ColdCruise

@ngrund who are you asking, me or @uneamie? If @uneamie can you PM her or otherwise start a separate thread as its not Prima related? Gets confusing to follow otherwise. Thanks 😍 also check the roll calls

A nice stroll through town

We had a couple destinations planned for the ling day - visit the city & castle of Schwerin and an archaeological museum with a recreated village. Schwerin We were parking by the castle after an easy hour drive from the rental office on highways with light traffic, then along beautiful tree lines roads. A few castle photos beautiful parquet floors, mostly restored ancestral portraits throne room salons grounds

Photo from our balcony showing ferris wheel and train station to the left

The big shore excursions were a FULL day trip to Berlin or nearby sites (incl Sachsenhausen concentration camp), these were 12 hours with a 3 hour train ride in each direction & about 6 hours in town. The train was chartered and only had NCL passengers. Participants told me it was a regular Deutsche Bahn train, 2nd class cars. Having spent considerable time in Berlin we decided to do something else. We rented a car, so took the DB train from the station near the pier - about a 5-10 minute walk depending on your pace. The train station is easy to find - walk towards the ferris wheel then turn left at the edge of the carnival area, the station is straight ahead. German train tickets for a city or metropolitan area In case any readers haven’t been to Germany, they have different ticket options, from one way tix good for usually 1-1.5 hour travel or day passes (Tages tickets). Normally you buy your ticket from a machine but some stations also gave a cashier. The one way ticket was 3,20 with a Kutzticket for 1,90 (short trip) and a Tages ticket was 8-something. Tickets are good throughout Rostock metropolitan area, including Warnemunde. (One way and day tickets). There’s a map at the station showing the covered area, also in some train cars. Before you board your first train validate or check in by putting your ticket into one if the small orange stamp boxes, they’re about the size if a shoe box. Failure to do so could get you a 60€ fine (i think it can be higher in some cities)

Day 4 - Warnemunde & Long Port Day and the sales and special deals sheets

Thanks @KeithJenner we did see one of the Viking ship’s departure while relaxing on our balcony after dinner, I guess they requested the opening.

I think i already mentioned thus but we had 1 coupon in our single Platinum coupon booklet, since were both Platinum i asked guest services how we claim our 2nd bag and was told we get 4 and just write “Platinum” on it and i may have already mentioned it, or typed it and lost ui with upload time-outs

68442963286__75619CE0-EFFF-483D-8D7A-25C7A5EDE9E5.MOV

Thanks for digging that out @mbruck we have not received the sparkling wine - if its the same plonk as other shops, I’ll just stick with my FAS drinks package. But in the interest of community, I’ll inquire

Rumour not an official NCL announcement- something to do with water levels or gates at Ijmuiden. I was thinking it was to buy more time for passengers in case of flight issues. There were about 10 people waiting to embark in Kiel- they all said their flight got botched

Absolutely- Chocolate Cowboy blessed ys with his spicy watermelon shots during our bar/pub crawl. He's very amusing. The hus bar team wowed us with mixology skills, will make sure to include his photo when i review the bar crawl venues! idk about Beach Club, no access, but it looks great from the speedway bar.

Definitely a versatile singer! I’ll see if i can find out.

@more2sea (great moniker, btw!) see my posts #20&21 on page 1 for details on how the Latitude program has played out so far this cruise. We’re Platinum, so YMMV. thanks for “sailing” with us 😁

Now I’m jumping back to earlier in Day 3. Since we were not arriving in Kiel till evening and no longer picking up a rental car for a day of exploration , we decided to participate in the 2 wine tasting events ($22 per person per event) scheduled in Palomar. The late morning tasting was a wine and cheese pairing

If anyone could explain why CruiseCritic suddenly, today, started randomly uploading photos upside down, I’d appreciate it!

Some Brauerei photos

From having a long port day, our stop in Kiel was whittled down to 4 hours … at night. Anyone who’s spent much time in Germany is aware things of touristic interest are closed by 5, maybe 6, rarely 7. So our time in Kiel really only left time to walk the dark streets or eat/drink. By a stroke of luck, there were 2 brauhaus a 10 minute walk from Ostseekai, where Prima docked. NCL cancelled all excursions when they made the port times change, then apparently added in a handful of options a couple days before porting. The revised excursions consisted of 2 brewery tours with beer (or bier) tastings (2.5 hr $99) and 2 walking tours of the downtown (1.5 or 2 hr, $79 & $99, resp.). Too much money to do in the dark w sites closed fir my pocket. We took the short stroll downtown and had dinner and some local brew at the Kieler Brauerei, finishing our meal as the first if the Brewery tour groups arrived.

Day 3 …. And a port day (kind of) our Daily Freestyle

IMG_7212.MOV IMG_7212.MOV That crazy bear 🐻- playing tricks with my photos! We finished the day with the Donna Summer Musical in the theater. Sorry, no photos out of respect for the rules of the house. However it might show up on youtube or other video sharing site as I saw at least 1 man recording from row 2. The show was fantastic - the 3 leads ( representing 11 yo, 20-something and mature Donna) had great voices and the rest of the crew worked so hard in multiple roles to put on this great show. The 10-day cruise had 3 showings, including 1 PG-13 matinee. After the show, crew kicked us out to transform the seating area into a disco, which opened an hour later. seats folded up a la highschool gym style Some people attended in 70s era style… this might replace the white party as the must attend cruise party 😉 and some great moves happening on the floor IMG_7212.MOV

A glass half full

Frittered away the rest of the afternoon doing nothing in particular but looking at the ship and unpacking. That prepared us for dinner at Los Lobos : average margarita, better spicy margarita Unfortunately the fat juicy shrimp was very tasty but came out undercooked twice . The chef was sweetly apologetic and offered to butterfly those big biys and they came out cooked enough to enjoy. I also ordered an Elote as a side, which came on the cob. Server offered to de-cob it (us that a word?), which saved my teeth from corn silk flossing. Unfortunately the corn was not fresh and had already turned starchy. The quac was amazingly good and definitely a shareable size. The steak fajitas were also very good. We finished with tres leches cake (very moist) and churros, which was a stack if 6 churros formed into ⭕️ - definitely shareable and a highlight

Lunch on Day 2 was a quickie at Surfside due to our stay in the Spa. The buffet only spans one side, with the grill area on the aft. Some folks may find it smaller than other NCL ships, but the space was well used. heres a sampling of our choices that day: mini pretzel pizzas excellent hot & sour soup very good desserts

Onda - superb! That is our specialty repeat.. just for the pizza (altho the whole menu is enticing)