Escape from Miami, 12/9/17 Trip Report

[LuCruise]

Following along. Enjoy your cruise.

 

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[MaryBethV]

Following - have an amazing time!

[anonmom]

Pre-Muster Last Call was a fabulous success, had a ton of fun and met some great cruisers! Managed to have 2-3 drinks inside me and a fresh one in my hand for the dreaded muster drill. We were assigned to O'Sheehans.

 

 

This is what my husband thinks is an appropriate picture of me:

 

 

This is what I think is an appropriate muster drill pun:

 

 

OK, **** international maritime law, muster is over, back to the District!

 

 

And we're sailing away from Miami!

 

 

And here's a gratuitous drunken selfie:

 

 

Before I wrap up this post, I suppose I should include the all-important "what cameras do I use to capture these special moments in such stunning detail?" section. I prefer the camera attached to my Nexus 5X because 1. It is attached to my phone so I don't have to carry an extra thing. 2. It is literally a part of my phone, so I don't have to pay for an extra thing. 3. It is a relatively good smartphone camera at a very reasonable smartphone price. I know I could get amazing action shots and ultra-macro detail with a stand-alone SLR digicam, but I stopped carrying a second camera about 5 years ago when smartphone cameras started taking good enough pictures.

 

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[anonmom]

"I can now confirm that priority embarkation is absolutely *not* a guaranteed perk for organizing the Meet and Greet."

 

But there certainly were a few perks I got last time. I believe priority disembarkation was one we got last time....and those chocolate strawberries in the room were awesome! Enjoy the last call before muster!!

Yes, we have gotten a few nice perks. There was an invite to a party in the Haven that we totally meant to go to, priority tendering for Grand Cayman that we would have used except there already was no line when we got down there, the aforementioned chocolate-covered strawberries, etc. We definitely won't use priority disembarkation, since that is just a fancy phrase for "ending your vacation before they drag you kicking and screaming off the ship"

 

The one really awesome perk we've gotten is a letter from the hotel director, directing us to call his secretary, the always helpful Pamela, if we had any needs whatsoever. She has moved around specialty dining reservations for us, gotten us tickets to Escape the Big Top when we forgot to go to the box office before they sold out, helped connect us with the bar staff to organize our pub/cabin crawl, etc.

 

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[anonmom]

Can you let me know if the Mersey Boys show is still onboard?

No, sorry. The theatre shows are After Midnight and For the Record, and the supper club show is something like Flyboys.

 

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[amallison]

This is what my husband thinks is an appropriate picture of me

 

Totally a husband thing! I wish I knew how many of these "husband appropriate" pictures of me were floating around on my husband's phone. ;p

[anonmom]

Hey, I am organizing a pub crawl for our 2/17 cruise. Question, how did you arrange the tray of drinks at the various stops?

 

Thanks,

 

Coach Jim

Here's how I did it: I emailed Ivi Hernandez at SpecialEventsEscape@ncl.com to set up the Meet and Greet and get some related assistance. I'll just include our correspondence here instead of paraphrasing:

 

Good morning anonmom,

 

Can I have an estimate on how many guests have signed up for the meeting so that I can set it up? The meeting is usually on the 2nd*day from 12:00pm to 1:00pm.

 

*

 

Please see answers below.

 

*

 

Regards

 

Ivi Hernandez* |* Event Coordinator Norwegian Escape

 

specialeventsescape@ncl.com

 

800.327.9020 ext.26227|* fax*305.436.4114

 

*

 

Norwegian Cruise Line ®

7665 Corporate Center Drive |*Miami FL 33126

 

From:*Me

[mailto:myemailaddress@gmail.com]*

Sent:*Tuesday, September 19, 2017 2:59 AM

To:*Special Events Escape

Subject:*December 9 Cruise Critic Meet & Greet with Pub Crawl

 

*

 

I am organizing the Cruise Critic Meet & Greet for the December 9, 2017 sailing of the Escape. Since we don't know exactly where we are cruising, I would like to get the group excited about some of the things we will encounter *on* the ship.*One big draw with cruising is, of course, the food!*I am hoping*you can send me current menus for the main dining rooms and the specialty restaurants on the Escape to share with our roll call.*I am sorry but we do not have any current menus since the menu changes from week to week. You will have to request this information onboard.

 

I also want to touch base about the meet and greet schedule and venue. We would like to do a brief Meet & Greet with the ship's officers at noon or later on the first sea day, and then transition into our combined Pub Crawl/Cabin Crawl. This was a very fun event when we did it on the Getaway earlier this year, and this time I would like to work out a schedule of bars with the ship in advance, with a featured drink at each bar, so that the bartenders on duty can be prepared with a batch cocktail.*Can you also send current drink menus for the bars on the Escape to help us decide which bars are "must-sees"?*I am sorry but we do not have any current menus since the menu changes from week to week. You will have to request this information onboard.

*

 

Thank you so much for your time and assistance,

 

My Name

 

Guest #...

 

Reservation #...

 

Honestly, I was annoyed that she would just flat out lie. We all know the dinner menus and drink menus don't change every week. I feel like she could have said something like, "We don't guarantee current menus since they are subject to change onboard." And even that seems like laziness to me. Why not just send the most current menus you have and include a disclaimer stating that they are subject to change? I feel like she just didn't want to bother to look the stuff up.

 

Anyway, once on board, I asked Pamela to help me set up the pub crawl and she referred me to the onboard group services coordinator, Jesse, who referred me to the assistant beverage manager, Anthony. Anthony said NCL no longer sponsors pub crawls because too many accidents. I said we had this pub crawl planned for months and a group of about 30 of us would be arriving at his bars in a predictable order at times that we could at least roughly estimate, and that he could decide whether to help me have a tray of drinks ready at each bar or just have it be total chaos when we got there. He assigned beverage supervisor Marc to go around to the bars right before us so that they could have a heads up as to how many of us there were and what we were drinking. ;)

 

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[anonmom]

Currently at 5 O'Clock Somewhere, anchored by Grand Cayman. I wasn't going to skip ahead, but Clarense is cracking us up with his custom drinks. Here he is when I said I wanted something tasty but not too sweet:

 

 

Here I am with the result, a Running Dummy:

 

 

This one is Three Irish Balls:

 

 

And here's a Smack on the Ass:

 

 

And here's a Sleeping Beauty (literally half Hennessy and half Grand Marnier):

 

 

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[anonmom]

Ok, now I'll skip back to the Meet & Greet. It was definitely fun, with a good turnout, but I feel like I spent the whole hour meeting one cool person, talking to them for a whole 2 minutes, then having to go make an announcement, then meeting an awesome group that I could maybe talk to for 3 minutes before I started getting nervous about calling Marc with a pub/cabin crawl update.

 

Once the pub/cabin crawl started, I finally settled into my groove:

 

 

Oceanview dreams:

 

 

 

This is that nice, quiet, *free* area right outside of Vibe that everyone talks about:

 

 

Seriously, just ask for directions to Vibe, then when you get to the door you can just stop, chill on the loungers, drink at the bar (it is the same bartenders as Vibe, so anything you've heard someone gets at Vibe, just ask for it here and they can make it).

 

For example: "Mini Beers" (tasty ice cream shot, nothing like what it looks like) outside of Vibe.

 

 

Then again, real Vibe is pretty awesome, too!

 

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[sid_9169]

I was on board the week before you... Prior to the cruise, about 30 or so people expressed interest in a Bar Crawl. I explained this to the beverage manager, who also passed me over to Marc. He explained that "they no do bar crawls" I informed him that several of us were doing it with or without their help. Long story short, only 12 people ended up showing anyway, so it was not that big a deal. I hope you had better luck with your group!

[raejc]

Any chance you could tell me where they have draught beer on tap except the District Brewhouse?

 

 

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[anonmom]

Sure! I see a few taps at tobacco road, o' Sheehan's and many of the inside bars. My husband says he thinks they have Amstel, Stella, maybe Heinekin?

 

Most of the outdoor bars just have really average corporate American beers in bottles.

Any chance you could tell me where they have draught beer on tap except the District Brewhouse?

 

 

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[grandmarnnurse]

Following! I board the Getaway in Miami in 24 days!

 

 

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[anonmom]

Ok, now I'll skip back to the Meet & Greet. It was definitely fun, with a good turnout, but I feel like I spent the whole hour meeting one cool person, talking to them for a whole 2 minutes, then having to go make an announcement, then meeting an awesome group that I could maybe talk to for 3 minutes before I started getting nervous about calling Marc with a pub/cabin crawl update.

 

Once the pub/cabin crawl started, I finally settled into my groove:

 

 

Haha! Totally thought that first pic was me with a drink. Nope! Jeanene snuck us into the Haven and I got some of the coveted M&Ms and gummy bears.

 

I just took them for the pic and then gave them to the kids on the crawl. IMO, most overrated perk ever. Give me Pamela every time.

 

(This is where I would have inserted a picture of the lovely Pamela if I had had the presence of mind to snap a pic when I finally got the chance to meet her in person yesterday.)

 

Then Lance asked the guys at Vibe if we could all come in for one shot and they graciously invited us in:

 

 

 

 

So, yeah, this is why I say that actual Vibe is pretty great, too.

 

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[CRUISEPAL1]

Had a great time! Met some awesome people! Thanks again, C & J, for organizing everything!

~Lisa & Mike

 

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[sportsnut77]

We had such an awesome trip. Thanks for organizing!

Angie & Jason

 

 

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[Langham1865]

It was a fun week... despite mother nature being moody the first few days!