergen markers on them at all for gluten?

In the buffet, are dishes marked up with any allergen markers? Or any markers of any kind, such as vegetarian etc?

Dining room mentions gluten free items, items that contain nuts and items that contain alcohol.  Nothing like that in the buffet from what I saw.

We are still having a problem with the people blasting their TV until 3am or later keeping us up.  Although we gave up on complaining for now, guest services did reach out to us to see if we want to switch rooms.  It would be an accessible room on deck 9 forward (we're on 10 midship).  I feel like this would be a downgrade so we are going to say no for now.  

Day 5 - Sicily

Most people here, including us, go to Taormina.  However, most people go on a tour and I think this one is easy enough to do on your own so that's what we did.  10 minute walk to the train station.  9 euros for 2 people one way, 18 RT.  About 50 minutes to get there.  Nice ride right along the coast.  Once you get there, you can either walk or take a taxi.  The walk up has got to be horrible.  We took a taxi which was 15 euros.  Sucks that it's so high given that it's a 10 minute ride but whatever.  This is a really nice historic town but it's very touristy.  The historic amphitheater is really cool and the views are amazing.  See my FB page for the pics.   It's 10 euros a person to get in there and it will take you about a half hour to walk around and take pics.  

A lot of the restaurants prey on tourists so we wanted to avoid that.  We went for lunch right outside of the gates to the historic part and found a nice restaurant that served good food without costing a fortune.  Wasn't crowded either,  mostly locals.  Real nice.  We were there for about 3 hours and that we the perfect amount of time.  We wanted to take the walking path down to experience it and for blog purposes.  Not sure I'd do that again.  It's about 5 to 10 minutes of steps and then 20 minutes of very steep pathways and I mean very steep.  Unless you are crazy in shape, it's gonna make your legs a little weak.  My feet were pushed into the front of my shoes the entire time.  Even though it was upper 60s, we got a little sweaty.  Can't imagine what it's like in the summer.

Once you get down to the street, the sidewalk comes and goes so that isn't too fun.  There's a little bar/pastry shop right there at the end of the train station.  We hopped on the train back and now we are back on the ship.  Gonna hit the hot tub up again after all that.  Show tonight should be good.  

On 11/8/2022 at 5:10 AM, Keata said:

At Spice H2O is there a smoking section near the bar?

I don't know if I'm going to get over there as there is no reason for us to there.  I did see smoking by the pool and at the bar on deck 13.  

1 hour ago, Ladyshopper23 said:

The final question is were is the slightly hot hot tub located please?!

They are all by the pool.  Although I think one or two are in Spice H20.  I only went through there once as there is no real reason to go there on this ship.  

Day 4 continued

Found a hot tub that was actually a little hot.  Was nice to soak for about an hour.  Had the baked chicken which is one of the items that is there everyday.  It was actually pretty good.  They did a great job with that.   For dessert I ordered the cannoli...which had fruit in it!  That was not listed on the menu of course and I have never heard of that.  I talked to one of the head supervisors as I was leaving and he seemed shocked.  It bothers me that they don't follow the menu and he said that to me without me even saying it.  You should know what you are ordering.  Not sure why this is such a problem on NCL.

We didn't bother with the singer but we went to the last man standing game.  That's fun.  My wife did pretty well but she didn't want to win anyway so she threw it at the end.

I stopped by the shore excursion desk to check on my tickets for Santorini.  The person I spoke with was different than the other person I spoke with a few days ago.  He said that we probably won't make it on the tour we are waitlisted for and now the Spanish tour was full (my wife is fluent).  I was so livid but I was nice as he was as well.  I told him that it was really messed up that I could have booked the Spanish tour a few days ago but the woman standing 10 feet away from him told me not to bother because I will get on the other tour.  There wasn't much he could do.  As I don't take no for an answer, I went over to guest services and spoke with someone who wrote a very lengthy message to the SE manager explaining how the woman at the SE desk gave me the wrong info.  Sure enough, I woke up this morning to our tickets waiting for us outside our door.  It pays be firm but nice.  I didn't flip or curse anyone off or cause a scene but I was very firm that NCL is the ones that screwed up and I should not suffer as a result.  That approach surely worked.  

Day 4 - Naples

Having been to this area before, we wanted to just grab some pizza and relax since we'll be busy every single day from here on out.  Wow, I knew Naples wasn't going to be great but it makes Newark, NJ look like a fun place to be.  Trash is everywhere and it smells like a garbage dump.  It was insanely crowded too.  Not sure if there was some type of holiday or whatever but there were a ton of locals walking around.  There were a lot of annoying taxi drivers and various other people trying to get money.  One guy touched me and that was almost not a good scene.  Luckily he went away.  

We got to Gino e Toto which is a famous pizza place and the line wasn't too bad.  Food was great.  Service was meh which is what you can expect here.  Prices were pretty good too.  Line was much longer as we were leaving.  Stopped for a coffee on the way back to the ship. It was ok.  The ship seems empty so we'll hang out on our balcony and then probably go hit the hot tub or something.

Tonight's entertainment is some type of singer from Norway.  Doesn't sound like anything we'd like so I don't know if we'll bother.  We'll probably check out the last man standing game.  Other than that, chill day.  The ship doesn't leave until 8.  There continues to be big lines for the shore excursion desk.  I'll have to stop by in a bit to check on our tickets for Santorini.  Hopefully there's no line since the ship is so empty.   

FYI - if you want to see my pics from this cruise, click on my profile.  There's a link to my personal travel page.  

8 minutes ago, Keata said:

@Analog187 Thanks for doing this live report!  At Spice H2O is there a smoking section near the bar?

 

I didn't see anyone smoking there but I really don't go over there that much.  If I find out anything else, I'll let you know.  

Day 3 continued:

Service wasn't as good as it was the day before, not that it was bad just that there is an obvious difference when they are less busy.  Not a big deal for us though.  We had sliced sirloin and "loaded baked potato".  The sirloin was OK, nothing special.  The potato was the size of a golf ball and it was loaded with...........absolutely nothing!  Seriously, it didn't even have butter on it.  Not the end of the world, just comical really.  Not sure what's going on with NCL and their food but that's not what we're here for.

We caught a few minutes of Band on the Run and as expected, it was not for us.  For a production show they did put some effort into it.  The theme is that this club just opened and there is a DJ up in the balcony thing and that was kind of a cool concept.  They also had an acrobat do a cirque type routine for a few minutes.  Glad we caught that.  Once that was done we bailed because we just can't handle that music.  We were too tired to wait around for Deal or no Deal so we packed it in.  

On 11/5/2022 at 11:13 AM, www3traveler said:

When  you can, would you please post a list of the Senior Officers both Bridge and Hotel?

 

Thank you very much

 

Enjoy your cruise

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