clarkg

Loving the review.

I do love your reviews and pictures. It looks like you had a blast.

Yes, visited the blog too. The additional pics were wonderful too as was your blog post.

Thank you so much.

The two of you sure look like you're having fun. :) Great pics.

We did, it was a fun getaway.

Thanks for the pictures here and the review on your blog.

 

BTW, we were on the Ruby twice this year and you are correct about the food. Not sure what changed, but, it was much better a year ago when we were on her (hey everyone, I didn't say it was bad, just was not as good as before). :confused:

 

YMMV

I have had some amazing food on Princess, but this cruise it was just bland.

Thanks for sharing. Terrific pictures.

Thank you, more pictures on the blog.

I've never done Carnival but have done many NCL cruises. It looks like a dead heat to me.

Entertainment: NCL

Cabin: Carnival

Steakhouse: NCL

MDR: Carnival

Lunch: Carnival

Fellow Passengers: NCL

We did this cruise too, but the other direction. Looks like you had fun.

Did you go through a TA of another site, or did you book straight through NCL?

The mini suite was small or just the balcony on the mini suite was small?

The aft part of the ship. The rain slowed down the use of the hot tubs until the last day when the sun finally came out.

The promenade deck looking aft.

Heading into the rain squalls.

Ice sculpture demonstration. Notice the one little boy in just swim trunks while everyone else is bundled up.

The sun sets on the cruise

The back of the ship with Canada Place in the background.

The heart of the ship, the Piazza or Atrium. They have a lot of activities here. Seating is an issue so come early.

The aft pool, the first two days were rainy, but as we got close to LA this area became a hive of activity.

Thanks for your Blog Review, I enjoyed it

 

 

Srpilo

Thank You.

The ship is tied up to Canada Place. We have taken a lot of cruises out of here so we know it well. They have improved the embarkation process a lot, but still have room for improvement. It was the $79.00 price tag that attracted me to this cruise. We have taken three day cruises before but the ship was in port everyday, It was the all sea day cruise that sounded relaxing.

I upgraded to a balcony cabin without telling the wife. She was pleasantly surprised.

View from the balcony looking forward. Notice the lower balconies are totally visible to the upper ones. On a different cruise I overheard a guy talking about how he walked out on the balcony naked to applause from above.

I have to ask if the mushroom frittata is the one that comes with Italian sausage & polenta with ciabatta bread? I'll be on the Ruby next week & they rarely have that breakfast on short cruises.

Yes that's the one I had.

I thought I would do something different with this review. Since I have a blog that has the whole of it, I will just share pictures a captions here, if you want a more detailed review I will link you to the blog on the bottom of the page.

The wife smiling as she packs. We had a lot of stress lately in our lives, so we needed this cruise badly. Her smile would brighten as she got on the ship.

This is the Vancouver skyline from the ship. They had an NCL in port the same day. The backup at customs was so bad that we were late departing.

Here is the Blog

http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2015/09/3-day-coastal.html

I'm enjoying your review!

We did this cruise too. Loved it. The only difference it that we started in Venice and ended in Barcelona.

I did a cruise blog of it too. Might be interesting to compare.

http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2014_09_01_archive.html

We took this cruise last year on the Gem. We loved it. I have a blog post about it posted below.

http://clarkanddeb.blogspot.com/2014/11/new-england-part-1.html

Thoroughly enjoyed your review and in particular, your delightful sense of humor. And as a happily married woman (22 years and as besotted as ever) I also enjoyed the obvious love you have for your wife.

Thank you so much!

Great Review so far.

Loving the review so far. We did a 12 day Cruise at of Venice on NCL. It was amazing.

We love the Freedom, and we loved the Breakaway.

 

The main difference we found was that the Freedom had the Flowrider, and the Breakaway has the Ropes Course. Not a surfer, so the flowerier didn't do much for me, although it was fun to watch. The ropes course didn't turn me on as I did all that during basic training 50+ years ago. Again it was fun to watch.

 

We are Diamond on RCL, and Platinum on NCL.

 

We live in Florida. Depending on the time of the year, we will not fly to New York to board a cruise ship that spends a day or more in cold weather to come south for a few days only to lose a cruise day to cool or cold weather to return home.

 

The Breakaway has a sister ship, the Getaway, based in Miami. Warm weather all the way through the week.

 

The Freedom is based in Port Canaveral. Again, warm weather throughout the week.

 

We have been on the Breakaway, the Getaway, and the Freedom. We are booked on the Freedom and the Getaway. Will book both of them again.

 

Hope this helps.

I loved the way you summed that up. It was very good information.

We did this cruise too in Sept of last year. I was fun reading your review and comparing notes. I find my old review about it. If your interested. It would be nice to see some of your pictures also.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2107759

Nice review. We've done cruises similar to this twice, but in the fall so we got the colors as the trees changed.

It will be a little more nickle and dime than you remember. The 18% gratuity and the daily service charge will be more. All changes that have happened recently. The food should be about the same. It got worse then it got better.

Room service has a charge with very few exceptions, but other than that, it should be around the same.