Got off the Pearl last Sunday Nov. 7

[tennispretzel]

Will only briefly tell of our experience since we had a lazy week and I think many would find it dull! We certainly spent a lot of time resting and relaxing.

I knew my wonderful vacation was over Monday a.m. as I marketed and it began to hail. Next came the snow...a little early even for upstate NY. I had been "Miss Nancy" all week and now I was doing my own marketing??? What was this about??? We were spoiled plenty on the Pearl because we were lucky to have butler and concierge service. Our first(and maybe only time). We had bought the lowest level of suite in January 2010 due to the OLD world points system and had $1000 in credit so thought that was good enough reason to try a suite. So, we chose the AD on the 10th floor...an aft suite and I hungrily read the boards all year and everyone's impression of "going aft". My husband hated the idea of being aft. I pointed out the privacy factor and the bigger balcony. He quieted a bit. On October 25, six days before our cruise the upsell fairy both called and emailed offering the Deluxe Owner's Suite. We got neither as I was working and got home after the office had closed. I left a message however that we would consider another offer for a smaller room/price since the hefty price suggested for the DOS was not within our budget or sensibilities! Sure enough, the next day the offer came for the Owner's Suite. I was delighted but still fretting that to spend so much for one week was crazy. I did not tell my husband, deciding to surprise him when we got onboard.

Trip to Miami uneventful including a night at the Intercontinental. We went to the Pier at 11am and were very quickly escorted to the VIP checkin and on the ship about 11:30a.m. I began to understand that we were going to like this VIP concept even if only for a week!! It was like a fairy tale. We were escorted to our suite where my poor husband surprised AND confused could only say, "I thought we were on the back of the ship". After my big explanation and rationalization as to why we "deserved this" he was thrilled! All it took was one look at the space to know that we were indeed going to be very blessed this week. The largest room we had ever had was 326sq.ft. on another line and here we were with a LR, BR, two balconies! and a huge bath. It was heaven on earth. Little did we know that with the marginal weather the coming week how lucky we were to have all this space and a place to retreat to as shelter from the rain and wind!

We explored the ship, had lunch in Cagney's and later dinner at Summer Palace. Our butler, Johathan, found us and introduced himself as did our stewardess, GiGi. Both took very good care of us all week. I mostly was happy about the heavy curtains to block the light in the room, the big bath and the lovely tropical flower arrangement. The balcony was private and comfortable. Although we were excited to have two balcs, the front one couldn't be used because of the wind and the rain. The furniture was tied up most of the week out there. We're on the very front of the ship so it's a long walk to most things but we wanted exercise this week anyway to balance the food we knew we couldn't resist.

To be continued....

[minnesotalady]

Will only briefly tell of our experience since we had a lazy week and I think many would find it dull! We certainly spent a lot of time resting and relaxing.

I knew my wonderful vacation was over Monday a.m. as I marketed and it began to hail. Next came the snow...a little early even for upstate NY. I had been "Miss Nancy" all week and now I was doing my own marketing??? What was this about??? We were spoiled plenty on the Pearl because we were lucky to have butler and concierge service. Our first(and maybe only time). We had bought the lowest level of suite in January 2010 due to the OLD world points system and had $1000 in credit so thought that was good enough reason to try a suite. So, we chose the AD on the 10th floor...an aft suite and I hungrily read the boards all year and everyone's impression of "going aft". My husband hated the idea of being aft. I pointed out the privacy factor and the bigger balcony. He quieted a bit. On October 25, six days before our cruise the upsell fairy both called and emailed offering the Deluxe Owner's Suite. We got neither as I was working and got home after the office had closed. I left a message however that we would consider another offer for a smaller room/price since the hefty price suggested for the DOS was not within our budget or sensibilities! Sure enough, the next day the offer came for the Owner's Suite. I was delighted but still fretting that to spend so much for one week was crazy. I did not tell my husband, deciding to surprise him when we got onboard.

Trip to Miami uneventful including a night at the Intercontinental. We went to the Pier at 11am and were very quickly escorted to the VIP checkin and on the ship about 11:30a.m. I began to understand that we were going to like this VIP concept even if only for a week!! It was like a fairy tale. We were escorted to our suite where my poor husband surprised AND confused could only say, "I thought we were on the back of the ship". After my big explanation and rationalization as to why we "deserved this" he was thrilled! All it took was one look at the space to know that we were indeed going to be very blessed this week. The largest room we had ever had was 326sq.ft. on another line and here we were with a LR, BR, two balconies! and a huge bath. It was heaven on earth. Little did we know that with the marginal weather the coming week how lucky we were to have all this space and a place to retreat to as shelter from the rain and wind!

We explored the ship, had lunch in Cagney's and later dinner at Summer Palace. Our butler, Johathan, found us and introduced himself as did our stewardess, GiGi. Both took very good care of us all week. I mostly was happy about the heavy curtains to block the light in the room, the big bath and the lovely tropical flower arrangement. The balcony was private and comfortable. Although we were excited to have two balcs, the front one couldn't be used because of the wind and the rain. The furniture was tied up most of the week out there. We're on the very front of the ship so it's a long walk to most things but we wanted exercise this week anyway to balance the food we knew we couldn't resist.

To be continued....

Love your review and not dull at all!! Post more and pictures if you have some!!!:D

Kathie

[Scrappygrrl]

So nice to meet you onboard and looking forward to the rest of your review!!

[tennispretzel]

Kathie...sorry I'm not the least bit tech savvy so although I have pictures I haven't a clue what to do with them(I'm a "go to the store and print them kind of girl")

A couple of funny things happened during the cruise. One was the first day when we walked back into the room and it was creaking and howling and hissing and I told DH that I couldn't possibly sleep in that room(It was a fiercely windy day). He started hustling to make me happy trying to shut all the sliders, etc. to no avail. Jonathan stopped in soon after to check on us and quickly heard our dilemma and showed us how to really close them and it was blessedly quiet and a true sanctuary. I was calmer.

The next day we played trivia in the atrium and it was Presidential Trivia. About halfway through as we are debating(and mostly guessing at the answers)we find out that the two ladies playing against us were from Canada. Wouldn't that have been embarrassing to have lost to them in that category??! We did win but not by a big margin and had a laugh over that. (Hello, Canada, had a nice time visiting with you)

The Courtyard Villa pool area was available to us because of the upgrade and it was magnificent. There was a small pool in a room with a retractable roof, a whirlpool, steam room, comfortable chairs, etc. It was a godsend when the wind kicked up and it was uncomfortable outside. We became even more lazy as the week went on...is that possible?? We read and did puzzles and visited and basically enjoyed our quiet time together. On some days for hours this area was ours exclusively! Where was everyone else? We truly enjoyed this perk more than anything.

We did a couple of things on sea days, visited the spa with the wonderful thallassotherapy pool and hot stone loungers, played tennis, walked the promenade deck, took our very first spinning class(hard!). DH spent time in the casino while I explored the ship. I had a massage and facial during the week and thought it was well done and reasonable.

We almost always went to the show at night...sometimes 7:30 and sometimes 9:30 depending on our hunger. We loved Sharkbait, Oh, What a Night and Second City. The comedian, Rod, was excellent as well. One night I went to the Spinnaker to see "What's My Life?" or was it Line? It was VERY funny and I thought Andy did a great job on that.

 

Ports: We didn't get off the ship in Samana. As I said, we'd had multiple stressors this past year and relaxation and enjoying the ship was important to us so we just hung around. I am pushing 60 and "relaxing" has become so much more interesting to me now...hahahaha.

St. Thomas we've been to many times so we just went to Emerald Beach on Lindbergh Bay at the Best Western. It's a nice enough beach although that day it was cloudy. The taxi ride is quick. To go by taxi and rent chairs with umbrella was $50. There are facilities and a bar and restaurant.

Tortola: we took a cab on the pier to Cane Garden Bay. It was a very nice sand beach and we rented chairs and had the use of bathrooms at Rhymer's where we rented the chairs. The cab ride was scary and we doubted we would get there alive and find such a pleasant beach!

GSC: Couldn't go there due to the high winds and 7-12' waves. Tendering would have been dangerous.

To be continued....

[WildcatRock]

Congrats on a great cruise on the Pearl and the "Suite Life". Our very first cruise was last year, on the Pearl, in an AD, deck 10. Awesome week and what a suite. We're spoiled now and will always stay in a suite on our future cruises. In fact, we had some much fun on the Pearl last year, the week after Thanksgiving, that we're doing it again this year in just 13 short days! We had so much fun last year, and loved being in an AD aft, that we're taking our two kids this year and have 2 AD's again on deck 10. We love the Pearl sooooo much that we're already looking at doing a Western Caribbean next year, same week. We're also considering an Alaskan cruise June 2012.....on the Pearl.......what can I say.....we like that ship!!

[minnesotalady]

Kathie...sorry I'm not the least bit tech savvy so although I have pictures I haven't a clue what to do with them(I'm a "go to the store and print them kind of girl")

A couple of funny things happened during the cruise. One was the first day when we walked back into the room and it was creaking and howling and hissing and I told DH that I couldn't possibly sleep in that room(It was a fiercely windy day). He started hustling to make me happy trying to shut all the sliders, etc. to no avail. Jonathan stopped in soon after to check on us and quickly heard our dilemma and showed us how to really close them and it was blessedly quiet and a true sanctuary. I was calmer.

The next day we played trivia in the atrium and it was Presidential Trivia. About halfway through as we are debating(and mostly guessing at the answers)we find out that the two ladies playing against us were from Canada. Wouldn't that have been embarrassing to have lost to them in that category??! We did win but not by a big margin and had a laugh over that. (Hello, Canada, had a nice time visiting with you)

The Courtyard Villa pool area was available to us because of the upgrade and it was magnificent. There was a small pool in a room with a retractable roof, a whirlpool, steam room, comfortable chairs, etc. It was a godsend when the wind kicked up and it was uncomfortable outside. We became even more lazy as the week went on...is that possible?? We read and did puzzles and visited and basically enjoyed our quiet time together. On some days for hours this area was ours exclusively! Where was everyone else? We truly enjoyed this perk more than anything.

We did a couple of things on sea days, visited the spa with the wonderful thallassotherapy pool and hot stone loungers, played tennis, walked the promenade deck, took our very first spinning class(hard!). DH spent time in the casino while I explored the ship. I had a massage and facial during the week and thought it was well done and reasonable.

We almost always went to the show at night...sometimes 7:30 and sometimes 9:30 depending on our hunger. We loved Sharkbait, Oh, What a Night and Second City. The comedian, Rod, was excellent as well. One night I went to the Spinnaker to see "What's My Life?" or was it Line? It was VERY funny and I thought Andy did a great job on that.

 

Ports: We didn't get off the ship in Samana. As I said, we'd had multiple stressors this past year and relaxation and enjoying the ship was important to us so we just hung around. I am pushing 60 and "relaxing" has become so much more interesting to me now...hahahaha.

St. Thomas we've been to many times so we just went to Emerald Beach on Lindbergh Bay at the Best Western. It's a nice enough beach although that day it was cloudy. The taxi ride is quick. To go by taxi and rent chairs with umbrella was $50. There are facilities and a bar and restaurant.

Tortola: we took a cab on the pier to Cane Garden Bay. It was a very nice sand beach and we rented chairs and had the use of bathrooms at Rhymer's where we rented the chairs. The cab ride was scary and we doubted we would get there alive and find such a pleasant beach!

GSC: Couldn't go there due to the high winds and 7-12' waves. Tendering would have been dangerous.

To be continued....

Pushing 59 this year in June, ah 60 right around the corner!!!We have 9 adopted children, Hannah being the true baby!!! Love Love your review and look forward to more. Looking at staying on the ship the first port. Hannah and Dave were going to do the whale watching, but concerned of what they will be exposed to as this port is very poor!!! Keep posting!!!

[tennispretzel]

Food: An important part of vacation for us is the food...almost as much as the destination. The fact that we had been dieting for six months prior to the cruise and had been planning meals, shopping, hunting down veggie recipes, chopping and prepping made the prospect of having someone else do all that for us very exciting. A whole week of not touching food except to eat it!! We were timid at first and sort of stuck to the diet or at least made good choices. The waitstaff always said, "But, madame, the dessert is the best part" but I refused. We really were too full...but that lasted only about two and a half days and then we discovered the cookies, danish and pretzel rolls. We proceeded to eat wonderful bread/butter at every meal and had a cookie each day in the Courtyard pool area. When our butler brought coffee at 7am we asked him for danish too! We were totally "off the wagon" as they say. Let me also say that in our history of cruising...this is our 10th...we have never gained weight as we balance the food with exercise but this time we both gained three pounds. It was all worth it. In fact, now that I've lost the three pounds, I wish I'd eaten more!!!

We thought the food was excellent. We did three dinners at Summer Palace, one at Indigo, one at Mambo's, one at Blue Lagoon and a devine meal at LeBistro. Probably, no DEFINITELY, drank too much wine that night and was falling asleep in the Oh, What a Night show. Forgot it was lobster night in the main room too and made a reservation for LeBistro. Oh, well, next time. The Coq au Vin at LeBistro was exquisite as were the profiteroles.

We ate breakfast in Cagney's three times(lobster/scallop brioche, crab cakes eggs benedict and challah french toast--all delightful)My poor husband couldn't believe I was eating seafood for breakfast and wondered if it would upset me. The only thing that upset me was that I couldn't fit in more! The other days we did fruit/danish in the room and one day Jonathan served us breakfast on the balcony. We did that on Tortola day so we could get an early start.

We had three lunches in Cagney's which we enjoyed.

Service in Cagney's, LeBistro, Indigo, Mambo's and Blue Lagoon was all very fine. Summer Palace waitstaff seemed disinterested at best and twice forgot items and one night served dessert and didn't even ask if we wanted coffee. In the interest of time and because we don't like to make a fuss, we just "moved on".

We trolled the Garden Cafe a couple of times when we wanted snack food or a big salad and it was fine for that. We loved the pretzel rolls. We can get them any day of the week at the pizza parlor that is within walking distance to our house(and another reason we were on weight watcher's...hahaha)but the NCL version was light and tasty.

The salad bar was nice but I would have to say we're not buffet fans anymore and it was always crowded so we didn't go there much.

The room service Greek salad was great as was the Southwestern salad. We didn't ever order room service otherwise.

The butler brought snacks each day to our room--small appetizers or strawberries or cheese. It was very nice. We didn't find either he or GiGi to be intrusive. There is a "wheel" outside your door and when you wanted privacy you just switched it to "Do Not Disturb". One night, unfortunately, we left our room and didn't realize it was on and got no turn down service or snacks. Our mistake.

 

One highlight of the trip was climbing the rock wall. It was windy and the next day they actually shut it down because of the high winds so I am so grateful that I got to try it. Like I said prior, we're not big adventure people but I've always wanted to try that and told my husband who was shocked and said he never knew that. I also told him that I needed to go RIGHT NOW or I will lose my nerve so we did. One thing that inspired me to soldier on was when two blind gentlemen came up as I was already strapped in and waiting my turn. The NCL staffer recognized them from a prior trip and said, "Ah, going to try it again, eh?". That gave me courage and I thought if they can do it, surely I can!" It was really cool and I have the pictures to prove it. Our joke the rest of the cruise was "does rock climbing make my butt look big?" It was all good fun!

So, my "brief" review was not so brief but that's not one of my virtues. If anyone has questions, I will try to answer them.

Hope your experience is as delightful as ours. We have never disliked a cruise in all our time cruising. We find something valuable to take away from each time but this was probably one of our favorites because the Pearl is a well kept, beautiful ship and because of all the pampering.

[singinglizzie]

Thank you for posting. I enjoyed reading it and certainly not dull! You have a flair with your writing style - would love to read more!

[minnesotalady]

Great review and truely enjoyed reading!!!!

[Scrappygrrl]

GREAT review! So glad we go to meet!

[k4btzs]

Thank you for sharing your trip with us. I really enjoyed reading about it and WAY TO GO to you for trying rock climbing. I haven't ever tried it myself but I think I will when we sail in March!

[runnerandme]

Loved the review. What's a pretzel roll?

[snorklinbarb]

So enjoyed hearing about your cruise. The Pearl's a great ship, isn't she?!!

 

Had to laugh about your week "doing nothing." Well, I've never done a spinning class nor rock climbing - so kudos for all of that. Vacation's all about relaxing and sounds like you had the perfect suite for that.

 

Do you know if Gigi was on the Jade last year? We had a fabulous steward named Gigi from the Phillipines, shortish straight hair - wonderful attitude and always there to help. She was working in the suites then so I'm wondering if perhaps it's the same gal? She's been with NCL a long time.

 

Did you have a Meet & Greet or get to know any of the other CC'ers? Will never forget our first CC bowling tourney on the Pearl transatlantic!;):rolleyes::D

 

Hope your next cruise is just as wonderful!:D

[lemstar]

Yeah, but does it? Does rock climbing make your butt look big?

lol....

[tennispretzel]

Runnerandme: a pretzel roll is a dinner roll that is salted and tastes just like a pretzel. NCL usually had them on the buffet and sometimes put sandwich fillings in. Sometimes they were round shaped and sometimes stick like. At home, we eat them with butter.

 

lemstar: hmmm...typical of me as a non-athletic woman to do a fete like rock climbing and worry what the pictures looked like! But, I truly AM celebrating the fact that I got the nerve to do it. After I went a family with several little kids came up and they got all suited up and ready to go up. Burst MY bubble a little!

 

snorklin'barb: Might have been the same "Gigi" since she was as you described and always very pleasant. Do not know if she had been on the Jade. She did a great job with our suite. We were invited to a Meet & Greet with other cc-ers which Miss Rabbit and Scrappygrrl organized but I went late(not anti-social, just lazy!)and my DH didn't want to go at all. It was nice of them to organize it and I'm sure you're reading Scrappygrrl's excellent review.

Thanks, all, for the kind responses. I don't have any other notes here except to say that on my next cruise we will probably again book the aft suite and hope for the upsell. We had originally booked through NCL. Also, forgot to mention we had $600 on board credit...$300 for booking a suite 9 mos in advance and $300 from World Points NCL credit card. This also felt so good since we had no bill at the end and actually through an error on my part didn't spend it all...left -$21 there on the bill.