Pearl 2/11-2/16 sailing was excellent!

[Cwolf]

My girlfriend Amy and I were on the Valentines Day cruise aboard the Pearl and I thought I would post some of my thoughts about the cruise. Overall, we had a fabulous time and were wishing for another two days by the time we got back. I think we decided that our next cruise needs to be at least 7 days. I had cruised twice before (once with NCL) so I knew a bit about what to expect. Amy had never cruised at all so it was all new for her and she just loved it.

 

We had an aft mini-suite on Deck 11 and enjoyed spending time on our balcony. We felt lucky getting an aft balcony with an AG guarantee. Aft was nice because we didnt have the wind and could sit out at any time underway which we did a lot of. We liked the relative peace of our own balcony compared to the zoo at the pool and only went onto the pool deck when we wanted to swim or use the hot tub. There was a little bit of noise from the engines but we didnt mind too much. We brought along a nice little Bose sound system to play dvds so we turned our room into a nice little sanctuary for us, away from the madding crowd, which at times was important for us to do.

 

Embarkation was relatively smooth and earlier than we expected, aboard by around 1 or so. I am glad I chose to get some clothes for the afternoon to carry on from my checked luggage. They said it would take 2-3 hours but my bag didnt arrive at our room till about 6-7 hours later. No worries though because I grabbed some casual gear before they took it away. We took the advice of someone on this board and brought on some boxed wine for the room. We figured the small box would pass undetected through the scanners, which it did without a problem. We liked having a glass of wine on our balcony before dinner (at sunset) and this just made it so convenient. We also carried on a couple small (drink sized) bottles of champagne for Valentine toasts from our verandah. These went through the scanner with our carry-on bags and they didnt say anything. We also checked a 12 pack of bottled water, boxed and labeled as "bottled water" and it ended up at our door before any of our other bags - no problem.

 

As others have stated here, they have changed the reservation policy for restaurants. We wanted to sample the specialty restaurants so we were prepared to make reservations for the whole cruise as soon as we got on board. But we only made them for the first two nights. We dont have a problem with this new policy, in fact I think its more fair to everyone, particularly those that dont get on the ship early the first day. Overall, the food was excellent. I think the only restaurant we probably would not go back to was Teppanyaki. We went there the first night for the late seating. I think it all depends on the chef you get and ours was lacking a bit. He was into juggling those seasoning shakers a lot but the end result was too much seasoning/salt. It also dragged on much too long with the various courses. The food was left on too long so the main dish was a bit overcooked. He also kept juggling these shrimp tails and he kept missing so food was flying around a onto the floor and onto the table. The food was decent enough but I preferred our other dining experiences.

 

We really enjoyed the menu in the Indigo on Lobster night (Monday - 2nd night). They only serve a half a lobster tail so we did order another one apiece. We preferred the more intimate atmosphere of Indigo over the SUmmer Palace for the two of us at dinner. We did have a couple of lunches at the SUmmer Palace and enjoyed the daylight window seating and never a wait. Our favorite places were Cagneys and Mambos. The Creme Brulee and cheesecake at Cagneys were to die for. We decided to eat at Mambos after the day at Cozumel to stay with the Mexican theme. Some have had less than stellar reviews of the Italian restaurant but we had no complaints when we dined there the last night.

 

We were going to go to the Bistro for Valentines Day (wed) but were turned off a bit by the $45 charge per person, an increase from the normal $15 charge. They seemed to be taking advantage of this restaurants popularity on Valentines Day. It seemed to be a bit unfair, particularly to those people who do not drink very much. The price included 3 glasses of wine and we would never drink that much with dinner. We were planning some champagne toasts on our balcony before dinner and Amy never drinks more than a glass of wine at dinner (makes her sleepy) so it wasnt such a good deal for us. We opted for Cagneys and had a fabulous meal there.

 

We utilized the room service option on most mornings to have coffee and juice out on our balcony, a great way to start the day. It was convenient to just walk 1 flight upstairs to the Great OUtdoors cafe afterwards to get more of a breakfast. It couldnt be more convenient.

 

In terms of tipping, we tipped extra at the restaurants when we liked the service and we always tipped room service a few bucks.

 

I've got more to add which I'll do later but I have to get to the gym, something I didnt do enough of on the cruise. I am a pretty regular gym goer on land and I had these visions of using the fitness center every day on the ship but didnt go once while on the Pearl - go figure... Anyway, more later...

[Cwolf]

Just to follow up with more of a review of our 5 day cruise on the Pearl. In terms of onboard activities, we sampled a few things on the sea days. There is ping pong and shuffleboard, deck chess with huge pieces. We did the rock wall a couple of times (its free) and we really enjoyed it. They have three different levels of difficulty and its very safe, the guys running it make sure of that. We tried the bowling at the Bliss club, all the way aft. We enjoyed it but it was very noisy. Once you start playing, there is some machinery that turns on under the pins that is very loud, at least it was at the two lanes we played at. It can be a little distracting but you just have to tune out the noise.

 

We didnt go to very many of the shows onboard. After reading some of the recommendations on the board, I went to the 2nd city improv group at the Stardust one night and again late one night at the Spinnakers Lounge. We enjoyed it, some of it was a bit offbeat, but it was improv so I was impressed with how they can think so quickly on their feet. We also went to the Talent show and the Quest Game (be prepared!) at Spinnakers and they were a lot of fun.

 

We are both Swing dancers so we went to Spinnakers for the Pearl Showband that played at Spinnakers early each evening. If you like swing or ballroom dancing, its a very good band (excellent musicians) and there was plenty of room on the dance floor to strut our stuff. This was one of our favorite activities on the ship, but we love to dance.

 

Cozumel. We had an excellent time ashore in Cozumel, very low key, relaxing. We didnt go on any kind of shore excursion here. I have been to Coz about ten times over the years for scuba diving so I was pretty familiar with the island. Amy had never been to Mexico and had never done any snorkeling. I decided to forego the opportunity to dive and introduce her to some low key snorkeling from the beach. We took a cab down to Dzul-Ha beach club and spent most of the day relaxing by the shore and snorkeling from the beach and it was so relaxing. Its kind of a funky little beach club and its free. You just grab a lounge chair and set up camp for the day. They have a beach restaurant that will serve you on the beach with casual mexican fare including tacos, burgers, nachos, and plenty of beer. Beach snorkeling in Cozumel is not the greatest because of the hurricane in '05 but there was still plenty of fish to see, even though a lot of the near shore coral is gone. There seemed to be more fish out and to the right from the beach and if you look around you will find some small isolated coral heads still attracting a nice assortment of fish. Dzul-Ha is a good choice IMO, for an easy relaxing day of snorkeling and getting some sun. We capped off the day with a great marguarita in town by the town square.

 

In Belize we arranged a private excursion with cave-tubing.com and were met ashore with our names on a sign. Its a well run operation and the guys work very hard to make it as comfortable for guests as possible. We basically were taken by bus with about 30 other people from various other ships inland about 35 miles to the Jaguar Paw Jungle. After trekking through the forest for about 40 minutes we took our tubes and headlights and drifted down river through two cave systems. It was an interesting experience, I enjoyed it, although I felt a bit managed in going down river. Amy and I are pretty active and felt pretty comfortable going down river. We didnt need to be attached to others in groups of 8 because the river was very tame. I would have liked it if we could drift more individually down river and could have done without all the extra attention. But they meant well and they worked hard so we gave them a nice tip. I would recommend them. Its about half the price of the NCL ship excursion ($45 vs. $99) and you get to go through two cave systems instead of one. Very well managed, good transportation and we were back on the ship by 3PM, with last call being 6:30PM.

 

We enjoyed the rest of our Belize day by the pool cooling off. Cagneys that night was great for our Valentines Dinner. The next day was the last sea day and a nice relaxing day by the pool, in the hottub and out on our balcony. While we were in the hot tub, a couple guys who had obviously been drinking a bit, got in the tub and I noticed one was carrying a glass bottled Corona. I immediately knew this was not a good idea to have glass around the hot tub because they (the tubs) are so elevated and there is a safety reason for this rule. I was just about to say something when the wind blows the bottle off the edge and it shatters in the shallow end of the kids pool. They ended up closing down the kids pool for the rest of the day because of this guy who just went back to the hot tub, clueless as ever. I was a little dismayed that the staff was not more active in enforcing this rule because it is such a safety issue. We left the area shortly after and noticed that the same guys had another whole bucket of bottled Coronas on the lip of the hot tub. Staff was standing around, they had to see it but they did nothing. I just shook my head a bit on that one. It was the only real moment of the cruise when I felt the staff was not on the ball.

 

We had a nice last evening, good meal in La Cucina, and some late night dancing in the disco. We were sad to leave so soon and would gladly sail on the Pearl again, she is a beautiful ship with a good crew.

[Stillfloatin']

Wonderfully detailed review. Thanks for taking the time to post it. You've gotten me even MORE excited about our upcoming back-to-back cruises on the Pearl. The first cruise is the 9-day Southern, followed immediately by the 5-day Western. We leave in a week, so I was really happy to have your review for some more info on the Pearl.

[AsianCruiser]

hi cwolf! i noticed you didnt mention much of taking pictures during your cruise. but i'll take a chance and ask if you and Amy saw the ice carving demo on the night of the 13th? DRMizzou said (in another post) there was a demo by the Tahitian Pool. did you take pictures? if you did, could you post some or send me a link your photo site?

 

i missed out on that one activity and im trying to piece together a picture timeline of the cruise.

 

thanks very much.

[BeachBumMama]

Sounds like you had a wonderful time. 5 days is never enough, I did that once because a bunch of first time cruisers in the group weren't sure whether they would like cruising and thought 5 days would be enough. They were ALL holloring when it was over that it wasn't long enough!

[BeachBumMama]

Dang double post!

[Cwolf]

hi cwolf! i noticed you didnt mention much of taking pictures during your cruise. but i'll take a chance and ask if you and Amy saw the ice carving demo on the night of the 13th? DRMizzou said (in another post) there was a demo by the Tahitian Pool. did you take pictures? if you did, could you post some or send me a link your photo site?

 

Actually I did see the ice carving demo, purely by chance as I was out on deck taking a late night walk by the pool that night. It was pretty cool, seeing that the carver had to work pretty quickly with the warm temperature. Ended up with a nice detailed seahorse in the end. Unfortunately I did not have the digital camera with me so it didnt make it into our slideshow...sorry.

[xtrail]

cwolfe, what was your cabin # , we have an aft cabin for Mar/2 #11654,any problems with noise from the outdoor cafe up on deck 12