mking8288

SH Noodles @ lunch earlier

Disembarkation schedule for Wed. as listed & posted.

It's a zoo at Shanghai Noodles while waiting for the first seating to finish eating & tables to get cleaned up, already 1:10 pm. Poker tournament being held right next to the restaurant with another crowd hanging up. Keeping our 3-ply face mask on with coughing heard. Rapid testing result onboard 3 nights ago were negative, 1 line only for the control - good 👍 and feeling good & fine (thus far, staying healthy)

Day 13 onboard, a little commentary about food & dining on the GA as we see it on this cruise. OSH gets the top score for mostly fast services, mostly friendly & almost served as they arrived at our table, hot & not just warm. It's a rating that 4 of us collectively agreed upon, YMMV and this is our subjective opinion, when hot food is served at or barely above room temperature, it does not meet expectations. OSH serve up a hot, juicy burger - try that in the MDR, guaranteed you will be disappointed. There was a line waiting to get seated but not too bad, about 10 minutes ... several empty tables w dishes & plates waiting for extra help, yet to arrive, to clean things up. Crew shortage as assigned & deployed are clearly unmistakable. When the white uniformed "officer" is helping to clean up the tables & doing asst hostess duties, you know ... I'll write up a bit more post-cruise.

Good morning, our onboard navigational instruments showed that we are in the Bermuda triangle, traveling 900+ nm since we left Amber Cove after 4 pm yesterday with a cruise speed of 20 nm. Subtle changes are noticed in just about everywhere, see if a recent frequent cruiser can spot it. I will chat about this later. OSH for breakfast shortly 👌

Thanks all and happy to share the recognition with other fellow CC'ers ... we all learn from each other in making a better cruising experience for this community, which I've gained & learn so much, it's only fair and the right thing to give back & contribute. Along the way, get to meet & connect the real faces/names with some of the virtual CC screen names or ID "handles" in person - and, staying in touch as new friends after the cruise ended. Another "name" comes to mind for me ... shadowmeboy Henry a/k/a mking8288 - posting "live" on my Sony Vaio, northbound leaving the Caribbean Sea into the North Atlantic, well east of Bahamas & surprisingly, NCL's satellite WiFi (non-StarLink) isn't too bad for me while away from land signals.

Apparently, the solo coordinator onboard the GA is very good - location(s) & time of the solo events are posted ahead in the FSD, tomorrow (Monday) - they are meeting in the Illusionarium - must be a very sizabe group. They're planning to do dinners together & getting them into the shows as a group, etc. An old colleague of mine onboard this cruise sounded pretty happy with things as a solo cruiser.

Happy & pleased to know that the efforts made to do another "Semi Live" report 2.0 on the GA is helpful and useful to more than a few CC'er as being informative - as after Laszlo's Live Report, wasn't sure if there's much else to add ... apparently, lots of areas for someone to cover - his work helped me to look for ways to compliment & supplement. Haven & Beverage packaging, areas that I do not cover but pretty well answered thus far. I was set to just lay low and slip under the radar, stay discrete & only do a very limited coverage or report ... then, with all the purported changes by NCL rolling out ... not good to just leave stones untouched. On my Sony Vaio notebook PC again, switching among multiple devices and it's much easier for me answer questions & followup on specific issues with a keypad & mouse ("hate" using touchpads to scroll around) - once I try to log in, the NCL server network warned & asked if it can disconnect the "other" device for the current/newest device to go online - since the user "profile" is limited one device at a given time, as many registered devices as desired (3 smartphone, 1 iPhone, 1 Windows PC, and 1 iPad Mini that I haven't used much ... should've left it home & save a little weight or 1 lb of "extra" but backup gear if the notebook PC crashed on me. Answer to your questions is yes, you can (and, IMHO should) upgrade 1 of the 2 users only - especially on longer cruises like ours at 12 days, and as I mentioned - upgrade at 00:01 on Day 2 (with 2.5 full sea days ahead) - and just share the minutes. DW's "free" 300 minutes remained usable after "my" upgrade to basic unlimited. She & I used it for quick online access when the other person is on the unlimited mode - and there's still about 7 minutes remaining, and unlikely to need any large block of extra MB/minutes to be added as we are now en-route back to NY. Someone else, I believed, confirmed that it's possible to call in & upgrade only 1 person - give it a try. But, if you have any non-refundable OBC on a NCL cruise ahead, wait until you are onboard & then do the 1 person only upgrade - and OBC will cover some/all of the charges, like we did. Our net cost for 11 days of 1 person basic WiFi is just $85 after using $100 OBC to help offset it. Not bad - still more than my Google Fi's 1 month worth of Unlimited Plus coverage in cost/charges. DW's Google Fi will get billed about $15 extra in data w taxes/fees as those aren't covered on her Fi plan. DW was in retail banking for nearly 40 years until our planned early retirement together, and it was pretty difficult for her to do extended cruises - especially in the month of January or February until then. Looking forward to doing a lot more ahead ... plus other forms of vacation & travel. Just start planning ahead toward those dreams.

Tonight's MDR menu as used on Day 11 - braised beef short ribs was good, food temperature just warm. Just passable & edible, even Mrs M started noticing the little details ... Subject opinions, strictly personal.

It's Showtime tonight at the Tropicana Theater - Million Dollar Quartert at 7:30 pm. Rushed to dinner at 5 pm, informed our server & we finished at 6:30, made a bathroom stop & became first in line at 6:40 and tonight, doors opened promptly on time at 7 pm. Choice of best seats aside from maybe 20 from Haven already escorted inside via the side door. There's a separate standby time to the right ... looks more organized than last week.

@poohdreaming Tropicana, Taste & Savor all served & use the same rotating menu system. Speed seemed to be slower with the larger Trop, as the gallery is 1 deck below via escalators. Hard to say which is better or good, part of it depends on your server team & you table's grouping. If you have a large group of 8 or higher from multiple cabins, definitely speak to one of the host/ess to help plan ahead, try to agree on an early group dining time together as it's easier for everyone. Taste has more flexibility with large & long tables than Savor. We prefer round tables but that's usual for 6, 8 and some 10's in Tropicana. I know Taste has 2 elevated semi-private sections that can seat around 20 in total with 2 pairs of long tables combined.

4:15 pm and we are on the move, homeward bound for NYC. 14x power zoom Puerto Plata is 20 minutes away via highway route, beyond the hills & not exactly close or easy to walk there or back Not quite a colorful rainbow Wind farm for energy (and plenty of solar power) in use on these different islands.

Ship already blasted her horn for the 4th time at 3:50 pm. Many are late, most certainly on a ship tour, dozens that would become members of the Pier Runners Club at Amber Cove today - Pixel 7 Pro at 5x zoom power Time now 4:10 pm - should be going soon. Thrusters on below the bow👇

More pictures of what's nearby, including a small beach, pretty crowded but shaded, about 10 minutes walk from the ship's gangway. It's 3:45 pm already ... still lots of finalists for the Pier Runners Club, bridge just sounded the first horn blast, now #2 blast on the horn. Another 40+ pax just walked thru port security by the duty-free shop now. All abroad was 3:30 for 4 pm sailing 🫢

More pictures at Amber Cove ... tourist downtown is 20 minutes away, not worth our while to do for such a short time in the port. It's neat, clean & commercialized but okay.

After a light breakfast of fruits, yogurt, smoked salmon bagel, juice & coffee, rested briefly and just checked out the shops here at AC. Very good prices & wide selections at the duty-free shop vs. onboard Tradewind options as we needed to pickup gifts for someone. Open WiFi for general use is available at some of the stores including one of the cafe. Looked around a bit, photos & then returned to the ship for a buffet lunch. Those taxi-bike are free, seats 2 and drivers worked for tips only. Being hot, humid & sunny ... we used them. BTW, ship is out of bananas completely, got melons, apples & other fruits, etc.

My mom used one until age 91 to get around - always folded, stored & out of the way. One of my SIL had to use them as she bravely fought stage 4 cancer that metastasized & affect her neuromotor functions, no longer needed as she joined the NCL eternal Heaven. There are plenty other guests onboard with access challenges yet not behaving entitled ... I keep a folded walking stick on my luggage just in case it's needed as my knees can act up again. Exactly, nothing against bring them along and using them with younger ones, it's common sense. These aren't compact and full-sized, but, still can be folded & stored somewhere in a closet by working with housekeeping. Selfish mindset. I've communicated with the GM's team and asked them to review as to whether it's appropriate & to mitigate, in fairness to all guests.

Amber Cove, all for us from the Getaway at a CCL facility. It's hot, sunny & feeling the humidity too 😎 Looks kinda like a mini Harvest Caye ... but shorter walking distance from the gangway. 10:35 am - still waiting to be cleared & gangways ready for those going ashore.

@EllieinNJ Ellie, no upcharge at LC last night & the tenderloin was excellent. Enjoy your short visit to Bermuda later in the week. Henry

Good morning, cruise speed at 17 knots just off the coast of DR, less than 20 nm from Amber Cove. A bit cloudy in the distance, MDR breakfast in Taste ... getting busy & crowded here at 9 am.

Telling it like it is ... These, as I previously seen in person, are just utterly unacceptable but ... it's not "always" there. Returning to our stateroom at 11:15 pm after coming back from Ocean 6-7-8, the question is "what if" ... much more serious than plates & cups in the hallway not picked up (as there are no clear guidelines & rules for the herd to follow)

Findings from a night owl (11 pm, action currently up in Spice H2O, Deck 16 AFT outdoors) *** Glow Party (formerly, White Hot Party) Atrium w movie on big screen. OSH not busy at the moment. Here's your "new" late night casino snack station - DIY, for your convenience 😳 ☹️ 🙄 - facts checked as told by our CAS friends onboard with us this week, I verified it personally on the Getaway as being true 🙈 Enjoy

As usual on our 4th post 2020 return to cruising, upgraded ours to basic unlimited WiFi - depending on a matrix of factors (as the end users) - I have no issues accessing my "live" security cam footage or playback clips via ship's connections. My newest Google Pixel 7 Pro also get up to 6 to 7 Mbps d/l speed on 5 Ghz WiFi but much slower on 2.4 Ghz, whereas Samsung Galaxy S22+ just couldn't get anywhere near those speed. YMMV Waiting to see how Starlink will perform on NCL ship's this year.

Getaway Amber Cove info & Day 10's Freestyle Daily for Jan 29, 2023

Dinner at La Cucina