CoralHunter

It was one of those things I thought would never happened to me.  In the middle of a snorkeling session on Aruba I was feeling a little tired. It had been a long day with a lot of sun, pina coladas and rum punch. I thought maybe I should have eaten more at lunch.

Once back on the ship, I enjoyed a cocktail, dinner, and went off to karaoke. That’s when it hit. I felt a little wobbly and there was a weee scratch at the back of my throat. I begged off karaoke and the snorkel/beach trip planned early the next morning and went to bed.

The next day, Curacao, I went slow. Things were fine until I could feel my left sinus swelling. It was a sign my allergy shots didn’t work on something in the air. As I returned to the ship, a post nasal drip started. In the real world, I would go into “sick prevention” mode: drinking copious amounts of water, herbal teas  and garlic/ginger/herb chicken broth and lying in bed as early as possible with a thick layer of vapor rub on my chest and the humidifier on high.

In the cruise world, I ignored the drip until again after dinner I began to feel wobbly and snuck off to bed early.  By the next morning, I had a full blown sinus infection that eventually contributed to me losing my voice and picking up a cold.  I became THAT person. The one with the constant runny nose and miserable cough. The one everyone on the ship fears for their cruise too could be ruined.

1.       The OTC medications are extremely limited in the ship’s store. If you are packing medications add your favorite non-food cold remedy (ies). This includes cough drops. The ship may only carry a “natural” brand that has all the effectiveness of a Jolly Rancher.

2.       Bring the saline spray if you have sinus issues. One would think that an ocean floating vessel has the humidity to help out. That is true if you are on deck, but in your climate controlled cabin the air is dry. Again, the ship I was on didn’t sell any and I wasn’t able to get any until we reached port again two days into illness.  

3.       There is not a lot of “sick” people food on a cruise. Let’s face it, cruise food is a little heavier, saucier, and richer than even most everyday food. I could get poached eggs and toast in the MDR for breakfast, and there was a chicken noodle soup on the lunch menu. I avoided the buffet except to pick up a banana and drinking water (both hot and cold). That was the most I could find without special requests.

It took some strategy, but I used my cabin bathroom as much as possible instead of the public area restrooms. This allowed me to have a good coughing and nose blowing session while I was there. Since my immune system was compromised, this hopefully helped me avoid another bug and I hopefully was minimizing germ spread. I could also use a moisturizing soap and/or lotion when I washed my hands. The on ship sanitizers are harsh and this minimized soreness on my skin.

5.      I went to the spa first thing in the morning. My biggest indulgence on a cruise is a pass to the spa. I was so desperate one morning to get some steam in my sinuses, I arrived at the spa as soon as it was open. I was the only one there. It was like that for at least 30 minutes every day and I was able to use the steam room before anyone else was around. The steam room brought some nice relief in the mornings and I could avoid other passengers while still getting some “vacation.”

6.       Hopefully club soda is in all drink packages. This was a lifesaver as I slashed the consumption of alcohol (so much for the drink package) and didn’t want water with every meal.

7.       Did you know that in Jamaica, the moms put some rum, honey and lime in hot water and have you drink the concoction when you have a cold?  My MDR waiter told me that when I ordered a shot of whiskey, some hot water and lemon.

9.       Give yourself a curfew. Depending on timing, I was able to dance for a few minutes at a couple of dance parties and left soon after. I avoided shows and a couple of other planned activities with friends. One night I stayed for after dinner drinks at a martini bar and had a coughing fit. I felt bad for the lady who tried to crawl inside her seat. Not that much. My friends got the chairs.

1 The plane ride home is the worst. In hindsight, I should have looked into moving my flight to the next day and gotten a hotel room.  I was mending nicely by going to bed early, keeping hydrated and taking my motley array of OTC cold and sinus remedies. Instead I headed to the airport for seven hours of flights and 3 hours of waiting in a public place where I couldn’t lie down, truly sleep, nor use a private bathroom. The flights extended the illness and clogged my ears so badly, I had to finally call a doctor.

30 minutes ago, molemaui said:

We have many single friends who liker to sail with us and have found that unless the ship is badly undersold, they will not offer reasonable single supplements. One exception is Silversea. We've done a couple cruises with them where the single sailed for a 25% premium instead of almost 100%. Got a decent deal too-1 category upgrade and $1000 OBC. They don't offer this all the time but I've seen it quite often. 

Thanks for the heads up on this one.  I will check out Silversea too.

Hello,

Celebrity has been recommended to me by several veteran cruisers.  I found a group of itineraries I like and am beginning to price out so I can start saving (I am nine days off another cruise line's ship :)).  I am a solo cruiser. Are there ever single supplement sales or other solo deals I should look out for?

7 hours ago, Stinger-pr said:

If you want a good selection from cheap to not-so you can try the Supermax supermarket at the corner of De Diego and Wilson Ave. They have a lot of mainstream brands but also a good selection of more upscale brands as well.

Thank you for the advice. I will check it out.

Hello,  I am going on a cruise soon and am thinking about getting a bottle or two of wine and paying the corkage fee. I will be staying in Condado before the cruise.  Is there a good place to buy wine there? The kind where they give good recommendations from their stock and appreciate the price point "cheap."

23 hours ago, sid_9169 said:

One more of those from the Dream Team of NCL bartenders...

 

I recognize both of them. Good bartenders.

 

3 hours ago, mjkacmom said:

Living in the NYC metro area, restaurants here have MUCH better food than mainstream cruise lines. I expect nothing more than what you get at chain restaurants (which we never eat at, well, except chipotle, kids like it).

I think anyone living in a decent sized city could say the same, especially if you have ethnic neighborhoods with lots of restaurants or have a set of chefs committed to farm to table, etc. I tried the noodles at Shanghai's and know I can get an Asian fix if I need it, but they do not compare to this noodle restaurant that's about a 10 minute walk from my house. Not touching LaCucina as we have a good Italian restaurant community.

I booked a studio a week after final payment. It went down 300 at that point and never went much lower. I have noticed that they usually drop again about 40 days out. 

On 11/21/2019 at 1:47 PM, calizona said:

I see a notice on the Day 1 daily about an additional tax for food & beverage items while in LA territorial waters.  Did you notice any charge with the beverage package or dinning package while sailing that night?  From my understand the ship does not hit international water till after midnight on day 1.

I normally cruise out of New Orleans, and yes, while you are on the Mississippi, you are charged a tax for alcoholic beverages even if you have an unlimited drinks package. That is the only thing additional that shows up on my charges.

On 7/20/2019 at 10:55 AM, L1211 said:

We're planning our next NCL cruise - it has been a couple of years since we've sailed them.  We've only done specialty dining in our prior three cruises - we have young adult daughters who love getting dressed up and going out to dinner with us and specialty dining seems to really make the evening, well, special!  We love the smaller venues, better service and have found the food typically very good.  But, at $40 PP now, it seems difficult to justify buying a package.  My daughters are not big eaters and I just can't see my family of four finding a way to say spend $160 at Los Lobos and of course, Tepanyaki is only $39pp any way - again, no reason to have a dining package.   So,  I guess we'll use the "free at sea" package then purchase al la carte for the remaining nights.  Others making that choice too?  Anyone finding value in the dining packages any longer?  Thanks!

2 or 3 cruises ago, I quit with the specialty restaurants. Maybe it was the ship, but I found the nightly specialty dishes in the MDR to be better than anything else on the ship. It's become more difficult for me to justify paying more on the ship than I would at a local restaurant for better food. Last cruise for sure, I only ate in the MDR. If you are a steak and potatoes person for dinner every night (I met one of those once) or will only eat the dishes served every night, I think there is a difference in quality and it might be worth it. I've been happy since moving to the nightly specials.

Like many other posters, I am a tea drinker who packs her own bags (he he). I do that on airplanes too.

I am curious about this too. I have a great t-shirt for Glow parties (and will use it for white hot). I heard they have a hush party where there are two dj's. All the dancers where headphones. Half are dancing to one dj's music and half the other. Still trying to find more information on this.

As Deb said, I wanted access to the Studio Lounge and just to try it the Studio rooms. Sure, if I got upgraded to a Balcony, that would be great! But I doubt that happens and I wouldn't consider a standard interior room an "upgrade". I guess I'll give them a call and see what happens.

If you are a solo traveler you can request access to the Studio Lounge (or could last time I sailed) even if you don't have a studio room. The only way an standard interior would be an upgrade is if it's on the same deck as the studio room.

I considered booking a studio on the Getaway or Escape. They aren't higher in price than when I last booked, but they are selling out much faster and there aren't the good price drops. First week of April cruises are still over $1000 for the Studio. Several sailings sold out in January. The first one I booked on the Getaway I actually planned for and paid that. The rooms went down twice and ended up to be about 450-ish closer to sailing (don't remember exact amount).

I was transferring some photo albums from worthless Photobucket to Google Photo today. I found this album of behind the scenes tour on the Pearl that we did a few years ago. At that time, they were still letting the tour onto the bridge. The guy sitting at the bridge controls is now the staff captain on the Pearl, or was a couple of months ago. The pictures are not necessarily in order.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/P5Ja8L4PrfQQfErW2

Thank you for sharing. Great pictures.

Great review!

I think we were on the food tour together and sat together for the piano guy! He was awesome and loved that bar!:)

Yes, that's me. I loved both the Sugarcane and the Sunset bars. They were great spaces.

I thought about getting the spa pass too, however, the weather was so great I wanted to be outside as much as I could. Had I seen cooler than normal temperatures or a lot of rain, the spa pass would have been purchased.

That was the best thing I got for my Alaskan cruise.

Final Thoughts

The ship is LARGE. I probably didn't gain much weight because of all the walking. I spent most of my time on decks 8 and 16 and I could manage using the staircase to get to either of these. Any reasonably fit person can handle 3 or 4 decks worth of stairs on this ship. One drawback is that you don't run into the same people as often like you do on smaller ships. I wish I had met the couple I spoke with on the last night earlier in the cruise. We had a great conversation and I could have been adopted by the end of the trip. You also don't get to try everything. I was interested in trying O'Sheehan's. I made it there twice: getting on the ship on embarkation day and getting off the ship on debarkation day. It was so far away from my regular haunts I usually forgot about it.

I would Solo again in heartbeat. I think Solos and the cruise lines need to better explain what it is and isn't. Solos are people who have the means to get away and want to escape their lives for a week or two and friends/relatives/significant others can't. There were people (including friends at home) who honestly thought I went on the ship to meet men. I'm sure there's at least one couple out there who met cruising, but this is not the norm and was not the expectation of any of the Solos I hung out with.

I think the ship needs a little more balance on the upper decks between "wow" factors and standard amenities. I agree with previous reviewers that think that the pools are too small and too crowded. If I were somewhere between 7 and 12, the water slide attendants would have known me like they did some kids, however, the multiple slides take up a lot of space for something most passengers are going to use for maybe a thirty minute period. A larger pool might go a longer way. Second, if I had the choice between black lighting for the Glow Party/fireworks and both hot tubs open every night until 11, I am choosing the hot tubs. I would consider a Vibe pass in the future to have unfettered evening hot tub time.

My biggest take away was that the senior crew members respond to issues and requests and they fix what they can quickly. Whether it's poor restaurant service, muting a TV, or changing visible personnel, the staff will make what changes they can to make the trip more enjoyable.

The Solo Experience

The coordinator makes all of the difference here. The first night I arrived at the Solo Meet and Greet a little late. There were a few solos and no coordinator. The coordinator abruptly moved the group up to the Studio Lounge. By the time we got there it felt like we were already splitting up. He was a little disorganized and unsure how to handle the group. There were a lot of solos that didn't go back and I don't blame them. I didn't the second night and hadn't planned to the rest of the cruise. However, there was a minor issue in the Studio Lounge and I approached the Solo Coordinator about it on the third day and he told me that he was no longer the Solo Coordinator.

Since I planned to review the trip, I thought I'd at least meet the new one. By the time I met him that evening, he already knew a few of the solos and was a great host. He was very good with the diversity of the group and attentive to us. He even sent chocolates to our room and provided wine at the meet and greet on the last night! From the meet ups I was able to meet some nice interesting people to hang out with on the cruise.

People do split up into smaller groups and some don't go back to the solo meet ups and I think that should be expected as we find people with similar interests.

Classes and Entertainment

I attended several of the daily origami classes and this was a fun way to pass a little time in the morning. So were some of the presentations in the atrium.

I also, as mentioned before, went to the mojito tasting. For the cost of less than 2 mojitos I figured out there were three I didn't like. Heh.

*TIP* Do not sit at the bar for this or the martini tasting. Sit in the groupings of chairs next to the piano. Bong gives a pretty decent lecture and once things get going it's difficult to hear. Trust me- There's incentive to listen.

I didn't attend any of the shows in the theater, the comedy group or the Grammy Experience. Oh well.

I did try Howl at the Moon one night and didn't realize I would need cash to get a song played so I sang along to everyone else's request. The piano players were great entertainers and I can see how they picked up regulars over the course of the the week.

Karaoke was terrible. There were electronic pads to find songs and they were difficult to navigate. They were also missing a few standards (Frank Sinatra's My Way-somebody's got to belt it for proper Karaoke). Worse the screen was on the stage, so the singer stood in the middle of the audience. No fun.

I did want to hear some of the live music on the ship so I went to the Sugar Cane Bar one night where one of the piano acts was playing. As I was walking up the stairs I heard singing and thought, man his voice isn’t that great. When I got up to the bar, a passenger was singing and I thought the piano player was being gracious. Turns out it was open mic night. You pick the song, he plays it, and you sing it using the song book. Blow off karaoke and DO THIS. The lighting is low, the words are small the piano man is whispering directions in your ear. How bad did I sound? Who cares? It was a blast. This was the only night I stayed until the end of the entertainment.

I danced quite a bit and thought the DJ was great. Because Latin Music was in Bliss at the same time as the super bowl there were a total of eight of us, but the music was so good. My only issues were with the 80's dance party where most guests stood around and watched 7 or 8 men in costume prance around to a medley. Really, that was only fun for their companions and not entertaining at all. Second they played Shout from Animal House and a medley from Grease. Great dance tunes, but those are from 1978. I would have rather danced to true 80's music.

UDP and UBP packages:

I didn’t purchase either of these. I’d heard from another solo traveler that getting the UDP can hinder finding dinner partners. I also wanted to check out the ambience in the MDR’s. As far as the UBP, I am a light to moderate drinker and this didn’t seem cost effective to me.

For the UBP, I was right. My bar bill was $122.00. I did have a few glasses of complimentary wine and went to the ice bar and the mojito tasting. The Ice Bar and the Mojito tasting would have been extra anyway. Adding those plus the wine would have put me in at the $200 range, about half the cost of the package.

Dining:

In land-world I find dining in general to be a subjective and sensitive topic. If NCL has 100K guests on board in a given year, there are 100K opinions on how to cook a steak. I did eat at two specialty restaurants and got a lobster roll from the Ocean Blue window. I didn't see enough difference in food or service (minus one incident recounted below) to justify a UDP. In fact, I thought the most personable and best service came in the Garden Cafe. I will probably always try a specialty restaurant or two, however, these menus haven't changed much since I first encountered the restaurants in 2000. The bright spots were the Latin/Caribbean inspired dishes like the meats at the Flamingo Grill, a shrimp ceviche that was presented towards the end of the cruise and a welcome respite from the heavy dishes I was choosing, a coconut souffle, and a bean/chorizo/greens soup. My favorite surprise was the bean salad at the Flamingo Grill. I wish I'd have found that earlier than I did on the cruise!

I found the service in Taste and Savor to good with a few spots that could use improvements, this included the Maitre D's. Some stood at the entrance and made a pass through the dining room every 20 or 30 minutes and others helped bus tables, filled water glasses, spent more time supporting the wait staff and checking on guests. These were the smoothest meals in the MDR's. I had some really good wait staff. Interestingly my favorite wasn't a happy/happy/washy/washy time but some one who gave of genuine vibes that he cared about his guests. At one dinner we did have a waitress who did not smile, introduce herself, ask us how our day was, clarify special requests, and poured WAY to much wine in my glass from a bottle. The solo coordinator was sitting with us at that meal and asked to be served quickly to he could go to another event. She pretty much ignored this. Before the end of our dinner we noticed that the waitress was taken to the side by two senior restaurant employees and got the sense she was being lectured about her poor service.

About me- I am single, mid- 40’s and this was my fifth cruise. I’ve wanted to try a solo cabin since the first time I saw a preview brochure about the Epic and I had the opportunity to do this on the Getaway. It's taken me a couple of days to post this because I have been transcribing my notes which are really a 5000K long-winded travelogue, so I am condensing this to mostly thoughts. Neither of my excursions were booked through NCL so I will review those on the ports of call and Trip Advisor per the vendor's requests.

The Studio Rooms

If you’ve read any articles/watch any shows about micro-houses, this is the micro-stateroom. Because of the way the closets are set up and the space under the bed is used with baskets, the cube chair is a storage space and there are cubbies next to the sink that hold lots of stuff. I only used one of the baskets and had room in the closets. If I had one quibble, there is no night stand in this room and I am not sure how people ate room service in there? Sitting on the bed? Several times there were room service trays left in the Studio Lounge, so I suppose some passengers ordered room service and ate there. Not a bad idea.

What I thought was the weirdest feature and the one I expected to like the least turned out to be one of my favorites and that was the frosty glass window. I have only had interior rooms on a ship and they can be pretty dark. I kept the window cover cracked or open most nights and got just enough light to see around if I needed to.

**TIP** If you are approaching the studios on the starboard (right) side of the ship, the Studio entry door is at rooms 762 and 764 on both floors. As I am directionally challenged and passed the door up a couple of times, the room stewards taught me to look out for the cabin numbers and that helped a lot.

To Vibe or not to Vibe:

I decided prior to the cruise not to get a Vibe pass for this trip. After reading reviews of Vibe and Spice H20, the worst thing anyone said about either was that umbrellas remain closed if it’s too windy. The water feature in Spice H20 was more intriguing to me then the amenities in Vibe. I also didn’t want to worry about fighting for something like that as soon as I got on the ship.

Spice H20=Poor Man's aft balcony.

I spent A LOT of time there. In the mornings it was empty. I could have a cup of tea on a lounge chair overlooking the aft of the ship and get a soak in the hot tub before breakfast. The view leaving St. Maarten was incredible. It got crowded mid-day on sea days, but you could find a chair to sit. My only quibble is that the hot tubs closed early on a few nights-there will be more on this later in the review.

Hello,

I am going to be on an upcoming Getaway cruise and should be at the pier in time to get a Vibe pass, however I am thinking WAY to hard as to whether it's necessary or worth it. How late is Vibe open in the evenings? One thing that would be worth it for me is to be able to sneak up there for a half hour or so before or after dinner and have a sit in the hot tubs, especially on port days. I did this on my Alaskan cruise and it was great.

Thank you for the review. I liked your format and picked up a few things that will help with my cruise!

Hello, I am interested in finding more about Vibe. What is the cost, is it true there are limited passes, is it worth it, and if I go for one is this something I can do before getting on the ship or should it be one of the first things I do? Thanks for taking the time to do this!