Pearl Report - Feb 8 2008 cruise

[ClaireDavid]

Just back from the Feb. 8 sailing of the Pearl to southern Caribbean. This was one of our best cruises, our 8th so far. At ages 53 and 64, we are avid travelers who enjoy independent travel and planning. We booked our starboard side, mid-ship minisuite (No. 11066) nearly a year in advance and found the location on the ship to be perfect. The ship is so smooth that at times you forget you are moving on the water. One night the sea was rough, with strong winds, but still the rocking wasn't bad.

 

HOTEL - We arrived a day in advance to avoid any potential weather issues, staying at the Doubletree Surfcomber Hotel in South Beach. Nice hotel from the 1950s that has been renovated and was reasonably priced, given the neighborhood. Walked next door to the National Hotel for drinks at sundown in their very nice outdoor bar, then on to dinner a few blocks away in the pedestrian street area at a good Cuban restaurant. Very happening place. Next morning, walked to CVS a block away and bought a 12-pack of bottled water for $4 and 3 bottles of Perrier for the cruise. NCL doesn't object at all to pax bringing water aboard - just alcohol.

SHIP - Embarkation was easy - we taxied from the hotel in the late morning, arriving about 11:45. Very short wait and smooth checkin. Boarded and went to lunch at Summer Palace. Only complaint here is that staff, while friendly, seemed somewhat new and as confused by the ship layout as we were, sending us the wrong direction or wrong floor a few times both to Summer Palace and our cabin. The ship is extremely clean and very state of the art. Also important - outside every restaurant area and other location throughout the ship are hand sanitizer dispensers along with a staff member requesting nicely that you use them. Ship has the best spa we've ever seen (including luxury resorts in Thailand as well as in the US), a rock climbing wall, bowling alley, etc. Instead of a large central atrium which many ships have, the Pearl has closed up that space with the various restaurants that offer different kinds of foods. There are nice little touches throughout the ship I've never seen on other ships, like miniwaste cans with hinged lids marked Used Teaspoons located at all of the coffee machines so you can stir your coffee/tea and deposit the spoon into a receptacle with one hand. Keeps the coffee service area free of used spoons and cleaner.

We had an unofficial meet & greet of our CruiseCritic.com roll call gang that we had planned for 30 minutes after muster, which pretty much coincided with sailaway from Miami. Because of this, we met at Sky High Bar so we could be outside to watch the departure. Unfortunately, the band was playing so loud we couldn't stand the noise at the bar and couldn't hear to talk. The official M&G was the next day at Le Bistro on our first morning at sea, where various ship officials came to give us a welcome talk and introduce themselves and answer questions from the group. Clair, the ship coordinator, who had set up the M&G and also attended, helped me arrange a dinner later in the week at Teppanyaki. It was so nice to finally meet the great people who posted here - a very impressive group!

ACTIVITIES - Like the other cruise lines, there are lots of activities onboard for all kinds of interests. We found the pool deck to be too loud most of the time, between announcers and bands or music playing. Our favorite place quickly became the spa, where we purchased a day pass for the first day at sea ($20 each) and booked couples massage for one of the days at sea at the end of the cruise ($269/couple). Also, if you booked spa services, you could book the day pass at the spa for only $10 each, which we took advantage of. You can book a full cruise spa pass for $250 per couple, but we didn't plan to use it every day. The gym was large and very well equipped. We went nearly every day and never had to wait for a machine. And the best part - chilled wet washcloths kept in a minifridge in the gym to help you cool off - great touch!

SERVICE - We found most of the personnel to be very friendly and say hello to everyone who passed by. They also seemed to go out of their way to be friendly to children. Our only problem with service is that waiters have no training on the wines in their restaurants; at least one staff member in each restaurant should have reasonable knowledge about the wines, given that wine prices seemed to average about $55-65. There were some wines in the $32-$52 range, but not a great selection. Our rooms stewards were really terrific and so friendly. Room service tends to arrive early, so be prepared to be up 15 minutes ahead of time if you do early morning as we did.

STATEROOM - Our minisuite was much smaller than the sky suite on Celebrity's Constellation 2 years ago. Yet it had more storage and was very efficiently laid out. We found the minisuite to be the perfect choice for us. The balcony was far better than on Constellation because of the overhang above the room that did a better job of keeping the ocean spray off the balcony and the higher quality, mesh chairs and metal table (not plastic as on Constellation). Bathroom very cleverly laid out with lots of shelves and hooks; telescoping etched glass sliding shower door allows easy access to water controls and pulls out along the length of the tub, with toilet separated off by a matching etched glass door. Room also had a combination desk/hutch that housed a flat screen TV on shelf, a safe and minifridge behind closet doors (we tipped our stewards at the start of the cruise to keep the fridge empty so we could store our Perrier and waters), and open shelf with bar to keep things from sliding off. Lots of cherry wood throughout the room, and heavy curtains on either side of the sofa to close off the bed area and sliding glass doors to the balcony, if desired. SHORE EXCURSIONS - We did one NCL excursion - the tour of Samana. It was supposed to be 3.5 hours but ended up 4.5 hours. Not sure why it was so much longer, but our guide stopped early in the tour and bought 2 loaves of coconut bread for us to share - actually quite good and just what we needed after so long from our last feeding onboard! Samana could be lovely, but is so trash-filled that it's shocking. It was about the same level of poverty as our tour of Jamaica years ago - maybe a little better.

Next day was Tortola. We walked the short way past some nice craft shops to the ferry, where we purchased round trip tickets from Speedys to ferry/taxi to the Baths on Virgin Gorda. Had lunch first at the Top of the Baths - very good if expensive - and then walked down to the lockers, where we dumped our towels and other gear and switched to water shoes - a very good move. The Baths really are worth seeing, and great fun picking your way around the boulders (and over and under...). Went on to Devils Island and then back. After we returned to Tortola ferry dock, we shopped our way back to the ship - some good bargains in the shops.

Antigua was next. We met up with 2 lovely Irish couples and shared a taxi to Turner Bay Beach ($8 per person), after passing by Darkwood Beach, our first choice, and deciding it was just a little too remote. This turned out to be a very sad choice, as an hour or so after we arrived and settled into this beautiful beach, another Pearl passenger (there with spouse and another couple) went missing. His wife had become concerned about his long absence and about the same time a local man standing atop a hill above the rocky cove, about 100 yards from us, saw the husband floating in the water. Apparently he had slipped on the wet rocks, hit his head, and fell into the water. People in the area tried diligently, but could not bring him back to life. On a surprising note, it took the ambulance well over an hour to arrive. I mention this sad event only to pass along the hard lesson we learned from this -- to never go off alone, especially in an area we don't know. Needless to say, we and our Irish friends took the first taxi back to the ship. This episode haunts us still, and our hearts go out to the widow.

After a fairly sleepless night, our next stop was Barbados. We hired a taxi in the large area of buses and taxis - all regulated by a central agency of some type. For $100, we saw the highlights of the island I had listed out on paper that we wanted to see, for a 3-hour tour. In reality it was more than 4 hours total. Barbados is a lovely island with some beautiful resorts and homes. The Andromeda gardens and Bathsheba were the highlights for us. Hit some shopping and then boarded the ship before sailaway.

Our last stop was St. Lucia, where we had arranged with Island Divers to snorkel. Unfortunately, I had injured my eye the night before (mascara and rocking boats aren't a great combo), so we skipped the snorkeling and just took their boat to Ti Kaye beach and resort, where their dive shop is. It was a perfect day of total relaxation on the beach, with a climb up the 166 stairs to the top to see this beautiful resort and tour some of the rooms with a staff member. Had a great lunch which was included in the $60 per person price, and then at 3 pm motored back to the ship. The staff at Island Divers -- Judy, Jemimah, and Captain Smiley -- were all great fun.

One tip - bring with you a photocopy of your passport to take ashore. They announce that you need to have it with you (plus of course your cruise ID), but we were never asked by anyone to show it.

AT SEA - For the 3 days at sea, we spent most of 2 in the spa and hung out above the pool deck the last day. The spa deserves special mention here. In the separate gender locker rooms are sauna, steam room, cold dunk tub (and I mean COLD), 2 personal jacuzzis, lounge chairs overlooking the front of the ship, and of course showers and lockers. In the center room that is mixed gender are a large Thelassotherapy pool, large jacuzzi, heated tile loungers, and bed-type lounge chairs. Quiet, calming music and aromatherapy oil complete the relaxing atmosphere of the spa. This by far was our favorite spot on the ship (and our balcony was probably the second).

DINING - We found the food for breakfast and lunch to be very good. We ate most breakfasts in the Great Outdoors, at the rear of the ship, making frequent visits to the espresso machine just inside the door on the starboard side. Dinners were also good - after many negative reviews, we were expecting nothing special, but were pleased to find that we were impressed with nearly every meal. The second night was the seafood special on the main dining rooms (and the first of 3 dress-up-or-not nights) and it was very good. We ate in Summer Palace, Mambos, Cagney's (twice), Le Bistro, Teppanyaki, and La Cucina (twice). Our fav meals were Teppanyaki (calamari to die for, scallops, and filet mignon) and Cagney's (filet mignon was great and $10 upcharge for the excellent, whole lobster, which our waitress completely de-shelled for us!). We weren't impressed by the ahi tuna at Cagney's the last night, but didn't want to send it back as my filet was plenty for the 2 of us. If you like steak medium rare, tell them rare.

ENTERTAINMENT - Our favorite show was Hal Spear; we found that Second City wasn't nearly as funny as we had expected; the magician was better than we had expected. The Russian acrobats were very good and the dancers merely okay. Overall, not as good as entertainment on other ships. On the other hand, we did well in the casino, earning back our "deposits" there plus a little. Plus drinks are free in the casino (most of the time) if you show your free casino card, which you can obtain from a dealer quickly and easily.

DISEMBARKMENT - We encountered a line when we disembarked at 9:00 am, but considering there were 6 ships disembarking a staggering 14,000 pax that Sunday morning, things were remarkably smooth. Tip here - pay a porter to bring your bags out (we gave him $5 total for our 5 bags) because they can navigate the crowd trying to grab taxis all at once - somehow they get to the front and whip you into a taxi before you know what is happening. It was a quick 10 minute drive to the airport, where United's checkin was very slow because of trying to deal with a weather problem in Chicago.

SUMMARY - This is one of the best ships we have sailed on, the most state of the art, smoothest, with the friendliest staff we have ever encountered. We are completely spoiled now by freestyle dining - don't know how we'll ever return to the traditional set times. And thanks to this board, we met some really terrific people. It's hard to return to the real world now! Happy Cruising - Claire and David

[Richintx]

Thank you for such a helpful review we go in two weeks.

[DaytonGirl]

SERVICE - We found most of the personnel to be very friendly and say hello to everyone who passed by. They also seemed to go out of their way to be friendly to children. Our only problem with service is that waiters have no training on the wines in their restaurants; at least one staff member in each restaurant should have reasonable knowledge about the wines, given that wine prices seemed to average about $55-65. There were some wines in the $32-$52 range, but not a great selection. Our rooms stewards were really terrific and so friendly. Room service tends to arrive early, so be prepared to be up 15 minutes ahead of time if you do early morning as we did.

 

Thanks for the review. I'm glad to hear the staff is friendly. Service is important to me but I will willingly forgive someone who is nice even if they mess up. :)

[scopewest]

Thanks for such an upbeat review! Glad you had a good time.

[lhall85917]

Thank you for your great review. What a tragic story from your visit to Antigua, how devastating for that family (and you).

[JWestShuh]

I honestly couldn't read anymore after your Antigua story. I feel horrible for his family. How tragic.