tripleboom

Stacy and the boys made a few more trips down the Aqua Racer (no one was brave enough for the Aqua Loop except Landon who's still waiting to hit that 100 lb mark). The sun was starting to set and it was already getting cooler. The boys spent about 45 minutes in the pool which was a little less crowded (and blissfully heated!) today, before diving in to a ping pong battle while Stacy and I headed back to the room.

Once we arrived back aboard we headed to the room to freshen up and then head to lunch. I noticed after the fact that I failed to take any photos of our entrées at lunch, but to be fair, I'm pretty sure we were all too hungry to wait before digging in! If I'd have tried to sneak my phone in there for a pic there was a chance I'd have lost my hand. 🤣 But when dessert arrived I was able to catch those pics quickly. Stacy's apple pie à la mode was perfect! And I can never resist the raspberry brownie cheesecake! By the time we returned to our cabin to change into swimwear, we discovered a new friend waiting for us.

Is there anything worse than the return to your 9-5 life after a cruise? Sorry for the delay! Now back to Cabo... We had such a great time on our whale watching trip, and we even spied some other wildlife along the way. The boys were thrilled to see "Crush" out in the wild. I'll never forget the great day on the sea, but I think I'll cherish the laughter and smiles of the boys just as much. 🙂 Like all good things, our excursion had to come to an end, so we started making our way back into the marina. We arrived back in the marina, tipped our guides for the day, and headed back to the tender pier. We had plenty of time to hang around the marina and do some shopping if we wanted, but by this time everyone was hungry, sun zapped, and ready to relax back aboard. So we hopped the next tender and headed for "home." We snuck another good view of the size of the Joy compared to the tenders serving here. You can see the tendering operation underway in this shot too.

The boys really enjoyed that we got first pick of seats. This allowed them to get right up in the front to feel the sea spray and wind in their hair! Beautiful day! After about 20 minutes or so of chasing some distant water spouts, we finally spotted a full on breach in the distance, and then it was off to the races! As we closed in there were already a number of other small vessels in the area, so we kind of formed a conga line running a largely parallel course to the whales, keeping a good distance. But that's why God gave us zoom lenses. 😄 Incredibly, we were running along side a mama humpback and her adolescent calf that was learning how to breach! Such an awesome sight, even on the smaller calf scale. As a couple of the other ships in the line moved on, we stuck around and were treated to a course change from Mama and her calf, they briefly were coming right toward the zodiac before scooting out past the front of us. Just incredibly beautiful. Landon caught a very cool angle of that approach from the GoPro. You can see the initial break of the surface before they dipped below, but you can see the lighter colored water where they're just gliding right in front of our idle boat. A day we'll never forget!

This shot of the bow also gives you a little look at the size of the tenders compared to the ship. They come in varying sizes and models with some bigger than others, but they're all dwarfed by the Joy. It's a pretty short, maybe 10 minute ride from the ship into the marina, but it can be a bit choppy for spells. If you don't experience motion sickness on the ship, you may consider something for this day, particularly if your plans will have you out on the water around Cabo. We had a noon meeting time for our independently booked Viator excursion for whale watching in a small, fast zodiac boat for the day. The tour operator has an office that is probably about a ten minute walk from the marina, but because of our tight timetable for the day, we made arrangements to meet with the captain just outside one of the restaurants right near the cruise tender pier. A quick call to their office (thanks for service in Mexico, AT&T!), and we tracked each other down. He led us to the nearby zodiac, but we were the first to arrive, so he gave us our choice of seats on board, and ran off to go find some more passengers. We loaded on about 14 or 15 passengers in total, plus two crew, and then started making our way back out into the bay. That of course meant a trip past El Arco... And Pelican Rock... Before heading out to the open waters to go whale watching!

I still need to check St. Thomas, USVI off my bucket list, but among the ports I've been to, Cabo is definitely one of the more scenic approaches to port. Today we would share the port with Royal Princess (a bit redundant, no?) We also were in port with this sizeable vessel, the owner of which would probably look down his nose at a Haven Suite. 🤣 We hit up the buffet for breakfast on this morning, then made our way down to Deck 6 to The Social. This is the location of the comedy shows most nights, but this morning it served as the Priority Tender Access meet up point. This was our first cruise as Gold Latitudes members, so we were a bit shaky on the details of how exactly to get our priority access. I had asked the guest services desk a couple of nights prior, but they seemed a bit unsure of the answer; just stating that we'd be contacted ahead of time. Sure enough, on the evening of the sea day, we had a voicemail waiting when we got to our room confirming what time to meet at The Social, and there was also a note in the daily left in our room the night before Cabo. Upon arrival in The Social, they had a bouncer... errr... NCL staff member who merely looked like a bouncer, waiting outside the doors. He verified our stateroom card showed gold status or higher and allowed us past the velvet rope. 😉 When we arrived at about 10:15 there were probably 35-40 other folks there, but as we crept closer to the scheduled 11:00 AM arrival time, the room got mostly full. Fortunately, they had us grouped by arrival time, so they eventually called us a little before 11:30 and we were led from The Social directly down the forward stairs to Deck 4 where the tenders were waiting for us. I thought it's worth noting that there were a couple of our fellow passengers in this group that had mobility issues and I could hear them inquiring with staff about how to get down to Deck 4 if we were all using the stairs. Later I saw one of these passengers attempting to slowly make her way down the stairs, so I'd say, best case, advocate EARLY upon arrival for some form of assistance to get down to Deck 4, or maybe wait until most others have gone ashore for a less hectic tender experience. Worst case, Cabo might not be a good port to attempt to make it into the marina. The tender boats that come in from Cabo to take passengers to shore are not super large, and the gangways from the ship onto the tenders are a bit iffy. There were some significant swells that sent the tenders careening this way and that, and while Joy staff were on hand to aid in making sure passengers only crossed the gangway when safe to do so, I could easily see the potential for someone with limited mobility struggling with and getting hurt in their attempt to load onto the tender. There you go... my unsolicited two cents. As you board the tender, please be mindful that others are trying to board too. There's no first class section, so just move to the back of the tender so we can all load quickly and efficiently. By the time we boarded there were passengers filling the front rows of the tender, so we had to scoot past, through, and over them to get to the empty seats at the back. I thought it a bit silly to slow things up that way. 🤷‍♂️ Once the tender was loaded, we quickly pulled away from the ship and got a good look at this beauty. She is an absolute SHOWSTOPPER.

Day 3 - Cabo Day 3 brought us to our first port stop of the cruise, Cabo! First things first, we picked up the harbor pilot and started making our way around the end of the Baja peninsula. With highs forecast for the mid-70s with partly cloudy skies I wasn't complaining, but I was also grateful that our day's plans didn't have us IN the water. But we were getting a pretty good preview for our day's excursion right from the balcony of our cabin! It was pretty easy to spot the caravan of small boats parading around a relatively small area of the ocean, so once you spotted them, it became easy to spot the whales they were tracking. Stacy was ecstatic!

I was surprised when I found out that they're not on every ship! So it was a very happy discovery as we wandered the buffet that first night. You'll find it on the starboard side, further forward on the ship.

After our afternoon activities, we had decided to have dinner at Savor on this evening. The Manhattan Room opens for dinner service at 5pm and wraps up by 9pm, whereas Taste and Savor open at 5:30 and go until 9:30 each night. We decided to be at Savor a little before 5:30 so we could be seated immediately after opening. We had plans to see Footloose this evening, so we let the staff know at the time we were seated and again when our waiter greeted us. Now, I'm well aware of the slower, formal pace of dining in the MDRs. I'm aware that on some evenings one might be able to expect a 1.5 hour dining experience or perhaps even a bit more. But we've had no issues with the MDRs being accommodating with our requests to be mindful of our evening entertainment reservations on past sailings. We've been in, out, and on our way in 45 minutes to an hour on those occasions with no issue. Unfortunately, on this night, this is where we ran into some trouble again. After being seated we had a bit of a wait before the waiter came and took drink orders, so we took a couple of pics while waiting. We clean up pretty well! 😊 You can hardly tell that these two are related. 😉 After a not insubstantial wait, which was probably made to feel longer by the fellow guest noisily, plhlegmily (yup, I'm making up words now) clearing his throat over and over again, our starter course arrived. I opted for the shrimp cake: While Stacy went for the spicy crab meat wontons. These were very good! Unfortunately, this would be the last of the food we received at Savor this night. According to the meta data on my pictures, the starters arrived at around 6:02, about 30 minutes after we were sat. Not the end of the world, so long as the entrées weren't far behind. We spent the next 30 minutes waiting and watching the surrounding tables, including a couple of very large parties seated after us, be served their starters, entrées, and desserts. We only saw our waiter once after the starters arrived, and I asked then how much longer the food would be, reminding him of our evening schedule, and he assured us it would be out shortly. Having resigned ourselves to skipping dessert on this night, we continued to wait patiently for the entrées to arrive. A restaurant manager came to check on us, and I let her know what the situation was. She agreed to check on this, but after another 7-10 minutes had passed I called it. We actually stood up and left without further ado as we were afraid we were going to have our reservations released for Footloose. I'm not going to stand on a soap box and lament the service, scream "never again, NCL," etc. It simply seemed as though we were once again the victims of a comedy of errors which had become not so funny. So with growling stomachs, we headed off to Footloose. The show was VERY good. Having seen a couple other big Broadway style NCL shows I was most impressed with the set design for this one. Scene changes sent us from dance halls, to high school hallways, to church, to diners, and more. To be able to execute that many set changes, all while at sea? Very impressive! The lead actors and supporting cast played their parts very well, but there did seem to be some fluff scenes that could be cut for time. It's pretty close to two hours with no intermission, so the late night showings may prove a challenge to stay awake for. If you've liked other NCL Broadway-style shows, you'll certainly enjoy Footloose too! After we emerged from the theater we were good and hungry, so we headed to The Local for a late dinner. The food arrived quickly, and the restaurant manager here actually stopped by our table to check up on us. Apparently our issues from Savor, including our having left early, were noted, and the manager at The Local offered his apologies for our experience. It may have been that I was rubbed the wrong way from our experience earlier in the night, but the encounter with the manager felt like we were being chided a bit. He reminded us that the service in the MDR is traditionally slower paced (which I assured him we understood from past experience, and had alerted the staff to our needs on this evening, as well as the observation that others had been seated after us and gone before us with all three courses having been served). He also said something to the effect of, "you could just come here for the rest of the cruise, and avoid the MDR all together, we'll take good care of you!" Again, it may be that I was irritable from the past couple days of issues, but it almost felt like he was telling us we weren't welcome back in the MDR and to just come to The Local instead. I will say, from this point forward in the cruise, we didn't experience any additional issues that rose to the level of noteworthy/complaint worthy (aside from the Cavern Club noise issue obviously). I really hope that this manager was just very proud of The Local and was issuing a warm invitation to his restaurant, and that it just came off as a bit patronizing or condescending to my ears after a trying couple of days. With a good meal in our bellies, we headed back to the room, which blissfully had been stocked with towels, made up for the night, and came complete with a fully functional tub drain. 🙂

Thanks for your kind words! I really enjoy getting to relive our cruise by sharing it with all of you! I'm so glad to hear that one of my previous reviews helped you to enjoy your subsequent sailing! That makes it all worthwhile. 😊 I do try to keep my reviews fairly balanced, giving it to you straight when I feel like NCL or some other party has fallen short, but also keeping perspective and a positive attitude through those troughs. After all, I find there's a lot more peaks to be seen when you're trying to look on the bright side! I may have you write my high school English composition teacher to see if she'll give me a retroactive bump in my grade.😉 Thanks for following along! I knew someone would have a clue on this! Interestingly, we did wind up getting a second set of goodies, a tray of cookies, delivered the next day as well. Maybe that was the mea cupla platter. 😆

So the day we arrived into L.A., our weather app updated with the local weather and the associated alerts. We actually were in a full blow GALE warning with threats of 10'-15' waves. The really, REALLY good news is that by the time we made it out to sea, the chop did not appear to be nearly as bad as was forecast. Maybe it was because we had the dominant winds at our back, but while there was some visible chop, the ride on the Joy was remarkably smooth. It did mean that it was a bit on the cooler side as we headed south, but again, anything is better than February in Iowa. 😄 After breakfast we circled back to the cabin, changed into our swimsuits, and headed up to the pool on Deck 16. There we found that the pool deck was largely full and active, including "The Wanted," the country band on board, doing their thing on the stage. While the boys were all too pleased to be running up and down the slides with chattering teeth, Stacy and I settled into a pair of loungers we found on the sun deck above. If you blow the picture up, you can actually seem some of the moderate chop we were slicing through throughout the day. Despite the cooler weather, I think it'd be a sin not to indulge in a frozen drink while poolside as you're heading to more tropical climes, right? A BBC for Stacy and a Bushwhacker for me. The views of the ocean were wonderful, but it was nice to look straight up occasionally and see Landon or Connor zoom past above us. When we returned to our room a few hours later, we discovered that some treats had been left for us. No note or explanations, but the boys indicated that they had seen the staff delivering these to most of the adjoining rooms too. I'm still not sure if this was something that's a blanket "sorry you're above the noisy Cavern Club" sent automatically or if it was a perk of the mini-suite? Either way, it's a nice touch. I had tacked up a note for our steward in hopes that he might stop by and address the missing towels, glasses, and see if he could do something about the still backing up tub, but when we returned the room had not been made up (fully anticipated under the new 1x per day policy), nor had any of the concerns been addressed. Obviously someone had come in the room to deliver the goodies, so the fact that the note was apparently ignored was a bit befuddling. By this time, the time had come and gone when guest services had promised a tech would be by to address the tub, so I called the housekeeping line once more to restate our need for towels, glasses, and for someone, ANYONE, to address the backed up tub. The gentleman who answered was curt, but did in fact state that he'd be sending someone up right away. I told him we'd vacate the room to go snag a late lunch and return later. Stacy and I decided to try our luck at Deal or No Deal being held in the atrium. We purchased our card, snagged a coveted pair of chairs nearby (they set up a ton of extra folding chairs toward the back, but we managed to get a pair of comfy ones), and settled in for the show. Our name was never called to do battle with the banker, but a couple of our fellow cruisers were! Poor Jean only wound up with $0.01 in her case, BUT, her actual Deal or No Deal card had enough matches that she won $50 anyway! Nice job, Jean M! Both participants during our session were fun and entertaining. Fun way to spend a chill afternoon!

Obviously I meant to say a side of SAUSAGE for Landon, but an extra side of syrup wouldn't be unusual for that kid. He's constantly in a state of motion, so more sugary fuel for his body would have been keeping in line with the norm. 🤣

Day 2 - Day at Sea #1 After setting our clocks forward an hour the night before, we slept in and greeted the day with the sun already high in the sky. Once we were up and about, we headed down to The Local on Deck 7. I always enjoy the relaxed atmosphere in here for breakfast. Not the crazy of the buffet, nor the formalness of the MDR. I opted for the breakfast sandwich this morning, always a favorite! Connor went with the American breakfast: And Landon opted for a stack of pancakes and a side of syrup. Service was maybe a titch on the slow side this morning, but we had no where to go, so no worries! The food arrived hot and all agreed that it was delicious!

For supper on Night 1 we hit the buffet. This would wind up being the only time that Stacy and I dined in here for dinner. We've normally been pretty pleased with the buffet for dinner in the past, but we found most of the options were lukewarm at best on this night. Fortunately the desserts made up for it. You've got to love the custom crêpe station! With options like peaches, apples, blueberries, lemon filling, Nutella, chocolate, etc. you'd be hard pressed to find a tastier treat! This picture was from our last cruise, but I had to track it down to share it again here. You've got to love the NCL crews! I tried this tasty little cake too! When the boys ran off to Splash and Entourage to meet some new friends, Stacy and I just wandered the ship for a bit, ducking into the stores, seeing what was happening in the atrium, etc. We headed back to the cabin after a bit, and unfortunately, as the title of the review suggest, we hit a few sour notes early on during this cruise. A few weeks prior to the sail date, we won an upgrade to a guarantee mini-suite and were assigned Cabin 9268. As we would come to find out, you'd be hard pressed to find a worse cabin if you're someone who likes to get to bed at a decent hour. As 7pm rolled around, we discovered that the Cavern Club on Deck 8 lay directly beneath our feet. While I will admit that the band playing there was VERY good, it was unfortunate that we could feel every thrum of bass and make out every word of each song being played. The band wrapped up at 10:30 or maybe 11 at this night, but each subsequent night of the cruise, the Cavern Club band wrapped up at 10:30, but we were then subjected to another hour of late night karaoke until 11:30 PM. There's nothing quite so good at lulling you to sleep than Glenn from Tulsa's drunken rendition of Hotel California. 🤣 I tend to look on the bright side of life, and realized a few things: Only one port stop would have an early morning call, meaning that even as the music blared until late each evening, we could at least sleep in the following day if so desired. The ship was sailing at full capacity, so complaining wasn't going to get me anywhere anyway. I bid on a guarantee mini-suite, so I subjected myself to the whims of the cruise gods. And they laughed at me rather than smiled upon me this go round. So before you bid on a mini-suite yourself, make sure you're content with the possibility of a less than ideal location. That said, our night was not left unmarred by other factors as well. The bathrooms in the mini-suites are larger which is obviously a big plus. Unfortunately, the full size tub/shower in ours was not properly draining. My own efforts to fiddle with the drain stop were to no avail; the problem was clearly on the other side of the drain. We also noticed earlier in the day that we were short a towel (and really needed a 5th for Stacy's hair) and a glass for teeth brushing. We were clearly a party of 4, but the room was outfitted for three. I called the housekeeping line before going to supper, but it was never answered. I tried calling the guest services desk instead and it also went unanswered. So while Stacy checked out an Atrium show, I went to Guest Services and asked for their assistance in addressing the tub, towels, and glasses. They assured me it would be taken care of post haste, though the tub would have to wait until tomorrow. Sure, no sweat. Later that evening when we returned to the cabin, all was the same. I found myself again not getting any answer at our steward's number nor the general housekeeping number. We finally gave up and dealt with shortage of towels and glasses, hoping for a better outcome the next day. As I said earlier, I'm pretty easy going, and I'm on vacation so I'm not about to come fully unhinged. But after a comedy of errors, all Stacy and I could do was wait for the amps downstairs to get unplugged, and then drift off to sleep at the end of day #1. However, I'm not going to leave you on THAT much of a bummer! As anyone who's followed my reviews before is already aware, I'm a bit obsessed with the unique chandeliers hanging in the central 678 Ocean Place stairwell, so you could be certain there'd be a first night picture. 😉

We enjoyed a picture perfect sunset from The Waterfront as the ship went out to sea. There were some enthusiastic well wishers shouting from the San Pedro Fish Market, and Connor was all too happy to wave back. It's sure not the prettiest IN port, but sail away out of the Port of Los Angeles has its moments!

Thanks for following along! I may have you convinced to sail on the Joy by the end of this. 😉 Sorry to say I didn't capture this info while on board. Sorry about that!

We're eyeballing the Prima for our next sailing with just the two of us. We tend to alternate between a family cruise and a cruise with just us. It's been so fun watching our boys have fun and fall in love with cruising too! They seem to think they're real cruising veterans now that navigate the ship like pros! 😊

I would definitely go to the same sloth, monkeys, and bird sanctuary again, but the snorkeling was underwhelming compared to some other experiences we've had. Admittedly, it may have just been a hit or miss situation as others taking the tour before us reported sea turtle sightings. But I was still very happy with the overall experience given the wonderful time with the monkeys and sloths!

Now that it was after noon, we headed down to Splash Academy to get Landon registered for the week. When we arrived they told us that we could actually get Connor registered for Entourage at the same time, so that worked out nicely! No need to run from Deck 5 up to Deck 16 separately. 👍 Because Landon is 10, we were given the option to give him some additional Splash Academy flexibility and freedom. Kids ages 10-12 can, with parental permission granted at the start of the cruise, check themselves in & out of Splash. However, if they check in, then they must stay until the end of Splash OR a minimum of two hours. Knowing Landon's level of responsibility, we granted him that additional freedom, but it was with the understanding that he'd always let us know that he was leaving and where he was going to. This is where the purchase of the $9.95/phone communication package came in handy. Both boys were able to keep in communication with us throughout the trip while on the ship. Connor's Entourage registration was a breeze as well, and as is the case for all Entourage aged cruisers, he was free to drop in and drop out as he pleased, though again we asked him to keep us informed of his comings and goings. Having edged closer to departure time, we worked our way up to the Observation Lounge to see if there were any seats to be found. However, because of the cool L.A. day with occasional overcast skies, we weren't the only ones with the same idea. I think nearly every seat near the windows was full, so I settled for a quick pic of the USS Iowa out ahead of us. Shortly thereafter they made the call that staterooms were ready. However, when we arrived on Deck 9 Forward, we found that the doors on one side of the deck were still closed. Thinking it must be an oversight given the announcement, we entered on the starboard side, worked our way around the back of the ship to the port side where we found our room. Our stateroom card worked and we gained entry. We found 3 out of our 6 bags as well, so I drug them into the room and started unpacking. But not before checking out everyone's favorite cabin feature. 🙂 You can see that The Waterfront's canopy over the Deck 8 walkway partially obscured our view, but it was a non-issue to us. Plenty of ocean to be seen beyond these 4' of obscured view. 🙂 As I was unpacking, our steward arrived in the room. He looked a bit alarmed to find us there. He told us that the cabins were not ready for passengers yet. I asked him if he needed us to vacate to finish the room prep (it looked fine to me upon entry), but he kind of sheepishly was non-committal on the issue. I got the sense it'd be best if we left to get out of his way for a bit, so we headed out, though confused about the earlier P.A. call that all rooms were ready. So odd. At any rate, it was time to disembark, so we hustled down to Deck 8 to The Waterfront, our favorite spot for sailaway! You can already see the USS Iowa shrinking away in the distance.

After the fun at the arcade, we headed upward to check out the upper decks. The Joy has a very nice 9-hole course at the very back of the ship up on Deck 19. It also provides some nice views of the adjacent Speedway. Nice view of the Vincent Thomas Bridge in the background here. Landon finishing strong on the very long Hole #9. Pretty good round with Stacy in 1st, Connor in 2nd and teeny tiny Landon in 3rd. Nice views of San Pedro and the coastal hills of Southern California.

After we wrapped up lunch, we began our exploration of the ship. I always love these detailed scale models on display. Having been on the Escape and the Bliss in the past, we were aware that the Joy's layout was largely the same, which makes navigation a breeze despite each ship's nuances. For Christmas we bought the boys the Unlimited Arcade Package, so we had to head to one of the two arcade locations on the ship. First stop: Galaxy Pavillion! The Unlimited Arcade Package costs $25/day, but is only available as a full cruise package deal, so it would have set us back $350 for both boys to have it. That said, we admittedly worked the system a bit and purchased the pass for only Landon's stateroom card. His card could be swiped at any GREEN colored swipe in the arcade and not cost us another penny. There were several orange swipes (for games that award tickets for prizes) and of course the VR games in this area as well, so it's worth noting that the Unlimited Arcade Package does not apply to these games. Landon could swipe up to 3x in 3 minutes without issue. If he tried to swipe MORE than 3x in a 3 minute span, then the card would be locked out for 15 minutes. Since more of the games lasted at least a couple of minutes, this meant that he could swipe for himself, allow his brother to swipe, and still have one more to use before the 3 minute reset. The boys remained VERY disciplined the entire cruise and never ran into issues with swiping on games that weren't included nor with getting locked out. We were proud of their diligence under such tempting circumstances. 🙂 This VR ride was actually part of the arcade and was included in the package as a green swipe. Normally $7 or $8 per swipe, this was a fun thing to have included! Can't go wrong with air hockey! Connor is 13, which means that he'll be getting his permit this August. His performance while playing this game raised my blood pressure and insurance premium. 🤣 There's a couple more games outside of this area, but not a bad arcade set up since most of the games lasted around 3 minutes per swipe. Most of them were in full working order too, though there were a couple where half the unit had inoperable controls or a similar issue.

Day 1 - Embarkation - Port of Los Angeles With a 9:30 check-in time select at the pier, we were up a little before the sun to get ready for the day. I ordered in some Uber Eats breakfast for us that was delivered right to the hotel room door. Having been properly caffeinated for the day ahead, we headed to the hotel lobby to checkout and wait for our Uber to arrive. The boys enjoyed the swanky furniture in the lobby. Landon even quipped that he felt, "way to underdressed for this place." 😆 After about 40 minutes of driving, we were delivered curbside at Pier 92. We dropped our bags with the porter, snaked our way through the exterior queues, and found ourselves in the terminal building quickly thereafter. They had three separate sets of lines. One for those with Haven or Priority Embarkation of some kind, one for those with rooms on Decks 9-12 and one for passengers on all other decks. We stood in line for all of about 5 minutes in our queue before we were called forward, presented our citizenship documentation, health attestation, etc., received our stateroom cards, and took a seat in the large hall with Boarding Group #3 in hand. We sat for longer than what seemed normal as it seemed as though the passengers from the Miami to L.A. trans-canal cruise before us were not getting off all that quickly. I later found out that they were not cleared to disembark until much later than planned which explains the delay in boarding on our end. Unfortunately that meant that the terminal building was VERY full, and I came to find out from my fellow passengers later that a LOT of people were left outside of the building, presumably because we were at full capacity. So there was a long spell where no one was in the check-in lines at all and lots of people were still outside on the curb. Yikes! Fortunately we were able to make small talk with some nice fellow guests arounds us, had some pass & play games to play on our phone to keep us occupied, etc. Eventually they made the call that we were set to begin boarding! After the call for Haven and Priority Embarkation, they called for Casinos at Sea (CAS) to board. Now, I've gambled in stateside casinos exactly one time in my life, and two times at sea. No one would mistake me for a prolific, regular gambler. But mysteriously our stateroom cards displayed the designation for CAS. I honestly hadn't even noticed it on our card until they made the call for CAS passengers, but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth! We saddled up, proceeded to the embarkation area, our cards were checked for the appropriate designation, and up the escalator we went! If anyone has any idea why we may have gotten this designation, I'd sure love to know! It was our first trip as Gold Latitudes members, so maybe that had something to do with it? A dummy designation to allow us early embarkation? 🤷‍♂️ At any rate, we were soon heading up through the gangway and reached that Joyful (see what I did there?) moment where we stepped aboard! As has been our tradition for the last several sailings, we headed down to Deck 6 and enjoyed our lunch at Taste or Savor to start the trip. We always enjoy the opportunity to decompress and have a relaxed paced lunch after a hectic morning at the port. I started with the hushpuppy appetizer. Followed by the fish & chips main course. Connor, my oldest, opted for the first of many cheeseburgers to come. 😋 For dessert I opted for the Almond Basque Cake While Landon opted for the chocolate mousse parfait! Always a solid choice.

We parked, rode the shuttle in, checked out bags with Southwest, cleared security, and waited for our flight to board. Our chariot awaits! Soon after, we boarded on time and were on our way to Phoenix! A couple hours (and a re-watch of Ready Player One) later, we were descending into Phoenix. We were fortunate to have booked a direct, so we were able to just stay on the plane, and about 30 minutes later we were airborne again and headed to Santa Ana. It was a fairly late arrival, so we collected our luggage, called the airport hotel we stayed at, and the shuttle (actually a really nice Chevy Suburban soon arrived to bring us to The Avenue of The Arts Marriott Hotel. Very nicely appointed hotel! Just wish we could have been able to enjoy it a bit longer, but we turned in soon after arrival.

Hello again fellow cruise lovers! I'm excited to share my observations, photos, and tips following our Joy sailing back at the beginning of February. We had an incredible time as a family on this cruise, and I couldn't wait to get home and share our thoughts and review with you all! First off, I always like to introduce our family a bit at the start of my reviews. My wife and I reside in the great state of Iowa where we're raising two boys. I'm employed in the insurance industry, while my wife, a Clinical Laboratory Scientist, runs the lab in a health clinic. We've been married for 15+ years, and have enjoyed six NCL cruises prior to this one (Sky 2011, Sky 2015, Escape 2017, Breakaway 2019, Bliss 2021, and Breakaway 2022). Here's a pic of all of us during our last cruise while we were in Roatan: Because we're so far from any cruise port, we typically get to cruise about every 18 months or so if we're lucky, but because of the crazy cancellations of the past couple of years, this would actually be our third cruise since November 2021. After much hemming and hawing about itinerary, length, etc. we booked this sailing in November. Over the next few weeks we solidified our travel plans, excursions, etc. before heading out. It always feels like an interminable amount of time while you're counting down the days and staring down a Midwest winter. Eventually the day arrived! I gave Stacy a little pre-cruise gift from Pura Vida... Stacy got her Aspen Nails on. And then we loaded up the car and headed to the airport!

We did a scavenger hunt around the house when we took our boys on their first cruise. They had a lot of fun figuring out each subsequent clue. So much so that the items found at each location that should have given a significant hint seemed to have flown right over their heads. 😆