Our Breakaway... Err... Joy... Umm.. Escape... Nope! November Bliss 2021 Review!

[tripleboom]

After dinner, Stacy and I headed back to the room to grab a couple of items.  After writing a note to Andi, he was kind enough to make towel animals for us so we could show the boys when we got home.  They sure do love them!

 

 

Then we headed down to The Waterfront for a bit. The wind was whipping pretty good along the rail, but back under cover it was relatively calm. Nice to kick back for a while and just relax after an active day!

 

 

 

We decided to go check out the comedy show in the theater, which unfortunately turned out to be a bit of a dud. 

 

 

The comedian who came on first was just really un-funny. It wasn't even that she was overly crude or anything like that; I just didn't find much that made me laugh, and I'm a pushover for laughing.  The second comedian was better, but I've certainly seen better than either of these two on cruises before. Fortunately, the show was relatively short, so we didn't feel like we had wasted a bunch of time on board.  One mildly amusing thing occurred as we filed out.  An gentleman behind us remakred, "I thought she was better tonight than her earlier show. I'd move it up to a C+."  If I just watcher her C+ material, I don't regret missing any of the earlier shows!

 

After the show we checked out our photos to date and picked out a keeper among them.

 

 

We grabbed some buffet snacks, called it a night, and turned in ahead of our early call the next morning in Mazatlan.

[AuntLucky]

Thank you so much for this cruise report! I am having so much fun reading about your adventures, it inspired me to pay for my Bliss cruise in full last night! I'll be sailing Feb 27, 2022! I was on the fence about taking it, as I've only cruised on smaller NCL ships, but now I'm super stoked for the adventures to come. 

Gotta tell you I have cabin envy with that aft balcony of yours. I only cruised once in an aft balcony and loved it. I'm traveling solo and am in a regular balcony cabin, but I sure love those views. 

Can't wait for more and thanks again for making me "take the plunge". 

[tripleboom]

3 hours ago, AuntLucky said:

Thank you so much for this cruise report! I am having so much fun reading about your adventures, it inspired me to pay for my Bliss cruise in full last night! I'll be sailing Feb 27, 2022! I was on the fence about taking it, as I've only cruised on smaller NCL ships, but now I'm super stoked for the adventures to come. 

Gotta tell you I have cabin envy with that aft balcony of yours. I only cruised once in an aft balcony and loved it. I'm traveling solo and am in a regular balcony cabin, but I sure love those views. 

Can't wait for more and thanks again for making me "take the plunge". 

 

Well that's about the best thing I've read in a long time!  First off, thanks for following along!  Second, you are going to have an absolute BLAST on the Bliss! I'm so glad you took the plunge! I can't wait to get back on the Bliss again sometime down the road!

[tripleboom]

Day 5 - Mazatlán

 

Unlike every other port stop on this itinerary, Mazatlán was an early morning arrival, slated for 7 AM.  Because of this, Stacy and I put out a door hanger the night before for a room service delivery for 6:00 AM. Since we had to be to the theater by 7:30, we just didn't feel like trying to make it to any restaurant or the buffet for that early of a breakfast.  The food order arrived on time, and thanks to the spacious aft balcony, we were able to enjoy breakfast AND the sunrise.

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently we were greeted by some rogue pterodactyls?

 

 

Nope, just some harbor birds making their morning rounds.

 

 

If you've ordered a new Nissan Rogue and are wondering where it is, I think I found it...

 

 

What does every good city need?  

Water...

 

Church...

 

And beer...

 

I've always wondered how on earth they haul those giant ropes in to moor the ship at each port, and on this morning I was up early enough to witness it. Weighted balls on the end of a much smaller rope are tossed ashore, and then the guys on the dock use those smaller ropes to haul in the larger mooring lines. Pretty cool process!

 

 

[nhtravels]

I am truly enjoying your review Tripleboom!  It looks like you, Stacy, Joe and Sandi had a wonderful time on the Bliss!  DH and I are sailing on her in early February for 16 days.  Until then, I'm traveling vicariously through you!    (DH and I are considering the Jeep excursion thanks to your pictures and review of the day.  How was the cafe tequila, btw?)

[exgman]

1 hour ago, tripleboom said:

I've always wondered how on earth they haul those giant ropes in to moor the ship at each port, and on this morning I was up early enough to witness it. Weighted balls on the end of a much smaller rope are tossed ashore, and then the guys on the dock use those smaller ropes to haul in the larger mooring lines. Pretty cool process!

Those smaller ropes with the ball are called Monkey Fists. At least they were back in the 60’s/70’s in the Navy. 

[rmandmm]

Great review, thank you! Can’t wait to read the rest. Happy Holidays!

[SenatorsFan]

What a fun review this is! I'm so glad you took your cancellation in stride and got on another ship. 😄 Your pictures are great. Bliss is definitely on my list of ships to sail.

Heather

 

[brad0576]

We depart on the Bliss this coming Sunday - so excited!

[tripleboom]

On 12/3/2021 at 10:02 PM, nhtravels said:

I am truly enjoying your review Tripleboom!  It looks like you, Stacy, Joe and Sandi had a wonderful time on the Bliss!  DH and I are sailing on her in early February for 16 days.  Until then, I'm traveling vicariously through you!    (DH and I are considering the Jeep excursion thanks to your pictures and review of the day.  How was the cafe tequila, btw?)

 

We so enjoyed the Jeep excursion. Full disclosure, the image stabilization on the GoPro is great but really underplays just how rough and bumpy the trip is. So fun, but a very rough ride if anyone gets carsick easily.  And, oh my word. The café tequila was SOOOO good.  At a mere 18% ABV it's not going to get you as tipsy as a standard tequila, but it just tasted so good without being over the top sugary.  The peach flavored one was very good also, but the Café was too good not to bring home with us!

[Wulfwyn]

Was the ship dressed  up in Christmas  Cheer 

[tripleboom]

1 hour ago, Wulfwyn said:

Was the ship dressed  up in Christmas  Cheer 

 

Not for this cruise (Nov. 14 - 21).  I suspect they would have started putting it up maybe the week after ours or certainly by the week after that since Thanksgiving would have passed.

[tripleboom]

After a good night's rest, Joe was feeling much better, so our excursion for the day was a go for all four of us.  We headed to the theater, waited for our excursion number to be called, then headed down to disembark.

 

For today we chose the "Beach Resort Getaway," a $95/person day pass to a local resort hotel, Hotel Playa Mazatlán.  The cost included lunch and two drinks during our stay at the resort.  Once we made it down to the pier we met with our tour host, Erika. Shortly thereafter we were escorted to the bus that took us out of the port area and brought us the beach club.  While the immediate area of the port was very industrial, the drive along Avenue Del Mar on the way to the hotel was quite pretty.

 

After the roughly twenty minute bus ride, we arrived at the resort and piled out.  Erika announced that we would need to be back out front by 2:30 to catch the bus back to the port, but otherwise we would have the run of the facility for the day.  We headed straight out toward the beach to claim some chairs and a palapa.  

 

 

The resort does have free wifi, so we connected for a bit to check in at home.  The night before had been the night when my parents left, and Stacy's mom (I know.. Please don't sing the song) arrived, so it was nicely timed to catch up with her, be sure the transition had gone smoothly, and rub it in that we were on a beach while she was in Iowa where it was 36°.

 

With that done, we slathered on the sunscreen and headed out to the water.

 

 

 

 

After a bit of just standing at the water's edge I retrieved my GoPro and we all headed out into the water.  The waves intermittently would be lapping gently and other times crashing hard several times in a row. Nothing resembling significant undertow hit us while we were out there, but you can get knocked around pretty good if you fail to time the duck under the waves just right!

 

 

[tripleboom]

Did I mention that timing the waves could be tricky sometimes? I started off this video clip standing next to Stacy, Joe, and Sandi. That's not where I finished. 

 

 

 

I thought this one was pretty funny.  Basically, after getting absolutely destroyed by one wave, I decided to head right back into the crashing chaos of the next. Unfortunately, this one destroyed me AND Stacy and left me directly underneath her as she struggled to get back to her feet.  Fortunately I had more than enough breath for her to be able to get her bearings and get off of me before I was able to surface myself.

 

 

While this isn't a calm, toes in the water, leisurely day at the beach, it was a lot of fun playing in the waves for a good hour or two!

 

 

 

 

After working up an appetite in the water we headed back to shore, toweled off (the resort does provide towels so you don't have to bring yours from the ship), and headed off to lunch.

[tripleboom]

When we got off the bus at the resort, we were each issued a perforated ticket with a lunch coupon and two drink coupons.  So we grabbed our bags and headed up the stairs to the outdoor seating area near the buffet.  A couple of flowers caught my eye on the way there.

 

 

 

Once we were seated, we cashed in our coupons for some much needed water, and then headed off to the buffet.  It was full of some basic Mexican fare. While it wasn't overly flavorful, it at least hit the spot.

 

 

 

Couldn't beat the views from our seats either.

 

 

Based on the map/placemat at the table, it appeared that there were something like 14 different pools or hot tubs scattered around the property, so after fully enjoying the beach in the morning, we decided to play it cool and hit the pools/hot tubs for the afternoon.

 

[Cruisingcrew5]

Thank you for this review of the beach getaway, it helped us for our upcoming trip see more of the excursion we selected. Teens just want beach time and it looks like it hits the mark! 

Great review so far!! Looking forward to our time on the ship in a few weeks.

[tripleboom]

Just behind the beach chairs there was a large pool with a swim up bar, waterfalls, and abundant seating all around it, but it was pretty over run with kids.  At least when we were there, it appeared to mostly be vacationing Mexican natives that were at this resort. Not sure if that's normally this resort's primary clientele, or if it was just because it was the offseason, but there were a healthy number of kids around and in the primary pool during our visit.

 

That said, this was NOT an issue. We found one of the hot tubs (ok, lukewarm tubs) up a set of stairs that beautifully overlooked the resort.

 

 

 

There would be a few more people in and out of this hot tub while we chilled in here, but for the most part it was a great place to hang and relax for our last little bit of time left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by tripleboom

[tripleboom]

Decided to try out the zoom on my little point & shoot Sony camera. Not bad!

 

 

Do you see what I see?

 

 

Just to the left of the taller building in the photo above...

 

 

Yup!  The Sony could zoom to 40x and read the ship's name from 5 miles away.  Not bad for a $60 Craigslist pickup about 5-6 years ago!

 

 

With the clock ticking toward 2:30, we gathered our belongings and headed back toward the bus, dropping our towels off along the way.  When we got up front, Erika looked very distressed.  She had said to meet at 2:30 so the bus could leave by 3:00, but apparently we were the last ones back to the bus and they were getting ready to leave.  So, as a word of caution, I either misheard or misunderstood the timing expectations for the day. I pride myself on making sure I'm not "that guy," so I'm not sure what happened, but I'll put it on me regardless.

 

Anyway, we loaded up, and started our trek back to the ship.  We still had time to detour through the old town area of Mazatlan as well as stop for some photos along the side of the main seaside road.

 

 

 

 

In the end, we did make it back to the ship about 45 minutes to an hour before final boarding.  Still enough time to hop off the shuttle cart, grab a photo, and re-board.

 

 

[tripleboom]

We made it back to our rooms to clean up from the day, discovering sand in places I wouldn't have imagined possible, and got to watch our departure from Mazatlán from the comfort of our balcony.

 

 

 

 

 

[BENNETT531]

I really wanted to do this excursion, but our itinerary has us leaving Matzatlan at 2pm.  Dang it!  I would love it there.  Thanks for your detailed review 🙂

 

[tripleboom]

6 minutes ago, BENNETT531 said:

I really wanted to do this excursion, but our itinerary has us leaving Matzatlan at 2pm.  Dang it!  I would love it there.  Thanks for your detailed review 🙂

 

 

As a matter of fact, we were slated to be there from 7am - 2pm for our Mazatlan stop too. I'm not sure if that changed mid-trip, or what the issue was that allowed us to book this. This was one of the excursions that we had to book once on board thanks to the last minute booking, so even if it's not showing up as bookable for your sailing right now, you might at least check with the shore ex desk once on board. We definitely would highly recommended this one, and since it's through NCL, you'll at least be guaranteed to make it back to the ship!

[tripleboom]

Tonight was the Glow Party, so we all broke out the white for tonight's activities. 

 

 

It was a little windy out on The Waterfront this night as we were heading back north and into headwinds.

 

 

 

 

With the sun officially down, it was time for nightlife to begin!  And a full moon could only mean a fun night ahead!

 

 

[OrcaGirl]

Loving the review, and great to see you had a good time with the NCL Beach Resort Getaway excursion. We're on the Bliss in two weeks and that's the excursion we picked for Mazatlan but I hadn't been able to find any recent reviews.

 

By chance, do you recall if there were any opportunities at the resort to add on activities or book a massage? If buying additional beverages beyond the included two, did you need US cash, pesos or was credit card accepted?

[Lauren Spray]

Thanks so much for the review.  It was a fun romp with you.

 

We sail on the Bliss on 12-26.

 

I can't wait.

 

Happy holidays.

[brad0576]

QQ- Has Jersey Boys returned yet?