Just off a fully sold out Bliss - the good, the bad, and the inbetween. Taking questions.

[chloe173]

Hi All - I disembarked from the NCL Bliss yesterday, which was a 7-night Western Caribbean sailing. We were in Haven. Happy to take any questions, but the short version: it wasn't a very good cruise, despite the "niceness" of Haven. We fully expect it to be our last on NCL. Here are my thoughts:

 

The Good:

• Overall, the Haven experience was good. The restaurant was always able to seat us right away, the bartenders were quick and always had plenty of everything we wanted. There was always room in the Hot Tubs when we visited. The Horizon Lounge was nice as well. Karina the Haven wine steward was particularly good and always greeted us by name and remembered what we had liked in the past. Our butler was friendly (if not particularly useful) and brought snacks daily and made sure we knew things about disembarkation procedures, etc. In other specialty restaurants outside of Haven, it seemed like we always got the best table. We were able to get the showtimes we wanted via the concierge staff.
• Six - great show! Super high energy and pretty good cast. Really enjoyed it.
• Laser Tag - I liked this more than I thought I would, actually. Fun little addition to a ship I haven't seen before. One thing to be aware of: they are ONLY doing laser tag at night now. I think in the past, it was open both day and night. But now times are limited, and that also made reservations harder to get. We didn't have trouble being Haven, but we did hear from some other guests who said they couldn't get the times they wanted.
• Food - We ate at Haven multiple times across breakfast lunch and dinner, and also ate at Le Bistro, Cagneys, Food Republic, Los Lobos, Ocean Blue and American Diner. Overall, the food was probably the best I've had on NCL, but it still ranks below the food we had on our last cruise on Virgin, and certainly below the standard of restaurants we regularly eat at on land. But I would say it met our expectations. Le Bistro and Ocean Blue were the top of the places we ate at. Cagney's was fine, but we felt like the meat was low quality, kind of tough. The sushi was good at Food Republic, but the Izakaya style dishes were a let-down. Los Lobos and American Diner are both bland, utterly skippable. But the absolute BEST food I found on the ship? Once again that prize goes to the Indian food on the buffet. It's Indian cooks preparing it, and it is always just delicious and one of the few things you can find on board that has a lot of flavor and heat. One other observation is that we felt the food across restaurants had noticeably less salt this cruise than we've experienced in the past, and we were pleased by that.
• Laundry Service - We took advantage of Day 1 50% off pressing services, and this was great. For $12 I didn't have to try to steam or iron any of hubby's shirts all trip - definitely worth it in my book.
• The District - it was our first time experiencing this bar on NCL, and we really liked it. They had some really nice beer options that we enjoyed trying.

 

The Bad:

• Itinerary Changes - We were supposed to stop at Roatan, Harvest Caye, Costa Maya, and Cozumel. As soon as we got on board, we were notified they had cancelled Cozumel, and we'd be going to Bimini instead. No reason given. We had just been to Bimini last year and had never visited Cozumel, and had the shore excursion we were most looking forward to planned for there, so that was a bummer. But then, when we were supposed to arrive in Roatan, it was raining, and so we were informed that morning that our excursion was cancelled - we quickly scrambled to book another excursion through the Haven concierge, only to find that excursion was cancelled too. The only excursions that went forward were "beach day" outings that went to local hotels or the sloth/monkey excursion, which isn't our thing. All more "active" excursions like snorkeling, ATV, horseback riding, ziplining, kayaking; all got cancelled. We tried walking around the rainy port for a while, but there was nothing much to do there either, so just ended up getting back on the ship after about an hour. Then, when we got to Costa Maya, we're in our cabin getting ready, and the Captain comes on and announces that due to wind he doesn't think it's safe to dock, and so we'll be skipping that too. (2 other ships had already successfully docked that day that seemed to think it was fine...) So we ended up effectively with four sea days, on a 7-day itinerary. We have never felt so "trapped" on a ship in all the cruises we've ever taken. They did give us $100 per stateroom back as non-refundable onboard credit to "make up for it" but refused to refund anyone's port taxes, saying that you'd have to take that up with NCL corporate after the cruise. We were "lucky" in some regard, as I'd been lazy this cruise and just booked all the excursions through NCL...we heard from some on the ship who had arranged private tours at the skipped ports who were out hundreds of dollars and were very unhappy. 
• Cabin Location - We were in 11106, a Haven forward facing Penthouse with balcony. This turned out not to be a good choice for us at all, due to movement/vibration/and lack of direct Haven access. First, re: the movement and vibration. On our first night after embarkation, we were awoken at 2:30am by an announcement in our cabin for "stretcher team to medical center" (why this needed to be announced in guest cabins, I'm not sure...) then, for the next 20-30 minutes we experienced some of the most intense shaking and vibration ever on a ship. The glassware in our living room fell over. The light in the closet flashed like a strobe because the motion made it lose contact with its sensor. It was intense. Later, talking to the captain at the haven reception, he said he'd had to turn on the reverse thrusters to try to bring the boat to a full stop so the coast guard could board us to take off the medical emergency. But even on our sea days, there was a lot of motion and movement in this location. There was a running joke among many on the ship that we kept "hitting whales" because of how rough it was. My hubby and I started yelling "cannonball away!" when we'd hear one of the loud booms from the rough seas in our cabin at night. Again, just surprisingly intense. I'd never experienced motion sickness on a ship outside of a single day on an Alaska cruise when we were in open ocean - never when just sailing the Caribbean. And then lastly, we really didn't think it was going to be a problem to be located outside the Haven proper, and that we could easily just pop up there whenever we wanted. We were wrong, though, and should have stayed inside the Haven proper because of the next issue:
• WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE - Everywhere outside the Haven was a friggin' nightmare. On the (many) sea days, every single lounger/chair around the pool, the sun deck, and Spice H20 was taken - not by towels holding chairs mind you, but by lots and lots and lots of people. Getting a drink at the pool bar was a 20-30 minute ordeal. Never saw a hot tub outside of Haven that had less than 5 people in it at anytime throughout the entire cruise - sea day or otherwise. We were constantly waiting for elevators, and just about every elevator ride you took was packed to the gills, covid be damned i guess. It was often difficult to find two slot machines next to each other for me and the hubby in the casino. And almost every venue - the atrium, the comedy club, the Cavern - they resorted to just cramming in cheap plastic folding chairs because there wasn't anywhere near enough seating. (Btw, if you wanted to see a Beatles show in the Cavern, even with the folding chairs, you needed to be there at least an hour in advance to guarantee a chair.) We've been on mostly full ships before, but this just felt different. The hubby thought it was not just too many people, but also a lack of staffing/too little crew to handle them. And part of the problem that created the situation was:
• Lack of Activities - Since we ended up with so many sea days, we would have expected the cruise director to assemble an arsenal of activities to try to disperse people to different things. But especially in the afternoons? There was just nothing. Outside of the dj at the pool deck, no musical acts started until the early evenings. There were no afternoon shows or comedians or anything. Your options were essentially try to find a place to lay out, drink, or eat. There were a handful of upcharge activities - alcohol classes, painting class, Deal or No Deal....but nothing included in the cruise fare. By our third sea day, we were honestly just tired of drinking. We ended up watching 3 different movies in our cabin (Princess & the Frog, Moana, and Uncharted), played Scrabble and Chinese Checkers a few times, and took lots of naps. Fine, overall, but all activities we could have done for free at home. Definitely not our version of a good cruise or a good vacation.

 

The Irritating: The below alone don't make or break anything in my POV. We tend to let most things roll off our back. But when combined with a lot of outright bad, it does start to add up.

• Our Haven concierge was new this cruise, and seemed totally useless. I was rather annoyed when he assured us that our "new" Roatan excursion was going forward, only to trek all the way through the rain to find out it was also cancelled. And then upon reboarding the boat, and going to make sure it was refunded, he told us we'd needed to cancel it 48 hours ahead of time to get a refund - he said this because he'd completely forgotten he was the one to book this for us just an hour before. It ended up getting removed from our account, but I didn't feel like I should have needed to argue with him about it. We also asked him a question about Bimini to which he responded "i don't know, i've never been there". The proper response for a high end concierge would have been "i'm not sure, but i'll find out for you and get back to you" - he just wasn't good at his job. His assistant concierge, a woman, was more helpful but seemed to have a permanent scowl on her face.
• Lots of having to interact with guest services - laser tag got charged twice, and we had to stand in line to get that reversed. A $330 charge from La Cucina appeared when we never event went to La Cucina, and had to stand in line for that too. Because of all the cancelled excursions, we had to stand in line to get a refund the night before disembarkation, but the $50 Free at Sea excursion credit for the Bimini excursion we booked to replace Cozumel didn't post until after midnight on the last day, and so we had to stand in line the morning of disembarkation too. Just a bunch of clerical issues I'd prefer not to have had to deal with.
• Entertainment geared towards retirees, but little else. Let me tell you - I've never seen a bunch of 70 year olds come alive with joy and excitement the way they did while watching Jersey Boys, lol. But between that, the Beatles impersonators, the comedian who was in his 60s, the other onboard musical groups all playing oldies, and the DULL CD activities geared towards an older crowd (daily origami, napkin folding demos, shopping events, etc) it just felt like we (a couple in our late 30s/early 40s) were not the right target for this ship. Especially compared to our last cruise on Virgin which provided all manner of great activities for more active folks, we felt rather trapped on a floating nursing home. 
• Superbowl on the ship was a real let down too. Because we knew the pool deck and the District were both likely to be packed to the gills, we planned to take advantage of the showing for Haven guests in the Horizon Lounge. They said they would be "setting up a screen". What really happened is they brought in one single tv, the same size as in guest cabins (I'm guessing maybe a 50" tv, at best?), and a whole bunch of those plastic folding chairs. There were probably about 30-40 people trying to all watch that tiny little screen, lol. Definitely not a "high end Haven experience".
• The hubby found a bone shard in his meat one night in the Haven, which stabbed him inbetween the tooth and the gums. He's still complaining about it 4 days later, unfortunately. When we pointed it out to the Haven staff, they were incredulous that it could have come from the meat at all, but he didn't stab himself in the mouth for fun, so where did it come from?
• Slot Tournament was a mess, again felt like they were brand new and didn't know how to host it.  It took 25 minutes per round, for some reason, for a 2-minute game? And then there were 5 rounds to get through, so it took forever.
• Embarkation was about 2 hours late, apparently because there were issues getting customs clearance for the folks getting off before us. I'd posted about that before.
• In-person muster is not efficient at all. Couldn't even hear the people giving instructions, a video in our cabin would have actually been much more useful.
• Not much wine variety. We had the Premium Plus package, but even then you had basically one cheap and one nice wine available per package, e.g. one cheap Chardonnay, one nice Chardonnay. One cheap Sparkling, one nice Sparkling. One cheap Cabernet, one nice Cabernet. And that was true throughout the ship, and in Cellars too - everywhere had the same wines. Would have liked more options, like what we found in the District for beers.

 

So, that's about it. Overall, we made the most of everything as best we could, but we do feel like we could have spent the same amount of money and time to go to a nice resort in the Caribbean and had a much better experience overall. NCL seems to have reduced activities/entertainment, focused in on older clientele, and lost most of their really good experienced staff during Covid. So we won't be back - we would try Virgin again, and maybe a smaller luxury line like Viking, but our days with NCL (and in fact, with all the "big" lines) are just at an end; it's not worth it to us, no matter how good of a deal you can find.

[Turtles06]

Thanks for taking the time to post a review.  I'm sorry you had a disappointing cruise, and from your review, I can see why.  I'd have been livid at a number of the things you described.

 

But I just want to comment on your thoughts about NCL focusing on an "older crowd."  My wife and I are in our 70s; we just returned from 23 days aboard the Gem (B2B Panama Canal cruises).  We had the same sort of activities on board that you describe below, and they were of NO interest to us ancients either.  In fact, we thought the entertainment on our trip was the WORST on any cruise we've ever taken, on any cruise line.  Comics and magicians with little talent, recycled for more than one performance in the Theater at night.  Yikes.  

 

Please don't stereotype the "older crowd" -- we like good entertainment too.  NCL just doesn't seem to be providing it right now (with some exception for shows like SIX), regardless of age group.

 

27 minutes ago, chloe173 said:

and the DULL CD activities geared towards an older crowd (daily origami, napkin folding demos, shopping events, etc) it just felt like we (a couple in our late 30s/early 40s) were not the right target for this ship.

 

27 minutes ago, chloe173 said:

NCL seems to have reduced activities/entertainment, focused in on older clientele,

 

[www3traveler]

You chose to cruise during one of the busiest weeks in a cruise schedule-- Midwinter Break for many many school districts-- therefore lots and lots of people.  About what I woulld have expected.

Sorry your cruise did  not meet your expectations.

[Greenpea2]

Wow. It does sound like an awful lot of things coming together (or apart)--I can understand your frustration and disappointment. A couple of the bad things, though...cancelled ports and excursions just happen sometimes, based on any number of issues, mostly safety. It stinks, I know. And is very disappointing.But that's not on NCL, it happens on all lines. The crowdedness was due to it being Spring Break for much of the country. Suggestion: Always Google "Spring break dates" before booking. You can find out what weeks likely will be bad for you. There cabin location--it's always a good idea to research that a bit too. I have stayed in a suite at the bow and yes, it was bumpy sometimes and the balcony often unusable. But I knew that going in so it was not a disappointment. Add to that, the weather being windy/bumpy...again, that just is how it is sometimes. On any cruise line.

 

I think if you subtracted those items, which can and do happen on any cruise line, or needed more research, there just would have been a handful of annoying things. Like the bone shard (awful), the Concierge (I've had mostly good but sometimes not, the luck of the draw I think) and all those annoying trips to the service desk (I would have been disgruntled about that too, I know)_it sounds like it was a good cruise, all ins all. Hope your next one runs more smoothly!

[Greenpea2]

8 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

Thanks for taking the time to post a review.  I'm sorry you had a disappointing cruise, and from your review, I can see why.  I'd have been livid at a number of the things you described.

 

But I just want to comment on your thoughts about NCL focusing on an "older crowd."  My wife and I are in our 70s; we just returned from 23 days aboard the Gem (B2B Panama Canal cruises).  We had the same sort of activities on board that you describe below, and they were of NO interest to us ancients either.  In fact, we thought the entertainment on our trip was the WORST on any cruise we've ever taken, on any cruise line.  Comics and magicians with little talent, recycled for more than one performance in the Theater at night.  Yikes.  

 

Please don't stereotype the "older crowd" -- we like good entertainment too.  NCL just doesn't seem to be providing it right now (with some exception for shows like SIX), regardless of age group.

 

 

 

Agree. I have been cruising since my early 30s and never had interest in any of the daily activities. It's not a matter of being geared towards older peeps. It's a matter of the activities seeming dumb to a number of people regardless of age.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Greenpea2

[chloe173]

14 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

Please don't stereotype the "older crowd" -- we like good entertainment too.  NCL just doesn't seem to be providing it right now (with some exception for shows like SIX), regardless of age group.

 

That's a good point, and you're absolutely right! I think it's more of an "active mindset" that matters, and there are certainly folks of all ages with it - and that's not who NCL is catering towards right now. Apologies if I offended at all, I'll be more careful with that sort of stereotype moving forward.

[chloe173]

16 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

You chose to cruise during one of the busiest weeks in a cruise schedule-- Midwinter Break for many many school districts-- therefore lots and lots of people.

I suppose that's a possibility, but there didn't seem to be many kids on the ship at all, actually. In Haven, I maybe saw a total of about 8 total across the whole cruise, all pretty well behaved. The kids splash pad pool area never seemed to have more than about 5 or 6 kids in it at a time. Not a big family vibe on the cruise at all - mainly just couples in their 60s and 70s I think. We did talk to a bunch of Canadians who were looking to get out of the cold, but again mainly couples not families.

 

12 minutes ago, Greenpea2 said:

The crowdedness was due to it being Spring Break for much of the country. Suggestion: Always Google "Spring break dates" before booking.

 

Hmm, I just did - Google says "For US colleges, Spring Break lasts one week and falls in March or April, with the peaking in the last two weeks of March. In 2023 the peak weeks will be Mar 4th and Mar 11th. In Canadian Spring Break falls between February and March. In 2023 it falls February 20th to March 17th."

 

So I'm not sure our cruise, which was Feb 11th - 18th really fit in that window?

[www3traveler]

Cruise lines say that " Winter/Spring High Season" runs from mid February until two weeks after Easter.

[kelib]

I was on the 2 weeks before and have to agree with the OP on some of her comments. She was lucky in the Haven that they didn’t have to deal with some of the crap we did. 
Your embarkation was bad because our debarkation was the worse ever, and just a hair worse than embarkation in Los Angeles. 
I started to write more about issues on my cruise and realized it was turning into a novel. Just little things kept adding up. It boils down to I just don’t trust NCL anymore. 

[carohs]

Commenting on the activities thing. I'm in my early 30s (okay, mid but don't tell anyone) and am excited to hear NCL offers towel folding and origami 😆. Okay not that excited but still it'll be fun to do those with my kids. 

 

But the most important questions: did you get water and did you pack ur zippy lockies?

[Monica887]

Can I ask what some of the activities Virgin had that you enjoyed? I haven't sailed Virgin. I'm mid 40s and my cruises have always been with my older, net very active relatives, or very young kids. (Mostly NCL with a handful of both Carnival and RC) I also have a hard time finding activities that I feel are geared towards me and curious what other cruise lines have to offer. 

[chloe173]

28 minutes ago, carohs said:

But the most important questions: did you get water and did you pack ur zippy lockies?

Lol, yes, the tough questions! We did receive two cartons of water in our cabin on arrival. We also had premium plus and so got water in bars all over the ship - most places had the cartons rather than aqua panna.

 

We did NOT pack ziplocs for food, but definitely saw others doing so. In fact, on Harvest Caye we sat by one woman who proceeded to have a ziploc feast on the beach with stuff she’d apparently taken from the buffet earlier lol. Also saw numerous people ask for a receive desserts to be packed up for takeaway from specialty restaurants.

[cmph]

35 minutes ago, chloe173 said:

I suppose that's a possibility, but there didn't seem to be many kids on the ship at all, actually. In Haven, I maybe saw a total of about 8 total across the whole cruise, all pretty well behaved. The kids splash pad pool area never seemed to have more than about 5 or 6 kids in it at a time. Not a big family vibe on the cruise at all - mainly just couples in their 60s and 70s I think. We did talk to a bunch of Canadians who were looking to get out of the cold, but again mainly couples not families.

 

 

Hmm, I just did - Google says "For US colleges, Spring Break lasts one week and falls in March or April, with the peaking in the last two weeks of March. In 2023 the peak weeks will be Mar 4th and Mar 11th. In Canadian Spring Break falls between February and March. In 2023 it falls February 20th to March 17th."

 

So I'm not sure our cruise, which was Feb 11th - 18th really fit in that window?

As someone with school-aged kids who have split their school years between the west coast and east coast, with family all located in the midwest - I don't know anyone who has a weeklong break the week BEFORE President's Day. I get that some people may feel defensive of their preferred brand. I also get that there are high times when lots of kids will be out (actual holiday weeks, summer, spring break in March), but mid-Feb without an actual holiday is not one of those high times. This is a weird argument to make for an overcrowded ship. In your shoes, I'd never have guessed it would be a consideration. 

[JustAPilot]

I think I’ve set it in the past but I agree with the entertainment, everyone raving about burn the floor or duelling pianos it was all the retirees all excited and clapping, we thought it was a snooze fest. Luckily we cruise the Med in the summers and cruise for the ports not any of the onboard entertainment. 

[chloe173]

24 minutes ago, Monica887 said:

Can I ask what some of the activities Virgin had that you enjoyed?

Well, for one thing Virgin includes all exercise classes in the cruise fare, so they have things like sunrise yoga, bungee aerobics (which i found i am TERRIBLE at, but i suppose you do burn calories from laughing at yourself, lol), and the "VHS" (Video-Hair Metal-Simmons) 80's themed aerobic workout, which people dress up in 80s gear for and is all set to the most cheesy 80s songs. Rather than boring ol' bingo - they have drag queen bingo, which was a hoot. They had upcharge classes to teach you bartending, or food photography, which we didn't do but we heard good things about.

And they also would have members of their "Happenings Staff" as they call them just scheduled to hang out in certain areas at certain times....so like, "The Gamer" would be hanging in a bar with like 10 board games, and would organize people to play different things together. Another bar would have "The Charmer" (onboard magician) and would just hang out with whoever showed up and do up-close magic.

 

So it felt a lot more social and active overall - a lot of variety.

 

 

[chloe173]

57 minutes ago, cmph said:

This is a weird argument to make for an overcrowded ship. In your shoes, I'd never have guessed it would be a consideration. 

Agreed. But also, we've been on crowded ships before and not had so many issues - it's how the ship is designed to handle high capacity and how the staff prepares for and responds for that capcity that matters.

Design wise - on Bliss, they don't have enough elevators to handle a full ship's worth of passengers, because they only have the two elevator banks for passengers. And things like the race track, which can only handle 10 guests at a time, takes up a ton of space but isn't able to serve a ton of passengers. 

 

Staff wise - For on thing, it means you need more bartenders. Haven had a smaller amount of guests but always had 4 bartenders every night. That's in comparison to almost every other bar on the ship, that never had more than 2 bartenders EVER. Sea Day, packed Spice H2O? 2 bartenders. Atrium Bar, during a popular game show? 2 bartenders. Secondly, it means you need more entertainment or cruise director staff siphoning off people into the smaller venues. But they didn't have that until evenings - sea days both planned and unexpected bonus days, were just dead zones.

Edited February 19, 2023 by chloe173

[chloe173]

44 minutes ago, JustAPilot said:

we...cruise for the ports not any of the onboard entertainment. 

Yep, same. Which is why it's a pretty big problem when 3 of your 4 planned ports don't happen. (Even with a consolation prize Bimini thrown in...)

[Greenpea2]

1 hour ago, chloe173 said:

I suppose that's a possibility, but there didn't seem to be many kids on the ship at all, actually. In Haven, I maybe saw a total of about 8 total across the whole cruise, all pretty well behaved. The kids splash pad pool area never seemed to have more than about 5 or 6 kids in it at a time. Not a big family vibe on the cruise at all - mainly just couples in their 60s and 70s I think. We did talk to a bunch of Canadians who were looking to get out of the cold, but again mainly couples not families.

 

 

Hmm, I just did - Google says "For US colleges, Spring Break lasts one week and falls in March or April, with the peaking in the last two weeks of March. In 2023 the peak weeks will be Mar 4th and Mar 11th. In Canadian Spring Break falls between February and March. In 2023 it falls February 20th to March 17th."

 

So I'm not sure our cruise, which was Feb 11th - 18th really fit in that window?

OK, I stand corrected on that one! I do think Valentine's Day week tends to be more crowded than usual, though. Something I avoid too.

[J0Y0US]

4 hours ago, chloe173 said:

Haven experience was good.

 

Nullifies sold out as it's always sold out but has a much better experience. 

 

The only way to cruise with NCL personally.

[PATRLR]

4 hours ago, www3traveler said:

You chose to cruise during one of the busiest weeks in a cruise schedule-- Midwinter Break for many many school districts-- therefore lots and lots of people. 

The week before Presidents Day is NOT "Midwinter Break for many many school districts-".    But. let's pretend for a moment that it was - are you trying to tell us Bliss has been less crowded in the weeks leading up to that week?  All reports I've seen indicate NCL ships are sailing full or darn close to it.  

 

[PATRLR]

3 hours ago, chloe173 said:

I suppose that's a possibility, but there didn't seem to be many kids on the ship at all, actually. In Haven, I maybe saw a total of about 8 total across the whole cruise, all pretty well behaved. The kids splash pad pool area never seemed to have more than about 5 or 6 kids in it at a time. Not a big family vibe on the cruise at all - mainly just couples in their 60s and 70s I think. We did talk to a bunch of Canadians who were looking to get out of the cold, but again mainly couples not families.

 

 

Hmm, I just did - Google says "For US colleges, Spring Break lasts one week and falls in March or April, with the peaking in the last two weeks of March. In 2023 the peak weeks will be Mar 4th and Mar 11th. In Canadian Spring Break falls between February and March. In 2023 it falls February 20th to March 17th."

 

So I'm not sure our cruise, which was Feb 11th - 18th really fit in that window?

Feb 11-18 is not a primary break week.  Some people just feel the need to do anything they can to deflect blame off of their favorite cruise line, so, they make stuff up.

[oteixeira]

2 hours ago, chloe173 said:

Well, for one thing Virgin includes all exercise classes in the cruise fare, so they have things like sunrise yoga, bungee aerobics (which i found i am TERRIBLE at, but i suppose you do burn calories from laughing at yourself, lol), and the "VHS" (Video-Hair Metal-Simmons) 80's themed aerobic workout, which people dress up in 80s gear for and is all set to the most cheesy 80s songs. Rather than boring ol' bingo - they have drag queen bingo, which was a hoot. They had upcharge classes to teach you bartending, or food photography, which we didn't do but we heard good things about.

And they also would have members of their "Happenings Staff" as they call them just scheduled to hang out in certain areas at certain times....so like, "The Gamer" would be hanging in a bar with like 10 board games, and would organize people to play different things together. Another bar would have "The Charmer" (onboard magician) and would just hang out with whoever showed up and do up-close magic.

 

So it felt a lot more social and active overall - a lot of variety.

 

 

And this is why we all can enjoy different lines.  I have no interest in workout classes for free, I walk 3 miles every morning before most people are awake on the ship.  I also LOVE the beatles and fleetwood mac tribute bands that they have introduced.  I am in my early 50s and the are both well within the timeline of popular music from when I was a young kid.  As for the crowds, I would think most lines are close to back to 100% capacity.  This is what cruising always was.  Maybe folks forgot with the empty restart ships?  I sailed the Pearl with 522 guests on board, it was crazy!  

Anyway, what I am trying to say is I am glad you found a line that works well for you in Virgin.  

[cmph]

2 hours ago, chloe173 said:

Agreed. But also, we've been on crowded ships before and not had so many issues - it's how the ship is designed to handle high capacity and how the staff prepares for and responds for that capcity that matters.

oh for sure! I just think the people claiming that 'you should know better' b/c it's high-season due to numerous districts' school breaks are way off. (And whether or not there are more-than-normal kids onboard - that isn't going to back up service at the bars.) I would be just as unhappy in your shoes to have missed all those ports and be bored onboard, so I think I'm offended on your behalf that people are making up reasons to negate your experience haha! 

Edited February 19, 2023 by cmph
clarification

[butterfly4108]

4 hours ago, chloe173 said:

I suppose that's a possibility, but there didn't seem to be many kids on the ship at all, actually. In Haven, I maybe saw a total of about 8 total across the whole cruise, all pretty well behaved. The kids splash pad pool area never seemed to have more than about 5 or 6 kids in it at a time. Not a big family vibe on the cruise at all - mainly just couples in their 60s and 70s I think. We did talk to a bunch of Canadians who were looking to get out of the cold, but again mainly couples not families.

 

 

Hmm, I just did - Google says "For US colleges, Spring Break lasts one week and falls in March or April, with the peaking in the last two weeks of March. In 2023 the peak weeks will be Mar 4th and Mar 11th. In Canadian Spring Break falls between February and March. In 2023 it falls February 20th to March 17th."

 

So I'm not sure our cruise, which was Feb 11th - 18th really fit in that window?

Actually there are certain states that have broken up spring break into two months so for instance my grandkids (high school age) were indeed out of school for a break during your cruise and then they only have one week at Easter.  I'm sure Washington isn't the only state doing this now so unfortunately it's luck of the draw....we just don't sail until mid April lol 😄 

[butterfly4108]

It seems like all the big cruise lines are in a bit of a mess lately unfortunately...the right hand doesn't seem to know what the left hand is doing, never has cruising been this stressful.  We're just learning to expect the worst and hope for the best so we can still see many destinations we might never have seen otherwise.  The fact that NCL is (usually) port intensive is why we choose to stay with them as we aren't big fans of sea days.  I hope if you choose to give them a try again you have a much better experience!!  I would have lost my mind with all that went wrong so I get it! And I'm OLD too 😄