Let'sGoTribe

Please tell us about your trip and the casino anything new in it

 

I assume you are asking me, although i have been known to be wrong.

 

First let me say that this was an Ultra Premier casino cruise. It was supposed to be limited to 50 invited guests plus whoever shared their cabin. It turned out that there were over 400 people besides all those that were not part of the Ultra. The casino was PACKED! People were sitting at tables and machines hours before the casino even opened. I play table games and was only able to get a seat at Ultimate Texas Holdem once the entire week. It was somewhat easier getting a seat at blackjack.

 

The other nightmare was check in. There were over 500 platinum and diamond guests. My daughter and i handed our boarding passes to the woman at the captain's lounge and then waited almost an hour to get checked in. Once we were checked in we were allowed to immediately board. Our cabin was ready before noon.

 

That's it for the not so good stuff.

 

I cruise solo a lot but this time i had my 23 year old daughter and some friends sailing with me. We did the same itinerary as the Jan 28th cruise. In Grand Cayman we just got off and walked around town. Belize we did not get off. We spent most of the day at the aft adults only pool. At Mahogany Bay we went to the beach at the port. We got a clamshell and floaty mats and spent the day mostly in the water. In Cozumel we went to the all inclusive side of Mr Sancho's. And yes, we did eat and drink MY monies worth.

 

The food on the ship was good. I am not a fan of Guy's but i love the burritos for both breakfast and lunch. I like the American Table menus in the dining room. Service was very good the 4 nights that we went. Also went to steakhouse once. It was excellent. The other 2 nights we ordered room service. The BLT was as good as ever and the steak sandwich on the extra charge part of the menu was enjoyed by my daughter and well worth the price.

 

The best meal i have ever had on a cruise ship was the first sea day at lunch. This cruise was my first as diamond. We got invited to lunch with the captain. My friend tried to talk me out of going but my daughter and i went anyway. There was a crab salad appetizer with real crab and a filet mignon that was so tender you could cut it with a fork and cooked to perfection. I don't remember what dessert was.

 

That's it. If you have any specific questions i'll try to answer them.

Will be sailing on her in just over a week. How was Muster handled?

Frasier Season 4 Episode 4: A Crane's Critique

 

Most of ship's amenities sort of ran together so I'll cover them as much as I remember in one post.

 

Bars:

Like Frasier and Niles meeting T.H. Houghton that's how it was when I met Bong. We went to the Mojito Bar on deck 8 many, many, many (you get the point we had the drink package) times. It was always great and drew a very fun crowd. We never went to the outside portion of the bar. Inside at nights there was usually some live music. We really enjoyed the latin group and Jim Long. If you decide to drink here you have to understand their big drinks are mojitos and they take time. The whole group of bartenders here are entertaining. The first time there we saw this bartender balancing drinks on his head and pouring them. About our 3rd night there the same bartender was serving us and after talking to him I while I realized I was in the presence of NCL royalty and it was Bong. I should have known he comes by his reputation honestly. Know what cows drink or he may have to cut you off! He tells jokes, does magic, and puts his personal touch on all the drinks. The rest of the bartenders there are great, but Bong is one of a kind. I don't really drink much and enjoy the foo-foo drinks more. I really enjoyed mudslides. A cheap way for me to drink no-calorie chocolate shakes. Erin likes a little more alcohol and drank mojitos. The raspberry guava and the pineapple coconut were her favorites.

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The other bar we enjoyed was Spice H20. I believe the bartender there was Danny Fernandes. The mango meltdown is awesome at this bar. It is a combination strawberry and mango daiquiri. Spice was just a nice place to go get away from the crowd, adult only and still get some sun. Erin also was able to check a moscow mule off of her bucket list of drinks.

 

We drank at a lot of other bars on ship, but these were our 2 favorites. The Haven bar was just too quiet for us. There is no entertainment there and it seemed like an airport bar to us.

 

Dining:

 

When we were on Epic we ate at specialty restaurants every night. Thinking this would be the same we purchased the dining package. I already reviewed Cagney's, a huge disappointment for us. I wish the service and food was better because my favorite thing is a great steak.

 

Teppanyaki was excellent. The presentation by the cook is what makes the meal specialty. They do all of the classic Japanese steak house stuff. They have great songs they sing and the presentation is a lot of fun. I had the shogun, chicken and beef and Erin had land and sea, beef and shrimp. Both selections were tasty and the fried rice was better than what we get at home. We ate at Teppanyaki twice and enjoyed both times. The first time we sat with 3 other groups of two all adults. The second time we ate with a family of 6. They were Mom, Dad, and 4 teenage or older daughters. All of the groups were fun and we had some great conversations. The second time we had a complimentary bottle of wine. I'll get into why in a little bit.

 

Moderno was worse than Cagney's. I try not to critiques solely on food because it is so subjective. The service we had at Moderno was the worse I have had in any restaurant land or sea. The salad bar as most have said is excellent . They have a lot of unique items on the bar. Our waiter seemed to have way too many tables or just had no clue what he was doing. He asked us about drinks as we sat down and we both ordered drinks. After he asked 3 more times what we would like to drink about 45 minutes later we got drinks. It wasn't just us, every table beside us was sharing in the frustration. Most would flag down the maitre 'D to get what they needed. There was a theme with this guy that after the 3rd or 4th time you would ask him for something you would get it. We received some butter and bread almost an hour into our meal and the sauces for the meats just before he asked us about dessert. He was so busy running from table to table he would never stop to listen to our requests after asking us if we needing anything. I always look forward to lamb on a cruise ship, but I enjoy it with mint jelly. I asked for the mint jelly 3 times before he finally brought me out au jus. When he asked about dessert we declined it just wasn't worth it. I have never complained to management about service in my life, but when the Asst Maitre 'D Raluca Udrea asked how everything was as we were getting up to leave I unloaded. I explained to her in detail how frustrating this meal was and asked if perhaps they had given too many tables to each waiter. She apologized profusely and asked for my cabin member. I told her it was okay there was nothing she could do and she said no I want to give you a bottle of wine. I told her it wouldn't be necessary. I really didn't want anything. I just wanted her to know so she could take care of the service issue. Fast forward 2 nights later to Teppanyaki. The hostess as we are seated gives Erin a wine list and tells her she has a complimentary bottle of wine. When I asked why she told we it was from Raluca Udrea. I really thought that was very classy of her and it impressed me. She had to track us down to make the gesture. On any other cruise line I don't believe that would have happened.

 

Le Bistro is phenomenal. I can't say enough good things about this restaurant. We managed to eat there twice and each time was consistently exceptional. The service there was on par or better to the service we received in the Haven restaurant. The food was a better quality than the Haven imo. The first night there was a lady there with her teen daughter who was telling everyone that this was the first time in her daughter's life she was able to order a dessert in a restaurant. Her daughter had some sever allergies and one of the chefs came out to walk her through the dessert menu to find a suitable option. I found this to be true throughout the restaurants. They were very concerned with allergies and checked constantly. I had the same meal both nights at Le Bistro the filet. Erin had the salmon one night and swordfish the next.

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Haven Restaurant was on par with the better specialty restaurants. The service was impeccable and friendly. Most of the time we had Esther as our server. This was her last trip before her vacation. She would get you anything from anywhere. She knew Erin liked the pretzel rolls so she would get those brought in from the buffet. We mixed and matched sides and main courses on the menu with no problem. I just have to say again that the food is served hot, not warm. The filet in the Haven is large and good. They have excellent burgers for lunch. It was so nice to have this option especially for breakfast and lunch. It was a high quality sit-down meal that didn't take any longer than going to the buffet.

 

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The casino was large, but I don't think as well laid out as the casino on Epic. The table dealers were all friendly. Nothing worse than losing your money and dealing with a stone faced dealer. They all seemed genuinely happy when you were winning and get to know your name quickly.

 

The blackjack tournaments were a different format than I'm use to. Instead of each day tournament being a stand alone with a winner each day, there's is a 3 sea day format with a final table at the end. The prize was $500 no matter how much they earned for the week. Just from my experiences on RCCL that is very low. The entry fee was reasonable though at $15 so I played 1 time each day. One day I convinced Erin to play the tournament with me. I apologize to the other 4 people at the table. On the first hand some crazy lady stood on a soft 5 against the dealer's 4, we'll call her Erin. Just to show you what a good crowd we had they all laughed and thought it was hilarious. I ended up the week almost dead even, I think up like $50 for blackjack.

 

Erin plays slots so we both purchased one of the $25 slot play coupons prior to boarding. They were very easy to use and the casino host gives you a cheat sheet on how to use the credits. Erin is very lucky when it comes to gambling. She played 3 machines Skeeball, Stinkin' Rich, and Pirates and managers to hit small jackpots on each almost every time she played. She will play about 5 pulls on a machine if it doesn't win and will pull one time after a big win before quitting. She managed to win about $500 over the first 6 days. The only machine she waited until day 7 for was Deal or No Deal. She lost about $80 waiting for the deal time to come and finally was able to pick a case. She turned down the first 3 deals. On the third deal the other person playing took the deal leaving only her. She was trying to decide if she should take the fourth deal when time ran out and it was automatically no deal. Turns out she had the winning case and pulled out a win for $100 more than she had bet. So on our $50 investment she won about $600. We decided not to play anymore that night and go home with a win.

I have really enjoyed your review. The dailies are very helpful in the planning of our trip. We are sailing on the Getaway on 11/29.

You mentioned $25 slot coupons that you purchased prior to boarding. Did you purchase them online? If so, I have been unable to find them on the NCL site. Please point me in the right direction.

Thank you so much!