Cruising Sky Baltimore to Quebec and back 9/1/23 to 9/21/23

[mugtech]

        Wife and I are Sapphire, took the 10 day back to back Baltimore to Quebec and returned on the Sky 9/1 to 9/21/23. We found the Sky to be a traditional cruise ship, much like the Sun which we took through the Panama Canal and then 10 days round trip to Alaska from Vancouver.  There are limited choices on the ship, but we found it a very relaxing cruise except for the hurricane problems involved.

           Our inside cabin, 8344, Was the smallest inside cabin we have ever had, it was difficult to move around without planning all the moves.  The bathroom was functional, no problems with any equipment.  As usual we spent as much time as possible out of the cabin, it was not a crowded cruise.  There were about 1588 passengers on the first cruise, the capacity is 2004 and I saw 4 children.  The average age of the passengers was 68.1, on the return trip there were only 1380 passengers, with the average age was 68.8.  There were 114 of us who did the back to back, and we were not required to do anything except get a new cabin card with the new expiration date and then go to our meeting place for the lifeboat drill to get a new stamp on the new card.

            For some reason, NCL said it had something to do with airport functioning properly,  our take off time had been moved back from 5PM to 8 PM a few weeks before the cruise .  Gave us more time to explore Quebec, on board time was 7:30 PM.

            We enjoyed most of the food we had, did Cagneys twice, La Bistro twice, La Cusina, and Pinnacle.  The only problem I had with the choices was that there were few pure vegan dishes available, many vegetable choices also had cheese included.  I like Royal Caribbean's method of including a vegan starter , entree and desert for every night.  Made ordering easier.  NCL provided plenty of seafood dishes, which I do eat, so it was not a problem.  I did eat breaded haddock three times in 20 days, but other choices were available most nights.  The Pinnacle was a great choice to use the Freestyle meal benefit, since it is a sushi restaurant not requiring reservations and each meal consisted of 4 choices from the menu.   Lenny from Laguna suggested we each pick two items, and then we could come back again and use the other person's 4 picks for a separate meal.  Worked out rather well, for some of the choices were 8 bite sized rolls, and 16 rolls each was a sufficient meal.  As Lenny lamented, there was no desert available at Pinnacle,  but we could go one deck down to grab a free desert in Garden Cafe if we were still hungry.  Lenny told us we could not take any food with us, because of the health dangers of uncooked food, so we took our time and ate everything.  We enjoyed both meals, my wife is a Filipina, enjoyed all the rice and eating with chopsticks. The buffet and MDR's were good enough for our other meals.

[bluesea777]

Great review about the ship and food. Let's hear about the ports of call you visited. TIA.

 

 

[mugtech]

             We found the entertainment to be the usual quality of what we have expected on NCL.  One of the bands was from the Philippines and played some fine rock.  The most anticipated show was on the first cruise, they called it a night of Beatles and Queen music.  There was only one show at 9:15, so we got to the Stardust early, all the seats www taken 20 minutes before the show started.  Stardust seemed smaller than on The Sun or the Jewel class ships we have sailed, just wondered how many would have been denied seats if the ship were sailing to capacity.  On the nights with the usual two shows, at 7PM and 9PM, did not notice any overflow crowds.  About 30 minutes into the Beatles, Queen show about 15 people got up and left.  Guessing they were Beatles fans, as Sonata played 8 Queen songs and only 4 Beatles songs.  Sonata also played Bliss lounge some nights, and over the course of 20 nights I heard Bohemian Rhapsody 4 times, but a good variety of other music.

           We took in the magician and the comedian just once the first cruise, they were ok, but not worth seeing twice.  The solo vocalists from the production company were quite talented,  worth seeing twice.  And the production company did some great singing and dancing numbers.  My only objection to all of those shows was the fact that the singing was done to prerecorded music.  I really prefer hearing live music for all the shows,  as was the case on two Royal Caribbean cruises we took earlier this year.

          The crew was very friendly and accommodating, as good a crew as we have ever encountered.  About half of the 900 crew members were Filipinos, which my wife claims is responsible such a friendly atmosphere, and we made arrangements for some crew members to visit us this winter, as we will be snow birding in Ilocos Sur from October through March. I found all the crew to be happy, not quite as pleased as the washy washy bunch.  Things flowed freely through the ship, never any problems getting elevators or waiting in any lines.

           The only unhappy people we encountered were on the second cruise when Hurricane Lee caused rerouting of the ship.  We encountered a downpour during a walking tour of the churches of Charlottetown, but luck for us we had a guide whose husband worked 7 minutes away and delivered umbrellas for all of us. After we got back on the Sky it was announced that the next three days would be sea days, eliminating a Canadian port and also Portland, Maine.  We went 600 miles out of our way to get out into the Atlantic to avoid the storm.  Then we got to take the regularly scheduled stop in Boston, Was a rainy day we stayed on the ship.  The last disappointment came on day 9 when we were parked off Martha's Vineyard  preparing for 9:30 AM tendering to start.  At 9 AM the captain announced that due to winds and currents tendering would be unsafe, so we were skipping the Vineyards this trip.  So the last 5 days of the cruise were all sea days.  We saw it as part of what could happen these days cruising during hurricane season.  Each cabin got $100 credit and a 20% future cruise credit, to be used by 12/31/24.  When the cruise sailed the insides were going for $499 per person, so not much of a cruise credit being handed out for some.

            Back in 2012 we were on the Gem, raced Sandy to NYC, won the race, but the port was already closed.  So the Gem went to Boston, seas were much worse than this year in Canada, but we got a 13 day cruise, only paid for 9 days and for $100 Each we could have stayed on board for a 5 day Bermuda cruise,  but we were still working 11 years ago, had to pass.  We are looking to book next year out of Florida August 17 to September 7.  We trust captains to do the right thing.

[mking8288]

Very good summary.  Thank you.  We're at sea "Escape"ing Lee about the same time & wondering what will the "Sky" be doing to outrun the storm and didn't see any live post, but had an idea tracking on cruisemapper.  WiFi was "bad" and just usable at times ??  Glad that things weren't too bad overall, 15' to 19' waves (assumed large sea swell, rough & near gale force wind) to be the challenges - like you said, book & cruise during hurricane season - to be expected & prepared for, things happen.  Now, folks dealing with TS Ophella ... NCL, RCL and CCL are all activating contingencies and adjusting this weekend's schedule.  

 

We took over the Gem then in 2012, you might remember Pier 88 was runing dark on emergency generator power - embarkation was delayed and we ran straight toward the inbound Nor-Easter, blased our way thru to reach calmer ocean.  

[mugtech]

            Our first stop was Martha's Vineyard,  tender port.  We did not book an excursion, we did enjoy walking the island.   Boston we had done often, I used to go to Fenway for Red Sox games.  It is quite a hike from the ship into the historic areas, but worth seeing if you have any interest yesteryear.  Trips to Lexington and Concord are available, could not say their value.

           Bar Harbor is a great place to stop, a small town,  there is a plethora of seafood available.  My wife loves lobster and we have tried a few places, never disappointed.  This is also a tender stop.

             Halifax is a great historical stop, I advise getting off the ship as early as possible and taking the hop on hop off bus.  It gets you to every place worth seeing, buses run about every 10 minutes, so you can spend as much time as you like at each stop, the whole route is about 90 minutes.  The Titanic cemetery is a big draw, but the greatest thing  I learned about previously was the terrible fire in December of 1917, when two ship collided and as a result many died and the docks were destroyed.  There is also a beautiful flower garden, my wife was distracted for about 40 minutes.  The museums are full of great knowledge.

              The only other tour we took was the churches walking tour in Charlottetown,  We enjoyed checking out the Anglican, and Catholic churches as a matter of comparison and seeing how the locals put their own ideas and personalities into the form of the religions.  At the other Canadian ports we just got off and walked around, mostly beautiful relaxing countryside.pp