OrcaGirl

Our excursion today was the “Caves and Waves” tour. We got checked in and placed on a tour bus. The ride to the caves was about 45 minutes, and the driver pointed out various sites and sights along the way. The caves themselves were awesome. It was high tide so the floating boardwalk was up and even regular height people had to duck frequently… the poor 6’5” husband and the other actually tall people had to really get low to avoid bonking their heads. (Many more photos will be posted on my Instagram Stories.) After emerging back to the above-ground world, I had just enough time to run to the washroom (but not the gift shop 😢) before being herded back onto the bus. Another short bus ride took us to the Clearwater Beach, where we spent two hours. Our first stop was the beach bar, for two incredibly strong pina coladas and two hot dogs…. Alas, the fish sandwiches weren’t available. The only food available were hot dogs, hamburgers, and fries. Guess I’ll have to go out in search of fish sandwiches tomorrow. After lunch, we headed down to the beach. We didn’t bother renting chairs, just laying down our NCL towels and popping a squat on the sand. I dipped my toes in the water, but didn’t swim. The temperature was lovely, at least by Canadian terms. It was around this time that my phone decided it needed a vacation too, and overheated and shut down. 🤷‍♀️ Our tour left the beach at 2:15pm for the drive to St. George’s for the NCL ferry back to the Escape. We got to St. George’s with about 30 min to wait for the ferry. The line was already long so we just found a bench on the waterfront until we could see the ferry approaching. We boarded, grabbed seats on the upper, outer deck and settled in for the ride back to Dockyard. Random observations: Check your tour numbers. Four people were removed from our bus since they were on a different tour. Our (white) guide really wasn’t comfortable answering a Black guest’s question about when the African population was brought to Bermuda. The verbal gymnastics he performed to avoid saying slavery or enslaved peoples was actually pretty impressive. (The answer is 1617, I looked it up once back on the ship.) Also maybe don’t tell your passengers about how you lost your ambulance driver license for speeding (twice) before we even leave the dock. Free wifi provided by the tourism association was available at the bar and near the ferry stop in St. George’s. At least one dude from the Escape didn’t realize the ship had changed to Bermuda time last night, and didn’t understand why everyone was lining up at 1:45 for a 3:15 ferry. ⏰ (It was 2:45…)

Good morning from Bermuda! I completely forgot to change the time on my phone before bed last night, so I woke up at 8:20am when I really meant to be up at 7:30am. I made a quick run to the Atrium cafe for Starbucks, woke the husband up, and ventured to the buffet for a quick breakfast as the ship approached the pier in Bermuda. First almost-inedible eggs benny I’ve ever had on a cruise ship. Still no hash browns in the buffet. Sad face. “Country potatoes” are just not the same. We fast-walked back to our cabin and quickly threw together a laundry bag and grabbed what we needed for our excursion. We watched some pumpkin carving in the Atrium while waiting for ship clearance (a tiny bit later than planned) and then headed off the ship to find our excursion meeting point at the end of the pier.

Double post as the wifi reconnected.

After dinner we hustled over to the theatre for Choir of Man. We’d seen it previously on the Encore and loved it just as much the second time. I may be misremembering, but I swear last time there was one character who was explicitly gay, which wasn’t a part of this production. I sincerely hope that wasn’t excised due to any anti-LGBTQ2A sentiment. After the show, we headed back to the thermal spa for an hour before bed. It was much quieter after 8:30pm, only 3-4 other people were inside when we got there, until a couple of ladies ended up having a very loud conversation. (I hope her friend has a good NYC marathon on Sunday, since I now know all about his training went.)

Catching up on last night while we wait for the ship to be cleared for Bermuda. Dinner last night was in Bayamo, and we were seated on the Waterfront with beautiful sunset views. The food was amazing, although service was a teeny bit slow. With a 5:15pm reservation, I didn’t expect to be hustling to make the 7pm show. But the food… we had the blazing shrimp and scallops with pork belly as our appetizers. Both were amazing. I had the black sea bass and the husband had the fish and chips, again both were perfectly prepared. As part of my Platinum dinner, I picked a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc but would have preferred a Riesling. It was fine, but despite being WSET Level 1 certified, I’m just not a big wine person. For dessert, I had the key lime meringue tart while the husband claimed he didn’t have room for dessert and just ordered an espresso. The spoon somehow appeared in his hand when my tart arrived and we shared it. We both busted out our inner Great British Bake-off judges, declaring the bottom crust to be a tad too hard, the lime curd to be flavourful, and the best part was the toasted meringue topping and the elegant yet restrained presentation. Random observations: One lady behind us admonished her husband: “You don’t order chicken at a seafood restaurant.” A sentiment I’ve echoed many a time to my husband. Along the same lines, I really had to hold back from laughing at the other woman who came to a seafood restaurant and ordered the filet mignon well done. Honey, no…

Like shof515 said, I think it would depend on the number of people who signed up. They had to call in for an extra security guard, we had so many Platinum and above people show up. Once I knew that the tour started at 7:50am, I didn’t even bother asking if the lowly-silver husband could join or be on a waitlist, since he wouldn’t be rolling out of bed until 11am at the earliest.

A few general notes and thoughts on the thermal spa while I waited for the husband to get changed for dinner. Check-in procedures: we got a sticker for our keycard on the first day, and when you go to the thermal spa you drop off your keycard with the staff before entering. No wristband or getting buzzed in or anything. Escape’s thermal spa is large and in great condition for its age (especially compared to my last sailing on the Bliss), but I do find the layout a bit weird. I love the inclusion of so many double loungers, but miss the curved padded loungers like on the Bliss. And the plastic material may be easier to clean for staff but it feels icky on the skin when having a not-nap. The steam room is fantastic and big enough for lots of people, but some folks kept leaving the door open a crack by accident and the steam dissipates quickly. I actually felt a bit cold in there today. Speaking of the cold, the snow room doesn’t feel quite as cold as on the Bliss, but that might be a positive for some people. 🥶 One guy on a tour asked me about how it felt in there and I laughed that I was Canadian, it’s like a balmy April day inside. And then I made a snowman. In the main pool, the “washing machine” section (if you know the proper term for that part, let me know!) has AMAZING jets, very strong and bubbly. But… the jet cycle is really short, like maybe 2-3 minutes, and every time someone presses the button to turn it back on, the other jets along the side of the main pool lose their oomph for a minute. And the only other downside of the thermal spa… other people. Despite the many, many signs about the spa being a Quiet Area, a lot of people didn’t get the memo. I know, it’s natural for people to get chatty in a hot tub, but that’s what the pool deck hot tubs are for. And some people’s voices are, shall we say, piercing. Apparently a staff member did come in and ask some folks to tone it down a bit, but it didn’t seem to work.

Our official itinerary change: I assume this is going to mess up the plans for the roll call’s Halloween not-a-pub-crawl that was originally gonna happen tomorrow.

I sat out on the balcony for a bit until the wind got a bit too gusty for comfort. I retreated inside, and since the husband was still asleep, I took what was left of my mimosa to the Atrium to see what was going on. They were just starting a wine Q&A with an apparently famous wine marker from Kendall-Jackson so I listened to that for a while. Free samples of their Chardonnay were being handed out to the audience. But I had to laugh at the line in the promo video about “creating a wine exclusively for everyone”…. If it’s for everyone, it’s not exclusive. 🤣 I actually ended up skipping the Latitudes wines of the world tasting, since sampling a lot of wine on an mostly-empty stomach didn’t seem like a good idea. Once the wine Q&A seminar was over, I headed back to the cabin to rouse the husband and drag him to lunch. After lunch, we swung by the Shore Excursion desk to make some changes to our revised plans. Our planned Thursday morning Caves and Waves tour was moved to Tuesday morning, which is fine, but our planned Wednesday evening sunset catamaran tour (my birthday present to myself) was moved to Tuesday night and that’s Halloween and so no, needed to change that. We could have switched to the Wednesday night “White Hot Catamaran Sunset Sail” instead, but the forecast for Wednesday evening is thunderstorms so we’ll just stay on the ship. Popped back up to the pool deck to grab a BBC. The temperature was lovely and the pool space was pretty crowded. Changed into my swimsuit and took my book, my BBC and my bebe to the thermal spa for the rest of the afternoon. Random observations: I say this every time, but learning a few pleasantries in Indonesian and Tagalog goes a long way with the crew. I finally checked my email; the message saying my upgrade bid wasn’t accepted came in at 7pm last night. 🤣

Day 2 Freestyle Daily escape-day2.pdf Random observations: I haven’t seen this personalized itinerary map before… is it new? Having Downton Abbey as the 11pm movie seems a bit… odd. Like the demographic that would enjoy that movie would already be asleep by then. We set our clocks forward one hour tonight. Time is a construct etc.

Captain just announced our itinerary change, much like last week’s cruise, going to arrive in Bermuda one day earlier and then leave one day early.

Well that was cool. We were split into three groups for the tour; our guide Marcus was delightful and funny. We were taken first to the theatre’s backstage area and main dressing room. No photos allowed but we got to see the costumes for Choir of Man and all of the rubber ducks the cast had acquired. Apparently this cast is on board until early December and then they switch out with a new cast. No hints dropped about NCL’s future shows or planned replacements for the big Broadway numbers, though there was a lot of agreement that Six is amazing and it’s bad that it’s being dropped. We visited the crew gym and crew lounge, and got a peek inside the crew mess (but couldn’t go in because it was being cleaned). Visiting the laundry was cool (although actually pretty hot and humid 🥵). So many towels!! I wish my lowly-silver husband had been able to join the tour, he would have loved seeing that and probably offered to jump in and help with the folding. I’ve been on galley tours before on other cruiselines, but it’s always a neat thing to see it in operation. (Although I’m genuinely surprised we were allowed in a food service area without masks in the COVID era.) We got a sneak peak at some of the chocolate creations for Halloween tomorrow. And there was soooooo much bacon. Yum. Unfortunately we were going a bit overtime and were hustled past the galley board so I didn’t get a chance to take close-ups of each day. The tour ended right outside the Savor and Taste dining rooms for those who wanted breakfast. Instead, I grabbed an Americano for Sleeping Silver Beauty and a mimosa for me and headed back to the cabin. Random observations: The instructions for the tour didn’t say no beverages, but they weren’t allowed, so I had to chug the last of my iced Americano before we set out. Yesterday the husband was insistent that the Escape wasn’t as long as the Bliss or Encore, but Marcus told us it’s actually the longest in the NCL fleet from end to end. Just guessing based on appearances, but I think I was maybe the second- or third-youngest Platinum guest on the tour, at least in our group. Yay for those triple-Latitude cruises last year.

Good morning from… somewhere in the Saragossa Sea, I guess. I haven’t seen one on the navigational screens like they have on the Bliss/Encore yet, and Google Maps thinks we’re off the west coast of Africa, so I’m relying on marinetraffic for our location. I slept pretty well, with a bit of rocking and rolling of the seas to rock me to sleep. We’ll see how the husband fared in a few hours. I woke up around 7am, ahead of my alarm, and headed down to the Atrium for some “Starbucks.” I know, I know, it’s the same product, but if I can’t earn stars or use my Starbucks app, it’s not a real Starbucks. I’m now caffeinating while waiting for the Latitudes behind the scenes tour to start. Random observations: The barf bags are out in the stairwells but it doesn’t seem that bad (yet?). I’ve definitely had worse on cruises to Alaska. I’m sad that the baked goods and treats at the Atrium cafe aren’t included and are too fancy for breakfast. I loved the free selection of baked goods at the coffee bar on the Celebrity ships. If it was a ‘real’ Starbucks, I’d understand but I don’t want to schlep up from deck 5 to deck 16 for a croissant to go with my coffee. There’s been no mention of any itinerary deviations due to the storm, I guess we’ll find out if/when it happens.

For dinner we went to the Pincho tapas bar. We asked the hostess if we could use just one of our dining credits (we’re not big eaters at the best of times and we’d already had nachos) and she said usually that wouldn’t be allowed but she’d call her supervisor and ask. And a couple of minutes later we were seated. They were out of the white wine sangria and since I can’t stomach red wine, I got the matador. I’m not usually a bourbon fan but this was delightful. We ordered four dishes, and they were all delicious but the pork belly was our favourite. If we’d had to use both dining credits, I think we could have managed to eat another four of those between the two of us. After dinner, we headed to the thermal spa for an hour or so. Ahhhh…. I was getting sleepy and wanted to head to bed, but the husband was craving pizza, so he headed straight to the buffet before it closed to grab a slice… and then he ‘got lost’ in the buffet and ended up at a crepe station. Funny how that happens.

When the husband got back from his haircut (he deemed it okay) he took yet another nap while I finished unpacking. Around 4:40 we headed back up to the spa to enter the spa draw. Alas we were not lucky, but we were getting peckish… to O’Sheenans we went. We shared the nachos which were the perfect little snack size. The sailaway party did in fact move inside to the Atrium due to the rain. We headed back to our cabin to grab our jackets, watching a bit of the sailaway from our balcony and then heading down to the Waterfront to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. A few rather tipsy people were singing snippets of any patriotic song they could think of… I tried to get a round of the “she’s beauty and she’s grace, she’s Miss United States” song from Miss Congeniality going, but nah… After Lady Liberty was in the rear view mirror, we went back to the cabin to doff our jackets, only to discover we were approaching the Verrazano Bridge. So we stuck around to watch the ship sail under. (Not quite as cool as sailing under the Lion’s Gate Bridge or Golden Gate Bridge, but still neat.) Random observations: My chocolate-covered strawberries arrived in our cabin at some point. Yum. I can’t believe I even have to say this in 2023, but men: DO NOT TOUCH WOMEN THAT YOU DON’T KNOW. Some random chatty dude at the spa draw put his arm around me after talking for like 30 seconds and seemed taken aback when I moved away from him and said “no, don’t touch me.” So yeah, don’t do that.

When we arrived at the pier around 11am there was an ambulance and at least three fire trucks with lights flashing. So yeah, guessing some people on the last cruise were also having some bad luck too.

I woke up Snoring Beauty from his nap at 3:15pm so he could make his haircut in the barbershop at 3:30pm. While he was getting all purtied up, I unpacked my carry-on and one of my two checked bags which had arrived during naptime. I also enjoyed one of my Schmackary’s cookies, which was delicious. During this time, I also got three phantom voicemails with no message, and one actual voicemail from the casino with details on my arcade package purchase… which, you guessed it, I didn’t purchase. My arcade tastes run more to Ms Pac-Man so unless they have that, I’m not spending any time in the arcade. (But if they do have it, I will destroy all challengers.) No erroneous arcade charges appear on my account, though, so I won’t sweat it. Maybe that message was for Nicole and Ian? Someone tried to open my cabin door, and a porter also left a suitcase outside our door that was meant for two doors down. Hope my second bag actually shows up eventually. (Spoiler: it did, like 20 minutes later.) Random observations: There’s a lot of loud voices and yelling in the hallway. Inside voices, people! 🤫 I should have packed a longer USB cord.

Day 1 Freestyle Daily escape-day1.pdf

Around 2:20pm they announced that cabins were ready on a few decks, including ours. By the time we headed to the elevators, realized we were at the wrong end of the ship, backtracked, got impatient waiting for a non-full elevator and decided just to climb the stairs, they were announcing that all cabins were now ready. Got to our cabin and immediately collapsed on the bed for a nap. The husband likes his naps. While laying here (I don’t actually nap), there’s been one in-room PA announcement with a reminder to visit your muster station, and a couple of announcements out in the hall that I couldn’t quite catch but I did hear them saying code Alpha so I assume that was for crew. Our cabin is a typical NCL cabin, but we’ve got one of the angled balconies which is nice. If the sun comes back out at some point, I hope to spend some time out there…

We headed to the buffet for lunch, which was fairly busy but empty tables were available at the far aft section. I still prefer the buffet area on the Bliss and Encore; this one feels cramped and the layout isn’t intuitive. Just as we tucked into desserts, the husband realized that he left his carry-on shoulder bag in the Atrium so I scarfed down my bread pudding (really good) and we hustled back downstairs to find it. Success! It was still sitting right where he left it. After that excitement, we decided to head up to the thermal spa to ensure that our names were on the list (after the Vibe pass confusion early I was a little worried). But my worries were unfounded, and we got the check-in procedures spiel and went on a little DIY tour. I’m very excited about the double loungers, which I don’t recall from the Bliss or Encore. Rooms are expected to be ready around 3pm so we headed back down to Sugarcane on deck 8 and are happily sipping on mojitos and people-watching. Random observations: Haven’t heard anything yet about whether the tropical storm / hurricane will affect our sailing, as it has so many other ships and sailings. But it’s definitely getting rainier out already. I don’t think the sailaway pool party will be well attended. There’s some D&D event happening on board. If anyone knows the name of the organizing group, can you let me know?

Huh, it took an hour for that to post. 🤷‍♀️ But the wifi is working now.

It’s embarkation day! But first, breakfast. We woke up around 8:30am and headed up to 8th Avenue to the Times Eatery for breakfast bagels and ham and cheese croissant thingies. Then to Schmakary’s for coffee and fancy cookies. The weather had turned drizzly overnight, and the temperature dropped enough that I actually wore my hoodie for our walkabout. Back to the hotel to repack and checkout. We walked over to the cruise terminal, and quickly found the luggage drop. Going through security took a few minutes longer than it should have due to some folks in our line apparently not understanding how “take everything out of your pockets” works. The terminal proper was fairly packed. We followed the signs to Platinum check-in and bypassed most of the lines, but we could see that the regular seats and the priority seating areas were already full. Check-in took a bit longer than expected due to a weird snafu. The desk agent initially brought us the wrong keycards. (I hope Nicole and Ian got their cards eventually.) And then when we pointed that out, the agent started to walk away and say “oh I’ve got to go to this other counter for your Vibe passes”… except I didn’t purchase Vibe passes, and I let her know that. Long story short (too late) she ended up eventually coming back having just reprinted our actual cards with our actual names. And by the time that all got sorted, they were calling for Platinum guests to board, so we headed straight to the gate. A few minutes later and we were onboard. A perfunctory stop at our muster station and then we headed to Teppanyaki to get our dining reservations sorted out. I’d only been able to book one reso pre-cruise because we’d booked so late. Once onboard, I was able to get additional reservations at Cagneys and Bayamo, although not on the specific dates I’d wanted. And then it was time to start the drinking. We headed to the Atrium and found some comfy seats for people-watching. I also popped over to the CruiseNext desk to sign up for the ship tour and the wine tasting, both taking place tomorrow. I didn’t need the pins, but the CruiseNext dude gave them to me anyways. The ship wifi wasn’t working when we boarded, and a young man at the Internet Cafe said they were still resetting it between cruises and to try again around 1pm. Random observations: The husband is incredibly excited that NCL switched over to Coke products. He’s also already tired of me flaunting my Platinum status. 🤣 And punishing me with jokes like… “If I lose you on the way to mustard, don’t worry. I’ll ketchup.” [glare] “You relish my jokes, don’t you…” He also thinks the ship feels smaller, eg the doorways and elevators are lower than on the Bliss or Encore. I reminded him of how many times he’s bonked his head on those ships too, but… 🤷‍♀️

Our original plan for tonight was to hit up the TKTS booth in Times Square and go see The Shark is Broken. But on a whim we decided to check out the standby line for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. And we got in! It meant getting signed up and then spending 45 min killing time at a nearby Starbucks and then another hour waiting back at the CBS studio, but it was totally worth it. After the taping, we walked over to Broadway for a 99-cent slice of pizza. So good. Popped over to the Nintendo Store but alas it was disappointingly small and full of nerds. 🤓 Like us. Stopped into the McNally Jackson bookstore next door and picked up a few books for the cruise. Finally we cut through Times Square (bad idea on the Saturday night before Halloween, it was as packed as I’ve ever seen it) and got in line for Los Tacos No. 1. I ate here several times last time I was in NYC and wanted to introduce my husband to it. He whole-heartedly approved of both the tacos and the horchata. We headed back to the hotel, amid many people headed to various Halloween frivolities. Lots of Wednesday Addamses, Cruella de Vils, sexy angels, etc. Now in bed watching Beetlejuice. Catherine O’Hara is a national treasure.

Slept in late, only getting up around 10am when my stomach started grumbling. The husband preferred to snooze a bit longer so I ducked out for Starbucks and some bagels. By the time he roused himself, it was already in the mid-20s Celsius out (too damn hot for late October), so we revised our plans to a simple bike ride along the waterfront to Little Island. Little Island is a beautifully designed park on the former location of Pier 54, home of the Cunard and White Star lines, and where the Titanic would have docked. After that we cut inland to explore Chelsea Market but it was too crowded for my tastes. Damn tourists. 🤣 We biked up 8th Avenue and headed back to the hotel for a cold shower and another cat nap in the A/C. I do love the CitiBikes but dang they’re expensive and heavy. But I’m very impressed by how many more bike lanes there are in the city now even compared to five years ago.

After a nap, we headed out in search of lunch. And ended up at Shake Shack. We just love it soooo much and can’t wait until it comes to Canada (still a couple of years away). After that we wandered around the Times Square area, grabbed some coffee, and popped into Target (another thing we don’t have in Canada) to buy my mom some GrapeNuts (yet another thing we don’t have in Canada). We headed back towards the hotel via the waterfront, and confirmed where we’d need to go on Sunday for embarkation. After another nap, we headed out to a hole-in-the-wall ramen joint for dinner. For our evening entertainment, we went to see Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Absolutely loved it. Josh Groban was fantastic but Annaleigh Ashford stole the show. So funny. But oh my god people, turn off your cell phones and don’t check text messages during the show. The husband was feeling peckish so we grabbed a slice of pizza and headed back to the hotel while checking out all of the Friday-night-before-Halloween costumes in Hell’s Kitchen.