The Pearl

[z man]

We sailed on the Pearl 4-13-07 embarkation was a long wait,we were all hustled into the terminal at 11 am and made to wait for at least an hour and a half, disembarking via express was a disaster everyone getting off the elevators on deck six with all their luggage and no where to go because the hallways were full of people with luggage waiting in long lines to get off. The ship itself was beautiful and well maintained. However, because a few people got sick on this cruise you were not allowed to get your own food or drinks at the buffet, this created long lines. Their was a joke going around that the crew was going to spoon feed us next. My wife and I are both gamblers and you do not get free drinks unless you have the card attached to the players club card that entitles you to free drinks. In order to get points off the slots they set the rate so high almost 20,000 to get 1 point my wife finished with 75 points which entitled her to a 75 dollar comp off our bill. I played in the holdem tourney and won which was nice. The food in the pay restaurants was no better than the Indigo, or the Buffet, we thought the food in Cagneys was terrible, only Le Bistro was very good, don"t even bother with Mambo's the worst Tex-Mex I have ever eaten. We never had a problem making reservations for the restaurants, we ate when we wanted. Chocalate buffet was nothing to brag about. Shows were decent. If you do venture out on Domenica take the tubing and waterfall excursion, it was excellent. Tours are very expensive so choose wisely. Its a shame that NCL nickel and dimes you to death, on leaving the ship they charge you $4.95 for a litre bottle of water, and $2.50 deposit on towels, go to pool deck and grab towels there and put them in your beach bag. A helmet of 6 beers will run you $22.50 and soda in a cup you get to keep is $77.50 a little steep, we brought beer and soda in our luggage, to alleviate that. We had a mini-suite on deck 11 midship it was beautiful, all the staff was friendly and eager to please, please tip your room stewards extra and they will go the extra mile for you. The bars add an extra amount on the bill in case you don't tip. I will cruise NCL again because even with some cons there were alot of pros.

[BettyNL]

zman..... Thanks for the review; one question regarding the casino:

 

What is "the card attached to the player's card" for free drinks??

[Cosmopolitan]

The crew serving the food at the buffet was for your own safety.

 

The "precaution" they took was to eliminate the spread of whatever passengers were getting sick from.

 

Kudos to the staff!

[z man]

I am well aware that they were doing this for your own protection, but first let me say that you use the hand sanitizer every time you enter a restaurant, elevator, hallway, and if you don't do it they remind you. By the time you got your meal on line at the buffet, you had to stand in another line to get your water, juice, tea, or coffee, by the time you sat down to eat your meal it was cold, you were not even allowed to pick up your dish they handed it to you. You also did not get any ice in your cabin because of this. Desserts were saran wrapped on the counter (the whole counter was saran wrapped) so u couldn't even see what you were getting, you had to look in between the dessert and the wrap. Don't get me wrong it is a very beautiful ship, it just needs to adjust certain things, such as the pay restaurants, which were no better than the free ones, and that was spoken by many a cruise passenger. :cool:

[mcp8283]

We were on the April 13th Pearl sailing too. This was our first NCL cruise after Celebrity, Carnival, Disney, and RCCL. The ship was beautiful and the staff excellent. Our food in the specialty restaurants was much better than in the dining rooms. We only visited the dining rooms two nights so that may account for our opinion. This was probably the most customer friendly cruise we have ever taken. We generally are happy people and extremely thankful to be able to take such nice vacations so this usually shows in our attitude to others. My teenage daughters did get slightly bored due to the amount of teens on this cruise, but they enjoyed the ship and the nine days away from school. It was their spring break and it seemed to fall after many other schools this year. I will post a detailed report on the reviews section of this board, but if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask. Happy sailing.

[pinkbirds02]

Z man; I got free drinks every night at the tables. No problem, just asked them to buy me and DW a drink and we had no special card. You must have played in the second holdem tourny because I don't remember you from the first one. Anyway drinks are there if you ask.Oh you can't just sit down and ask for a drink, you have to play for awhile or every night, I was on a first name basis with the dealers and pit bosses lol.:D

[Stillfloatin']

What is "the card attached to the player's card" for free drinks??

 

This is a card that is issued to you that you show to the cocktail servers and they do not charge for your drink. They do have to get a casino host to sign off on your drinks, but that's not anything you have to deal with. There are three ways to get the card: if you book your cruise through NCL casino marketing dept, it will be waiting for you in your cabin when you embark. The second way to get it is to ask the slot manager to check with Miami on your previous level of play and they will give you one on the ship. The third way is if the casino hosts notice you have a high level of play, they will offer you one. Not that easy to get, but very convenient!

 

One thing to remember, you need to bring plenty of one dollar bills to tip your cocktail server because they do not get auto tips on comped drinks. We always tipped them above 15% because of the extra work they had to do to track down a casino host to sign off on each drink order.

[jmcdon7230]

... Our food in the specialty restaurants was much better than in the dining rooms....

 

....The food in the pay restaurants was no better than the Indigo (dining room), or the Buffet....quote

 

There you go people....that just about sums up Cruise Critic. Different strokes for different folks.

[watchdiva]

DH and I were also on this cruise - we never ate in the main dining rooms because our first night meal in Cagney's was so good, we wound up going back 2 additional nights:eek: . We ate twice in LeBistro (gotta love those escargots), once in LaCucina which was also good. The remainder we did room service.

 

We stopped getting ice on either Tuesday or Wednesday and we were advised that it was available to us (but we had to request it - which we did).

 

The slots were kind to me (from what I hear I was one of the few) and this was the first cruise EVER that I walked away from the machine on the plus side!

 

I will be posting a full review over the weekend as well - we were in a Courtyard Villa so the perspective will be about that experience. I WILL cruise in a CY Villa again - the experience was phenomenal and once experienced I know I'll never go back.

[Duff Man]

One thing to remember' date=' you need to bring plenty of one dollar bills to tip your cocktail server because they do not get auto tips on comped drinks. We always tipped them above 15% because of the extra work they had to do to track down a casino host to sign off on each drink order.[/quote']

 

Aren't they allowed to accept chips?

[immargaret]

Aren't they allowed to accept chips?

 

They do accept chips as a tip. Slot players don't have any chips, just slips of paper from the machines.:)