natb

I, for one, am super pumped about sailing on the Encore on Feb 2!!! I know there will be things I like and dislike about the ship but I’ve prepared myself and know what to expect. I already know I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get a lounger on the top deck! Lol Now if someone could fix the weather forecast of rain and more rain  for the 2 days prior to sailing in Miami, I would be extremely happy!! 😅

7 hours ago, bkrickles1 said:

You can absolutely show up at 9:30 or 10am if it's important for you get on board early to book stuff or just to start your vacation as soon as possible. We always do and it's never an issue. The time on your edocs is more of a suggestion so everyone doesn't show up at the same time.

Regarding the 250 minute perk. As Bird said it's value is $125 and it can be used towards an upgrade.

What we did was not use wifi on sailaway day. It's a short day as you can use regular service until at least 4pm or whenever sailaway is and you should be too busy having fun to be interested in your phone anyway (this was a hard sell to my 19yo). The tip lies in the fact that unlimited wifi costs (rounding up) $30 per day or $210 for 7 days. Waiting until 12:01AM of that first night allowed us to not pay for that first day, saving $30, and paying $180 minus the $125 credit for a total of approx. $55 for the entire week. Again, a good value. It's key to not use wifi at all that first day (until midnight) or you'll lose the $125 credit.

My daughter did it herself at pretty much exactly 12:01am, as I was sleeping already, and it worked perfectly.

She used it mostly but my wife and I did have her log out occasionally so we could log on and check on things back home.

The wifi worked reasonably well all week and I thought it was a clever tip that I learned about on these forums among many other things.

Also, if you're on Verizon as I am, your regular data plan will work as if you're home in both San Juan and St. Thomas.

Have a great cruise!

Do you know if you don’t use the wifi at all, you get a $125 credit?

9 hours ago, bkrickles1 said:

Just got back last night from our 7 day Encore cruise.

Just to get it out of the way, I'll say it was great!

It was me, my wife and 19yo daughter sailing with my aunt and uncle in 2 balcony cabins on deck 14 aft.

No Haven, no vibe, no priority access. Just regular passengers who were prepared because of these forums and successfully navigated this beautiful ship. Big shoutout to Birdtravels whose crazily detailed review was awesome for planning. Thanks again!!

I booked this sailing in December, 2018 and had all 6 perks. Dining, drink, 3rd pass. free, $50 shore excursion credit per port, 250 minute wifi and free air. I thought it was a great deal and we took advantage of all of them. We didn't like the time of our return flight yesterday (5pm), but we saved so much I'd say it was worth it.

We arrived in Miami the night before our sailing and stayed at a hotel 5 minutes from the pier. We got up early, took an Uber to the ship ($6) and arrived before 9:30. 

We checked bags at the curb and was waiting on line at security for about 20 minutes before they opened it up and we zipped through and got our boarding group card (we were group 2).

By around 11 they started the boarding process which was fast and easy. Again, we had no priority but boarded immediately after the priority people.

We went straight to finish our reservations. I had already booked Choir of Man, Kinky Boots and our 3 SDP  meals so we only needed to book comedy.

We went to the Social and it was painless. The line went fast and they had lots of staff there who were very helpful. They had papers there that had the schedule so you could figure out how to coordinate your days and evenings so you could avoid conflicts.

I'll add here that we had determined before our sailing that we had zero interest in the Go Karts, Laser Tag or Galaxy Pavillion. This definitely would change some things if they are important to you and from what others said, it can add some stress. I'll also add that I believe this sailing was light on children. I was told there were 4500 passengers on board but never asked for a kids count. I'm determining this because we spent all of our sea days on deck 17, overlooking the pool area in the exact same loungers, and I'd glance over at the water slides and the lines were never that long. In fact I thought they were short and easy to get on.

After making comedy reservations, we headed to the Observation Lounge for drinks and snacks. We were sitting in chaise lounge chairs by the front windows having a cocktail before noon. This is where we had made plans to meet our aunt and uncle when they boarded, which was approx. an hour later. After they boarded, we had another drink or 2 and headed to the mdr for a nice sit down lunch. I believe avoiding the buffet before sailaway is the way to go.

The OL might be one of the nicest spaces I've seen on a ship. Just beautiful, friendly service and virtually never a crowd. It's enormous! My aunt and uncle spent much of their time there and we'd make the occasional visit for a drink and a snack. Great bartenders and great walk around service. I'd highly recommend the space, especially for when you first board. 

Good tip if wifi is important and I can't take credit for it as I learned about it here. We stayed off it on sailaway day and at 12:01AM my daughter logged in and updated to unlimited. We received $125 credit and saved the $30 for the first day and our net cost was $54. Again, a good value and the wifi was pretty good overall. At least that's what my daughter said as she was the one using it 95% of the time. We even facetimed a few times with people from home and it worked reasonably well at times.

Food was very good overall. Our specialty dining was at Q, Los Lobos and Teppenyaki. Los Lobos was our favorite. Everything was good and we tried everything on the menu. And the desserts were even better. Teppenyaki was also great. Fun, with fresh and tasty food. Q was very good. Great apps, good entrees and good desserts.

MDR's were good too. Had our best meal at Manhattan room but we ate in Taste and Savor too and enjoyed them as well. Of course everything wasn't great but you pick and choose until you find something you like and it's quite enjoyable. Service was great in all dining venues, although we had one waiter in Taste one night for dinner that wasn't on his game but I actually believe it was a language barrier thing. We're pretty laid back (not my uncle) and roll with it pretty well.

Buffet was pretty much like every buffet on every ship we've sailed on. Again, you try different things until you find something you like. Seating wasn't an issue and we'd frequently get stuff from there and bring it to the pool deck (deck 17 actually) to snack on.

Ate at the Local once and it was fine too.

Chair hogs. Same as every ship we've sailed on. There's a 15 minute rule (that seems extremely short to me) that's posted on the big screen always but not enforced too much from what I saw. With that in mind, people were able to find chairs somewhere almost all of the time if they were patient. This didn't affect us as I went to the gym every sea day at 5:45am and was up on deck 17 before 7:30 getting 3 chairs for me and my girls (who were sleeping) and I never left. I'd go in the whirlpool and listen to music until my lazy girls made it up on deck. In fact, we had the exact same loungers every day we went up there. 

We like the sun and the pool atmosphere and we'd stay up on deck all day. The 3 of us would never leave at the same time so we did follow the rules.

The DJ was good and the Temperature Band was very good.

I met a couple of people who got Vibe passes who boarded just after us so for this sailing I don't believe you needed priority access to get it. Every sailing is probably different so you have to decide how important that would be for you. I know I could have gotten them but I didn't want to pay and, as I said, we like the busy pool atmosphere and we always had loungers.

Entertainment was so much fun and the quality was terrific. I think we hit every venue and we enjoyed them all.

Choir of Man should never be missed. We saw it on the Escape 18 months ago in the supper club and said it was the best show we'd ever seen on a cruise ship and the new production with the new set and additional players was awesome too. And my daughter (and wife) thought the guys were super cute!

Kinky Boots was great too. Started a little slow and then it gets going and is a top notch Broadway production.

Comedians were good. The Social is a really nice venue and we went and saw both comedians in their 18+ sets.

Phil & Keisha at the Sugarcane were good.

Saw Yesterday (the Beatles tribute band) at the Cavern Club and the main theater and had a blast. The Cavern Club was especially fun.

Jim Badger at the DB was good too. We went there one night for about 45 minutes and enjoyed it.

This ship, probably more than any other we've been on, had so much music everywhere and it was good. I love music so this was great for me and my people.

There was a terrific piano player who frequented the OL and the Atrium (there was music all the time in the Atrium). Guns and Rojas played everywhere and played all sorts of stuff from PInk Floyd to Sinatra. Strange but surprisingly good.

And the country band in Q, Top Shelf, were so much fun also. My wife and daughter love country and couldn't have been happier with the band.

Deck parties were fun. We didn't make it to Glow but stopped by for the 80's party and the Band mashup which featured most of the musicians playing together and that was really good.

I read just about all the reviews prior to sailing and got such good advice. The criticisms I read about just didn't apply to us. I think it was mostly because we were so prepared and we are pretty laid back when we vacation. Those that said they couldn't get drinks, I just don't comprehend that. Did the pool bar sometimes get busy? Of course it did, but I never waited that long. I'd glance over before wandering over and if it was 3 deep (extremely rare), I'd wait a couple of minutes. The other bars on board were like any bars you'd go to on land. Sometimes you waited a couple of minutes, other times they were practically empty and you were served immediately. I got great value out of my drink package (lmao) and went to almost every bar and liked it all. They knew me in the OL so I'd sometimes have a drink before I sat down. I was also able to get a couple of unopened beers at the bars and bring them back to my cabin so I could have one at my leisure on the balcony. I had my mini fridge emptied the first day just for that reason and to fit some water bottles.

Cabin steward was so nice. We left her a note on the first day with our requests (and a $10 bill) and she fulfilled everything right away. We saw her when we wanted but she wasn't intrusive. We had a problem with our safe 2 times. It just died and they replaced the battery once and then they replaced the safe entirely. Nobody's fault.

We booked two shore excursions. The first was in Tortola. It was "Escape to Jost Van Dyke" and it was great!! We had an 8:15am time slot so we met on the pier, boarded a catamaran and took a 45 minute ride around Tortola to the island of Jost Van Dyke and into the bay of White Bay Beach, home of the Soggy Dollar Bar. Catamaran pulled right up to the beach and we spent 3 hours lounging in front of an establishment that's right next the Soggy Dollar, called Hendo's. Great lounge chairs with umbrellas and even better painkillers. I believe I had 6 of them, but who's counting. It was definitely up there as one of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen. Ride back to the pier had rum punch included so it was a good day already and it was only 1pm when we got back.

On Great Stirrup Cay we booked a large cabana. It was very nice to have a spot and it was nice for my aunt and uncle to have shade. It took a little while for the guy bringing drinks to get his stuff together by we did arrive early and once he got going, we were good to go. There was a hot dog cart right in front of us and a food truck right next to us that some pretty good sandwiches. The mahi mahi was very good. There's a lot of food in various spots and plenty of bars too. Anyway, another real good day and we did stay there until almost the bitter end. Our tender back was an adventure. It was super rough and we couldn't get close to the ship for awhile. And then once we did, they couldn't get the ramp set up and then it was slamming against the tender, making it a little precarious getting off and onto the ship. But we survived.

I'm gonna leave it at that.

We had a great time with virtually nothing to complain about but as I've mentioned here a couple of times, I pretty much knew everything ahead of time and wasn't surprised by anything.

The Encore is a mega ship and if you're clueless I could see it being extremely frustrating. I met several people who couldn't get into the comedy shows, who didn't know the OL existed. These folks were spending their nights on standby lines and still not getting into some things. This would drive me crazy.

We were discussing one night how it was 20+ years ago. You could board a cruise ship and just let it come to you. No reservations. No worrying if you'd get a seat somewhere. No forums to spend your whole life obsessing over. Lmfao!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, sorry if I was a little scattered. I believe I still have alcohol in my system and I'm a little foggy still.

If I missed anything or you have questions, feel free to throw them out there.

 

 

Thank you so much for this informative review! I’m even more excited for our Feb 2 sailing. I have 2 questions...

1) on our edocs it says not to go to port until 12pm boarding. Should we really be there at 10am?? 
2)I’m confused about the internet. We have the free 250 minutes. I am curious how you got a credit and only paid $53 for unlimited... is that really all it cost? 😀