Stealthdog

And now for the main event……..drumroll…….Choir of Man. It’s as good as all the reviews. One of the best shows we have ever seen on a cruise ship (some newer ships have impressive water, ice, and cirque du soleil style shows that are also amazing). The story was fun and different, the pace and energy was awesome, and the emotion, particularly the curtain call song at the end was real. You could tell these guys generally loved performing. We took the chance of sitting in the front row and I was rewarded with being called onto the stage to be part of the performance. I need Eric to airdrop me the photos and I will post them later. I hope I put on a good show! If there is one show on the Escape to book and go see, it’s Choir of Man. You won’t be disappointed. We made reservations for the 2nd cruise when it opened on the app and are going to keep it so we can see it again. We will probably not sit in the front next time so someone else can experience being part of the show. 😂

Here is an example of the MDR lunch menu. It changes daily. Next week, I’ll take photos of the daily MDR menus. We have 2 dinings left and will close out this leg of the B2B with Pinchos for lunch and Bistro for dinner. Based on this week, we are going to redo our plans for dining on the 2nd leg - Bistro, Cucina, Bayamo, and Food Republic for sure. We will cancel Cagney reservations and add 1 Moderno night.

Dinner Day 6 we ate at Food Republic. It is “Tapas style” (kind of), with a digital menu and ordering system, similar to some land based restaurant ordering systems. Note - some of the plates are tapas size and some are full plates. For example, the lamb comes out as 3 big lamb chops, which is normally its own meal, while the chicken miso and beef skewers are more typical tapas style plates for sharing. We enjoy this style of restaurant and had a nice time, The views in the restaurant are outstanding - one of the best on board. We enjoyed most of the plates and rank Food Republic 2nd tier with Bayamo, below Bistro and Cucina, but ahead of Cagneys. With a package, each person is allowed to order 4 things. The plates did not enjoy were the beef skewers - it was too dry and chewy, and Eric wasn’t overly fond of the sushi (don’t remember which one he ordered). Everything else was very good - miso chicken, lamb chops, ramen, pad Thai, and a fried korean chicken plate. We actually got 2 orders of the lamb. We didn’t order from the deserts - will try them next week: Because it’s tapas style and you order directly from a digital menu from your table, the food comes out once the kitchen makes it. We ordered 4 first, then the second four later. Every plate comes out separately. .

Day 6 we did the loyalty wine tasting event in the bar area of Moderno/Cagneys. As a reminder, you can sign up with CruiseNext for this comolimentery event. They create 4!tasting areas in the corners of the lobby, each representing a different country, Around the World party style. For our event they had France, Australia, Portugal, and Spain. They had other signs and may do other countries, probably depending on inventory and what they want to sell. Each station had 2 types of wine for tasting. There were about 30 people participating. It’s a nice event and gesture as a loyalty event:

As promised, some holiday pictures. Decks 6, 7, 8 are the most decorated, especially the areas that have multi level views (atrium, near Le Bistro). All the restaurants have trees, all the bars have holly. It looks like more things are getting added to the gingerbread house next to Bistro about every hour, including a “display only” sign which means people have probably been breaking pieces off to eat. There is a menorah at guest services.

Already answered by @wilmingtech, but here is a little more detail. When you enter the gym go to the right towards the cardio machines. It’s all the way at the far right. The brand they use is called concept 2.

We got our B2B instructions today (Day 6). We do have to leave the ship and will be boarded once the ship is cleared by the port. We went to guest services a couple days ago and they were able to give us a new key already that is good through the end of cruise 2.

We saw Jersey Boys three straight cruises. One of them I fell asleep and dropped a wine glass. It shattered and could be heard across the theater. Since then, Eric uses the wine glass test as the determination of how good and how is. Every older show runs the risk of a good shattering. 😂

Day 6 Daily. Sea day. Today we did loyalty wine tasting event, MDR for lunch, Food Republic for dinner, Choir of Man, a few trivia, and probably going to end the night with karaoke.

Free. Most of the activities in the atrium are free. The only exceptions I have seen are deal or no deal. For these types of games you put your name in a bucket and they draw names for people to play. In the speed trivia game, about 15-20 people had their name drawn.

My mistake - it’s called Virgin Gorda & The Baths. TOVX112. Excursion ticket attached. Sorry for the confusion. I hear you with boring excursions. We tend to want more active ones. We did a volcano hike on the of the Caribbean islands several years ago. We came back to pier looking like swamp people. 😂

I think I am caught up through this morning (Day 6). We have 2 sea days now until we return to Port Canaveral. I plan to go out early tomorrow to take all the holiday decoration photos. We saw the chefs overseeing the building of tables last night - so the gingerbread is probably coming out soon. if anyone has any remaining questions, feel free ask away. We aren’t going anywhere for 2 days, so I have the time now 😂

Day 5 we went to the theater to see the Sea Sons. It’s the same 4 guys from the Supper Club and they do a Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons act. This is the best Frankie Valli act we have seen on a cruise ship. I usually get bored with Frankie Valli and Rat Pack acts. All 4 are great vocalists. They added a handful of modern songs into their act, which was fun. The theater was packed, so this may be one of the more popular shows on board. We highly recommend this show. After the Sea Sons, we checked out the karaoke. Family karaoke was ending and adult karaoke was starting. It was a fun time - everyone was enjoying it. Eric may make a surprise appearance on the stage for the next karaoke night - we will see. 😁

Last night we ate at La Cucina. We have a new 2nd favorite restaurant, bumping Bayamo to 3rd place. Cucina did a good job challenging Le Bistro for 1st place, but I give a slight nod to Le Bistro. We ate inside and not the waterfront - it was too windy outside. The experience started off great for us - Cucina is the first restaurant we had on board where the bread comes out warm. We prefer that over cold bread. Eric and I both got the Caprese salad - that is typically my go to - at Italian restaurants. The tomatoes and cheese were good quality. The salad comes out very clean. If you like it with more oil and vinegar, they are on the table and you can add as necessary. We got the carbonara and fettuccine as small plates. Both were fantastic! The sauces are a little rich, so if you don’t like rich, creamy foods - you may want to get something different. The Osso Bucco and tenderloin were also both very good and we recommend both for those who prefer land meat (lamb and beef) over seafood. The desert was the only disappointment of the meal. The lemon cheesecake was really boring in presentation and taste. I should have gone with the tiramisu or panna cotta instead. The cannolis were pretty good, but not as good as the deserts we have had at some of the other restaurants. There are more things on the menu like pizza that we didn’t want use a dining package on, but they are available. We highly recommend Cucina as a great option for anyone who has a dining package and are unsure of which restaurant to go to. Service was great, food was great. Only negative was underwhelming deserts.

It’s only a 10 minute hike back up to the top, where you may have some free time to looks in the shops, get something to eat, or use the facilities. It looked like there were great views from the restaurant, but they guard the entrance carefully and don’t let non restaurant patrons access those views. After the time at the park, you will get loaded back up in a shuttle bus, and take the ferry back towards the main island and cruise ship pier. We were a little late - about 20 minutes beyond original all aboard. We found out at the pier that the time on port was extended 3 hours. We did not know Great Stirrup Cay was cancelled until we were back on board and heard the announcement. Again - if you haven’t done this tour and can handle the caves portion of the tour, I highly recommend it. It was worth the cost and physical effort to do it!

The caves portion was challenging. You will go up and down a series of ladders, with the use of ropes to hold on to, and climb/squeeze through some areas to progress through. Inside some of cave areas, the rock ceiling is really low, so I was kind of duck walking a little. For much of the tour, you will be walking in knee high water. It is definitely worth doing if you don’t have any physical conditions that limit your ability to squat, climb, etc. After you get through the caves, you enter a second beach area that has food, shops, and bathrooms. I put the phone away during parts of the caves because I needed both hands to get through the areas, so I don’t have pictures of the more difficult areas.

The Tour is located at a National Park site. There are restrooms at the top where the busses drop you off. You won’t have access until near the end, so use it there if you need to. There are a few gift shops and a restaurant at the top as well. The tour itself is self guided, but the guides accompany along the way to make sure we get where we need to go, monitor the time, and help answer any questions you have. its one big loop. So you will hike down to a beach area (not too difficult), have some beach time, complete a caves hike in water (difficult and people with mobility issues may not be able to do this), end in a second beach area, and finish with a short 10 minute hike back up to the bus area (also not difficult). On the way down, you will see a lot of rock formations, cactus and other local plants, and hundreds of white butterflies. At one area it was like a butterfly garden - they were everywhere! Because it is self guided, you can go as fast or slow as you want to take pictures and look at things. There were a few scenic spots in particular that had views of the Tortola main island and a few of the smaller ones. Once you get to the bottom you end a beach area. It’s completely sandy with no rocks on the beach. Inside the water there were large rocks you could stand on. The current was fairly strong so be careful. There are no official bathrooms at the beach in this part of the tour. The guide will give you a recommended time to leave and do the caves portion of the tour. We left about 10 minutes early.

We did our only NCL tour in Tortola - Punta Gorda and Baths. It was awesome! This was our first time to Tortola and we usually will do a cruise line tour at a new port because of our unfamiliarity. Warning - do not do this tour if you have mobility issues. The warning listed on the description is real this time. Mein Schiff 4 was in port with us - looks like a very pretty ship. We started at a meeting point at the end of the pier off the ship. The pier is short, so the meeting point only takes a minute to get to once you are off the ship. And in typical cruise line fashion, the meeting time is more like a suggested meeting time. They didn’t start rounding us up until about 15 minutes after our specified time. We loaded up on a ferry to take us to Punta Gordon - about a 45 minute ferry ride. There is both upstairs open air seating and first deck inside seating. If it looks like it might rain or you don’t want climb stairs, inside might get better. We sat upstairs and had great views of the port. After arriving at the island, we had about a 10-15 minute bus shuttle to the park site. (will chop this review in pieces so it doesn’t get too long for one post).

Day 4 we went to see the comedians John Wessling and David Graham in the theater. No photos are allowed, so no pics. For a cruise ship, they were ok. It was the 18+ show and humor. We have seen far worse on ships. The theater was only about 1/4 - 1/3 full, so it doesn’t seem like the comedy shows are of interest to many on the ship (they are probably standing in line for hours for the pour house), so you can get great seats. Don’t sit in the first 3 rows if you don’t want to be called on. The ship seems to have comedy shows most nights, so we will try to go to a different one in the next couple days or next week. We also stopped by the Howl at the Moon again for a few minutes. It was busy again, but there were empty seats scattered throughout the place. If you want to see Howl at the Moon, the trick may be catch the second half of the show to get seats (they go for 4 hours I think).

When we play trivia, I usually provide 1-2 answers and he handles the rest. 😂

We didn’t know until we got back on board ~2pm. Heard announcement from the cruise director letting us know that Great Stirrup Cay was canceled and we would be in Tortola until 430. Had impact on the activities - many of the onboard activities were cancelled with no notice, which was a little frustrating. I don’t know when it was first put out because we were off ship.

Day 5 Daily. Also the vomit bags on the stairs, as promised. 😂 Today we are in Tortola and in port with the Mein Schiff 4.

We walked past the Pour House and it was already full for the show more than 30 minutes before. We were chatting with the NCL entertainment staff monitoring the venue and she said people had been standing in line for 2 hours (immediately after the first show started) and it filled almost immediately after the doors opened. That is crazy to me - like Taylor Swift concert waiting on a cruise ship. We probably won’t see any of the shows in the Pour House - for us there is too much going on entertainment-wise on the ship to spend that much time in line.

Last night (Day 4) we ate at Bayamo Ocean Blue. We ended up eating at the Waterfront, which was nice - it was quiet and had a nice breeze. Service was a little slow on the Waterfront area, but we didn’t have any reservations and weren’t rushed. Not sure if the service was quicker inside. The food presentation at Bayamo was outstanding - best presentation we have seen on board. So far we are ranking Bayamo a solid 2 behind Le Bistro, but ahead of Cagneys. The meal was hit or miss, with mostly hits. The jumbo shrimp was good - it was clean tasting with no overbearing fishy taste. The scallops on top of pork belly was a very interesting concept. Eric wasn’t a big fan of the scallops part but the pork belly was great. I had the iceberg wedge. It was awesome. Great concept, presentation, and taste. I’m typically not a huge fan of blue cheese, but this salad was well done. Eric also loved the roasted beets - was a big hit for him. I’m not a big seafood fan and got the filet again. It looked like it was same filet I got from Cagneys, but the temperature was perfect and it was a lot more enjoyable. Eric liked the concept of the Chiopino - it’s like a soup with 6-7 different types of seafood in it. He enjoyed about half the pieces but didn’t care for the other half. For desert I got the cheesecake in a jar - this desert was awesome as well. Presentation again was fun and the flavors were great. The chocolate mouse cake was a little boring. We will go back to Bayamo again next week. There were a few other plates Eric wanted to try. It is a restaurant that I think is a solid choice for anyone with a dining package.

It turns out, Great Stirrup Cay is already canceled on Friday, so they extended our time in Tortola until 430. We haven’t been to Great Stirrup Cay yet, so that’s a bummer. Hopefully next week.